Schwartz & Gross's 1926 215 West 78th Street

 

When Leopold M. and Lina R. Whitehead moved into the high-stooped brownstone at 215 West 78th Street, their home was the height of domestic fashion.  It was one of ten high-stooped brownstones designed by Thom & Wilson in 1890.  By the post-World War I years, however, the vogue for apartment living had supplanted that of private homes.  In 1926, the Brevoort Estates, Inc. demolished four of the vintage homes--211 through 217 West 78th Street, and hired the architectural firm of Schwartz & Gross to design a nine-story apartment building on the site.  

Construction cost $300,000, or about $5.5 million in 2026 terms.  The architects designed the building in a 1920s take on Renaissance Revival.  A classic broken pediment with a cartouche and shield sat above the centered entrance within the rusticated limestone base.  The upper eight floors were clad with red brick and trimmed in stone and terra cotta.  Schwartz & Gross arranged them into two matching side-by-side sections--both flanked with full-height rounded bays.  Every other spandrel of the bays were ornamented with elaborate Renaissance-style decorations.  The architects forewent a cornice in favor of a brick parapet.

Canvas awnings at every window shielded heat and damaging sunlight.  The building replaced brownstones like those seen on either side.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Potential renters could choose apartments of either four or five rooms.  An advertisement in The New York Times on November 14, 1926 was headlined "New Building" and touted, "Baths, glass enclosed showers, beautiful bay windows."  It noted there was a "special doctor's or dentist apartment with A-C and D-C current" available.

Among the early residents was bachelor William McCabe, also known as "Tough Willie."  He was described by The New York Evening Post as a "Broadway sport."  McCabe owned a stable of race horses and financed prize fighters.  Most importantly, however, he was a close associate of gangster Arnold Rothstein.  

On November 1, 1928, Willie McCabe and Arnold Rothstein joined other underworld figures in a "high spade" poker game.  Three days later, the game was still going on and Rothstein had lost $320,000.  Claiming the game was fixed, Rothstein refused to pay and was gunned down.  Willie McCabe suddenly disappeared.

The New York Evening Post reported on November 14, "McCabe has not been at his home, 215 West Seventy-eighth Street, since the shooting."  The article said, "McCabe, now sought by [District Attorney Jaob H.] Banton, is in Savannah, Ga., promoting dog races."

But then, The New York Times reported that McCabe had "dropped out of sight...only to bob up a week or so later with what District Attorney Banton said was an iron-clad alibi."

Willie McCabe continued to skirt law enforcement, but his gangland career ended on August 26, 1931.  The New York Times reported, "The underworld went about its robberies, its stabbings and its threats yesterday."  The article said that while McCabe had managed for years to be "unmolested by the police, [he] got into trouble with his own kind."  McCabe was fatally stabbed "in an early morning brawl in the 61 Club at 61 East Fifty-second Street."   

Details inspired by the Italian Renaissance decorate the facade.

Willie McCabe was assuredly well-acquainted with another resident, Herman Handler and his wife, Thelma.  Born in 1895, Handler was, like McCabe, a bookie.  In April 1935, while he was in Hamburg, Germany, he met Margie Lee, a "member of a group of acrobatic dancers," as described by The New York Times, while her troupe was touring.  Herman and the blonde dancer began an affair, although Margie would later insist she never knew he was married.

In July, Thelma found a photograph of Margie and the couple separated.  Thelma "insisted, however, that she and her husband remained friendly and kept in touch with each other by telephone," said The New York Times.  Herman moved into the Hotel Belvedere on West 48th Street.  Like Willie McCabe, he would run afoul of "his own kind."

Two months after leaving 215 West 78th Street, on September 12, 1935, The New York Times reported, "Herman Handler, 40 years old, a bookmaker...was found shot dead at 7 o'clock yesterday morning in his roadster."  Detectives said that evidence showed that Handler was shot in his car and "driven to the place as he was dying."

The family of David and Etta Simon, lived here in the early 1940s.  Born in 1902, he was an insurance broker.  The couple had two sons, Lewis and Robert, born in 1928 and 1932 respectively.  On December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, America declared war on Japan.  It would make a significant impact on the Simons. 

On March 18, 1942, The New York Sun said that "everything was peaceful in the household of David Simon, 43...until a reporter arrived with the information that Simon's serial number was drawn fourth in the draft."  The article said that Robert and Lewis "started jumping about the living room, shouting, 'Daddy's in the army, Daddy's going to war.'"

Simon told the reporter he was ready to fight.  "I'd like to be with MacArthur."  And Etta was equally enthusiastic.  "They ought to take all the men," she said, adding, "I can go to work.  I was a stenographer before I was married and I could go back to that."

