Schneider & Herter's 1889 229 East 10th Street

 

In the 1840s, the block of East 10th Street between First and Second Avenues was lined with elegant four-story brick homes.  But the waves of immigrants who arrived in New York following the end of the Civil War and settled in the East Village changed the tenor of the neighborhood.  When Christian and Elizabeth Dick sold the former private house at 229 East 10th Street in July 1884, it was home to multiple families.

In 1889 Charles and Augustus Ruff demolished 229 East 10th Street and hired the architectural firm of Schneider & Herter to design a tenement building on the site.  The architects were among the favorites of developers in the Lower East Side.  Ernest W. Schneider and Henry Herter would eventually design more than a hundred tenement buildings, as well as commercial structures and two synagogues in the district.  Their plans for the 22-foot wide, five-story structure, filed in September, projected construction costs at $22,000--about $668,000 in 2023 terms.

Schneider & Herter were known for their exuberant ornamentation, and 229 East 10th Street would not disappoint.  Overall Romanesque Revival in style, the architects liberally added Queen Anne elements.  There were two stores below street level, one on either side of the stoop.  Two squat medieval columns upheld the brick arch over the entrance.  The keystones and piers of the first floor were carved with portraits, their contemporary dress and facial hair suggesting they were actual people.

Queen Anne tiles, decorative terra cotta bands, and additional carved portrait elements--one supporting a fifth floor pier representing a Native American--embellished the facade.   Schneider & Herter saved the most eye-catching element for the top floor, where two exquisitely carved youthful atlantes uphold the central piers.

Not all of the initial residents were impoverished new-comers.  Among the original tenants was Thomas F. Cohen, an attorney and notary public.  He lived here by 1891, testifying in court that his apartment doubled as "an evening office."

On December 18, 1894 Cohen made an egregious professional mistake.  He had notarized the signatures on railroad bonds of William H. Schooley and Joel Patterson.  When the pair was arrested, charged with having stolen the bonds, Cohen was called into court as a witness.  The New York Times reported, "He testified that he had taken the acknowledgment of two men who were strangers to him."

The World wrote, "This is a criminal office, according to the Penal Code."  Judge Martine was outraged, and sent for Assistant District Attorney Battle "to have the witness indicted for violating his oath as notary public in acknowledging the signature of persons not personally known to him," said New York Times.  Realizing that his livelihood was in jeopardy, Cohen broke down in tears.  The World reported, "Cohen cried, and said he did not know he was doing wrong and the Judge let him depart, after a lecture."

At 1:00 on the morning of February 22, 1896, Herman Altman, the janitor, discovered Edward J. C. Mantio "prowling on the third floor of the apartment house No. 239 East Tenth street" in his stocking feet, as reported by the New York Herald.  Altman grabbed the intruder and held him until a policeman came.  Mantio's shoes were in his overcoat pockets.

In court the next morning Mantio explained "a man had engaged him to deliver a note to a gentleman who lived in the house," reported The Press.

"Did you deliver the note?" the magistrate asked.

"No, sir," was the reply.

"Have you got it?"

"No, I gave it back to the man to gave it to me," Mantio said.

Herman Altman pointed out that that was impossible, since Mantio had been in his control until his arrest.  When the prisoner was asked why he would take off his shoes to deliver a message, he explained he was afraid of waking up the residents.  He was held on charges of unlawfully entering a building.

Resident Louis Biechler was doing well for himself in 1898.  Known familiarly as "Jumbo," the New York Herald said he "is apparently well-to-do."  He ran a coffee house in one of the stores in the building, and another on East 4th Street.  His  luck changed in May 1898 when his 24-year-old wife Minnie ran off to San Francisco with Jacob Weymann, taking $2,000 and diamond jewelry belonging to her husband.

The two were not in California long before Weymann left Minnie and she attempted suicide, which was a jailable offense.  The New York Herald explained, "She professed penitence, and the police there enable her to return to New York."  She arrived back in town on September 13 and, not finding Louis in the apartment or the shop in the building, went to the West 4th Street store.  There she "pleaded for forgiveness."  Her repentance fell flat.  The New York Herald recounted,  "'You think you'll get the better of me again, don't you?,' he returned.  'Well, I won't have anything to do with you.'"

Louis then left the store.  Her options exhausted, at least in her mind, Minnie took a vial of paris green (a rodent poison) from her purse and drank it.  Because she was in a public place, help came quickly.  The New York Herald reported that she was taken to Bellevue Hospital "where it was said she would recover."

Another tenant set on ending her own life was Regina Goldner, who was arrested for attempting suicide on August 7, 1907.  The New York Herald reported that the 18-year-old "was not considered insane, and so was remanded to the Tombs for sentence.  Since that time she has been watched by an attendant to prevent suicide."

Regina was intent on ending her sufferings.  Twice before she was to appear in court on August 16, the matron found her trying to hang herself to the cell bars by her apron strings.  She had to be carried to "the court pen" to hear Judge Crain's sentence.  She was unfamiliar with the word "indeterminate" and asked for clarification.  The judge told her it meant "two years."

Back in her cell, Regina again attempted to hang herself.  (It would seem that simply taking away the apron strings might have been prudent.)  "It was decided to send for Rabbi Schurtzman, who knew her," said the article.  He spoke with the teen for an hour in a common space, then, rather foolishly, left without informing the matron.  Regina took the opportunity to throw herself over the balcony railing to the floor below.  The New York Herald reported that she suffered "a fracture of the skull, a fractured leg and a fractured jaw.  There is little chance of her recovery."

Richard Vaughn and George Williams shared an apartment in 1908.  Williams, who was 45-years-old was known on the street as Humpty.  Vaughn listed himself as a salesman, but his true profession was much more profitable and illicit.  That summer eight detectives had been working on "trailing safe blowers for several weeks through half a dozen cities," according to The Sun on August 22.  The crime spree had come to an end the previous evening when Vaughn and Williams were arrested in the act of robbing a dentist's office downtown.

The newspaper said the pair had "made good hauls and got away without police interference with about $10,000."  Vaughn had recently been released after a two-year sentence in the Connecticut State Prison.  George "Humpty" Williams "has spent seventeen years in jail, and...is known to the police as being one of the most expert safe crackers in the world, as well as one of the shrewdest of his kind living," said The Evening Telegram.

George Humpty Williams.  The Evening Telegram, August 22, 1908 (copyright expired)

Resident Frieda Alexanderofsky exemplified the struggles of impoverish immigrant women in the early years of the 20th century.  When her child became ill early in 1911, it was taken to the Marine Hospital on Hoffman Island.  Just off Staten Island, the facility was mostly used as quarantine spot for incoming immigrants.  When rumors of corruption and maltreatment were investigated that year, Frieda was called to testify.  And her story was shocking.

On June 28 the New York Herald reported, "Her child was ill, and when she asked to see the infant, she testified, she was told that if she would scrub the floors she could see the child."  She told the court:

I looked into the hospital window one day and a watchman drove me away with a stick.  I then made up my mind to scrub.  I worked from six o'clock in the morning until seven o'clock at night.  When I was not scrubbing I was bathing ill children.  I often bathed twenty-five children in the same water.  They promised to pay me thirty-six cents a day for my work, but at the end of nine weeks they gave me an order for $6.30.  I never have been able to collect the money.

