The 1907 Camera Building -- 122-124 East 25th Street

 

On April 27, 1907, the Brunswick Realty Co. acquired the two vintage, three-story houses at 122 and 124 East 25th Street and hired architect Frederick C. Zobel to design a loft-and-store building on the site.  Completed at a cost of $100,000 (the equivalent of $3.44 million in 2025), Zobel's seven-story design was highly influenced by the current Arts & Crafts movement.  Steel frame construction made possible vast show windows at the first and second floors.  Both levels were framed in white terra cotta architraves.  Metal infill with paneled spandrels created three stacks of paired windows in the four-story midsection.  Drip moldings at the sixth and seventh floors recalled the domestic architecture in the neighborhood half a century earlier.  The top floor sat upon a dentiled intermediate cornice and an understated terminal cornice capped the whole. 

Gothic Revival drip moldings like those on the vintage brownstone next door (right) inspired the top floors of the Camera Building.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Despite being named the Camera Building, 122-124 East 25th Street attracted a variety of businesses.  Among the first tenants was the architectural firm of Pell & Corbett, whose School for Applied Design for Women on Lexington Avenue was just being completed.  The firm was composed of Francis Livingston Pell and Harvey Wiley Corbett. 

The New York Times, October 18, 1908 (copyright expired)

Other initial tenants were the Willow Brook Company, an art gallery; the Woodhull Press; the Magnesia-Asbestos Company; and the Arden Press.

The Willow Brook Company staged exhibitions in its space.  In December 1910, for instance, the New York Evening Post reported, "A collection of water colors by Mrs. W. J. Stillman, better known, perhaps, as Marie Stillman, who became a pre-Raphaelite under the guidance of Rosetti, is being exhibited at the rooms of the Willow Brook Company, Nos. 122-124 East Twenty-fifth Street."

An unusual tenant was the Waterman Institute, here as early as 1911.  The facility produced and prescribed medications that promised to cure a variety of disorders.  An article in the Atlanta, Georgia newspaper The Constitution said in part:

It is estimated that within a comparatively short time nearly three thousand persons addicted to the use of opium or morphine in some form, have taken advantage of the offer of the Waterman Institute, 124 East 25th street...to send a free trial supply of a truly remarkable home remedy.

And an article in The Springport Signal on April 6, 1911 said, "Advices from every direction fully confirm previous reports that the remarkable treatment for epilepsy being administered by the consulting physicians of the Dr. Waterman Institute is achieving wonderful results."

Perhaps the first dry goods businesses in the building came in 1915 when Silverberg, Kraft & Co., ribbon manufacturers; and Hawkeye Embroidery Company signed leases.  But the Camera Building continued to house a wide variety of tenants.  Others included the State Specialty Co., which marketed inexpensive novelties; the Foreign Tool & Machinery Company; and the Price Trade Publishing Company.

The Billboard, May 3, 1913 (copyright expired)

Government contracts during World War I were highly profitable.  Henry T. Price, head of the Price Trade Publishing Company, was also a member of the American Defense Society and in 1917 charged representatives of the Quartermaster Corps of the United States Army of graft.  He notified U.S. Senator James W. Wadsworth Jr. that companies were being forced to pay kickbacks before being awarded a contract.

On December 25, 1917, the New York Herald reported that Price produced a shoemaker, Peter Sebald, who was approached by a sergeant regarding repairing 700 pairs of Army footwear.  Sebald told him that he usually charged $1.50 per pair, but for that quantity he would lower the price to $1.00.

"You don't want to charge $1," the sergeant said, "You want to charge $1.25."  Sebald was told, "When you get your check, you give me $175."  

In 1919, the Big Sisters, Inc. leased space.  The group would remain for several years and on December 24, 1922, The New York Times reported, "The Protestant Big Sisters had a celebration for 200 children at 122 East Twenty-fifth Street yesterday, and forty baskets of food were distributed to families in need."

The offices of the National Association of Employing Lithographers were here as early as 1922.  It acted as a union employment agency.  An interesting tenant was James Chittick, who ran a textile school.  His 20-session courses cost $50--paid in advance.  (The tuition was a substantial $875 in today's money.)

New-York Tribune, September 20, 1921 (copyright expired)

The Vocational Service for Juniors moved in around 1923.  Founded in 1910, the organization awarded scholarships to needy high school students who otherwise would have to drop out of school to help support their families.  A letter to the editor of The New York Times on March 8, 1923 explained, "Five dollars keeps a child in school a week, $125 keeps a child in school a term, $250 keeps a child in school a session.  Even then, a child must often work after school and on Saturdays to make both ends meet."

A letter to the editor of the New York Evening Post from Mrs. Edward C. Henderson, president of the Board of Managers of the Vocational Service for Juniors, on January 26, 1927 followed up on some of its 700 scholarship graduates.  "Some are out in the world following trades and professions; some are working their way through college."