Another family in the building directly affected by the war was that of Eugene and Florence B. Moses.  The couple was married in 1914, and had two children, Eleanor, born in 1916, and Charles G., born in 1919.  Like David Simon, Charles was inducted into the army.  On September 2, 1943, the War Department issued the latest list of missing and wounded in action.  Among those injured in the "North African Area including Sicily" was Charles G. Moses.  (Happily, Charles returned to America safely, and on February 28, 1947, The New York Times reported that he and his wife, the former Peggy Levi, had welcomed a daughter.)

In 1957, singer Johnny Mathis released his second single to sell one million copies, "Chances Are," and later that year his "Wild is the Wind" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.  Riding high on his success, the following year he purchased 215 West 78th Street.  It was, perhaps, his first real estate investment.  He later would tell a British reporter, "I've bought apartments in New York, and a post office in the Midwest."  Mathis owned 215 West 78th Street until April 1963.

Among the tenants at the time was Lucy Seckel Stark, the widow of surgeon and gynecologist Meyer M. Stark, and former wife of poet and novelist James Oppenheim.  Lucy graduated from Hunter College and Teachers College.  She began teaching English in 1925 and did not retire until 1955.

Freelance photojournalist Solomon Charles Tobach and his wife, Dr. Ethel Tobach, were residents by the 1960s.  The couple was married in 1947.

Ethel was born on November 7, 1921 in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and was brought to America as an infant.  She received her Ph.D. in comparative psychology from New York University in 1957.  By the time she and Solomon moved into 215 West 78th Street, she was affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History.  She co-founded the Animal Behavior Society in 1964 and in 1972 became vice president of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Solomon Tobach "specialized in taking pictures of news personalities," according to The New York Times.  He worked for The Associated Press, the Agence France Press, United Press International and The Medical Tribune.  Solomon suffered a fatal heart attack in their apartment at the age of 51 on February 19, 1969.  Ethel would survive to the age of 93, dying on August 14, 2015.

The building became a co-op in the 1970s.  It is essentially unchanged, sans the canvas awnings, since its opening in 1926.

photographs by the author

The Hiram and Rosalind Bloomingdale Mansion - 11 East 80th Street

 

Born in 1875, Hiram Collenberger Bloomingdale was one of three sons of Lyman Bloomingdale, co-founder of Bloomingdale Brothers' department store.  On December 9, 1908, he married Rosalind Schiffer in Delmonico's, the New York Herald noting, "Mr. and Mrs. Bloomingdale will spend three months on the Pacific coast and next autumn will live at No. 11 East Eightieth street."

The newspaper's timeline was a bit optimistic.  Just over a month before the wedding, on October 24, 1908, the Record & Guide reported that Bloomingdale had purchased the four-story, high-stooped brownstone from Michael Hyman.  The article said he would replace it with "a 6-story American basement dwelling for his own occupancy."

While the newlyweds were on their honeymoon, on January 20, 1909 The New York Times reported that Schwartz & Gross had filed plans for the new mansion, projecting the cost at $50,000 (about $1.78 million in 2025).  The article said, "The facade is to be of brick, finished with limestone and terra cotta, of Colonial design, with a mansard roof and central entrance with staircase."

Schwartz & Gross's design for the five-story mansion, indeed, drew from 18th century precedents, notably in the stylized Georgian entrance and fanlight, and the mansard's Palladio-inspired dormer.  Other details, like the geometric brick-and-stone spandrels between the second and third floors reflected the current Arts & Crafts movement.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Construction was completed late in 1910 and Rosalind quickly began hosting.  On February 12, 1911, The New York Times noted, "Mrs. Hiram Bloomingdale of 11 East Eightieth Street was at home on Thursday and Friday afternoons."  (Publishing one's "at homes" informed socialites when they could make social calls.)

On August 18, 1912, the Bloomingdales welcomed their first son, Lyman Gustave, named after his grandfather.  A second, Alfred Schiffer, arrived on April 15, 1916.  The family's 70-acre country estate was in Ossining, New York.

The domestic bliss within the Bloomingdale household dissolved early in 1919.  On April 22, Rosalind telephoned Hiram at his office.  He recounted the call to the courts later, saying she told him that "she had left his home and was living at the Chatham Hotel with their children."  According to him, he rushed home to find that "she had taken with her silverware, linens, glassware, &c."

Three weeks later, on May 14, The New York Times reported that Rosalind had filed suit for separation "on the ground of cruel and inhuman treatment."  She asked for $50,000 a year in alimony (more than $900,000 in 2025 terms).  The article mentioned, "Mrs. Bloomingdale is 29 years old and her husband is 42."  The next month, Rosalind leased a house in Elberon, New Jersey and took Lyman and Alfred with her.

Hiram seemed to have been more upset about the thought of losing his sons than his wife and a messy and public custody battle ensued.  In court on July 15, 1919, he made an emotional plea to Justice Ford, painting Rosalind as, essentially, an absentee mother.  He said in part,

There is nothing in the world that I love so dearly as I do my children.  My elder son has been my steady and constant companion ever since babyhood.  I take him out walking on every opportunity and spent practically every Saturday and Sunday with him up to the time my wife left me.

