Van Wart & Wein's 40 Fifth Avenue

 

image via landmarkbranding.com

Development of Fifth Avenue above Washington Square began with the Henry and Laura Brevort mansion at the corner of West 9th Street, completed in 1834.  Within seven years, the Church of the Ascension was erected on the corresponding corner of 10th Street, and by 1858 the northern half of that block was filled with sumptuous rowhouses, like the Henry Rutgers Remsen mansion at 40 Fifth Avenue.

Four mansions, including the Remsen house at No. 40 (left) filled the northern block between 9th and 10th Streets.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

At the end of World War I, lower Fifth Avenue had drastically changed.  Like the Brevoort mansion, which was demolished in 1925, private homes were quickly being replaced by upscale apartment buildings.  In 1927, the four houses at 40 through 46 Fifth Avenue and those at 2 through 10 West 11th Street were acquired by Moses Ginsberg's 10 West 11th Street Corporation.  

On September 16, 1928, The New York Times reported that demolition of those structures had begun.  On the site, said the article, would be a 15-story-and-penthouse "100 per cent cooperative building to be known as 40 Fifth Avenue."  The article pointed out that the location was "one of the most unusual corners of lower Fifth Avenue" because it was flanked by churches, ensuring light and ventilation.  The structure, "will be from plans by Van Wart & Wein, architects, with McKim, Meade [sic] & White, architects for the purchasers."  

As the structure neared completion, an advertisement in The New Yorker on December 15, 1928 called the location, "The corner of corners."  It boasted, "40 Fifth Avenue, now under construction, will occupy one of the few corners in New York combining residential desirability with complete sunshine and light protection on all sides."  

The ad boasted that the apartments would have "spacious rooms with ample baths and closets, glass-enclosed loggias, wood-burning fireplaces and mechanical refrigeration."  Prices, said the advertisement, started at $10,500 (just under $200,000 in 2026 terms).  Along Fifth Avenue would be four "maisonettes," essentially private homes within the building with separate entrances on the avenue.

McKim, Mead & White was kept busy with the interior designs.  Future homeowners had begun purchasing the apartments months earlier.  Among the first was Eugene V. Connett Jr., who  had purchased a six-room and three-bath apartment on the 12th floor in June 1928.  And on August 15, The New York Times reported that H. Hamilton Holden had purchased the triplex maisonette at 46 Fifth Avenue.  "The apartment contains eleven rooms and four baths," said the article.

Completed in 1929, Van Wart & Wein had turned to New York's colonial past by designing the building in the neo-Georgian style.  Its three-section base was divided by intermediate cornices and clad in limestone and red brick.  Above the 10-story shaft, the top section was crowned with a brick-and-stone-balustraded parapet, behind which the penthouse level was topped with a striking Georgian-style cupola.  

photograph by Beyond My Ken

Among the initial residents were commercial artist Bert Pagano, whose 8th-floor apartment contained six rooms and three baths; his brother, Guido Pagano; attorney Joseph Force Crater and his wife, Ella; stockbroker Floyd Y. Keeler; and William A. Force 3d, president of the William A. Force Company, Inc.

Born in 1885, Floyd Y. Keeler was a partner in the brokerage firm of Orvis Brothers & Co.  He and his wife, the former Elizabeth Rapallo Irving, had two adult daughters.  

Shortly after moving into their penthouse here, Keeler left town on a business trip.  Early on the morning of April 13, Elizabeth woke up to find a man "rummaging about in the bedroom," as reported by The New York Times.  The burglar quickly realized that he had chosen the wrong apartment to rob.  The article said, 

Mrs. Keeler, who weighs only 100 pounds, but who served in the Red Cross Motor Corps during the World War, made a flying tackle and grappled the intruder just as he was about to make his way out of the window to the roof.

The burglar wriggled free, but not before Elizabeth pulled off one of his shoes.  He headed down the fifteen flights of stairs while Elizabeth telephoned the police.  Two detectives arrived at 40 Fifth Avenue just as a man, wearing only one shoe, exited.  Frank Vagedes was arrested and the following morning he appeared in the Essex Market Court.  The New York Times commented, "Mrs. Keeler returned his shoe."

Joseph Force Crater was born in 1889, the son of Irish immigrants.  A graduate of Columbia University, he was closely associated with Tammany Hall leader Martin J. Healy.  He and his wife, the former Stella Mance Wheeler, were married in 1917.

Justice Joseph Force Crater (original source unknown)

Just months after buying their penthouse apartment, in April 1930, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Crater a Justice of the New York Supreme Court.  Shortly afterward, the state initiated an investigation into corruption within New York City agencies.

