Tattered Beauties - 883-887 St. Nicholas Avenue

photo by Matthew X. Kiernan 

Developer John Kelly purchased the large tract at the southwest corner of St. Nicholas Avenue and 154th Street in 1874.  It would be nearly a decade before development in the Sugar Hill district was far enough along that he considered building on the sprawling plot.  In 1883 architect James Stroud designed eleven row houses for Kelly that wrapped the corner--seven of them on West 154th Street and four more at Nos. 881 to 887 St. Nicholas Avenue.

In its May issue that year Building, An Architectural Monthly remarked that the homes would not edge the sidewalk, as might be expected, but would sit aloofly back and above.  "The architect, Mr James Stroud, has designed them on plateaus, giving the pleasing effect of green terraces, with walks of Seyssel Rock asphalt."  The writer described what today we recognized as the Queen Anne style.  "He has introduced colonial features of architecture, such as bow windows, irregular roofs, verandahs and balconies.  There will be ornamental sashes with glacier decorations and rolling Venetian blinds."  (The "glacier decorations" would most likely have been stained glass transoms and the multi-paned upper sashes that still survive at No. 883.)

The seven houses on West 154th Street all survive.

Kelly intended the 21-foot wide homes to be rental properties.  To lure well-heeled tenants, he included upscale interior detailing--like ash and cherry trim--and modern amenities like hot and cold running water.  A "decided improvement on the usual city house is the introduction of windows opening to the outer air, which are at the head of the stairways on each landing," said Bridge.

The writer opined "Just why families are willing to pay $1,800 or $2,000 per annum for a suite of apartments on the eleventh story of an apartment house when they can rent a pleasant residence on its own ground for less than half the money, it is difficult to tell."  Kelly's tenants would expect to pay as much as $2,250 per month in today's dollars.

The four St. Nicholas Avenue houses were arranged in an A-B-B-A configuration.  Nos. 881 (now demolished) and 887 were mirror images.  Their stone staircases from the sidewalk to the "plateau" were on the opposite side of the lot from the stoop.  The entrances were within a slightly projecting bay that rose to an Addams Family-ready mansard cap with a large oval window.

Nos. 883 and 885, also mirror images, were accessed by long, dramatic sets of steps from the street.  To the side of the entrances were three-sided bay window which provided balconies to the second floor.  The full-height mansards were covered in fish-scale patterned slate shingles and united by a sharp triangular pediment.

No. 885 (right) has sadly lost its parlor floor bay window (and a few other architectural elements).

Title to the properties were in the name of Kelly's wife, Mary.  She leased No. 883 to a socially prominent couple--Thomas M. Foote and his wife, the former Julia Jerome.  The couple had two children, Thomas, Jr. and Frances Jerome Foote.

Born in 1841, Foote was a member of the brokerage firm Thompson & Foote and also, for a while, president of the American District Telegraph Company.  He was a member of the exclusive Union Club and the Coney Island Jockey Club.

Julia was the daughter of Addison G. Jerome and cousin of Jennie Jerome.  On September 4, 1874 the Daily British Colonist began an article saying "A New York dispatch gives the following as the price paid by a New York snob for getting his daughter into the English nobility."  The article had to do with Jennie Jerome's marriage to Lord Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill.  It went on to say that Thomas M. Foote was one of three trustees charged with paying "an annuity of $10,000 in gold."  

Given the Footes' sterling reputations within society, it was shocking that in March 1894 Mary Kelly took Thomas to court in an attempt to get back rent.  

Mary had better luck with her tenant at No. 885.  Financier Albert S. Caldwell had started out as a clerk clerk around 1864 and was later one of the founders of the Fifth Avenue Bank.    The Caldwells' daughter, Elizabeth Stockwell Caldwell, married Eustace Hopkins while living here.  The groom was the son of wealthy merchant John M. Hopkins, who had been associated with Alexander T. Stewart.  (Stewart left Hopkins the equivalent of a quarter of a million in today's dollars in his will.)  The Caldwells remained in No. 885 until Albert suddenly died on the night of June 3, 1894.  

The Caldwells were followed by the George B. Watts family, here by 1897.  It must have been a somewhat crowded environment, judging from the listing in The Social Register.  Living here along with Watts and his wife, the former Helen Wood, were daughters Julia and Ethel; a son listed only as "J. Watts;" and George Watts, Jr., his wife and two children, Sabina and James D. Watts.  The family as well had two Black live-in servants, both from the South.  

Helen Watts was active in charitable and social causes.  In 1899 she was the president of the American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless.  She touted the institution in a letter to The New York Times on January 20 that year, saying "No better evidence of the health of our children can be had than the fact that from May 1, 1895 to May 1, 1898 there were 685 different children in our home; and during that time, there were only five deaths."

Bubble-like terra cotta bosses decorate the eyebrows above the arched doorways and blackened bricks create a patterned coarse above.