When asked if she personally saw acts of cruelty in the hospital, she recalled:

I saw nurses stuff ends of quilts into the mouths of crying children and then lay them upon their stomachs so that they could not utter a sound.  I saw dying children taken out into the open air in January and left there covered with a thin blanket.  When I protested to a nurse against this inhumanity I was told there were too many children in New York now and that the fewer that left the hospital the better for all concerned.

Asked why she never reported the incidents, Frieda explained, "I was told that I should keep my eyes and mouth closed if I did not want to be sent back to Europe."

In 1902 the Jewish housewives of New York and Brooklyn had protested against the high cost of kosher meats by staging a boycott.  It resulted in the Kosher Meat Riots in May, with hundreds of women taking to the streets.  Now, in the summer of 1912, a second boycott was underway.  Among the participants was Mrs. Lena Lipis who lived with her family at 229 East 10th Street.  

When Mrs. Lipis went grocery shopping on June 17, she became outraged when she saw another housewife ignoring the boycott.  A feisty Lena Lipis flew into a rage and ended up in the Essex Market Court.  The Newark Evening Star reported she was charged "for having used abusive language and taken a package of meat from Mrs. Fannie Rocoosin, of 91 St. Mark's place, and thrown it in the street."  Lena pleaded guilty and was fined $10--around $290 today.

When America entered World War I, resident Irving Siota enlisted in the medical detachment of the 308th Infantry.  From October 2 through October 7, 1918, his detachment was cut off and surrounded by the enemy in the forest of Argonne during what would be known as the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.

Two years later he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.  The commendation read in part, "During this period he was without food, but he continued to assist and give first aid to the wounded, exposing himself to heavy shell and machine-gun fire at the risk of his life, until he was completely exhausted."

In 1930, siblings William Viragh Jr. and Elsie Viragh shared an apartment in the building.  William was just 17 and his sister was 18.  The teens' mother had died several years earlier and their father lived far upstate.  On July 4 that year, William Sr.'s body was found in the Mohawk River near Schenectady.  Sheriff Edward C. Klein tracked down Elsie and William through notices in the New York City Hungarian language newspapers.  On July 14 the Schenectady Gazette reported, "Young Viragh and his sister came to this city Saturday to make arrangements for their father's funeral."

Living here two years later was 24-year-old Charles Kiefhaber.  He sped through the intersection of First Avenue and 24th Street in May 1932, prompting motorcycle officer Joseph M. Clark to pull him over.  Kiefhaber soon regretted breaking the speed limit.  "Upon questioning by the police," reported the Long Island Daily Press, "Kiefhaber admitted he stole the machine."  He was sentenced on May 27 to two to four years in Sing Sing prison.

In the last quarter of the 20th century, the formerly gritty neighborhood saw change as younger, more affluent residents migrated into the area.  Despite architecturally unsympathetic replacement windows and a utilitarian entrance door, Schneider & Herter's 1889 tenement demands attention--especially those remarkable fifth floor figures.

photographs by the author

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The Orienta - 302 West 79th Street

Pretending to be stone, the rusticated piers framing the bowed bays are in reality, brick.

The residents and developers of the Upper West Side, more than anywhere else in the city, were quick to embrace the concept of apartment living.  In the last years of the 19th century mansions along the district's avenues, built only a decade or two earlier, were demolished for modern apartment buildings.

In 1904 developer Abraham M. Morgenroth was part of the trend.  That year he commissioned Schneider & Herter to design an upscale apartment building engulfing the buildings lots at Nos. 302 through 306 West 79th Street, between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive.

Architects Ernest B. W. Schneider and Henry Herter produced an eight story structure of red brick and limestone.   The tripartite design included a two-story stone base that supported five stories of red brick, followed by a rather spartan stone-and-brick upper floor.  The architects splashed the facade with exuberant Beaux Arts touches, like the French-inspired cartouche above the entrance and the swag-draped brackets of the second floor cornice.

Highly unusual were the five-story bowed and hooded bays.  They not only added dimension, but caught breezes on warm summer evenings.  Schneider & Herter saved their employer money by using stone-colored brick rather than stone to create the quoins and rusticated piers.  The bowed bays were crowned by carved angels holding shields.

The Orienta was completed in 1905 and had just four apartments per floor, ranging from suites of five to seven rooms.  The largest apartments included "extra servants' toilets," so the families did not have to share the bathrooms with the staff.  Morgenroth's advertising boasted "The trim throughout is of select hardwood, rubbed to a high polish."

Little significant change has taken place since this photograph was published in 1908.  Apartment Houses of the Metropolis, (copyright expired)

The well-heeled families who leased apartments in The Orienta would enjoy the latest in conveniences.  Because electrical service was still unreliable, there were both electric and gas lighting fixtures in the suites.  A 1905 advertisement noted "there are long distance telephones in all apartments.  The plumbing throughout is modern and sanitary and the kitchens are fitted with porcelain lined washtubs and sinks and glass lined refrigerators."  The parlors of each apartment included a gas-log fireplace.

Apartment Houses of the Metropolis, (copyright expired)

The lobby was meant to impress with marble wainscoting and "a commodious waiting room."  A description of the new building in The World's New York Apartment House Album made special note of the location.  "It is high, has perfect drainage, and because of its proximity to the Hudson, Riverside Drive and Central Park, enjoys the purest air."

For all these amenities residents would pay between $660 and $924 a year; more than $2,000 a month in today's dollars for the largest apartments.

The ground floor originally held a restaurant, tagged "Dining Room" for both residents and the public.  The ground floor doctor's office included a studio apartment.  Apartment Houses of the Metropolis, (copyright expired)

Apparently all the players in planning and designing The Orienta were well-pleased with the outcome.  Abraham M. Morgenroth took an apartment and Schneider & Herter listed its address here in 1905.

One of the first to move in was Eugene E. Christian, a fervent proponent of "the Pure Food cause."   The founder and principal in Christian's Natural Food Co., he would be called a food naturalist today.  His letter to the Seville Packing Company on November 10, 1905 was written from his apartment-office here.

The firm had sent him samples of its Nicelle Olive Oil for endorsement.  Christian told the company he had "tested your Nicelle brand of olive oil by both natural and chemical methods, and I find that it contains nothing but a pure ripe olive fat."  His findings no doubt pleased the firm's marketers.  He signed the letter "Eugene E. Christian, Naturalist and Food Expert."

Most residents, however, appeared in the press for purely social reasons, like Everett Jackson and his wife.  On April 1, 1906 The New York Times society page reported "Mrs. Everett Jackson gave her final at home for the season on Tuesday;" and two years later, on April 5, 1908, noted "Mr. and Mrs. Everett Jackson...will leave town this week for a ten days' trip to Atlantic City."

In 1908 Dr. George P. Long moved his practice from Long Island to The Orienta.  The ground floor doctor's office included an apartment with a separate entrance.  Dr. Long paid an annual rent of $840 for the space, or about $1,925 a month today.

Other moneyed residents at the time included manufacturer G. Irving Abendroth; Arthur Edmunds Jenks and his wife, the former Catherine Bonner; and E. M. Cravath and his wife.  Jenks was a partner in the Hanson-Jenks Co., perfumers.  The Cravaths summered on Long Island and were prominent in the horse set.  The New York Times included them among "the most exclusive element on Long Island" at the North Shore Horse Show at Piping Rock in 1909.

