The Lost Henry H. Cook Mansion - 1 East 78th Street

 

As the turn of the century approached, other structures began rising around the massive Cook mansion.  American Architect and Building News (copyright expired)

Born in 1822 in Cohocton, New York, Henry Harvey Cook was the son of Constant and Maria Whitney Cook.  His self-made father had started life as a blacksmith and farmer, but rose to become a judge, banker (president of the First National Bank of Bath, New York), and railroad contractor.  Cook attended an academy in Canandaigua, New York, then struck out in "mercantile pursuits in Bath [New York], and was highly successful," according to the 1898 Prominent Families of New York.
He married Mary E. McCay and the couple would have four daughters, Maria Louise, Sarah McCay, Frances Howell, and Georgia (known as Georgie) Bruce.  In 1875 Cook moved his family to New York City where he focused on railroads.  He became a director in the Union Pacific, the New York, Lake Erie & Western, and the Buffalo, New York & Erie Railroads.

Henry Harvey Cook, from the Library & Archives, Canada, Pennsylvania

The Cook family moved into a comfortable mansion at 8 West 53rd Street, just off Fifth Avenue in the neighborhood sometimes referred to as Millionaires' Row.  But (possibly before almost anyone else) Henry Cook recognized that inch-by-inch commerce was moving up Fifth Avenue.  In June 1879--years before mansions would begin rising so far north--he purchased the entire block from Fifth Avenue to Madison, and from 78th to 79th Street from Don, Barlow & Co.  The Record & Guide reported the selling price as $575,000--about $15.2 million today.

It was not until July 1881 that architect William Wheeler Smith filed plans for the new Cook mansion on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 78th Street.  He projected construction costs at the equivalent of just over $5 million in today's money.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Construction of the mansion, which engulfed six building lots, took two years to complete.  Smith had produced a massive Second Empire style palace--its three colors of granite, blue, red and white, creating striking visual interest.  Surrounded on two sides by gardens behind a stone fence, the mansion's entrance was located at 1 East 78th Street.  The three principal floors were capped by a steep two-story hipped roof. 

The New-York Tribune praised the mansion, saying it "is considered by many architects to be one of the best types of architecture in dwelling houses."  Not everyone was as pleased.  Writing in the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, a critic said the shear mass of the house made it "respectable in spite of its monotony and the irrationality of its detail."

Cook's purchase of the entire block was far-sighted and calculated.  With sublime patience he waited for millionaire buyers to migrate north, as he knew they eventually would.  By owning the block on which his own mansion sat, he could pick and choose his neighbors.  And he had restrictive codicils written into the deeds, the New-York Tribune later saying, "Mr. Cook exercised no little discrimination, only selling property to those who agreed to build high class dwelling houses on their lots...By these methods it became a certainty that the class of dwelling houses to be built on the block would not be equalled [sic] by a similar type of house in any other block in this city."

By the time the family moved in only Georgie was unmarried.  But that would change on February 4, 1891 when the mansion was the scene of her wedding.  The Buffalo Courier reported, "Miss Georgia Bruce Cooke [sic], daughter of Henry H. Cooke [sic] of New York City, was married...to Carlos Manuel de Heredia, son of Leoncio Gabriel de Heredia of Paris, France."  The article added, "The groom belongs to an old and distinguished Spanish family."  Upon their return from their wedding trip the newlyweds moved into 1 East 78th Street.

The Cook family had always summered in Lenox, Massachusetts.  Cook's first estate there had burned to the ground in the winter of 1843.  In 1893 Henry began construction on a new summer mansion on his 380-acre estate, Wheatleigh.  Designed by Peabody & Stearns and completed in 1894, the New-York Tribune described it as "an Italian villa, one of the largest and handsomest country places in Lenox."  (It is routinely, and erroneously, described as a wedding present for Georgie and Carlos.)

Wheatleigh was a sprawling, 33-room mansion.  As with their 5th Avenue mansion, Mary and Henry shared it with the De Heredias.  original source unknown

The end of the Cooks' self-imposed isolation from society began to end in 1895 when Cook sold the first of his plots.  Two years later, in reporting that Isaac Dudley Fletcher had purchased the  northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 79th Street, the Buffalo Evening News noted that Cook's "plans for an entire city block of exclusive residences, each one owned by its occupant, are in a fair way of success."  The sumptuous mansions of Stuyvesant Fish, Edmund C. Converse, and Frederick Gebhard were already completed or being constructed.

In 1902, The Sun would comment, "Mr. Cook was the owner many years ago of a tract known to old citizens as 'Cook's cow pasture.'  The tract is now the site of several of the finest residences in Fifth avenue."

