The 1861 Claudius B. Conant House - 25 Stuyvesant Street

 

The regimented grid of the 1811 Commissioners Plan was interrupted by the diagonally-running Stuyvesant Street, originally a lane created by the Stuyvesant family to separate their two farms, Bouwerij #1 and #2.  On September 16, 1854, Matthias Banta purchased the triangular point between Stuyvesant Street and East 10th Street for development.

Generally attributed to James Renwick, Jr., Banta's five-story-and-basement Anglo-Italianate homes were completed in 1861.  They varied from 16- to 32-feet-wide and (because of the triangular plot) their depths ranged from 16- to 48-feet.  Among the narrowest was 25 Stuyvesant Street.  Like its neighbors, its rusticated brownstone basement and first floors sat below four stories of red brick trimmed in stone.  The tall, a stone bandcourse connected the fully-arched windows of the second floor.  Each of the architrave frames of the upper openings were treated slightly differently.

Matthias Banta retained ownership of the house, leasing it originally to Margaret Madden who operated it as a boarding house.  On August 20, 1861, she advertised:

Board--At 25 Stuyvesant Street.  Second Floor of the new English basement house, a front and back Parlor, unfurnished.  Also a gentleman and his wife or two single gentlemen can be accommodated with Board.  House has all the modern improvements.  Convenient to cars and stages.

Madden's venture was relatively short-lived.  By 1863, two Fay families occupied the house.  Signourney Webster Fay was a merchant, operating at 48 Park Place, and Emery Brigham Fay was a broker.  Signourney and Emery were cousins, their fathers Nahum and Dexter Fay, respectively, were brothers.  

Born in 1814 in Southborough, Massachusetts, Emery married Almira Allton Adams in 1838.  They had five grown children.  Signourney was significantly younger than his cousin.  Emery was born in Boston in 1836 and he married Delia Almira Fay in 1860.  

The Civil War interrupted the Fays' residency here.  Signourney enlisted in the Union Army in March 1863.  Emery and Almira moved to East 7th Street and, presumably, Delia went along with them.  Upon Signorney's return from the war, he and Delia moved to Long Island.

The house was leased by the extended Claudius Buchanan Conant family.  Born in 1819, his wife was the former Elizabeth Trumbull Mills.  Living with the couple were their son, Clarence Mortimer; their daughters Elizabeth J. and Elizabeth Ann, and her husband John Richards Weed, and their son, Louis Mortimer.  

In 1866, both Clarence and Louis attended the College of the City of New York--Clarence as a junior and Louis in the Introductory Class.  Emily attended Normal College and in 1870 taught in that facility's "model school."

Also living in what must have been snug conditions was Alice Cunningham Fletcher.  In their commentary to Alice's memoir, Life Among The Indians, Joanna C. Scherer and Raymond J. DeMallie explains, "During her adolescence, family problems, the details of which have gone unrecorded, prompted her to leave home and take a position as a governess to the children of a wealthy hardware merchant, Claudius Buchanan Conant."

With the Conant children grown, Alice remained with the family, which essentially acted as her patron.  Joan T. Mark, in her A Stranger in Her Native Land, Alice Fletcher and the American Indians, writes, "Alice Fletcher's years as a governess came to an end around 1870, when she was in her early thirties.  With Claudius Conant, her former employer, still paying her a substantial salary, she [lived] at 25 Stuyvesant Street on Manhattan and set out to explore the cultural life of New York City.

While living here, Alice became highly involved with women's causes.  An article in the New York Herald on October 15, 1873, reported on the Woman's Congress, which the newspaper sarcastically said was composed of "about 120 'earnest' ladies, upon whom 'missions' have devolved."  The article noted, "The secretary of the Woman's Congress is Miss C. Fletcher, No. 25 Stuyvesant street."

While still living here, she turned to anthropology and ethnology, making extensive trips to the West to study Native American culture.  

Alice Cunningham Fletcher with Chief Joseph at the Nez Percé Lapwai Reservation in Idaho in 1889.  The man on the left is James Stuart, Alice's interpreter.  from the collection of the Smithsonian Institute.

Alice C. Fletcher became one of the most influential anthropologists studying Native Americans and helped write the Daws Act of 1887, which eliminated reservations and distributed communal land to individual households.

Claudius Buchanan Conant died in 1877.  By 1880, Clarence Mortimer Conant was a physician with his medical office in the house.  The family left in 1887 and the Banta family leased it to a proprietor who operated it as a rooming house.  A succinct advertisement in The Sun on August 1, 1888 offered, "To Let--Newly furnished rooms, suitable for one or two, near 3d av. and 9th st. elevated station."

By the turn of the century, the neighborhood had decidedly declined.  No. 25 Stuyvesant Street was leased by Flanagan Bros., the offices of which were on West 34th Street.  They sublet it to Annie Russell, a.k.a. Sadie Brown, who purportedly rented rooms.  Her operation was much more than that, however.

Living here in 1901 was 21-year-old Alma Cirnicer.  She worked closely with Meyer Rosenthal, who ran the Rosedale Hotel at 395 Bowery, to fleece naive "customers."  That summer Kai Bronsted, a lawyer from Copenhagen, had been visiting friends in Brooklyn.  On August 26, his last night in New York, he "determined to inspect the Bowery," as he explained to police.  He said he met Alma "and accompanied her to the Rosedale Hotel, where he was robbed of $59," reported The Evening World.

Bronsted complained to Rosenthal, who pretended to help.  They found Alma at Third Street and the Bowery where she handed him his empty wallet.  As they were arguing, Detective Penz happened by and arrested Alma and Rosenthal.

