The Lost Cornelius Roosevelt House - 849 Broadway

A cropped view of a stereopticon depiction of Lincoln's funeral procession shows the Roosevelt house, its portico columns wrapped.  Two observers perch perilously on the roof.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

By the 1830's the northward expansion of the city was inching toward 14th Street.  A banker, Samuel Ruggles, spearheaded the creation of Union Square in 1832--intended to be an exclusive enclave of upscale homes surrounding a tranquil fenced garden with a central fountain.   Following the park's completion in 1842 the surrounding lots filled with handsome residences of moneyed families.

Among the most distinguished was the Greek Revival brownstone mansion of Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt, on the southwest corner of Broadway and 14th Street.  Born on January 30, 1794, Roosevelt descended from an early Dutch settlers.  He married Margaret Barnhill in 1821.   The couple had six sons, Silas, James, Cornelius Jr., Robert, Theodore and William.

According to the New-York Tribune he "was liberally educated."  Following his graduation from Columbia College he joined his father's hardware business.  Upon the death of his father, James Jacobus Roosevelt, on August 13, 1840, Cornelius inherited a large fortune and continued the family's hardware business.

The house Cornelius built for his family was a commodious free-standing structure, four-stories tall above an English basement.  It faced Broadway rather than Union Square.  Roosevelt owned the entire blockfront to 13th Street and the parcel to the side of the mansion originally contained spacious gardens.

In his 1919 The Life of Theodore Roosevelt, William Draper Lewis quoted the President and grandson of Cornelius saying "Inside there was a large hall running up to the roof; there was a tessellated black and white marble floor, and a circular staircase round the sides of the hall, from the top floor down.  We children much admired both the tessellated floor and the circular staircase."

The Roosevelt family was well-established in the house by 1847 when Margaret, as an officer of the Colored Orphan Asylum, listed her address as "Broadway, corner Fourteenth street."  Decades later, in 1921, Corinne Roosevelt Robinson remembered her grandparents in the February issue of Schriber's Magazine.

Cornelius Van Schaack and Margaret Barnhill Roosevelt, whose old home on the corner of 14th Street and Broadway was long a landmark in New York City.  Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt was a typical merchant of his day, fine and true and loyal, but ultraconservative in many ways; and his lovely wife, to whom he addressed, later, such exquisite poems that I have always felt that they should have been given more than private circulation, was a Pennsylvanian of Quaker blood.

in 1850 Cornelius brought his son, James A. Roosevelt, into the firm, which was now named Roosevelt & Son.  The New-York Tribune later explained that at that time "the business was changed from hardware to plate glass." 

On January 23, 1861 Margaret Roosevelt died in the brownstone mansion at the age of 61.  According to the New-York Tribune, upon her death Cornelius "withdrew entirely from the business, having amassed a princely fortune."  He continued to share the house with his son, James A. Roosevelt and his family.  (James had married Elizabeth Norris Emien in 1847 and they had four children, Mary, Leila, Alfred and William.)

The two little boys peering at the Lincoln procession from the side window of the second floor are presumed to be the future President, Theodore Roosevelt and his brother Elliot.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

Cornelius Roosevelt's vast fortune was reflected in an article in the Galaxy in May 1868.  It listed the names of "ten men as the owners of one-tenth part of the taxable property of New York."  Among millionaires like William B. Astor, Peter Lorillard and Peter and George Goelet was C. V. S. Roosevelt, who owned the equivalent of $25 million in Manhattan property by today's standards.

On the morning of July 17, 1871 Cornelius V. S. Roosevelt died in his country residence in Oyster Bay, Long Island after an illness of just two days.  He was 78 years old.  By now the Union Square neighborhood was seeing significant change as commercial interests took over many of the mansions.  It did not take Roosevelt's heirs long to abandon the family home.

On September 13, 1872 architect Griffith Thomas filed plans for an eight-story cast iron building on the site for the Domestic Sewing Machine Co.  His striking Second Empire style structure survived until 1928, replaced by the Emory Roth designed 20-story building that survives (albeit significantly altered).

image via rebusinessonline.com

The Lost Parepa Hall -- 201 East 86th Street

A tiny brick house on Third Avenue and a rural frame residence on 86th Street testify to the character of the undeveloped area.  photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/Collection/[Northeast%20corner%20of%2086th%20Street%20and%203rd%20Avenue.]-2F3XC5IOH532.html

Three years after the end of the Civil War construction and development of New York’s Upper West and Upper East Sides were once again well underway.  On May 9, 1868 the Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide pointed out that “Our city real estate owners have at least hit upon a plan to protect their own interests, and at the same time help forward all needful metropolitan improvements.”

