The 1885 Samuel Colcord House - 138 West 82nd Street

 

photo by the author

The son of builder Ralph Townsend, Ralph Samuel Townsend was born in New York in 1854.  By the time he was in his late 20's, he was listed in city directories as an architect.  In 1884, he was hired by real estate developer George Miller to design a row of homes along the south side of West 82nd Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues.  (The avenues would be renamed Columbus and Amsterdam, respectively, six years later.)  Completed in 1885, the identical, four-story-and-basement residences were faced in brownstone. 

Townsend designed them in the popular neo-Grec style, their upper windows fully framed in stone architraves with ample sill aprons and prominent molded cornices on carved brackets.  Townsend softened the style's angular personality with Renaissance Revival-style panels below the parlor windows, an exuberantly foliate-carved panel above the entrance, and a carved stylized pot of flowers on either side of the doorway.  The cast iron, balustraded stoop railings terminated in beefy newels.

Miller sold 138 West 82nd Street to former clergyman Samuel Colcord.  Around 1883, Colcord "gave up the ministry and made a fortune in west side real estate," as explained by The New York Times in 1898.  The newspaper said he "was called 'Lucky Sam' Colcord."

photo via sothebys.realty

His stepping down from the pulpit did not squelch Colcord's outspoken views.  He wrote theological books like the 1897 The Veracity of the Hexateuch, voiced his opinions of government in letters to editors of newspapers, and, at least once, in December 1898, rented Chickering Hall to argue the theories of Robert G. Ingersoll, known as "the Great Agnostic."

Colcord's residency here was relatively short.  By the time of his Chickering Hall lecture, he had moved on for a decade.  On November 16, 1888, he advertised in The New-York Times:

A bargain--First-class new dwelling, 138 West 82d-st.; four-story, high-stoop, 17 x 56 feet and extension; cabinet finish; artistic decorations; $28,000.  Apply on premises.  Samuel Colcord, owner.

(Colcord's listed price would translate to about $953,000 in 2025.)

The house changed hands several times before Dr. Ralph Tousey moved in around 1903, after his marriage to Elena V. Martinze, the daughter of a Cuban Government official.  Born on October 21, 1873, Tousey was a gynecologist.  He graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1898.  

photograph by the author

Unfortunately, his marriage would not last. In 1904, Elena traveled to South Dakota where she obtained a divorce "on the ground of desertion," according to The New York Sun.  Shortly afterward, she married Harry W. Hazelton.

Five years later, in July 1909, Tousey sued Elena for divorce in Supreme Court, "alleging that the Dakota decree was not binding in this State," explained The Sun.  The court ruled against him, deciding that the 1904 divorce was valid.  Tousey's sudden interest in confirming that his divorce was legal was soon made clear.

On September 8, 1909, The Sun titled an article, "Ralph Tousey Weds Again," and reported that the previous evening he had married Clara S. Briner.  The article mentioned that Tousey was "a grandson of the late Sinclair Tousey, founder of the American News Company."

Like many families at the time, the Touseys rented rooms.  Their ad in The New York Times on October 7, 1910 read, "82d, 138 West--Exceptionally well furnished 2 rooms and bath suite in exclusive private family; breakfast if desired."  The ad was answered by Theodore Martin, self-described as "the distinguished Scottish tenor."  Martin sang at the St. Andrew's Banquet the next month.  The New York Sun deemed his singing as "an exquisite bit of work," adding that he "received a Caruso ovation at the end of this glorious song."

The Touseys' house had been the scene of Keystone Kops-like chaos a month earlier.  Two doors away, at 134 West 82nd Street, was the home of W. Dana Bigelow and his wife, Lyda.  In July 1910, Lyda's sister, Mrs. George Bloodworth arrived with her four-year-old son, W. Dana Bloodsworth.  She was fleeing from her husband in Maryland.  Before her sister died in September that year, Lyda promised that she would rear the boy and "never surrender" him to his father.

On October 17, 1910, a cab pulled up to the Bigelows' house and George Bloodworth and three men got out.  Bloodworth headed up the stoop while the others waited on the sidewalk.  The maid told Bloodworth that Lyda had taken the boy for a walk, and asked him to wait in the parlor.  While he sat there, Lyda quietly instructed the maid to sneak the boy out of the basement door and to the Tousey house.

Bloodworth's confederates, of course, saw the ruse and alerted him.  "Mrs. Bigelow then ran through a rear door and by using a ladder clambered over two fences separating her home from the house where the boy had been taken," reported the New York Herald.  Bloodworth and his three friends burst into the Tousey house just in time to see Lyda "carry the youngster through the rear door," according to the article, which said, "The woman ascended the ladder and was climbing the fence when her pursuers rushed through the door."

Realizing she did not have time to get back to her own house, Lyda took the boy into the basement of No. 136, then, "raced upstairs and over the roofs to her own home."  With her pursuers close behind, "Mrs. Bigelow locked the roof door of her home and she then began piling furniture against the outer doors of her residence.  This done and the boy secreted, she telephoned to her husband."  When police arrived, summoned by the worried Touseys, Bloodworth and his accomplices vanished.

By 1912 the Touseys had left West 82nd Street.  (Their marriage, incidentally, would end in annulment in 1924 when, after alleging that Clara was secretly insane at the time of their marriage, Ralph confined her in the Straighthill Sanitarium,  as insane.)  The house became home to the John B. Dauchy family.

