The 1888 Ava Flats - 9 East 10th Street

 

photo by Beyond My Ken

In 1879 Lockwood De Forest established the interior decorating firm of Associated Artists with Louis Comfort Tiffany.  De Forest was intensely interested in the furniture, architecture and decorations of the East.  When he began construction of his home at 7 East 10th Street in 1887, he worked closely with architect Van Campen Taylor to lavish the exterior with lush Indian teakwood carving.

The following year De Forest sold the lot next door at 9 East 10th Street to William Hamilton Russell, a partner in the architectural firm of Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell.   Construction of a five-story apartment building on the site began that year.

There may have been a deal in the sale negotiation that required Russell to use carved elements from De Forest's factory in India which manufactured carved woodwork.  The door lintel and first floor cornice are essentially identical to the De Forest house.  To the right of the entrance an intricately carved teakwood plague announces the building's name, the Ava, along with two trios of elephants. 

The complex teak carving was used on this level to frame the windows, on the second floor as a thin compliment to the brownstone band course, again on the fourth floor above the lintels, and finally in the sumptuous brackets of the teak wood terminal cornice.  Handsome designs disguised the iron fire escapes as balconies at each level.

Even without the exotic carvings, Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell's treatment of the façade would have stood out.  The variegated ironspot beige brick was contrasted with red-toned stone bandcourses and lintels.  Coupled with the teak accents, what might have been a rather ordinary Renaissance Revival structure was anything but.

The building was barely completed when it was threatened.  On October 4, 1888 The Press reported, "The third fire in the new building, 11 East Tenth street, known as the Ava flats, was discovered and extinguished Monday night."  David B. Thomas had been hired as the night watchman of the still-vacant structure, but it appears he was intent on burning it down, instead.

The watchman of the building next door, Edward Willoughby, had caught Thomas setting a fire in a room in the middle of the first floor a week earlier.  Willoughby now kept his eye on the Ava and foiled a second attempt and then a third.  It appears that this time Willoughby had had enough of Thomas's arsonist tendencies.  He did not inform police of the last attempt until four hours later.  When they arrived Willoughby said that Thomas had fallen down the cellar steps in front of 9 East Tenth Street "while drunk."

The Press reported, "The police found that two of Thomas' ribs had been broken and that he had received other serious injuries."  He was arrested and held in the hospital where "he did not deny that he had fired the building."  The article continued, "He positively asserted, however, that two men threw him down the cellar."

The Ava filled with well-heeled residents.  Among the first were Robert Albert McKim and his wife, the former Caroline Remsen.  An engineer, McKim was the nephew of well-known architect Charles Follen McKim and the Assistant Engineer on the New Croton Aqueduct.  The couple was still here on June 8, 1895 when their daughter, Margaret Remsen, died shortly after birth.

Another initial resident was Mary Elizabeth Garrett, founder of the Byrn Mawr School, a private college-preparatory school for girls in Baltimore.  The daughter of John W. Garrett, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, she was an ardent suffragist, often withholding donations to institutions until they agreed to her feminist conditions.  The money she gave to Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, for instance, came with the condition that her intimate life companion, Martha Carey Thomas, be appointed its president.

Residents of the Ava maintained country homes.  On September 21, 1889, for instance, The Evening Telegram reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Johnson will return from Wilmurt Lake, in the Adirondacks, to their home No. 9 East Tenth street, October 1."  And on June 15, 1900 The New York Press announced, "Mrs. George Kent closed her home at No. 9 East Tenth street yesterday, and will go to her summer home, Windover, at Black Rock."

Living here that year were the socially-visible James Sheldon, his wife, the former Emily Josephine Adam, and their daughter Cecily.  Their country estate was in Oyster Bay, Long Island.  Cecily's debut took place in the winter season of 1903-04 and she immediately sailed (somewhat shockingly, alone), for Europe.  On April 16, 1904 The Globe and Commercial Advertiser, in reporting that the Sheldons were preparing to open the Oyster Bay house, said, "Their daughter, Miss Cicily [sic] Sheldon, who has been travelling abroad since January, is expected to return in June."

Just before Cecily's debut, James Sheldon sailed to for England.  The Sun noted that he "is a member of several clubs, both here and in London."  That summer season in Oyster Bay must have been a tense one.  The following year, on July 30, 1905, The Sun reported that Emily had filed for divorce saying the action "is believed to be based on his conduct in England."

The article added, "Mrs. Sheldon is a member of the old Adam family of Long Island...She is rich in her own right, and owns the family property on the north shore of Long Island."  Society was no doubt shocked at the turn of events, The New York Press saying that when Cecily came out, "there was no hint of domestic trouble."  The divorce was granted in 1906 at which time The New York Press recalled, "The Sheldons, who move in society here and in London, formerly lived in a pretty house in No. 9 East Tenth street, and were prominent in the Washington square set."

Living here in 1907 were wealthy broker Grenville Parker and his wife, the former Eleanor Montgomery.  Eleanor routinely walked her dogs in Washington Square.  On March 4 that year,  her focus turned from her dogs to a lame horse when she saw the wagon driver whipping it and urging it to move on.  The New York Press said the horse was "limping painfully along, drawing a wagon" while the driver, David Rose, urged "the animal to a faster gait, but the beast seemed utterly exhausted and finally came to a stop."

Angered, Eleanor followed the wagon until she found a policeman, and ordered Rose's arrest.  When the wagon came to a stop she "went to the horse's head and petted it," said the article, and "did not seem to mind the fact her handsome gown was trailing in the street." 

Rose explained that his employer had insisted that he take the injured horse out.  "I knew the horse was lame, and I told my boss, but he made me drive him anyway.  So what could I do?"