It started with the West Side Association—a group of real estate operators who balked at the extension of the grid plan of streets and avenues above West 59^th Street.  The Record and Guide reported “The happy results derived from the organization of the West Side Association, has led to the formation of an East Side Association…These gentlemen have definite and worthy objects in view, and deserve and will no doubt achieve success.”

The Record and Guide predicted that “when the Island is built up” these organizations will have been responsible for “a noble system of piers and wharves, steam roads where they are needed, streets parallel with Broadway, a wise and cheap ferry system, an abolition of overcrowding nuisance in our city cars.”

The East Side Association was incorporated on February 29, 1868.  The first act of incorporation set forth the construction of a headquarters and library, not to exceed $250,000—an astounding amount in post-Civil War dollars.

In November that year the Association spent $60,000 for four plots of ground at the northeast corner of 86^th Street and Third Avenue “on which they propose to erect a large building to cost in the neighborhood of $80,000 or $90,00 for a public hall, library, reading-room, lodge-rooms, stores, etc.,” said the Record and Guide.

The publication editorialized “This is something very much needed in Yorkville and will have the effect of exciting an interest and activity among the property-owners of that section of the city.”

What resulted was less a real estate operators’ “clubhouse” than an all-encompassing community center.   Located in a still sparsely-developed neighborhood, the new building, Parepa Hall, commanded attention. The entrance portico was centered on the 86^th Street side, flanked by the stores that comprised the entire street level.  Cast iron columns were separated by surprisingly large plate glass shop windows.

Above, two floors of brick and contrasting stone were punctuated by lancet-like openings, grouped in bundles of three and four.  A nearly-vertical mansard, covered in polychrome slate tiles arranged in geometric designs, was interrupted by gables and towers—most notably the corner tower with its four-sided roof.  A most unusual feature were the flaps of the mansard, propped open by heavy brackets, which served as permanent awnings.

In addition to the library, reading rooms and Association offices, Parepa Hall offered offices to groups and businesses, a large lecture hall and auditorium capable of seating 1,000, and other leasable spaces.   The Yorkville Young Men’s Christian Association moved in, and hosted lectures as part of its services to the community. In November 1874, for instance, George Vandenhoff gave a “reading from Shakespeare, the poets, and Dickens.”

Unfortunately for the East Side Association, Parepa Hall was losing money.  They lost the building in foreclosure in April, 1874.  Charles E. Quackenbush and two partners purchased it for $103,000.  The men turned the property around financially, successfully marketing the Hall as a multi-purpose venue.

On April 7, 1875 the Yorkville Masonic Lodge, called the Architect Lodge, took space here.  “The event was a grand one,” reported the Masonic Standard.  The Lodge would remain in the building until 1894.

A month after the Masons moved in, Ann Eliza Young gave a lecture in Parepa Hall.  Hers was undoubtedly one of the most startling to date.  The New York Times reported that on May 17 “Mrs. Ann Eliza Young (nineteenth wife of Bringham Young) will lecture at Parepa Hall…Subject—‘My Life in Bondage.’”

Ann Eliza Young would become an outspoken opponent of polygamy -- photo from the collection of the Library of Congress

As churches were still scrambling to provide places of worship in the rapidly-developing area, the Y.M.C.A. conducted services at Parepa Hall.  In 1877 Rev. A. J. Palmer praised their efforts.  “Their service of song in Parepa Hall, every Sunday at 4 P. M., is regularly attended by vast congregations.”

Also catching up with the needs of the growing population was the New York City Police Department.  In 1878 Rooms 1 and 2 in Parepa Hall were being leased for $360 quarterly “for use of Third Inspection Police District.”

A variety of political, social and neighborhood groups met in Parepa Hall.  The Yorkville Citizens’ Association was among them.  Among the issues they addressed in their November 14, 1879 meeting were expensive elevated train fares and liquor in Central Park.

A member reported on the response he received from Parks Commissioner Wenman when he questioned the selling of liquor in the park.  Wenman lashed back “There are a great many old fanatics fooling around to see what they can find out, and if they want to run things, they had better come down here and run the department themselves.”

The same man was no more successful when he reported on a meeting with the Directors of the Roads, regarding a reduction of fares on elevated railroads.  “The officers of the company had asserted that they thought they had done a good deal in acceding to the wishes of the community by reducing their fares to 5 cents during the hours when the working classes were going to and from work, and they thought that was all the public should ask for until the roads had a chance to see what the effect of the wear and tear’ on the roads would amount to.”

