Blum & Blum's 1912 875 Park Avenue

image via fis-architecture.com

Having studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, brothers George and Edward Blum opened their architectural office, Blum & Blum, in 1909.  The following year, they received an important commission from A. M. Jampol, president of the newly formed 875 Park Avenue Company.  

On September 23, 1910 The New York Times reported that they had filed plans, "for a twelve-story fireproof elevator apartment house to be erected at the southeast corner of Park Avenue and Seventy-eighth Street."  Projecting the construction costs at $1 million (about 34 times that much in 2025), the article said, "The building will have a facade of brick with limestone and terra cotta trimmings of the modern Italian Renaissance style."

Park Avenue was seeing its private homes replaced with upscale apartment buildings for the wealthy at the time.  This one would have to compete.  The article said that the residents of the 48 apartments would enjoy, "four electric passenger elevators and a refrigerating plant, heating plant, vacuum cleaning plant and large laundry in the basement with steam dryers and all the latest electrical appliances for washing and ironing."

Construction would take two years to complete.  The Times was generally correct in saying the style would be Italian Renaissance.  But in designing 875 Park Avenue, the Blum brothers revealed their knack of stepping away from the expected, a trait that would become their trademark.  Creative brickwork and terra cotta elements created vertical piers and what architectural journalist Christopher Gray would later call "a haunting series of hieroglyph-like medallions.

images via fsi-architecture.com

The apartments ranged from seven to ten rooms "with foyers," according to the New York World's Apartment Album.  "These apartments are designed to fill the needs of those who wish to combine the advantage of a private house with the comforts of an apartment," said the article, which added, "all porcelain plumbing fixtures [are] similar to those used in the Vanderbilt Hotel."  It noted that 875 Park Avenue provided "ample servants' accommodation."

Most floors had four apartments.  The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1910 (copyright expired)

Rents ranged from $2,500 to $4,500 a year--equal to about $7,000 to $12,500 per month today.  Although construction was not completed until September 1912, by the end of March that year 15 apartments had been leased.  Among those initial residents were John F. Stevens, head of the construction company that bore his name; Percy Seldon Straus, Jr. and his wife, the former Edith Abraham; and Baroness de Graffenried.

Born in 1876, Percy Selden Straus was the son of Isidor and Ida Straus.  Percy was a member of the R. H. Macy & Co. department store in which his father was a partner.  Edith Straus was the daughter of another department store mogul, Abraham Abraham, founder of Wechsler & Abraham.  In 1888, Isidor Straus and his brother, Nathan, purchased Joseph Wechsler's portion, creating the Abraham & Straus department store.

Edith and Percy Seldon Straus from the collection of The Straus Historical Society

The Strauses had two sons when they moved in--Ralph Isidor, born in 1903, and Percy Selden Jr., who arrived three years later.  In 1916, a third son, Donald Blun, was born.  

The couple filled their 875 Park Avenue apartment with a magnificent collection of Renaissance art.  Living with them was Edith's widowed mother, Rose Abraham, who was active in philanthropic work.  (Edith's father died in 1911.)

Baroness de Graffenried was the former Gertrude Van Cortlandt.  Her first husband, whom she married in 1877, was Schuyler Hamilton, Jr.  She and her current husband, Baron Raoul de Graffenried, had been estranged for several years.  (The Baron was living in Switzerland.)  Gertrude and Hamilton had four children together, Violet Loring, Gertrude Ray, Helena Van Wyck, and Lilian Gardiner.  Moving into 875 Park Avenue with their mother were Violet and Gertrude, 30 and 25 

years old respectively.

Expectedly, the residents' names often appeared in the society columns.  On December 3, 1913, The New York Times reported, "The Baroness de Graffenried was the hostess last evening at an informal and small dance at 875 Park Avenue, for her daughters, the Misses Gertrude and Violet Hamilton."  The article noted, "A buffet supper was served at midnight."  Although the event was considered informal and small, the article named 68 guests.

Similarly, on December 14, 1913, at the height of the debutante season, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. Robert T. Ford is to give a tea for her daughter, Miss Julia Ford, on Friday afternoon, at 875 Park Avenue."

