Schwartz & Gross's 1930 44 Gramercy Park North

photograph by Lowell Cochran

Clement E. Merowit was just 26 years old in 1929, yet he was president of the Merowit Construction Corporation and had erected several significant apartment buildings, including the 1926 Windsor Arms on West 9th Street.  On November 23, 1929, The New York Evening Post reported the Merowit had broken ground for a "16-story and penthouse rental apartment house" at 44 Gramercy Park North.

The article said architects Schwartz & Gross, "have designed a distinctive building with gables and battlemented towers reminiscent of an English manor house."  The romantic mood of the design was achieved partly by asymmetry--the east portion rising 10 stories and the west being 16 stories.  Schwartz & Gross turned to Tudor England for inspiration, lavishing the red brick facade with multi-paned and leaded windows, faux limestone balconies with quatrefoil panels, and square-headed drip moldings.

photograph by Eden, Janine and Jim

The New York Evening Post said, "There will be three penthouse floors and several tower apartments with terraces," and explained that during construction potential tenants "may incorporate their own ideas, whether in a duplex or other type of apartment."  The typical apartment would range from 2 through 5 rooms, with "dining galleries equivalent in size to an extra room," said the article.  Schwartz & Gross carried the Tudor motif inside, and most apartments had log-burning fireplaces.

The upper floor apartments were spacious.  At the time of The New York Evening Post's article, bachelor Aldo R. Balsam had already leased the entire 11th floor based on the floorplans.  Two months later, on January 9, 1930, The New York Sun reported that Helen M. Holsclaw had leased "a special duplex apartment on the twelfth and thirteenth floors."  Like Balsam, she was unmarried and (in what might be seen as a slight to Schwartz & Gross) hired the esteemed architectural firm Warren & Wetmore to design her suite.  And on May 23, 1930, The New York Sun reported that publishers' attorney John Hanrahan had "leased the eight-room penthouse, with four large terraces."

The historic motif was carried into the design of the apartments.  photo via brownstoner.com

An advertisement in The New Yorker on February 15, 1930 promised that there would be "Numerous structural and decorative refinements seldom found even in the finest cooperatives."  Another advertisement skirted the cost by saying merely, "you get it at a fair rental."  By the time the building opened on October 1, 1930, it had been fully rented.

Aldo R. Balsam would not occupy his sprawling apartment alone for long.  On August 5, 1931, The New York Evening Post reported that he had married Geneva White Webster at the Savoy-Plaza the previous day.  The relatively subdued ceremony was possibly explained by the mention, "The bride secured a divorce in Reno recently."  The Balsams would patronize the upscale winter and summer resorts.  On February 13, 1932, for instance, The Pinehurst [North Carolina] Outlook mentioned, "Aldo R. Balsam, an outstanding player in last season's polo, came back to town this week and showed his old form."

Occupying less lavish apartments at the time were white collar residents like Dr. Arthur L. Linden, who specialized in "X-ray work;" surgeon Dr. Harrison I. Cook, who graduated from Bellevue Medical College in 1911; and artist and cartoonist Clive Weed.

Weed was born in 1884 and graduated from the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts in 1903.  He then studied under Thomas P. Anshutz at the Summer Art School in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, and in Paris.  Weed turned from fine art to cartoons when he joined the Philadelphia Record in 1910.  By the time the bachelor moved into 44 Gramercy Park North his work regularly appeared in Judge magazine.  He also contributed to publications like The Nation, The New Republic, Leslie's Weekly, Life and The New Yorker.

Fascinating residents were the Rev. Dr. John W. Chapman and wife, May Seely.  Born in 1858 in Pikesville, Maryland, Chapman served in the Charity Hospital on Blackwells Island early in his career.  In 1887, he and May traveled to Alaska, founding the Christ Church Mission at Anvik.  

The couple's close relationship with the native population--which lasted for four decades--resulted in important ethnological advances.  The Chapmans translated native dialects to compile and publish a collection of folk tales.  The New York Sun said, "He also made many phonograph records of native songs and stories."  (These would eventually become part of the American Museum of Natural History's collection.)  Rev. Chapman built a wireless station that he operated for six years.

Chapman retired in 1930 and he and May were initial residents of 44 Gramercy Park North.  John W. Chapman died in their apartment at the age of 81 on November 27, 1939.

It was about that time that the building was converted to co-ops.  Living here in 1939 was author and editor Dr. Lewis B. Chamberlain.  Born in 1865, he was the secretary of the John Milton Society for the Blind.  From 1918 to 1935 he edited the monthly Bible Society Record and from 1920 to 1935 was editor of the American Bible Society annual reports.  Among his books was Seshayya: Conversion of a Brahman.

In 1941, newlyweds John C. Wood and his wife, the former Anne Robeson Truesdale, moved in.  The couple was married on January 20 that year.  Wood was a vice-president of B. Altman & Co., having joined the firm in 1932.  The couple's affluent lifestyle was reflected in Wood's memberships to the Union League Club and the Cedar Creek Club of Locust Valley.  America's entry to World War II, however, greatly changed their lives.

On October 5, 1942, Wood joined the Army Specialist Corps.  The expertise he gained while working in the department store became valuable to the military.  Six months later, he was transferred to the Office of the United Secretary of War as Executive Officer of the War Department Price Adjustment Board.

The Cincinnati Post reported on May 19, 1944 that Anna David, "plunged to her death yesterday from her 15th-floor apartment to a courtyard below."  The article said that the 46-year-old, "had been ill and had disappeared from her bedroom while her sister and a physicians were in an adjoining room."

What had seemed to be another tragic suicide became national news when Anna David's more famous identity was divulged.  The Washington Daily News reported that David, "was revealed today to have been Anna Damon, Communist leader and national secretary of the International Labor Defense."