Like all the well-to-do residents of 40 Fifth Avenue, the Craters had a country home.  Theirs was in Belgrade Lakes, Maine and they were there in the summer of 1930 when, late in July, Crater received a telephone call.  On August 3, he returned to Manhattan, telling Stella he would return in time for her birthday on August 9.  When he did not return after ten days, Stella initiated a search.  Justice Joseph F. Crater had vanished.

On September 6, The New York Times reported that Stella was still in Maine, "suffering from a nervous breakdown."  In what would be the most intensive and publicized missing case until Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance in 1975, newspapers nationwide updated readers nearly daily.  Sanitariums were searched, bank records were examined (he had cashed two checks totaling $5,150, or about $100,000 today), and numerous leads were followed.

On February 1, 1931, District Attorney Crane told reporters that the investigation "would end in a few days."  Ransom notes and telephone calls received by Stella had proved to be bogus.  In the meantime, Stella Crater found herself in a difficult position.  With no proof of her husband's death, she had no income.  On January 14, 1932, Surrogate James A. Foley granted her an allowance of "$50 a week and the use of their apartment at 40 Fifth Avenue."  The New York Times said, "Mrs. Crater said she had been accustomed to living at the rate of $15,000 a year and that she had no other means of support."

Six years later, on March 15, 1938, The New York Times reported that Stella Crater had been evicted from her apartment.  Her attorney announced, "Mrs. Crater was resigned to abandoning her home, being without funds."  The disappearance of Joseph Force Crater remains one of America's great unsolved mysteries.

photograph by Spencer Means

Also occupying a penthouse apartment at the time of Crater's disappearance was another attorney, William E. Carnochan.  Born in 1869, he joined the law firm of Parsons, Closson & McIlvaine in 1891.  Never married, he was a member of the University and Lawyers Clubs.  In December 1930, while the nation was focused on the search for his neighbor, Carnochan suffered a nervous breakdown.  His sister, Sara Willard of Troy, Pennsylvania, temporarily moved into the apartment to care for him.

Five months later, Carnochan was still unwell and suffering from insomnia.  On April 23, 1931, he went onto his terrace, climbed the four-foot high parapet, and jumped to his death, landing on the Fifth Avenue sidewalk.  

The majority of the owners within the building, of course, were much less dramatic.  More typical of the initial owners were John Phillips Logan and his wife, the former Gertrude Hardman.  Born in 1880, Logan was a member of the wholesale dry goods firm of J. P. Logan & Sons on Canal Street.  Their country home was in Seabright, New Jersey.  The couple were members of the Essex County Country Club and John was, additionally, a member of the Montclair Golf Club and the New York Athletic Club.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Also living here in the 1930s were Reverend Dr. Archibald Romaine Mansfield and his wife, the former Ella Huntington.  Dr. Mansfield studied ministry at St. Stephen's College and graduated from the General Theological Seminary in 1896.  He received his honorary D. D. degree from St. Stephen's in 1915.

In 1896, according to The New York Sun years later, "New York's water front was notorious as a hotbed of crime and vice and Dr. Mansfield saw a wide field for service there."  He established a lodging house where sailors "were not in danger of being robbed or shanghaied," said the newspaper.  Mansfield's riverfront mission grew until, by the time he and his wife moved into 40 Fifth Avenue, the Seamen's Church Institute occupied a 13-story building on South Street.

Still living here in the 1940s were Eugene V. Connett and his wife, May Brewer.  Connett was the founder of E. V. Connett & Co.  The couple's country home was in Amagansett, New York.  A long time member of the Union League Club, Connett was the chairman of the club's art committee.

image via cityrealty.com

While the private mansions of lower Fifth Avenue did not survive, the apartment houses that replaced them did.  And  today they retain the upscale aplomb that they enjoyed a century ago.  Among the most distinguished is 40 Fifth Avenue, the unique site of which still provides it special notice.

Emile L. Capel's 1915 129 East 69th Street

 

image via cityrealty.com

On December 6, 1913, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported on the death of one of America's foremost architects, George B. Post.  The lengthy obituary mentioned, "His town house was at 129 East 69th street."  Developers Brixton Building Corporation wasted little time in acquiring the mansion from the Post estate, along with five other residences that faced Lexington Avenue.  In November 1915, architect Emile L. Capel filed plans for an 11-story apartment building on the site.  They estimated the construction costs at $450,000--about $14.5 million in 2026 terms.

The building's design is the first on record (at least in New York City) of the recondite architect.  Capel filed plans for only one more building and two renovations before 1920, when he sat on the board of directors of the newly formed New York Architectural Club, Inc.  He falls into obscurity after that.

