The Cross & Bastine Bldg - 232 West Broadway

On February 26, 1870 the Record & Guide reported that M. A. Marcy had hired New Jersey-based architect M. H. Scott to design a "two-story brick store" on the site of a coal yard at the corner of North Moore Street and West Broadway.   Completed before the end of the year, Scott had wasted no unnecessary money on the building's decorative elements--yet without sacrificing architectural style.   The segmentally-arched window heads, ribbon-like freize and corbel table below the pressed metal cornice were all executed in brick.  They all reflected the modish neo-Grec style.

There were two cast iron storefronts--one which engulfed the entire West Broadway side and another at the rear on North Moore Street.  (The West Broadway address, No. 132, would be renumbered 232 in 1897.)

The building's first occupant was Cross & Bastine's wood graining shop.  Victorian architects and cabinet makers cleverly masqueraded cheaper woods as expensive rosewood or mahogany, for example.  Cross & Bastine also etched or engraved supplied designs on glass or wooden panels.

Real Estate Record & Guide, October 3, 1874 (copyright expired)

In the 1890's Achille Bataille & Co.'s "West Broadway Wire Works" office and showroom were located in the building.  Its factory was located significantly north on Hudson Street, one block south of West 14th Street.  The "wire work" was more substantial that it sounds today.  The firm manufactured the brass and wire railings for "banks, offices, cemeteries," as well as elevator enclosures and folding gates, wire fencing and similar architectural items.

At the turn of the century Italian-born Michael Pascarella operated his wholesale paper operation here.  He shared the building with M. Tortakoff's laundry business, which was most likely located in the rear space.  Pascarella would remain for several years and the large sign erected atop the building in 1907 most likely advertised his business.  It cost $230 to install, or about $6,500 in today's money.

Pascarella lived in Emerson, New Jersey and his successful paper business garnered him a comfortable lifestyle.  In September 1910 he purchased a new automobile and proudly invited three friends to take a test ride.  Joining the party was Pascarella's teen-aged son.

On September 4 New-York Tribune reported that when they were about six miles from home the younger Pascarella "said he knew how to run it and he was allowed to try his hand."  Things did not end well.  "When near the Old Hook Cemetery, between Westwood and Emerson, something went wrong with the steering gear."  The boy ran his father's new car off the road and up a steep embankment where it then "turned turtle."

The newspaper said "The five occupants were made prisoners under the car, but all miraculously escaped injury."  They were rescured by men in a "passing machine."  The Tribune ended saying "The new car is now in a Hackensack garage, a wreck."

In 1911 ex-City Chamberlain Charles H. Hyde was facing a charge of swindling a client.  Israel Tilden, a law student and clerk, applied for a change of venue, claiming that Hyde was so hated locally that he could not receive a fair trial.  To support his application Tilden presented the court with an affidavit alleging that local businessmen had disparaged Hyde, assumed he was guilty, and called him unflattering names. 

The problem for Tilden and his client was that at least a dozen of the men learned of the affidavit and told reporters they had never made the remarks attributed to them.  Among them was Michael Pascarella.  

Tilden had reported that Pascarella had said "My opinion is that he [Hyde] is no better than the rest and ought to be convicted."  But Pascarella told the assistant district attorney that he had never met Tilden nor made the statement.  The Sun added that he "says that he cannot read English and never read anything about Hyde or the 'others' in any newspaper."

The Pascarella paper business was gone by the onset of the Great Depression.  A restaurant moved into both levels in 1931, followed by a fish processing and packing factory in 1942.  At mid-century the building held a single store along with storage space on the first floor, with an office and more storage upstairs.  In 1952 the building next door at No. 230 was demolished and would remain a parking lot for years.

The original configuration of the storefront, as well as the initial cornice, can be seen in this tax photograph taken around 1941.  photo via the NYC Dept. of Records & Information Services.

Much had changed in the Tribeca neighborhood by the last decade of the 20th century.  The little corner building was home to One Dream theater by 1991 and it would remain in the space for years.

Then major change came in 2009 when construction started on a six-story structure next door which incorporated No. 232.  Completed in 2010, the combined buildings now form a sumptuous single family residence.

photographs by the author

George Pelham's 1895 18 North Moore Street

In 1880 construction was completed on a five-story brick tenement at the southwest corner of Varick and North Moore Streets.  Built by developer Albert Block and designed by architect Frederick W. Klempt its ground floor contained two storefronts, the corner space operated as a saloon.

Following Block's death, his sons Richard W., John P. and Edward Block purchased the building from his estate on October 15 1886.  Three years later, on December 31, 1892, Matilda Klopenburg transferred title to the 25-foot building next door at No. 18 North Moore Street to the three brothers.  Only Richard and Edward, acting as R.  E. Block, went on with the project, however.