At the time, the house where Alma Cirnicer lived was on the police investigators' watch list.  A 1901 police report listed 25 Stuyvesant Street among "suspicious houses of prostitution."  And on March 7, 1902, Edward Bicherer signed a deposition saying he had visited 25 Stuyvesant Street several times and found that "Annie Russell did unlawfully keep a place...for persons to visit for unlawful sexual intercourse, and for lewd, obscene and indecent purposes."

Annie Russell was charged for running a disorderly house...

and there unlawfully procure and permit as well men and women of evil name and fame and of dishonest conversation, to visit, frequent and come together for unlawful sexual intercourse and for purpose of prostitution and there unlawfully and willfully did permit said men and women of evil name and fame there to be and remain drinking, dancing, fighting, disturbing the peace, whoring and misbehaving themselves.

On March 29, 1902, Flanagan Bros. received a letter from the Police Department that said in part, "You are hereby notified that your tenant, Sadie Brown, in the premises 25 Stuyvesant Street, was convicted of the crime of keeping and maintaining a disorderly house."  The letter demanded that if the tenant was not evicted immediately, the matter would be forwarded to the District Attorney.

The threat was successful.  Flanagan Bros. did not renew its lease and in March 1904, Emil Neufeld took over.  His roomers, many of them German immigrants, were hard working and respectable.

A roomer leans in the doorway of 25 Stuyvesant Street in 1941.  At the left is the 1803 Stuyvesant-Fish house.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The estate of Eliza A. Banta sold the house in 1925 to Jacob Bellak, who continued to rent rooms.  It quickly became the scene of a disturbing incident.  In October 1926, the body of Catherine Braum was found "hanging from the ceiling of a room at 25 Stuyvesant Street," according to The New York Times.  The death was reported as a suicide, but neighbors thought there was foul play involved.  They insisted that the 65-year-old had been poisoned and her body staged as a suicide.  Faced with mounting pressure, the District Attorney's Office ordered that Braum's body be exhumed for an autopsy.  (Frustratingly, newspapers did not report the findings.)

Another shocking incident occurred on April 2, 1939.  That morning, the Rev. Francis X. Quinn of the Church of the Guardian Angel was invited to a housewarming party at Eighth Avenue and 22nd Street.  "Instead of going to this party in a limousine I found myself traveling in a police car," he told reporters later.

At 25 Stuyvesant Street, 23-year-old John Naumo was holding an elderly couple "as hostages in an effort to stave off capture by police," as reported by the Long Island Star-Journal.  Quinn said he "arrived at the apartment an unwelcome visitor."

Naumo pointed his gun at the priest and said, "Come in father--with your hands up."  The desperate suspect and the cool-headed cleric talked at length.  Finally, said the newspaper, "After more than an hour of drama and suspense, during which the bandit asked the priest to get a glass and a bottle of beer from the icebox, the priest induced the bandit to surrender."

Through it all, 25 Stuyvesant Street was never converted to apartments.  When it was offered for sale in 2011, realtor photographs revealed that the 1861 interiors were remarkably intact.

A photograph of the parlor in 2011 shows an original marble Italianate mantel and intricate ceiling plasterwork.  via Brown Harris and Stevens realty

The house was purchased by award winning journalist and author Nina Munk.  Her articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair among others.  She sold it in 2016 for $6.5 million.  

photographs by the author

The Joshua B. Jenkins House - 33 Stuyvesant Street

 

On September 16, 1854, Matthias Banta purchased the triangular parcel that wrapped the north side of Stuyvesant Street and along the south side of East 10th Streets.  Architectural historians generally agree that James Renwick, Jr. designed the rows of Anglo-Italianate-style homes that Banta erected on the site.  Completed in 1861, they were five stories tall above short basements.  Sitting upon rusticated stone bases, the upper floors were faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  The tall, fully-arched windows of the second floor held hands by means of a stone bandcourse.  Each of the architrave frames of the upper openings were treated slightly differently.  The houses ranged from 16- to 32-feet wide.

Among the widest was 33 Stuyvesant Street at four bays wide.  It appears that the dwelling was initially operated as a high-end boarding house.  The affluence of the residents was reflected in a crime against Anna Francis in 1862.  On March 7, Frederick McAlpine pleaded guilty to stealing jewelry from her rooms and was committed to the House of Refuge--a facility for delinquent youths.  The jewelry was valued at $76--or about $2,450 in 2025 terms.

An advertisement in the New York Herald in 1865 read:

Elegantly furnished rooms to let--to single gentlemen or gentlemen and wife, with full Board for the lady.  Apply at 33 Stuyvesant street.

(The unusual circumstances meant that only the wife of a renting couple would be fed.)

In 1867, attorney Joshua B. and Mary R. Jenkins purchased the house.  The couple had at least one young adult son, Charles.  Joshua Jenkins died in 1872 and Mary began taking in roomers to augment her income.  Her ad on May 29 that year read:

A lady, living in her own elegantly furnished house, would rent Rooms, without board; gentlemen will find a delightful home.  33 Stuyvesant street.

Among her initial tenants was Henry T. Carroll, who taught in the boys' department of School No. 18 on East 51st Street.  In 1873, Siegfried Ehrenberg, the president of the Dry Goods Clerks' Early Closing Association, listed his address here.

Mary R. Jenkins soon rethought her operation and by 1874 was running a full fledged boarding house.  She advertised in February that year, "Wanted--A girl from 14 to 16 years old, to make herself generally useful in a private boarding house, one speaking French preferred."

Her boarders were well-heeled, like Dr. James L. Wilson, who lived here from about 1877 through 1879.  Attorney Michael A. Gearon lived here in 1882 when he and his partner, William K. Lancaster, were administrators of the estate of wealthy Jacob P. Kniffen.  That fall, Gearon drew a large amount of money from the Kniffen trust and disappeared.  Authorities searched for him but, as court documents in 1883 revealed, a clerk went "to his last known place of residence at No. 33 Stuyvesant Street...at different times of the day, but were unsuccessful in finding him."