Eleanor's compassion now extended to the driver, as well.  She sent her maid back home with the dogs and accompanied the policeman and his prisoner to the Jefferson Market courthouse.  The New York Press noted the contrast within the courtroom between "the rich woman, stylishly dressed, wearing furs and diamonds, and the driver, whose coat was torn."  

She told the magistrate she no longer wanted to prosecute Rose, but his employer, who was responsible for the cruelty.  She pleaded with him to furnish bail for the driver.  (That was impossible, however, since she was the complainant.)  Eleanor convinced the judge to schedule the hearing for that afternoon, after the employer could be brought in, rather than the following day.  "I would rather come back in the afternoon than have this poor fellow locked up all night," she said.

Around this time the Ava was attracting artists.  In 1908 muralist Walter B. Cox and his artist wife Helen Morton Cox were here.  That year Helen exhibited works in the Sixth Annual Philadelphia Water Color Exhibition.  Their summer home was in Still River, Connecticut.   Walter was responsible for the panoramic background for the exhibit of terns and seagulls at the American Museum of Natural History, and the mural decoration in Calvary Church.

In 1922 Charles Lewis Wrenn established his studio in the Ava.  He had previously done illustrations for periodicals like The Red Book Magazine and People's Home Journal.  He had now turned to portrait painting.  On May 6, 1923 The Morning Telegraph's art critic, Lula Merrick, wrote, "To give up a lucrative income as an illustrator in order to advance an ambition to devote his time to creative art, to express himself in color which he had always practiced at odd moments, and to take his chances with the world's acceptance of his sacrifices, are what Charles L. Wrenn did three years ago."  An important commission for him that year was a portrait of actress Dorothy Gish.

Wrenn painted Woman with Red Lipstick in 1930.

Other artists in the Ava at the time were Helen Dryden, Carl G. Roters and Charles Haftel.  Trained in landscape painting, in 1927 Helen Dryden turned from fine art to commercial design after being inspired by the Paris Art Deco Exposition.  She designed tableware and lamps for the Revere Corporation and interiors for Studebaker automobiles, for instance.  She was described by The New York Times in 1956 as having been the highest-paid female artist in the country.

In 1931 novelist, diarist and playwright Dawn Powell moved into the Eva and would remain until 1942.  While here the prolific writer (she would publish 15 novels) wrote Angels on Toast.  Her biographer, Tim Page, says the Ava was "where she lived when her writing was strongest."

In 1963, according to author Blake Bailey in his Philip Roth, The Biography, "Roth moved into a pleasant second-floor apartment at 9 East Tenth Street."  His wife, Margaret, "fixed the place up with secondhand furniture she bought at auctions and flea markets on Roth's 'pathetic budget.'"

A renovation completed in 1964 resulted in two apartments per floor.  The artistic tenor of the tenant list faded and white collar residents like banker John Bancroft, vice president of the Bank of New York, and David W. Haynes, general director of the Travelers Aid Society of new York, became more typical.

Sadly, in 2000 the property manager of the Ava, Jennifer Markowitz, told The New York Times columnist Christopher Gray, that when apartments were vacated, "we generally gut renovate, with modern fixtures and new sheet-rock ceilings and walls and new oak floors."  And so the surviving paneled ceilings and teakwood fireplaces were in jeopardy.  "It appears that no decorative-arts historian has surveyed the interiors of this unusual building," wrote Gray.

But on the exterior, other than replacement windows, the Ava with its astounding social and artistic history, is beautifully intact.

photographs by the author

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The Soon-to-Go 1890 Demarest Building - 335-339 Fifth Avenue

 

photo by Beyond My Ken

By 1894 the once-exclusive mansion neighborhood of Fifth Avenue and 33^rd Street had been engulfed by commerce.  William Waldorf Astor’s brownstone mansion on that corner had already given way to the Waldorf Hotel and now his aunt Caroline was preparing to leave her residence next door.  In its place would rise the Astoria Hotel—the two feuding Astors would begrudgingly put income over family differences and join their two exclusive hotels with a hyphen.

Directly across the avenue, the showrooms of the high-end carriage manufacturer A. T. Demarest & Co. had replaced the three brownstones that had stood at Nos. 335 through 339 in 1891.  Designed by Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell, four stories of buff-colored iron-spot brick sat on a stone base.  Terra cotta medallions and panels accented the façade; but the grand three-story arched openings separated by shallow brick pilasters stole the show.  The architects flooded in the interior with light from the dramatic windows which managed not to overpower the dignified design.  Cast metal bays, two stories tall, nestled within the grand arches.

A heavy granite column upheld the corner at street level.  original source unknown

The Demarest Building could boast having the world’s first electric-operated elevator.  It was installed by the Otis Brothers firm as the structure neared completion in 1889.

As the turn of the century brought with it the motorcar, Aaron T. Demarest adapted.  In 1902, along with carriage building, his firm began making automobile bodies.  

Demarest died on July 13, 1908 after having eaten tainted clams.  His partner, Gabriel C. Chevalier, recognized that the age of the carriage was quickly passing away and before the year was up decided to move the company to Automobile Row—the stretch of Broadway in the 50's that was quickly becoming home to firms related to the automobile industry.

The Demarest building on Fifth Avenue was converted to offices and loft space for small manufacturers.  In 1913 Dr. Frederick Franz Friedmann set up an office on the second floor to demonstrate his cure for tuberculosis.  The Sun reported on March 1 that “He said with every evidence of sincerity that consumptives barely able to drag themselves to the office would come again inside of two weeks, walking erect and with signs that the cure has taken effect.”  The leasing agent, however, stepped in and refused to allow the doctor to treat any one of the estimated 1,000 patients who lined up on Fifth Avenue. 

Upstairs Teitelbaum & De Marinis operated for several years—at least from 1911 to 1914--producing what Millinery Trade Review called its “high-grade headwear.”  The company would be among the first of the apparel trade firms as the garment and millinery district inched northward from the Union Square area.