In July 1894 well-known architect George F. Pelham filed plans to alter the four-story building.  The significant changes included lowering the ground floor, changing the interior walls and flooring, removing and replacing the staircase, and stripping off the facade rebuilding it.  The cost of the alterations would have cost just under $300,000 in today's dollars.

The brothers rethought the project and on August 10 Pelham filed another set of plans, this time for a five-story replacement structure.  The change in plans brought the cost of construction up to the equivalent of $441,000 today.  While the official plans called for a "tenement house," the Real Estate Record & Guide preferred the term "apartment house" when it announced the project.  That may have had to do with some of the up-to-date amenities Pelham included: "dumb-waiter, electric bells, speaking tubes, door openers, concrete and pine floors, structural iron-work, skylight, and sanitary plumbing."

It may have been the Block brothers who urged Pelham to produce a near match to Kempt's earlier building.  Elements of No. 18 North Moore Street--the storefront cornice and the incised stone lintels, for instance--were all but duplicates of No. 16.  In fact, at a casual glance the two structures appear to have been built simultaneously and designed by the same architect.

Like its older brother, No. 18 North Moore Street became home to working-class residents.  One of them, Thomas Talbot, soon had the unpleasant responsibility of identifying the corpse of his friend, James O'Leary.   Around the 1st of November 1896, the 55-year old went missing from his home at No. 40 Beach Street.  On the afternoon of November 4 his body was seen floating in the Hudson River.  That night Talbot was called to the City Morgue and confirmed his identity.

Among Talbot's neighbors in the building were the Irish immigrant Cockerill family.  Their son, William, worked in the machine shop of A. K. Warren in the block-long Welsh Building on Greenwich Street between Desbrosses and Watts Streets, several blocks to the north.   A. K. Warren's operation was large, occupying the ground floor as well as the fourth through sixth floors.

On the afternoon of August 11 1896, fire broke out in a rubbish pile in the basement.  The New York Times reported "There was little warning to any that a fire which was to sweep the building had started."  According to witnesses, only a few moments after being discovered, the flames "seized on the hoistway shaft" and spread up to through the floors.

William Cockerill and another youth, Charles Combs, escaped to the roof.  From there they watched the crowds forming on the streets below.   Then they saw their 34-year-old foreman, William Gray, climb out a fifth floor window onto the fire escape.  Confused and panicked, he climbed the fire escape to the sixth floor, hesitated, then went back down.  The boys yelled at him to stay where he was, "as the flames were bursting out of the windows of the floors below him," according to The Times.  They found a heavy length of telegraph wire on the roof and lowered it down to him.

The article reported that from the street came "loud outcries, craning of necks to peer through the smoke at the fifth-floor balcony of the fire escape and exclamations of horror" as Gray became "enveloped in flames and smoke from both the window he stood at and that of the floor below."  He grabbed the wire, but was already too overcome by the heat and smoke.   The two boys and the crowd watched in horror as Gray collapsed, falling face forward to the street.  Because of the stubborn conflagration it was five hours before his body could be recovered, although it "was in full view of 10,000 persons whenever a gust of wind drove the smoke away."

Both William Cockerill and Charles Combs were rescued from the roof without serious injury before the entire building was engulfed and destroyed.

In 1901 Edward Block transferred his half of the ownership of the building to his brother, Richard.  The side-by-side stores were combined to form a single store space in 1908.  As the World War I years neared, the residents seem to have been working hard to improve their stations in life.  John J. Burton was living here in 1916 and doing well enough financially that he owned a seven-story factory building on Hudson Street.  And the following year resident George Deliga passed the State bar exams.

In 1957 the building underwent a renovation which resulted in two apartments per floor.  It may have been at this time that the neo-Grec cornice was removed.  At some point around this time the facade was given a slathering of white paint.

Seen here around 1983, No. 18 had lost its cornice and was painted white, its close architectural similarity to the corner building no longer evident.  NYC Department of Records & Information Services.

As the neighborhood lured artists and galleries in the third quarter of the 20th century, No. 18 became home to Joseph Nechvatal.  Born in Chicago in 1951, he studied at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Columbia University and Cornell University.  He arrived in New York City in 1979, becoming involved with the artist group Colab.  His work at the time was mostly post-minimalist gray graphite drawings.  An exception to that was highlighted in a 1980 issue of Umbrella:

Joseph Nechvatal, 18 No. Moore st., New York, NY 10013 is interesting in showing a very large, wall size temporary mural.  This mural is lit from below with colored theatrical lighting and a sound track.  Chairs face the mural.  He is addressing the threat of nuclear war in the current U.S.-Soviet cold war relations.