In stark contrast, he said, "Mrs. Bloomingdale was rarely with the children on Saturdays and Sundays.  She was either playing tennis, going to bridge parties, visiting or attending to her social duties."  Bloomingdale said that while he listened to the boys' prayers each night, Rosalind did not.  "I used to play with the children, while my wife delegated their care, largely, to servants."

While the divorce and custody hearings played out, Hiram moved in with his brother, Irving, at 850 Park Avenue.  In May 1920, he sold 11 East 80th Street to theater owner and agent Martin Beck.  The New-York Tribune reported that he purchased it "as his home."  But he apparently quickly decided otherwise and resold the house to William Kingsland Macy.

Born on November 21, 1889 to George H. and Kate Carter Macy, William went by his first initial and middle name.  When he purchased 11 East 80th Street he was a stock broker and president of the Union Pacific Tea Co.  Moving into the mansion with him was his widowed mother.  She died here on May 14, 1921 and her funeral was held in the house on the 16th.

Kingsland's country home was on Long Island.  He increasingly spent more time there, and in 1926 he was appointed chairman of the Suffolk County Republican Committee.  By then he was occupying the Long Island house year-round.  The previous winter season he had leased the townhouse to Robert Hazlehurst McAdoo and his wife, Lorraine Arnold Rowan.  Born in 1898, McAdoo had served as a Naval Aviator in World War I.  He and Lorraine were married on December 24, 1923.

On December 16, 1925, The New York Times announced, "Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. McAdoo, now at the Gladstone, will go next week to their house at 11 East Eightieth Street."

Lorraine Rowan McAdoo, photo by Edward Steichen, Vogue, November 15, 1925 (copyright expired)

Lorraine was the daughter of the late Robert Arnold Rowan and Laura Madeline Schwartz.  By the time she married McAdoo, her mother had become a princess, the wife of Prince Domenica Napoleone Orsini of Italy.  The New York Evening Post said, "The Orsini family is one of the oldest and most aristocratic in Italy."

On October 5, 1926, The New York Evening Post reported that Prince and Princess Orsini had arrived on the Aquitania and were staying at the St. Regis Hotel for two weeks.  The article said the couple "will visit relations of the Princess," including, of course, the McAdoos.

W. Kingsland Macy sold 11 East 80th Street to Henry Dickerson Steers and his wife, the former Adeline Boardman Coster, that year.  Steers was the president and founder of the sand and gravel corporation Henry Steers, Inc.  The couple, who were married in Grace Church on October 22, 1889, had two sons, Henry Coster and Charles Robert Coster.  Henry was associated with his father's firm.  He was 36 years old and still unmarried when his parents purchased 11 East 80th Street.  

The Steers' country estate was in Port Chester, New York.  Adeline and Henry were there on November 4, 1928 when Henry died at the age of 63.  His entire estate, equal to $26.3 million today, was left to Adeline.

Henry Coster Steers finally found romance in Mercer Dunlop.  The couple was married in the Plaza Hotel on February 3, 1930.  Charles stood in as his best man.  

In the meantime, following her mourning period, Adeline had returned to society life.  On November 25, 1932, for instance, The New York Sun reported that she "will give a dinner party at her house on Tuesday, December 27, before the junior holiday dance at the Plaza Hotel."  The event was in honor of Adeline's granddaughter Phebe.

Adeline Steers sold 11 East 80th Street in 1942.  That year the house was converted to apartments.  Among the initial tenants were Army Major Dexter S. French and his wife, the former Cuyler Nicoll; and Dr. Alfred Weil.  Weil was a diagnostician and radiologist.  He father, Dr. Adolf Weil, was the discoverer of Weil's disease, better known today as leptospirosis.

Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim occupied an apartment here in the mid-1950s.  While living here he worked on the lyrics of West Side Story and Gypsy.  On September 26, 1957, he wrote to Leonard Bernstein, saying in part:

West Side Story means much more to me than a first show, more even than the privilege of collaborating with you and Arthur [Laurents] and Jerry [i.e. Jerome Robbins].  It marks the beginning of what I hope will be a long and enduring friendship.  Friendship is a thing I give and receive rarely, but for what it's worth I want you to know you have it from me always.

Among Sondheim's neighbors in the building was children's author, photographer and model Dare Wright.  While Sondheim was working on West Side Story, she was finishing her first book, The Lonely Doll, published in 1957.  It made The New York Times Best Seller list that year.  (In 2010, the British newspaper The Guardian would list The Lonely Doll as one of the ten best illustrated children's books "of all time.")

