The Lost West End Theatre - 362 West 125th Street

image by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

During the 1896 St. Louis Republican National Convention, 34-year-old Meyer R. Bimberg came up with the idea of printing pictures of the candidates on tin buttons.  Hearing that McKinley and Hobart would get the nomination, he had 100,000 buttons made—the first political campaign buttons in history.  Later, his buttons that read "Our Choice for Governor" for candidate Theodore Roosevelt sold "like hot cakes," according to The New York Times.  Bimberg became widely known as "Bim the Button Man."

In 1898, Bimberg invested in real estate, erecting a public hall on the Lower East Side.  He would eventually erect five theaters throughout the city.  In 1902, he turned his focus to the what was then known as the West End, where there was a dearth of theaters.  He acquired the vacant lots at 362 through 370 West 125th Street, just west of Eighth Avenue and hired the architectural firm of Neville & Bagge to design a theater on the site.

Designed in the Spanish Baroque style, the tripartite design included a striated brick-and-terra cotta base dominated by a wide cast-iron-and-glass marquee.  The second and third floors were faced in beige brick.  The openings of the midsection were filled with colorful stained-glass, with the three center windows arranged in a Palladian configuration and crowned with elaborate terra cotta ornaments.  The frieze below the bracketed cornice announced West End Theatre.  A handsome balustrade completed the design.

Meyer R. Bimberg personally opened the theater on November 3, 1902.  The New York Times said it contained, "all the most improved electrical devices, superb interior appointments, and safeguards against fire."  The article continued:

From an artistic standpoint the new theatre will be attractive to the eye, the decorators having made effective use of the color scheme, maroon and green, which has been carried throughout the entire building.  The large, roomy chairs are covered with green velour, and the carpets of a rich maroon blending in pleasing harmony with the other decorations.

On each tier were "reception rooms" and below the lobby was a smoking and lounging room for male patrons.

Tickets ranged from 25 cents to $1 (roughly $10 to $40 in 2026).  Actress Alice Fischer appeared in Mrs. Jack on the theater's opening night.

Bimberg soon ran afoul of the Penal Code that prohibited entertainments on Sunday other than singing and concerts.  The New York Times blatantly said, "A general vaudeville show is usually given here which lasts until half-past 11 o'clock.  There are sketches, burlesques, all sorts of variety acts, including singing and monologues."  But during the week of January 3, 1903, the police warned the management "to comply strictly with the law."

Patrons packed the theater on Sunday January 11, 1903 to see the regular Sunday offering.  Instead, one singer after another came on stage.  The New York Times reported, 

Then some of the people began hissing and catcalls followed, women joining in until the theatre was in an uproar.  "Rank!" "Stale!" "Say, this is New York!" and other cries of derision greeted the singers."

The manager came on stage and explained the situation, saying finally, "Please blame the police and not me."  The entire audience eventually walked out.

The following month, on February 10, 1903, The New York Times reported that Bimberg had sold the West End Theatre to Weber & Fields for $300,000.  The comedy team of Joe Weber and Lew Fields had recently added theater management to their resumes.  The article noted that this was "their third theatre."  The partners said they would "carry out the present engagements" through the current season, but refused to say what the next year's attractions would be.

In fact, Bimberg had partnered with the pair to form the Bin-Web Corporation.  Bimberg still owned a portion of the property, but gave up its management.

image by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

A critic on the staff of The Theatre was pleased with the new management.  In its November 1903 issue, he said that under Weber & Fields the theater "is commodious and comfortable, handsomely furnished and decorated, and the attractions being among the best."  The plays, it said, "draws refined, intelligent audiences at Broadway prices."

Those refined and intelligent audiences were enjoying grand opera and concerts by the end of the year.  During the week of December 20, Weber & Fields presented a concert by the New-York Symphony Orchestra, and productions of Otello, La Traviata and Carmen in English.

New Yorkers were thrilled when Weber & Fields announced that Madame Adelina Patti would appear on November 27, 1903.  Arguably the most famous operatic soprano in the world, her appearance would guarantee a full house, but it would also take a huge chunk out of the ticket sales.

Fans waited an hour for the prima-donna to appear on stage.  While they waited, Patti "waited placidly in her apartments at the Savoy Hotel," reported The New York Times.  Her delay, said the article, "cost the audience a large share of its good temper."  The problem was a detail in the contract.  Adelina Patti insisted upon the payment of $5,000 "before she would budge one inch toward the stage of the West End Theatre," explained The Times.  But when the receipts were tallied, they totaled only $3,180.  The diva's agent told the manager, "Mme. Patti could not think of leaving the Savoy with only $3,180 in sight."  (The figure would translate to $117,000 today.)
Lew Fields was contacted and the $2,000 was sent to the theater.  

The concert went on, the audience was mollified, and Weber & Fields took a severe financial blow.  The next morning Adelina Patti headed off to San Francisco.  The New York Times said, "Mr. Fields was not to be seen, but sent out word that he was too overcome to speak."

In its May 1904 issue, The Theatre commented, "The West End Theatre is growing steadily in popularity, due to the astute policy which takes up to Harlem some of the best attractions seen on Broadway."  