Emile L. Capel produced a neo-Georgian-style structure faced in red Flemish bond brick and trimmed with creamy terra cotta.  The dignified arched entrance sat between double-height, paired and fluted pilasters with palm leaf capitals.  The large terra cotta spandrels of the two-story base on the 69th Street side were decorated classical urns.

An intermediate cornice introduced the midsection, its frieze ornamented with alternating urns and anthemions.  The urn motif reappeared in the stepped lintels of the third floor and in the spandrels between the 10th- and 11th-floor openings.

In 1917, Lexington Avenue was paved in brick and a streetcar track ran down its center. image via urbanarchive.org.

Among the initial residents was Major Frank C. Grugan.  Born in 1842, he was educated in France and upon returning home in 1861 enlisted in the Union Army.  The New York Herald reported, "He fought in twelve important battles, including Gettysburg."  A life-long military man, he would see combat "against the Indians in the West," as worded by the New York Herald, and in Cuba during the Spanish-American War.  When he moved into 129 East 69th Street, he was a widower.

In July 1918, Harold Garrison Villard and his wife, the former Mariquita Serrano, took a duplex apartment here.  The son of millionaire journalist and financier Henry Villard, he and Mariquita were married in 1897.  They had three children, Henry Serrano, Vincent Serrano and Mariquita Serrano.  The children were 18, 17, and 13 years old respectively when the family moved in.

Henry Villard was overseas at the time.  He had left Harvard to volunteer as a driver in the Italian Ambulance Service.  At the war's end, he returned and graduated in 1921.  

Harold Garrison Villard in 1915.  Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report, Harvard University Class of 1890 (copyright expired)

Harold Villard's mother, Fanny Garrison Villard, died on July 5, 1928.  The bulk of her estate, "estimated to be worth more than $10,000,000," according to The New York Times, was divided between Harold and his brother, Oswald.  (The figure would translate to about $183 million today.)  Additionally, she left $50,000 to Mariquita and $10,000 each to her grandchildren.  Mariquita's inheritance would equal about $185,000 today.

Vincent Serrano Villard was married to Katharine A. Tomkins on August 2, 1928.  The New York Times remarked, "Owing to the recent death of Mrs. Henry Villard, only members of the families and a few intimate friends were present at the  ceremony."

In the meantime, a 10th-floor corner apartment of "8 large rooms and foyer" with three baths was advertised in January 1920 at $5,600 per year, about $7,300 per month in today's terms.

A current view of a duplex apartment hints of the scope of the spaces.  via cityrealty.com

Among the tenants at the time were Impressionist artist Francis Sterling Dixon and his wife, Rosalie Turner Hooker.  The couple was married on August 10, 1915 "a short time after she had obtained a divorce in Idaho from Professor William Welling of Trinity College," according to The New York Times.  

Francis and Rosalie Dixon on their wedding day in 1915.  from the collection of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France

Dixon was born in September 1879 and studied at the Art Students League.  With deep American roots, he was a member of the Society of Colonial Wars and the Sons of the Revolution.  His artistic proclivity earned him memberships to the Allied Artists of America, the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, the Salmagundi Club, and the Players.

A typical Francis S. Dixon landscape.

The Dixons had a son, Francis Jr.  Unfortunately for the marriage, as had happened in 1915, Rosalie had a wandering eye.  She traveled to Paris in 1925, obtained a divorce, and announced her engagement to British Captain Rowland W. Cash.  Then, on January 26, 1926, The New York Times reported that the engagement had been broken.  Instead, in April she married Prince Levan Melikov de Somhetie, described by the New York Evening Post, as the "claimant to the non-existent throne of Georgia."

Domestic problems were plaguing another socially prominent couple in the building at the time.  Born in 1894 to millionaire Oliver Harriman Jr., Oliver Carley Harriman was described by the Syracuse, New York Journal in 1926 as "the son of Mrs. Oliver Harriman, one of the most admired and popular women in New York society," adding, "His father, Oliver Harriman, and his grandfather, also named Oliver Harriman, were powers in Wall Street." 

Harriman married socialite Loise Roberts Bisbee on June 7, 1915 and they had two daughters.  According to the Journal, "at the time of his marriage, he was the youngest member of the New York Stock Exchange, and said to be earning a large income from various sources."  The young broker was also a "prominent figure at the horse shows and polo matches at Westchester, Long Island and Newport," said the newspaper.

Like Rosalie Dixon, the handsome Oliver Carley Harriman had a wandering eye.  U.S. Passport photograph

Oliver Carley Harriman was career driven and according to the Journal, his "intense ambition" caused him to "frequent rather mixed company in the evening."  In fact, the "company" that kept him away from the couple's apartment on many of those nights was not always a business associate.  On July 28, 1923, Loise read a news article about a trolley car accident.  Among the witnesses was "Mrs. Harriman."  A puzzled Loise dug into her husband's nocturnal nightlife.