As early as 2023, the Meredith Rosen Gallery occupied space in the building.  From the exterior, the Bloomingdale mansion is essentially unchanged since its completion in 1910.

photographs by the author

Schwartz & Gross's 1913 41 West 83rd Street

 

image via apartments.com

The concept of multi-family buildings had taken a firm hold within the Upper West Side by the turn of the last century.  Developers were rapidly transforming the personality of the district as houses—some of them mansions and most no more than 25 years old--made way for apartment buildings.  On June 28, 1912, The New York Times reported, “three more private dwellings on the upper west side will be torn down to make way for a tall apartment house.”  The article said the houses at 41 through 45 West 83^rd Street had been purchased the previous day by the Hennessy Construction Company.

The company hired the architectural firm of Schwarz & Gross to design the building.  Costing $225,000 (or about $7.29 million in 2025), construction was completed in 1913.  The architects’ neo-Renaissance, tripartite design featured an impressive, two-story entrance with paired pilasters, sumptuously carved with sheafs of fruits, flowers and nuts.  Clad in gray brick, the midsection sprouted stone balconies at the fifth and seventh floors.  A prominent, bracketed intermediate cornice introduced the top section, which was faced in limestone, its openings separated by paired, paneled pilasters.

image courtesy Landmark West!

Potential residents could choose from five- or six-room apartments, the larger suites including two bedrooms, two baths and “maids’ accommodation,” according to an advertisement.  Annual rents for the smaller apartments started at $900 and the six-room units at $1,400.  (The more expensive rent would translate to about $3,650 per month today.)

The tenants were affluent professionals.  Among the first was William J. Clark, a partner in the American Electric Railway Association.  He had begun his career in the firm 28 years earlier when it was known as the American Street Railway Association.  He was also in charge of the General Electric Company’s foreign department.  He started with Thompson, Houston Electric Co. on March 28, 1888, which merged with General Electric in 1892.  An expert statistician, he was occasionally hired on a project basis for the U.S. Government, having been hired over the years by William F. Vilas, Postmaster General under the Cleveland Administration, by President William McKinley, and Secretary of War, Russell A. Alger.

Other initial residents were Aaron and Frances Lauterbach.  Aaron was a dealer in diamonds and precious stones at 170 Broadway.  William H. and Hazel Williams were also early residents.  Williams was a special agent in the Customs Department, and Hazel’s father was a former U.S. Representative from Kentucky.  Another early tenant was Dr. Robert A. Hatcher, whose articles were routinely published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Two unmarried female residents in the pre-World War I years—Florence Nightingale Levy and Esther Schiff--were what could have been deemed “modern women.”  Both were highly educated and held impressive positions.  Esther Schiff was an anthropologist, and Florence Nightingale Levy was an artist, art historian, and journalist.

Born in 1870, Florence Levy received a private education before entering the National Academy of Design.  Although she started out as a painter, Levy changed course to art history.  In 1894, she went to Paris to study Italian masters at the Ecole du Louvre for a year.  Upon returning, she studied under John La Farge and John C. Van Dyke at Columbia University.  Levy founded the American Art Annual and was its editor until 1918.  While living here, she was a staff curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Salesman Kernachan Babcock, who lived here in 1920, was also unmarried.  At least he was on the evening of January 30 that year when he went to the theater.  The Evening World reported that two young women who worked at Harper’s Bazaar also attended the performance and their seats were next to Babcock’s.  Helen Antisdale was an associate editor at the magazine.  Her companion said to her, “Isn’t that man’s face familiar?”  The Evening World recounted, “’it certainly is,’ she responded.”

Eventually, Helen Antisdale tapped Babcock on the wrist and said, “Pardon me—haven’t I seen you before?”  The two realized that they had known one another in Chicago five years earlier.  After the performance, they all went to Helen’s home on East 10^th Street for tea.  Four days later, the newspaper concluded its article saying, “And the climax to the story is this: They were married by Chief Clerk Soully at City Hall on Saturday afternoon and are now on their honeymoon.”

image courtesy Landmark West!

By the early 1920s, Hans B. Fehr and his wife, the former Beatrice Koplile, lived at 41 West 83^rd Street.  Born in Germany, Fehr was educated there and in England.  He was secretary, treasurer and director of L. C. Hirsch and Company, which manufactured “embossed, enameled, decorated metals and wood;” a director of the Kiddies Metal Toy Company; and several other corporations.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Another German-born resident was Julius Wolfgang Schulein.  He was married to Suzanne Carvallo, a native of Paris.  Both were artists.  Julius was born in Munich in 1881 where he began his art studies.  He moved to Paris in 1933, and he and Suzanne relocated to New York in 1941.  Mostly a landscape artist, his works had been shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Carnegie Institute, and at one-man shows at the Knoedler Galleries here and in Paris.