Sculpted marble angels hold the swagged cartouche.

While Cravath and his wife busied themselves with the horse shows, another resident was more interested in dogs.  J. Willoughby Mitchell was involved in the annual Monmouth County Kennel Club shows, participating as a Ring Steward in 1908.   His wife focused on more political issues, however.

An ardent feminist, on May 27, 1915 she hosted a "canvassing tea" for the Suffragist cause in the Hotel Belleclaire.  She was also an officer in the national organization of "Women of 1915."  Among the group's efforts that year was preparing for the Patriotic Ball to be held on January 24, 1916 in the Biltmore Hotel.  The goal was to raise funds to purchase "an aeroplane to present to the coast defense of New York."

A rather flamboyant resident styled himself as Comte Rene de Nannez.  He left The Orienta on the evening of July 15, 1914 dressed in evening clothes and wearing a monocle.  His cabbie, Archibald Rogers, took him to a French restaurant on 26th Street and when they arrived the Frenchman insisted that he join him for dinner.  When they arrived back at The Orienta, the count refused to pay the $9.10 fare, saying the dinner was more than enough to cover it.

Rogers had him arrested.  The New York Times reported that the prisoner "talked only French" but "the complainant had no trouble making himself understood."  Finally a French-speaking officer, Captain Bonnoil, arrived and was able to communicate with the prisoner.  The Times said "He said he had no occupation and lived on the income of his estates in France.  When searched enough money was found to more than pay Rogers."   The count was locked up, charged with intoxication and for refusing to pay his cab fare.

George Neubauer was also in a police station house that year; but he was on the more favorable side of the law.  Wanting to sub-let his apartment furnished, he showed it to George Krag on March 7.  As they walked through each room, Neubauer was puzzled when Krag "put down his hat and picked it up again more than seemed necessary," as reported by The Sun.

The mystery solved itself when at one point Neubauer's gold watch and chain, which had been on a bureau, fell out of the hat.  The 24-year old clerk had worked his scheme at least twice before; but this time he picked the wrong victim.  Neubauer "seized Krag" and dragged him out of the building and into police custody.

Among the more high-profile residences by 1921 was Leslie S. Petrie.  A director of the Chesapeake Western Railway he was more importantly the right-hand man to millionaire W. E. D. Stokes who lived nearby at the Ansonia Apartments where Petrie had his office.

In 1921 Helen Stokes left her husband, whom she said had an income of more than $500,000 a year--about $6.7 million today.  Petrie's name appeared in the papers as the messy court case dragged on as Helen sought to obtain "her dower rights" (the right to remain in her residence owned by Stokes).   But the case turned even more scurrilous when the divorce case became entangled with the nationally-publicized murder investigation of sportsman and gambler Joseph Bowne Elwell.

Elwell was found with a bullet wound in the head on June 11, 1920.  The absence of a weapon ruled out the possibility of suicide.   Keys found in Helen Stokes's bureau a year later were suspected to fit the locks of Elwell's home.  Suddenly Petrie, who had been testifying on his employer's behalf, found himself defending Helen.  On April 8, 1921 he testified that the keys fitted the door of the apartment of Edgar T. Wallace, not the Elwell home.

The murder case was never solved.

Another mystery revolved around 36-year old Albert Frazer, who spent the summer of 1929 in Europe.  He boarded the steamer Belgenland in Germany headed home in September.  When the ship docked on September 15, Frazer did not disembark.  A search of his cabin found him dead.

Morris Breitman lived in The Orienta in 1939.  The 43-year old had been the private chauffeur for a wealthy family for 17 years.  His fascination with automobiles took a dark turn that year.   Around 5:30 on the morning of November 7 a car was seen burning in front of No. 250 West 80th Street.  "Hardly had the firemen extinguished the blaze when they saw another car afire in the same block," reported The Times.

While they were trying to put out that fire, another ignited on West End Avenue north of 80th Street.  In rapid succession two more car fires broke out on West End Avenue and 80th Street.  One of the firefighters notified the police and patrol cars began to scour the neighborhood.  Before long Breitman was spotted entering a parked car.

According to police, in his possession were two books of safety matches, the covers of which matched one found in one of the burned automobiles.  The chauffeur admitted he "had had a few drinks."  Although he denied setting the fires, he was arrested and charged with arson.  There were no more car fires.

In 1959 The Orienta was renovated, resulting in five and six apartments per floor.  Still respectable, the tenant list was nevertheless now slightly more down-to-earth.  Among the residents was Julliard student Gerard Schwartz who paid $167 a month for a two-bedroom apartment.  Among his later accomplishments would be becoming the music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and the music director of Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart festivals between 1982 and 2001.

The Orienta was converted to co-operative apartments in 1988.  Schneider & Herter's dignified exterior with its unusual rounded bays remains nearly unchanged.

photographs by the author

Vestiges of Style - The Queen Anne Group at West End Ave and 102nd Street

The houses as they appeared in February 1893.  The corner house, No. 858 West End Ave., was the showpiece.  Real Estate Record, February 11, 1893, copyright expired

Like several architectural firms at the end of the 19th century Schneider & Herter sometimes operated as its own real estate brokers.  Such was that case when architects Ernest W. Schneider and Henry Herter joined forces with John Fish and Eugene Schultz to form Schneider & Co.  The development firm had a built-in design team in Schneider & Herter.

The alliance began construction of a grouping of four upscale homes at the southeast corner of West End Avenue and 102nd Street in May 1892.   By now the Upper West Side's architectural personality had taken shape.  Sparked by the imaginative minds of architects like Clarence True and Rafael Guastavino, blocks of delightful, picturesque houses sprouted gargoyles, turrets and dog-legged stoops.  They stood in stark contrast to the more regimented, traditional rowhouses elsewhere in the city.

Schneider & Herter joined the trend with gusto.  Three of the four houses, Nos. 854 through 858 West End Avenue pretended at first glance to be a single massive mansion.  No. 254 West 102nd Street, around the corner, not only stood on its own architecturally, but was slightly separated from the corner house by what the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide described as a "yard running from front to rear."  That arrangement gave both houses an additional wall of windows and light.

The West End Avenue houses have lost their stoops.  The entrance to the corner mansion survives on the side.

Construction of the Queen Anne-style houses was completed in April 1893.  The two 17-foot wide houses at Nos. 854 and 856 West End Avenue were near copies inside and out.  Above  high dog-legged stone stoops with newels carved with lions' heads, their entrances were deeply recessed.  At the parlor and third floor levels of No. 856 the architects added chunky Romanesque Revival arches.  Colorful stained glass filled the transoms of the parlor windows.  Both houses terminated in an attic floor brimming with Flemish Renaissance touches, a nod to the city's Dutch roots and a favorite motif along the Upper West Side.

Stealing the spotlight was the corner house, No. 858 West End Avenue.  Despite its address, its entrance was centered in the 72-foot long 102nd Street side.  A corner tower dominated the design and provided an additional full-height corner room.  It bell-shaped cap, often referred to as a pepper-pot, culminated in a tall, decorative finial.

The step-sister of the group, No. 254 West 102nd Street, rose in stepped, angled bays like a wedding cake.  Its third floor was distinguished by a single Romanesque Revival arch that not only provided a flood of sunlight inside, but access to the ample balcony.  The sparse development of the immediate area was reflected in the Record & Guide's mention that the projecting bays of No. 254 "overlook the River and Palisades."  Atop the cornice rose an ornate, quirky pediment perhaps more expected on a 23rd Street store.