Fashion model Harriet Hewitt lived in an apartment at 206 East 61st Street, the rent of which was paid by Harriman.  The residents of the building knew Helen as "Mrs. Harriman."  An indignant and angry Loise left 129 East 69th Street and filed for divorce in December 1923.  Even before the divorce was granted, rumors within high society said that Oliver Carley Harriman intended to marry Helen Hewitt.  And he did.

A disturbing and bizarre incident happened here in the fall of 1928.  Antiques dealer William F. Cooper and his wife, Martha, had previously lived in an apartment on East 66th Street.  In 1923, Martha suffered a stroke but recovered.  Then in 1927 William was hospitalized for three months after an operation, during which Martha "fretted herself into a nervous breakdown," according to The New York Times.  Both she and her husband recovered.

In September 1928, they moved into a seventh-story apartment in 129 East 69th Street.  Unlike the quiet block of 66th Street, "all day long the clang of the surface cars floated in through the apartment windows," said The New York Times.  

On September 22--the Coopers' first Saturday night in the apartment--they had friends over.  After their guests left, William went to bed.  Martha wrote a note to her husband, sealed it and left it on the dining room table.  She then took a photograph of William from its frame and "carefully cut out the likeness of his face."  Clutching it, she then leaped to her death from the apartment window.  Her note explained, "she could not stand the eternal sound of the street cars."

The Robert Ackermans' apartment had been given an Art Deco make-over before this photograph was taken in 1935.  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Lloyd Paul Stryker, his wife, the former Katherine Traux, and their daughter occupied an apartment here as early as 1929.  Born in Chicago in 1885, Stryker graduated from New York Law School in 1909.  The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law said he "became famous as a flamboyant criminal lawyer."  In March 1929, he was nominated by President Calvin Coolidge as a Federal judge for the Southern District of New York.  

Stryker came into the national spotlight in 1948 when he was the lead defense counsel in the two criminal cases against Alger Hiss.  Life magazine published an article on Stryker in 1947 titled: "Trial Lawyer: Lloyd Paul Stryker is Archetype of Vanishing Courtroom Virtuoso."

image by Wurts Bros from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Another prominent attorney in the building at midcentury was Frank Lyon Polk.  He and his wife, the former Katherine Hoppin Salvage, whom he married in 1934, had three sons: Frank Jr., Samuel S. and William M.  Polk's father was Under-Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson and he headed the American delegation to the Paris Peace Conference after World War I.  Frank was also the great-nephew of President James Knox Polk.  The family's summer home was at Fishers Island, New York.

Polk became ill in 1952 and was hospitalized in Doctors Hospital.  Calling him "a member of a socially prominent family," on September 20 The New York Times reported that he had died there at the age of 40.

Katherine Polk and her sons remained in the apartment.  In December 1959, she announced Frank Jr.'s engagement to Nancy Holliday Wear.  In reporting on the event, The New York Times commented on Frank's maternal pedigree.  "He is a grandson of Lady Salvage of Glen Head, L. I., [and] the late Sir Samuel Agar Salvage.

Three years later, it was Katherine Polk's turn to wed.  Her marriage to John Currie Wilmerding, the former husband of Lila Vanderbilt Webb, was celebrated in Old Westbury on April 28, 1962.

Photographed in 1943, this top floor duplex enjoyed a lush roof garden.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Never married, Florence Wardell also lived here at midcentury.  Born in Brooklyn and having graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1898, she had been active in Republican women's activities for decades.  She was vice chairman of the Republican Women's State Executive Committee in 1922, was a delegate to the National Republican Convention in 1928, and worked on Herbert Hoover's Presidential campaign.

Following World War I, Hoover requested her to go to Washington to help him provide relief for the Belgians.  She was later decorated by the Belgium Government for her service.  She fell ill in 1959 and died in her apartment at the age of 82 on February 12.

Investment broker Francis F. Randolph and his wife, Mary Hill Hadley, who lived here by the 1960s, filled their apartment with a remarkable art collection.  Although he sat on the boards of several corporations and was a trustee of institutions, he and Mary were best known for their involvement in the arts.  Francis was chairman of the finance committee of the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Pierpont Morgan Library.  The New York Times mentioned that they "gave a number of works of art and incunabula to Vassar College."

image via 6sqft.com

The building, designed by a nearly unknown architect, survives almost entirely intact.