In 1915, Percy Straus Sr. and Jr. went to the Far West "on a pleasure trip," according to The New York Times.  On September 24, Percy Jr. became suddenly ill on the train in New Mexico.  "He was believed to be suffering from spinal trouble, and physicians declared his life could not be saved without an immediate operation," said the article.  Percy Straus Sr. had the nine-year-old boy taken off the train at Albuquerque and he chartered a special train of three coaches to rush his son to Denver.  The New York Times said, "The special covered 528 miles in less than twelve hours.  At times the train ran eighty miles an hour."  At the hospital, physicians discovered an abscess in the boy's neck and performed a successful operation.

The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1910 (copyright expired)

Living here at the time was Dr. Whitney Lyon, the 51-year-old son of wealthy tooth powder manufacturer, I. W. Lyon.  A widower, Dr. Lyon was also the president of I. W. Lyon & Sons.  His son and daughter were attending Yale and Wellesley, respectively, in 1915.  Lyon also maintained "a handsome country place at New Canaan, Connecticut," as described by The New York Times, and "a fine estate in Fleming Park, Larchmont Point [New York], overlooking the harbor and the Larchmont Yacht Club."

Dr. Lyon gave up his apartment here in 1917.  He was married to Maude Cecil Vollman on January 28 at the Larchmont estate.  The New York Times said, "It is expected later that they will make their home in Larchmont, where Dr. Lyon owns considerable property."  The article noted, "After the marriage, Dr. Lyon and his bride motored toward Connecticut."

Other socially visible residents were Dr. Robert Cunningham Myles, his wife, the former Edith Georgiana Russell Platt, and their sons, Robert Jr. and Beverly Russell.  Born in Covebrook, Mississippi in 1853, Myles received his medical degree at the age of 21.  Specializing in nose, throat and ear diseases, he "was known as a pioneer of modern treatments," according to The New York Times, and invented several types of surgical instruments.  The family's country home was in Garden City, Long Island.

Dr. Robert Cunningham Myles as he appeared around 1893.  from the collection of the New York Academy of Medicine Library.

Robert Jr. left Yale to enter the banking firm of Harriman & Co.  He married Dorothy Greer in the St. James Chapel of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on November 8, 1916.  The New York Times said that, although a large ceremony in St. Bartholomew's Church had been planned, "owing to mourning," it was a smaller wedding.  In reporting on the ceremony, the journalist noted, "On his father's side he is a descendant of Paul Russell of Hereford, England, who founded the family of that name in New England, of which James Russell Lowell was a member."

On the night of February 25, 1916, the Yale Chapter of the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity gave a large dance at Sherry's that started at 10:30.  The New York Times said, "Those from the university town arrived here in a special car in time for a dance given by Dr. and Mrs. Robert Cunningham Myles at 875 Park Avenue, from 4 until 7 o'clock."

As early as 1918, Thornton Niven Motley and his wife, the former Kathryn Lena Kennard (born in 1858 and 1868 respectively) lived in 875 Park Avenue with their unmarried daughter, Kathryn Thornton, who was born in 1898.  Motley was the head of Thornton N. Motley & Co., manufacturer of railroad cars and steamships.  The family's summer home was in Newport where, in 1887, Thornton Motley won the Newport Yachting Cup.

The social spotlight shone on the Motleys in 1919 when Kathryn's engagement to Matthew Comstock Jenkins was announced.  Three days before the wedding in St. Thomas's Church, on February 19, 1920 her mother gave a dinner, the guest list of which included "the entire bridal party," according to the New-York Tribune.  The following afternoon, she gave a luncheon at the Plaza Hotel for the bridesmaids.

Although attorney Nelson Beardsley Burr and his wife, the former Helen M. Morris, had no children of their own, in 1914 they became wards of Helen's nephew, Monson Morris Jr.  Helen's brother, Major Monson Morris, was a real estate operator "and prominent socially," according to The New York Times.  His wife died in 1914.  Prior to traveling to Europe in November 1917 with his regiment, he gave Helen custody of his four-year-old son.  Possibly thinking he may not survive the conflict, he wrote in part, "I promise to give you entire charge of his bringing up and education until he becomes of age."