In 1941 the muscular cast iron stoop railings and newels were intact.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Born in 1859, he married Phebe Denison Chesebrough on September 27, 1893.  Their son, Bradley Lasher, was born two years later.  John B. Dauchy was a dealer in paints, shellack, linseed oil and turpentine.  Among his largest clients was the City's Department of Parks.

By 1925, Bradley was working as a clerk with the American Woolen Company.  He and his parents remained at 138 West 82nd Street for one more year, after which it was home to the Max Bauman family.  

The residence was operated as a rooming house by mid-century.  Musician George A. Stubbs lived here in the early 1960s, and in the 1970s, photographer Guy Sussman occupied 138 West 82nd Street, holding photographic lessons in the house.

A renovation completed in 1981 resulted in one apartment per floor.  It was most likely at this time that the 1884 stoop ironwork was replaced with anemic, modern railings.  Astoundingly, Ralph S. Townsend’s interior detailing—carpenter’s lace, pocket doors, shutters and such—were carefully removed and stored in the basement.  

Seen here in 2009, the stoop railings and newels had been removed.

That foresight would be highly appreciated when a years-long renovation-restoration began in 2004.  The new owners resurrected the stored elements, had them professionally restored and re-installed.  

The new owners refabricated the lost railings and installed period appropriate newels.  photograph by the author

Included in the all-encompassing restoration was the refabrication of the stoop railings, based on surviving examples on the row, and a period appropriate pair of newels.  The project returned 138 West 82^nd Street to a single family residence.

photographs by the author

Ralph S. Townsend's 1888 172 West 130th Street

 

In March 1887, architect Ralph Samuel Townsend filed plans for a "five-story Philadelphia brick tenement" at the southeast corner of Seventh Avenue and 130th Street.  for Franklin A. Thurston.  He projected that construction would cost developer Franklin A. Thurston $18,000, or about $595,000 in 2024.  (The term "tenement" referred to any multi-family dwelling, and did not necessarily mean the crowded, unsanitary buildings associated with it today.)

Interestingly, on the same day that The Sanitary Engineer and Construction Record reported the filing, the Record & Guide announced that Thurston had sold the vacant property with "new tenement projected" to R. Clarence Dorsett for the equivalent of $1.16 million today.

The five-story building, faced in red brick and trimmed in stone, was completed in 1888.  Townsend splashed his overall neo-Grec design with touches of Renaissance Revival (in the complex terra cotta panels of swirling vines and flowers, for instance) and Queen Anne.  The latter style appeared in the delightful cast iron railing of the fourth floor balcony, which took the form of a garden of sunflowers, and in the basketweave terra cotta panels directly below it.  A store faced Seventh Avenue (renamed Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in 1974), while the residential entrance was located around the corner at 172 West 130th Street.

The store became home to the J. Phelan & Co. grocery.  Phelan remained through 1892, when William and Hannah Grad took over the business and moved into an apartment upstairs.  Residents could choose apartments of five or seven rooms with a bath.  An advertisement boasted "steam heated."  In 1890, a seven-room apartment on the second floor leased for $42, and a five-room suite for $26.  (The monthly rent for the less expensive apartment would equal about $898 today.)

The financially comfortable residents employed at least one servant.  On January 11, 1898, for instance, the Otto family advertised, "Housework--Wanted, young girl for general housework in small flat; family of two; sleep home.  Mrs. Otto, 172 West 130th st."  ("Sleep home" meant that the maid would not live in the apartment.)  And on December 7, 1899, the Taylor family advertised, "Nurse--Little girl, about 13, to assist with child; comfortable home."

Among the residents in 1908 were Alonzo Powell, his wife Mary, and their unmarried daughter May.  The Powell's married son, Alonzo Jr., was a lieutenant with the Police Department and lived elsewhere.  On the evening of September 24 that year, Mary and May visited friends.  They were walking home along St. Nicholas Avenue near 143rd Street when May was attacked.

With the racism inherent in newspaper accounts of the period, the New-York Tribune reported that May "wore a diamond studded watch on her breast, and it is supposed that this display invited the negro's cupidity."  The article said, "The negro struck her a stunning blow on the back of the head, and after grabbing her watch and chatelaine purse, disappeared in the darkness."

Mary was already screaming when May pulled herself together and joined in.  Two blocks away, Patrolman Leis heard the cries and "after a long run captured the man."  The robber had thrown the watch and purse into a vacant lot and were recovered.  The newspaper said, "Miss Powell and her mother at once identified the negro, who broke down and confessed."

Alonzo Powell died at the age of 75 on March 15, 1911.  His funeral was held in the apartment here two days later.

Among the Powells' neighbors were the Hogan family.  Mary Hogan was 18 years old in 1910.  She attended the season's opening of the Clason Point Yacht Club on May 18 that year.  The New York Evening Post reported it was "attended by more than a thousand persons.  Shortly after midnight dancing started."  At one point, William Hyde offered to take Mary and two friends, Harriett Wilson and Gertrude Higgins, for a ride on the river in his launch.  He took along his brother John and Edward Petty.

The article said, "It was a clear night and everything went along nicely, but the occupants failed to notice that the carburetor was leaking."  The gasoline flowed to the rear of the launch where it was ignited by a small oil lamp.  Mary Hogan rushed to the rear of the boat and tried to pull in a small rowboat they had been pulling and in doing so fell overboard.  "William Hyde leaned over the side, held by Petty and his younger brother, seized the young woman by the hair, and pulled her aboard."  Mary's time back on board would be short.  The flames forced all six of the passengers into the small rowboat.