The Eufrasia and Allen Tucker Mansion - 121 East 79th Street

 

Brutal enlarging and remodeling the upper floors has destroyed the original charm

Eufrasia Aguilar Leland Wesson and Allen Tucker were married on February 12, 1895.  The 25-year-old bride was reared in privilege, the daughter of the late Charles Howland Wesson and Martha Leland.  The groom, who was four years older than Eufrasia, earned his architectural degree from Columbia University in 1887 and worked as a draftsman at his father's firm, McIlvaine & Tucker.

In 1906, Eufrasia's mother and aunt, Emma Wesson and Eufrasia A. Leland, purchased two vintage houses at 123 and 125 East 79th Street as the site of their double-wide mansion.  Simultaneously, Eufrasia and Allen Tucker purchased the house next door and hired the firm of Robins & Oakman to make "extensive alterations," as worded by the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide.  Their redesigning of the high-stooped brownstone would transform it into a modern residence.

On May 30, 1906, the New-York Tribune explained the changes.  "A rear extension is to be added, new plumbing installed and a new Colonial facade, with a mansard roof built."  The renovations would cost the Tuckers $10,000, or about $360,000 in 2026 terms.

Robins & Oakman removed the stoop and brownstone and created a neo-Georgian-style facade.  In many cases, when the stoop was removed from English basement homes, the front was pulled forward to the property line.  For the Tuckers, however, the areaway was preserved, giving them a small front yard.  

The architects' tripartite design was faced in Flemish bond red brick and trimmed in limestone at the base and midsection.  The fourth floor took the form of a mansard with two dormers.  The mansion's focal point was the pair of French doors under fanlights at the second floor, or piano nobile. 

The Tucker mansion harkened to Colonial times.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The "rear extension" mentioned by the New-York Tribune filled the rear yard.  It would hold Allen Tucker's skylight-lit studio.  By now, he had moved from architecture to fine art.  An impressionist, he was part of the group of painters known as the "Independents," which, according to the Smithsonian Institution, "wanted to shake up the conservative ideas of the National Academy of Design."  In 1911, four years after moving into 121 East 79th Street, Tucker co-founded the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, and in 1913 helped organize the famous Armory Show.

When America entered World War I, Tucker served with the American Ambulance Service in  France.  It appears that Eufrasia moved temporarily next door with her mother and aunt.  On December 9, 1917, The New York Times reported that she had leased 121 East 79th Street furnished at Arthur A. Fowler.  

Starting in 1921, after returning to New York after the war, Allen Tucker taught at the Art Students League.  Often deemed "the American Van Gogh," his paintings would hang in prestigious institutions like the Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frye Art Museum.

Allen Tucker painted Landscape in his East 79th Street studio in 1919.  from the collection of the Whitney Museum of Art.

Allen and Eufrasia Tucker sold 121 East 79th Street to the Atram Realty Corporation in May 1930.  The firm purchased the property "as a light protector for the apartment building at 120 East Eightieth Street," explained The New York Times.  The new owners hired Cross & Cross to enlarge the mansion with another floor.  The architects deftly increased the height of the mansard without greatly upsetting the proportions nor the Colonial motif.

Cross & Cross's additional level was not displeasing.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

On July 7, 1933, The New York Times reported that the Atram Realty Corporation had leased the mansion to Leighton Hammond Coleman, "of the law firm of Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Gardiner & Reed."  

Born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Coleman had served as a "pursuit pilot" in World War I.  He earned his law degree at Harvard Law School in 1922.  Coleman and his wife, the former Jane Fraser, had five children, Leighton Jr., Jane, Helen, Sally, and Prudence.  The family's country home, East Farm, was at Stony Brook, Long Island.

After having leased the house for a decade, in 1943 Leighton H. Coleman purchased it.  His daughters were approaching their debutante years and before long the house would be a flurry of activity.

Debutante entertainments traditionally were held in the winter social season.  Twin sisters Jane and Helen, however, got an early start.  On June 28, 1946, The New York Sun reported that the Colemans "will honor their debutante daughters, the Misses Jane and Helen Coleman, at a dinner-dance tomorrow evening at East Farm."  The article noted that Jane had graduated that year from the Brearley School and that Helen was "an alumna of the Chapin School."

Helen Rulison Coleman went on to study at Bryn Mawr College and Barnard College.  (Her mother was  was a trustee of the latter institution.)  She was the first to marry.  Her wedding to William Maxwell Evarts Jr. was held in St. James Protestant Episcopal Church in St. James, Long Island on August 28, 1948.  It was a family affair, with Jane being the maid of honor and Sally and Prudence bridesmaids.  Leighton Jr. was among the ten ushers.

The following year, on June 25, 1949, Jane was married in the same church to William Draper Blair Jr.  Expectedly, Helen was her matron of honor and her younger sisters were bridesmaids.  The New York Times remarked that Jane "wore a gown of white satin with a rosepoint lace veil that had been worn by her mother and grandmother and last August by her sister."