Anna Damon during her testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities on October 16, 1939.  (source unknown)

Born Anna Cohen, her married name was David, but she used the surname Damon for her political work.  She was the executive secretary of the International Labor Defense, which provided legal services to persecuted Blacks, trade unionists, and others.  She was a founding member of the U.S. Communist Party.

At mid-century, author, playwright and screenwriter Jonathan Finn and his wife, the former Sadie Borgenicht, lived here. Sadie, who went by her maiden name as vice president of Jack Borgenicht, Inc., a children's dress manufacturer, was highly involved in charity work.  The Port Chester, New York newspaper The Daily Item noted that she "sponsored a creative therapy technique at Hillside Hospital, Long Island, in which painting was used for both artistic and psychological achievement."

Jonathan Finn partnered with Sing Sing Prison's warden Lewis E. Lawes to write the non-fiction book, Twenty-Thousand Years in Sing Sing, published in 1932.  The best seller was made into a motion picture starring Bette Davis and Spencer Tracy that same year.  The experience may have prompted Finn's prison-themed play Chalked Out that premiered on Broadway in 1937.  Among his screenplays were the 1936 Jailbreak, the 1939 Smashing the Money Ring, and Invisible Stripes, released in 1939.

Sadie Borgenicht Finn died on November 20, 1962 at the age of 66.  Finn took up her position at Jack Borgenicht, Inc. in addition to his writing.  He died in the apartment on June 4, 1971 at the age of 87.

After leaving his position in the Foreign Service of the State Department as consul in Saigon in 1962, Daniel Joseph Meloy moved to New York City and into 44 Gramercy Park North.  Fluent in Japanese, he took the post as deputy executive director of the Japan Society here and served as consultant with the Mitsubishi Trust and Banking Corporation.  A graduate of Oberlin College and the Harvard Business School, he had served as vice consul in Kobe and Toyko, and consul in Sapporo, Japan before taking the South Vietnamese post in 1961.

Around 1969, Hungarian-born Janos Aranyi moved into a 2,141-square-foot, two-bedroom duplex on the 12th-floor.  A conservator of vintage picture frames, among his clients was the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  When Aranyi and his wife Theresa Llorente placed the apartment on the market in 2014, the realtor recalled that it was the scene of "countless soirees attended by such high-profile guests as Al Pacino, George Soros and Jeremy Irons."

The Aranyi dining room.  image via observer.com

Resident Mary Jo Jacobi lived in apartment 15-C and was working in the banking industry with Drexel Burnham Lambert in the early 1990s.  Born in 1951 in St. Louis, Missouri, she had previously been an aide to President Ronald Reagan, whose administration ended in 1989.  She returned to government service in 1992 when President George H. Bush appointed her Assistant Secretary of Commerce.

photograph by Lowell Cochran

Schwartz & Gross's Tudor fantasy survives beautifully intact, including the all-important casement windows, an integral piece of the historic-themed design.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochran for suggesting this post

The Strafford - 777 West End Avenue

 

photo by Deansfa

In the first years of the 20th century, aristocratic West End Avenue morphed from a street of brick and brownstone mansions to one of apartment buildings.  In 1910, the Salisbury Realty Co. demolished the high-stooped residences at the southwest corner of West End Avenue and 98th Street and commissioned the architectural firm of Schwartz & Gross to design a high-end apartment building.

Twelve stories tall, The Strafford was completed in 1911.  Above the spartan, two-story stone base, it was clad in red brick and trimmed in limestone and terra cotta.  Swartz & Gross reserved the decorative drama for the two-story top section where their Renaissance Revival design melded ever so slightly with Beaux Arts (seen in the swagged brackets upholding the intermediate and terminal cornices).  An exuberant frieze of fans, cartouches and other Renaissance motifs created the focal point of the design.

There were two spacious apartments per floor--one of eight rooms and the other of ten--each with three baths.  Rents ranged from $2,500 to $3,000, or about $8,000 per month for the most expensive suites.

Among the initial residents were Emil and Tillie Taussig and their 18-year-old daughter Ruth.  Born in Eisenbrod, Bohemia on June 20, 1857, Emil and his family moved to Manhattan in 1866.  He and Tillie were married on January 18, 1883.  Tillie was the daughter of Hermann Mandelbaum, a tobacco merchant.  When the Taussigs moved into The Strafford, Emil was the president of the West Disinfecting Company.

The family had barely settled in before they sailed to Europe.  One account says Emil was setting up a branch of his company in Vienna, others say it was a pleasure trip.  In either case, in April 1912 the Taussigs prepared to return home, traveling to Southampton, England to board the RMS Titanic as first class passengers.

In his testimony later, on the night of the sinking German steward Alfred Theissinger recalled telling Emil and Tillie, "You better put on your lifebelts and rush out on deck."  Emil asked, "It is as serious as all that?"  "Yes, hurry," was the reply.

In the midst of the chaos on deck, Tillie and Ruth boarded lifeboat number 8.  When the Carpathia docked in New York with the survivors, Tillie and Ruth did not immediately return to their Stafford apartment, but went to the Mandelbaum home at Park Avenue and 96th Street.  A reporter from The New York Times visited, and on April 20, 1912 reported, "Both were ill from exposure and grief caused by the death of Mr. Taussig.  The article said in part,

They said that he and Henry B. Harris who with his wife rushed with them to the deck on hearing the collision with the iceberg, were threatened with revolvers when they attempted to get into a lifeboat, although there was plenty of room for them.  Mrs. Taussig said that the boat into which she stepped with her daughter Ruth and Mrs. Harris pulled away from the Titanic with several seat spaces empty.  She is indignant and horrified to think that her husband and the theatrical man were sacrificed needlessly.

