Van Wart & Wein's 40 Fifth Avenue

 

image via landmarkbranding.com

Development of Fifth Avenue above Washington Square began with the Henry and Laura Brevort mansion at the corner of West 9th Street, completed in 1834.  Within seven years, the Church of the Ascension was erected on the corresponding corner of 10th Street, and by 1858 the northern half of that block was filled with sumptuous rowhouses, like the Henry Rutgers Remsen mansion at 40 Fifth Avenue.

Four mansions, including the Remsen house at No. 40 (left) filled the northern block between 9th and 10th Streets.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

At the end of World War I, lower Fifth Avenue had drastically changed.  Like the Brevoort mansion, which was demolished in 1925, private homes were quickly being replaced by upscale apartment buildings.  In 1927, the four houses at 40 through 46 Fifth Avenue and those at 2 through 10 West 11th Street were acquired by Moses Ginsberg's 10 West 11th Street Corporation.  

On September 16, 1928, The New York Times reported that demolition of those structures had begun.  On the site, said the article, would be a 15-story-and-penthouse "100 per cent cooperative building to be known as 40 Fifth Avenue."  The article pointed out that the location was "one of the most unusual corners of lower Fifth Avenue" because it was flanked by churches, ensuring light and ventilation.  The structure, "will be from plans by Van Wart & Wein, architects, with McKim, Meade [sic] & White, architects for the purchasers."  

As the structure neared completion, an advertisement in The New Yorker on December 15, 1928 called the location, "The corner of corners."  It boasted, "40 Fifth Avenue, now under construction, will occupy one of the few corners in New York combining residential desirability with complete sunshine and light protection on all sides."  

The ad boasted that the apartments would have "spacious rooms with ample baths and closets, glass-enclosed loggias, wood-burning fireplaces and mechanical refrigeration."  Prices, said the advertisement, started at $10,500 (just under $200,000 in 2026 terms).  Along Fifth Avenue would be four "maisonettes," essentially private homes within the building with separate entrances on the avenue.

McKim, Mead & White was kept busy with the interior designs.  Future homeowners had begun purchasing the apartments months earlier.  Among the first was Eugene V. Connett Jr., who  had purchased a six-room and three-bath apartment on the 12th floor in June 1928.  And on August 15, The New York Times reported that H. Hamilton Holden had purchased the triplex maisonette at 46 Fifth Avenue.  "The apartment contains eleven rooms and four baths," said the article.

Completed in 1929, Van Wart & Wein had turned to New York's colonial past by designing the building in the neo-Georgian style.  Its three-section base was divided by intermediate cornices and clad in limestone and red brick.  Above the 10-story shaft, the top section was crowned with a brick-and-stone-balustraded parapet, behind which the penthouse level was topped with a striking Georgian-style cupola.  

photograph by Beyond My Ken

Among the initial residents were commercial artist Bert Pagano, whose 8th-floor apartment contained six rooms and three baths; his brother, Guido Pagano; attorney Joseph Force Crater and his wife, Ella; stockbroker Floyd Y. Keeler; and William A. Force 3d, president of the William A. Force Company, Inc.

Born in 1885, Floyd Y. Keeler was a partner in the brokerage firm of Orvis Brothers & Co.  He and his wife, the former Elizabeth Rapallo Irving, had two adult daughters.  

Shortly after moving into their penthouse here, Keeler left town on a business trip.  Early on the morning of April 13, Elizabeth woke up to find a man "rummaging about in the bedroom," as reported by The New York Times.  The burglar quickly realized that he had chosen the wrong apartment to rob.  The article said, 

Mrs. Keeler, who weighs only 100 pounds, but who served in the Red Cross Motor Corps during the World War, made a flying tackle and grappled the intruder just as he was about to make his way out of the window to the roof.

The burglar wriggled free, but not before Elizabeth pulled off one of his shoes.  He headed down the fifteen flights of stairs while Elizabeth telephoned the police.  Two detectives arrived at 40 Fifth Avenue just as a man, wearing only one shoe, exited.  Frank Vagedes was arrested and the following morning he appeared in the Essex Market Court.  The New York Times commented, "Mrs. Keeler returned his shoe."

Joseph Force Crater was born in 1889, the son of Irish immigrants.  A graduate of Columbia University, he was closely associated with Tammany Hall leader Martin J. Healy.  He and his wife, the former Stella Mance Wheeler, were married in 1917.