"In the meantime, there was considerable excitement on the shore, as the fire was visible to those in  the hall," said the New York Evening Post.  A motorboat rescued the party.  When it arrived Mary Hogan was unconscious.  The launch was burned to the water line and Mary Hogan's night of dancing and romance had turned to one of terror.

On March 8, 1919, The New York Age reported that Mrs. Maude Dixon had married Captain Alonzo Myers "of Philadelphia" a week earlier.  Myers had served in Cuba during the Spanish-American War and in the Philippines.  During World War I he served in France with the 24th Infantry of the U.S. Colored Troops.

Captain Alonzo "David" Myers (original source unknown)

Maude was the widow of William H. "Will" Dixon, who had died in 1917.  A well-known milliner, she was known professionally as Madame Seay.  A 1909 article in The Broad Ax said she was "very popular and well known among the best class of Colored people."

Maude and Alonzo Myers began dealing in Harlem real estate, buying and selling numerous buildings.  Among their first purchases was 172 West 130th Street, which also became the couple's home.  

Maude's fame as a hostess and milliner was wide-spread.  On November 14, 1925, The Pittsburgh Courier wrote, "The many friends of Mrs. Maude Meyers [sic], of 172 West 130th street, regret her present illness and wish her a speedy recovery.  Mrs. Meyers [sic], who is the mother of the talented Miss Frankie Dixon, was at one time the owner of one of our most exclusive and well-known hat shops and is still a creator of exquisite chapeaux."

Maude Seay Dixon Myers wearing one of her creations (original source unknown)

By then, Alonzo's career--which had ranged from policeman to soldier to real estate man--had taken a new turn.  He was a chiropractor.  But his career was nearly cut short in the summer of 1927.  On July 13, The New York Amsterdam News titled an article, "Capt. Meyers [sic] Found By Accident In Room, Unconscious."

The article explained that six days earlier at around 2:00, electrical inspector J. J. Hines of the New York Edison Company, was about to "knock off and call it a day," when, by "a sudden impulse," he decided to inspect one more building--172 West 130th Street.  "Arriving at Meyers [sic] door on the top floor, he said, the odor of escaping gas was very strong.  A woman in a neighboring apartment had told him that she had smelled gas since early in the day."

Police battered down the apartment door and Myers was found unconscious on the kitchen floor.  The New York Amsterdam News reported, "the police found five gas jets turned on with windows and door tightly closed."  Myers spent six days in the Harlem Hospital after what police called "attempted suicide."

The following year, on May 22, 1928, the New York Sun reported that Maude Myers had sold the building to the newly formed 2197 Seventh Avenue Corporation.  Maude Myers was its treasurer.

In the meantime, the former grocery store had become a social hall, the Utopia Club Rooms.  On January 28, 1928, The New York Age reported, "the newly elected corps of officers of the New York City Federation of Colored Women's Clubs were installed into office on Friday evening...at the Utopia Club Rooms, 172 West 130th street."

A year later, on April 13, 1929, the newspaper reported on the wedding of Jessie Redmond Fauset, "talented author and linguist," to Herbert E. Harris.  The article said, "Seldom are we treated to so beautiful a social event."  The reception was held in the Utopia Club Rooms afterward.

The Utopia Club Rooms was relatively short lived.  By 1931 the space was once again a grocery store, run by Christopher Catacosinoz.  It was the scene of a frightening attempted robbery by two armed men on the night of May 14, 1931.

The New York Times reported, "Four women were in the grocery store when the pair entered, each with a pistol."  Although the sidewalk was crowded with pedestrians, the crooks ordered the women into a rear room.  Passersby noticed Christopher Catacosinoz standing behind the counter with his hands up and ran to find Patrolmen Peter J. Taley and Fred Johnson.  They raced to the store with their guns drawn.

The officers rushed in and ordered the men to drop their weapons.  The New York Sun reported, "Instead of obeying, the Negroes wheeled and opened fire."  A terrifying gunfight followed.  The Times said, "Taley and Johnson returned the shots.  All four continued firing until their pistols were empty.  Then Taley and Johnson rushed the robbers."  Although both were shot, they "put up a stiff fight" that lasted for ten minutes.

In the meantime, a crowd estimated by The New York Times at 2,000 had gathered outside the store, blocking traffic.  The two would-be robbers, 18-year-old Frank Williams and 20-year-old Charles Moore were arrested.

In January 1933, Maude Myers renewed Catacosinoz's lease for ten years.  The rent for the first five years was $2,400 per year, and dropped to $2,100 per year for the balance of the lease.  (The latter amount would translate to about $50,000 today.)

The cast iron, sunflower-themed balcony on the fourth floor, seen here in 1941, was lost for a modern fire escape.  Image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

James and Sadie Cox, who lived here during the Great Depression, were socially active.  In 1935, James E. Cox was president of the Royal Roosters club; and the following year, on October 3, The New York Age reported that the Kings & Queens of Virginia "held their business meeting Monday night at the home of Mrs. Sadie E. Cox, business manager of the group."  That night the club laid plans for its first fall dance and carnival which was to be held at the New York Checker Club at 2493 Seventh Avenue on October 9.