Helen had decided opinions and in a speech to the "200 enthusiastic women" who attended a meeting of the Female Guardian Society on October 6, 1899, she attacked "the Mormon M0vement."  She opened her speech with a prayer that American homes might be "protected and saved from the horrible black curse with which they have been menaced."

No. 887 was home first to William R. Foster, Jr., the counsel of the Produce Exchange.  He left around 1887, just before scandal ruined his good name.  He handled the Exchange's "gratuity fund," which provided loans for members' mortgages.  In 1888 it was discovered that Foster had been issuing fake mortgages, forging signatures, and embezzling thousands.  Foster disappeared and in the meantime his bitter father spoke to reporters.  "He said that he could not understand how, with a certain inheritance of $500,000, the son could have disgraced himself and the family name for $193,000," recounted The New York Times on September 30, 1888.

He was followed in No. 887 by Louis Rosenbaum and his family.  A German-born leather merchant, Rosenbaum lived here with his wife, Eva, four sons, and two Irish servants.  The family lived here until 1902.

That year Anna T. Kelly sold all eleven of the houses to Moses Bachman, who resold them to Max Marx.  He immediately began selling them off one-by-one.

He sold Nos. 883 and 885 simultaneously--883 to Mary C. Van Cott and 885 to Louis F. Hallen.  Both were real estate developers and had known each other since Hallen was a boy.  Mary, who never married, had helped to raise Hallen, resulting in a near-family relationship.

Interestingly, the Hallen family moved into Mary C. Van Cott's residence, at No. 883, and Hallen continued leasing No. 885 to the Watts family.  They would remain until 1909.

Louis Hallen's wife was the former Mary W. Jones.  They had two daughters and a son, Louis Frederick, who was just two years old when they moved into No. 883.  The family maintained a country home at Stony Brook, Long Island and it was there, in the summer of 1903, that Hallen suddenly died.  His funeral was held in No. 883 on August 5.

The close relationship between Mary C. Van Cott and the Hallens was again evidenced when she now moved into No. 833.  Her presence was no doubt a help in rearing little Louis, as it had been with his father.

Louis was 17-years old when the United States entered World War I.  He joined the Army and fought through the conflict; but took a criminal path upon returning home.  He was convicted of third degree robbery on June 29, 1925 and sent to the State Reformatory in Elmira, New York.  

Mary C. Van Cott died at the age of 80 five months later, on November 19.  Her substantial estate included several large bequests to charitable organizations like the St. Luke's Home for Aged Women and the Home for Old Men and Aged Couples  But one bequest caught the attention of the press.

On December 4 the Buffalo Evening News reported "When Louis Frederick Hallen, 25 years old...is released from the state reformatory...he will find an incentive to better things awaiting him in the form of a legacy."  The New York Times explained that he would receive $20,000 outright (about $286,000 today), and "one-fifth of the residuary estate."   The Buffalo Evening News said simply that Mary "had taken a friendly interest" in him; and The New York Times added "Miss Van Cott helped to bring up the young man's father."

With Mary's death Nos. 883 and 885 soon ceased to be private dwellings.  They were purchased by the Church Temperance Society.  No. 883 was converted to a doctor's office on the first floor, "treatment rooms" on the second, and the superintendent's quarters on the third.

A doctor's office was also installed in the first floor of No. 885, with living quarters for Dr. James Empringham and the offices of the Society on the upper floors.  

On December 3, 1926 the readers of The New York Times were likely shocked when it reported that Empringham had asked Prohibition groups to drop his name from their list of supporters.

"The organization of which I am secretary is for temperance.  It is not for prohibition and never has been in all the fifty years of its existence," he said.  "The Church Temperance Society is made up of total abstainers who, of course, would like to see the traffic in alcohol ended, but we believe in bringing this about by education and moral suasion."

By the mid-1940's the Ethlyn Beauty Salon operated from the former doctor's office at No. 883, run by Ethlyn Smith Carter.  In May 1948 the New York Age reported on its reopening after a remodeling.  "The Ethlyn Beauty Salon not only is equipped to do a first class hairstyling job," it said "but is also furnished to give milady all the modernistic treatments for putting on or taking off excess poundage."

In March 1950 the Ethlyn Beauty Salon offered a "special 30-day treatment" for weight reduction at $27.  The announcement promised that the treatment would reduce "hips, thighs, etc., which helps reduce inches and banish bulges."  

In 1977 Nos. 883 and 885 were converted to the McDonald's Nursery, a day care center for children 2-1/2 years old and up.  Then, around 2010, the combined homes became a bed and breakfast.

A general renovation inside and out is taking place at No. 887 in 2019.

In 2018 a renovation was begun on No. 887 to convert it to a two-family dwelling.  Substantial restoration is being conducted on the facade.  And while all three of the houses show lamentable abuse, each could be rehabilitated to their former charm.

photographs by the author
many thanks to reader Holly Tooker for suggesting this post

The St. Nicholas Court - 746 St. Nicholas Avenue

Although the arrival of subway service to the Sugar Hill district of Harlem was still a few years away, what had been a quiet residential neighborhood of upscale homes was changing at the turn of the last century.  Apartment buildings began making an appearance along the avenues.