Justice Joseph Force Crater (original source unknown)

Just months after buying their penthouse apartment, in April 1930, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Crater a Justice of the New York Supreme Court.  Shortly afterward, the state initiated an investigation into corruption within New York City agencies.

Like all the well-to-do residents of 40 Fifth Avenue, the Craters had a country home.  Theirs was in Belgrade Lakes, Maine and they were there in the summer of 1930 when, late in July, Crater received a telephone call.  On August 3, he returned to Manhattan, telling Stella he would return in time for her birthday on August 9.  When he did not return after ten days, Stella initiated a search.  Justice Joseph F. Crater had vanished.

On September 6, The New York Times reported that Stella was still in Maine, "suffering from a nervous breakdown."  In what would be the most intensive and publicized missing case until Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance in 1975, newspapers nationwide updated readers nearly daily.  Sanitariums were searched, bank records were examined (he had cashed two checks totaling $5,150, or about $100,000 today), and numerous leads were followed.

On February 1, 1931, District Attorney Crane told reporters that the investigation "would end in a few days."  Ransom notes and telephone calls received by Stella had proved to be bogus.  In the meantime, Stella Crater found herself in a difficult position.  With no proof of her husband's death, she had no income.  On January 14, 1932, Surrogate James A. Foley granted her an allowance of "$50 a week and the use of their apartment at 40 Fifth Avenue."  The New York Times said, "Mrs. Crater said she had been accustomed to living at the rate of $15,000 a year and that she had no other means of support."

Six years later, on March 15, 1938, The New York Times reported that Stella Crater had been evicted from her apartment.  Her attorney announced, "Mrs. Crater was resigned to abandoning her home, being without funds."  The disappearance of Joseph Force Crater remains one of America's great unsolved mysteries.

photograph by Spencer Means

Also occupying a penthouse apartment at the time of Crater's disappearance was another attorney, William E. Carnochan.  Born in 1869, he joined the law firm of Parsons, Closson & McIlvaine in 1891.  Never married, he was a member of the University and Lawyers Clubs.  In December 1930, while the nation was focused on the search for his neighbor, Carnochan suffered a nervous breakdown.  His sister, Sara Willard of Troy, Pennsylvania, temporarily moved into the apartment to care for him.

Five months later, Carnochan was still unwell and suffering from insomnia.  On April 23, 1931, he went onto his terrace, climbed the four-foot high parapet, and jumped to his death, landing on the Fifth Avenue sidewalk.  

The majority of the owners within the building, of course, were much less dramatic.  More typical of the initial owners were John Phillips Logan and his wife, the former Gertrude Hardman.  Born in 1880, Logan was a member of the wholesale dry goods firm of J. P. Logan & Sons on Canal Street.  Their country home was in Seabright, New Jersey.  The couple were members of the Essex County Country Club and John was, additionally, a member of the Montclair Golf Club and the New York Athletic Club.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Also living here in the 1930s were Reverend Dr. Archibald Romaine Mansfield and his wife, the former Ella Huntington.  Dr. Mansfield studied ministry at St. Stephen's College and graduated from the General Theological Seminary in 1896.  He received his honorary D. D. degree from St. Stephen's in 1915.

In 1896, according to The New York Sun years later, "New York's water front was notorious as a hotbed of crime and vice and Dr. Mansfield saw a wide field for service there."  He established a lodging house where sailors "were not in danger of being robbed or shanghaied," said the newspaper.  Mansfield's riverfront mission grew until, by the time he and his wife moved into 40 Fifth Avenue, the Seamen's Church Institute occupied a 13-story building on South Street.

Still living here in the 1940s were Eugene V. Connett and his wife, May Brewer.  Connett was the founder of E. V. Connett & Co.  The couple's country home was in Amagansett, New York.  A long time member of the Union League Club, Connett was the chairman of the club's art committee.

image via cityrealty.com

While the private mansions of lower Fifth Avenue did not survive, the apartment houses that replaced them did.  And  today they retain the upscale aplomb that they enjoyed a century ago.  Among the most distinguished is 40 Fifth Avenue, the unique site of which still provides it special notice.

Van Wart & Wein's 1931 1 Christopher Street

 

photograph by the author

Despite the ongoing Great Depression, developer Eugene Silber contracted the architectural firm of Van Wart & Wein to design a massive apartment building on the southwest corner of Greenwich Avenue and Christopher Street.  Perhaps as a gentle nod to the charming row of Federal style houses on the block, the firm designed the 16-story building in the neo-Federal style.  Completed in 1931, its entrance on Christopher Street was flanked by Doric pilasters.  Directly above, swirling volutes sat on either side of a dignified window below a broken pediment and urn.  The stone frieze above the second floor held panels of swags and stone balconies.  Stores were included along the Greenwich Avenue sidewalk to provide added income.