Although the building was renovated in 1950, the configuration of two apartments per floor was preserved.  The store became home to the Tops All Super Market.  In 1999 a second commercial space was installed at the far end of the building.  Other than the altered storefront and sadly lost balcony, after more than 135 years, Ralph S. Townsend's handsome building is externally little changed.

many thanks to reader Lawrence Levens for requesting this post

photographs by the author

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

A Public Enemy #1's Last Stand - 304 West 102nd Street

 

photo by Anthony Bellov

The block of West 102nd Street between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue was declared a "private block" in the last decade of the 19th century.  The restriction meant that no commercial building could invade the upscale enclave.  In 1895, developer John F. Kohler hired architect Ralph S. Townsend to design an upscale, brick-and-stone-faced apartment building at 304 West 102 Street amid the rising mansions on the block.

Townsend placed the cost of construction at $30,000--just over $1 million in 2024.  On March 2, 1895, the Record & Guide listed the amenities included in his plans.  Among them were:

...electric wiring, steam-heating plant and apparatus, combination gas and electric fixtures, ranges, dumb-waiter, electric bells, speaking-tubes, cabinet mantles, annunciators, inside blinds, concrete, marble and pine flooring, hardwood interior trim.

Electric bells, speaking tubes and annunciators were all means of communication--both within the apartments (between residents and their servants)--and with the building staff.

Townsend's dignified Renaissance Revival design bespoke affluence.  The arched entrance sat within a portico supported by polished granite Scamozzi columns.  The second floor windows were flanked by carved, paneled pilasters and capped by arched Renaissance style pediments.  Molded intermediate cornices relieved the verticality of the five-story structure.

photo by Anthony Bellov

Construction was completed early in 1896.  An advertisement on March 8 touted the views from above the surrounding residences.

Strictly High-Class

New Single apartments; richly decorated; 25x90; overlooking Riverside Drive; surrounded by private dwellings; eight rooms and bath; containing every comfort and convenience, including polite attendance; open evenings.

The "polite attendance" referred to staff like the uniformed hallboys on hand to run errands and help in general.  The eight-room apartments leased for $500 a year--an affordable $1,500 per month by today's standards. 

One family was looking for a chamber maid in 1898, their advertisement in the New York Herald reading, "Wanted--girl for general housework; must live in neighborhood and sleep home."  (How they expected to find someone who could afford to live in the mansion-filled neighborhood willing to do domestic work is puzzling.)

The tenants of 304 West 102nd Street were, of course, professional.  Among the earliest were newlyweds Robert Leslie and Lillian Moffett, who were married on February 26, 1896.  Born in Mineral Point, Wisconsin in 1866, Moffett had graduated from Columbia in 1891, and then received his law degree from Columbia Law School. 

Living on the fifth floor in 1903 was the family of Louis H. Muller and his wife, the former Anna Kimmerli.  Born in 1856, Muller was a clerk in the Hall of Records downtown.  The couple had four children, Edith, Harry Louis, Albert Edward and Isabella.   

That year the youngest, Isabella (who was 12 years old), won a prize in the New York Herald's Higglety Pigglety Puzzle Contest for children, while her brother, Albert, was looking for a job.  His ad in the New York Herald on October 14 read, "Young man (22) desires position as salesman or outside man; references unquestionable.  A. E. Muller, 304 West 102d St."

Tragedy visited the Muller apartment four years later.  On Christmas Eve 1907, the family visited a relative in the Bronx and stayed over for the holiday.  For some reason, Harry and Albert remained home.  On Christmas night, Albert arose from bed up to get more ventilation into the room.  The New York Press reported, 

He tried to lower the upper section of a window, but failed.  Kneeling on a couch he lifted the lower part; then, reaching out, he clutched the upper part and tried to draw it down.  But his hand slipped and, as he was leaning too far out of the window, he plunged to the street.  The brother, hearing Albert scream, jumped out of bed and sprang to the window.  He saw his brother on the side walk.

Neighbors also heard Albert's scream and a crowd had gathered around his body by the time Harry got outside.  The New York Press reported, "The parents of the victim did not learn of the accident until they came home, and both collapsed when they heard the news."  Albert's funeral was held in the Muller apartment.

It was common for funerals to be held in the families' spacious apartments.  On March 30, 1909, for instance, the funeral of 20-year-old Ernest J. Lohsen was held in his family's apartment.  Following his family's period of morning, his sister reentered society.  On October 2, 1910, the New York Herald reported, "Eta Pi Club will hold its first meeting of the season at the home of Miss Stella Lohsen, No. 304 West 102d street, on Saturday evening."

In 1933 the floor-engulfing apartments were divided.  There were now three apartments per floor.  Three years later a young man and his girlfriend moved into a ground floor apartment, initiating the most sensational chapter in the building's history.

In July 1936, 25-year-old Harry Walter Brunette and 29-year-old Merle Vandenbush escaped from an Ohio state prison and embarked on an armed bank robbing spree from Ohio to New York.  On November 11, 1936, they kidnapped New Jersey state trooper William A. Tumbull.   The FBI listed both as "public enemies."

Looking like college boys, Harry Brunette (left) and Merle Vandenbush (right) were the the targets of a nationwide FBI search.  The Rhinelander Daily News, November 11, 1936

Early in December New York detectives staked out 304 West 102nd Street, then notified the FBI that Brunette was holed up there.  Like a scene from a gangster movie, on December 15, 1936, The New York Times reported that Harry Brunette "stood off twenty-five G-men under the personal command of J. Edgar Hoover, their chief, and 100 patrolmen and detectives surrounding the flat at 304 West 102d Street early this morning."   The army of FBI and police officers tossed tear gas cannisters into the apartment, which inadvertently started a fire.  "Brunette exchanged shots from a hall closet with the Federal men, armed with submachine guns, and the police, while the flames roared from furniture and draperies in the room in which he had been trapped."