Tillie recalled "that there were three distinct explosions, one following close upon another.  Also there was a medley of pistol shots, breaking out every few minutes, but what the firing meant, the women were unable to learn."

Tillie and Ruth returned to their apartment here, and on November 14, 1915, The Sun announced, "The wedding of Miss Ruth Taussig, daughter of Mrs. Emil Taussig of 777 West End Avenue, to Julius B. Lichtenstein, will take place on December 1 at the Ritz-Carlton."  Following the wedding, the newspaper noted, "Mr. and Mrs. Lichtenstein will live at 777 West End Avenue."

In the meantime, The Strafford had filled with other well-to-do professionals, like William H. Fletcher and his wife.  Born in 1857, Fletcher was a self-made man.  The New-York Tribune said, "After a common school education he became an engineer when only nineteen years old."  In 1913 he was vice-president of the steamboat and steam yacht building firm W. & A. Fletcher Company, president of the Consolidated Iron World, and vice-president of the Webb Academy and Home for Shipbuilders.

Along with vessels in the New England steamship line and others that serviced the Hudson River, Fletcher's company had built impressive yachts for millionaires--like J. P. Morgan's 1899 Corsair, the Intrepid for Lloyd Phoenix, and the Sovereign for industrialist M. C. D. Borden.

Moses H. and Fanet O. Wallach were married in February 1916 and moved into an apartment here.  Wallach was secretary of the J. and J. G. Wallach Company, a chain of laundries.  According to Wallach later, his 19-year-old bride "promised to start housekeeping on a modest scale."  The two had different definitions for the term "modest."

In May 1919, according to Fanet, Moses walked out, telling her "that married life no longer appealed to him, that he would go his way and she could go hers."  He supplied her with $30 a month for food (about $530 today), but "she spent it for pleasure," Moses claimed.  Fanet continued to live in the apartment and Moses paid the rent and other bills for two months.  Then he waited outside The Strafford one night in June until he saw Fanet take the dog out for a walk.

Moses went to the apartment, told the maid to leave, and had all the locks changed.  The New-York Tribune reported, "When his wife came home, without any hat on, she found she was locked out."  Fanet went to a hotel and Moses had the furniture removed and put into storage.

It ended up in court on July 31, 1920.  Fanet Wallach sued her husband for separation and her father-in-law, Joseph G. Wallach, for $25,000 damages.  (She alleged he persuaded Moses to leave her.)  Moses told the judge, "My wife is twenty-three and an only child, and is a spoiled child.  After the first glamour of marriage wore off she became discontented."  Saying, "This whole affair is regrettable," the judge awarded Fanet $40 a week alimony.

The names of residents of The Strafford almost always appeared in newspapers for purely social reasons.  But that was not the case on July 24, 1918 when The New York Times reported that Harry E. Lazarus, who was the head of the Lazarus Raincoat Company, had been arrested by agents of the Department of Justice.  With World War I raging in Europe, Lazarus had a massive contract with the Government to supply military raincoats.  The article said, "It was officially announced last night that as a result of the inspection of the Quartermaster's Depot...thousands of raincoats intended for soldiers in France were found to be defective."  A Department of Justice spokesperson said "the alleged raincoat frauds...are said to have cost the War Department millions of dollars."

Lazarus appears to have weathered the scandal relatively unscathed.  Eight years later, on July 9, 1926, The American Hebrew reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Harry E. Lazarus, their twin daughters, Ethel and Lucille, and their son, Joseph, have closed their winter home at West Palm Beach, Florida, and are living in their New York apartment at 777 West End Avenue."

Iancu Urn Liber was born in Eastern Romania where he suffered intense antisemitism.  Upon immigrating to America, he changed his name to Jack Lieber.  In the spring of 1920, Jack married Celia Solomon and they moved into The Strafford.  Two years later, on December 28, 1922, they welcomed their first son, Stanley Martin Lieber.  Like his father had done, Stanley would change his name, becoming Stan Lee--the creative leader of Marvel comic books.   

In 1939, towards the end of the Great Depression, the sprawling apartments were divided.  There were now five per floor.

Among the early tenants were Margit and Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises.  Mises was born in Austria in 1881.  In 1940, with Austria under Nazi control, he and Margit emigrated to New York.  According to Jörg Guido Hülsmann's 2007 Mises, The Last Knight of Liberalism, "In early October [1941], he and Margit moved into the apartment where they would remain for the rest of their lives...Margit had found the three-bedroom apartment at 777 West End Avenue in Manhattan."

Ludwig von Mises, from the collection of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Mises became a visiting professor at New York University in 1945.  He would hold that position until his retirement in 1969.  He wrote and lectured on sociological and economic issues, becoming well-known for his comparisons of communism and capitalism and their social effects.

Ludwig von Mises's died on October 10, 1973.  In reporting his death, The New York Times called him, "one of the foremost economists of this century."  

Margit Serény had been an actress prior to marrying Ludwig von Mises on July 6, 1938.  Three years after his death, she wrote My Years with Ludwig von Mises.  She survived him by two decades, dying in 1993 at the age of 103.

Attorney Ronald Crean lived here in by the late 1970s.  Among his clients was the Mental Retardation Institute of Valhalla, New York.  Sometime between July and November 1980, he received a check made out to that institution, which he deposited in his own account.  The Deputy New York State Attorney General told Newsday, "After depositing the check [of more than $33,000], he used the money for personal purchases."  Unfortunately for Crean, the defalcation was discovered.  He was disbarred in August 1982 and pleaded guilty to fraud on July 25, 1983.

photo by Deansfa

Although the residents of The Strafford no longer have at least two servants--a cook and a maid--as they did during the post-World War I years, Schwartz & Gross's handsome structure remains a dignified presence on the avenue.