In 1889, 28-year-old Samuel Blumenthal arrived in New York from Russia and took a room here.  He got a job as an agent for a Philadelphia-based watch company and for the next few years saved money in hopes of bringing his girlfriend, Annie Smolin, from Moscow.

Seven years after first moving into 33 Stuyvesant Street, Blumenthal lost his job.  To add to his problems, he had loaned money to someone who did not repay it.  When Blumenthal did not come downstairs for breakfast on April 16, 1896, Mary Jenkins knocked on his door.  Getting no response, she found Policeman Heiderich on the street.  The New York Herald reported, "he kicked in the door.  Blumenthal lay on his bed unconscious."  He was transported to Bellevue Hospital where "the doctor worked for two hours on the man, but could not restore him to consciousness."

Blumenthal had left a note that said he had "good cause for suicide, as he was in hard luck," according to the article.  He asked that his brother; his "sweetheart," Annie Smolin; and Rev. S. Ehrmann back in Russia be notified.  Three days later, the New York Herald said, "He is lying at Bellevue Hospital in a critical condition."

Mary R. Jenkins eventually moved into the basement level.  The Washington D.C. newspaper The Evening Times noted that although she, "owned the house, she lived in rather squalid quarters and let furnished lodgings on the upper floors."  The article added, "Her neighbor believed she had a great amount of money."

The 70-year-old suffered a horrific incident on October 23, 1890.  In the basement dining room was a gas stove which was used "for heating purposes," according to The Sun.  It was "burning high" on that chilly morning, and Mary settled down in an armchair next to it and dozed off.  

At around 10:30, Ella Aggler, "the colored servant employed by Mrs. Jenkins," as described by The Evening Times, entered the kitchen.  In highly callous wording, the newspaper said that Ella "saw the body of the old woman on the floor burned to a crisp."  Evidence--like the scorched chair and burned spots on the table and tablecloth--showed that Mary had wakened to find her clothing had caught fire from the stove.  "She ran around the table, the burning pieces of clothing dropping to the floor, and stumbled into the kitchen where she must have fallen, striking her head on the stove."

Stunned by the blow to her head (there was blood near her head on the floor), she succumbed to the flames.  The Sun said, "her clothing was entirely burned away and her body was charred."  The article noted that she had "lived in the house, which she owned, for over thirty years."

Elias Stone purchased 33 Stuyvesant Street in May 1899 and almost immediately leased it to Mathias Fettinger.  He and his wife continued to operate it as a boarding house.  In addition to the Fettingers in 1902, according to court documents, "three married couples, a few single men and one single woman, a typewriter for a firm at Broadway and Broome street," lived here.  

The unmarried men were all waiters at the Cafe Boulevard on Second Avenue.  The nature of their jobs meant that they returned home between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m.  The nocturnal foot traffic caused suspicions for one neighbor.  

"A mother at 9th and Stuyvesant streets," as identified in court papers, complained to Police Inspector Adam A. Cross that 33 Stuyvesant Street was a disorderly house--or brothel.  A policeman named Hibbard was detailed to surveil the house in plain clothes.  Sergeant James Churchill testified in part on January 6, 1902,

Every effort was made by Patrolman Hibbard to obtain any evidence that this house was of a disorderly character, that men called at late hour[s] or that disorderly acts could be witnessed at the windows.  

He found "nothing of the kind," other than the waiters returning home.  Hibbard interviewed neighbors who had no complaints about the Fettingers.  Finally, he confronted them directly.  Churchill said, "Mr. Fettinger and his wife welcomed an inspection of the premises...and the officer states that appearances indicate that this is a respectable house."

Elias Stone died in 1907, but his heirs retained possession of 33 Stuyvesant Street for several years.  

Among the residents in the early 1920s was composer and musician Henry Cowell.  Born in March 1897, he began playing violin at the age of four.  He started learning the piano at the age of nine and enrolled in the music department of the University of California, Berkeley in 1914.  In 1924 he founded the New Music Society and today is remembered as one of the nation's most influential composers.

Henry Cowell, from the cover of a 1924 Carnegie Hall program. (copyright expired)

On August 27, 1959, The Villager reported that 33 Stuyvesant Street had been sold, describing it as a "multiple dwelling."  The article said that the new owner would "remodel" the structure.  The alterations resulted in a two-family home.

Occupying one of the new apartments was bachelor Walter H. Campbell.  Born in 1921, he attended the University of North Carolina and served in World War II.  Formerly an editor with the Oxford University Press, when he moved into 33 Stuyvesant Street he was senior editor of Penthouse magazine.  He died here at the age of 55 on February 15, 1976.

There are still two residences in the house.  And although its brick facade could stand a gentle cleaning, it survives remarkably intact after more than 160 years.

photographs by the author

James Renwick Jr.'s 1859 23 Stuyvesant Street

On August 1, 1858, Hamilton Fish conveyed a portion of the triangular-shaped property he inherited from his mother, Elizabeth Stuyvesant Fish, to Matthias Banta for $35,000 ($1.38 million by 2025 terms).  It abutted the eastern side of his own home, 21 Stuyvesant Street, and wrapped the acute point of the parcel and back westerly along East 10th Street.  Matthias had the property surveyed to create seven building plots.

Architectural historians generally agree that James Renwick, Jr. was responsible for the resultant rowhouses.  The Anglo-Italianate, five-story-and-basement houses ranged from 16- to 32-feet-wide (because of the irregular, triangular parcel), their depths ranging from 16- to 48-feet.  Despite the varied sizes, Renwick so skillfully designed the homes as a unit that it is difficult at a glance to distinguish each residence.