During the Presidential election year of 1880, the Parepa Hall Garfield and Arthur Campaign Club was organized and met here.  It was the beginning of a long tradition of political groups meeting in the hall.

Theaters, opera houses and music halls were inconveniently downtown; so Parepa Hall doubled as a concert hall for Upper East Side residents.  On February 27, 1881 conductor Leopold Damrsch, father of Walter Damrosch, conducted The Harlem Mendelssohn Union here. The Times deemed it “an excellent organization.”

The Y.M.C.A. was still here and hosting lectures in 1882 when it scored a coup in obtaining Oscar Wilde as a speaker.  Wilde appeared in Parepa Hall on November 27 that year giving the cumbersomely-named lecture “On the Practical Application of the Principles of Home Decoration with Observations on Personal Dress and Ornaments.”

According to the New-York Tribune the following day, “He said this century was responsible for more bad art than all the other ones put together.  Modern statues with their double-breasted bronze waistcoats added a new horror to death...Instead of teaching children that criminal record of Europe which is still called history, and getting them to learn the names of countries they would never care to see—a study entitled geography—children should be taught to use their hands in the practice of some handicraft.”

While Wilde was in New York in 1882 Napoleon Sarony photographed him in the same velvet jacket, knee pants and silk stockings he wore to Parepa Hall photograph from the collection of the Library of Congress

Wilde instructed the audience on how to dress, recommending “an eclectic method n choosing dress from other ages, and mentioned Athens, Venice and England during the last century as excelling in various particulars.”  It was perhaps this part of his lecture that prompted all of the New York City newspapers to describe his own attire.  The Tribune reported “He was dressed in the suit familiar to former audiences, consisting of a black velvet coat with a profuse ruffle, knee-breeches and low shoes.  He wore black silk stockings.”

The police department had increased its rented space in the building by 1885.  Parepa Hall now housed the Third and the Fourth Inspection Districts; however the rent had been lowered to $480 per year.  The same year the Board of Education was paying $2,000 a year for rooms used as Grammar School No. 37.

By 1886 the Hall became home to the Pastime Athletic Club.  The organization routinely staged boxing and wrestling tournaments. In November 1887 featherweight Little Billy Burke was preparing for a Pastimes tournament when his trainer realized he was four pounds overweight on the morning of the bout.

He told a reporter from The Evening World, “I put him in a Turkish bath.  It only took a pound and a half off; so I slapped him in again and got off another pound and a half.”

It was now 6 a.m. and the boxing match was scheduled to start in two hours.  Still a pound and a half too heavy, the boxer was put in a heavy overcoat and his trainer “made him run in the slush from Broome street to Eighty-sixth street behind a Third avenue car, while [his trainer] stood on the back of the platform.”  

Little Billy Burke weighed in at half a pound within the limit.

The Metropolitan Rowing Club established its clubrooms here, as well.  On January 19, 1889 it hosted an athletic exhibition that included “unscientific youths” who “pummeled each other with very fat gloves,” according to The New York Times.  The newspaper reported on other events that night.  “Prof. Kimble gave an exhibition of club swinging, the Metropolitan Quartet sang to songs of religious sentiment, George Oman lifted heavy dumbbells, and Wallace Ross nearly wiped a rowing machine out of existence in showing various styles of rowing.  Messrs. Leonard and Henry engaged in some Lancasture wrestling, in which Henry, although the lighter, proved himself the better man.  The affair was well attended.”

Actress Etta Shackelford found herself in an uncomfortable position here in April 1891.  She was performing with the Lake Specialty Company and while on stage, a sneak thief stole her street clothes and hat from the dressing room.

On April 22 The Sun reported that Policeman Mullen had caught William C. Dessell, “but did not recover the property.”  The newspaper said “Miss Schackelford had to go hone in her stage costume and a borrowed bonnet.”  The thief’s mother later found the stolen clothing and returned it.

By the spring of 1891 wholesale grocers Sonn Brothers had branched out into real estate investment.  In May that year they purchased Parepa Hall for “between $110,000 and $120,000” according to the Record and Guide.   “The purchasers contemplate extensive alterations and improvements which will include passenger elevators, etc.” it reported.

Among the changes made by the Sonn Brothers was the name—it was now called Renwick Hall.  Here on December 5, 1892 Frank Damrosch organized a uptown branch of his People’s Singing Classes.  The New York Times estimated that 800 persons gathered for the classes.  “They ranged from the young and giddy to the elderly and sedate.”