Suzanne Carvallo Schulein and Julius Wolfgang Schulein from The Edythe Griffinger Portal collection of the Leo Baeck Institute

Suzanne Carvallo Schulein was a painter of portraits and flowers.  The accomplished artist painted the portraits of Alfred Stieglitz, Bruno Walter and Thomas Mann, among others.  Her works were exhibited at the Salon de Tuilleries and Salon d’Automne in Paris and at the Carstairs Gallery in New York.  Julius Wolfgang Schulein died at the age of 89 in the couple’s apartment on November 26, 1970.  A year-and-a-half later, on April 14, 1972, Suzanne Carvallo Schulein died here at the age of 88.

The configuration of the apartments has not been altered since the building opened in 1913.  And, despite replacement windows, the exterior appearance survives otherwise intact.

The Dorset - 150 West 79th Street

 

Born in Sherman, Connecticut in 1855, Franklin Henry Giddings joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1891.  Three years later he was appointed the chair of sociology there.  By the early years of the 20th century, the recognized sociologist, journalist and economist lived in an upscale, high-stoop rowhouse at 150 West 79th Street.

At the time, developers on the Upper West Side were replacing private homes with multi-family buildings.  It appears that when the Vadrick Realty Co. approached Franklin Henry Giddings with an offer for his rowhouse in 1910, the educator pushed back.  Almost certainly included in the sale, Giddings would be among the initial residents of the projected building.

On August 20, 1910, the Record & Guide reported that Schwartz & Gross had filed plans for a "12-story brick and stone apartment house."  The building would replace five rowhouses, including the Giddings home.  The article projected the cost of construction at $375,000--a significant $12.4 million in 2025 terms.

The Dorset was completed in September 1911.  An advertisement in The New York Times called it "high class" and offered seven, nine or ten-room apartments with "very large rooms and 3 baths."   Rents ranged from $2,600 to $3,000, or about $8,375 per month today for the most expensive.

Schwartz & Gross's neo-Renaissance tripartite design included a three-story base with a stone balcony supported by massive carved brackets at the third floor.  The seven-story midsection was faced in Flemish bond brown brick and terminated with impressive limestone brackets with floral garlands that upheld the intermediate cornice.  They were echoed with the capitals of the two-level piers on the top section, below the copper cornice.

A massive banner advertised the apartments in 1911.  The five brownstones that sat here were identical to whose on either side of the new building.  photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

By the time Franklin Henry Giddings moved into his apartment, he had published several books, including Democracy and Empire, Inductive Sociology, and Descriptive and Historical Sociology.  He is remembered today for the concept of "consciousness of kind," by which persons recognize and associate with like-individuals, establishing "group self-consciousness" as opposed to individual self-consciousness.

Frank Henry Giddings, from the collection of the Library of Union College

While Giddings's name appeared in newspapers for his thoughts about political and social-economic issues, other initial residents regularly appeared in the society columns.  On January 14, 1912, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Edgar A. Levy, 150 West Seventy-ninth Street, will give a dinner party this evening for Miss Marjorie and Walter Klee, who have just announced their engagement."   A month later, the newspaper announced, "Mrs. L. L. Warshauer of 150 West Seventy-ninth Street will give the second of a series of bridge parties on Friday." 

Among the first entertainments in the building was Mrs. Nathaniel Arnold's "bridge party and tea with music at her home," as noted by the New York Herald on December 21, 1911.  Mrs. Arnold's daughter from her first marriage, Madelaine Ethel Sylvester, lived with the couple.  The family's country home was in Woodmere, Long Island.

Madelaine was a subject of social chatter in 1912 when she was wooed by the internationally famed explorer, photographer and inventor, Russell Hastings Millward.  The handsome 35-year-old would later claim the world record for trekking by foot through "unexplored, uncharted portions of Africa, South and Central America and Mexico."

Socialites were atwitter when newspapers reported that Millward took out a marriage license on December 10.  But almost immediately, puzzling developments ignited a flurry of rumors.  On December 12, The New York Times reported, "No announcement was made yesterday to clear the secrecy which surrounds the plans for the marriage of Russell Hastings Millward, the young American explorer, and Miss Madelaine Ethel Sylvester...although two days have now elapsed since Mr. Millward took out a marriage license."  According to scuttlebutt, the article said, "he had left for British Honduras."  Another rumor said the couple had already been married.  At the Dorset apartment, a family member declined "to confirm or deny the marriage."

The following day, The Syracuse Herald raised doubts that the marriage would happen.  "Deep-dyed mystery surrounds the hasty exit from this city made on Tuesday evening by Russell Hastings Milward [sic], a young explorer and archaeologist, only a few hours after taking out a license to wed Miss Madeline [sic] E. Sylvester."  The article said Madeleine "declares that her fiance has merely 'run out of town' for a few days to attend to business matters."  Millward's friends, however, "say that Millward is now on his way to Central America for a three years' stay."  

A detail in The Syracuse Herald proved a significant hint.  Millward's mother told a reporter that she was "greatly disturbed and puzzled" regarding the engagement.  She was under the impression her son was engaged to Grace Rucker of Washington D.C.  As it turned, neither of the recent debutantes snagged the intrepid explorer.  Millward married Edna Pearl Boyden of Boston on August 27, 1914.