In 1917 the ground floor space was taken by the Harris Store; a high-end menswear retailer.  It opened its doors on January 20 to “the discriminating men of New York.”  The opening advertisement in The Evening World called the new space “handsomely appointed” and noted the prestigious location “opposite the Waldorf.”  A gentleman purchasing an overcoat that morning would expect to pay about $400 in today’s dollars.  The cost of a silk shirt would translate to about $145.

At the time the upper floors were filled with a variety of tenants; by now most of them related to the apparel and millinery fields.  In 1919 Flapper Coats, Inc. was here, along with Mrs. Sack’s Ready-to-Wear, E. V. Schoenfield, and P. Schira Co.; all of them apparel firms.  Allied Steel and Supply Company had its offices here at the same time.

La Grecque Underwear Co. manufactured lingerie here in the 1920s -- The Corset and Underwear Review, July 1921 (copyright expired)

By 1921 La Grecque Underwear Co. had moved in, as had Hirschberg & Company, another hat manufacturer.  But not all the tenants were apparel-related.  E. & J. Bass, Inc. established its showroom here at the same time.  The company made and sold housewares and in April 1921 The Pottery & Glass Salesman was especially taken with its “glass iced-tea or lemonade sets.”

Although put out at quite a popular price, the items are decorated in an unusually rich fashion.  The tall tumblers are adorned with a cut treatment about a third of the distance down from the top.  Over this portion is applied a rich color band, while the tumblers are topped with silver-deposit work with attractive scroll design.

What the publication found especially interesting were the accessories.  “Each tumbler is equipped with a ‘sucker spoon’ with a bowl to match the band in color.  These sucker spoons, as the name would indicate, are of hollow glass tubing, with a little aperture at the base where the handle connects with the bowl.”

E. & J. Bass offered a full line of items the housewife would find necessary—including salt and pepper sets with sterling silver tops.

At some point in the mid-to-late 20^th century the ground floor was modernized—which is to say obliterated—and today a mish-mash of garish storefronts wrangle for attention.  Where “discriminating men” shopped for high-priced shirts and suits in 1917, tourists recently rifled through t-shirts or grabbed a franchise hamburger.  

photo by Alice Lum

But the upper floors survived.  And yet, despite the Demarest Building's architectural and historic significance, demolition plans were filed in September 2020 and the end of Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell’s Renaissance Revival eye candy is on the horizon.

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Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell's 1900 206 Ninth Avenue

By the 1840's the Chelsea district--recently the summer estate of the Moore family--was quickly developing into a residential neighborhood.  High-stooped brownstone homes rapidly rose on the streets and avenues.   The 24-foot wide home of the family of John and Roth Noble stood at No. 206 Ninth Avenue, just south of 23rd Street in the early 1850's.

The last quarter of the 19th century saw the Chelsea avenues evolve as bustling thoroughfares.  In April 1899 the esteemed architectural firm of Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell filed plans for a "five story, brick, stone and terra cotta flat and store," for Margaret L. de Stuers.  The cost to construct the building was $16,000--just over half a million in today's dollars.

Because Margaret lived overseas, she relied heavily on her agent, Henry L. Morris, to oversee the negotiations and the details of the project.  Born Margaret Laura Carey, she was the granddaughter of William Backhouse Astor.  She had married Alphonse Lambert Eugène, Ridder de Stuers in 1875 in her parents' New York City mansion.

It is peculiar that Margaret used the surname de Stuers for the Ninth avenue project, since that was no longer her name.  While in Newport she had met Count William Eliot Morris Zborowski (the title was purely fictitious), filed for a scandalous divorce, and within a few hours of obtaining it on March 7, 1892, had married Zborwski.  The scandal had forced the couple to leave America, moving to England and spending much time in France.

Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell architecturally cutting-edge structure faced in Roman brick was completed in 1900.  The Arts & Crafts movement had originated in England decades earlier, but was only beginning to appear in America.  While the basic design of No. 206 Ninth Avenue was Renaissance Revival, the overall decoration relied heavily on Arts and Crafts, most notably in diamond pattern panels between the third and fourth floors.  Faceted bays at the second floor were flanked by terra cotta tiles which continued past the intermediate cornice to create a three-story enframement for the openings.  Another cornice separated the top floor where the openings wore splayed brick lintels.

Bull-nosed brick and terra cotta combine to create this impressive doorway.

Each floor held just one apartment of five rooms and a bath.  The monthly rent was the equivalent of $817 today, reflecting on the upper-middle class status of the residents.  Their small staffs would have included, most likely, a cook and a servant girl.  

The Alviene family's cook apparently decided she was done with city life in 1903.  Her advertisement was explicit in wanting only suburban work:

Middle Ages woman, competent cook and baker, to small private family; country only; fish, soups, entrees, meats, poultry, game, jellies, ices, creams; with or without kitchenmaid; first class references, written or personal.  206 9th av., near 23d (Alviene's bell).

In the meantime the retail space was home to a restaurant.  In 1907 the owner sold the business as well as "7 circling fans, 1 water pump, 3 coffee urns, range, plate warmer, &c."  The restaurant was continued under John Palmer who was still running it in 1910.  By 1913 a delicatessen as in the space.

A relatively long-term resident was James W. Patterson.  He was living in the building in 1906 when he was appointed a Commissioner of Deeds, a civil service position similar to a notary public today.  His main profession was in real estate and he ran his business from his apartment for years.

On July 9, 1911 Countess Zborowski died in her 225-acre estate, Higham Park, in England.  Her husband had died in a car accident seven years earlier.  Her estate was appraised at $2,889,979--or around $77 million today.  Her large real estate holdings, including No. 206 Ninth Avenue, would be managed for several years by her estate.  Then in 1919 the building was sold to Abraham Schecter.