The joined storefront necessitated the two properties to be mutually owned, although the upper floors were never combined.  By the early 1990's the watering hole and restaurant Walker's opened in the ground floor.  A total of 18 apartments are in the two buildings.

In 2005 the facade of the building was restored and and a new cornice fabricated, based on its surviving neighbor.  The two structures were purchased March 2010; the matching cornices once again making them architectural siblings.

photographs by the author

Frederick W. Klempt's 1880 Tenement and Saloon - 16 North Moore Street

For years James P. Wilson's saloon had stood on the southwest corner of Varick and North Moore Streets.  In 1878, after he was appointed a deputy sheriff, Wilson sold the business to a man named Conroy; although he continued on as bartender.  Conroy's new venture would not last long at all.  In 1879 developer Albert Block acquired the corner and hired architect Frederick W. Klempt to replace it with a tenement and store.

Klempt filed plans in March 1880 for a "five-story brick tenement" to cost $16,500--or about $408,000 today.  Largely forgotten, Klempt was busy at the time, mostly designing tenement buildings throughout the city.  The structure he designed for Block at No. 16 North Moore Street was typical of his work.  Twenty-five feet wide on North Moore, it stretched 75 feet south along Varick.   The four upper floors were faced in red brick, their sandstone lintels decorated with incised floral designs, typical of the neo-Grec style.  A rigidly geometric iron cornice carried on the style.

The ground floor held two storefronts under a continuous cornice.  The northern space seems to have been designed as a saloon, operated by Edward G. Schroeder, from the beginning.  A cast iron column fronted the angled doorway.  Both storefronts featured wood-framed, projecting shop windows.

A sandstone street sign was incorporated into the facade.  The incised decoration of one of the lintels can be seen at the right.

Interestingly, following Albert Block's death, his sons John P., Richard W., and Edward Block, did not inherit the property, but purchased it from the estate.  The three men paid $45,000 for the building on October 15, 1886; a considerable $1.2 million today.

In the meantime, middle-class tenants lived in the upper floors, coming and going through the entrance at No. 11 Varick.  Among them was former policeman John Hamblin.  He had retired from the force on September 29, 1868 and lived here on his $300 per year pension (about $8,400 today).  He would remain in the building for several years, most likely until his death.

Druggist Robert Ray and his wife, Margaret, had domestic problems in the winter of 1889.   For whatever reason, Margaret, who was 25 years old, was convinced her husband intended to murder her.   If so, he would have had easy access to the means to do so.   Murders and suicides in the 1880's and '90's routinely involved substances like carbolic acid or Paris green, easily purchased at drugstores.

At 3:00 on the morning of February 18, Margaret ran out of the building in her bare feet, "while laboring under the delusion that some persons were trying to poison her," reported The Evening World.  A policeman "found it necessary to take her in charge," not because she needed protection, but because she was hysterical.

In 1889 it was not easy for a woman to convince officials that it was her husband, not she, who was the culprit.  "At the Jefferson Market [courthouse] she told Justice Duffy that her husband wanted to get rid of her, and that she was not insane."   It does not appear that investigators went to the North Moore Street apartment.  Instead Margaret "was committed to examination as to her sanity."

In July 1890 36-year-old Charles N. Brunie took over the lease of the saloon from Edward Schroeder.  The German-born Brunie was already well-known as a saloon proprietor, having operated the upscale bar in the Northwich Hotel since 1879.  A Souvenir of New York's Liquor Interests described that saloon in 1893 saying it was "elegant in all [its] appointments, being fitted up with solid black walnut fixtures, heavy plate glass mirrors, artistically decorated walls and ceiling and all the latest improvements."

The booklet noted "Mr. Brunie's trade had so increased that he found it necessary to supply additional accommodations for his customers and he opened a branch store at the corner of Varick and North Moore Streets.  This is neatly and attractively fitted up and enjoys a large and high-class patronage."  (Considering the industrial neighborhood around the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad's freight yards, one wonders exactly how "high-class" Brunie's patronage here was.)

Brunie had a close call on June 20, 1893 when the train he was aboard, returning from the races at Sheepshead Bay, derailed.  Seven passengers were killed and among the 18 injured was Brunie.

When Richard and Edward Block decided to build another tenement next door, they instructed architect George F. Pelham to nearly duplicate No. 16.  The close match was slightly out of date architecturally, but created a visually appealing composition.