The architects added interest to the 11-story mid-section with brick rustication.  Following the Colonial motif, the casement style windows were given multiple panes.  The climax of Van Wart & Wein's design was the topmost section where a series of setbacks was decorated with balconies, stone urns and balustrades, and, finally, an octagonal brick and stone cupola (most likely hiding a water tank), with arched windows.  

The Depression was likely responsible for the modest size of the apartments, which ranged from one to three rooms.  The first of the stores was quickly rented in November 1931 to the Hitchcock Pharmacy.  The 12-year lease noted its use as a "drug store and luncheonette."

The initial residents were white collar, like Samuel Mann and his wife.  He had run the hosiery manufacturing firm of S. Mann & Co. until his retirement in 1925.  Another of the first tenants was Karl A. Heinzen, the president of the drug making firm, Bayer Company, Inc.

But, then, in 1941 Alfred Cohen signed a lease.  The man from Alston, Massachusetts was not so upstanding.  On June 10 the smell of gas led to Cohen's apartment being entered.  The 46-year-old was found unconscious in the kitchen with the gas jets of the stove opened.  He was taken to the Bellevue Hospital prison ward (attempted suicide was a jailable crime), while detectives searched the apartment.

They found a suicide note addressed to his wife, Helen, back home.  "In the note," said The New York Sun, "Cohen told his wife that he had done some awful things to her and that she had had the worst kind of a break from him."  He also told her about a Boston man "who had 'clipped' some one for $40,000 and advised Mrs. Cohen to get some of it."  The use of jargon bandied about by swindlers led detectives to dig deeper.  As it turned out, Cohen was a fugitive from the Boston police, having jumped bail of $10,000.  He was wanted there on a charge of grand larceny for stealing $62,439.23 in stocks and bonds.

More successful in her suicide attempt was Mrs. Gertrude Somers, who lived on the 15th floor.  On the morning of May 15, 1944 the 46-year-old woman jumped from her apartment window, leaving no notes to explain her action.

The architects embellished the building with Federal style details.  photo by Spencer Means

Aaron G. Bass, a jewelry salesman, discovered on July 30, 1952 that his 1950 Buick had been stolen.  The following day, Patrolman Anthony J. Quaranta saw "three young men driving a car that appeared to be beyond their visible means of support," as reported by The New York Times.  As he headed over to talk to them, the driver, 17-year-old Luis Rivera sped off, turning town Ninth Avenue.  In a scene straight out of the movies, Quaranta jumped into a taxicab and ordered the driver to follow the fleeing vehicle.  At Horatio Street and Eighth Avenue, Rivera slammed Aaron Bass's Buick into a fire hydrant.

On August 15, The New York Times reported that Bass was at the Criminal Courts Building "bright and early" to file his complaint against Rivera and the one accomplice who had been caught.  Following the youths' sentencing, Bass was told he was wanted downstairs in the Chief Magistrate's office.  The article said, "'What for?' inquired Mr. Bass.  He soon found out."

In attempting to discover to whom the automobile was registered, Officer Rivera had looked in the glove compartment.  There he found five unpaid parking tickets.  Further investigation revealed a total of 11 outstanding summonses going over a period of eight months.  Bass told the magistrate he had simply been "too busy" to pay them.  Before he left the courthouse that morning, he had settled the 11 tickets and paid a $96 fine ($1,000 by 2022 conversions).

Curtis G. Culin lived here by the late 1950's.  Originally from Cranford, New Jersey, he was a junior executive for the liquor firm Schenley Industries, Inc.  His neighbors, no doubt, had no idea that he had been a war hero of sorts.  On June 5, 1964, General Dwight D. Eisenhower discussed the Normandy invasion on CBS television program, "D-Day Plus 20 Years:  Eisenhower Returns to Normandy."

During it, Eisenhower told of the difficulties American tanks were having in getting over the Normandy hedge rows.  "And finally, a little sergeant in an ordnance department, his name was Culin, had an idea."  Sgt. Curtis Culin suggested welding the steel bars that the Germans had left as beach obstructions to the tanks, to form "plow-like 'snouts.'"  The idea worked.  Sadly, Culin would not know of the high praise.