The abundant balconies throughout the group was noteworthy and innovative.  In describing the second floor balcony off a bedroom of the corner house, a critic noted it "may be occupied on a summer's morning or evening, and from which a good view of the Hudson River and Palisades is obtained.  This method of utilizing the balcony should be more generally adopted."


Schneider & Co. lavished the interiors with expensive materials and amenities.  All were trimmed in hardwoods and the fireplace mantels were faced either in onyx or marble.  The Record & Guide noted "They have openings of fret-work in horse-shoe shape to divide the music-rooms from the parlors and some of the bedrooms above."  The tiled-floor bathrooms had seven-foot high tile wainscoting and nickel-plated fixtures on the porcelain tubs and sinks.

Within the corner house, the parlor level consisted of "a reception room, with windows overlooking the avenue and street, and with a mantel, mirror and fireplace with Mexican onyx facings and tiles; a large dining-room with a similar mantel, including a sideboard, etc.; a library and smoking room and a butler's pantry, with a new feature in the shape of a compartment for warming plates.  One the same floor as the house is entered, there appears a vestibule, a foyer hall with a recess containing a terra cotta mantel and mirror, and two conversation seats."

The second floor contained three bedrooms, two dressing "saloons" and a bath.  There were four bedrooms and a bath on the third floor.  The Record & Guide pointed out "the attic consists of a tower, for a children's nursery or lookout."

In all of the houses, the basement level contained a billiard room with built in sideboards and handsome mantels, the kitchen, laundry, dumb water, and servants' rear stairs.

Unfortunately for Schneider & Co., the expensive homes were completed at the onset of the Financial Panic of 1893--a serious economic depression that resulted in the closing of 500 banks and the failure of 15,000 businesses.  While No. 856 sold that year, the remainder of the group sat vacant.

Finally in 1895 the three unsold houses were divided among Schneider & Co. investors.  Eventually, of course, the economy improved and one-by-one the residences were sold.  No. 854 became home to attorney and sometimes architect Edward Miehling and wife, the former Pauline Eickhoff.

Living with the couple was Pauline's parents.  Anthony Eickhoff was the most interesting and accomplished among the family.  Born in Lippstadt, Westphalia, he had fled to America during the German Revolution of 1846.  After living in New Orleans for two years, he moved to St. Louis at the age of 21 where he founded the St. Louis Zeitung, and later became editor of Dubuque's The Nordwestliche Demokrat and then  German-language newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky.

After moving to New York in 1852 he became editor of Die Abendpost, then from 1854 to 1856 of the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung.  He joined the Union Army and served as commissary-general for New York troops; was elected to the State Legislature in 1863; and in 1873 was appointed Coroner.  Three years later he was elected to United States Congress.

Eickhoff's amazing career was hardly over.  From 1891 to 1896 he was Fire Commissioner.  At the time the family moved into the West End Avenue house the elderly man was still active, serving as auditor for the Fire Department.  He still managed to find the time to write a book on German immigration entitled The German in America.  He died in the West End Avenue house in November 1901 at the age of 74, ending a brilliant and remarkable career.

The Miehling family would continued to live in the house until December 1907 when it was sold to Israel Lebowitz, a real estate operator.  He quickly sold it to Frederick W. Stephenson.

Stephenson and his wife, Linda, had a daughter, also named Linda, and son, F. Kenneth.  While Stephenson stayed home attending to business in the winter of 1914, his family went off to the fashionable Florida resort "colony" of Belleair.   The Sun predicted "a lively and brilliant season at the hotel as well as among the cottage colony," that season and listed among "the earliest arrivals" the Stephensons.

Daughter Linda was a young woman by now and later that year she bought a Chalmers automobile, a purchase that reflected the affluence of the family.  The opening price for a 1914 Chalmers was $2,000, or around $49,500 today.

Linda Stephenson's new car may have looked much like this 1914 model.  (copyright expired)

It was the older Linda Stephenson who seems to have been the most socially and politically active in the family.  Her name appeared in newspapers as she rallied for issues like the Prohibition.  In August 1918 she was among the list of women who petitioned the governor to "take a definite and open stand for prohibition" and to emphasize "his opposition to the liquor traffic and the use of intoxicants."

Above the brutalized basement level of No. 856, stained glass and other elements survive (including the entrance transom).  Someone thought that painting the brownstone brown would be a good idea. 

In the meantime the other houses in the group were home to well-to-do families.  Next door, No. 856 was home to the family of Solomon Katz, a dealer in laces at No. 19 West 21st Street.  Although the family was not on a financial or social par with Fifth Avenue society, protocols were followed.  On November 19, 1911, for instance, The New York Times society column noted "Miss Irene Katz...whose engagement to Normal L. Strauss of this city was announced several weeks ago, will be at home on Thanksgiving Day from 4 until 6."


The massive corner house had a rocky beginning, owner-wise.  In 1898 it was sold in foreclosure to J. Johnson.  After he died just two years later owing $28,873 on the property (more than $850,000 today), it was operated as an upscale boarding house for a few years.  Among the well-heeled boarders living here prior to 1908 were  W. A. Boyd, secretary of the Chicago-based McLeod Company; Colonel F. C. Loveland and his wife; and Margaret A. Klein, originally from Walterboro, South Carolina and head of The Educational Alliance.

In November 1908 No. 858 finally got a long-term owner in Frederick Bertuch and his wife, Minnie.  Bertuch, who was born in Offenbach, German, was in the "pulp" business.  The childless couple maintained a country home in Babylon, New York.  It was described by the industry journal Paper as "one of the show places of Long Island."

In 1912 Frederick Bertuch & Co. was dissolved and Bertuch essentially retired.  He did, however, remain a "special partner" in the successor firm founded by his former partner, Johannes Andersen.

The Bertuchs hired contractors to repair their roof in 1919.  Whatever the problem was it was serious enough that it could not wait until summer.   On the morning after Christmas Day 40-year old William Proder was among the workers high above West End Avenue.   He lost his footing and fell to the sidewalk.  His death was instantaneous.

Frederick Bertuch seems to have been obsessed with how to distribute his estate following his death.   He executed his will on May 26, 1915, then amended it three times, adding and removing beneficiaries and causes.  A few of his decisions seemed capricious and questionable.

The original will, for instance, left money to certain employees of his firm.  In February 1921 he revoked those bequests.  At the same time he added funds to maintain a bread line at the Bowery Mission and Young Men's Home.  Perhaps most disturbing was the direction that Morris Gintzler, one of his executors, chloroform all of his horses "to ensure that they will not be cruelly treated."  Luckily for the animals, Bertuch reversed that decision in his final codicil.

Bertuch died in the summer of 1922.  Minnie received $10,000 outright, the "use of his household goods, works of art and other contents of the Bertuch homes in West End Avenue and in Babylon."  The will directed that following Minnie's death the houses were to be sold.   The $1 million estate was spread among worthy recipients.   Columbia University received $100,000, $50,000 went to Cooper Union, and another $50,000 to the Children's Aid Society, for instance.

Minnie remained in the corner mansion until her death in April 1928.