Among the narrowest was 23 Stuyvesant Street.  Like its architectural siblings, its rusticated brownstone basement and first floors sat below four stories of red brick trimmed in brownstone.  The tall, fully-arched windows of the second floor held hands by means of a stone bandcourse.  Each of the architrave frames of the upper openings were treated slightly differently--those of the top floor resembling Victorian picture frames.

The houses were completed over a three-year period--23 Stuyvesant Street being one of the first.  Banta and his wife, Eliza, rented it.  Their first tenants placed an advertisement in the New York Herald on September 5, 1859:

A small private family would like to rent two rooms to gentlemen, or a gentleman and wife, with or without board.  House contains all improvements.  Apply at No. 23 Stuyvesant street, first new house east of Third avenue, and between Ninth and Tenth streets.

The ad was almost assuredly placed by Emily Eytinge.  The widow of Samuel D. Eytinge, she was living here in 1861 when she placed a verbatim advertisement in the same newspaper.

The Bantas' tenants, like Emily Eytinge, rarely remained more than one or two years.  The house was often shared with two families.  In 1863, for instance, the Gerard Banker and George I. Prime families were listed here.  Prime was a stockbroker.

In 1870, attorney Lester Newell moved in.  Possibly a bachelor, he rented "furnished rooms."  Although some families provided their renters with breakfast, Newell apparently offered no meals.  He most likely relied heavily on word-of-mouth as advertising, since two of his three renters in 1872 were also lawyers.  The other was Julias Knoedler, "pictures."  He was no doubt associated with M. Knoedler & Co., which dealt in Old Masters.  Lester Newell rented the house through 1880.

Leo Gartner lived here in 1889.  The 25-year-old worked as a bookkeeper at Morris, Marks & Wolf, tailors.  That year, he traveled to Washington D.C. to attend the inauguration of Benjamin Harrison on March 4.  He returned to 23 Stuyvesant Street the following night and was met by Detectives Reap and Connor, who arrested him.  In his absence, Morris, Marks & Wolf charged him with "the larceny of $125."  The Evening World explained, "The firm said that Gartner collected the money and appropriated it to pay his expenses of a trip to Washington."

By the first years of the 20th century, Annie Wilson operated 23 Stuyvesant Street as a "furnished room house."  Among her tenants were Leopold Hibbe, a physician, and his real estate agent brother, Henry C. Hibbe.  The brothers found themselves in serious trouble in the fall of 1902.

On September 8, Agnes Lynch, a chorus girl known on the stage as "Laughing Fay" Ransom, "died in the arms of a Roman Catholic priest," as reported by The Evening Post, "after making a confession."  That confession was that she had had an abortion.  Three days later The Evening World reported that Dr. Leopold Hibbe had been arrested.  "Dr. Hibbe denies absolutely any malpractice," said the article.

The next day, The Daily Globe reported, "police are looking for his brother, Dr. Henry C. Hibbe."  The article said the dying girl implicated "the Drs. Hibbes."  (If Agnes thought Henry C. Hibbes was a physician, or if he posed as one, it was not true.) 

The brothers were tried separately.  On April 29, 1903, The New York Times reported that Dr. Leopold Hibbe had been acquitted.  Hibbe's attorney said only, "that he could not be convicted, as the principal in the case already had been found guilty."  That person, of course, was Henry C. Hibbe.  He was convicted of manslaughter in the first degree and received a ten-year sentence a week later.  Henry's attorney had attempted to get a new trial, saying that the evidence in the two brothers' trials was exactly the same and, therefore, the verdict "could not have been in accordance with the testimony."

The judge dismissed the motion, saying, "The only comment I wish to make on your argument is that the verdict in your client's case was a just verdict, and the other a miscarriage of justice."

At the time of the Hibbes' legal problems, the neighborhood in general was being scrutinized by authorities.  In the spring of 1902, an "anonymous communication" was received at police headquarters.  It complained that disorderly houses (i.e., brothels) were operating in six East 9th Street houses and in three on Stuyvesant Street, including No. 23.  The complaint alleged that the houses were "destroying the morals of school children of the neighborhood."  Police were deployed to investigate each of the residences.

A report by First Deputy Commissioner of Police Nathaniel B. Thurston on March 13 detailed the results.  It said in part:

No. 23 Stuyvesant Street is a five-story and basement brick building...This house is run as a furnished house for men only, by Mrs. Annie Wilson and so far as could be ascertained, is thoroughly respectable.

While the house passed inspection, the renters (like the Hibbes) were not always on the right side of the law.  An example was Charles Clayton, who lived here in 1909.  On October 18 that year, he and Harry Isaac Taber "of nowhere in particular" were arrested.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted, "Clayton's picture is in the Rogue's Gallery in Manhattan as a short change artist."  The two raised the suspicions of two detectives because of their "scattering loaves of bread about with amazing prodigality."

The detectives watched as they "would go into a small shop and stay a while; then emerge with a loaf tucked under the arm of one or the other, or a 'duchess cake,' the 15 cent goody which is to be found in almost any bakery."  The policemen then went into the stores and discovered that Clayton and Taber would make the small purchases, then "dispute about the correctness of the change."  The pair was arrested as "flim-flamming."  In each case they had profited from $1 to $2.

John McClaren operated the rooming house in 1910.  He was involved in a feud with Ernest G. Hamilton who ran a livery stable uptown at 2530 Amsterdam Avenue.  McClaren had housed a horse or a vehicle there until 1909 when Hamilton "put him out."  According to McClaren, Hamilton owed him $10 for prepaid fees.  When he was unable to get his money back, he went to the police headquarters.  The New York Times reported, "a detective investigated his story, but the matter was dropped."  McClaren then filed a complaint against the detective, but that, too, was dismissed.