The New York Times reported on June 6, "The Army sergeant whose battlefield tank invention was described by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower last night as 'a godsend" for the invading United States forces in Normandy 20 years ago died here last November at the age of 48."  Curtis Culin had been found dead of natural causes in his apartment on November 22, 1963.

Living here by the late 1960's was stage and film actor James Patterson, his wife Rochelle Oliver, and their son John.  Patterson received an Obie Award for his performance as Bill in The Collection at the Cherry Lane Theater in 1961, and a Tony Award for his role as Stanley in Harold Pinter's 1967 The Birthday Party.  

James Patterson (second from right) in a scene from In the Heat of the Night.  image via mptvimages.com

His film roles included Dr. Lavrier in the 1964 Lilith, Lloyd Purdy in the 1967 film In the Heat of the Night, and Jeffrey Butler in Theodore Gershuny's 1972 Silent Night, Bloody Night.  Patterson died of cancer on August 19, 1972 at the age of 40.

When Cecil Silber died at the age of 94 on July 25, 2004, his family had owned 1 Christopher Street for 72 years.   Sixteen years later, his son, Jimmy Silbert, sold the 138-unit building to a European investor for $95 million.  Because it sits opposite Jefferson Market Garden, Van Wart & Wein's dignified structure can be appreciated from a block away on Sixth Avenue--perhaps the most striking viewpoint.

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The 1927 Beekman Campanile - 450 East 52nd Street

Prior to 1920 the blocks east of First Avenue above 50th Street were home the Peter Doelger Brewery, decaying rowhouses and tenement buildings.  Fashionable society lived toward the center of Manhattan--around the Madison, Park and Fifth Avenue sections.  But that year wealthy literary agent Elisabeth Marbury commissioned architect Mott Schmidt to transform an old rowhouse at No. 13 Sutton Place into a neo-Georgian residence.   By the mid-1920's Sutton Place had become an exclusive enclave, home to residents like Anne Morgan and Anne Vanderbilt.

In 1926 real estate operator Joseph G. Thomas commissioned Van Wart & Wein to design an upscale apartment building at the end of East 52nd Street overlooking the East River, slightly to the south of Sutton Place.   The 14-floor building was completed the following year--a Jazz Age take on Venetian Gothic.

The two-story base of rough-faced stone reflected traditional elements of Gothic design.  The entrance was recessed within a pointed arched opening, and trefoils and tracery embellished the second floor.  The upper floors were faced in rough-faced brick which gave the impression of age.

There were just sixteen apartments within The Beekman Campanile.  The architects took advantage of the riverside location by including a yacht landing and private club, the Montauk Yacht Club.

The building quickly attracted upper class residents.  Among the first was Ralph Pulitzer, Jr., grandson of publisher Joseph Pulitzer.  His sprawling apartment had an additional occupant following his wedding to Bessie Catherine Aspinwall on June 27, 1929.

Living here at the same time was Leonard Outhwaite and his wife.  The couple maintained a 90-foot schooner, the Kinkajou.  On June 30, 1929, according to The New York Times, the "Outhwaite yacht set sail from the Montauk Yacht Club landing at Fifty-second Street and East River."  The cruise would entail 13,000 miles and last eight months.  It did not go entirely smoothly.  Outhwaite had to take over the handling of the vessel himself after Captain Olaf Berg was tragically drowned near England.

On November 27, 1931 the New York Evening Post reported quietly "Mrs. William K. Dick rented an apartment at 450 East Fifty-second Street."  She was Madeleine Talmadge Force Astor Dick, the widow of John Jacob Astor, who died in the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic, and current wife of millionaire William Karl Dick.   It was no doubt the couple's domestic problems which prompted her taking an apartment alone.  Within two years Madeleine divorced William Dick and quickly married Enzo Fiermonte.

One colorful resident in particular, The New Yorker critic Alexandex Woollcott, may have changed the personality of The Beekman Campanile.  In his 1956 book More in Sorrow, Wolcott Gibbs wrote that after the break-up of the Algonquin Round Table its members visited Woollcott here.

While they no longer knew one another intimately, however, almost all of them kept in pretty close touch with Mr. Woollcott.  His apartment at 450 East Fifty-second Street, which Dorothy Parker in a spasm of rascality had named Wit's End, was a comfortable, untidy garret looking down on the East River, and long after the Round Table and the Thanatopsis Club were dead it was still a hangout for whatever members of the old mob happened to be in town.  Sunday breakfast there lasted practically all day, with Mr. Woollcott in rumpled pajamas and an ancient, rather horrible dressing gown, receiving his guests from a throne in one corner with an air that would have done credit to Queen Victoria.