The entire block essentially became a battle zone, while neighbors huddled in their homes cringing in fear.  "Bullets tore at the wall surrounding the closet from the stairway above and from the stoops of apartment houses across the street, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents had outposts," said the article.  "Smoke poured from the room."

Buffalo Evening News, December 16, 1936

At one point, Arlene LeBeau, Brunette's 25-year-old girlfriend, "staggered into the hallway, her face grimacing in pain," said the article.  An FBI agent "darted into the hall, caught up the girl, and carried her to an upstairs apartment."  Finally, at 2:05 a.m., Brunette ran out of ammunition after having fired more than fifty rounds.  He stepped into the hallway with his hands raised, sneering, "What a brave bunch of guys."

Four days later, on December 19, 1936, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported, 

Harry Brunette, Wisconsin bad man, was taken to the federal prison in Lewisburg, Pa., today to begin a life sentence for kidnaping.  Later, it was said, he will be transferred to bleak Alcatraz Island in San Francisco bay.  There he will join others (among them Al Capone), who, like himself, have had fleeting notoriety as public enemy No. 1 in their day.

The article noted, "He received the life sentence in bored silence just 62 hours and 40 minutes after his arrest by Federal agents in a spectacular raid on his apartment at 304 West 102d street."

photo by Anthony Bellov

With the drama over, 304 West 102nd Street returned to normal.  There are three apartments per floor today, just as when Public Enemy No. 1 fought it out with machine gun wielding FBI agents nearly 90 years ago. 

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

The 1894 Moses Goldsmith House - 334 West 89th Street

 

In 1893 architect Ralph S. Townsend designed a row of five identical homes on West 89th Street between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue for real estate developers Wilcox & Hoyt.  The rowhouses at 326 through 334 West 89th Street would have to compete with the mansions that were rising along those elegant thoroughfares.  Completed in 1894, they did just that.

Each 25-feet wide and rising four stories above tall English basements, they were designed in the Renaissance Revival style.  Handsome limestone newels carved with wreathes and torches anchored the stoops, which were flanked by pierced stone wingwalls.  The elegant entrances stood in stark contrast to the surprisingly spartan limestone bays at the parlor level.   Delicate carving framed the doorway, above which foliate brackets upheld arched pediments filled with carved shells.  Limestone gave way to red Roman brick on the upper floors.  The three-sided bays continued through the second floor where they were crowned with limestone railings that matched the stoop walls.  Renaissance inspired terra cotta frames surrounded the windows of the upper floors, and identical metal cornices unified the row.

On May 13, 1894 Wilcox & Hoyt placed an advertisement in the New York Herald that read:

For Sale--We would call the attention of investors and those in search of residences in one of the choicest parts of the city to the five Houses, 326-334 West 89th st., just completed...For solidity of construction, elegance of finish and general plan of interior these houses, for their size, cannot be matched on the west side.

The western-most house, 334 West 89th Street was sold to Moses Goldsmith and his wife, the former Adelaide Biddeford Lunt.  Goldsmith had been an importer and manufacturer of women's cloaks, but was now highly involved in real estate development.  The couple had four young children.  When they moved into the West 89th Street house their eldest, Myra Bell, was nine years old, Hilda Moses was seven, Samuel Lunt was five, and Nathaniel Manson was three years old.

Adelaide's parents were both deceased, and so living with the family was her unmarried sister Olive Hooper Lunt.  On December 11, 1899 the Goldsmiths announced Olive's engagement to Nathaniel Goodwin Manson of Boston.  The  summer home of the well-to-do groom was Camp Leatherstocking on Richardson Lake.  Field and Stream magazine reported on December 23 "The couple proposes to spend most of the summer of 1900 at Camp Leatherstocking."

The Goldsmith's summer home, Myhisana, was in Maine.  The name of the estate was an amalgamation of the first two initials of each of the children's names. It was there that Moses harbored his steam yacht.

On December 15, 1904, Nathaniel's teacher took him to the Y.M.C.A. at 302 West 56th Street and introduced him to superintendent J. J. Harvey who enrolled him as a member.  Two days later Nathaniel, who was 13-years-old, went to the gymnasium.  After working on the horizonal bar for about five minutes, he let out a cry and fell to the floor.  It was a fall of only about a foot and a half.  The New York Times reported, "He sat up immediately and no one in the gymnasium thought his fall had injured him."  

But he did not stand up.  Other boys brought a chair.  The article said flatly, "he suddenly became unconscious and died."  Doctors were puzzled, as no injuries could be found.  The New York Times reported that they proposed that "he may have suffered from heart disease brought on by overexertion, but his parents say his heart never troubled him."

Adelaide was overcome by the death of her youngest child.  Margaret Anne Goldsmith, a descendant, wrote in The Bernstein Herstein Schiffman and Goldsmith Collection, "I also remember my grandfather saying that Mo's wife had a breakdown when their youngest son, Nat died as a child.  The family had what my grandfather called a 'trained nurse' with her after the tragedy."  The family now closed Myhisana and spent their summers in the city.

On November 15, 1904 Myra Belle was married to George Rose MacKenzie Ewing in Sherry's restaurant.  The New York Herald reported that the reception would take place there.  Myra's younger sister, Hilda, was her maid of honor.  Five years later Hilda's engagement to Henry R. Treadwell of Norwalk, Connecticut was announced.