Although No. 18 North Moore Street (right) was designed by a different architect and constructed 14 years later than No. 16, the two purposely appear to be contemporary.

While most of the tenants lived quietly, eking a living through low-level jobs; some were victims of tragic accidents.  On Saturday, September 5, 1896 August Creger attempted to fill his rare spare time by renting an 18-foot fishing boat and heading into the Hudson River.  Later a severe storm struck.  Two days later The New York Times reported "He has not been seen since.  The boat, split from stem to stern, was found by harbor police in the North River yesterday."

Charles Jaeger worked in the nearby freight yards.  The 54-year old was at work on the night of September 2, 1898 when disaster struck.  The Times reported "He was standing on the tracks weighing freight when a car backed up and he was caught between it and a car standing on the track."  He was crushed to death.

With no playgrounds and no parks nearby, the children of No. 11 Varick Street played in the streets.  Eight-year-old Anna Morrisey joined a large group of children playing games on Thanksgiving Day, 1914.  While they frolicked, a vicious dog was menacing passengers attempting to board the Barclay Street Ferry, several blocks to the south.  The Times reported "A policeman chased it up West Street and realizing that the animal was a menace, telephone to the Beach Street Station."

Two policemen were sent out to find the mad dog.  They found it at Varick and Franklin Streets--too late to prevent chaos.  "The youngsters tried to get of out of the way, but the animal sprang into the group," said the article.  Screaming children scattered, but the dog repeatedly bit them.  When 8-year-old Teyo Croco received a bite on his hand, his brother Victor tried to rescue him.  He too was bitten.  Anna Morrissy was one of the six who were attended to by a doctor from the Hudson Street Hospital.

The dog was cornered by the policemen in front of No. 40 Hudson Street and shot.  The Board of Health was notified regarding the presumably rabid animal.

The saloon had been taken over from Charles Brunie in 1906 by Ernest W. Fick.  But the enactment of Prohibition put an end to that business.  In 1920 the space was converted to the office of the Blue Line Motor Freight line; and by 1933 it was home to the Johnn'y Express company.

The struggles of the tenants was exemplified by young Raymond Tassaro in 1922.  The 12-year-old's mother was a widow and there were several other children in the family.  To help support them, he ran a newsstand after street across the street, at Franklin and Varick Streets.

Saturday January 7 was a frigid day and Raymond started to build a fire at the edge of the sidewalk to keep warm.  He most likely never saw the H. J. Heinz delivery truck backing up to the curb.  The rear wheel crushed and fatally injured the boy.  The driver was arrested on a technical charge of homicide.

Almost immediately after the repeal of Prohibition the ground floor once again became a bar.  The Tribeca neighborhood was still gritty through the 1970's.  Among the upstairs tenants in 1971 was Don D. Dumas.  The 41-year old accountant had done temporary work for the Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs Administration.  On June 3 that year he was arrested on charges of forgery, grand larceny and the cashing of forged checks.

At the time the tenant list had undergone a peculiar transformation.  In January 1973 The New York Times noted "The building, which has a bar and grill on the ground floor, is occupied mainly by single men."  Those men were, according to police, mostly homosexuals.

Donald MacNiven was 40-years old and his next-door neighbor, John Beardsley, was 53.  Both had lived in their fifth floor apartments here for about a decade.  When fire fighters responded to a fire in MacNiven's two-room apartment on January 8, 1973, they found both men dead on the living room floor.

The fire was described as "suspicious" and both MacNiven and Beardsley had multiple stab wounds.  A neighbor, Stewart Hieghton, told investigators that he was awakened around 6:00 that morning "by sounds of scuffling."  But after listening for a few minutes, he went back to sleep.  An hour later he smelled smoke and notified the landlord, who called the Fire Department.

The police description of MacNiven's apartment is evidence that the Tribeca renaissance had not yet arrived here.  According to The New York Times it "was sparely furnished.  There was a mattress on the floor and no bed.  Books and magazines were strewn around the living room."

The attacks soon appeared to be just the beginning of a reign of terror.  Days later another gay man, Ronald Cabo, was found stabbed to death in his Thompson Street apartment.   And then on January 19, 1973 The Times reported "The discovery of the bodies of two young men floating in the Hudson River off Greenwich Village added yesterday to the fears of the homosexual community, already stunned by the three recent murders of homosexuals in the area."

The rediscovery of Tribeca eventually did arrive at the corner of Varick and North Moore Streets.  By the early 1990's Walker's, a trendy watering hole opened in the former saloon space; and upstairs today there is a total of just eight apartments.  While the ground floor has undergone significant change, the upper floors appear much as they did when Margaret Ray feared for her life in 1889.

photographs by the author