The venue continued to be a favorite of political groups, like the mass meeting of German-Americans on January 23, 1894 who gathered to endorse the nomination of Isidor Straus, co-owner of Macy’s Department Store, and William L. Brown for Congress.  And it was here that Theodore Roosevelt addressed a crowd on October 12, 1895, saying in part “Tammany stands straight and square upon a platform which favors a dishonest enforcement of laws.”

The school board was still playing catch-up in regard to school buildings and the growing population.  On October 26, 1896 Superintendent John Jasper addressed the problem of 431 children who were turned away from School No. 77 for lack of space.  “There is Renwick Hall on Third avenue and Eighty-sixth street,” he wrote, “which was formerly used as a school, also a church, Eighty-sixth and Lexington avenue, one of which might be rented.”

When the Hall was sold again in April 1899 the Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide said “This comprises a splendid hall with galleries, and a number of stores, offices, etc., and is one of the most valuable corners on 3d avenue.”

As had been the case in 1891, the sale to the New York Life Insurance Company would result in a name change.  Now called Lyceum Hall it continued its function as a multi-purpose facility and became a favorite of the ever more powerful labor unions.   In 1916 Lyceum Hall was the center of union activities when thousands of New York traction car employees went on strike, partially paralyzing mass transportation.  No sooner had that labor problem been settled than the Subway-Elevated Motormen struck.  Meetings and negotiations for that dispute were also carried out here.

By 1929,when this photograph was taken, the building was barely recognizable -- from the collection of the New York Public Librar.

The glory days were quickly drawing to an end for the aging structure, however.  In the 1920s the fully-developed Upper East Side was filled with modern office buildings and theatres.  The Victorian pile had outlived its usefulness as originally intended.   By the dawn of the Great Depression its 19th century architectural elements--including the quirky corner tower--had been removed and the brick and stonework stuccoed over.  In 1937 the once-impressive Parepa Hall was converted to a bakery.

photo http://www.cityrealty.com/nyc/yorkville/the-colorado-201-east-86th-street/4226

In 1986 the unrecognizable building was replaced by the 35-story apartment building, The Colorado.

Crawley's Poolroom -- No. 52 West 28th Street

In 1876 Dr. Shaffer, a spinal specialist, was living and practicing medicine from the four story brick house at No. 52 West 28^th Street.   It was to Dr. Shaffer that Paris-born Arthur Alexander Hessler was referred that year to be fitted for a steel brace.  Unfortunately, Hessler had already spent all his money on doctors and could no longer afford the $35 Dr. Shaffer charged for the brace.  He dejectedly went back to the Roosevelt Hospital.

By now the once-respectable neighborhood was undergoing drastic change.   The same year that Hessler sought Dr. Shaffer’s treatment, Alexander “Clubber” Williams was given command of the 29^th Precinct—the district in which Shaffer’s house sat.  Williams happily expressed that he looked forward to getting some of “the tenderloin”—bribes and graft from the rapidly increasing number of brothels, saloons and gambling parlors.

The name caught on and the Tenderloin District became notorious as the most crime-ridden section of the city and possibly of the country.  Covering an area roughly from 23^rd to 42^nd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, social reformers called the neighborhood “Satan’s Circus.”

Dr. Shaffer’s 20-foot wide house was accessed by a brownstone stoop above an English basement.  Two bays wide, the windows decreased in size with each succeeding story.  A handsome bracketed Italianate cornice projected far from the façade.   The most eye-catching details were the ornate cast metal eyebrows above the openings.  The decidedly Victorian elements proved, originally, that the owners of the house were perhaps not wealthy; but were financially secure.

Especially handsome pressed metal lintels graced the windows.

Mrs. M. A. Palmer owned the house until January 15, 1887 when The Record and Guide reported that she sold “the four-story English basement brick house” for $30,000.  Considering the neighborhood at the time, it seems like a good price—about $675,000 in today’s money.

The house where the respectable Dr. Shaffer treated patients became Lovell’s poolroom.  To Victorian ears, the mere word “poolroom” conjured visions of depravity and social ills.  The term did not refer to billiards; but to horse betting.  Western Union telegraph wires transmitted the winners and losers directly into the poolroom. The owners of the establishments were known as “poolsellers.”

The upper floors of No. 52 were leased as sleeping rooms to tenants whose reputations were not always spotless.  Philip H. Irving was living here in May 1892.  Irving called himself a theatrical manager.  A year earlier in October he met Charlotte Werl who was working as a model in an artist’s studio.  Charlotte was married, but had been separated from her husband for years and purportedly believed he was dead.