On May 10, 1922, The New York Times reported that Morris had sued Helen Burr for custody of the now nine-year-old boy.  The article mentioned that Morris "has been married twice since his first wife's death."  The custody battle would extend for two years.  Perhaps State Supreme Court Justice Bijur's decision had much to do with the young Morris's telling him that he did not like his father's newest wife.  In 1924, Nelson and Helen Burr was given full custody of the boy, with his father having regular visitation rights.

Rose Abraham died in the Straus apartment on May 26, 1938 at the age of 86.  She bequeathed $10,000 each to her three grandsons--a quarter of a million each in 2025 dollars. 

By the time of his mother-in-law's death, Percy Selden Straus was chairman of the board of R. H. Macy & Co.  He suffered with heart disease, which worsened in 1939.  On the night of April 6, 1944 he died in the apartment at the age of 67.  Tributes poured in from businessmen and department store heads, among them from Walter Hoving, president of Lord & Taylor; and Samuel J. Bloomingdale.

Edith Straus inherited a life interest in Percy's "books, paintings, pictures, sculptures and household furnishings."  Particular artworks, however, he left to his sons.  Percy Jr. received the Fred Spencer Portrait of Andrew Jackson; Ralph was bequeathed Renoir's Portrait of Maurice Grimpel and Pacheco's Portrait of a Chorister.  Donald was given the Gilbert Stuart Portrait of Thomas Jefferson and Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin's Still Life.  

Upon Edith's death 75 of the masterworks in their collection--paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Van Dyke, Botticelli, Bellini, Fra Angelico and sculptures by Michelangelo, Cellini, Houdon, Luca Della Robbia and others--were to go to the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston.

A reserved resident was Estelle Whitfield, of whom The New York Times said, "her name practically never appeared in the newspapers."  A daughter of John A. Whitfield, a wholesale merchant, she had grown up in a Gramercy Park mansion.  Among her father's close friends was Andrew Carnegie, who married Estelle's sister, Louise, in 1888.  

Never married, in 1928 Estelle sailed to visit her widowed sister at Skibo Castle in Dornock, Scotland.  (Andrew Carnegie had died in 1919.)  While there, Estelle caught pneumonia.  She died at Skibo Castle on July 14 at the age of 66.

Other residents at the time were Katharine C. Harper, the widow of publisher James Thorne Harper; and former opera singer and widow of stock broker James H. Benedict, Mary von Buehler Benedict.  Before her marriage to Benedict at the turn of the century, Mary was known on the European stage as Madame Billoni.  After a command performance in St. Petersburg, the Czar presented her with a pair of diamond earrings hidden in a bouquet of roses.

Following her divorce from Paul Felix Warburg in 1934, Jean Stettheimer Warburg moved into 875 Park Avenue with her daughter, Felicia.   In 1948, Felicia (and her mother by extension) scored a social coup by being presented at the Court of St. James.  Two years later, in April, Jean announced her daughter's engagement to Robert William Sarnoff.  One year later, nearly to the day on April 6, 1951, Jean married Lawrence J. Steinhardt.

Among the residents by the mid-1960s were real estate executive and president of the J. H. Taylor Construction Company, William Korn and his wife, the former Fannie Mayer.  Among the structures Korn's concern built were the office building at 1407 Broadway and the apartment building at 240 Central Park South.  In the 1930s and '40s, Fannie was instrumental in organizing the "Congress houses," shelters for incoming refugees from Nazi Germany.  In 1963, she was a co-winner in the first Louise Waterman Wise Award of the American Jewish Congress.

Fannie Mayer Korn died in their apartment at the age of 85 on August 21, 1972.  Five months later, on December 18, William Korn died here at the age of 88.

image via fsi-architecture.com

In time for the building's centennial in 2012, a facade restoration was completed by FSI Architecture.  The project entailed restoration or replacement of the deteriorated terra cotta and stone ornaments, repointing and other preservation work.