Weber & Fields continued to mix grand opera and orchestral concerts with dramas and comedies.  On April 10, 1907, for instance, The New York Times announced that the Van den Berg Opera Company "will begin a Summer engagement at the West End Theatre on Monday, May 6, in grand and comic opera at popular prices."

The next year, Weber & Fields leased the theater to the Shubert brothers, Lee, Sam and Jacob.  They opened with John Mason in The Witching Hour on September 21, 1904.  The New-York Tribune noted, "It is the intention of the Messrs. Shubert to present here only first class productions, and they are to be varied."

Actress Marie Dressler opened here on February 24, 1913 with the Dressler's Players.  The audience might have been impressed with the 45-year-old woman's capabilities.  The playbill listed "The entertainment staged by Miss Dressler, curtains and decorations designed by Miss Dressler, costumes designed by Miss Dressler."  She also, of course, appeared in the troupe's production of Camille.  The New York Times remarked, "Miss Dressler proved that she had not forgotten how to hold an audience."

Renovations to a movie theater included a new marquee, blade sign, and the removal of the balustrade, seen here in 1929.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

On March 15, 1914, The Sun reported that the West End Theatre "will be dedicated from to-morrow on to the film plays."  The venture was short lived.  On February 11, 1915, International Music and Drama reported, "Taking heed of the signs of the times, and noticing that the craze for moving pictures is on the wane, and that there is a distinct interest in the revival of the stock company proposition, the management of the West End Theatre has decided to return to this policy."  The theater opened with Nobody's Widow.

In August 1919, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that Bin-Web Corporation had leased the building to Marcus Loew.  As a nod to Meyer R. Bimberg, who died in 1908, he tweaked the named to Bim's West End Theatre.

On the night of November 6, 1921, manager Robert McNaab locked the theater and headed home with the evening's receipts.  The New York Times reported, "In a deserted district, McNaab said, someone struck him over the head."  Three men grabbed the package containing $1,500 and fled in an automobile.  The robbers were never found.

There were more than 800 patrons in the theater on the afternoon of June 20, 1940 watching The Shriek in the Night.  Suddenly, two large sections of the plaster ceiling 75 feet above them collapsed.  The New York Times said they "crashed atop of those in the front rows."  Six movie-goers were injured enough to be hospitalized.

By the early 1970s, the West End theater featured horror and action films.  New York Amsterdam News, September 16, 1972.

The West End movie theater closed in 1975.  It was acquired that year by the La Gree Baptist Church.  

The marquee and stained glass were gone when the church operated from the structure.  (photographer unknown)

Le Gree Baptist church remained in the building for four decades, selling it to a developer in July 2016.  On December that year, the Commercial Observer announced that Haim Nortman had filed plans for a commercial-residential structure on the site.

image via cityrealty.com

Blum & Blum's 1913 105 West 72nd Street

 

photograph by Richard Caplan, via corenyc.com

At the turn of the last century, the 72nd Street blockfront between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues had been lined with four-story brick and brownstone houses for years.  But residents of the Upper West Side were increasingly attracted to apartment house living and on July 28, 1912 the New-York Tribune reported that Brown Brothers Realty had purchased 105 through 109 West 72nd Street "as a site for an apartment house."

New-York Tribune, July 28, 1912 (copyright expired)

Well known apartment building architects George and Edward Blum were hired to design the 12-story structure that would cost $300,000 to construct--more than $9.3 million in 2024 terms.  Completed the following year, the structure was not given a name like almost all Upper West Side apartment buildings, but relied on its address alone--105 West 72nd Street.

Although some architectural historians have called the Blum brothers' style "churrigueresque" (an over-the-top version of Spanish Baroque), the brick, stone and terra cotta ornamentation falls short of the frothy Churrigueresque Revival examples in, for instance, California.  Nevertheless, the architects did embellish the upper floors with Spanish Baroque details.  Cast iron balconies at each of the tenth floor windows added interest, as did a full-width stone balcony one floor above.  At the ground floor were two retail shops, the show windows of which smacked of the recent Art Nouveau style.

Potential residents could choose between four- and five-room apartments, each with a dining room, fireplace and a servant's room.  The names of the well-heeled residents appeared routinely in the society columns--and occasionally for less lofty reasons.

Such was the case with Ruby May Blackmore, a 20-year-old woman from Florida who moved in in 1915.  Ruby May had been a "telephone girl" at a hotel in Jacksonville where she lived with her widowed mother.  There she became familiar with a guest, 27-year-old Henry E. Schinzel, who, according to The Sun, was "the son of wealthy parents in Detroit."  The smooth-talking Schinzel romanced Ruby May, promised to marry her, and brought her to New York where he "installed her in an apartment in West Seventy-second street."  Some months later Ruby May came to the humiliating realization that Schinzel was using her only for prurient reasons and had no intention of marrying her.  She abandoned her apartment and sued him in April 1916 for $50,000 on the grounds of breach of promise.  It was a sobering amount for the Lothario, more than $1.3 million today.