In the meantime, the Cooks and the De Heredias were socially inseparable.  They summered together in Wheatleigh and co-hosted entertainments in the Fifth Avenue house.  On January 28, 1898, for instance, The New York Times reported, "A musical affair of widespread social interest yesterday was the afternoon reception given by Mrs. Henry H. Cook and Mr. and Mrs. Carlos M. de Heredia, her son-in-law and daughter, in Mrs. Cook's big Fifth Avenue residence at Seventy-eighth Street."  (Among those on the impressive guest list that afternoon were the John Sloanes and the William Sloanes, the Frederick W. Vanderbilts, the Anson Phelps-Stokes, and the Charles Laniers.)   And on January 28, 1900 the newspaper announced, "Mrs. Henry H. Cook and her daughter, Mme. de Heredia, will give the first of two 'at homes' at their residence, 1 East Seventy-eighth Street."

Georgie's carelessness prompted an incident of amateur sleuthing on the part of a well-heeled attorney in the winter of 1898.  The Sun reported on February 12, "Mrs. Carlos M. De Heredia of 1 East Seventy-eighth street went shopping on Friday of last week and left her purse in her carriage in front of 21 West Twenty-third street.  The purse contained $20 in money, a gold chain, and a pencil studded with sapphires and diamonds.  When she got back to the carriage, the purse was gone."

As it happened, lawyer H. O. Swain glanced out the office of a friend in that same building and noticed two men open the carriage door and grab something.  He rushed to the street, but the men were gone.  A week later, he was back at the friend's office and, once again, he saw the same men remove a bundle from a carriage.

"Without waiting to explain to his friend, Swain hurried to the street, but the men were nowhere in sight," reported The Sun.  He found them on the corner of Fifth Avenue and followed them.  At 29th Street Swain saw Policeman Perego and explained what he had just seen.

"Well, I'll grab one of them," said the officer, "and you take the other fellow."

The attorney had now become not only an amateur detective, but an unofficial deputy.  Officer Perego got his man almost immediately, but Swain, who was perhaps less in shape, had to run five blocks before overtaking his captive.

The Cook mansion was the scene of the De Heredia's opulent tenth anniversary celebration on February 4, 1901.  The New York Herald reported that the couple "observed the anniversary by giving a reception, followed by a vaudeville performance, a supper and informal dance."  The article said, "Mrs. de Heredia...received her guests in the grand hall, just at the entrance to the drawing room.  There was a plentiful display of spring flowers and palms in the different rooms and hallway.  The guests filled the drawing room and overflowed into the hallway."

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

The New York Press added, "The big drawing room was converted into a theatre with a stage fitted with footlights and other accessories...The floral decorations were handsome, and friends remembered the host and hostess with grotesque trifles of tin."

The Cooks and De Heredias were at Wheatleigh on July 11, 1902 when Mary died at the age of 75.  Newspaper reports that her death came "suddenly" suggest a heart attack.   The funeral was held in Lenox after which a special train was hired to take the family and Mary's body to Woodlawn Cemetery.

On May 1, 1903 The Sun reported that St. Thomas's Episcopal Church "is to have a new $25,000 organ," donated by Henry H. Cook.  "The organ is to be a memorial to Mr. Cook's wife, who died about a year ago," said the article.

Henry's health had begun to fail shortly after Mary's death.  The New-York Tribune commented on his condition during the summer season of 1905 saying he "had been very feeble."  It was most likely Henry's illness that delayed the family's returning to New York that year.  They were still at Wheatleigh in October when pneumonia set in.  He died there on October 10 at the age of 83.  As had been the case with Mary, his funeral was held in Trinity Church in Lenox and a special train transported the casket and the family to Woodlawn.

Cook's will left a total of $90,000 to charities, including $50,000 to St. Thomas's Church (about $1.5 million today).   The Metropolitan Museum of Art received much of the substantial Cook collection of paintings and sculpture.

The four daughters each received an income of $15,000 per year for six years and after that $2.5 million in cash.  "Each is to receive $10,000 in cash in addition to other bequests, and their husbands and children have also been liberally provided for under Mr. Cook's will," reported The New York Times.  Georgie also inherited Wheatleigh.  The article noted, "The executors are empowered to sell the Cook home at 1 East Seventy-eighth Street in case they are unable to rent it."

On July 23, 1907 The New York Times reported that tobacco tycoon James B. Duke had married the beautiful Southern widow, Nanaline Holt Inman.  The newspaper noted that the groom had purchased the Henry H. Cook mansion for $1.6 million “as a present for his bride.”  It went on to say “it stands on one of the most exclusive blocks in the city, and the Dukes’ near neighbors will be Payne Whitney, H. H. Rogers, and Stuyvesant Fish.”

Negotiations for the property stalled, however, but finally in August 1909 Duke finalized the purchase for $1.25 million--more than $36 million today.  Although he initially hired C. P. H. Gilbert to remodel the hulking mansion; he soon changed his mind.  Instead he commissioned Philadelphia-based architect Horace Trumbauer to design a replacement house.  