A less reputable tenant was the Knickerbocker Merchandising Company, Inc.  On October 6, 1925, The New York Times reported that the firm and its executives, Maurice Innerfield and Emanuel Seaman, had been indicted "with having used the mails to defraud retail grocers out of nearly $130,000."  The company's "high-powered" salesmen pressured more than 5,000 merchants to join the "Permanent Associate Buying Service Membership" to obtain groceries at low prices.  It was all a scam.

A renovation completed in 1939 resulted in offices and salesrooms throughout the building.  It was likely at this time that a zig-zagging iron fire escape was installed that necessitated the notching of the cornice.

The original second floor window configuration survived in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

A two-year renovation of the building was begun in 1969 for the Optometric Center of New York.  Founded in 1956, it provided an eye care clinic and continued optometric education following the closing of Columbia University's optometry program.  The center's research was reflected in 1969 when a survey of 500 patients discovered that "Nearly 18 per cent of Medicaid patients received 'unsatisfactory care' on eye problems," as reported by The New York Times on October 2.

On October 23, 1971, the N.Y. Amsterdam News reported, "The New York State Optometric Association has made funds available to the Optometric Center, earmarked for students for minority groups...The new college will be located at 122 East 25th Street, the present site of the Optometric Center, and will occupy about half of the center."  The college would eventually become the SUNY College of Optometry.

The Optometric Center remained until 1983 when the building was converted to offices.  Then, in 2003, the upper floors were renovated to residential use--one apartment each on the second through sixth floors, and a duplex on the seventh and penthouse levels (the later unseen from the street).  The renovation including restoring the notched cornice.

photographs by the author

The Hiram Dixon House - 117 East 26th Street

 

In 1851, the family of Edward F. Saxton, a stockbroker, leased the newly-built house at 91 East 26th Street (renumbered 117 in 1867).  One of a long row of identical, high-stooped Italianate residences, it was three stories tall above the basement level and faced in brownstone.  The iron railings of the stoop matched the balcony that fronted the parlor window.  A simple, molded frame embraced the double-doored entrance, and the elliptically arched openings sat upon bracketed sills.  Each of the homes had its own pressed metal cornice with robust scrolled brackets.

The following year, agent Edward B. Kinshimer advertised three of the houses, including No. 91, for rent.  He wrote, "they have baths, ranges, gas &c. and all is in good order.  Rents $750."  The figure would translate to about $2,500 per month in 2025.

Samuel Hanna, a baker, moved his family into the house and would remain through 1854.  Then, on February 19, 1855, Kinshimer advertised 19 East 26th Street for sale, noting its "location genteel."  The ad was answered by the multi-faceted Hiram Dixon.

Dixon had served in the Revolutionary War and was a member of the Veteran Corps of 1776.  He was a member of The American Institute of the City of New York, described by The New York Times in 1860 as "including many of the ablest and best men the City and country afford."  

Although he listed his profession in 1857 as an accountant with the Adams Express Company, he had additionally been "a professor of penmanship for many years," according to The New York Times in 1860.  Groups sought out Dixon for his remarkable penmanship to create elaborate Victorian documents like testimonials and proclamations.  One commission came from the New-York Typographical Society in 1865 when Dixon was hired to pen a "handsome testimonial" for the society's former president, William McCrea.  When the document was exhibited in August, The New York Times remarked, "The penmanship, executed by Mr. Hiram Dixon, of the Adams Express Company, is a rare specimen of art."

Dixon's expertise in calligraphy was so well-known that when the U.S. Government charged Henry Williams with stealing a letter from the mail and forging the signature on a $3,000 note inside, Hiram Dixon was "called as [a handwriting] expert," according to The New York Times on January 26, 1860.

In 1868, Rev. Jesse Ames Spencer moved in.  Born in June 1816, he began working in a printing office at the age of 14.  He graduated from Columbia in 1837 and from the Episcopal General Theological Seminary in 1840.  In 1869, he was elected professor of Greek language and literature at the College of the City of New York.  He and his wife, the former Sarah Jane Elizabeth Loutrel, had seven children.

Rev. Jesse Ames Spencer, (original source unknown)

A prolific author, he published numerous books, many of them about history.  While living here, he finished his four-volume History of the United States from the Earliest Period to the Death of President Lincoln, and published Greek Praxis: Or, Greek for Beginners; and The Young Ruler Who had Great Possessions, and Other Discourses.  

The house was offered for rent in August 1872.  It received a long term resident starting in 1874 with Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton.  Born in October 1848, Hamilton was the grandson of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and of Louis McLane, former Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of State, and two-time U.S. Minister to the United Kingdom.  His privileged childhood was reflected in his autobiography, Recollections of an Alienist, in which he recalls, "my Thanksgiving dinner [was] taken yearly with Mrs. John Jacob Astor, the mother of 'Willie' Astor."