Irving protected the married woman’s reputation, initially, by introducing her as his sister.  That ended when he announced that “they have since had intimate relations.”  Charlotte Werl had him arrested on May 12, 1892 “to recover $10,000 for defamation of character,” according to The Sun.

Philip Irving was apparently as surprised as Charlotte was offended.   The Sun reported “he believes the action is brought to fleece him, as he thinks she has the impression that he has money.”

It is doubtful that Charlotte thought that a man who lived above an illegal gambling parlor had a great deal of money.    The dubious characters who haunted Lovell’s were not just gamblers; some were out-and-out criminals.  Three months after Irving’s arrest, a group of five scoundrels devised a scheme to swindle unsuspecting bettors.

James Wood (alias Levy), William Murray (alias Mulholland), James Thompson (alias Grace), Fred Barry (alias Charles Martin), and Anthony Ettlinger approached speculator William Roff, telling him they could provide him with information he could use in betting on the horses.

They rented a room on the top floor of No. 52 West 28^th, ran a dummy wire from a bathroom on the first floor to the room, and told Roff they had tapped the wire that fed the race results to the poolroom. Roff was wary, however.  He had recently been fleeced out of $500 on a similar scheme and was reticent to part with the $2,500 he had in his pocket.

The New York Times reported on August 17, 1892 “Roff said that he sat in the upper room and when the winners came over the wire, which he was led to believe had been tapped, he went to the poolroom and there learned that the horses had been announced fully ten minutes before he got the information.

“This led him to suspect that things were wrong, and afterward he discovered that the gang got the names of the winners at the poolroom and telegraphed them from the bathroom to the room up stairs.”

Roff went to the police and the five scammers were arrested.

Fred Barry, whose legitimate job was as a dealer in electrical supplies on New Street, near Broadway, escaped conviction in the crime.  It would not be long before he was at it again.  He and four new accomplices were arraigned on January 29, 1893 for pulling the same scam, this time targeting Peter Downey’s poolroom on 12^th Street and University Place.

The tradition of graft and corruption among police in the Tenderloin District would run head-long into the reform efforts of Theodore Roosevelt when he became Commissioner in 1895.    In his 1919 “Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography,” William Roscoe Thayer recounted Roosevelt’s early visits to the Tenderloin.  “More than once Roosevelt surprised a shirking patrolman on his beat, but his purpose they all knew was to see justice done, and to keep the officers of the Force up to the highest standard of duty.”

Reforms were difficult to maintain, however.  Although Lovell’s poolroom was closed down, the gambling den soon opened under a new name.  On January 11, 1896 The Times complained “The building occupied by Lovell’s poolroom over ten years ago, when this city was overrun with such establishments, has been opened up again.”

The new owner was Tom  Crawley, a small-time operator who would quickly find that the old days, when a few dollars guaranteed that police looked the other way, were over.   In 1900 The City Record noted that during a meeting of the Police Board on August 24 C. W. Weddle lodged a complaint “of gambling house” at No. 52 West 28^th Street.  Crawley’s would be subjected to repeated raids by the newly-vigilant force.

One raid, just after midnight on May 1, 1901, was more than slightly botched.  “The Committee of Fifteen”—a group of detectives-- had been established to raid gambling houses and Crawley’s was on the list that night.  The men broke down the wrong door, however.

“It was reported about the neighborhood that when the committee reached 52 West Twenty-eighth Street with their attendant policemen, they broke into the house next door, at 54, for which they had no warrant, and that there they stumbled upon a gambling plant the existence of which they had not suspected,” reported The New York Times.

With no search warrant, the detectives could make no seizures or arrests.  Despite the disappointment, they went back into the street and headed for the right address.  By now some of the suspects at Crawley’s had escaped; but not all.

“One of the persons caught in this place got out through the front door and started running toward Seventh Avenue, pursued by half a dozen policemen,” said The Times.  “He ran through Seventh Avenue and doubled back through Twenty-ninth Street, where he was captured by Policeman Lesbader, taken to the station house, and locked up.”

In September 1902 another raid resulted in the arrests of John Ryan and Julius Ringgold.  Less than a month later another raid was made.  This time, according to the district attorney, “We were not looking for prisoners so much as we were for evidence of gambling houses being conducted in the Tenderloin.”