In the meantime, the West 102nd Street house had been a boarding house since, at least, the turn of the century.  Its respectable boarders included two unmarried school teachers in the first years of the century, and, in 1911, Henry Cohn who started the Jacob Wechsler Hat Company "to manufacture ladies' and misses' straw and felt hats" that year with three partners.

Shortly after Minnie Bertuch's death, all four of the houses were being operated as multi-family structures.  The Stephenson family left No. 854 in 1920, after which rented rooms were advertised.  In 1938 it was converted to what The New York Times described as "a modern apartment house" saying, "The building was a private dwelling and now contains apartments of one and one-half to two and one-half rooms."

The same year that the Stephensons left West End Avenue the Katz family moved out of No. 856.  Occupants living here in the 1920s and '30s had German surnames--Gabriel Hamburger, Jacob Meyer Horn, and Goldie Abramowitz, among them.  In 1937 a conversion by architect Walter Katz resulted in two apartments per floor.  The former Bertuch mansion contains eight apartments today; while No. 254 West 102nd Street was reconverted to a single family residence around 2007.

No. 254 West 102nd Street retains its crooked stoop.

Although beleaguered, Schneider & Herter's Queen Anne group still manages to command attention.  The houses are a reminder of a time when West End Avenue drew well-to-do homeowners and architects rejected convention.

photographs by the author

"Friends" and Enemies - 90 Bedford Street

As the 19th century drew to a close, Greenwich Village was no longer the quiet hamlet it had been nearly a century earlier.  Apartment buildings replaced many of the old, low homes of the 1820s and cafes and artist studios were appearing.

In the fall of 1898 partners Gustav J. Dohrenwend and Otto A. Leister purchased the three old buildings at Nos. 90 and 92 Bedford Street, and No. 20 Grove Street from David B. Cocks.  No. 90 Bedford was a three-story wooden house, No. 92 was a three-story brick house (both converted to "tenements"), and the corner structure at No. 20 Grove was a Federal-style brick house converted at street level for a store.  It currently housed William Hineman's grocery store.  A Civil War veteran, Hineman had only one arm; having lost the other in the Second Battle of Bull Run.

William Hineman ran his grocery from 20 Grove Street, at the southeast corner of Bedford.  Upstairs in the Federal-style former house were rented rooms.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Leister & Dohrenwend wasted no time in demolishing the old structures.  They hired architects Schneider & Herter to design a six-story "store and flat" building, the plans for which were filed in November.  The term "flats" as opposed to "tenement" in the filings suggested that these apartments would be targeted to middle-class residents.  The cost of the building was estimated at $26,000--more than $765,000 today.

Completed in 1899, the architects had produced a striking Renaissance Revival structure of beige brick, with elements of Romanesque Revival.   A cast iron store front faced Grove Street, necessitating the residential entrance to be placed along the 95-foot long Bedford Street elevation.  Here a stately carved canopy protected the perhaps surprisingly narrow entrance--just one door wide.  An intricate Renaissance foliate frieze separated the first and second floors.

The framing of the entrance floats above the sidewalk, testifying that the original stoop and its wing walls are gone.

Terra cotta spandrel panels between the second the third floor openings carried on the Renaissance motif with masks, dolphins and shields.  The architects' treatment of the three-story chimney backs was striking.  Rising from ornate cartouches and executed in masterful brickwork, they included frame-like panels, and projecting pilasters joined by arches.

No. 90 Bedford Street became home to respectable families who brought little unwanted attention to the building.  Sons went off to fight in World War I, then World War II.  One of them was Ralph Sposato who served in the Army Air Forces during the Second World War.

Early on the morning of April 19, 1946, just seven months after the war ended, the 23-year was drinking in a nearby bar.  Also in the bar was Marine Corporal James Ward, who lived in Bayonne, New Jersey.  Normally the men would have shared a camaraderie; Ward had seen service in Guadalcanal and the Solomons.  But the all-American Sposato took a marked exception to a remark he overheard.

Ward was unhappy with the newly-formed United Nations.  He told a drinking partner "In view of the way things are shaping up, I think it might have been all right if Hitler had won the war and we had one group of people ruling the world, such as the U.N. is trying to do now."

Sposato walked over and asked the marine what he meant, adding that he was disgracing his uniform.  Ward simply replied "Go back where you came from."

The next thing he knew, he was looking up at the Sposato from the floor.  He had been knocked down with a single punch to the jaw.  Ward called for a policeman; but he probably should have let the matter die.

When Magistrate Anna M. Kross heard the reason for the assault, she notified Ward's commanding officer and the marine found himself explaining his remarks to a Marine Corps inquiry.  Following the hearing (his case was adjourned until May 10), Ward told a reporter he did not understand why everyone was upset, "just because I said one man should rule the world.  I was making a comparison to the U.N., itself a dictatorship," he said.

Ralph Sposato was let go.

Renaissance Revival panels above the heavy stone lintels of the second floor openings.  The arched treatment of the third floor windows is Romanesque Revival; while the decorative foliate band speaks of the Esthetic Movement.

One later resident of No. 90 Bedford Street would most likely have sided with Corporal Ward.  Sharon Krebs was a free-lance writer and was living on the second floor here by the mid-1960s.   Divorced from Dr. Allen Krebs, a professor of sociology at Adelphi University, she held a master's degree from the University of Michigan.

Kresbs's articles would not be seen in popular magazines about home decorating, travel or the theater, for instance.  She was far more interested in politics and social issues.

On September 8, 1966 Sharon was arrested for peddling without a license and obstructing the sidewalk.  The 37-year old activist had set up a folding table to sell anti-Vietnam war flags, pamphlets and buttons.  She was defended in Criminal Court by the New York Civil Liberties Union, and her case was dismissed on September 12, the following year.

But it was not the last the courts would see of Sharon Krebs.

Two years later Vice President Hubert Humphrey arrived in New York to speak at Columbia University.   Thirty-six protestors were arrested on July 23, 1968.  Two of them stood out.  Sharon Krebs and Key Martin were held on $1,000 bail for "inciting to riot and disorderly conduct."  Their means of demonstrating went further than shouting slogans and carrying signs.  They stripped naked and waved a pig's head in the air.

Kreb's activism turned darker and more radical.  She wrote regularly for RAT, an underground newspaper associated with revolutionary movements.  By 1970 she had joined the Weathermen, or Weather Underground, the violent terrorist group formed at the University of Michigan, Kreb's alma mater.  The radical Weathermen were responsible for bombings across the country.

Also living at No. 90 Bedford Street by now was a close associate of Krebs and another Weathermen member, 25-year old Joyce Plecha.  On December 4, 1970 the women, along with four other Weathermen, one female and three men, were arrested just before dawn on the Upper East Side as they were preparing to bomb the First National City Bank at No. 1275 Madison Avenue.  The act was intended as a protest on the first anniversary of the death of Black Panther leader, Fred Hampton.  Undercover detectives had been trailing the suspects, including Krebs and Plecha, for months.

Armed with search warrants, police searched Kreb's apartment.  The New York Times remarked "They emerged with a box of items, including Vietcong flags, but declined to comment."

All six were indicted a few days later not just for the attempted bombing of the bank, but for conspiracy to bomb President Nixon's former law offices, a New York University building, and two police stations--the 9th Precinct and the new 6th Precinct building, still under construction.