Hamilton was a newlywed when he moved into 117 East 26th Street.  He married Florence Rutgers Craig on May 25, 1874.  At the time, he was "connected with the Board of Health" and was "Professor of Nervous Diseases in the Long Island College Hospital," according to The New York Times on June 27 that year.  The couple's only child, Louis McLane Hamilton, was born here in 1876.

Dr. Allen McLane Hamilton, from the collection of the Library of Congress

Dr. Hamilton was an alienist, or what today is known as a psychiatrist.  He specialized in suicide, and the effects of blows to the head to mental health, and often testified in criminal cases.  Despite his expertise in psychiatry, he was appointed by the Health Department as a "sanitary inspector."  That side job earned him $1,600 per year in 1876, or about $47,000 today.  Sanitary inspectors investigated the conditions of tenements and houses within impoverished neighborhoods.

Dr. Hamilton almost assuredly knew Dr. Evert S. Warner, who moved into the house in 1881.  On July 1 that year, The New York Times reported that Evert was one of "a corps of 50 physicians for service among the tenement-house population during the heated term."  Warner was a resident physician at Bellevue Hospital.

On the evening of January 24, 1896, Dr. Warner became involved in a bizarre incident.  At around 8:30, a man knocked on the door of 117 East 26th Street.  "The Doctor was asked to call at the offices of the gas company," said The Sun.  The Consolidated Gas Company's building was nearby at 26th Street and Fourth Avenue (Park Avenue South today).  Half an hour earlier, a drama had begun to play out.

The Sun reported that a closed cab had "rapidly" driven along East 26th Street to the gas company building.  "It was followed by a second cab, which stopped immediately behind it.  Three men jumped out of the second cab and hurried over to the first one."  As one of the men unlocked the door of the gas company's offices and turned on the lights, the others "opened the door of the first cab and lifted out a dead man."  They carried it into the building and the cabs drove away.

Dr. Warner arrived at the office where one man asked, "Is it a fact that this man is really dead?"

The Sun recounted, "Dr. Warner examined the corpse, and replied: 'The body's cold.  He has been dead some time.'"

All four men at the scene, including the dead man, Captain William J. Collins, were employees of the gas company, Collins being its head bookkeeper.  The men had left work that night and got as far as the Brooklyn ferry when Collins became ill.  He ordered a cab to take him back to the gas company building.  Concerned, his coworkers followed.  Collins apparently died en route.

As was common, the Warners took in a roomer.  On June 18, 1897, an advertisement in The New York Times said, "117 East 26th St.--A pleasant, nicely-furnished room in physician's house."

In 1941, the original ironwork and balcony of the house next door was intact.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By 1901, the house was home to Dr. Ellice Murdoch Alger and his wife, the former Louise Stevenson.  Alger was an instructor in diseases of the eye at the New York Post-Graduate Hospital.  He was a co-founder of the National Society for the Prevention of Blindness.

The Algers remained until about 1908, when it appears the residence was being operated as a rooming house.  Then, in its April 1913 issue, The Smith College Monthly reported, "Jean Cahoon is running a tea room for business women in New York."  The Sun reported that M. Jean Cahoon had leased the building "for a term of years...for a tea house."  Cahoon called her cafe The Noonday.

The Noonday was relatively short-lived.  The house was leased in 1915 and returned to a rooming house.  It was leased by architect and artist C. Bertram Hartman around 1922.  His daughter, Rosella M. Hartman, was listed as an artist here the following year.

In the late 1920s, writer Dorothy C. Heligman lived here.

Before World War II, the Italianate ironwork was removed.  Other than that loss, the exterior of the former Dixon house is greatly intact.  It is a single family home today.

photographs by the author

The Lost H. Kauffman & Sons Saddlery Building - 139-141 East 24th Street

The centered show window replaced a vast carriage bay.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

As early as 1873, J. O. Taylor's brick livery stable sat at 139-141 East 24th Street.  It was lost in foreclosure in June 1881 to Charles E. Larned for $11,550 (about $366,000 in 2025 terms).  At the beginning of the 1890s, the property was purchased by H. Meise for his horse exchange business. 

New-York Tribune, April 23, 1905 (copyright expired)

Meise's operation was significant.  An article titled, "Horse and Carriage Trade Notes" in the New York Journal and Advertiser on May 14, 1899, mentioned, "H. Meise, 141 East 24th street, has enjoyed a most successful trade right along and feels thoroughly satisfied.  There are at present about seventy-five head in his stables suitable for all manner of business."

In September 1905, Meise sold the building to Robert Leslie Moffett "and others of Minneapolis, Minn.," as reported by the New York Herald.  Then in 1913, the property was purchased by the Fiss, Doerr & Carroll Horse Co.  The concern was a major player in the horse trade business.