The detectives did not find much at Crawley’s, though.  “At 52 West Twenty-eighth Street, said to be conducted by Tom Crawley, the safe was entirely empty, with the exception of a small piece of anthracite coal.  [District Attorney] Mr. Jerome examined it, said it was of the first water, and carefully placed it back in the cotton in which it had been wrapped,” reported The New York Times on October 16, 1902.

The age of the Tenderloin was slipping away and by 1906 the neighborhood of 28^th Street and Sixth Avenue was becoming New York’s wholesale plant district.  By now Jennie Liddell owned the building which had lost its stoop.  That year she leased it to A. J. and J. J. Fellouris for five years.

An advertisement in 1906 announces som of A. J. Fellouris's offerings -- The American Florist December 8, 1906 (copyright expired)

The brothers were owners of A. J. Fellouris & Co., wholesale and retail florists who specialized in evergreens.  The American Florist noted on March 3, 1906 that “A. J. Fellouris & Co. are preparing to remove to new quarters on Twenty-eighth street this spring.”   Their new shop space would be short-lived.

Only two years into the lease, A. J. Fellouris & Co. filed for bankruptcy.  In 1908 The National Nurseryman reported that “The American Evergreen Company succeed the A. J. Fellouris Co.  They will shortly remove to 103 West 28^th Street.”

In their place florist O. V. Zangen moved in.  A wholesale dealer in cut flowers, Zangen had been doing business around the corner in the Coogan Building at 26^th Street and Sixth Avenue.  The American Florist said “Mr. Zangen’s time is largely taken up with his seed business and the flower store will be managed by R. Gretsch.  If reports are correct, Twenty-eighth street will soon have them all.”

Within two years Gretsch formed a new firm when he partnered with the Ordonez brothers.  On June 11, 1910 The American Florist reported that Gretsch & Ordonez Bros. is the title of a new firm that will hereafter do business at 52 West Twenty-eighth street.  Mr. Gretsch has been located there for some time and is well known as an active and energetic young man.  The Ordonez brothers are importers and growers of orchids, with greenhouses at Madison, N. J.  They are well known in the trade and in this new venture we trust that all concerned will make good.”

The following year Jennie Liddell leased the building to Louis a. Rubenstein “for a term of years.”  Rubenstein would manage the property for years and on January 19, 1915 he rented the former flower store of Gretsch & Ordonez Bros. to Hugo Werner.

New York City’s wholesale plant district remained centered around Sixth Avenue and 28^th Street for nearly a century.  The sidewalks were crowded with trees and palms, causing many to refer to the stretch of Sixth Avenue as the “jungle.”  Then in 1993 major flower wholesalers began eyeing the South Bronx where space and traffic were not a problem.

In the meantime, the block of West 28^th Street surrounding No. 52 had changed dramatically.  The little brick building, now painted barn red, was nearly the last surviving remnant of the residential, the Tenderloin, and the plant district eras.  Today the house is easily overlooked, dwarfed by the soaring buildings on either side.  The hot pink awning at street level, the scaling red paint and the decades-old fire escape successfully disguise the still-handsome house and its place in a sordid chapter of Manhattan social history.

photographs taken by the author

The Carow-Martin House -- No. 114 East 36th Street

photo by Alice Lum

By the turn of the last century Murray Hill would be an enclave of some of Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens—a block east of the more obvious Fifth Avenue.  But in the decade prior to the Civil War the neighborhood was just seeing the rise of handsome residences; comfortable brownstone rowhouses intended for the well-to-do merchant class.

Around 1856 builder George J. Hamilton constructed No. 114 East 36^th Street—a four-story home nearly identical to its neighbors.   Two decades after its completion, in 1879, it became home to the Carow family, including young Edith Kermit Carow.  The charming and mannered teen was a life-long friend of one of the city’s most respected young citizens, Theodore Roosevelt. 

Edith was an avid reader and shortly after moving into the house, a copy of "Lucille," Owen Meredith’s lengthy poem, arrived at the door.  The inscription read “To Edith K. Carow on her eighteenth birthday, from her sincere friend Theodore Roosevelt.”

Almost exactly one year later Roosevelt married Alice Hathaway Lee, another member of Edith’s circle of friends.  The following year, in 1881, at just 23 years old, Roosevelt was named Republican candidate for the New York State Assembly.  He won election on November 8, 1881 but assured friends not to expect him to go into politics after one-year term was up—“for I am not.”  

To celebrate his win, Edith threw a gala party a month later in the 36^th Street house.  The rooms were filled with flowers and the well-dressed guests danced beneath the glow of gas chandeliers.  Theodore led the cotillion that evening in what would be one of the last entertainments the young couple would enjoy in New York for a year.  Three weeks later they left for Albany.