No. 121 East 79th Street was sold in 1954.  The New York Times reported on April 9 that plans had been filed "for altering the five-story dwelling...into four apartments and a professional office."  The renovations resulted in a doctor's office on the first floor, a duplex apartment in the second and third, and one apartment each in the upper levels.  Apparently to augment the livable square-footage of the top two floors, the mansard was converted to a vertical wall with no cornice.

Then, in 1997, restauranteur Simon Oren purchased the property for $2 million (about $3.9 million today).  He initiated a renovation that returned the upper floors to a single family home, while keeping the ground floor doctor's office (accessed by a separate entrance).  He listed it for sale in 2016 for $19 million.

Although sadly disfigured, the Tucker mansion still recalls its aristocratic roots and place in American art history.

photographs by the author

The Lost Henry de Coppet Mansion - 754 Park Avenue

 

The Architectural Record. November 1911 (copyright expired)

Robert W. Buckley and Robert McCafferty composed the builder-architect firm of McCafferty & Buckley.  In July 1891, McCafferty bought out his partner's share of their new, upscale house at 754 Park Avenue (adjoining the southwest corner of 72nd Street) for his own occupancy.  By then, the thoroughfare was seeing the construction of similar upscale residences.  

McCafferty died in the Park Avenue house on February 11, 1905 "after a long illness."  Less than two months later, on April 1, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that his estate had sold the 34-foot-wide dwelling to Henry de Coppet.

De Coppet and his wife, the former Laura Fawcett, commissioned architect George B. de Gersdorff to modernize the outdated Victorian.  His plans, filed in June, called for a new facade, an extension to the rear, and reconfigured interior partitions.  The renovations cost the De Coppets the equivalent of $441,000 in 2026.

Court documents in 1914 reveals the odd footprint of the De Coppet property.  Supreme Court, Bronx County, August 1914 (copyright expired)

De Gersdorff dealt with an unusual footprint, especially considering that his extension would mostly gobble up the rear yard.  He removed the stoop and pulled the facade to the property line.  The entrance was lowered to below grade, centered within a marble base.  De Gersdorff faced the upper floors in red brick and trimmed in marble.  The three windows of the first floor, or piano nobile, sat within slightly recessed arches.  The neo-Georgian design included splayed lintels, a handsome stone balustrade atop the third floor, and large dormers that fronted the fourth floor mansard.

Influential architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler was displeased with the awkward placement of the below-ground entrance.  He said the mansion...

is unmistakably Old New York, excepting the high stoop--very much excepting the high stoop, for here the revivalist has gone to the other extreme; and to dive into the area in order to get at the front door cannot be considered a dignified mode of entrance.

Henry and Laura de Coppet were born in 1843 and 1840 respectively and were married in 1873.  Henry was "a member of a family long prominent in financial and social affairs," according to The New York Herald.  He was educated at the University of Berne and founded his own brokerage firm.  He retired in 1900.

He and Laura had three children, Beatrice, Gertrude and Theakson.  (Their first child, Kinloch Fawcett, died in 1876 at the age of two.)  The family's summer home, Summerstay, was near Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island.

The family was at Summerstay on July 20, 1910 when their automobile was involved in what would be an expensive accident.  The vehicle collided with that of Dr. Henry Rolf Brown, another Manhattanite.  On September 2, Brown and his passenger, Mary H. Rhentan, filed individual suits against Henry de Coppet--Brown's for $5,000 in injuries and damages to his car; and Rhentan's for $5,000 for personal injuries and "a shock to her nervous system."  The suits alleged that the De Coppets' chauffeur "was driving in a careless manner."  The combined suits would translate to about $243,000 today.

Theakston de Coppett had attended Columbia University and was a stockbroker by the time the family moved into 754 Park Avenue.  In 1916, he turned his back to Wall Street and urban life, purchasing the abandoned mill village of Hillsdale, Rhode Island.  He moved there and became president of the town council.  (An early preservationist, the bachelor would will the entire 1,800-acre estate to the state of Rhode Island in 1937.)

In 1920, the family had to address an uncomfortable issue: Henry's mental decline.  On May 11, The Sun reported that Laura "and two of his children," had applied for what today would be termed a conservatorship.  The article said that De Coppet, "is alleged to be suffering from senile dementia." 

As it turned out, the conservatorship was not necessary.  Henry de Coppet died less than five months later on October 6, 1920 at the age of 77.

Laura Fawcett de Coppet survived her husband by six years, dying in the mansion on April 21, 1926.  At the time, her daughters, neither of whom would marry, lived in the house.  They sold 754 Park Avenue to Mary Hoyt Wiborg in July 1929.