One of the first was The St. Nicholas Court, designed by Henri Fouchaux for the Central Building Improvement and Investment Co. in 1901.  Fouchaux would be among the most prolific architects in the district and this particular project would be one of his most memorable.

Completed in 1902 the narrow St. Nicholas Avenue elevation was deceptive.  The building stretched back to Edgecombe Avenue where it spread out in the T shape at Nos. 313 through 317.  The three-bay wide St. Nicholas Avenue facade was an exuberant celebration of the Beaux Arts style.  

Rusticated stone piers with stylized Ionic capitals flanked the yawning arched entrance with its Baroque cartouche.  Every inch of the spandrel panels was carved with frothy ornamentation.  The grouped windows of the second floor were flanked by intricately carved panels.  Directly above the windows an assemblage of French cartouches closely followed the example of the first floor.  The same motif was carried out in the frieze of the elaborate pressed metal cornice.

Most likely the balcony was originally fronted by a decorative stone balustrade or cast iron railing.

The St. Nicholas Court boasted the modern amenities of elevator service and steam heat.  The commodious apartments of either four, six or seven rooms filled with white collar tenants.

Among the first was William R. Patterson, a member of the American Economic Association who was imported from the University of Iowa in 1901 by the city to serve as the Register of Statistics in the Tenement House Commission.  The New-York Tribune explained in February 1902 that "A competitive examination was held for the place" and "on account of the high degree of technical knowledge required it is assumed that Dr. Patterson received the highest marks."  It was always understood to be a temporary position, however, and by 1905 Patterson was back teaching in Iowa.

E. H. Coster and his wife, too, were original tenants.  The well-to-do couple appeared in society columns as they came and went from the city.  On November 13, 1902, for instance, The New York Times listed them as arriving home from Europe on the Kronprinz Wilheim along with other wealthy passengers like J. Warren Goddard, Mrs. W. H. Hoyt and the Countess Cassini.  The Costers would remain in the St. Nicholas Court for several years. 

Mabel Boak was living here in 1906.  At a time when the common expectation for young unmarried women was to find a husband and run a household, Mabel had higher goals.  She graduated from Vassar College in 1901, and then earned her masters degree from Columbia University the following year.  She left the St. Nicholas Court by 1908 when she was appointed assistant principal at the Chappaqua Mountain Institute.  Mabel, who never married, would devote her life to education, teaching later at the Low-Heywood School in Stamford, Connecticut, the Chevy Chase School in Maryland, and finally the Northfield School for Girls in Massachusetts.

Residents in 1909 paid between $42.50 and $60 monthly rent.  Based on today's, it seems highly affordable.  The most expensive rent, for a seven-room apartment, would equal about $1,710 per month today.

Dr. George W. Elliott lived here that year.  Among his patients was Methodist Episcopal Bishop Daniel A. Goodsell.  The nationally esteemed clergyman lived nearby at No. 15 St. Nicholas Place.  What seemed to be a minor medical problem resulted in unfavorable publicity for Elliott.  The doctor operated on Goodsell on November 27, 1909 to remove a carbuncle from his neck.  A week later the 69-year old was dead, apparently from infection.  The New-York Tribune reported on December 6, "His condition did not improve, however, and the disease which caused his death set in."

Lottie Hyde Buffington had been living a comfortable life in Philadelphia as the wife of attorney Orr Buffington.  The couple had two grown sons, Sydney and Kenneth, and two daughters, one of which was married.  But as the year 1910 drew to an end her world was upset when her husband sued for separation.

Lottie left Philadelphia and by the end of 1911 was living in a sixth floor apartment in the St. Nicholas Court.  In September that year her son, Sydney, had earned the degree of doctor of medicine.  But depression caused by the separation of his parents outweighed the triumph of the achievement.  On December 5, 1911 he committed suicide.  The New-York Tribune explained "It was believed the separation of his father and mother caused Dr. Buffington to kill himself."

It was a significant blow to Lottie Buffington.  The elevator boys were accustomed to greeting her every afternoon as she left to take her daily walk.  When she did not appear on January 9, 1912, one mentioned it to superintendent John Marshall.  He went to the Buffington apartment where he smelled gas.  Two patrolmen were called and they "burst in the door," according to the New-York Tribune, "and found Mrs. Buffington lying across her bed, clad only in her nightgown, with a revolver in her right hand."  

She had apparently first considered asphyxiation by gas, but then fatally shot herself.  On the table next to her was a photograph of Sydney, a telegram telling of his becoming a doctor, and a newspaper clipping about his suicide.  She left several letters, one of which read:

To all my dear friends: Forgive, if that is necessary.  There is nothing else for me to do.  I only surrender to a God who is more just than man.  Goodby.  God bless you, whom I love dearly.  LOTTIE HYDE BUFFINGTON

A much happier story played out in June 1913.  Newspaper readers closely followed the story of the missing 16-year old Helen McCarthy, daughter of "wealthy newspaper broker" John A. McCarthy.  The girl had disappeared from the family apartment in the Hotel Hargrave on the evening of June 24.