Among the tenants in 1921 was James Gilson who spent his spare time managing the Trinity Big Five basketball team.  His announcement in the sports pages of The Evening World on December 6 challenged specific teams:

Trinity Big Five, heavyweights, travelling.  Anxious to play Starling Greys, Myrocks, Bronx County Five and other leading teams.

On the night of June 14, 1933 fire broke out in the apartment building across the street at No. 216 Ninth Avenue.  It spread quickly and "brought out hundreds of spectators," according to The New York Sun.  Hearing cried of help, Patrolman Charles Perkins rushed into the building, but the blazing hallway prevented his further entry.

He then ran into the adjoining building and climbed to the roof.  Following right behind him was John Murray, who lived in No. 206.  A family of three was standing on the third floor ledge of the burning building, terrified.  Perkins climbed down the fire escape opposite the Carregal family.  Murray had continued to follow closely behind.

The gap between the two buildings was too far for the victims to jump.  "Perkins instructed Murray to hold his feet securely.  Murray stood on the fire escape and did so," reported The Sun.  "Patrolman Perkins swung his body across the chasm to the ledge.  First he seized Mrs. Carregal and swung her across.  The he seized the girl and swung her across to safety, and finally the father."

Two women died in the inferno and two boys were hospitalized with severe burns.  But Murray and the policeman were credited with saving the Carregal family.

Around 1941 the temporarily-vacant store wore a pseudo-modern front.  (the Hotel sign belongs to the building next door.) via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Tragedy visited No. 206 on July 19, 1946.  Thomas Cleary and his 79-year old father, Michael lived in the third floor apartment.  Around 5:30 that morning Thomas woke up and realized his father was missing.  He discovered the elderly man's body on the sidewalk.  He had either jumped or fallen from the window.

For years in the early 21st century the storefront was home to Chelsea Cottage, a Chinese restaurant.  It was replaced in 2018 with aRoqa, an Indian restaurant described by food critic Pete Wells of The New York Times as "cosmopolitan" with its "moody cocktail-bar lighting and a swooping ceiling of bent wooden slats."

The original configuration of one apartment per floor survives upstairs.  Although most of the 1899 detailing has been lost, there are unexpected relics here and there.

A period mantel survives on the second floor.  photo via streeteasy.com

photographs by the author

The Lost Diocesan House - 416 Lafayette Street

Rampant griffins holding shields perch along the stone stoop railing, and stained glass fill the upper portions of the first floor windows.  The openings along the side retain their Greek Revival appearance.  from the collection of the New-York Historic Society

In the early 1840s, Lafayette Place remained one of Manhattan's most exclusive residential areas.  The elegant, marble-faced LaGrange Terrace, completed in 1833, set the tone and was soon followed by wide Greek Revival-style mansions.

Benjamin Lincoln Swan's 45-foot-wide home at 29 Lafayette Place edged up to the southern edge of LaGrange Terrace.  Faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone, it was four stories tall above the basement level and featured a cast iron balcony along the parlor level and a columned portico.

An early stereopticon slide of LaGrange Terrace caught a sliver of the Swan mansion (left).

Born in Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1787, Swan had come to New York City in 1810, forming the firm of Benjamin L. Swan & Co. the following year.  He married Mary C. Saidler in 1816 and had six children: Benjamin Jr., Edward, Mary, Robert, Otis and Frederick. 

Eminently successful and wealthy, Swan retired from active business in 1822 to devote his time "to the service of his fellow-citizens," according to historian William Van Rensselaer Miller in his 1896 Select Organizations in the United States.  While technically retired, he remained an active member of the Chamber of Commerce and a director in the Bank of America and in the New York Life & Trust Co.  He was a force within the American Bible Society for decades.

In 1842 sons Robert, Benjamin and Otis were still living in the house.  Benjamin was a respected shipchandler at 30 South Street, and Otis was a lawyer with offices on Wall Street.  Mary had married Charles N. Fearing, of Fearing & Hall dry goods, in 1839 and the couple, too, lived in the Lafayette Place house.

In 1855, four of the Swan sons formed the dry goods firm of Frederick G. Swan.  Benjamin and Edward married sisters, Caroline and Julia Post. (Benjamin and his wife moved to their own mansion on Leroy Place and then to 5 West 20th Street around 1861.)  Almost all the Swan children maintained summer estates in Oyster Bay, Long island.

Disaster came on February 7, 1855 when an overheated flue sparked a fire on the third floor around 3:20 in the afternoon.  The New York Herald reported, "The inmates of the house soon found it was beyond their control, and an alarm was given."  The fire fighters found "that the fire had spread between the lathe and plaster and run from floor to floor."

The intense smoke make it nearly impossible for the men to grope their way through the house.  "Great exertions were made to save the furniture, and most of it was taken out from the parlors; but on the upper stories very little was removed, in consequence of the dense smoke."  The article noted that police moved in to protect the neighboring houses "from depredations of thieves, of which there were a large number very ready to enter the houses, under the pretense of assisting to save property."

The frigid February temperatures hampered the fight, The New York Times noting that the water froze in the hose.  When the fire was finally extinguished at 7:30 that evening, the top floors were gutted and the lower floors flooded with freezing water.  Damages to the house were estimated at $15,000 and to the furnishings $10,000 (a total of about $731,000 today).

Following Mary Swan's death in 1857, Mary Fearing, most likely, took over the task of running the household.  She seems to have had her hands full in keeping the positions necessary to run a residence filled with adults and children.

Her regular advertisements, always in The New York Herald, were similarly worded.  On April 22, 1858 she looked for, "A steady woman, as cook in a private family; one who understands her business thoroughly" and six months later she sought "Wanted--In a private family, a respectable woman as laundress; one that understands her business and is willing to make herself generally useful."  (Being "generally useful" was necessary on non-laundry days.)