On May 17, 1913, the Record & Guide reported that the Fiss, Doerr & Carroll Horse Co. had commissioned architect Michael Bernstein to replace the vintage structure.  Bernstein's plans placed the construction costs at $8,000 (just over $260,000 today).  Completed before the end of the year, Bernstein's design married the Beaux Arts and neo-Classical styles to create a striking stable and auction mart.

The centered, arched carriage bay of the two-story, steel-framed stucco-covered structure was flanked with Ionic columns.  On either side of those were carved yoked horses' heads, the traditional iconography of stables.  Most eye-catching was the dramatic, parabolic-arched hayloft that sat back from the facade.  

The Fiss, Doerr & Carroll Horse Co. quickly realized that automobiles were winning the battle for the streets of Manhattan and added motorized vehicles to its offerings.  On December 2, 1913, shortly after the completion of its building, an announcement in the New York Herald read:

Automobiles on Auction !

On Exhibition

In modern, light, absolutely fire-proof ground floor show arena

at 139-141 East 24th Street.

A Bona Fide Auto Auction--An Innovation

In 1922, nine years after its completion, the "business building presently used as a horse ring known as No. 139-141 East 24th Street," as described by legal papers, was lost in foreclosure.  The property was purchased by H. Kauffman & Sons Saddlery Company.

Herman Kauffman was born in Prussia in 1841 and arrived in the United States around 1867.  He founded the Herman Kauffman Harness company in the 1870s, mostly supplying harnesses for horse-drawn fire wagons and police carts.  When his sons, Jacob and Isidor, joined the business around the turn of the century, it was renamed H. Kauffman's Sons.  World War I prompted the firm to diversify and it now manufactured saddles and saddle blankets for the Army.

When the firm purchased 139-141 East 24th Street, its name was changed to H. Kauffman & Sons Saddlery Company.  The Kauffmans renovated the building for its retail business.  The carriage bay was replaced with a show window and, inside, the gravel horse ring was covered with a concrete slab.  The second floor mezzanine, from which potential buyers once surveyed horses or automobiles, became offices and a leather workshop for working on boots, saddles and other items.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Kauffman & Sons was accustomed to catering to prominent customers and shortly after moving in New York Governor Alfred E. Smith walked in the door.  The New York Times explained that he, "bought a pony for his grandson, and then drove it in his limousine to Kauffman's to be outfitted."

The firm took custom orders, and an especially notable one came in 1939 when it made "the boots and riding clothes for the cowboy midgets" performing at the World's Fair, as described by The Times.  Years later, in 1974, Kauffman's created two camel saddles for the Bronx Zoo, and another time manufactured a miniature saddle for a customer's chihuahua.

On March 24, 1946, The New York Times lamented the vanishing of trade signs--three-dimensional outside sculptural elements that signified the businesses inside.  The article noted that the last cigar store Indian in Manhattan stood outside 122 East 7th Street, and a wooden mortar and pestle hung outside a drugstore at Lexington Avenue and 82nd Street.  The journalist turned to East 24th Street, saying:

A life-size yellow papier-mâché horse named Modock stands on a dolly outside Kauffman's Saddlery Company at 141 East Twenty-fourth Street.  Dressed in a helmet and blanket for winter--for he is very old--Modock is missing his ears and tail, which have never been replaced because the Messrs. Kauffman felt that it would attract more business as it is.  It did.

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

On April 28, 1975, Mayor Abraham Beame presented the city's Citation of Business Merit to "the saddlery that has catered to New York's horsey set for 100 years," as described by The New York Times, which said the air "was redolent with saddle soap and nostalgia."  Instead of being anachronistic, the journalist explained that Kauffman's filled an important niche.

For even in this city, the horse lives.  Bridle paths in all the boroughs are regularly pounded by the clatter of hoofs.  Rented mounts from about 780 licensed stables raise clouds of dust in the parklands.  And for those who are committed, the inconveniences and costs of horsemanship are outweighed by the joys of an early morning canter.

Not all of H. Kauffman & Sons Saddlery Company's patrons were riders.  Many of them, said the article, simply "like Western outfits and riding clothes."  

In 1977, H. Kauffman & Sons sold the building to the L. B. Oil Company, while remaining as its tenant.  It was a decision that would eventually doom the structure.

On May 17, 1981, The New York Times recalled that H. Kauffman & Sons "has outfitted such famous figures as Teddy Roosevelt, General Patton and Larry Hagman, star of 'Dallas.'"  By the time of the article, the company did a mail order business as well, now including polo equipment.