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The 1927 Hotel Windermere - 666 West End Avenue

 

image via transparentcity.com

Residential hotels were essentially apartment buildings.  Their occupants signed leases for a year or longer, and only in a few cases did they accept transient guests.  The differences were that they offered hotel amenities like maid service, and the apartments had no kitchens.  As with a transient hotel, a large dining room, usually on the ground floor, was provided for tenants' use, or ordered meals could be delivered to the residents' suites.  The concept was embraced on the Upper West Side early on, with residential hotels offering luxurious lifestyles and often sprawling apartments.

The Great Depression would end the era of the residential hotel.  Getting in under the wire was the 666 West End Avenue Corporation, formed in 1926 to erect a 22-floor structure on the east side of West End Avenue between 92nd and 93rd Streets, where five brick-faced homes stood.  The prolific architectural firm of Schwartz & Gross designed the Hotel Windemere in an Art Deco inspired take on the neo-Renaissance style.

from the collection of the Columbia University Libraries' The New York Real Estate Brochure Collection.

Completed in 1927, the Hotel Windermere sat on a three-story rusticated stone base decorated with Renaissance details and capped by a stone cornice.  The relatively undecorated eleven-story midsection was clad in buff-colored brick.  It was the eight-story top section that made an architectural statement.  A series of setbacks created terraces and provided extra light and ventilation to the apartments.  Here Schwartz & Gross made up for the absence of ornamentation on the midsection by lavishing the corners with terra cotta quoins, adding Renaissance style terra cotta cartouches, and hefty broken pediments with urns.

The Hotel Windermere was different from most Upper West Side residential hotels, which boasted suites that rivaled private homes.  The Windermere's moderately priced apartments ranged from one to three rooms with "large serving pantries."  An advertisement touted, "attractive apartments that provide the best in living at a minimum cost."

Apartments ranged from one-room to two-bedrooms and a living room.  from the collection of the Columbia University Libraries' The New York Real Estate Brochure Collection.

Another difference was that the residents' names appeared in newsprint not for dinner parties and debutante teas, but often for darker reasons.

Among the earliest residents were Bernard Edelhertz and his wife, the former Clara Greenberg.  They shared a two-bedroom apartment with their daughter Helen Ruth and her husband Usevolod Scher.

Edelhertz had already had an astounding career.  Born in Kharkoff, Russia in 1880, he arrived in New York with his parents at the age of 13.  In 1901 he was admitted to the bar, and for a while was chairman of the Motion Picture Theatre Owners Chamber of Commerce of New York.  

In 1916 Edelhertz became publisher of The American Hebrew, and the following year was appointed Assistant United States Attorney General.  He would remain in the position until 1922, during which time he visited Poland "officially to investigate outrages against Jews," according to The New York Times.  The newspaper added, "while there he also was active as a member of the American Anti-Typhus Commission."  Shortly after moving into the Hotel Windermere, he wrote The Russian Paradox.

The 51-year-old suffered a nervous breakdown in December 1930, and was admitted to a sanitarium.  He was released seven months later.  At 8:00 on the morning of July 17, 1931, the family was prepared to go downstairs to breakfast.  Usevolod Scher knocked on the bathroom door to hurry Edelhertz along.  Receiving no reply, he opened the door to find his father-in-law's body hanging by the belt of his pajamas.  He had left a note on his dresser that read, "To my children:  I can't stand the suffering any longer.  Please forgive me.  Daddy."

Less than three months later, on October 9, 1931, tragedy struck again.  Belle Clyde was out of town and every morning she called the apartment to speak with her 70-year-old husband Peter.  That morning no one answered.  The real estate operator had thrown himself from the window of their 15th floor apartment.  

Living here at the time were Albert J. Simmons and his wife.  He had been the passenger agent of the Lehigh Valley Railroad for years.  The New York Sun recalled on February 21, 1933 that while in that position, "he paid special attention to arranging road tours for theatrical troupes and so became known to many famous stars of the past half century."  The relationships earned him a membership in the Lambs.  But then, said the article, "the Government consolidated the ticket offices in wartime."  When he and his wife moved into the Hotel Windermere, he was working with the brokerage firm of Walter J. Fahy & Co.

Max Fleischer and his wife wife Ethel Goldstein (known as Essie) moved into an apartment around 1933.  Born in Krakow, Poland in 1883, Fleischer's family had arrived in New York in 1887.  Max spent his teen years in Brownsville, a Brooklyn neighborhood of poor Jewish families.  His career would take him from an errand boy at The Brooklyn Daily Eagle to the head of Fleischer Studios and a pioneer in animated cartoons.  Also an inventor, he created innovations like the rotoscope, famous for the "follow the bouncing ball" technique.

Max Fleischer, Moving Picture World, July 7, 1919 (copyright expired)

In the pre-Disney years, Fleischer's animated characters like Betty Boop and Popeye were wildly popular, "sometimes billed above feature films on marquees," recalled The New York Times in 2005.  The article remembered that he "basked in the studio's success by moving to a river-view apartment in the Windermere Hotel, at 666 West End Avenue."  Unfortunately for Fleischer, the bubble was about to break.  Greg Ford, a cartoon producer and animation historian, told The New York Times journalist Kathryn Belgiorno, "But in 1937, when Disney released the world's first full-length animated feature, Mr. Fleischer's tides turned.  Snow White is what did it.  The Fleischers never really came back."

Three residents faced serious problems in 1933.  The first was 35-year-old Harry Augustern, who headed the Longacre Employment Agency on Sixth Avenue.  The problem was that Augustern did not have any real clients.  He took a $10 fee from out-of-work men and promised to find them employment.  None of the hundreds of desperate Depression Era applicants ever found jobs.