Now only Samuel lived with his parents in the West 89th Street house.  Seven years after Nathaniel's death, Adelaide may finally have started to heal.  On June 15, 1911, the Maine Woods reported, "We are glad to learn that Mr. and Mrs. M. Goldsmith of New York, after an absence of several summers, will this year open Myhisana Lodge."

Samuel purchased a DeDion automobile in 1914.  By now he was a stockbroker.  His engagement to Margaret Elizabeth T. Thurston was announced on May 15, 1915.

The Goldsmiths sold 334 West 89th Street in September 1927 for $50,000--about $780,000 in 2023.  In reporting the sale, The New York Times mentioned, "Mr. Goldsmith purchased this house from the builder in 1895.  He is a retired real estate operator and was a pioneer developer of Washington Heights and Kingsbridge."

It appears the new owner rented rooms within the house.  Living here in 1929 was 22-year-old John Taylor, a garment worker.  He was a member of the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union.

The Daily Worker ran a banner headline on April 16 that read, "STRIKE TWO MORE TEXTILE MILLS AS TROOPS MOBILIZE / 1,000 Workers Join Mass Picketing in Food Strike."  The Hotel, Restaurant and Cafeteria Workers Union had gone on strike in the garment district.  In solidarity, garment-related unions joined the protest.  John Taylor was among the 45 protestors arrested as the "mass picket demonstration" on April 15.  The Daily Worker reported that he paid the $20 fine "in preference to serving five days in jail, in order to join the picket line today."

334 West 89th Street is at the far right.

A renovation completed in 1983 resulted in seven apartments, including a duplex in the fourth floor and new penthouse level, unseen from the street.  

photographs by the author

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

The Julia Woodruff Southack House - 330 West 89th Street

 

In 1894 developers Wilcox and Hoyt completed five 20-f00t-wide rowhouses on the south side of West 89th Street, between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive.  Designed by Ralph S. Townsend in the Renaissance Revival style, the identical homes rose four stories above high English basements.  The pierced stone stoop railings, anchored by handsomely carved newels, were copied in the stone railings of the third floor balconies.  The basement and parlor levels were faced in limestone, while the upper floor were clad in salmon colored brick.  Townsend lavished the homes with Renaissance elements, like the elaborate carved entrance frames, capped with arched pediments and deeply fashioned shells.  The detailed enframements of the upper floor openings were executed in terra cotta.

On March 5, 1896, The New York Times reported that Reuben M. Wilcox had sold 330 West 89th Street "to a Mrs. Southack."  Julia W. Southack had paid $40,000 for her new home--or around $1.3 million in 2022.

Born Julia R. Woodruff in 1848, she was the daughter of Marcus P. Woodruff, a New York City cotton merchant who died in 1872 "leaving a great fortune," according to the Democrat and Chronicle.  Julia's husband, Benjamin L. Southack, had died in 1886.  Prior to purchasing 330 West 89th Street, according to The Democrat and Chronicle, "Mrs. Woodruff and her children have spent much of their time in Europe."  Her country home was in Larchmont, New York.

Moving into 330 West 89th Street with Julia were her sons Louis Victor and Harold Cyprian, and daughter, Julia Woodruff.  Louis had graduated from Columbia College three years earlier and was now working in the real estate office of his uncle, Frederick A. Southack.

Julia and her daughter spent their summers in fashionable resorts or in Europe, often in France where Julia's sister Mary E. Loge and her husband lived.  On August 7, 1898, for instance, the New York Herald reported, "Mrs. Julia W. Southack [and] Miss Southack" had arrived at the Mount Pleasant House at Littleton, New Hampshire.

Julia and her daughter spent much of the winter season of 1900-01 in Paris, visiting the Loges.  In February she was "taken ill," as worded by The New York Times.  It was a diplomatic phrasing by the newspaper.  On the voyage home, the younger Julia wired ahead so her brothers would be prepared.  The New York Times reported, "When she returned to this country she was met at the pier by her family physician, who had her taken immediately to Bloomingdale Asylum."  Julia Southack, who was 53 at the time, had undergone a severe mental breakdown.

On November 9, 1901, Julia was "adjudged incompetent" by the courts, and her brother, Randolph B. Woodruff was put in charge of her finances, estimated at about $6 million by today's conversion.  The New York Times explained, "She imagines that she is a young girl fifteen years of age, and is a very violent patient."

Julia died in the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum on October 30, 1903.  A year later, in November, her children advertised the West 89th Street house for rent:

Furnished dwelling to let, 330 West 89th St, close to Riverside Drive; size 20x53; 4 [stories] and 2 story extension; 12 rooms, 3 baths.

Louis was married by now and was living at 308 West 97th Street.  His mother's disturbing condition and confinement may have contributed to his own mental problems.  The 32-year-old died on June 14, 1905.  In reporting his death, the New-York Tribune noted that while he died of a heart attack, "He had been suffering for a long time from a nervous disorder."

Three weeks later 330 West 89th Street was placed on the market, and was purchased by Leon Hess and his wife, Henrietta.  It was once again the scene of polite gatherings.  On February 24, 1907, The New York Times noted, "Mrs. Leon Hess, 330 West Eighty-ninth Street, will receive Tuesday afternoons, until April."

It appears that following Leon's death around 1909, Henrietta moved permanently to their Summit, New Jersey home, where she died on May 2, 1917.  In the meantime, the West 89th Street house had became home to the John Francis Steeves family.

The entrances nestle snugly between the three-sided bays along the row.