Alice, Theodore and Edith continued their deep friendship.  When Roosevelt was re-elected to another one-year term, Roosevelt purchased a house on West 57^th Street, just off Fifth Avenue, to ease Alice’s boredom with Albany.  The friends would attend the opera and other social functions together .

Tragedy struck when Alice contracted Bright’s Disease—kidney failure—which was masked by her advanced pregnancy.  Two days after baby Alice Lee Roosevelt was born on February 12, 1884 Alice died.  Around eleven hours later Roosevelt’s mother, Martha, died of typhoid fever in the same house.  Theodore Roosevelt’s diary entry that night was a large X followed by “The light has gone out of my life.”

Following his mourning period, Theodore began visiting Edith in the 36^th Street house.  The old friends now saw one another in a different light.  Their parlor meetings were discreet and few friends were aware.  Love blossomed and on November 17, 1885 Roosevelt secretly proposed.  Edith accepted.

There was now the problem of appearances.  Alice had been dead less than two years and a new engagement could seem unseemly.   Edith sailed off to Europe, as she had already planned to do, and polite society was kept in the dark.

First Lady Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt lived in the 36th Street house for about seven years -- photo Library of Congress

Upon her return, the couple married on December 2, 1886 and left for their European honeymoon.  Before leaving, the house at No. 114 East 36^th Street was sold to William R. H. Martin.

As was often the case in upscale families, the deed was put in the name of his wife, Elizabeth B. F. Martin.  Martin headed one of the city’s most recognized men’s clothiers, Rogers, Peet & Co., founded by his father John T. Martin.  A pioneer in ready-to-wear apparel for the middle class man, the firm’s success was due in part to treating its customers as though they were the wealthy clients of the most exclusive haberdasheries.

As the turn of the century approached, Martin turned his attention real estate projects, as well.  In 1900 he opened his lavish hotel near Times Square which he named after himself, the Martinique.  Within a few years he would construct a far less fashionable hotel, the Trowmart Inn, for single working girls.

And as his Martinique Hotel was rising, Elizabeth and William also took a look at their aging brownstone.  By now the wealthy homeowners in the neighborhood were updating their architecturally-passe homes by replacing them with new mansions, or hiring noted architects to remodel them.  In 1899 architect Samuel Edson Gage was given the job of transforming the old house into a fashionable, up-to-date residence reflective of the status of its owners.

Completed in 1900, the renovation was remarkable.  The brownstone façade was stripped off and another story added.  Rather than the gushing Beaux Arts style so popular for many residential designs at the time, Gage turned to the restrained neo-Georgian.  It was an architectural trend just taking hold and would result in mansions like those of Andrew Carnegie and Willard D. Straight.

Now five stories tall with a mansard attic, the dignified home was a blend of red brick and white limestone.  Rather than climbing one or two steps to the entrance as might be expected, the guests would descent one step from the sidewalk.  Tall windows were lined in limestone quoins and capped by bracketed window hoods.   Above it all eye-catching circular dormers projected from the shingled mansard.

photo by Alice Lum

On December 2, 1905 the family had a scare when William, Elizabeth and their niece, Elsie Martin, left the house for the debutante reception of Catherine Hall nearby at No. 124 East 38^th Street.   The trio climbed into Martin’s stylish brougham, no doubt covering themselves with piles of carriage blankets to ward off the cold, and headed off.  As the carriage driver, Frederick Dodge, was crossing Lexington Avenue at 37^th Street, he saw the Lexington Avenue electric street car approaching.  Before he could clear the tracks, the car struck and overturned the carriage.

Dodge was thrown from the driver’s box and received a cut to the head.  Martin and the two women were uninjured.  Although Martin complained that the motorman, John Cunningham, had apparently lost control of the brakes, the police surmised that the tracks were so slippery that the car was carried down the avenue’s decline by its own momentum.  The Martins, no doubt, had an interesting story to tell at the reception.

The entrance was placed, somewhat surprisingly, below street level -- photo by Alice Lum

In 1906 son Lucius Trowbridge Martin was married to Amy Bowers.  The couple sailed off to Europe for their honeymoon, but a few weeks later there was trouble.  William R. H. Martin set sail and returned with a month of the wedding with his daughter-in-law.  She moved in with William and Elizabeth.  The New-York Tribune reported “Her husband remained abroad, and rumors were spread that there had been an estrangement.”

The following year Martin was struck with a severe attack of “indigestion” and was confined to bed for over a week.  The New York Times reported that “He is recovering and will probably be out again within a week.  His son, who is in England for the hunting season, has been kept informed of his father’s condition by cable.  He is expected home in a few weeks.”