On a single day in October 1860 two advertisement ran, one for "An experienced woman, as waitress, in a private family" and another for a "steady, quiet woman, as laundress."  As always they should "understand her business thoroughly."  A "waitress" was a polished maid whose duties were to serve in the dining room, bring tea or other refreshments to the family, and handle similar responsibilities above those of a chamber maid.

Following Benjamin Swan's death in 1866, Mary and Charles Fearing remained at 29 Lafayette Street.  By now Charles had retired from his position as senior partner in the Auburn Wool Works.  Their two sons, Edward and Charles, soon left.  Charles married Mary Putnam on July 9, 1866 and in 1868 opened his stock-brokerage office.  The couple summered in Newport.  Edward initially entered his father's firm, before marrying and later going into the commission business.

Mary and Charles received devastating news in the early morning hours of June 20, 1881.  Edward took his life in his summer home in the Finger Lakes district.  A dispatch received at The New York Times from Auburn, New York read "Edward Fearing, the son of a wealthy resident of New-York, committed suicide here by taking poison last night."  The New York Times added, "Mr. Charles N. Fearing, on receiving a dispatch announcing his son's death, yesterday morning, immediately started for Auburn, leaving his wife prostrated by grief."

Around New Years Eve 1885, Charles N. Fearing fell ill with pneumonia.  He died on January 6, 1886 in the Lafayette Place house at the age of 75.  The Swan children soon put the family mansion on the market.  It was purchased by Catharine Lorillard Wolfe on June 28 for $70,000--about $1.9 million today.

Catharine, who lived in her own lavish home on Union Square, had no intentions of moving into the mansion.  One of New York's most munificent philanthropists, she laid plans to renovate the house and present it to the Episcopal Church as the residence for Bishop Henry Codman Potter.  Catharine commissioned the renowned firm of Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell to transformed the outdated house to a modern residence.

On September 10, The New York Times reported, "Catharine L. Wolfe is going to spend $40,000 in alterations and improvements on No. 29 Lafayette-place.  The front will be taken down and replaced by one of marble, terra-cotta and brick, and a two-story extension, 40 by 70 feet, will be built."

The architects produced a striking Venetian Gothic-style structure with a white marble base, ornate carved balcony, and terra cotta decorations by the New York Architectural Terra-Cotta Company.

Formally named the See House, The Architectural Record deemed it "a kind of business 'Bishop's Palace.'"  New York historian Martha Lamb later remarked, "The old dwelling converted to its present uses now wears an appearance befitting its dignified function."

Before its striking renovation, the Swan house looked much like the mansion to the right.  from the collection of the New-York Historic Society

Catharine L. Wolfe died in 1887 and would not suffer the disappointment that Potter never moved into the house.  Instead, he and his wife, Eliza, remained in their mansion at 10 Washington Square.  The See House, while officially the bishop's residence, was mainly used instead for high-level church meetings.  And none could be more important than those surrounding Potter's pet project, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine.

Among the first meetings was on November 8, 1887 during which the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Committee ratified the purchase of the land and discussed raising $10 million "or more" for a building fund.  Among those present with Potter were William W. Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and J. Pierpont Morgan.

The opulence of the interiors was evidenced that year when the See House loaned artworks to The Architectural League's third annual exhibition.  Among the 14 paintings were works by Fra Fillippo Lippi, Chirlandago, Grotto, Raphael, among other masters.

Around 1892, the building's name was changed to the Diocesan House.  It was not only the scene of meetings, but of church hearings.  One of the most publicized was the infamous Jenks Divorce Case in 1891.  Maud E Littlejohn and Almet F. Jenks were married on December 5, 1878.  The New York Times said, "It was a social event and gifts valued at $50,000 were received."

But things soured and Maud obtained a divorce in Newport in March 1891 "on the ground of abandonment and non-support."  The problem was that the divorce was not valid in New York State, since abandonment and non-support were not grounds for divorce.  And the Episcopal Church did not recognize abandonment as sufficient reason to void a marriage contract.

Maud was not only wealthy and socially prominent, she was the daughter of Bishop Abram Newkirk Littlejohn of Long Island.  He called a meeting of bishops in the Diocesan House on April 13, 1891 to settle the problem.  When the meeting adjoined, Maud had never been married in the eyes of the church.  The annulment decree said in part "in our opinion the said marriage was null and void ab initio" and according to the law and discipline of the Church it "was the same as though such marriage had not taken place."  Not surprisingly, "the annulment provoked wide discussion," as reported by The New York Times.

The Architectural Record, July 1909 (copyright expired)

The Diocesan House contained offices for the Bishop, the Arch Deacon of New York, the Presiding Bishop of the Church, the Standing Committee of the Diocese and the Secretary of the House of Bishop, a reading room, a private chapel for Potter, and sleeping quarters for visiting clergy.  In 1897, when Lafayette Place was extended southward, the building received the new address of 416 Lafayette Street.

In her will, Catharine Wolfe had left a generous endowment fund to maintain the property.  The church's 1907 annual report noted that the fund still had $50,000, "the income of which is to be expended for its support and maintenance."

As the years passed, the Diocesan House continued to host the meetings of the Cathedral Committee, hold trials on issues of wayward clergy and church law, and confront social problems like temperance.  But in 1915 a completely different activity took place here.  A majority of the toys children received as Christmas presents had always been produced in Europe, notably in Germany.  Now with war raging across the continent, there was no way of importing them.

On December 12, The New York Times reported, "Things were really looking serious, people said.  That was about the fifteenth of last May, and at that very moment the New York Santa Claus business came into being."  Christine S. Foster, described by the newspaper as "a young society woman," recognized the deficiency of Christmas toys and the need of unemployed older men for work.  With her own funds she developed The Old Men's Toy Shop in rooms provided by the diocese.