Francis Brophy, who lived in the St. Nicholas Court, and a friend, Joseph Daly, were walking through Fort Washington Park at around 4:00 on the afternoon of June 26 when they noticed a girl who was acting so strangely that they paused to check on her.  The Evening World reported "The girl seemed dazed.  Her clothes were soiled and covered with dirt.  She was unable to answer questions at first."  The men found a policeman who took her to the station house.  There a detective identified her by the ring of her dead sister which she always wore.  It was a fortunate discovery as the girl was sick from exposure, "weakened and starving."

The brick and stone facade of the Edgecome Avenue elevation, broken by two light courts, bears no resemblance to its showier St. Nicholas Avenue front.

Another tragic death occurred in the building on December 20, 1915.  Earlier that year patrolman David Mackrell showed signs of mental fatigue.  The New York Times said he suffered from "nervous prostration and insomnia."  The Police Department gave him a two-month sick leave in October.  Mackrell was placed in the Rivercrest Sanitarium in Queens.

He was temporarily released on December 17 to spend the Christmas holidays with his family.  According to his wife and stepson, on the morning of December 20 he was "unusually cheerful" and "talked and chatted at breakfast."  After breakfast Mrs. Mackrell started her daily chores and Roy West, the step-son, prepared to leave for work.  David Mackrell went into the bathroom.  "A shot was heard and when the mother and son rushed to the bathroom they found the patrolman lying on the floor," reported The Times.  He had shot himself in the right temple with his service revolver.

The shooting of another tenant, John Henderson, on the night of November 29, 1916 was more bizarre.  The 41-year old Henderson made his living as a salesman for a ship chandler on Water Street.  For some time he had been acquainted with a nurse, 35-year old Sarah A. Sheldon, who lived nearby at No. 90 Edgecombe Avenue with a roommate, Anna Balleer.  According to Henderson the two were merely friends.  Events would soon bring that into question.

Henderson became engaged to another nurse, Rachel Jones.  When Sarah heard of it she told him "I'll kill you."   Henderson's wedding took place on November 22, 1916.  According to Henderson, on the 27th, Sarah appeared at Henderson's office and told him she had resigned from her position with a tuberculosis clinic of the Department of Health because she had contracted the disease.  She was leaving for California, she said, and asked him to bring railroad timetables to her apartment.

If Sarah intended to go to California at all, it was almost assuredly not tuberculosis, but pregnancy, that prompted the move.  Henderson arrived at the apartment around 6:00.  Anna Balleer was in the kitchen and Sarah told him to "sit down and make yourself comfortable."  Henderson had just taken a seat in a rocking chair when things took a terrifying turn.

According to the New-York Tribune, "Miss Sheldon levelled an automatic pistol of small calibre and fired twice.  Henderson threw up his right hand just in time to get it punctured.  The second bullet went into a bookcase."  Sarah immediately turned the weapon on herself, firing a shot into her abdomen.  It emerged out her back.

Anna came running into the living room.  Sarah gasped, "I shot him and shot myself."  She was still clinging to life when police arrived.  She told them "I loved him."

Above a classical row of columns, the pressed metal cornice echoes the Baroque cartouches of the lower floors.

By 1922 ads for the apartment building no longer used the name St. Nicholas Court; just the address.  By then the demographics of the Harlem neighborhood were changing as  Black residents increasingly replaced whites.  

In 1924 author Arna Bontemps and his wife, the former Alberta Johnson, moved in.  A teacher at the Harlem Academy, he would become a notable literary figure, first publishing his poetry in Crisis in 1924.

On May 8, 1927 The New York Times reported on the annual Holstein literary and art awards.  The conspicuous racial divide that still existed in America was evidenced in the report entitled "Negroes Get Prizes for Literary Work."  The article explained that the awards were given "each year by Opportunity, a negro magazine."  Arna Bontemps was awarded to $100 Alexander Puskin poetry award that night.

God Sends Sunday, written while living here, was Bontemps's first novel.  It was published in March 1931.  Even in giving the book a glowing review, The Times still fell victim to the racism of the period.   "This first novel by a young Louisiana Negro, already known as a poet, plows deeply in the a rich soil of Negro personality...The vivid picturesqueness of expression leaps out with the natural freshness of childish naiveté rather than with the burnt-cork brilliance of a minstrel show."

In 1945 Leonard de Paur took an apartment in the building.  An arranger, conductor and composer, he had graduated from Julliard.   When he moved into the St. Nicholas Court he had recently returned from fighting in World War II, as a lieutenant in the Air Force.  During his military service he had also become part of the 372nd Glee Club.  It inspired him to form the De Paur Infantry Chorus, first composed of 35 men from the group and later from other branches of service.

A 1948 concert announcement pictured Leonard de Paul conducting.