A decade after the article, Kauffman moved out.  Charles Kauffman, CEO of the still family-owned firm, explained to a reporter on March 3, 1991 that, although preservationists had initiated a campaign to landmark the building, "it has been slated for demolition by Baruch College."  L. B. Oil Company had already sold the property to Baruch.  Unwilling to gamble that preservationists' efforts would be successful, H. Kauffman & Sons moved uptown.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

In January 1989, Historic Conservation and Interpretation, Inc. completed its "Cultural Resource Survey for the Proposed Baruch College Campus Development."  In it, Edward S. Rutsch and Patricia Condell said:

The structure is both historically and architecturally significant and eligible for listing on both the National and New York State Registers of Historic Places...The building's historical significance stems from its association with the Fiss, Doerr, and Carroll Horse Company and its later use as an equestrian outfitting store operated by H. Kauffman and Sons Saddlery Company.  The structure is architecturally significant because it retains its interior spatial arrangements that reflect its original function as a horse auction mart.

The efforts to save the building were fruitless.  The block was demolished for Baruch College's expansion.

photograph by Faud Choudhury

The Elizabeth Benedict House - 119 East 26th Street

 

Unlike its identical neighbor, the brownstone facade of 119 East 26th Street has been painted.

Two families--the Jewells and Keanes--shared the newly built brownstone-clad house at 93 East 26th Street in 1851.  (It would be renumbered 119 in 1867.)  It was one of a row of identical, high-stooped Italianate residences and rose three stories tall above the basement level.  The iron railings of the stoop matched those of the parlor balcony.  A simple, molded frame embraced the double-doored entrance, and the elliptically arched openings sat upon bracketed sills.  Each of the homes had its own pressed metal cornice with robust scrolled brackets.

Presley B. Jewell was a painter and Patrick A. Keane was a shipjoiner (a craftsman who installed wooden components like decking and cabinetry in ships).  Patrick's wife, Mary Ann Keane, died here on December 18, 1852 and her funeral was held in the parlor on the 20th.

Despite their proletariat professions, the Jewells and Keane lived in upscale surroundings.  When the furnishings were sold at auction on April 27, 1853, they included parlor furniture "made to order," a "splendid 6-1/2 octave piano made by Nunn & Clark," china tea and coffee sets, and "rich crimson curtains."

The house was next leased by French-born Valiente Parfirio.  An author and historian, he would publish Reformes dans les Iles de Cuba et de Porto-Rico (Reforms in the Islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico) in Paris in 1869.  The Parfirio family rented spare rooms.  An advertisement in the New York Herald in 1854 offered, 

A gentleman and wife, or a few single gentlemen, can find pleasant rooms, with the comfort of a home, at 93 East Twenty-sixth street.  French and English spoken in the family.

The house was sold at auction on February 11, 1859.  The announcement described, the "very desirable and elegant house" as having, "plate glass in windows, stained glass entering third room, mahogany doors, baths, wash tubs and other modern improvements."

Thomas H. and Mary C. Geraty purchased the property, and their son, Thomas Jr., was born shortly afterward.  The infant contracted croup early in 1860, and died on February 16.  His miniature coffin sat in the parlor until his funeral on February 18.

The house saw at least two occupants over the next seven years.  Then, around 1867, Elizabeth Benedict purchased it.  Many widows operated their homes as boarding houses, but Elizabeth (the widow of Benjamin Benedict) seems to have been financially secure.  She spent her summers away from the city.  On May 5, 1870, Elizabeth advertised, "The neatly furnished house No. 119 East Twenty-sixth street to let until October."  She charged $225 per month, about $5,420 in 2025 terms.

Elizabeth Benedict remained here for more than two decades, selling it in February 1890 to John J. Emery for $13,500 (about $466,000 today).  Emery resold the house to Gustav and Gertrude Romer four years later.

The Romers leased it to a Mrs. Hall, who operated it as a boarding house.  Also living here were her daughter and son-in-law, Genevieve and Frank Allen.  Allen was described by The Morning Telegraph as, "an expert accountant and bookkeeper."  He earned $3,500 a year, a comfortable $133,000 today.  He married Genevieve Hall ( whom the newspaper said was "a small and pretty blonde") in 1884 and, according to The Morning Telegraph, "they took up the struggle of life together and lived happily."  

In fact, not everything had been happy within the marriage.  According to Allen, his wife "was a very jealous woman, and, much to his sorrow, she began to suspect that he paid attention to other women," said The Morning Telegraph.  She demanded a divorce, but Allen would not consent and spent "thousands of dollars in fighting her actions."  Allen insisted he was "guiltless of any misconduct" and "always conducted himself with extreme propriety and took great pains not to arouse the jealousy of his suspecting wife."

Around 1897, Maskel Phelps took a room in the house.  Ironically, before long it was Frank Allen who suspected hanky-panky.  The following year, he arranged for a friend, Lewis Lawrence, to obtain a room in the house "as a spy."  Lawrence later admitted he, "took up his lodgings there for the express purpose of trapping Mrs. Allen for the benefit of the husband."

With the resulting evidence, Frank Allen moved out and on August 30, The Morning Telegraph reported, "Allen charges his wife...with misconduct with Maskel Phelps."  He told a reporter, "that instead of his being a wrongdoer it is his wife who has been misconducting herself, and that her conduct has become unendurable to him."