On October 22, 1910, McClaren took the matter into his own hands.  He appeared at Hamilton's stable and finding the owner outside, said, "I want you to fix up that matter.  If you don't I will fix you."

Hamilton ordered him to leave.  Instead, McClaren pulled out a revolver and fired.  The stable owner rushed into the building, shutting the door behind him.  He waited a few minutes and, hearing nothing more, stepped out to find a policeman.  McClaren was still there and "fired more shots at him and then ran," said The New York Times.

A crowd pursued McClaren until he turned on them and fired.  One man, Max Keppel, fell to the sidewalk.  McClaren shot again and the crowed "sought shelter."  But while he was distracted by the crowd, another pedestrian sneaked up from behind.  Hamilton, who was among the throng, "grabbed the revolver and the crowd set upon McClaren."  The New York Times said that Policeman Siegnener "arrived just in time to rescue him."  

Both Keppell and McClaren were hospitalized.  Keppell was shot in the side and was "in a very serious condition," said The Times, and McClaren was "suffering from the effects of a beating he received at the hands of the crowd."

In 1910, Eliza A. Banta, widow of Matthias, died.  In December, her estate sold the building he had erected half a century earlier.  It was purchased by Elois J. Mosser who resold it a month later to Antonie and Ludwig Lievendag, who lived next door at 25 Stuyvesant Street.

In 1913, released convict Michael Murphy took a room here.  He had been held in Dannemora Prison.  Before his incarceration he had committed the unthinkable among crooks--he informed on another man who, as a result, was sent to Sing Sing.  Now free, Murphy tried to smooth things over in the underworld.

On January 20, 1914, he was in a Bowery saloon "known for many years as 'The Tub of Blood,'" according to the New-York Tribune.  The 38-year-old "was trying to make his peace and shake hands with a man who had quarreled with him for informing on a pal," said the article.  The man, according to the 19-year-old bartender Joseph Mera, was known only as "Gyp the Blood the Second."  Instead of shaking Murphy's hand, Gyp the Blood II shot him dead.  The New-York Tribune said Murphy had "paid the crook's price for informing."

The renters in 23 Stuyvesant Street continued to be blue collar throughout the subsequent decades.  In 1935 through 1939, for instance, Henry Hegemeier lived here.  He worked as a bartender.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Then, on July 7, 1960, The Villager reported, "The five-story rooming house at 23 Stuyvesant St. has been sold to Mr. and Mrs. R. S. Flusser...Mr. and Mrs. Flusser will occupy a triplex apartment after 'extensive alterations' to the building."

Richard S. Flusser and his wife, Beth, converted the house into two triplex apartments.  The renovations were completed in 1961.  Their apartment became headquarters to Flusser's After Dinner Opera Company.  

A director and music teacher, Flusser founded the After Dinner Opera Company in 1949.  Earlier that summer, while studying at Queens College, he went to Tanglewood where, according to The New York Times, "Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland encouraged him to start a company devoted to contemporary American opera."  He founded the company that fall.  Its name came from its first performances, which were held in private homes.

In 1969, Flusser became a professor of music at Queensborough Community College.  He also taught opera workshops at the New School.  He and Beth had a daughter, Jennifer-Jo and a son, Matthew.

On January 3, 1975, The Villager reported that the company "will perform a kaleidoscope of early American opera" on January 6 at Fraunces Tavern.  The article mentioned, "The production has been staged by Richard Flusser, who lives at 23 Stuyvesant St, home base for the opera company."

The company was by now a "mainstay in the margins of the opera world," as worded by The New York Times.  On September 22, 1984, The Amsterdam News reported on the opening program of the After Dinner Opera Company's "Meet The Composers Series."  The article said the series "is dedicated to bringing new operas and their composers to New York City audiences in free performances."

Richard Flusser died here at the age of 75 on July 1, 2002, and Beth Flusser died on November 20, 2021 at the age of 87.

Today there are still two apartments in the building.

photographs by the author

The 1795 Nicholas Wm. Stuyvesant House - 44 Stuyvesant Street

 

On November 30, 1787, Peter Stuyvesant's great-grandson, Petrus, hired Evert Bancker, Jr. to survey and plot out the still verdant estate of the Stuyvesant farms, or boweries, into building plots and streets (on paper).  The lane that would become Stuyvesant Street separated the two parcels.  

The plot that would become 44 Stuyvesant Street was transferred to Petrus's son, Nicholas William Stuyvesant, by 1794.  For tax purposes it was assessed at 160 pounds.  The following year the assessment jumped to 400 pounds--the increase almost assuredly reflecting a new structure.  

Construction of the house had started in 1794 and was completed in time for Nicholas's wedding to Catherine Livingston Reade on January 31, 1795.  The free-standing, three-and-a-half story structure was an early example of Federal-style architecture.  Faced in red Flemish bond brick and trimmed with brownstone, its peaked attic roof was pierced with dormers.

The Stuyvesants' interior appointments reflected their social and financial status.  The elegant chimney pieces, for instance, were markedly similar to those in Joseph Barrell's 1792 residence in Boston designed by Charles Bulfinch, according to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1969.

Nicholas William Stuyvesant. from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

Educated in Scotland, Nicholas was a merchant.  In addition to being directly descended from one of the oldest families in New York, he was related to the elite Livingston, Beekman and Van Cortlandt families.  Catherine was the daughter of John and Catherine Livingston Reade, and her maternal grandfather was Robert Gilbert Livingston.