In 1908 Steeves had been appointed president of Church E. Gates & Co., a lumber firm with which he had been associated since 1877.  Born in New Brunswick, Canada in 1847, he and his wife, the former Imogene Upson, had four sons--Frederick M., Harrison Ross, John Jr., and Guy Carlton--and a daughter, Miriam.

Both John and Imogene had impressive pedigrees.  The first Steeves arrived in America in the early 18th century, leaving Pennsylvania in 1763 to French-held land in New Brunswick.  Imogene was descended from Captain Samuel Upson, who served in the Revolutionary War.

On April 17, 1910 John's touring car was approaching 129th Street and Park Avenue when it struck six-year-old Gustave Hochseld.  He and his identical twin, Freddie, were headed back to school after lunch.  Steeves and his chauffeur, Fred Katoli, jumped out of the car, bundled the boy inside, and headed to a hospital.  Freddie ran back home and informed his mother.

As a search began, Freddie was sent back to school.  "Soon after he entered his classroom he was surprised so see his twin brother come in with a bandage around his head," reported the New York Herald.   As it turned out, Steeves and Katoli could withstand the boy's crying and protesting only as far as 129th Street and Lenox Avenue, where they allowed him to get out.

After school, the brothers were playing in the street near their home.  In the meantime, still unaware that the two boys were identical twins, Fred Katoli was resolved to have the Gustave's injuries tended to.  He spotted Freddie Hocheld, "jumped to the sidewalk," and "started to drag the boy toward the automobile, but suddenly paused and stared at Gustave."  The New York Herald reported, "The mother hastened to the chauffeur and forced him to liberate the twin, whom he wanted to take to a hospital, whereupon the chauffeur again entered his car and rode off."  The well-intentioned Fred Katoli was later arrested on a charge of felonious assault.

In 1903, about six years before the family had moved into the West 89th Street house, Harrison Ross Steeves graduated from Columbia University.  In 1905 he was made a member of the faculty there, and would remain throughout his career, eventually becoming chairman of the English Department.  An authority on the English novel, he was the author of several books and treatises.  His 1913 Learned Societies and English Literary Scholarship in Great Britain and The United States was dedicated "to John Francis Steeves and Imogene Upson Steeves."

Living with the family by 1917 was John's sister, Louise Peters.  Her sons, William J. and Frederick Steeves Peters, joined the military upon America's entrance into World War I.  Although William's job made him exempt from the draft, he waived the exemption, earning him a place on "the Honor Roll of the National Army" in August 1917.  Tragically, on December 9, 1918, Frederick's name appeared on the list of "Casualties reported by General Pershing."  He had died of disease on the battle front.

The house was sold in 1920, instigating a rapid turnover of owners.  By 1938, when it was purchased by Mrs. P. Aukus, it had been bought and resold no fewer than six times.  On March 7, 1938, The New York Sun reported that she had leased the house for five years, and her tenant had "purchased the furnishings of the house."

By 1995 Judith Henderson lived here, operating the Judith Henderson & Associates casting agency from the house for years.  In 2018 the house was converted to a two-family home, with a triplex in the basement through second floor and a duplex above.  

photographs by the author

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Ralph Townsend's 1910 190 Riverside Drive

 

The son of builder Ralph Townsend, Ralph Samuel Townsend was born in New York in 1854.  By the time he was in his late 20's, he was listed in city directories as an architect.  His success was such that as the 20th century dawned, he was a real estate developer as well, owner of the Townsend Realty Co.

In 1909 his development firm began construction on a premier apartment building at the northeast corner of Riverside Drive and 91st Street.  Although Townsend was now a partner in the architectural firm of Townsend, Steinle & Haskell, it appears he took the reins on designing the structure.  The 11-story brick and limestone building would cost the firm $400,000 to erect, around $12.3 million in 2022.

Completed in 1910, Townsend's design straddled Renaissance Revival and the waning Beaux Arts styles.  Seven floors of beige brick were sandwiched between a three-story rusticated limestone base and a stone-clad top story.  Elaborate Beaux Arts copper-railed balconies at the second floor were surpassed by their stone Renaissance counterparts a floor above, the windows here surmounted by classical pediments upon scrolled brackets.  Decorative lions' heads stared down from the pressed metal cornice.

Townsend successfully married Beaux Arts and Renaissance Revival in his design.

Despite its entrance opening onto West 91st Street, the building took the more impressive address of 190 Riverside Drive.  There were two sprawling apartments per floor, ranging from eight rooms and three baths to fourteen rooms and five baths.  Rents ranged from $2,800 to $6,000 per year--or about $14,000 per month today for the most expensive.  (Apartments facing the rear of the building were guaranteed light and air because of the broad courtyard between this and the building at the corner of 92nd Street.  Once a lane to the Bloomingdale Road it had separated two estates, and could not be built on.)

Among the building's monied tenants was its architect, Ralph S. Townsend.  Among its more colorful was the recently widowed Mary E. Luckenbach.  Her 71-year-old husband, millionaire shipowner Lewis Luckenbach, had died of a stroke during dinner at the Hotel Frontenac in Thousand Islands, New York, on August 20, 1906.

For some reason, Mary Luckenbach was sued by Dr. J. Dennis O'Hagan in the winter of 1916.  When the process server, Leopold Levy, arrived at the apartment in early February, Mary was in the bathroom.  Her maid admitted the man into the apartment, then went to announce him.  Instead of waiting in the reception room, as would have been expected (and proper), Levy followed the maid into Mary's bedroom.  The New York Press reported, "Near the bathroom door Levy sneezed, Mrs. Luckenbach says, and when she opened the door to see what was going on Levy poked the papers at her."  Mary formally protested the writ, said the article, "because she was served in the bathroom of her apartment in No. 190 Riverside Drive."