A less controversial resident was Paul Jursch, who sat on the School Board and was appointed a commissioner of deeds in 1901.  He would remain at least through 1903.  

Another boarder at the time was Dr. Martin Downey.  He was summoned to appear before the president of the Board of Health on June 17, 1903 to explain his failure "to report cases of scarlet fever" as required by the Sanitary Code.

Gustav and Gertrude Romer sold the house to Arthur P. Holland in November 1908.  He leased it to banker Herbert Seymour of Brown Brothers & Co.  A bachelor, he shared the house with his unmarried sister, Gertrude Seymour.  Seymour's financial and social status was reflected in his memberships in the New York Yacht and the Calumet Clubs.  Herbert Seymour suffered a heart attack on June 6, 1912 and died in the house ten days later.

In 1941, the Italianate stoop railings and parlor balcony survived.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

At some point after mid-century, the iron balcony was removed and the stoop railings updated.  In the early 1970s, the A.C.T. Family Center, a therapy clinic for parents and teenaged children, occupied space in the house.  An advertisement in Newsday in 1971 explained in part:

Parents, teen-agers, and a work-team of two counselors sit down together in a living room atmosphere in a comfortable Manhattan town house and talk it out--not as a "case" being "treated," but as fellow human beings seeking honest communication and workable solutions.

A renovation completed in 1988 resulted in two duplex residences in the house.

photographs by the author

The Joseph Peabody House - 125 East 26th Street

 

Merchant Joseph Peabody and his family moved into the newly completed house at 77 East 26th Street in 1859.  (The address would be changed to 125 in 1865.)  One of a row of identical brownstone-faced homes, each was just 14-feet-wide and rose three stories above a high English basement.  Their Italianate design included understated molded entrance frames and handsome cast metal cornices.  Early photographs reveal fashionable Italianate-style iron balconies at the parlor level.

In the rear yard was a small house which the Peabodys rented to the William D. Robinson family.  Robinson was a clerk in the Custom House and his son, Edmund R., was an attorney.  The Robinsons' pet strayed off shortly after moving in.  An advertisement in the New York Daily Herald on November 12, 1859 read, "$5 Reward--Lost, a small white Scotch Terrier.  Whoever will return him to No. 77 East Twenty-sixth street, or to the cashier's office Custom House, will receive the above reward."  (The reward would equal $195 in 2025.)

Although the Peabodys' home was not grand, they sometimes moved within fashionable circles.  When the 19-year-old Prince of Wales visited New York City in 1860, a "Grand Ball" was held in the Academy of Music.  Among those invited were Joseph Peabody and his wife.

It appears that William D. Robinson purchased the property in 1866.  Edmund now occupied the main house and William the rear.  When Edmund moved to 258 Fourth Avenue in 1868, William and his wife moved into the primary house.  That same year Charles E. Strong, an attorney, listed his address here, occupying the rear building.  

The Robinsons, like their neighbors, maintained a small domestic staff.  On September 17, 1878, they advertised, "Wanted--An excellent cook; Must do the washing for a small private family.  125 East 26th st."  That their cook did double-duty as a laundress reflected the Robinsons' social and financial status.  Cooks in the mansions closer to Fifth Avenue were often the most highly paid among the staff and asking them to do anything other than prepare meals would be insulting.

William D. Robinson died in 1880.  Shortly afterward, the Collector of the Port of New York, Chester A. Arthur (later President of the United States), discovered $5,000 in gold coin missing from the office of the cashier of the Custom House.  In March 3, the Congressional Record noted that the missing funds were "without the default or negligence of the collector or of the late William D. Robinson, cashier."

Following the Robinson family, the house was occupied by Marco Leon Stevens y Voisin, "or plain Stevens Voisin," as described by The New York Times.  An exporter, importer and commission merchant, Voison arrived in New York in 1877.  The newspaper said, "Mr. Voisin was chiefly engaged in the export trade with Mexico," and noted:

Mr. Voisin's residence at No. 125 East Twenty-sixth-street is a stone-front, three-story dwelling.  As a bachelor he would have no need for so extensive an establishment were it not that it was his habit when the Mexican trade was booming to entertain his customers there, frequently having half a dozen of them at his house at a time.

The 45-year-old began experiencing business difficulties in 1885.  The New York Times explained that because of the "high rate of exchange, his Mexican customers [were] displaying not only no inclination to purchase American goods, but a very decided repugnance to paying the $25,000 or $30,000 which they owed him on old accounts."  The past due amounts that his Mexican customers owed him would top $1 million today.