On August 9, 1933, Augustern appeared in court on a complaint by Alvin Gaudy "who gave Augustern $10 to get him a job, and got neither a job nor the return of the money," as reported by The Sun.  He was fined $25.  But getting safely out of the courthouse that afternoon would be a daunting and dangerous endeavor.  The newspaper reported that 214 other victims were waiting outside.

"With cries of 'Lynch him!' more than 200 victims of an employment agency fraud tried to take the $1,711 they had lost out of the skin of Harry Augustern outside the West Side court," said the article.  "A ring of policemen, one of whom was knocked down and hurt, fended the mob away, and gave the employment agent a chance to escape.  He took it avidly."

Less than two weeks later, on August 18, Emanuel Morganlander was arrested and his 111-foot yacht the Felicia seized by the Coast Guard.  The commander of a patrol boat noticed that the vessel was riding low in the water, and boarded it to investigate.  There were "ten men and two women aboard," reported The Sun, "all of them dressed in trim yachting costumes."  Also on board were 1,800 cases of liquor, a cargo difficult for Morganlander to explain away in the Prohibition Era.

And on November 25, 1933, the Hotel Windermere was rocked by another horrifying suicide.  Delia Rothschild, a 75-year-old widow, jumped from her tenth floor apartment.  She left a sealed suicide note to her sister behind.

William H. Walker, Jr., and his wife lived in the Hotel Windermere at the time.  A nephew of Mayor James J. Walker and son of well-known physician William H. Walker, Sr., the 29-year-old narrowly missed prison time in 1934.  Rose Rosenberg was a nightclub hostess who went by the name Margaret Shore.  On a night in August 1933 she was found in a semiconscious condition in the Hotel Richmond where she worked.  She would spend several weeks in Bellevue Hospital.

Rosenberg charged William Walker with brutally attacking her.  She and nine witness appeared before the grand jury on February 8, 1934.  Also testifying that day were Walker and "another man, who was supposed to have been with him at the hotel," as reported by The Sun.  Despite the evidence against him, the jury refused to indict Walker and he was released.

Another resident at the time was Sadie C. Langmuir.  A fascinating figure, she was born in Massachusetts in 1848.  Her husband, Charles Langmuir, had died in 1876.  One of the couple's two sons, Dr. Irving Langmuir, received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1933.

After the death of her husband, Sadie began traveling.  According to The Herald Statesman in 1936, she "had visited every country except Siberia during three trips around the globe."  At the age of 78, she crossed the Andes in South America.  When Sadie was not traveling, she was active in the Daughters of the American Revolution.

With American embroiled in World War II, scrap drives became a popular way for patriotic citizens to help with the war effort.  The residents of the Hotel Windermere did more than their part.  On September 30, 1942, The New York Sun reported they "have contributed 2,300 pounds of scrap iron and 200 pounds of rubber to the war effort."

In the 1950s, Russian-American novelist and poet Vladimir Nobokov lived here.  He became an American citizen in 1945, and while living in the Hotel Windermere was a professor of Russian literature at Cornell University.  (Among his students was future United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.)  His 1955 Lolita, published while living here, was deemed by Random House in 2007 to be one of the 100 greatest 20th century novels.

By the early 1960s another Russian immigrant, Abram Haitowitsch, resided here alone.  Born in Ekaterinoslav in 1894, when he was three years old he suffered a fall that paralyzed his optic nerve, blinding him.  Nevertheless, he learned to play the violin and with the aid of his brother, converted the music he wanted to play into Braille.  He attended the Imperial Russian Conservatory of Music in St. Petersburg and played as a soloist with the Odessa Symphony Orchestra.

In 1918 Haitowitsch first appeared on the stage of Carnegie Hall.  He continued to give concerts until the late 1930s.  The blind virtuoso died in his apartment at the age of 70 on July 9, 1964.

By the time playwright and actor Charles Grodin moved into  his one-room apartment in the Hotel Windermere in 1967, what had been called a serving pantry was now called a kitchenette.  His rent was $250 per month that year (about $2,190 in 2023 terms).  Grodin told The New York Times writer William Neuman in 2006 that when playwright Herb Garner looked around his apartment, he said, "I know a good lawyer who can get you out of here."

Charles Grodin in 2013.  photo by Adam Schartoff.

Shortly after moving in, Grodin played in the 1968 film Rosemary's Baby, and won the lead in the 1972 The Heartbreak Kid.   While living here he played in several other films including Catch-22, the remake of King Kong, and Warren Beatty's Heaven Can Wait.  Grodin married Elissa Durwood in 1983, and three years later the couple left the Hotel Windermere for a larger co-op.

Soviet citizen Valeriy Ivanovich Markelov moved into the building in 1967 with his wife and daughter.  Markelov worked as a translator for the United Nations Secretariat.  He also worked for the Soviet Government.  

On February 14, 1972, he was arrested outside a restaurant in Patchogue, Long Island, charged with espionage.  Markelov had been under investigation for two years after he made contact with an engineer of the Grumman Aerospace Corporation.  The engineer immediately contacted the F.B.I.  Markelov was accused of "having classified information pertaining to the Navy's new F-14A Tomcat jet fighter."

In the meantime, the Hotel Windermere was at the center of a neighborhood battle.  The property had been approved by the State Board of Social Welfare for conversion into a home for the elderly.  On February 15, 1974, The New York Times began an article saying, "The Upper West Side, often a turbulent test tube for social experiment, is again in process of eruption."  The Community Board obtained an order to halt work.  Frustrated, the owner of the Windermere told a Times reporter seven months later that he "might give up and sell for the best price."

image via transparentcity.com

The Windermere (the word "Hotel" was dropped) was recently given an interior makeover by Combined Architecture and Interiors.  There are now 200 one, two, and three bedroom apartments throughout the building.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

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Schwartz & Gross's 1911 155 Riverside Drive

 

The sweeping Hudson River views and handsomely landscaped Riverside Park made Riverside Drive one of the most desirable residential thoroughfares in the city.  By the first decade of the 20th century, upscale apartment buildings were rising among the the drive's opulent mansions.  In 1910 the Charter Construction Co. began construction of one such building, at the southeast corner of Riverside Drive and West 88th Street.