Workers, the eldest of whom was 84, received fifty cents a day and 10 cents for lunch.  By the time of the article there were 100 of them, making wooden canal boats, horses, cars and other toys.

As the years passed, the Diocesan House served changing purposes.  While it continued to be the center of the fundraising efforts for the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, the Church Association for Advancing Interest of Labor Library was here by 1915, and within the decade the Church Army of the United States established its offices in the building.

Seen here in 1929, the stoop and parlor bay had been lost in the widening of Lafayette Street.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

By mid-century the Lafayette Street block was one of factories and commerce.  The Diocese sold the property in July 1958.  In reporting the sale, The New York Times got the history of the building slightly wrong, naming Catharine Lorillard Wolfe's family as the original owners.  "It was the private mansion of the Lorillard family generations ago when Lafayette and Bond Street formed the hub of an area that contained some of the city's most fashionable residences."

The new owners were realty investors, operating as the 416 Properties, Inc.  They announced plans "to alter the structure into forty-one, air-conditioned apartments."  The New York Times explained, "The proposed improvements include an automatic elevator, an incinerator and modern bathrooms and kitchens."

The "improvements" did not include overwhelming architectural beauty.   And while technically the Diocesan House was remodeled, not demolished, most would agree that it has been lost.

The 1891 Caxton Press Building - 171-173 Macdougal Street

On September 28, 1889 the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that simultaneously the two side-by-side houses on Macdougal Street had been sold "on private terms"--No. 171 to H. Mandelbaum and No. 173 to N. Cohen.  As was often the case, however, the buyers listed were decoys.  The actual purchaser was Achimedes D. Russell.

The reason behind his subterfuge very well could have been his plan for the properties which sat just feet from fashionable Washington Square to the south and Clinton Place (soon to become West 8th Street) to the north.  Russell was surely aware that the wealthy residents would balk at a printing factory in their midst.

He commissioned the well-known architectural firm of Renwick, Aspinwall and Russell to design the industrial structure.   Construction began in 1890 and was completed the following year.  Faced in pressed Philadelphia brick the $70,000 structure was a handsome commercial take on Romanesque Revival.  Six stories tall, it included two-story elliptical arches within the rusticated base.  A projecting tiled canopy bisected the arches and provided shade and shelter from the elements.  An innovative feature was the angled bays within the three-story arches directly above--creating an interesting juxtaposition of crisp and rounded shapes.  The top floor arcade nestled below a deeply-overhanging cornice.

The architects released their rendering prior to construction.  Record & Guide, October 25, 1890 (copyright expired)

Russell did not have to search for a tenant.  Before the first brick was laid a lease had been signed with bookbinders Tomkins, McIndoe & Co.  Also in the building was that firm's subsidiary publishing firm, the Caxton Press.

Because the Caxton Press was routinely in the newspapers as new books were released, it was the more visible of the two firms.  Yet employment records clearly indicate that its parent company occupied more space in the building.  In 1895 Caxton Press employed just 21 workers--15 men and 6 women--who worked an average of 59 hours per week.  Tomkins, McIndoe & Co., on the other hand, had a work staff of 131 that same year--40 men, 60 women, and 31 boys and girls.

The book makers filled the entire building for 15 years, until wholesale bottle dealer William Kiene leased the first floor and basement in 1914 and Pattison & Co., Ltd. took the second floor.

The year that William Kiene moved into the building, he joined other German-born businessmen to form the German Relief Fund.  A fund-raising announcement on August 29, 1914 read in part:

Europe is being devastated by war!  Human misery, poverty and starvation will inevitably follow in its wake. Among the nations drawn into the general cataclysm and bearing the brunt of human strife and suffering is Germany, the land of our fathers.  Will you help the wounded?

When America entered the war in 1917 any charitable sentiments citizens may have had for Germany dissolved, and German businesses like William Kiene's were the targets of intense discrimination.  Nevertheless, he endured and was still doing business from the Macdougal Street address as late as 1920.

In 1921 the Tenth Church of Christ, Scientist established itself in Greenwich Village.  In 1927 it purchased the recently vacant Caxton Press building and renovated it as a church.  The congregation would worship in the building for 15 years before it was dedicated.

On June 1, 1942 The New York Times reported "In the presence of 400 persons, the $158,000 church edifice of the Tenth Church of Christ, Scientist...was officially dedicated in a special service yesterday morning."  The article explained that the delay was because "Christian Scientists may not dedicate their church edifices until entirely free of debt."

In 1966 the church embarked on a $600,000 renovation project.  The remodeling by Connecticut-based architect Victor Christ-Janer would not only make over the interiors, but obliterate Renwick, Aspinwall and Russell's striking facade.  Nate White, chairman of the building committee, explained to the press "We are trying to keep God right down on Macdougal Street, where the people are.  The Village kids seem to be searching for an answer.  They come to us when they've been through the marijuana, the L.S.D., and too much sex."

The church felt, apparently, that neither God nor the trouble youth would be comfortable in a Romanesque style building.  "Modernizing the building's facade would not only make the church more attractive to younger people, but would also enhance, rather than detract from the character of the neighborhood," White said.

Renowned architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable chimed in on the project, saying "no one would question the need for better facilities...But architectural historians, including this writer, regret the loss of the building's late 19th-century facade."  She called it "particularly felicitous...in proportion and detail."

Huxtable added "It seems possible that the Deity might be persuaded to stay behind that interesting historical facade, refurbished and with appropriate interior changes.  The new front promises to be not much better than bleak, compared to the richness of the old one."