The group all pleaded guilty on March 18, 1971, the day before their trials were scheduled to begin.  Their sentencing was held on May 7.  Joyce Plecha received a sentence of three years.  Sharon Krebs was given the maximum--four years in prison.  In imposing sentence, State Supreme Court Justice Harold Birns said "All were partners in a criminal enterprise, and their political beliefs in no way mitigate the enormity of the crime."

At the time the store was home to The Eagle Gallery.  In 1973 it was replaced by Luminere Creations.  Owned by lighting designer Mildred Shulman, it offered her very 1970s decorative lamps, like the Firefly Lights.  "They're cubes, orbs and rectangles of transparent smoked Plexiglass with tiny lights flashing on and off inside," wrote Ruth Robinson in The Times on June 11, 1973.  "Lamps are her forte, but don't come to Luminere Creations looking for the kind to read by.  Hers are strictly ornamental."

On September 22, 1994 the first episode of the television sitcom Friends was aired.  Characters Monica and Rachel shared an apartment across the hall from Joey and Chandler.  While producers attempted to keep the location of the building shown in the exterior shots "secret," it did not take Greenwich Village residents long to recognize No. 90 Bedford Street.

The chimney backs are strikingly executed.

For years Moustache, a Middle Eastern restaurant at street level on the Bedford Street side, has been a Village destination.  It was joined in May 2006 by The Little Owl, which serves both Mediterranean and American fare, in the Grove Street storefront.

By then Friends had been off the air for two years--a fact that does not discourage fans from still calling No. 90 Bedford Street "the Friends building."

photographs by the author

The M. Rosendorff & Son Building - Nos. 277-279 Grand Street

Exactly ten years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Grand Street was laid out; its exceptional width earning it its name.  By the 1820s the road was lined with handsome Federal-style brick faced homes. One of these, No. 279, was home to "Brother Lovett," a member of the Columbia Lodge No. 1 of the Odd Fellows.   Lodge meetings were frequently held in the Lovett house.

Half a century later things had drastically changed on the Grand Street block between Forsyth and Eldridge Streets.  Grand Street had become a major shopping thoroughfare.  The expansive dry goods store of Hill, Moynan & Co. had engulfed the four houses at Nos. 271 through 277.  Like its neighbors, the former Lovett house had been converted to a commercial structure.

Hill, Moynan, & Co. advertised in the 1877 booklet "Forty Years of Methodism in Eighty-sixth-street, City of New York" (copyright expired)

Another dry goods merchant was Morris Rosendorff, who opened his store around 1863.  When his son, Louis, entered the business it was renamed M. Rosendorff & Son.  As the population of the Lower East Side exploded, Morris Rosendorff got in on the development bandwagon, focusing as much of his attention on building tenements and stores as on his dry goods business.

Rosendorff bought and sold property at a dizzying rate in the first years of the 1880s.  He repeatedly turned to the architectural firm of A. H. Blankenstein & Co.   Blankenstein's partner was Henry Herter.

Morris Rosendorff already owned No. 279 Grand Street when the Mott Estate sold eight "store, dwelling and tenement" properties on October 22, 1886.  The Record & Guide reported "M. Rosendorff, the Grand street dry goods merchant, secured four of the eight parcels for $110,200."  In a separate article it noted "No. 277 Grand Street...which was so eagerly bid for" sold for $65,400--a little over $1 million today.

A month later The Manufacturer and Builder reported that Rosendorff intended to construct "two iron-front stores" at a cost of $50,000 on the site of Nos. 277 and 279.  The article did not mention an architect.  Most likely that was because Rosendorff had a decision to make.  Henry Herter and A. H. Blankenstein had parted ways.  Herter was now partnered with Ernest W. Schneider and the pair would make their mark on the Lower East Side mostly designing tenements and loft buildings.

By mid-month Rosendorff had made up his mind.  On November 13, 1886 the Record & Guide pointed out that "Ernest E. W. Schneider and Henry Herter, who have entered into partnership" had made plans for a six-story tenement for Rosendorff on Henry Street.

Simultaneously, Schneider and Herter went to work designing a tenement and store for him at No. 141 East Broadway, and the two matching buildings on Grand Street.  The plans for the Grand Street structures estimated the costs at $25,000 each.

The completed structure was, in fact, not totally clad in cast iron as originally planned.  The third floor (all that remains of the 1886 design) was faced in planar stone.   Here cast metal lintels floated slightly above the openings.  It was the highly-unusual cornice, however, that stole the show.   Its bracketed and paneled design, including molded swags, would not have been out of the ordinary were it not for the two deep hoods encompassing giant rosettes.  They smacked of the Moorish details that would be seen on Schneider & Herter later synagogues.

While Morris Rosendorff and his son operated their dry goods store in the building and continued to wheel and deal in real estate, Mrs. Rosendorff busied herself with philanthropies.  In 1887 she hosted a ball in the new Webster Hall and used the proceeds to feed 400 impoverished Jews at Passover.  The following year she outdid herself.

On March 26, 1888 The New York Times reported "Mrs. M. Rosendorff, a benevolent Hebrew, went all the way to 52 Eldridge-street yesterday afternoon from her home, 108 East Sixty-second-street, to distribute more than 5,000 pounds of meat to the deserving poor."

On January 24 she had rented the Roumania Opera House on the Bowery and sold 1,000 tickets to a benefit performance of King Solomon.  The funds paid for a kosher butcher shop on Delancy Street "to supply the meat, and when the beasts were slaughtered according to the Jewish rite, everything was ready for distribution" in time for Passover.

The line of indigent "from nearly every part of the city" began to form around 11:00 on March 25 and continued until around sunset.  Each would receive a paper "order" to take to the butcher.  The newspaper noted "The first poor person served was Mrs. Mary Isaacs, who said she was mother of six children.  Mrs. Rosendorff gave her an order on Mr. Levy for seven pounds of meat.  Mrs. Isaacs returned effusive thanks and then made for the butcher's, where she got her Passover food."

Among the nearly 800 who received their orders were some non-Jews; "but that made no difference to Mrs. Rosendorff; they were poor and they might share," said The Times.

Businesses were required to report the number of employees between the ages of 8 and 14 to the Board of Education.  In 1893 M. Rosendorff & Son listed just one worker in that category.  But none of the employees would be working for the dry goods store for long.

Morris Rosendorff's declaration of bankruptcy in the fall of 1893 was reported across the country.  The Chicago Tribune noted on November 24 that the firm had unsecured liabilities of $75,000--a sizeable $2 million in today's dollars.  The company's attorney, Adolph L. Sanger, explained "The Rosendorffs for the last few years have been buying and selling real estate and building houses, and the difficulty of raising money in the last few months bothered them very much."

Three months later a Sheriff Sale was held to auction off the vast Rosendorff inventory.  Once emptied, Nos. 277 and 279 were offered at auction in May, 1894.  But no one seemed interested.  After several attempts, they were finally sold at foreclosure auction on November 1.

A sale advertisement listed the vast array of goods.  The Evening World, February 22, 1894 (copyright expired)

Although M. Rosendorff & Son had operated from the combined buildings, they were now sold separately.  No. 277, purchased by Charles S. Fairchild, brought $48,000 and No. 279 was sold for $50,000 to Joseph Levy.

Despite their independent owners, by 1896 there was a single tenant, G. Glauber, who operated his "novelties" store here.  At around 11:40 p.m. on the night of December 16 that year a fire broke out in the store.  Before it was extinguished it had spread to the millinery shop of J. Nasanowitz next door at No. 275.