Designed by the firm of Schwartz & Gross, the 12-story,  Renaissance Revival style structure was completed in 1911 at a cost of $275,000 (about $8 million in 2022).  Faced in deep red Flemish bond brick, the building's eight-story midsection was essentially unadorned.  The two-story top section made up for that with ornate terra cotta panels and swags.  A bracketed cornice crowned the design.

The elaborate two-story entrance is executed in terra cotta.

Although the entrance opened onto West 88th Street, the building took the more impressive address of 155 Riverside Drive.  There were just two apartments per floor--one with "nine rooms, three baths and thirteen closets," according to an advertisement, and the other containing ten rooms, three baths and sixteen closets.  Schartz & Gross ensured light and ventilation to all rooms by reserving a 25-foot wide yard between this and the building on 87th Street, and inserting a courtyard at the rear.

The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1911 (copyright expired)

Among the initial residents were the Oppenheimer family, who lived on the 11th floor.  Julius Oppenheimer was born on May 12, 1871 in Hanau, Germany, and arrived in New York in 1888.  He was employed in the warehouse of Rothfeld, Stern & Company, a textile importing company run by relatives.  Although the young immigrant spoke no English and had no money upon his arrival, by the turn of the century he was a partner in the firm.

A large banner advertises apartments in 1911.  The Edison Monthly, July 1911 (copyright expired)

Julius had taught himself to speak English and eagerly read about American and European history.  He spent his free time browsing the city's art galleries and it was possibly in one of them that he met artist Ella Friedman.  Ella had studied art at Barnard College and in Paris, where she focused on Impressionism.  The couple married on March 23, 1903.  When they moved into 155 Riverside Drive they had a seven-year-old son, J. Robert Oppenheimer.  A second son, Frank Friedman, would be born on August 14, 1912.

The boys would grow up among privileged surroundings.  Their parents owned a chauffeur-driven Packard, and the Oppenheimer apartment was hung with magnificent modern artworks.  According to Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin in their 2005 American Prometheus:

...the collection included a 1901 'blue period" painting by Pablo Picasso entitled Mother and Child, a Rembrandt etching, and paintings by Edouard Vuillard, Andre Derain and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.  Three Vincent Van Gogh paintings--Enclosed Field with Rising Sun (Saint-Remy 1889), First Steps (After Millet), Stain-Remy, 1889), and Portrait of Adeline Ravous (Auvers-sur-Oise, 1890)--dominated a living room wallpapered in gold gilt.  Sometime later they acquired a drawing by Paul Cézanne and a painting b y Maurice de Vlaminck.  A head by the French sculptor Charles Despiau rounded out this exquisite collection.

Van Gogh's Exposed Field with Rising Sun hung in the Oppenheimer's living room. from the collection of  Sammlung R. Oppenheimer

Like the other residents of 155 Riverside Drive, the Oppenheimers maintained a summer estate.  Theirs was at Bay Shore, Long Island, where Julius moored his 40-foot yacht, the Lorelei.

Among the Oppenheimers' neighbors was George S. Ward, the president of the Ward Baking Company.  On the night of October 5, 1917, his chauffeur, 30-year-old Samuel R. Douglas, took out the Wards' automobile.  He picked up three friends and went on a spree that would end tragically.  

At 2:00 in the morning, Douglas smashed the touring car into an elevated railway pillar at Jerome Avenue and 206th Street in the Bronx.  Julius Becker, who was 23, and John Hardy, 21-years-old, were killed.  Douglas suffered a compound fracture of the left leg, and his other passenger, Emil Mosbacher, was taken to the hospital to be treated for shock.  The New York Times reported, "Mr. Ward told the police that the chauffeur had taken the machine without permission."

Jennie C. H. Denton, who lived here by the mid-1920's, was the widow of Waldo E. Denton.  She maintained a country home in Greenwich, Connecticut.  In September 1927 she became enraged with her broker and lawyer, Herman W. Booth.  Jennie had entrusted him with $150,000 in bonds (more than $2.3 million today), and when she requested that he return them, he disappeared.

If Booth had anticipated that he was dealing with a feckless widow, he was mistaken.  Jennie Booth filed a missing person complaint and actively joined in the search.  In the meantime, in Booth's absence he was expelled from the Stock Exchange.  Rumors swirled that he had committed suicide.  Then, on September 30, Jennie burst into his downtown office and found him.  The New York Evening Post reported, "Mrs. Denton herself made the arrest yesterday and, accompanied by a detective of the Missing Persons Bureau, escorted Booth to Police Headquarters.  He was locked up charged with grand larceny."

By the 1930's, J. Robert Oppenheimer had become a professional physicist.  His brother Frank, upon Robert's nudging, followed his lead.  During World War II Robert became the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, where the Manhattan Project was initiated.  Its mission was to design and build the first atomic weapons.  Frank worked on uranium isotope separation at the University of California Radiation Laboratory.  In 1943 he joined the staff at Los Alamos.

Two years earlier, the sprawling apartments of 155 Riverside Drive had been divided.  There were now five apartments per floor.  

Living here in the second half of the century were Isidor Palca and his wife, the former Eva Lipka.  The couple had a son, Alfred, and daughter Rosalind.  Isidor was born in Poland and came to America in 1906, serving in World War I.  A former diamond merchant and founder of the Diamond Dealers Association, he retired in 1962.