Voisin's diminished cash flow crippled his ability to pay his creditors.  Then, in the fall of 1886 he gave Brown, Wood & Co. two checks amounting to $5,634.57.  When the firm deposited them on October 6, they bounced.  The bank notified Detective C. B. McDougal and the next day he visited Voisin's office at 45 Leonard Street.  He was told that Voisin had left for lunch.  McDougal waited, but Voisin did not return.  A week later, on October 12, The New York Times reported, "although a watch has been kept since then on his warehouse and his residence at No. 125 East Twenty-sixth-street, he has not been seen."

Detectives entered the house only to find that the former "richly furnished" rooms had been stripped bare.  Also missing was "a French actress" who had been living with Voisin.  The New York Times reported, "several of his creditors still have faith that he is only suffering from 'panic' and will turn up and straighten out his affairs in a day or two."  That did not happen.

(Interestingly, lawyer Charles E. Strong was still occupying the rear house at the time.)

Anna P. O'Connor lived here in 1890 when she was shopping in the White, Stokes & Allen store at 185 Fifth Avenue on October 16.  She suddenly felt a hand in her pocket and turned to see a "shabbily dressed man at her side," as reported by The Sun.  Bernard St. John Gisbey was arrested as a pickpocket and he, Anna O'Connor, and the salesman who had been waiting on her appeared in court on October 29.

The Sun described Gisbey as being "of slight figure, with an intelligent face.  His curling hair and moustache are brown."  Under questioning, the 35-year-old explained he was English and had had a good education.  He was ordained as a minister of the Congregational Church, but after a few years, "I resigned my charged because my religious views had undergone a change."

Gisbey thought that he could start anew in the United States, "believing that a man of my education could readily find employment."  That proved illusive and after a while, Gisbey was moneyless and homeless.  He tearfully told the court, "I did steal this purse, and I am overcome with sorry and shame.  I was driven to theft by actual hunger...I was not always as I am."  Gisbey was convicted and The Sun said he, "may be sentenced to State prison for five years."

As late as 1941, the original two-over-two windows survived.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The house was sold in July 1893 and it became home to Augustus Porter Barnard.  An engineer, he graduated from the School of Mines of Columbia University in 1868.  He remained here until the turn of the century, at which time the neighborhood was seeing an incursion of commerce.

That change first came to 125 East 26th Street in the spring of 1905.  On March 19, an announcement appeared in the New York Herald:

Mrs. Hudson, formerly 1 West 100th st., is now located at 125 East 26th st., and is prepared to give her personal attention and thorough instruction in manicuring, hairdressing.  Marcel wave, facial, scalp, neck and general massage; anatomy taught; diplomas; addresses furnished of my graduates, who average $35 weekly; their success proves their ability; start now, start right and YOU will be successful.  Mrs. Hudson, 125 East 26th.

The post-World War I years saw several offices within the house.  In 1921, the architectural offices of Maynicke & Frank were here, and the following year the headquarters of the engineering firm Dwight P. Robinson & Co., occupied space.

Through it all, little changed to the exterior of 125 East 26th Street, other than the removal of the balcony.  In 1941, it was returned to residential use.  A renovation resulted in two duplexes--in the basement and parlor floors, and another in the top two.  That configuration survives.

photographs by the author

The Greatly Altered Cephas G. Thompson House - 30 Lexington Avenue

 

photo by Allen Sheinman

John Watts, Sr. served as a member of the Colonial Assembly and the King's Council.  In 1747, he acquired the 130-acre country estate of his father-in-law James DeLancey.  He named the property Rose Hill after the Watts ancestorial home near Edinburgh, Scotland.  The sprawling property ran from the East River to about what today is Park Avenue South, and from 21st to 30th Streets.

A loyalist, Watts lost Rose Hill Farm to the Committee of Forfeiture after the Revolution.  John Watts, Jr., a patriot, was permitted to re-purchase much of the land.  By his death in 1836, he had begun parceling off portions as the expanding city slowly encroached into the district.  

In 1832, Lexington Avenue and Irving Place were opened.  Between them, Samuel Ruggles would create Gramercy Square, opened in 1849, a private, landscaped park surrounded with elegant mansions.

The residential tenor of Gramercy Park spread up Lexington Avenue.  Upscale, high-stooped brick and brownstone homes were erected before the outbreak of the Civil War, including that of Cephas Giovanni Thompson at 20 Lexington Avenue (renumbered 30 in 1867).  The three-story-and-basement Italianate home was faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.

Cephas Giovanni Thompson created unusual group portrait of his family around 1857.  from the collection of the Boston Athenaeum.

Born on August 3, 1809 in Middleborough, Massachusetts, Thompson was the son of American painter Cephas Thompson.  Cephas Giovanni and his wife, the former Mary Gouverneur Ogden, had three children.  He took his family to Italy in 1852 and lived and worked there for seven years.  While there, Thompson became close friends with expatriate American author Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Upon relocating to New York City in 1859, the Thompsons moved into the newly-built Lexington Avenue house.  That year Thompson listed his profession in the city directories as "historical and portrait painter."  The Lexington Avenue house was hung with a striking art collection, described by The New York Times later as, "the fruit of many years of careful selection of Mr. C. G. Thompson...while residing in Rome, Florence, Naples, and other European cities, and contains examples of the production of the great masters in this particular branch of art from the fifteenth century down to the present day."