Society editors kept their readers updated on Mary Luckenbach's movements.  On June 22, 1922, for instance, the New York Herald announced, "Mrs. Lewis Luckenbach of 190 Riverside Drive has opened Hillsite, her place at Huntington, L. I."

In the meantime, 190 Riverside Drive continued to lure wealthy residents.  Mrs. Thomas Alexander Sperry was the widow of Thomas A. Sperry, founder and president of the Sperry & Hutchinson Company.  Following her marriage to Edward Ismon Goodrich on October 27, 1917, The Sun noted, "The pair will take a short motor tour, and will be at home after January 10 at 190 Riverside Drive."

In 1920 Dr. Alfred Kimble Hills was married to Jessie Norwell, and they moved into 190 Riverside Drive.  The groom, who was 69 years old, was the publisher of The Medical Times.  He and his first wife, Virginia (who died in 1908), had erected their summer home, Alvine, in Hudson, New Hampshire in 1890.  Following Virginia's death, he built a chapel there in her memory.  Now Alfred and Jessie divided the summer months between Alvine and their estate in Pennsylvania.

The Hills' summer estate, Alvine, in Hudson, New Hampshire.  from the collection of the Hudson Historical Society.

In the spring of 1930, Jessie Hills was faced with an uncomfortable decision.  Dr. Hills suffered a stroke late in 1929, and, according to his doctor, "since then his mental incapacity has been increasing."  Finally, in April 1930 Jessie applied to the courts to appoint a committee "to manage the property of Dr. Hills, a task which she contends he no longer is capable."  Hills's fortune was estimated at about $14.6 million in today's money at the time.

In the meantime, Ralph S. Townsend died in his apartment at the age of 69 on November 5, 1921.  Despite his remarkable achievements, he received only a single-line death notice in The New York Times.

A few months later, chairman and president of the American Molasses Company, Charles William Taussig, and his wife Ruth Adler moved into the building.  Their summer home was in Bay Shore, Long Island.  Ruth was busy in the spring of 1922 staffing the country house.  On May 2 she advertised for, "Girls, two, white, one chambermaid, the other waitress; Bay Shore, L. I., for summer."  On July 11, an ad read, "Cook, white; reference required; country.  Apply between 11-2 Tuesday, Taussig, 190 Riverside Drive."  When the family returned to the city, Ruth resumed her staffing.  In October she was looking for a "laundress, experienced, 3 days a week."  The ad noted "carfare paid."

The Taussigs hosted a dance in their apartment on November 26 which made headlines.  They couple, apparently, were especially fond of the Bradley Orchestra, but that group performed at the Drake Hotel in Chicago.  Money finds solutions, however.  The New York Herald reported that the "music for dancing was transmitted by radio-phone...It was probably the first time a dance was given with the orchestra over a thousand miles away."

The building had a brush with pop culture when its rooftop was used to shoot a scene from the 1968 film, The Odd Couple in June 1967.  In it, Walter Matthau, as Oscar Madison, tells Jack Lemmon's character Felix Unger, that he had to move out.

Perhaps the most colorful couple in the building to date were John McKendry and his wife, Maxime de la Falaise McKendry.  John McKendry was the curator of prints and photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, while his wife came with a resume worthy of a book or motion picture.

Maxime was the daughter of British portrait artist Sir Oswald Birley.  She grew up in the family's London house, designed by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, and their country estate, Charleston Manor in East Essex.  She had wed Comte Alain de la Falaise in 1946, but her repeated affairs ended the marriage.  She and John McKendry were married in 1967.

In the early 1970's, they took the unknown photographer Robert Mapplethorpe under their social wings.  The New York Times journalist Christopher Petkanas later wrote, "the lavishly well-connected McKendrys were doing everything they could to launch him...The couple invited Mapplethorpe to the high-boho dinner parties they gave in their apartment at 190 Riverside Drive, where he met the Erteguns, the Kempners, people who could help."

Things devolved after John McKenry developed what Petkanas deemed "a messy one-way love affair with his protégé."  McKenry, high on drugs, fell from a window trying to touch the moon.  Although he survived, "drink killed him in 1975," according to Petkanas.  Maxime's biographer, Patricia Morrisroe, wrote that she "detested" Mapplethorpe afterward.

Maxime de la Falaise McKendry (original source unknown)

Maxime de la Falaise McKendry's life was spellbinding.  Having had affairs with the likes of Louis Malle, John Paul Getty III, and painters Bernard Pfriem and Max Ernst, she wrote food columns for Vogue magazine, designed scarves, linens and shoes for YSL, and was close with the Andy Warhol "Factory kids."  She starred in Warhol's soap operas and in Paul Morrissey's Dracula.  The remarkable woman died in Provence, France in 2009.

In 1996 Property Markets Group purchased the building, and in 1999 announced a conversion to a condominium.  Some of the apartments had been broken up over the years, and on October 29, 1999 The New York Times reported Property Markets Group intended to restore them to their original sizes.  The renovation budget of $150,000 per apartment included "installing new kitchens and baths while retaining turn-of-the-century architectural details like paneled living and dining rooms, decorative plasterwork and 10-foot-high ceilings."

In its more than 110 years of existence, Ralph Townsend's imperious building--a grand dame along Riverside Park--has refused to decline from the days when wealthy residents danced to Jazz Age music transmitted from a Chicago ballroom. 

photographs by the author

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