Following a concert on January 8, 1950, Olin Downes of The New York Times wrote "We heard for the first time the de Paur Infantry Chorus, trained and directed by Leonard de Paur, last night in Carnegie Hall.  The reputation of this chorus has spread far and wide in late seasons and there is very good reason for that."

In fact, in 1946 the Chorus had been signed by Columbia Records and for ten years was its top performing group.  De Paur discontinued the chorus in 1957; but continued his impressive career.  In 1968 he became associated director of the Lincoln Center International Choral Festival and would continue heading Lincoln Center events for two decades.  He was still living in his St. Nicholas Court apartment when he died on November 7, 1998.

Another notable resident was attorney Hope R. Stevens, living here in the 1950's.  Born in the British Virgin Islands, he would go on to become First Executive Vice President of the United Mutual Life Insurance Company and Chairman of the Board of the Carver Federal Savings and Loan Association.

No less noteworthy were Garfield Dawson and his wife, Elida Webb Dawson.  In the 1920's Garfield took the stage name George Dawson, Jr. for his dancing career; but was better known as "The Strutter."  

Elida, who was one of the first Black choreographers in America, was a dancer and choreographer at the Cotton Club from 1923 to 1934.   In 1921 she and Josephine Baker joined the cast of Shuffle Along, the first all-Black musical on Broadway.  Two years later she choreographed Runnin' Wild, in which she introduced the dance the Charleston.  According to Elida years later, she had invented the dance after watching "some black children on the streets doing a simple dance." Fred W. Emiston, in his 1930 The Coon-Sanders Nighthawks: The Band That Radio Made Famous, quoted her as saying "There was something fascinating, and it caught me."  The dance caught on and eventually came to identify the personality of the Roaring '20's.

Unbelievably, George Dawson did not retire until 1973 at the age of 81.  The couple was still living here on May 1, 1975 when Elida died at the age of 79.

Henri Fouchaux's ebullient St. Nicholas Court is as much a show-stopper today as it was in 1902.  A bit battered, it nonetheless survives as an exceptional example of Beaux Arts applied to an apartment building.

photographs by the author

Clarence True's 842 and 844 St. Nicholas Avenue

The contrast of materials and colors is hidden beneath a misguided coat of paint on No. 844.

The Aldhouse Taylor Building Company was formed in 1893 and its first project was the construction of a row of handsome, brownstone-faced rowhouses designed by John C. Burne on the east side of St. Nicholas Avenue between 152nd and 153rd Streets.  For some reason, possibly a financial issue with the start-up company, the project did not include all the plots.  In 1894 Aldhouse Taylor Building Company sold Nos. 842 and 844 to developer Charles G. Judson.

Judson had effectively kick-started the career of architect Clarence F. True in 1890.  In private practice for only five years after leaving the office of Richard M. Upjohn, True was receiving scattered commissions.  But Judson, whose office was in the same building with True's, contracted him to design a string of rowhouses that year and the two would work together on several similar projects going forward.  So Judson's choice of True for the pair of upscale residences in Sugar Hill was not surprising.

Clarence True worked in historic styles, often playing with period accuracy either to create a slightly lighthearted air or simply to conform the structure to modern tastes and needs.  His designs for the St. Nicholas Avenue dwellings would stand in stark contrast to the John C. Burne homes.

Completed in 1895 the pair were designed in the romantic Northern Renaissance Revival style, two fairy tale ready houses within a neighborhood of wealth.  Faced in beige brick, they were trimmed in limestone and brownstone.  Short, five-step stoops led to the entrances below elaborate carved panels--the address of No. 842 worked into the design.  The service entrance of No. 844 stood rather prominently to the right of the stoop; while that of No. 842 attempted to hide around the curve of the rounded, full-length bay next door.

No. 844 was the show-off of the pair.  Its own rounded bay stopped at three floors, where it provided a large balcony for the fourth floor behind a solid decorative wall.  The fifth floor took the form of a mansard broken by a prominent gable that engulfed a large, circular opening.

Just a bit more restrained, No. 842 shared identical carved tympana over the openings with its sister.   They included delicate wreaths, ribbons and festoons at the second floor, and shields and swags at the third.  The rounded bay culminated in a witch's hat cone, next to a reserved dormer that pierced the mansard.

A small section illustrates the contrast of limestone, brownstone and beige brick, along with the intricate carvings.

Charles G. Judson had erected scores of similar houses by now, many of them in the developing Upper West Side area.  And that may have been his downfall--he was building too fast.  He moved his family into No. 842 and rented No. 844 to widow Eilen H. Williams.  But John F. Comey was soon pressing for payment of his building loan.

On November 9, 1896 Judson appears to have begun to panic.  His advertisement in the New York Herald was entitled "Absolute Bargain--Investigate."  He touted the two American  basement dwellings as having "hard wood throughout, exposed plumbing" and stressed "must be sold; want offer."

In July 1898 John F. Comey's patience was exhausted and he foreclosed.  Judson now became a tenant of Comey, like Eilen Williams next door.  The following year, in June, Charles G. Judson declared bankruptcy.