Catherine Reade Stuyvesant.  image via americanaristocracy.com

Nicholas and Catherine would have nine children in the house--three daughters and six sons--during their 23-year residency.  Petrus Stuyvesant died in 1805, leaving what was known as the Bowery House and the surrounding property to Nicholas, with the stipulation that Nicholas's mother, the former Margaret Livingston, had life rights to it.  Upon her death in 1818, Nicholas and Catherine moved into the Bowery House and rented 44 Stuyvesant Street.

Nicholas Stuyvesant died in 1833.  (The previous year the rooms of the parlor floor--those that visiting guests would see--had been updated.)

The Sheldon family occupied the house in the 1840s.  Henry Sheldon was the principal in Henry Sheldon & Co.  His wife, Eliza A. Sheldon, contracted tuberculosis, known at the time as consumption, and died here on the morning of December 23, 1845.  Her funeral was held in the parlor on Christmas Day.

The Sheldons were followed in the house by the Leonard family, here as early as 1851.  Jane M. Leonard was the widow of Joseph Leonard.  Living with her were her adult sons, Henry K. and Thomas, both of whom worked as clerks.

Thomas Leonard died in the house on April 11, 1860.  His mother and brother continued to occupy the house at least through 1874, at which time Henry had listed as a broker.

By 1878, 44 Stuyvesant Street was operated by Frederick Weichman as what The World described as "a German boarding house."  In October that year, three men engaged the front room on the second floor and remained for several weeks.  They would become the focus of a nation-wide search and mystery.

On November 8, 1878, The New York Times ran the shocking report that, "The grave of the late Alexander T. Stewart was successfully robbed between midnight and sunrise yesterday morning, and his remains carried off, evidently in the hope of obtaining a large ransom for their return."  The New York Herald opined that it was inconceivable that the millionaire's corpse would "be ruthlessly disturbed by the demoniac hope entering the brain of some foul fiend of making money out of a traffic with the body."

The macabre crime riveted the nation for weeks.  Before long, the three mysterious boarders who had occupied the second floor room of 44 Stuyvesant Street were in the crosshairs of detectives.  On November 15, The World reported, "At 7.10 A. M. on the day the robbery became known a hack with several trunks and packages of baggage left that house, and the three men have not since been seen.  The hackman has been traced, and it is believed one of the trunks contained the body of Mr. Stewart."  Other boarders described "an odor" in the room vacated by the trio.

The following day, the Kinderhook, New York Rough Notes reported, "The New York police claim they have discovered a positive clue to the whereabouts of the remains of A. T. Stewart, and that they will be recovered without further delay.  They say that body was taken to No. 44 Stuyvesant street immediately after the robbery and thence to a certain town on the New Jersey Central railroad, by the 7:10 train the next morning."

With no solid evidence, the three men were released and the case went cold.  Six years later, on April 7, 1884 The New York Times printed hope when the notorious robber Lewis C. Sweigels promised to return the body in return for his pardon.  Working on behalf of Cornelia Stewart, Judge Henry Hilton paid the $25,000 ransom.  Whether or not the returned corpse was actually Stewart's remains a mystery.

The legend of Stewart corpse's being smuggled in and out of the house lasted for years.  On January 11, 1886, the New York Herald reported on the apparent natural death of Eda Wentworth here.  The article said she "had boarded in the house only a few weeks" and that "there was nothing suspicious about her death."  It was the room in which she died, however, that seemed newsworthy.  The article said, "it was said, [the room] was the same one in which the ghouls packed up Stewart's remains after they had taken them from the vault in St. Mark's graveyard, a short distance away."

Eda Wentworth was among the last of the boarders in 44 Stuyvesant Street.  John Brooks Leavitt had purchased the house eight months earlier, on May 6, 1885, for $14,200 (about $478,000 in 2025 terms).  He returned it to a single-family home.  Living with Leavitt and his wife, the former Mary Keith, was Mary's widowed father, Rev. Ormes B. Keith.  

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1849, Leavitt was an attorney and author.  A member of the Good Government Movement, the National Civil Service Reform League, and the New York City League of Reform, he fought against Tammany Hall corruption.

Leavitt ran for Assemblyman in 1890.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Ormes B. Keith was born in Philadelphia in 1817, the son of Samuel Keith, "a widely known philanthropist," as described by The Sun.  He was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church in 1858.  The year the family moved into 44 Stuyvesant Street he resigned as assistant minister of the Church of the Holy Communion.  Rev. Keith died in the house at the age of 88 on September 5, 1906.  His long and substantial career filled paragraphs in the newspapers reporting his death. 

Moving into the house around the same time were Morgan Colt and his wife, the former Jean Boudinot Keith, Mary Leavitt's sister.  Born in 1876, the multi-talented Colt was an impressionist painter, architect, and furniture craftsman.  He and Jean were married in 1902.  Around 1911, the couple moved to New Hope, Pennsylvania, an artists colony Colt helped to found in order to focus on his art.

In the meantime, in addition to his continued campaign of reform, Leavitt was the senior warden of St. Mark's Church in the Bowery and was active among the Manhattan alumni of his alma mater, Kenyon College in Ohio.  On June 21, 1891, the New-York Tribune reported, "A meeting of the Kenyon College alumni will be held at the home of John Brooks Leavitt, No. 44 Stuyvesant st., on Tuesday evening at 8 o'clock."  

A decade later, on November 23, 1911, The Evening World published a photograph of the Leavitt house with the caption, "New Club for College Men."  Saying that John Brooks Leavitt had graduated from Kenyon College in 1868, "and came to New York to make his fortune with his brains for his sole capital," the article said that within the year he intended to turn over his home to the use of Kenyon graduates.  Leavitt described his vision, saying in part that it would fulfill, "the need of a comfortable home where younger graduates, coming to New York as strangers, could find inexpensive lodgings and college friends under the same roof, and a place for alumni meetings and smokers."