Nevertheless, construction went on and the dedication of the renovated, "bleak" structure was held on November 5, 1967.

photo via gvshp.org/blog

By 2009 the upper floor had been unused for years.  In an unusual move, the Tenth Church of Christ, Scientist sold the top portion of the building to a developer in order to fund improvements to its facilities.  A subsequent renovation sought to recreate the 1891 facade.  Although most of the architectural elements had been hammered off in 1966, a team of architects from four firms produced a remarkable near recreation--including the striking angled bays.

A sensitive mixture of modern (like the pressed glass cornice) and historic elements (the refabricated iron date numerals, for instance), the 2009 renovation is a success.

The project was awarded a Regina Kellerman Award by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation in 2009.

photographs by the author

The Gothic Revival Nos. 806-808 Broadway

In September 1852 Allen Dodworth opened his Dancing Academy in a new double-wide brownstone structure at Nos. 806 and 808 Broadway.  He and his family lived in part of the building while the magnificent Dodworth’s Hall made up the remainder. 

On September 16 The New York Times gushed “In this City of magnificent tastes, private enterprise, stimulated by boundless liberality, erects palaces, decorates and furnishes them in the style that may well be called royal, and after incurring an expense that would be deemed ruinous in plodding Europe, realizes vast fortunes by its brilliant experiments…Prosperous of a joyous temperament, and with hands open as the day, the people of New-York long ago determined that their amusements, like their business, should be conducted on a grand and magnificent scale—and they are.”

It was merely an introduction to a description of Dodworth’s new edifice.  The newspaper said Allen Dodworth “is unquestionably the occupant of the most splendid private Dancing Acadmy in this country.”

Dodworth Hall sat directly north of the Grace Church rectory which, like the church, was designed by James Renwick, Jr.   The Hall blended in with the nearby mansions—faced in brownstone and designed in the Italianate style. 

But the northward migration of Manhattan’s wealthy that had prompted Dodworth to erect his exclusive academy here continued on.    In 1861 he left Broadway, moving his high-toned hall to Fifth Avenue and 26^th Street.  The Broadway venue where New York’s upper crust had heard Europe’s finest performers now offered crowds cheap amusements.

By the second half of the 1880s the Broadway blocks below Union Square filled with retail stores and shops.   The end of the line had come for Dodworth’s Hall.  In 1887 the architectural firm of Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell designed a store, office and loft building for the site. 

Completed the following year, it intentionally melded with the Grace Church complex.  Five floors of beige brick sat on a cast iron and brownstone base.  Exuberant terra cotta Gothic Revival details, pointed arches and corbels combined in a stately, nearly ecclesiastical structure.  The side wall, which would have been blank in nearly any other midblock location in the city, was as decorated as the Broadway façade, forming a romantic northern enclosure for the Grace Church lawn.

The building quickly filled with a variety of tenants.   On January 1, 1888 Robert K. Davies & Co., importers and manufacturers “of men’s furnishing goods,” moved in.  The firm, originally named John M. Davies & Co., had been started around 1850 by John M. Davies, who died in 1871 leaving an estate of more than $1.3 million.  When John M. Davies, Jr. died in 1887, the surviving son Robert carried on the business.

On April 20, 1890 The New York Times reported on the newly-formed American Book Company.   The result of a merger of four of the largest school book publishers in the country—Ivisen, Blakeman & Co., A. S. Barnes & Co.,  D Appleton & Co. of New York, and Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. of Cincinnati—it now took space in the Broadway building.

Seeger and Guernsey’s Cyclopaedia of the Manufacturers and Products of the City of New York listed the broad array of school supplies also offered by the American Book Company.  Included were pen holders, pencils, pen racks, pen moisteners, rubber erasers, rulers, thumb tacks, school writing books, and writing books.

Three months before the American Book Company moved in, Robert K. Davies’s business had begun to crumble.  His sister-in-law had sued him for her deceased husband’s share of the business, costing the company $127,000.  Then he discovered that the business owed his father’s estate $265,000; although Davies insisted to the courts that there was no estate money in the business.

Gentlemen who had shopped at the high-end men’s store for decades were no doubt astonished when they read the headline in The New York Times on January 15, 1890 “Robert K. Davies Fails.”

A year and one day later, on January 16, 1891, Robert K. Davies suffered a massive heart attack in his home, dying instantly.

Other tenants in the building included builder H. T. Ambrose by 1894, and architect William Debus, who would maintain his offices here for several years.  In 1900 he was busy designing several Brooklyn tenement houses; and in 1901 designed Brooklyn structures for two other builders who also leased space in the building, Jacob Schauf and Louis Beer.

By now the millinery and garment districts had engulfed the area.  In 1896 Weld, Colburn & Wilckens, makers of scarves and suspenders, was in the building, joined soon by Hill Brothers ladies hat manufacturers.

advertisement from The Menorah, May 1901 (copyright expired)

In 1903 Hodgman Rubber Co. moved in.  The manufacturer and wholesaler sold “rubber surface clothing, slip-ons,blankets and hospital sheetings, druggist sundries and surgical goods, elastic bands, and coated cloths of all descriptions.”  With George F. Hodgman in the firm were his two sons, S. Theodore and Goerge B. Hodgman.

When George B. Hodgman’s health began failing in 1906, he and his wife sailed for Europe “in the hope that the change would benefit his health,” according to The New York Times on September 29.  The 61-year old businessman died in London on September 28.

Hill Brothers advertised in The Illustrated Milliner, 1902 (copyright expired)

By 1905 the building was home to Samuel W. Peck & Co., makers of boys’ clothing.  The firm manufactured its own brand, Sampeck,  An advertisement in the New-York Tribune that year boasted “the beauty of the fabric, the careful tailoring, the minutely accurate gradation in the cut of the pattern.  The grading of the pattern determines the degree of perfection in the fit.”