The “hunting season” that was keeping young Martin from his wife had now extended over a year.  In January 1908 Amy obtained a divorce and two months later, on March 3, Lucius remarried.  The New-York Tribune ran the headline “L. T. Martin Married Again.”

On January 30, 1912 William R. H. Martin died in the house on East 36^th Street.  The funeral was held there two days later.  Elizabeth stayed on in the house for a year and a half before leasing it in June 1914 to William H. Post. 

Post was the secretary and a director of the Post Mortgage and Land Company.  The family included daughters Fanny and Mary.  On November 1, 1915 Mary’s engagement to Philip B. Brewster was announced, and in January 1917 they were married.  The fashionable wedding took place in the Church of the Incarnation with the groom’s father officiating.  Assisting was the groom’s uncle, Bishop Brewster of Connecticut.

The Posts remained in the house until Elizabeth Martin’s death, after which it was sold to Charles E. Warren in September 1919.  Warren was President of the Lincoln National Bank and a member of the ultra-exclusive Union League Club.  In reporting the sale the New-York Tribune said “This house is considered one of the best built houses in the Murray Hill section and is cabinet trimmed throughout.”  Unlike so many wealthy Manhattanites who were migrating northward, Warren moved south.  His former residence was at No. 326 West 89^th Street.

When the Warrens purchased the 36^th Street house in September they were still at Brae, their country estate in Lawrence, Long Island.  The Sun notified society on September 23 that the family, including daughter Margaret, would close the summer house “in the autumn and will occupy their new house.”

Along with the Warrens came Bridgeport, Connecticut socialite Mrs. Thomas Hood Macdonald.  On announcing the engagement of her daughter on December 7, 1919, The Sun mentioned that she “is passing the winter at 114 East Thirty-sixth street.”

Margaret Warren would not be far behind in becoming engaged.  The debutante had attended the prestigious Spence School and was a member of the Junior League and the Daughters of the Cincinnati.  She had, in other words, all the credentials of a well-bred young woman of polite society.   In October 1920 the Warrens announced her engagement to Shannon Lord Meany. 

A Princeton graduate, the groom had served as a captain in the war and came from a wealthy New Jersey family.  The family home, Alnwick Hall, was located in the town of Convent and The Times noted “His clubs are the Morris County Golf and Whippany River.”  Following the wedding on January 22, 1921 the reception was held in the house on 36^th Street.

Warren sold the house in 1924 to Dr. Van Horne Norrie.  A bachelor, he was among the most respected of New York physicians.  For years he was a member of the faculty of Columbia University as Professor of Clinical Medical and had risen to the position of Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital.  The New York Times called him “one of the leading diagnosticians in the city.”

Norrie lived quietly in the house for nine years.   He filled the house with a valuable art collection.  Unlike many millionaires of the period, Norrie turned away from collecting old oils; preferring instead etchings, sketches and prints.  Among the works that decorated his walls was Whistler’s etching “The Kitchen.” 

Whistler's evocative "The Kitchen" was among Dr. Norrie's extensive collection -- http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/james-mcneill-whistler/the-kitchen

Just after New Year's Day in 1933 Dr. Norrie was confined to the house with heart trouble.  He died here four weeks later, on January 31, at the age of 71.  His $2.5 million estate was divided among charities such as the New York Public Library, and his four relatives; a sister, two nieces and a nephew.

No. 114 was valued at $80,000 (around $1.5 million today) and was left to the doctor’s nephew, Lanfear Barbey Norrie.  A mining engineer and minerals prospector he followed in the footsteps of his father, A. Lanfear Norrie.  The senior Norrie had famously discovered the iron ore of the Gogebic range of upper Michigan.  The Norrie mine was considered, around the turn of the century, to be the greatest iron mine in the world.

Like his uncle, Lanfear Norrie lived on inconspicuously in the grand home.  Unlike the residents before the Norries, he hosted no spectacular parties with guests lists plastered throughout the social pages of the newspapers.   He lived here for four decades, leaving in the mid 1970s.

In 2005 the house where a future United States President courted a future First Lady was converted to apartments—two each on the first three floors and an expansive duplex engulfing the upper two.  The luxurious duplex was purchased in 2007 by The Morgan Library & Museum for its incoming Director.  The New York Observer reported that the $3.25 million apartment boasted two bedrooms, three and a half baths, three marble fireplaces, and a wet bar.

photo by Alice Lum