Madeleine E. Sylvester, New York Herald, June 23, 1911 (copyright expired)

Madeleine beat her former fiancé to the altar, however.  On June 25, 1913, she entered the newsroom of the New York Herald and declared she had eloped with Charles Everett Doll.  She explained that while dining at Delmonico's two weeks earlier, "Charlie" dared her to marry him.  "Away we went in an automobile--it must have been after nine o'clock at night--got some one that looks after the marriage licenses, you know, and he promised to keep it a secret.  We were married that night."

Not surprisingly, other wealthy residents at the time were less colorful than Madeleine Ethel Sylvester.  Among the Arnolds' neighbors were Hermann Runkel and his wife, the former Victoria Lopez.  Born in New Orleans in 1853 (where he and Virginia married), Runkel arrived in New York in 1869.  The following year he and his brother, Louis, founded the candy and chocolate manufacturing firm, Runkel Brothers.  Hermann was highly involved in Jewish charities and was a director of the Hebrew Infant Asylum.

Around the outbreak of World War I, Runkel fell ill.  The 65-year-old died here on March 29, 1918 "after a long illness," according to The Evening Post.   Later, the New York Herald reported that Victoria inherited most of Runkel's estate, "estimated at close to one million dollars."

Residents of the Dorset maintained a small staff, as reflected in a help-wanted ad in the New York Herald on January 23, 1921:

Cook--Good cook wanted, cooking and light housework; French butler kept.  Call Monday or Tuesday, 9 to 10 or 5 to 6, at 150 West 79th st., sixth floor.

The mention of "French butler kept" meant that he lived with the family.

Living here at the time was the Frederick Gerken family.  Gerken was a real estate developer, perhaps best remembered for erecting the Gerken Building in 1895 on Chambers and West Broadway, designed by George Edward Harding & Gooch.  Following his father's death in 1920, Frederick Gerken, Jr. remained here with his mother.  Gerken, Jr. had graduated from the Columbia Law School in 1914.  Despite his law degree, in 1918 he was made president of The Derf Manufacturing Company, Inc.  

Harry A. Cohen and his wife suffered an unspeakable tragedy on March 29, 1923.  The couple had a 20-month-old son, Kenneth.  On that afternoon, Mrs. Cohen left the Dorset with Kenneth's "nurse girl," as described by The New York Times.  The article said Mrs. Cohen, "planned to take the bus across town to visit friends, but she walked south on Amsterdam Avenue as far as Seventy-eighth Street, playing with the child."  

Mrs. Cohen waved to her son as she stepped onto the bus.  At that instant, the horse attached to a Sheffield Farms Company at the curb, "became frightened and, despite the chained wheels, started forward," as reported by The New York Times.  It crashed into the wagon of the New York Pie Baking Company.  As Mrs. Cohen looked on, the second horse, "became unmanageable and started for the sidewalk.  The baby still was waving its good-byes when shrieks of others gave warning of the danger."  The nurse tried to swing the baby carriage out of the way, but it was too late.  The article said, "The carriage was overturned, throwing the baby to the street and an instant later the hoof of the horse crushed his skull."  

Among the Cohens' wealthy residents were Maurice W. Levy and his wife, the former Sarah Kohn.  Levy's biography reads like an adventure novel.  Born on September 16, 1845 in Alsace-Lorraine, he came to America at the age of 11.  The New York Times recalled, "He went to California by sailboat and across the Isthmus in the first year the railroad was opened."  He studied at the University of California, and in 1889 moved to Kansas "where he became a pioneer in the Arkansas Valley at Wichita," said the newspaper.  There he became president of the Wichita National Bank and the first president of the Kansas Bankers' Association."  

While in Kansas, Levy was active in politics, partners with Jay Gould in the building of Kansas railroads, and was president of the Wichita School Board.  He relocated to New York City in 1905.  He and Sarah maintained a summer home in West End, New Jersey. 

Kansas was never far from the minds of the Levys.  On March 9, 1923, for instance, The New York Times reported, "A card party for the benefit of the Kansas dormitory in the National Navy Club...will be given by the Kansas Women's Club next Wednesday afternoon at the home of Mrs. M. W. Levy, 150 West Seventy-ninth Street."

The Levys were at the New Jersey residence when Maurice W. Levy died on July 11, 1929.  Living in the Dorset apartment at the time was one of the three sons, Guy W. Levy.  The New York Sun reported that Maurice left Sarah "an estate of $1,022,827."  (The figure would translate to more than $18 million today.)

In the meantime, Herman Plaut was the president of L. Plaut & Co., Inc., which manufactured electric lighting fixtures.  He was a director in numerous other corporations, as well.  His wife was the former Laura Wile.