While Samuel W. Peck garnered a fortune in his boys’ clothing business, his luck was otherwise not as good.  He lived with his wife in the smart Ansonia Hotel on Upper Broadway.  A quiet night at the theater later turned wild when, on January 18, 1905 their chauffeur, Gustav Swanson, picked them up in their “Victoria automobile” and they headed home.  Swanson, it seems, had a heavy accelerator foot.

“As they whirled up Broadway beside a big touring car, driven by Leo Trousler,” reported The New York Times the following day, “Bicycle Policeman Bullman of the West Forty-seventh Street Station gave chase.”  In 1905 speeding automobiles were easily matched by in-shape bicyclists and Officer Bullman intended to stop the reckless drivers.

He “sprinted along behind the autos” up Broadway from Times Square to 52^nd Street, where Trousler made a sharp turn directly into the path of the policeman.  Bullman “struck the touring car full tilt, pitched off his wheel and slid twenty feet along the pavement.” 

Despite his tumble, he had no intentions of letting Peck’s automobile get away.  He shouted to another officer who took up the chase.  “Kerrigan caught up with the Pecks’ Victoria at the Circle,” reported The Times.  “Mr. and Mrs. Peck accompanied their chauffeur to the West Forty-seventh Street Station, where Mr. Peck furnished bail.”

Samuel Peck's advertisement in the New-York Tribune illustrated a variety of boys' fashions -- March 24,1907 (copyright expired)

Peck’s bad luck continued on the night of October 20, 1908 when burglars blew open the safe in his Broadway offices.  In order to blow the safe, the thieves used plaster of paris to seal the cracks.  In doing so, they spilled the powder on the floor, then walked through it during their escape.

In a stunning example of early forensic detective work, the police solved the case.  The New York Times later said “it was one of the most daring that the police have had to solve in some time, and bore all the earmarks of a job done by practiced cracksmen.

“Through the marks left by the plaster of paris dust the three were traced to various houses, until they were found in Brooklyn.”

The gang of three—William Pesky, the leader, his sister Minnie, and her husband, Frank Marquette—were arraigned in the Tombs Court on November 12.  But Pesky and his lawyer had a trick up their sleeves.  The Times said that he “behaved like a maniac yesterday…and it became known that an effort will be made to prove him insane.”

Pesky’s lawyer, Moses A. Sachs, told the court that he “has been of unsound mind ever since childhood, when a bad fall resulted in injuries affecting his brain.”

On cue, Pesky launched at a witness “and grabbed for his throat, but three big court policemen threw themselves between the men and seized pesky.  He fought desperately, kicking, biting and scratching, and the policemen rolled over the floor with him, while lawyers and witnesses were scattered in all directions by the fighting men.”

In the meantime, Pesky’s sister screamed and tried to get into the fray.  Four policemen had to carry her, kicking and screaming, out of the courtroom.  No sooner had Pesky been controlled and sat on a bench, he started another violent attack.  Finally, the judge gave up and postponed the hearing until the next day.

Samuel Peck would remain in the building at least through 1914.  Another boys’ clothier,Dubbelbilt, would make No. 806-808 Broadway home around the same time, into the 1920s.  In 1918 the firm advertised its Dubbelbilt Mackinaw as “the niftiest, thriftiest coat you’ve ever seen.”

Two tenants, E. & R. Rosenberg and Al Jacobsen, ran into trouble in 1925.  The first was Jacobsen, who ran a men’s clothing store at street level.   He was the victim of a brazen robbery of seven overcoats on January 13 that year.

Just as Police Inspector Thomas M. Fay, Chief of Staff of the Detective Division, and his driver, Detective Sergeant Lines, approached the building in their unmarked car, a taxicab sped up to the curb.  “One of the occupants of the taxi hastened into Jacobsen’s shop while the driver held the taxicab door open” reported The Times.  “In a few seconds the first man returned with a bundle of overcoats, threw them into the taxi and ordered the driver to speed up.”

Detective Lines jumped out of the police car with his pistol drawn and arrested the man who had thrown the coats into the cab.  The driver sped away into the tangle of traffic with the coats in the back seat, leaving his cohort to fend for himself.

“Lines’s prisoner had to be beaten into submission,” said The Times.

An even more frightening episode occurred in the shop of E. & R. Rosenberg later that year in July.  The firm, described as “one of the largest manufacturers of men’s clothing in the country,” did not hire union help.  Reuben Rosenberg explained “We pay our employes good wages and they are satisfied with conditions under which they work.  The unions, however, warn me that I must join them or suffer the penalty.”

“The penalty” came on the afternoon of July 15.  For months union thugs visited non-union shops carrying lead pipes wrapped in newspapers, threatening workers and sometimes stealing garments.  Called “visiting committees,” their purpose was to strong arm owners into hiring union workers.  But today the visiting committee would go beyond threats.

Six armed men entered the offices just after Rueben Rosenberg had left for lunch.  Five went directly into the shop area while one held a gun on the telephone operator, Helen Cohen, and warned her not to answer the switchboard.

The five men lined up the nine workers—four of them women—against the wall and told them that “resistance would mean death.”   Held at gunpoint by two men, the terrified employees watched as the other three produced bottles of sulphuric acid which they poured over high-priced overcoats.  The thugs then ran down the stairs and into a waiting automobile.

Rosenberg valued the ruined garments at between $60,000 and $100,000.

Throughout most of the 20^th century the building would continue to attract tenants in the garment trade.  In the 1930s Lubell Bros. Mfg. Co. was here, makers of boys’ shirts.  In the 1940s Criterion Shirt Band Co.; Rosenhirsch Company, importers; Spiegel Brothers Corporation; and Eastern Textiles Co. were all in the building.

In 1981, as the Noho neighborhood experienced a rebirth, the remarkable building was converted to 69 cooperative residential units.  Given the slightly-misleading name The Renwick, its magnificent ivy-covered façade survives as an integral part of the charming Gothic Revival ensemble.

photographs by the author