Ruby May Blackmore's was the first of several rather scandalous incidents connected with 105 West 72nd Street that year.  On March 4, the Evening Telegram reported that Dorothy Von Palmenberg had taken an apartment, and just a month later she was being interviewed regarding the sensational murders of Hannah M. and John E. Peck.  

Dr. Arthur Warren Waite had married the Pecks' daughter Clara Louise on September 9, 1915.  Four months later, in January 1916, he murdered Hannah, and then killed John on March 21.  In the interim he had poisoned his bride, but she recovered.  (It was all part of a rather excessive attempt by the doctor to enable him to carry on a romantic relationship with cabaret singer Margaret Horton.)

Because Dorothy Von Palmenberg was a close friend of Margaret Horton, she was called into the District Attorney's office on April 23 for questioning.  She offered little information other than, according to the New-York Tribune, "She said Dr. Waite had been planning a trip to Egypt with a woman companion."

Another moneyed resident that year was Ethel Yerkes, a distant relative of multi-millionaire Charles T. Yerkes (she was a daughter of a nephew), who had left her $100,000 in 1906 (around $3.3 million today).  Ethel was close friends with Helen Elwood Stokes, the wife of millionaire William Earl Dodge Stokes.  That couple lived in the lavish Ansonia Apartments, built by Stokes.  But things were not going well in their household.

When Helen returned from a trip to White Sulphur Springs in the fall of 1916, she went to Ethel Yerkes's apartment rather than going home.  Stokes came to the apartment on November 20 to discuss her resistance to return to their Ansonia apartment.  The meeting turned violent.  The details came out luridly in court later during their divorce hearing.

Stokes testified "She tore my face to shreds.  One of the marks I carry now.  She spat in my face and kicked my legs.  Then she seized a knife and as I fled from her to the kitchen the cook came out and saved me."  Stokes's attorney asked Helen, "You scratched good and plenty, didn't you?"  She replied, "I hope I did."

The ugly and sensational affair dragged on for years.  Helen Stokes stayed on in Ethel Yerkes's apartment for some time.  On June 9, 1923, The Morning Telegraph said that among the issues the grand jury would address was "whether the defendant [Helen] committed wrongful acts with 'various men of unknown identity' at 105 West Seventy-second street."

In the meantime, Ethel Yerkes was married in her apartment on February 13, 1919.  Her husband, Lieutenant Daniel Wooley of the U.S. Army was, additionally, the manager of the advertising department of Fleishmann Manufacturing Company.  The newly-weds continued to live in Ethel's apartment.

Also living in the building in 1916 was Sarah C. Doty, the wealthy widow of merchant James H. Doty.  The elderly socialite was the vice-president of the Euterpe Club, a women's group which hosted musical performances and "many charitable enterprises," according to the New-York Tribune.  She died in her apartment at the age of 71 on December 11, 1916, leaving her cherished Chow dog, Ah-See, a diamond bracelet.

British-born Diana Norman (known as "Di") was a resident in 1923.  The young widow was "well known in European society circles," according to the Daily Standard of Watertown, New York.  She unwittingly became involved in an international jewel heist after she became friendly with the dashing Maurice Friend, described by one newspaper as an "Oxford graduate [and] possessor of several medals awarded to him during the world war for Heroism as a British cavalry officer."

While he was "paying court" to her that summer, she noticed that a diamond and platinum bracelet worth $4,000 (around $68,000 today) was missing.  She did not suspect Friend until sometime later when he gave her a check for $300 which turned out to be worthless.  She had him arrested and on August 2 The New York Times reported he had been found guilty and was to be deported to England.  He told the judge "That would please me mightily, your Lordship."

But there was much more to the story.  Friend was suddenly linked to the missing Russian crown jewels.  On October 5, The Brooklyn Standard Union reported, "Belief that the late Czar's jewels can be located has been revived through the arrest of Maurice Friend...Miss Mable Sprague, probation officer, believes Friend knows the whereabouts of the jewels."

1942 photograph by Lloyd Acker from the collection of the Office for Metropolitan History

During the Great Depression, four-room suites were advertised at an affordable rent of from "$75 up," or just over $1,600 per month today for the least expensive.  The building continued to attract financially comfortable residents, like William E. Sennett, an executive with Twentieth Century-Fox Film Company, who lived here in the late 1930's and early '40's.  Sennett had been involved in the motion picture industry since the silent film days in 1916.

In the 1970's, the shops at ground level housed Stewart Ross's Stone Free clothing store and the Westside Pet Shop.  On December 31, 1984, The New York Times reported, "After nearly half a century on West 72d Street--passed from father to daughter--the Westside Pet Shop was scheduled to close today."  The shop, opened by Japanese-born Goro Kuranuki in 1937, was an early victim to soaring commercial rents.  Proprietor Elly Kuranuki said "I guess the new landlord has other plans.  They won't even talk about a new lease."

The space became home to a shop dealing in trendier items than birds and guinea pigs.  Blades West sold and rented roller blades--the latest craze--and offered "blading" instructions.

Ironically, given that the Westside Pet Shop Spot was forced out in 1984, today Spot Canine Club operates from one of the storefronts.  The other store is home to a nail salon, Dashing Diva.

photographs by the author