Laura employed a new maid in the spring of 1924.  The girl arrived on May 31, dropped her suitcase in the maid's room at 8:00, and started to work, not taking time to unpack.  Soon afterward, Herman left for work and the Plaut's daughter went shopping.  Laura walked into the bedroom and immediately noticed that her jewel case was missing from her dressing table.  The New York Times said it contained, "several valuable diamond rings, a lavaliere, bar pins, watches and bracelets."  The article explained, "She had worn some of her jewelry at a dinner the night before and expected to use it again that night." 

Laura rang the bell for the maid, but there was no answer.  "She then called for the cook.  But the cook had not seen the maid either."  After having been in her new position only for an hour, the maid and the jewels "valued at more than $25,000" were missing.  Detectives said, "A black hat, a coat, and a suit case filled with clothes were found in the new maid's room."  The girl, who had no criminal record, had spirited away with jewelry worth $445,000 in today's terms.   Detectives believed that, "the jewels, within easy access, were too great a temptation for the young woman," reported The Times.

In 1937, during the midst of the Great Depression, the esteemed architectural firm Boak & Paris, Inc. was commissioned to remodel the Dorset.  The renovations resulted in six apartments per floor.

One hundred and fifteen years after Franklin Henry Giddings swapped his Victorian brownstone for a luxury apartment, little has changed to the exterior of the Dorset.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for requesting this post.

photographs by the author

Schwartz & Gross's 1917 300 West End Avenue

 

On New Year's Day 1916, the Record & Guide reported that the Paterno Construction Company had commissioned Gaetan Ajello to design an apartment house at the northeast corner of West End Avenue and 74th Street.  "The structure will be equipped throughout with every modern appliance, containing quarters for thirteen families," said the article.  But something went awry.  Ten months later, on October 14, the journal noted that Schwartz & Gross was now working on the plans.

The 13-story building was completed in 1917 at a cost of $250,000, or about $5.9 million by 2024 conversion.  Faced in Flemish bond brick and trimmed in limestone, granite and terra cotta, its Colonial Revival design included a dignified entrance with engaged Scamozzi pilasters and a sweeping arched pediment filled with intricate carvings.  Stone bandcourses relieved the visual bulk of the building, and a parapet with stone roundels took the place of a cornice.

An advertisement in The Sun on September 30, 1917 offered a "high class corner apartment" of 12 rooms and five baths, noting, "building just completed."

The sprawling apartments became home to well-to-do families, like Robert Edison Fulton, a vice-president of the International Motor Company, and his family; Horace M. Kilborn, vice-president of the National City Bank; and Ezra Johnson Travis.

Travis's life story was fascinating.  Born in Greenville, Pennsylvania in 1844, Travis served in the Civil War as a scout before going into cattle ranching in Montana.  Known as "Jot," he was a partner in the pioneering firm of Gilner & Salisbury, which became one of the largest stage coach companies in the West.  It led to his landing Government contracts to carry mail via stage throughout the West.  He later held contracts for transporting mail in Chicago, Philadelphia and New York.  The wealthy widower died at the age of 75 on July 12, 1919.

Ezra "Jot" Johnson Travis in his earlier years.  (original source unknown)

The Spregelberg family were also initial tenants.  The country entered World War I months after 300 West End Avenue opened, and Sidney L. Spregelberg went off to fight in Europe.  Tragically, on August 3, 1918, his name appeared on a list of casualties published by the New-York Tribune.  The young lieutenant had died of disease.

Horace M. Kilborn's apartment faced southwest, overlooking the massive Charles M. Schwab mansion and the Hudson River.  On the evening of May 14, 1920, he was watching the sunset when something caught his eye on the Schwab grounds.  The Sun reported, "He saw a man walk in through the main gate, run to the door and ring several times.  On getting no response the stranger took off his hat and waved it several times, shouting."

The caretaker did not seem to be around, so Kilborn took matters into his own hands.  He went into sleuth mode, going downstairs and following the interloper around for about half an hour.  Eventually, the man went into the watchman's house on West End Avenue and asked Fred Forms for 50 cents.  He told Forms he needed a place to sleep.  Kilborn had heard enough and found a policeman who arrested Frederick Grant Gresham.

At the 68th Street station house, the 38-year-old insisted he was a stock broker with Smith & Co. on Wall Street.  His excuse for being on the Schwab estate was inventive.  "He said he wanted to get advice from Mr. Schwab on how to prevent annoyance of his mother and sister, living in Chicago, by certain persons," reported The Sun.

Among the Kilborns' neighbors were Claude W. Kress and his wife, the former Agatha F. Sheehan.  Kress came from a colonial family, his first American descendant arriving from Germany in 1752.  He was the president of S. H. Kress & Co., a nationwide chain of 5, 10 and 25 cent stores.  