By the turn of the century separate businesses operated from the two buildings.  No. 277 was sold in 1898 following Charles Fairchild's death.  By 1900 it was the candy store and factory of John D. Harder; while No. 279 was home to Isaac Krauschauer's cloak business.

The two properties would be united again in 1904 when Nicholas Pappas purchased them in April.  Like John D. Harder, Pappas and his partner John Condax were candy makers.  Within months the confectioners hired architect William C. Sommerfeld to do $1,000 in interior renovations.

In 1908 Pappas & Condax were manufacturing and selling one particular article which drew the suspicion of the Board of Health.  Samples of their Chocolate Roman Punch Drops were taken for testing.  The results were satisfactory--"alcohol absent."

The following year Pappas & Condax left Grand Street, while retaining ownership of the properties.  Once again the two buildings were leased separately.  The latest in fashion for Edwardian women included extravagant headgear often ornamented with rare feathers.  The London Feather Novelty Co., headquartered on West 34th Street, opened a branch store in No. 277 where it would remain for several years.  The other store was rented to F. Davis, who was granted permission by the Board of Aldermen in 1910 to "keep two show cases within the shop line in front of No. 279 Grand st."

New-York Tribune, October 10, 1909 (copyright expired)

At some point following World War I the buildings' owners had returned to their native country.  On June 25, 1921 The Record & Guide reported "John Condax and Nicholas Pappas, of Greece, sold 277-279 Grand st...The buyer will occupy."

That buyer was Louis Frescher who opened his fur store in the combined buildings.  The furrier would remain here for many years, despite an uncommon string of bad luck.  It started on March 4, 1924 just as salesman Jack Greenbery had put final touches on the window display.  Three men entered and asked to see furs.

Just as Greenbery headed for a display case, one of the men drew a revolver and ordered him into a rear bathroom.  Hearing the noises, fur-cutter Jacob Feingold emerged from the workshop in the rear, and was ordered to join the salesman.  When the porter, Thomas Benjamin, came up from the basement, he too was corralled in the bathroom.  All the employees were tied up and $15 was taken from Feingold's pockets.

The New York Times reported "While hundreds of persons were passing the door...three men, armed with revolvers..escaped with $30,000 worth of mink, sable and Hudson seal coats and neckpieces."  The cool bandits even made several trips to their automobile, bringing back blankets into which they wrapped 40 furs pieces and 20 coats.

The valuable furs were repeatedly a temptation to crooks.  In 1932 an attempted robbery landed one crook in Sing Sing with a 20-year sentence.  Then in November 1935 a hold-up resulted in $20,000 worth of goods being stolen.  Less than a year later, on the morning of September 14, 1936, eight men rushed into the store at around 10:00.  As had been the cast in 1924, they forced Bernard Trencher, an owner, and bookkeeper Rae Levinson into a rear room.

"Then they compelled Ernest Jackson, Negro porter, to lead them to the workroom, under the store, where Michael Picozzi, designer, and ten other employes bent over their benches," said The New York Times.

The workers were told "This is a hold-up.  Keep quiet, and nothing will happen to you."

While two men held everyone at gunpoint, the other six "swept up all the furs in the workroom, cleaned out the street show-windows and emptied all the store racks."  They made off with $40,000 in loot.

In the meantime, the Trenchers had renovated the building in 1925.  They hired architect Irving H. Fenichal to install a restaurant on the second floor and a "dwelling and studio" on the third.  Six years later architect Samuel A. Hertz did further renovations, remodeling the top floor for the Columbus Civic Club.  It would remain here until about 1940, when the space was renovated for "light manufacturing."

After mid-century the two addresses saw a variety of tenants, including the Eldridge Textile Company which was here from the 1950s in the mid-1990s.   The firm suffered a blaze on the night of December 3, 1960 that resulted in three injured fire fighters and "considerable" damage to the stock.

The neighborhood that filled with German Jews in the 1870s and '80s when Morris Rosendorff over-speculated in real estate now sits squarely in Manhattan's Chinatown.  Schneider & Herter's cast iron base is gone--replaced by a medley of cheap storefronts under garish vinyl awnings.  But, above, the remarkable cast metal cornice survives, reminding the passerby of a time when Grand Street was an important shopping district.

photographs by the author

"Working Their Lives Away" -- The 1890 Nos. 67-73 Spring Street

Philip Goerlitz acted both as real estate developer and builder for his many projects in the 1880s and '90s.   Many were tenements in the Lower East Side; but in 1888 he embarked on a commercial building project.

By court order, on May 3, 1888 auctioneers Scott & Myers sold the four lots at Nos. 67 to 73 Spring Street.  The Real Estate Record & Guide described the properties as having "frame and brick structures, and are well suited for improvement by a factory warehouse or store buildings.  They are within a stone's throw of Broadway."

Philip Goerlitz placed the winning bid at $74,500, just over $1.9 million in 2016 dollars.  He commissioned architects Schneider & Herter to design "two six-story brick and iron stores."  The structures were each 50 feet wide and cost Goerlitz a total of $80,000 to build.

Although constructed in two parts, the structures shared a unified Queen Anne style facade.  The cast iron base housed two storefronts with fluted pilasters.  The red brick of the upper floors combined with cast iron and terra cotta to create a medley of color and decoration.  Spandrel panels featured swirling foliate embellishments.  But it was perhaps the terra cotta ornaments masquerading as capitals along the brick piers which were most eye-catching.  Scowling women were counterpoised with joyful angels; and stern-visaged men contrasted with gentle female faces.   The use of cast iron enabled expanses of glass, thereby flooding the factory spaces with natural light.

The two figures could not be more dissimilar.

Among the first tenants was J. W. Carroll Company, brass merchants.  When a subscriber wrote to the editor of The American Stationer in February 1892 looking for brass handles for advertising fans (a popular marketing give-away in the decades before air conditioning), he was told he could obtain them from J. W. Carroll.

At the time of that endorsement, Emile Beck was employed by J. W. Carroll Company.  He was arrested on May 15 that year after he sold $500 worth of stolen brass to a pawnbroker for $8.  During his trial on June 15 his employer, Joseph W. Carroll, testified that Beck had confessed to taking the brass; as did two detectives. 

But when Beck took the stand, he changed his story.  He told the jury that he "had been ordered by Raymond Carroll, a brother of a member of the firm, to sell the metal."  Despite the absurdity of the idea that a principal in the firm would have instructed Beck to sell the brass for less than two percent of its value; the jury was confounded.  After only 30 minutes of deliberation it declared Beck not guilty.  The New York Times reported "Judge Fitzgerald looked disgusted and discharged the prisoner."

Also among the initial tenants were the E. D. St. George Mfr. Co., makers of "button, bow and ornament cards, etc."; and Herman Aich & Co., importers of pottery ware and signs.

Herman Aich & Co. moved here from No. 47 Murray Street.  Its principal, Herman Aich, found himself in serious trouble in the fall of 1894 for sneaky business practices.  On November 15, 1894 The Times reported "Suit for $100,000 against Herman Aich & Co. for undervaluation of hollow pottery ware and enameled signs excited interest yesterday in the pottery trade and at the Custom House."  Government officials accused the firm of fraudulently declaring the value of its German-made goods by as much as 50 percent less. Herman Aich was arrested and paid a staggering $5,000 bail pending his trial on November 22.