Judson lived in the house with his wife, two daughters and two Irish servants at least through 1904, proof that his financial problems did not impoverish the family.   And he managed to continue in the development field.  In February 1902, for instance, the New-York Daily Tribune reported that he was in the process of erecting a nine-story brick hotel on Broadway at 95th Street.

Things were not so comfortable, however, that the Judsons did not have to take in at least one boarder.  Another well-known real estate developer, James D. Matthews, was living with the family at the same time.  Conversations over the dinner table may have resulted in a boon for one architectural firm.  Matthews was also erecting a hotel in 1902, his on West 58th Street near Eighth Avenue.  Both his and Judson's hotels were designed by Ross & McNeil.


Comey traded No. 844 to Max Marx in October 1900, taking a vacant plot on Broadway at 186th Street in exchange.  But he retained possession of No. 842, and in 1905 it was being operated as a high-end boarding house.  Living here that year were Sarah Hyams, who taught cooking in the New York City Public School System's "Special Branches," Henry Hoag Tibbs, a young civil engineer, and James Pierpont Davenport and his wife.

Born in 1856 in Brooklyn, Davenport was a Yale educated attorney and a Justice of the Civil District Court in New York City.  But his passion seems not to have been law, but poetry.  His muse had made her appearance as early as June 1877.  On the Tuesday before his graduation, there was an ivy-planting ceremony at Yale.  His classmates all sang "Ivy Ode" the words and music to which he had composed.

Charles H. Crandall's 1891 Representative Sonnets by American Poets included two by Davenport, "To Julian M. Sturtevant, D. D." and "To A. Benedict Davenport."

An advertisement in The New York Times on November 29, 1906 hinted at the genial accommodations at No. 844.  "Fine warm, pleasant room; excellent board; table guests accommodated."  Table guests were invited guests of boarders, not residents.   That a landlady would not only accept additional mouths to feed, but advertise that they were welcomed, testified to the rents the boarders were charged and the services they received.

In the meantime, Max Marx had leased No. 844 to John T. Fisher and his wife.  The house was the scene of a funeral and a wedding in quick succession in 1901.  Fisher's wife was the daughter of wealthy real estate operator Grenville R. Benson and his wife, the former Irene Elliott.  Irene Elliott Benson was a well-known author and poet.

On March 7, 1901 the New York Herald reported that Grenville R. Benson had "died at St. Vincent's Hospital after an accident."  The funeral of the 61-year old was held in the Fisher house two days later.

Somewhat surprisingly soon, Mrs. Fisher's sister, also named Irene Elliott Benson, was married to Frederick W. Longfellow in the house on April 29.  Form: An Illustrated Weekly called her "talented and handsome" and said "besides being a perfect brunette, is a perfect whip [i.e. horsewoman], dancer and swimmer, and well as being the possessor of many other sterling qualities."  

Irene Elliott Benson was married in No. 844 St. Nicholas Avenue in March 1901. Form, magazine 1898 (copyright expired) 

The New York Press reported that the bride "was given away by her sister," and noted "The house was prettily trimmed with Southern smilax, bride roses and Easter lilies."

After leasing the house for several years, Fisher purchased No. 844 in September 1904.

In 1908 John F. Comey sold No. 842 to operators Lowenfeld & Prager.  It continued to be operated as a boarding house and Henry H. Tibbs was still living here that year when he took a new job with the engineering and contracting firm of J. G. White & Co.  His boarding house days would come to an end in 1913 when he married Lucina Maud Taylor.

The boarders in No. 842 continued to be well-to-do.  In 1911 Herbert I. Lindsley and his wife lived here, her name appearing in Club Women of New York.  She was a member of the Clio Club, founded in 1892; a literary group which admitted men only "to partial participation."

Michael Maloney and his wife, Anne, also boarded here at the time.  They were listed in the New York Blue Book, a social register.  Anne died in the house in October 1914, and Michael stayed on until his death on February 9, 1918.

Following the end of World War I the tenor of the St. Nicholas Avenue block was still upscale.  After the Fishers sold No. 844 in June 1913, it became one of Anna Corning's many homes around the country.  And No. 842 was still accommodating wealthy boarders.  An advertisement in The Evening Telegram on October 21, 1920 described an "Exceptionally large, sunny 3 room suite, exquisitely furnished in mahogany, exclusive neighborhood."

The death of Anna Corning at the age of 80 on December 18, 1927 came at a time when the exclusive Sugar Hill neighborhood was seeing the first signs of decline.  The crash of Harlem real estate values had begun in 1904, mostly due to the arrival of the subways.  But this immediate neighborhood had hung on, for now.

The wealthy spinster's will caused upheaval for months.  She had left to the city of New York all "objects and articles of art, painting and sculpture," in her Rochester, New York mansion, the St. Nicholas Avenue house, "and in her possession 'at any other place in the world,'" as reported by the Rochester Times-Union on April 27, 1928.  "Any other place in the world" meant her total of 13 homes.  Potential heirs were not pleased.