Born in 1888, Mary's maternal grandfather was millionaire Hoyt Sherman and her uncles were General William Tecumseh Sherman and Senator John Sherman.  The wealthy socialite had served in a French hospital during World War I.  She now had turned to playwrighting and in 1922 released Taboo, which starred Paul Robeson.

Mary Hoyt Wiborg, from the collection of the Library of Congress

Wiborg's family owned the corner mansion, and on March 25, 1930, The New York Times reported Mary Hoyt Wiborg had sold the two residences to the Rhoades-Kennedy Security Corporation, "which intends to erect on the site a $3,000,000 eighteen-story cooperative apartment house."  The article noted, "The parcel is one of the few in Park Avenue not improved with an apartment house."

In reporting on the transaction, the newspaper commented, "Miss Wiborg, who is prominent in society, is the daughter of Frank B. Wiborg, local manufacturer.  They have a home also in East Hampton, L. I."

Mary Hoyt Wiborg's family's mansion can be glimpsed at the right.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Something, possibly the Depression, derailed the plans.  The property reverted to Mary Wiborg and she continued to reside in 754 Park Avenue.  An art connoisseur, she filled the mansion with a remarkable art collection.  On February 20, 1931, for instance, The East Hampton Star reported that Mary had loaned "three canvases by Picasso" to the Brooklyn Museum for a year.  "Among the Picasso group was a canvas entitled 'Seated Women,' in the modern manner."

When her father died on May 12, 1930, Mary Wiborg inherited $365,509 from his estate--about $7.5 million today. 

At mid-century, the combined corner property was again sold and this time the developers were successful.  The two mansions were replaced by a 17-story apartment building designed by Horace Ginsbern & Associated, completed in 1951.

image via cocoran.com.

The 1922 West Side Meeting House - 550 Cathedral Parkway

photo by the author

After having moved several times since 1886, the Unity Congregational Society of New York purchased the five plots at 244-252 Cathedral Parkway (West 110th Street) between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway in 1921.  The firm of Hoppin & Koen was commissioned to design a church-and-community-house on the site.  Associate architect A. D. R. Sullivant was given the project.  His grand, initial design included a cupola reminiscent of Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

Sulllivant's 1921 rendering was more than twice the width of the subsequent building.  The Christian Register, June 16, 1921 (copyright expired)

But before ground was broken on June 2, 1921, the plans were grossly reduced.  Completed in 1922, Sullivant's dignified three-story, neo-Georgian-style edifice engulfed only two of the plots.  Above a limestone base, the upper floors were clad in red brick.  A centered, temple-like composition of double-height stone pilasters upholding a triangular pediment distinguished the upper sections.  (Sullivant's subdued Colonial design would reappear in a much more exuberant form in Thompson, Holmes & Converse's 1929 Tammany Hall on Union Square.)

On June 16, 1921, The Christian Register explained that the building would be called the West Side Meeting House for two reasons:

First, the name is in accord with the Pilgrim Congregational tradition of Unitarianism; second, it is planned to keep the building open throughout the week for any activity that tends to improve the personality of man, woman, or child.  Religion embraces not only the worship of God, but also the service of man.

To address the second reason, said the article, "religious, civic, educational, dramatic, literary, musical, recreational, and social gatherings will be held under church auspices and the building will therefore be a meeting-house--a house of meeting--for all who are seeking to build their own characters and to improve the neighborhood and the city."

The West Side Meeting House was completed in 1922.  In the basement was an auditorium-theater.  It was available for civic meetings and would become the home of the church's own theatrical troupe.

from Little Theatres, December 1923 (copyright expired)

Many mainstream Christians viewed Unitarianism sideways.  Its liberal doctrine included the belief in one God while denying the Trinity.  Its focus was on reason and tolerance over restricting creeds.  

Having a theater within the building offended many Christians, who still considered plays sinful.  Rev. Charles Francis Potter had to defend the theater in general.  In his sermon on April 22, 1923, he insisted, "There is more obscenity in the Bible than in any current New York play."

Born in 1885, Potter had degrees from Bucknell University, Brown University and Newton Theological Institution.  By the time the West Side Meeting House opened, science was making discoveries that fundamentalist preachers deemed heretical.  The well-educated and Modernist pastor Charles Potter went on the offensive.

Rev. Charles Francis Potter, Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography

On March 8, 1924, The Universalist Leader said he had initiated a Modernist Bible class, "whose teaching will be broadcast through the United States by radio at 8 p.m. every Sunday."  The article said it, "is intended to offset the attacks of the Fundamentalists, who have succeeded in excluding the teaching of science and evolution in regard to religion."  Potter told the reporter, "A faith that is disturbed by learning the facts of science is no real faith; it is largely prejudice and superstition."