The Lost Mutual Bank Building - 49-51 West 33rd Street

 

The scale of the building can be judged by the figures standing on the steps.  photograph by Irving Underhill, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In the fall of 1910, the Mutual Bank had operated from leased space at the northeast corner of Broadway and West 33rd Street for years.  But that was about to change.  In October, the bank purchased the property at 49 and 51 West 33rd Street, just steps away from its present home, as the site for a permanent building.  On October 8, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that construction would begin as soon as an architect was chosen, adding, "It was said that...in all probability a tall structure would be put up, containing offices above, the bank occupying the two lower floors."

By the time architect Donn Barber filed plans in January 1911, the idea of a "tall structure" had been scrapped.  It was now to be a "two story brick and stone bank" to cost $100,000 to erect (about $2.9 million in 2022).  His office provided a preliminary sketch to journalists which showed a neo-Classical facade with two-story Scamozzi columns and a stone balustrade along the roofline.  

Barber's preliminary rendering proved to be strikingly accurate.  Real Estate Record & Guide, January 21, 1911 (copyright expired)

The bank opened for business on February 13, 1912.  The Sun called the building "the latest word in design."  The New York Times agreed, deeming it "one of the most unique structures in the Greeley Square section," and remarking, "The exterior is entirely of limestone with granite base and steps and is treated in an adaptation of classic architecture."

Customers entered a one-story vestibule that provided second-story space for offices.  Beyond that, the great banking room opened up--soaring 38 feet upwards to a coffered ceiling and leaded glass skylight.  The walls were clad, full-height, in Caen stone.  The counters were of Bottichino marble, the teller cages of bronze, and the floors of Tennessee marble.  The Sun said, "Hung from the ceilings are eight gilded electric chandeliers, reasonable in size and delicate in modelling, which with the wall brackets around the panelled  [sic] walls give good light to all parts of the room."  

Within the second story space was the director's room.  "This room is almost Colonial in character," wrote The Sun, "having grayish blue stuff on the walls, white painted trim, mahogany doors and furniture, bluish leather furniture covering, and a blue rug, together with certain ornaments and antique silver electric fixtures."

The vaults were below street level, accessed by a marble staircase.  The doors of the security vault and of the safe deposit compartment weighed, respectively, 12 and 23 tons.  The article said, "They are so evenly balanced on a line of crane hinges, eccentric effects, ball and pin bearing degrees that a child could swing them."  

Architecture magazine, April 1913 (copyright expired)

The opening advertisement promised, in part:

The location of the new Mutual Bank building, at West 33rd Street, just a few feet from Broadway, and in the heart of the city, makes it one of the most centrally situated banks in New York, and unusually convenient for important business institutions now locating in this section of the city.  Its appointments, moreover, are unique in the measure of convenience they afford to patrons.

The New York Times noted the "ingenious device which forestalls any possibility of a holdup man making a 'getaway.'"  The article explained that should a gunman demand cash, "he would no doubt find that gentleman very obliging so far as the handing over was concerned."  But simultaneously, the teller would press a foot button that locked "the main and only exit," and activated a huge gong.

It was not a holdup man who confronted cashier William J. McGirr on October 8, 1921, but two young men wishing to cash a $1,000 railroad bond.  Edmond Foughot, who was 18 years old, and Dennis Doyle, 21, handed McGirr the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad bond.  As they waited, he carefully compared its serial number with a list of stolen bonds and found a match.

At the West 13th Street police station, they said that they had been in Washington the previous Friday, where a man approached and attempted to sell them the bond.  While they debated whether it may or may not be stolen, he disappeared, leaving them holding the bond.  The story did not preclude their being charged with attempting to cash a stolen bond.

Shortly after the incident, the institution's name was changed to the Mutual National Bank.  It would be changed again in 1927 when the Chase National Bank stockholders voted to acquired Mutual National Bank.  The elegant limestone structure survived until 1951, when it was razed to make way for the four-story Modernist structure that remains.

image via loopnet.com

many thanks to reader Doug Wheeler for prompting this post

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The Monumental 1913 James Farley Post Office Building

The Post Office Building in 1922.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1910, the year that McKim, Mead and White’s colossal Pennsylvania Station was completed, ground was broken directly across Eighthth Avenue for their next major project, the United States General Post Office.