Henry Ford quickly moved to obtain some of the eccentric woman's possessions for his Dearborn, Michigan museum.  The New York Times reported on November 19, 1928 that a sale of her vehicles included "A Russian sleigh more than 100 years old; a coach, cab, brougham and other smart equipages, as fashionable in the halcyon days of the pioneer aristocracy as the smartest limousine today."  The largest vehicle sold was the Corning family coach, designed to carry six passengers and "elaborately finished inside and out."

The glory days of the St. Nicholas Avenue block had set by now.  When No. 842 was offered for sale in 1924 it was described as a "furnished room[ing] house."

The stone base is actually limestone, its chocolate brown paint looking today like brownstone.

Forty-seven year old Otto Glick rented one of those rooms during the Great Depression.  The president of the Expert Bindery Company on West 29th Street, he was unable to deal with business troubles anymore on July 30, 1935.  He was found hanging in his office that day.

Once home to an heiress with 13 residences, No. 844 received a multiple dwelling violation in 1934, for illegally renting rooms.   Ernest Johnson was renting a room in the house in 1945 when he and two others, Charles Carlos and Oliver Bernard, were "arrested for vagrancy when they could give no explanation for lurking in doorways along Eighth Av.," according to the New York Evening Post.

But the 21st century saw a turn-around in the Sugar Hill neighborhood.  In 2006 the Department of Buildings recorded the "change in use from SRO to Four Family dwelling" at No. 844; and a renovation completed in 2015 resulted in a day care center on the first and second floors of No. 842, with one apartment on the third and two on the fourth floors.

While both have admittedly suffered abuse, overall their fanciful appearance--patently Clarence True--survives after a century and a quarter.

photographs by the author

The Wm. W. Dashiell House - 848 St. Nicholas Avenue

The glass in the bowed bay was originally curved, to conform to the shape.

Architect John C. Burne had worked with developer Frederick Aldous several times before the spring of 1893.   The employee-employer relationship would be slightly changed now, with the Real Estate Record & Guide reporting on April 22 that year "A company of capitalists has been formed under the name of Aldous Taylor Building Co., with Frederick Aldous as president, for the purpose of building a large number of first class cut stone private dwelling houses."  Partnering with Aldous in the new firm was another prolific developer, William H. Taylor.  The article noted that John C. Burne was already "engaged on the drawings" for several of those houses, "on St. Nicholas avenue, north of 152d street."

The Sugar Hill neighborhood was already developing into one of impressive rowhouses and splendid free-standing residences.  The Aldous Taylor Building Co.'s project would slip seamlessly into the upscale district.

Completed in 1894, the 21-foot wide homes were identical; their only differences found in the elaborate Renaissance-inspired carvings and the stained glass transoms.  Like the others, No 848 rose three stories above a high English basement.  Clad entirely in brownstone, it featured a rounded, full-height three-window bay.  The parlor level, including the entrance flanked by fluted, engaged columns which supported a prominent hood, bore a profusion of ornate carvings.

What the upper floors lost in somewhat diminished carvings, they made up for with striking neo-Renaissance pediments, and a half-bowl element beneath a third-floor opening.  The pressed metal cornice featured diminutive brackets and a decorative frieze. 

No. 848 was purchased by the estate of Philip Detar, apparently as an investment property.  Administered by Susie T. Lyons, it initially leased the home to druggist John Ewing, a member of the American Pharmaceutical Association.

John and his wife, Grace, had two daughters, Eleanor and Katharine.  Grace was highly involved in the Burnham Farm, an independent facility where delinquent New York City boys were sent in lieu of a reformatory.  The socialites with whom she worked came from the top levels of society, with names like Townsend, Goodridge, Oothout and Choate.

The Ewings were possibly given the opportunity to purchase the house in 1897; but if so they declined.  Instead Susie T. Lyons sold it on October 5 to William Wailes Dashiell and his wife, the former Katherine Townsend Keynton (who was known as Kittie).  

Born in 1856 in Maryland, Dashiell earned his engineering degree in 1879 from the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey.  He had held a series of important engineering positions--including mechanical engineer on the Croton Aqueduct--before becoming president and general manager of the New York Lubricating Oil Company.  By the time he purchased No. 848, he was also vice-president of the Bayway Refining Company and a director of the Manhattan Rubber Manufacturing Company.

The couple had four children, 10-year old Marie Fielding; 8-year old William Allair; Katherine Keynton, who was four; and two-year old John Jay.  The Dashiell's 44-acre country estate, Croftleigh, was in Greenwich, Connecticut.  The New-York Tribune described Croftleigh as consisting of "a residence, a model concrete stable, included in which is a ballroom with musicians' gallery, a large garage with extensive servants' quarters and the usual other outbuildings.  Among the features of this place is a lake of about one acre, fed by springs on the property."  

Kitty Dashiell, of course, had a domestic staff to maintain the household.  Chambermaids took care of the dusting, sweeping and polishing.  But the cleaning of the Oriental rugs in the days before efficient vacuum cleaners required outside help.  And so Kitty hired rug beater Christopher Robertson to come by on February 6, 1903.  