The following year, Rev. Potter traveled to Dayton, Tennessee to advise Clarence Darrow in the famous Scopes Trial.  Potter was open about his disdain of the Fundamentalist Christians who had initiated the suit.  He scoffed that the "Holy Rollers" might introduced "a bill prohibiting the teaching of geography in public schools because the Bible indicates that the earth is flat."

Potter was replaced by the erudite Rev. Arthur Wakefield Slaten.  He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1916 with a thesis titled, "The Qualitive Use of Nouns in the Pauline Epistles, and Their Translation in the Revised Version."

In reporting on his first sermon, on October 19, 1925 The New York Times said, "Dr. Slaten is an advocate of Humanism, noting, "He was dismissed as professor of Biblical literature and Biblical education by [Rochester Theological Seminary] for heresy, based upon his book, 'What Jesus Taught.'"

Barnard Bulletin, November 13, 1925 (copyright expired)

The year before Rev. Slaten's appointment, the Meeting House Theater troupe was organized.  On October 16, 1926, The Billboard noted that it "has become favorably known for its good work during the last two seasons.  It has won twice successively the cup offered at the little theater tournament of the Metropolitan Federation."  The Meeting house Theater premiered Edna Ferber's $1,200 a Year on October 28 that year.

Like his predecessor, Slaten found himself defending the theater.  The following month, on November 28, he declared in his sermon, "a play is morally bad only when it represents life falsely."  Saying that plays were "valuable contributions to the study of human nature," he insisted, "In no one of these plays is vice made attractive, nor are the facts of life falsely presented."

Slaten continued to raise eyebrows among mainstream Christians.  In his sermon on January 2, 1927, he described the book of Genesis, "One of the folk-lore classics of the world's literature."

Rev. Slaten resigned in January 1929 "because of illness," according to his resignation letter.  Guest preachers took the pulpit of the West Side Unitarian Church for an extended period.

Two years later, the congregation merged with the Community Church and moved into its facility on Park Avenue and 34th Street.  In the meantime, the auditorium, known as the Community Church Centre, continued to be the scene of lectures and meetings.  On the evening of February 3, 1933, Dr. Gustav F. Beck addressed an audience of about 100 on the topic "A Philosopher's View of Immortality."  In discussing whether there was an afterlife, Beck said it "was a mystery which could not be proved or disproved."  The New York Times reported, "Several persons in the audience arose to give their views."

One man, who was around 55 years old, "jumped to his feet and, speaking with a foreign accent, started a fervent comparison of Oriental and Western philosophy," said the article.  The impassioned man contended, "When you are dead, you are dead.  If these were my last words, I would still maintain it."  Ironically, a few seconds later he grasped his chest and fell dead, apparently from a heart attack.

Frank Wilson headed the cast Black, which opened here on May 15, 1934.  His career had skyrocketed after starting out in vaudeville.  He was in the 1925 Broadway revival of The Emperor Jones, and was part of the original 1927 cast of Porgy.  Two years prior to his performance here, he made his film debut in The Girl from Chicago.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

The building was leased to Congregation Ramath Orah, a Modern Orthodox congregation.  It was founded in 1942 by Dr. Robert Serebrenik, who had been Grand Rabbi of Luxembourg from 1929 to 1940.  He had assisted approximately 250 Jews in escaping Luxembourg following the Nazi invasion in 1940.

A troubling incident here in 1944 was made even more so given Rabbi Serebrenik's background.  On April 12, The New York Times reported, "A swastika was found crudely painted on a wall outside the Congregation Ramath Orah at 550 West 110th Street yesterday morning."  The hateful graffiti was discovered by two police officers passing by in a patrol car.  The cops not only reported on the vandalism, but "then helped remove the marking with turpentine and a steel brush," said the article.  Rabbi Serebrenik was surprisingly charitable, saying he presumed "that children probably drew the symbol."

The following year, the congregation purchased the building.  The dedication ceremony was held on February 11, 1945.  Among the speakers was Edgar L. Nathan, the Manhattan Borough President.

Rabbi Robert Serebrenik died of a heart attack at the age of 62 on February 11, 1965.  In reporting his death, The New York Times recalled, "After the Nazis occupied [Luxembourg], he stayed on until 1941, when he was seized by the Gestapo and beaten unconscious.  After that attack he escaped by way of Lisbon and came to this country."

photograph by Beyond My Ken

Congregation Ramath Orah continues to occupy the building.  Other than the stained-glass windows added in 1955, it survives essentially unchanged after nearly a century.