In the meantime the Mayfair Yacht Club with its stunning river views was a favorite among society.  On October 14, 1932, for instance, The New York Sun reported that "Mrs. James H. Snowden gave a luncheon yesterday at the Mayfield Yacht Club, 450 East Fifty-second street."  Its Marine Room featured an orchestra and dancing.  And alcohol.

On February 1, 1933 The New York Sun reported that the "classy speakeasy" had been raided.  Prohibition agents had been tipped off two weeks earlier by a disgusted patron who objected to paying $1 for a bottle of beer in the tough Depression years.  The article said he felt it "was plain highway robbery and he thought something should be done about it."  Something, indeed, was done.  The manager, a beer delivery man, and fifteen waiters and bartenders were arrested.

The Great Depression had little effect on the residents like the Pulitzers, still here in the 1940's, and wealthy tenants like John Hertz and his family, the Thomas L. Chadbournes (whose chef had previously worked for King Edward VIII), the family of John Louis Zauggs, and Henry Wise Miller and his writer and activist wife, Alice Duer Miller.

Seen as it appeared in May 1930, the pine-paneled library of Henry and Alice Duer Miller was decorated with antique furnishings and paintings.  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Alice Duer Miller's bedroom was more like a Parisian salon.  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Perhaps the Beekman Campanile's first truly theatrical resident was Noël Coward, who took the former apartment of Alexander Woollcott.  In 1942 film executive Gustoaf Miesegaes, president of Transfilm, Inc., took a nine-room apartment; and in May 6 the following year actress Ethel Barrymore moved into the former duplex apartment of the recently deceased Alice Duer Miller.

Stage and screen star Ethel Barrymore was theatrical royalty.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

In 1953 film star Greta Garbo took a fifth floor apartment.  The now-retired actress decorated her home in her personal style, including having an antique Swedish skåp (a painted armoire) dismantled and installed as wall panels in a bedroom.  She personally designed several of the colorful rugs.

The pine paneling in this section of the Garbo apartment matched that of the Miller apartment's library.  photo via 6sqft.com

Already living in the building were some of Garbo's friends, like George Schlee and his fashion designer wife Valentina, and Sir William Stephenson.  Other residents at the time included Clare Boothe and Henry Luce (founder of TIME magazine), H. J. Heinz and his wife (whose apartment had twenty-one rooms), Drue, Rex Harrison, publisher Walter Thayer, and actress Mary Martin.

Garbo installed panels from an antique Swedish armoire on the walls of a guest room.  photo via 6sqft.com

Valentina Schlee designed Garbor's wardrobe and by the mid-1940's George Schlee was her financial adviser.  The trio would sometimes attend social events together; but little-by-little Greta's and George's relationship deepened.  According to Richard Alleman in his New York: The Movie Lover's Guide, Schlee was "her escort, her confidant, and often her traveling companion."  It came to a head when, while Garbo and Schlee had adjoining suites in the Crillon Hotel in Paris, Schlee suffered a fatal heart attack.

Alleman writes "When Garbo discovered that Schlee was dead, she reportedly ran from the hotel and left Valentina to deal with the messy details...Garbo's irresponsible behavior is said to have so angered Valentina that she made it clear that she didn't want the actress to attend her husband's funeral.  The two remained neighbors at 450 East 52nd Street for years thereafter but reportedly never again exchanged a word."

This unusual portrait of Garbo was taken in 1925 by German-American photographer Arnold Genthe from the collection of the Library of Congress

Garbo died on April 15, 1990 leaving an estate estimated at around $200 million.  Her sole heir was her niece, Gray Gustafson Reisfield.  She and her husband, Dr. Donald Reisfield, used the Beekman Campanile apartment as a pied-à-terre until moving in permanently in 2012.  Following Gray Reisfield's death in 2017 the three-bedroom apartment was put on the market for $5.95 million.  Multiple offers came in and it sold later that year for $8.5 million.

The Beekman Campanile--home over the decades to millionaires, celebrities and a speakeasy--has changed little since the glittering Gatsby Era along the East River when it was first opened.

non-credited photographs by the author
many thanks to film historian John Chalupa for suggesting this post