In January 1921, police were dealing with what The Evening World described as "the anarchist bomb plot scare."  Tensions rose after a telephoned tip on January 12 sent Secret Service men on a hunt for a bomb in the Customs House.  The following day a servant in the Kress apartment read the story.  When a package was delivered late that afternoon, she panicked.  The Evening World reported, "C. W. Kress was in the library of his home at No. 300 West End Avenue when his housekeeper brought in what she called a 'suspicious package' which had come by express from Anatol, N. J."  Kress agreed that it was suspect and called the Bureau of Combustibles.

The Bomb Squad removed the package to "a lonely spot at 74th Street and the North [i.e. Hudson] River and opened it," said the article.  Inside were 14 pieces of Dresden china.  The Evening World reported, "'Goodness me,' said the housekeeper, 'I ordered that and forgot all about it.'"

Marcus and Carrie Loew lived here at the time.  Their country estate was in Glen Cove, New York.  Born in 1870 to a poor Jewish family on the Lower East Side, Loew saved money he earned from small jobs and invested it in the penny arcade business.  Eventually he established the Loew Theatres, a leading chain of vaudeville and motion picture theaters.  In 1920, he purchased Metro Pictures Corporation, and later acquired the controlling interest in Goldwyn Picture Corporation.  In 1924 the two would merge into Metro-Goldwyn Pictures.

Marcus Loew lived in the building when this photographs was taken in 1922.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Marcus Loew was the recipient of what The Evening World on May 29, 1922 called "a curious bequest."  The will of millionaire attorney Charles Reinhardt directed his executors "to purchase a 'suitable diamond stud' for him," said the article.

In 1958, actor and singer Harry Belafonte had achieved stardom.  His 1956 album Calypso was the first million-selling LP by a single artist, and he had a starring role in the 1954 motion picture Carmen Jones.  He married Julie Robinson, his second wife, on March 8, 1957.  In his autobiography My Song: A Memoir of Art, Race and Defiance, Belafonte writes, "Julie and I fell in love with a four-bedroom rental at 300 West End Avenue, one of those great old drafty Upper West Side apartments with not only a living room but a library and pantry."  The problem was, when they arrived to tour the apartment, it was suddenly rented.

Belefonte's publicist, Mike Merrick, who was white, went to see the apartment.  "Now the lease was readily conferred," Belefonte wrote.  The singer signed the lease with his own name and it was countersigned by the building manager.  He continues:

Apparently the building manager didn't know who I was.  Julie and I moved our furniture in first, then showed up to take occupancy.  Within hours, the building manager became aware he had a Negro as a tenant.  He passed on the word to the building's owner, who didn't like this at all.

The owner was Ramfis Trujillo, described by Belafonte as the "illegitimate son of the dictator of the Dominican Republic."  He writes, "His own skin color was high-yellow Spanish, but he clearly saw himself as white, and in his building he'd maintained the neighborhood's unwritten covenant against blacks."  With a binding one-year lease in hand, Belafonte had no intention of being forced out.  But he was also clearly aware that his lease would not be renewed.

And so, he set up a dummy real estate company, then worked with other friendly tenants to set up two others.  The dummy companies then began a bidding war to buy the building.  Belafonte put up the $2 million to back the project.  He explains in My Song, "Rental properties were growing less profitable for their owners.  The whole concept of co-ops was just starting to take hold."  And, just as the Belafontes' lease was about to expire, the owner accepted the highest bid.  "As most of the other tenants stepped up to buy their apartments, too, the money I'd invested came flowing back," writes Belafonte.

Harry Belafonte in 1954.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

A hold-out was the couple's next door neighbor, a widow.  A compromise was achieved when Belafonte found her a rental in another building, and then paid her the going price for her apartment (even though she did not own it).  The Belafontes then combined the two--creating a 21-room, 7,000-square-foot residence.

Now that the building was resident-owned, Harry Belafonte explains, "our goal was integration, not reverse segregation."  Among the first new owners was singer Lena Horne and her husband, composer Lennie Hayton, who purchased a penthouse.  Bass player Ron Carter purchased an apartment around the same time.

Belafonte writes, 

Julie and I would live in that cavernous apartment for nearly half a century, raising our children and entertaining a glittering array of guests.  Among our first were Martin and Coretta King...Martin would come to think of it as his home away from home, staying with us on many of his New York trips...Soon, Senator John F. Kennedy would come to visit, seeking my endorsement in his race for president.  Eleanor Roosevelt would come to visit, too, though more often we went to see her, driving north to the family compound in Hyde Park, New York, for some of the most rewarding evenings of my life.

Adding to the list of entertainment royalty like Horne and Belafonte at 300 West End Avenue at the turn of the century were Tina Fey and her husband Jeff Richmond.  On January 7, 2016, 6sqft reported that the couple had purchased a second, ten-room apartment directly above theirs.  The article said they "will likely be taking down some floors and walls to create one large duplex."

After more than a century, Schwartz & Gross's dignified brick building maintains a patrician presence on the 74th Street corner.

photographs by the author