Pennsylvania Station was a gigantic Roman Classic-style edifice.  The architectural firm promised The New York Times that the building “will harmonize with the architectural plan of the railroad terminal.” Indeed, it was intended to be a continuation of the monumental Roman-style station.

“The entire group of buildings will be on a scale commensurate with the Forum of Rome, presenting colonnaded and pilastered facades complimentary to each other and lending themselves to a unity of scale and style of marked effect,” reported The New York Times.

Mirroring the width of the train station, the great granite structure would span the entire two-block stretch of Eighth Avenue from 31st Street to 33rd Street.

Completed in 1913 at a cost of $5.275 million, the main floor sat 22 feet above street level, approached by a sweeping set of 31 steps nearly the full width of the building.  Atop it, a breath-taking colonnade of 20 stately fluted Corinthian columns upheld an entablature on which Ira Schnapp carved a quotation from Herodotus’ Histories: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

from the collection of the New York Public Library

The quotation was chosen by William Mitchell Kendall, an architect with McKim, Mead and White, who felt it not only nicely filled the cornice but provided a lofty description of the postal service.  A century later the quotation has been permanently attached to the postal service by the American public, although it was never the official motto of the United States Postal Service.

Each of the elevations was treated by the architects with nearly equal importance, as were the individual facades of the station across the avenue.  When it opened in September 1914 there were 1,667 employees and space, according to Postmaster Edward M. Morgan, for nearly double that amount.

The new post office was that largest in the country and, according to The New York Times, “possibly in the world.”  The main corridor, which ran the two-block length of the Eighth Avenue frontage, was clad in Botticcino marble and decorated with ornamental ironwork.  The deeply coffered ceiling, gently arched to avoid the visual illusion of sagging, was two stories above the Knoxville marble floor.  It was divided into 28-foot sections in which were embedded the seals of the ten countries of the postal union.  The Seal of the United States was centered, flanked by Great Britain and Germany–a detail that caused considerable controversy a few years later when the United States entered World War I and factions clamored for the removal of the German seal.

The controversial Seal of German in the Post Office ceiling

Above the corridor on the third floor were the mahogany paneled offices of the postmaster and his staff.  Included on this floor was a “committee room”–what would today be termed a conference room.  It was the first of its kind in an American post office.

The Post Office shows off its fleet of "motortrucks" -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

Behind the delivery and receiving offices in the main corridor was the enormous mail handling room.  Covering an acre of floor space under a 206-foot-long by 160-foot-wide wired glass ceiling, there were no visible supporting columns.  Forty feet above the floor, “perforations” were provided through which Postal Office Inspectors could keep watch on what was going on below.

The station was built over the train tracks to Pennsylvania Station.  In the basement was elaborate equipment for transferring huge quantities of mail to and from the trains.  More impressive, perhaps, was the ingenious system of pneumatic tubing that whisked mail throughout the city.

Costing $350,000, the system of 24-inch tubes shot 100-pound mail bags in both directions between Grand Central Station and the new post office at the rate of 30 to 90 miles per hour.  Bags of mail reached their destination in a minimum of two minutes.

In 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, the post office building was doubled in size under the leadership of Postmaster General James A. Farley.  The McKim, Mead and White design was extended to Ninth Avenue almost seamlessly.  Subsequently, the facility was renamed the James A. Farley Post Office.

Throughout the 20th century, until 1990 when reduced revenues forced belt-tightening, the Farley Post Office remained opened 356 days a year, 24 hours a day.  Around the same time the cavernous space was no longer necessary.  The late New York Senator Daniel Moynihan envisioned a recycling project that would renovate the old post office into a new train station, including a glass covered atrium and the largest media wall in the world.

Designed by architect David Childs and named the Moynihan Station, preliminary construction began in 2010 after more than a decade of dealings among the State of New York, the U.S. Postal Service, the Federal Government, Amtrak, and the City of New York.

Happily (unlike its companion piece across the avenue), McKim, Mead and White’s monumental edifice has a secure future.