Robertson had not gotten very far along before a neighbor peered out her window and witnessed a crime.  February 6th was a Friday and city laws specifically outlawed carpet beating on Fridays.  She ventured onto the street and found Policeman Minogue and had Robertson arrested.

The tranquil St. Nicholas Avenue block was nearly traffic-free around 1910.  photo by Thaddeus Wilkerson from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The culprit was taken before Magistrate Crane in the Harlem Court.  The judge found the entire affair exasperating and confessed that, technically, he was guilty of the violation as well.  He announced, "I have my carpets beaten every Friday.  There are lots of laws that can't be enforced and this is one of them.  It would cost the city millions of dollars to enforce it.  What's a person to do if he can't beat his carpets?  He can't leave them on the floor until they are filled with dust and then throw them away."  He turned to Robertson and declared "You are discharged."

By 1914 well-heeled citizens were replacing their horse-drawn carriages with automobiles.  That year William Dashiell registered a new Lozier.  His purchase was not inexpensive.  The list price of a Lozier touring car that year was $2,800, or about $72,600 today.

The Dashiell family rode about in a touring car similar to this 1914 Lozier model. (copyright expired)

Growing older and with their children all grown, in 1919 William and Kittie apparently rethought the need for their sumptuous summer estate.  Following the summer season that year the Dashiells sold Croftleight.  The New-York Tribune reported on November 13, 1919 that "The buyer, who is from Texas, withholds his name for the present."

It may have also been Kitty's health that prompted the decision.  Three months later, on February 25, 1920, she died in the St. Nicholas Avenue house.  Her funeral was held in the drawing room three days later.  

William Dashiell remained at No. 848 at least through 1922.  He died on August 2, 1947.  By then the St. Nicholas Avenue neighborhood had noticeably changed and No. 848 was being operated as a rooming house.

The Dashiell house is second from the right in the row.

Among the tenants in 1940 was 27-year old Gordon Osborne.  On the night of November 14 he was passing the home of Harold Furchein at No. 141 West 150th Street when Furchein's automobile caught his eye.  And so he drove off with it.

Osborn picked up some friends and took them on a ride.  But when he ran two red lights on Broadway, he was arrested.   He admitted stealing the car and his friends were released after he vouched that they were unaware it was a stolen car.

Leroy Frederic Florant took a room here around 1943.  Born in 1920 he had graduated cum laude from Howard University's School of Engineering and Architecture.  He went on to study at the graduate level at Columbia University.  While living here he was working for the Government on the now-famous Manhattan Project, which developed the United States' first nuclear weapons.

In 1946 Florant left New York to work at the Rocket Research Laboratory at Ohio State University.  While there he developed the first successful hydrogen-liquid oxygen rocket fuel pump.

By 1964 the basement level of No. 848 had been converted to Ann's Beauty Salon.  Ann Johnson advertised her shop as being air-conditioned and in a "choice location."

In the meantime attorney Isaac G. McNatt operated his office in the former parlor level.   Born in North Carolina in 1916, he had graduated from the Hampton Institute and St. John's Law School, and served in the Navy in World War II.  

The multi-faceted lawyer, who lived in Teaneck, New Jersey, used his office space for a myriad of other activities.  It was the headquarters of the New York Hampton Alumni Club, for instance.  He was, as well, a leader in the Martin Luther King, Jr., Association.  The N.Y. Amsterdam News noted on July 12, 1969 that those interested in membership should write Mr. Isaac McNatt, 848 St. Nicholas Avenue.

That year the house was officially converted to an apartment house and business.  The completed renovations resulted in the now-legitimate beauty salon in the basement, McNutt's legal office on the first floor, two apartments on the second, and one apartment and three furnished rooms on the third floor.

The indefatigable Isaac G. McNatt maintained his office here into the 1980's.  In the meantime, in 1962 he was one of a group of Black attorneys who formed "The Barristers," the goal of which was "to address how to project a positive image of the African American attorney in the community, as well as expanding and building their practices."  McNatt was that group's first president.  Its name was changed to the Garden State Bar Association in 1975.

McNatt's dizzying career continued when, in 1966, he became the first Black Teaneck City Councilman, was elected that city's deputy major in 1970, and in 1982 was appointed by Governor Brendon Byrne to serve as a judge in the Worker's Compensation Court.

Isaac McNatt's former office was offered for rent in March 1985.  An advertisement in the N.Y. Amsterdam News described it as a "Beautiful spacious office space, ideal [for] lawyer."  It was not an attorney who signed the lease, but Gordon R. Watkins, president of Root Sights & Sounds, Ltd, a private foundation.  

That firm soon moved to Flushing, Queens, and the space became home to the headquarters of The Renaissance Concert Series.

Through it all, other than replacement windows, the exterior of the Dashiell house has survived nearly unchanged since the time when wealthy families hired professional rug beaters--occasionally to the annoyance of nosy neighbors.

photographs by the author