Cephas Giovanni Thompson, from Book of Artists, 1870 (copyright expired)

In March 1865, Thompson advertised the house for sale.  It was purchased by Thomas J. McCahill as an investment property.  That year, it was shared by the families of Edward J. Anglim, a drygoods merchant, and James H. Hollingshead, a partner in the electrotyping firm Gay & Hollingshead.

In 1867, Ann R. Rivers leased the residence.  The widow of William Rivers, she operated it as a boarding house.  Living with her were her adult children, Guy and Mary.  Four years later, on January 5, 1871, Thomas J. McCahill transferred the title of 30 Lexington Avenue to Ann Maria Palmer.  It would not be long afterward that she discovered that she had a problem tenant.

On June 9, 1872, the New York Dispatch reported the scandalous details of the divorce proceedings of William H. Kimball, "a wealthy dealer in refined oils," and his wife, Anna.  Among the scurrilous charges against Kimball was that:

...on the morning of the 10th day of January, in the year 1872, at a house of assignation and prostitution, situated at No. 30 Lexington avenue, in the city of New York, kept by a woman known as Mrs. Rivers, did commit adultery with a woman.

Not surprisingly, the shocking publicity ended Ann R. Rivers's enterprise.  Within a few months of the article, Maria Brown, another widow, was operating the boarding house.

Around 1896, the ground floor of 30 Lexington Avenue was converted for business purposes.  The stoop was removed and a cast iron storefront installed.  In 1898,  a stationery store occupied the front and the Sanblom bicycle store was in the rear.

The ground floor was remodeled to a saloon in the summer of 1901 by Edward Lowry and Joseph Regan.  The Evening World said on November 19, "The men are less than forty years old and have been friends for years.  A few weeks ago they opened the saloon in partnership and no one supposed that their relations were not amicable and pleasant."  The problem was, as the newspaper explained, "Lowry had no money and [Regan] put up the necessary cash."  The lopsided business relationship quickly degenerated into animosity.  Within weeks, Lowry started sending Regan threatening letters.  On November 10, Regan's wife discovered and read one of the opened letters.  "She became frightened," reported The Evening World.

The newspaper continued, "Last night, Regan says, he went to the saloon to tell Lowry to stop writing the letters, when the two got into an argument."  Lowry pulled out a revolver and fired at his partner, the bullet piercing Regan's coat collar.  The Evening World reported that the bullet, "inflicted only a trifling wound."  

According to the bartender, John Page, Regan took out his revolver and fired three shots at Lowry.  Despite Lowry's being hit in the arm, head and stomach, a physician at Bellevue Hospital stated that his condition "is not serious."   Regan was arrested and Patrolman Stephenson told the court, "he had found a dirk knife and a dagger on Regan, besides the revolver."

Not surprisingly, Regan's and Lowry's saloon was short-lived.  The space became home to the headquarters of The Armenian Union of America.

The estate of Ann Maria Palmer sold the property in 1908.  As early as 1913, the former Armenian Union of America space was occupied by the 12th-14th Assembly District Headquarters.  Not everything was politics within its confines.  On February 18, 1915, for instance, the New York Evening Call reported, "The monthly entertainment and dance of the 12th-14th A. D. will take place Sunday evening, February 21, at headquarters, 30 Lexington avenue."  The group shared the space with the Young People's Socialist League.

In March 1915, Catherine Sheridan leased the commercial space "for use as a physical culture restaurant," according to The Sun.  The physical culture trend at the time promoted healthful living and nutritional foods.  The increasingly Armenian population of the district was reflected in Pavillion d'Orient, an Armenian Restaurant, occupying the space in the post World War I years.

A renovation completed in 1937 created a store in the ground and former parlor floors.  While traces of the 1890s cast iron storefront remained, an arcade-style show window was installed at the sidewalk level.  The slightly-projecting store space was given a charming shingled roof that was copied in the replacement of the 1850s cornice.  The Department of Buildings demanded that the second and third floors remain "vacant."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

At mid-century, the store space was occupied by Parkside Cleaners.  Briefly, in the early 1970s, it was home to the New Moravian Church.  

Seen here in the mid-1980s, the building had little changed since the 1937 re-do.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The last relic of pre-Civil War life on the block, a significant renovation came to 30 Lexington Avenue in 1997.  Two stories with a peaked roof were added and a coat of stucco applied to the brick.  Traces of the 1890s iron storefront survive.  A renovation in 2013 resulted in one apartment each on the third through fifth floors.

many thanks to reader Allen Sheinman for suggesting this post