In 1885 Edward D. St. George took over the business of J. E. Linde, started five years earlier.  A native of Germany, St. George had arrived in New York in 1873.   Illustrated New York: The Metropolis of To-Day said "The factories are equipped in the most approved style with the latest mechanical devices, the machinery being operated by steam-power, and every convenience is at hand that in any way would add to the perfection of the output of lesson the cost of production, employment being furnished steadily to about forty hands."

Flanked by ferns, another figure has a decidedly large mustache.  Delicate spandrels contrast with his gruffness

Despite that glowing description, a visit from Edward Thimmie in June 1895 was less complimentary to the factory conditions here.  Thimmie was a member of an assembly committee appointed by the City "to investigate the condition of girls and children under age who work in factories and stores."

Including the E. D. St. George Mfr. Co. among "the sweatshops on the east side," he described its workers as all immigrants.  The Times reported that he "said that most of the workers lived on bologna and dry bread."

The "forty hands" that Illustrated New York mentioned in 1888 had grown to a staff of 21 men and 42 girls.  "Their average wages are from $5.50 to $7 a week," according to Edward D. St. George.  The  girls were earning what would amount to about $160 per week today.  The newspaper's headline read "Working Their Young Lives Away."

E. D. St. George Co. was still in the building as late as 1922.  The Retail Tobacconist (copyright expired)

Heller & Company moved into the building from No. 228 Mercer Street just before the turn of the century.  It was among the first of apparel manufacturers in the building and would be joined later by like firms like the Superior Manufacturing Co., makers of women's undergarments.

Heller & Company made boys' clothing, but was perhaps best known for its "bicycle suits" which it called the "features of our stock."  The firm boasted "over six hundred varied styles of boys' bicycle and knee pants."

Like Edward D. St. George, Heller & Company employed immigrant workers.  Antoinetta Macciocia was hired as a sewing machine operator here in 1899 at the age of 13.  Seven years later she was still here and had fallen in love with another worker, 22-year old Vincenzo Tanora.  Their wedding was planned for the second week of December 1906.

Newly arrived Sicilian immigrant Giuseppe Figlia was hired in the shop the first week of November that year.  The 20-year old tailor was described as "small and unprepossessing" and for some reason Antoinetta immediately disliked him.  For two weeks he complained "that the girl had taunted and ridiculed him by humiliating and insulting remarks."

He later explained "From my first day in that place as a tailor she taunted me, made fun of me, and ridiculed me at every turn."  The Sicilian's indignation of being mocked in front of his male co-workers was intolerable.  After two weeks of abuse, he said "I felt that a climax as coming soon."

At 12:25 on the afternoon of November 26 Policeman John Fulvey was walking along Spring Street when a man ran from Nos. 67-73 crying "Murder!"  Fulvey ran up the stairs to find a scene of indescribable chaos in Heller & Company.

There, according to The New York Times, he "found a dozen Italians beating a small man, covered with blood, who lay prostrate on the floor.  Near him lay the motionless form of a girl and a man groaning with pain.  Another Italian was trying to aim a pistol at the man who was being beaten.  In the corner of the big room cowered half a hundred screaming girls."

The man being beaten was Giuseppe Figlia,  Driven to his breaking point, he had brought a pistol with him to work that morning.  When Antoinetta started her usual tormenting, Figlia took action.

He told police "At noon, when everybody was eating and laughing and chatting, I went to the sink to wash my hands.  Then this girl came along and purposely bumped into me--like that.  I turned and objected, and she leaned toward me and spat in my face."

Figlia answered the insult with two bullets--one in the left cheek and another through the heart.  The tailor said "She fell without a word."

The girl's fiance, Vincenzo Tanora, sprang at the gunman and struck him over the head with an iron bar, knocking him to the ground.  Figlia shot twice more, shattering Lavora's jaw and wounding his right shoulder.

Antoinetta had died instantly.  The New York Times dramatically reported "At her throat the dead girl wore a cheap pin representing the heads of a man and woman, their lips touching.  A drop of blood had fallen upon the lips."

Figlia later said "Then it seemed that everybody in the place tried to kill me at once."  He was right.  One tailor had grabbed his pistol and was aiming it just as Policeman Fulvey entered.  He and the two other officers who arrived minutes later saved his life.  He was "covered in blood" when he was escorted by the police "through a lane of threatening Italians," as described by The Times.

Figlia's trial was held on April 18, 1907, and lasted less than five hours.  Among the witnesses was Vincenzo Tonaro.  "He told how he had jumped in to save his sweetheart and had been badly wounded himself," reported The Times the following day.

Figlia pleaded guilty and seemed to feel throughout the ordeal that he had been fully justified in his defending his own honor.  The Times wondered why his counsel had not offered a similar defense to that of Harry Kendall Thaw, who had been tried three months earlier in the murder of Stanford White.

"The defense which Figlia could have made was of much the same character as that which Thaw put forward.  At the time of the shooting he declared that the scoffs of the girl had driving him to frenzy and that he did not know what he was doing,"

Four floors up, the architects included the addresses No. 67 and No. 73 in the piers.

By 1912 the store at Nos. 71-73 was home to Budd's office furniture store.  Owned by William Budd, it was one of three stores in Manhattan where the retailer dealt in the latest in office furnishings--like oak roll top desks, wooden filing cabinets and oaken office chairs.

The Sun, November 21, 1912 (copyright expired)

In 1928 20-year old stenographer Shirley Bergman worked in the Geringer Light and Fixture Company here.  On Monday afternoon, December 10 that year she walked to a nearby bank.  She was being watched by 28-year old taxi driver Martin Baylos.

Baylos, who was found guilty of stealing an automobile in 1919, assumed that Shirley was picking up the her company's payroll.  Payroll at the time was normally distributed to employees in cash; but Shirley was merely making a deposit of checks.  So she was unconcerned as she walked back into the Spring Street building.

In the elevator Baylor attacked, trying to rob Shirley Bergman of the payroll she did not have.  The panicked young woman jumped from the cab and plunged down the shaftway to her death.

Because of his prior conviction, Baylos was urged by his attorney to plead guilty to manslaughter rather than face a first degree murder charge.  He was sentenced to Sing Sing on April 3, 1929.

Oddly enough, it was not the last time that New Yorkers would read about Martin Baylos.  For several years his name appeared in newspapers when he performed in the prison's annual talent show.  On December 5, 1933, for instance, The New York Times reported on "The Sing Sing Revue" which opened that night before an audience of 674, "who came from far and near to witness the performance by the prisoners."  The newspaper noted "Martin Baylos, comedian of the revue, who was sentenced for manslaughter, takes the part of a judge."

As the 20th century drew to a close the Soho neighborhood was rediscovered by artists.  In 1990 the Sragow Gallery moved into the building; joined soon after by British furniture designer George Smith's 3,000-square foot showroom.  The upper floors were converted to office space, and in 2006 owner United American Land LLC completed a renovation which it described as a "restoration."

An unusual and charming cast iron angel adorns a ground floor pilaster,

Schneider & Herter's handsome Queen Anne factory building survives little-changed, including much of the cast iron storefronts; successfully hiding its secrets of murder, intrigue and discouragement.

photographs by the author