At some point in the second half of the 19th century, Queen Anne-style upper panes were installed in the second- and third-floor openings.  The appearance of the house in this 1941 photograph is little changed today.  from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Leavitts moved to 1 Lexington Avenue where Mary died on July 3, 1916 at the age of 59.  By 1921, Leavitt returned to 44 Stuyvesant Street.  Then, in April 1926, he hired architect Hubert Lucas to make gentle interior renovations to what the plans called "a four-story apartment house."  The alterations cost him $6,000, according to the Real Estate Record & Guide, or about $107,000 today.  

The following year in October, Leavitt sold 44 Stuyvesant Street to Roger D. Black.  The Black family were still living here as late as 1931 when Roger D. Black, Jr. was appointed a cadet captain at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

The current dormers and studio window were installed after an attic fire.

At some point 44 Stuyvesant Street was returned to a single-family home.  The five-bedroom residence was put on the market in 2022 for $8.9 million.  Remarkably, many of the 18th century interior details--like the fireplaces--survive.  Despite its use as the Kenyon Club in 1911 and the renovation to apartments in 1926, the venerable Stuyvesant house is routinely touted as the oldest residence in Manhattan to be continuously used as a single-family house.  In spite of the discrepancy, 44 Stuyvesant Street survives as a rare example of 18th century domestic architecture in Manhattan.

photographs by the author

The 1854 Seba Smith House - 46 Stuyvesant Street

On April 1, 1854, builder John L. Smith sold the newly-erected house at 46 Stuyvesant Street to optometrist Samuel Elliott for $10,700 (about $401,000 in 2025 terms).  Smith had acquired the oddly-shaped lot a year earlier.  His handsome Anglo-Italianate facade successfully disguised the triangular-shaped interior layout.

The entrance, above a short stoop, was centered within a rusticated brownstone base.  The openings of the red brick-faced upper levels wore simple stone lintels.  A bracketed Italianate cornice finished the design.

If Samuel Elliott ever lived in the house, his residency was short-lived.  In May 1855, he moved to Staten Island and sold 46 Stuyvesant Street to Seba Smith for $17,000, making a tidy profit.  

Seba Smith was a humorist and author, and his wife was author and poet Elizabeth Oakes Smith (who went professionally by her first initial).  Also living with them was their adult son, Appleton Oaksmith and his wife, Isofta.  (All six of the Smiths' sons were given the merged surnames of their mother and father.)  Mary Alice Wyman, in her 1927 Two American Pioneers--Seba Smith and Elizabeth Oakes Smith, writes, "The sons, now grown to manhood, were at home intermittently when not occupied in business elsewhere."  The second eldest son, Sidney Oaksmith, was consul to Haiti at the time.

Born in Maine in 1792, Seba Smith founded the Portland Courier in 1830.  His series of satirical books about the fictional character Major Jack Downing, the first of which was published in 1830, were highly popular.

Seba Smith, from the collection of Northeastern Illinois University

Elizabeth Oakes Prince was born in Portland, Maine in 1806 and married Seba Smith in 1823.  (She was 16 and Smith was 30.)  Her early poems like the 1841 "A Corpse Going to a Ball" and "The Sinless Child," published the following year, were widely read.  By the time the family moved into 46 Stuyvesant Street, she was writing essays on women's rights that urged for equality in political, educational and economic opportunities.

This portrait Elizabeth Oakes Prince Smith was painted by John Wesley Paradise around 1845, from the collection of the National Gallery of Art

 Wyman writes, 

In the Stuyvesant Street house...Mrs. Oakes Smith did much entertaining and included among her literary guests several other foreign patriots who had visited this country for help or who, because of political troubles in their own land, were living as exiles.

Indeed, in her autobiography, E. Oakes Smith writes, "Italians,  Spaniards, Cubans were amongst our guests, and in an unheroic period filled the imagination of my household with heroic ideas--with admiration for men and women who could turn their backs upon ease and frivolity, and give place to earnest, self-sacrificing endeavor."  The subjects discussed, she said, included women's suffrage, civil rights and slavery.

When the family moved into the Stuyvesant Street house, 27-year-old Appleton listed his profession as "merchant."  A year later he was described by the New-York Daily Tribune on October 14, 1856 as, "the Representative of Nicaragua in this country."  William Walker had established himself as president there and he made Appleton Oaksmith Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States.

A year later, the Oaksmiths suffered tragedy.  On September 6, 1857, Buchanan, the only child of Appleton and Isofta, died a month before his first birthday.  His funeral was held in the parlor on September 8.

In 1858, the Smiths hired 12-year-old Rosa Simpson as a servant girl.  They paid her $2 per month wages to her father, John Simpson.  Two years later, Rosa ran off.  In what today might be called "tough love," Seba Smith charged the teen with vagrancy and she was sent to the House of Refuge.  He said that "after a suitable time for her reformation," he "proposed to adopt her and take her from that Institution."

On January 31, 1860, John Simpson sued the Smiths, alleging they "forcibly detained [Rosa] at No. 46 Stuyvesant-street" and that "Mrs. Smith was an improper person to have the care of the child."  Rosa Simpson testified on the Smiths' defense.  Calling her, "an intelligent little girl," The New York Times reported that she stated, "that she would rather remain with Mr. Smith's people than return to her relatives; she was well treated and comfortable where she was, and her father had no means for her support."

The Smiths left 46 Stuyvesant Street in 1860 after purchasing a Colonial home in Patchogue, Long Island that year, which they named "The Willows."  A year later, in December 1861, Appleton Oaksmith was captured by Union forces on Fire Island for colluding with the Confederacy.  Somewhat astonishingly, given his mother's marked stance against slavery, he was accused of using former Nicaraguan ships for gun-running and transporting slaves.  The Smiths were outspoken regarding his innocence.