Born on March 23, 1920, Alfred Palca graduated from New York University in 1940.  While studying there, he began writing for NBC radio.  After serving in World War II, he became a publicity agent for 20th Century Fox.  But his passion was writing.  In 1950, Columbia Pictures agreed to finance his screenplay, Go, Man, Go! about the Harlem Globetrotters.  He hired an aspiring actor, Sidney Poitier (who was running a barbecue ribs shop in Harlem at the time), to star in the film.

The bottom fell out when the F.B.I. accused Palca of being a Communist.  His project was developing during the McCarthy Era, known as the Second Red Scare.  Palca insisted he was never a Communist, but, according to Dinitia Smith of The New York Times in 1998, "In fact, Mr. Palca said, part of the proof that he was a Communist, the F. B. I. told him, was that he had hired Mr. Poitier, a black man."

After the accusations, Palca told Smith, "My career was phhhtt."  The film was released in 1954 with Palca's name removed.  (His credit would be restored in 1997 at a ceremony honoring blacklisted Hollywood writers and directors.)

A renovation to 155 Riverside Drive completed in 1993 combined several spaces into duplex apartments.   From 1998 to 2006, the building served as the exterior of the apartment of Will Truman and Grace Adler in the popular television series, "Will and Grace"

photographs by the author

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The 1912 375 West End Avenue

 

On June 22, 1912, the Record & Guide reported on "The Reconstruction of West End Avenue."  The writer commented, "Often it is said that thirty years, a single generation in time, spans the average economic usefulness of buildings in the path of metropolitan progress."  The life expectancy of sumptuous homes on West End Avenue, however, was in some cases half that long.  The article noted that "West End Avenue is well started on its second era of reconstruction" with modern apartment buildings replacing private homes.

In listing the staggering number of construction projects, the article said, "At 78th Street the Cambridge Construction Co. is just finishing an operation."  The 12-story apartment building had replaced five rowhouses.  It was designed by Schwartz & Gross in the Beaux Arts style, with notable hints of the new Arts & Crafts style.  A two-story limestone base supported ten floors faced in Flemish bond brown brick.  A series of intermediate stone cornices visually relieved the block-like mass, while the architects drew the eye upward by adorning the mid-section corner windows with iron-railed balconies and framing them in limestone.  Frothy Beaux Arts cartouches and carvings decorated the tenth floor and terminal cornices.

from the 1913 Supplement to the World's New York Apartment House Album (copyright expired)

There were just two apartments per floor, one with 8 rooms and the other with 9, each with three bathrooms.  The World's New York Apartment House Album said, "Excellent judgment has been used in the layout of each apartment to make the arrangement of rooms meet the demands of the most particular housekeeper."  Up-to-date amenities included "modern clothes dryers, water filter, laundries with patent steam doors, a private locker and storeroom for each tenant."  The brochure said the apartments afforded "each tenant the luxury and exclusiveness of a private residence."

from the 1913 Supplement to the World's New York Apartment House Album (copyright expired)

For the most part, the well-to-do residents used their apartments only during the winter season.  They spent the warm months in country homes or resorts.  The summer house of retired commission merchant David Spero and his family was at Far Rockaway.  They closed it for the season on October 3, 1913, but just over a week later, Spero went back "for his golf sticks," according to The New York Sun.  He "found that 148 pieces of silverware, bronze ornaments and two blue bathing suits were gone."  The silverware was valued at $1,700, or around $48,000 in 2022.

The following Saturday, Detective Cooney was walking along Central Avenue in the neighboring village of Lawrence and noticed a young man wearing "under his coat one of Mr. Spero's blue bathing shirts."  David Murphy, who was 17-years-old, quickly confessed to the burglary, admitting "he and another carried the silverware away in four automobile suitcases they found in the house, and that before leaving they dined upon crème de menthe and sandwiches."  His confession led to the quick apprehension of his accomplice, 17-year-old Edward Seeley.  The New York Sun reported, "He too was wearing one of the blue bathing shirts."

The most intriguing resident of 375 West End Avenue was one of its first.  John Whipple Frothingham came from a prominent, old New York family.  The director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, he maintained a country home in Tarrytown, New York.

Passionately concerned about an outbreak of typhus in the Balkins during the First World War, Frothingham formed, funded, and sent a group of American nurses and physicians to Serbia in 1915.  Among them were nurse Stephanie Hampl of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and her fiancé, Dr. John Kara.  Tragically, while working there, Kara "fell a victim to the dreaded disease," according to the New York Herald.

The following year Frothingham launched a second expedition to Montenegro.  Stephanie Hampl again volunteered for the trip.  The group of doctors and nurses boarded the Italian ship Brindisi.  The New York Herald reported, "On board the Brindisi also was stowed the 600,000 pounds of provisions and articles which had been shipped from Halifax for the relief of the stricken Montenegrins by Mr. John W. Frothingham."

On January 7, 1916, the Brindisi struck a German mine.  The New York Herald wrote, "The vessel sank in ten minutes after striking a mine, which rent her forward compartments and hurled from her decks and gaping cabins the mangled forms of more than one hundred persons."  Of the 420 passengers and crew, more than 300 were lost.  On January 21, 1916 The Chicago Daily Tribune reported, "Miss Stephanie Hampl, the betrothed of Dr. John Kara, has followed her fiancé to the great beyond."

The wealthy Frothingham's support to the Balkins was not merely financial.  Between 1917 and 1919 he worked in Serbia with the American Red Cross.  There he met Helen Losanitch, a Serbian nurse working to set up field hospitals.  

Following the war, Frothingham returned to 375 West End Avenue and continued his philanthropy.  On April 2, 1920 The Yonkers Statesman reported that he had donated 18 acres to the village of North Tarrytown "for public park purposes."  He gave Tarrytown architect Walter D. Blair a five-year contract to oversee "the landscape gardening and construction of buildings."

Eight months later, on December 19, 1920 the New York Herald reported the "interesting engagement" of John Frothingham and Helen Losanitch.  The couple was married in two ceremonies on January 3, 1921--in St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Manhattan, and in the Church of the Saviour in Brooklyn.  Two years later a daughter, Anna, was born.  The Frothinghams established the Frothingham Children's Institute in Serbia, as well as the Serbo-American Institute of Serbia. 

Helen Losanitch Frothingham, The Anaconda Standard, February 24, 1920 (copyright expired)

John W. Frothingham died in France on November 20, 1935, leaving a net estate valued at more than $37 million by 2022 standards.  Among the rare books in his library were a first edition of John Milton's Comus, a first edition of Milton's Paradise Lost, and a first edition of Edward Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat.  Helen continued the couple's remarkable work.  Shortly after her husband's death, with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Helen established an orphanage in Guethary, France to care for war orphans.

In the meantime, the names of 375 West End Avenue residents regularly appeared in the society pages.  Among them were family of Theodore W. Stemmler.  He and his wife, the former Jennie Taylor Hunting, had five children, Theodore Washington, Lorraine Brevoort, Yvonne Randolph, Marcelle Ogden Post, and Adrian T.  It was Jennie and her daughters, of course, upon whom the social spotlight shone.  On October 20, 1916, for instance, the New York Herald announced that "The Misses Lorraine, Yvonne and Marcelle Stemmler...have had a series of teas and receptions for their young friends at their apartment, at No. 375 West End avenue.  Miss Yvonne Stemmler made her debut last winter after her return from school in Paris."

Lorraine, Yvonne and Marcelle Stemmler.  New York Herald, October 29, 1916 (copyright expired)

In October 1916 Emilie D. Lee Herreshoff (known to her friends at Mildred) quietly moved into an apartment here.  She had been living nearby at 620 West End Avenue with her husband, John Brown Francis Herreshoff, a wealthy metallurgical chemist.  But things were not going well with the couple.

Two years later the New-York Tribune reported, "The latest edition of 'The Social Register' shows that the couple have been living apart.  The address of Mrs. Herreshoff is given as 375 West End Avenue, while Mr. Herreshoff, with his son Francis, lives at 620 West End Avenue."  The next day the newspaper expounded, "John Brown Francis Herreshoff...said yesterday that although their homes were within a few blocks of each other, he had not seen his wife for two years."

Emilie's divorce suit was followed closely by the newspapers.  She alleged "misconduct with an unidentified woman at hotels in this city, this month and last July," according to the New-York Tribune.  The case came to court in June 1919.  Mildred told the court that her husband "in the latter years of their life together" had "displayed indifference toward her."  She blamed the marital troubles on a "woman with strawberry blond hair."

Because Herreshoff had been giving her $18,000 a year, Mildred asked for no alimony.  Five days after their divorce was granted, her former husband married the strawberry blond, Carrie Ridley Enslow.  She was his third wife.

Mildred's problems did not end following her divorce.  In November 1920 her automobile was stolen.  It became part of a corruption trial of two police officers in January 1921.  The two extorted money from insurance companies for the return of stolen cars, including Mildred Herreshoff's.

In December 1922 Herkimer, Inc. acquired 375 West End Avenue.  In reporting on the deal, The Daily Argus called it, "one of the finest apartment houses on West End Avenue."  The article said the buyers planned to convert it "into an apartment of co-operative ownership which has become so popular among the high-class apartment structures," adding, "This building which represents the highest advance in the builders' art, is admirably adapted for this purpose."  Indeed, it was; however the conversion would not come to pass for another seven decades.

Wealthy real estate operator Max Verschleiser lived here by the mid-1920's.  Born on March 14, 1868, he and his wife, the former Annie (known as Minnie) Margolies, had two sons and four daughters.  Son David worked in his father's business.

Verschleiser was a mover and shaker in the real estate community.  In January 1929 he paid $3.375 million for the 104th Field Artillery Armory, which engulfed the entire block between Columbus Avenue and Broadway, and 67th and 68th Streets.  According to The New York Times, he planned "a large sports arena and amusement centre" on the site.  Unfortunately for Verschleiser, the Great Depression halted his renovations and he lost the property in foreclosure the following year.

The building continued to be home to impressive New Yorkers over the succeeding decades.  Editor and publisher Archibald Seixas lived in 375 West End Avenue until his death in October 1953.  He had published and edited The Shipping Digest since 1923.

Dr. Henry Slonimsky and his wife, Minnie Tennenbaum, were residents by the 1960's.  Born in Minsk, Russia on October 9, 1884, he was brought to the United States in 1890.  After studying at Haverford College and the University of Pennsylvania, he did his graduate studies in philosophy and Greek at the University of Berlin and the University of Marburg, Germany.  He earned his Ph.D. in 1912.  Slonimsky's stellar academic career included lecturing in philosophy at Columbia University, teaching at Johns Hopkins University, and at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.  He was dean of the New York School of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion until his retirement in 1952.

Another notable resident was theatrical designer S. Syriala (whose first name was Sointu, although professionally he used only his initial).  Born in Toronto in 1909, he studied at the National Academy of Design and the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts.  He designed the sets for productions through the 1930's through the 1950's, and was responsible for the restoration of the stage area of Ford's Theater in 1968.  

Exactly 70 years after its change to a cooperative was suggested, the conversion was accomplished in 1992.  The building that originally held 24 apartments now holds 47.

photographs by the author

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