In the meantime, 46 Stuyvesant Street became home to the Charles L. Curtis family.  A hardware merchant, Curtis also volunteered with Hook and Ladder Company No. 4.  Soon after moving his family into the house, he traveled to Washington D.C. with two other firefighters in hopes that their newly-formed Second Regiment Fire Zouaves would be accepted by the Union.  Although firefighters were exempted from the draft, he and 700 others formed the regiment.  The volunteer soldiers served throughout the conflict.

The Curtis family remained at 46 Stuyvesant Street through 1864, when 15-year-old Charles Frederick Curtis was attending Public School 35.

Dr. Lansing P. Munson briefly followed the Curtises.  In 1865, he advertised his office hours as 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 to 7:00 p.m.  Later that year, however, on October 11, an advertisement in the New York Herald offered, "A fine office to let--suitable for a physician or dentist."

The house became home to State Assemblyman Thomas J. Creamer.  Born in Ireland in 1843, he came to America as a boy and attended public schools.  After working in a drygoods firm, he was elected to the State Assembly in 1865, the same year he moved into 46 Stuyvesant Street.

Thomas J. Creamer, The American Government: Biographies of Members of the House of Representatives of the Forty-Third Congress (1874) copyright expired

In 1867, the Creamers took in two veteran boarders--John G. Brosnahan, of the U.S. Navy; and A. H. Fisher, of the U.S. Army.

The following year, Creamer was elected to the New York State Senate and served to 1871.  He was elected to Congress in 1873.  At the end of his term on March 3, 1875, he returned to the Stuyvesant Street house.

Early in October 1878, an attempt to steal the body of millionaire Alexander Turney Stewart from its tomb was made.  The following month, on November 14, the crime was successful and Stewart's body was held for "a large ransom," as reported by The New York Times.

Now, Creamer connected two incidents outside his window to the crime.  On November 16, The New York Times reported, "Ex-Senator Thomas J. Creamer...told to a Times reporter yesterday two seemingly important stories...concerning the mysterious boarders of No. 44, next door, and their departure on Thursday morning with a black trunk, supposed to contain the remains of A. T. Stewart."  Creamer recalled that on the night of the first attempt, he had been reading on his sofa on the second floor at around 2 a.m. when a carriage pulled up to his front door.  "He saw three men get out of the carriage and talk to the driver."

Not appearing to be nosey, he returned to his reading.  But when the carriage did not leave, he got up, opened the window and asked the driver what he wanted.  The driver drove off, but returned a few minutes later.  The three men returned, got into the carriage and left.  The Times said, "Mr. Creamer thinks that this was the occasion of the first attempt, and that the driver, seeing him watching so persistently, drove around as a signal of danger, which caused the robbers to desist."

On the night of the actual robbery, Creamer had a houseguest, "an old lady, of the highest respectability, whose name the ex-Senator would not mention."  Creamer was out of town and the guest arose early the following morning.  At 7:20, she heard a carriage pull up.  Thinking it might be Creamer, she looked out of the second floor window.  Two men came out of 44 Stuyvesant Street.  "They carried a black leather trunk, which they handled very carefully, yet appeared to be in a great hurry," recounted the article.  They loaded it into the carriage and the drove "rapidly off" towards Second Avenue.  The New York Times added to the story, saying, "a peculiar smell was discovered in the room vacated by the mysterious strangers, and they left their water running behind them as though to wash down all traces of some dirt which they had been cleaning into the basin."

William J. Morris purchased 46 Stuyvesant Street in November 1880 for $9,950 (about $306,000 today).  He leased it to a "Mrs. Feltheimer" who operated it as a boarding house.  

In 1890, Annie Steinhof arrived from Germany and was hired here as a servant.  Each month she deposited her wages into the Dry Dock Savings Bank, "trying to save money enough to send for her father and mother and sister, who are living in poverty in Germany," explained The New York Sun later.  Among the boarders the following year was Joseph J. Mulligan.  He was friendly to Annie and, despite being born in Ireland, "used to try to talk to her in German," said the newspaper.

She told him about her dream to bring her family to America, and on March 6, 1891, she told him she had saved up $100.55, enough to buy steamship tickets.  Mulligan baited the girl, musing that while he was "a first-class printer," he had no money, yet Annie, "who could not write her own name," had enough to start a small business.  Indignant, Annie wrote her name on a sheet of paper to prove she was not illiterate.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Shortly after the incident, Mulligan and his roommate left the boarding house.  On March 19, Annie went to the bank to deposit her $10 wages for February and discovered $60 had been withdrawn.  It was taken out on March 7.  Above Annie's signature on the blank page, Mulligan had written a letter, authorizing the holder to withdraw the funds.  Mulligan was arrested on March 24.  Annie's hard-earned funds were gone, but he "offered to repay the money by installments if spared prosecution."  

The Morris family retained possession of 46 Stuyvesant Street until 1921 when they sold it to Herman Groh.  It operated as a rooming house for decades.  

George Monisco roomed here in the fall of 1931 when he suffered a bizarre accident.  The 51-year-old could not sleep on the night of September 18.  At 4:30 a.m., he got up and took a walk to John J. Murphy Park along the East River.  The New York Sun reported, "he fell over an iron fence on the retaining wall and into the water."  Monisco flailed in the water as the current carried him about a block, to 16th Street.  His cries attracted three employees of the Willard Parker Memorial Hospital, who dived into the river and pulled him 40 feet back to shore.  He was taken into the hospital, "suffering from submersion," said the article.

A renovation completed in 1961 resulted in a duplex apartment in the cellar and first floor, and one apartment each in the upper floors.  The house, with its extraordinary history, survives virtually unchanged.

photographs by the author