The exquisite and costly interiors of the Cook mansion were ripped out and resold.  The oak paneling that had cost Cook $55 per section was sold off at $3 each.  An Italian fireplace and mantel sold for $300.  Cook had paid $15,000 for it.  The contractor paid to demolish the structure called it, according to architectural historian John Tauranac, “the best-built house ever torn down in New York City.”

photograph by the author

Trumbauer's magnificent Italian Renaissance Duke mansion survives on the site today.

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The Lost Grace Reformed Church - 7th Avenue and 54th Street

Ivy clings to the brick facade below a  curious one-sided structure that suggested a bell tower, but had no real purpose.  photograph by Robert L. Bracklow, from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

Founded in 1628, the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church was the oldest religious sect in Manhattan.  As the city and its population grew, new congregations were organized and new church edifices erected each one inching further northward.

The Civil War interrupted development in New York City, but it returned with a flurry immediately afterward.  In 1869, the same year the cornerstone was laid for the impressive St. Nicholas Church on Fifth Avenue and 48th Street, the Collegiate Dutch Church purchased lots on Seventh Avenue and 54th Street for a "mission chapel" of the Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue and 29th Street.

The subsequent Seventh Avenue Chapel, as it was called, was later described by the Year Book of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, as a "commodious edifice."  Construction was apparently rapid, for on October 23, 1869 the Street Commissioner ordered "that two gas-lamps be placed in front of the chapel of the Dutch Reformed Church, situated on the corner of Fifty-fourth street, and Seventh avenue."

In 1880 the Collegiate Dutch Church commissioned architect W. Wheeler Smith to enlarge and remodel the building.  A one-story chapel and Sunday school was added, a new roof installed and the facade rebuilt.  The renovations came at a cost of $7,000, just under $175,000 in today's dollars.

Smith put his trademark touches on the building, giving it a blend of Victorian Gothic and Romanesque Revival.   Stone band courses contrasted with the red brick to produce a striped effect, much like those he created on St. Nicholas Church.  The asymmetrical facade, the tall hip roof pierced by tiny dormers, and the inexplicable wafer-thin corner tower  resulted in an architecturally eccentric house of worship.

In 1885 the expenses of maintaining the chapel were weighing heavily on its mother church.  The Executive Committee complained "the chapel at Seventh Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street took all our resources of time and money."  On October 21 that year The New York Times reported on the annual meeting of the Classis of the Dutch Reformed Church.   The first item on the agenda was the reading of "a communication from the Mission Chapel of the Collegiate Church, asking that it be organized as a regular church."

The group promptly agreed to the reorganization, "which will take place on Nov. 15."  The Classis met in the Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue and 29th Street the following month.  It was formally announced that the chapel was now an independent entity--Grace Reformed Church--and that the Rev. Joseph R. Rankin Duryee had been chosen as its pastor.   It was an expected and logical decision.  Since his ordination in 1879 Duryee had been the chapel's preacher.

The pastor's salary was placed at $2,500--about $65,800 a year today.   The Marble Collegiate Church was not totally off the hook financially, however.  It was pledged to contribute $2,000 a year for six years to the maintenance of the new church.

Rev. Joseph Rankin Duryee - The University Magazine, September 1890 (copyright expired) 

The 32-year old Duryee had graduated from Rutgers College in 1874 before his ordination from the Seminary of the Reformed Church at New Brunswick.  In 1882 had married Margaret E. Sloan in a fashionable ceremony attended by some of New York society's most recognized names, including Mr. and Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey M. Depew, the Cornelius Vanderbilts, and the Jay Goulds.

It was Margaret's personal fortune that allowed the family to enjoy an upscale lifestyle.  They lived in a comfortable Murray Hill home and maintained a summer estate, Wyndune, at Garrison-on-the-Hudson.

As the 19th century drew to a close changes in the general neighborhood caused alarm to many righteous residents.   In 1890 John Griffith operated the Sixth Avenue Hotel on Sixth Avenue at the corner of 44th Street.  When his liquor license came up for renewal, a flurry of protests were raised at the Board of Excise meeting on June 4.  The shocking testimonies prompted The New York Times to run the headline: "A BAD AND WICKED PLACE" the following day.

One week later more evidence was being heard and this time Rev. Duryee took the stand.  The Sun reported on June 13 "The Rev. Dr. Joseph R. Duryea [sic] of Grace Reformed Church...testified that his pastoral duties had brought him in contact with several young women who had been ruined in the hotel.  Some of them were dead."

That summer, while most congregants were away from the city, Grace Reformed Church underwent a "thorough renovation and much artistic decoration," as described by The Times on October 12.  The newspaper noted "this church has always been very cozy and, since the addition of the chapel, quite complete.  The recent decorations add to the brightness of the place, and the congregation enters upon the season with good reason for encouragement and the best of spirits."  The article noted that within the past five years the membership had quadrupled.

Churches often hosted educational lectures and Grace Reformed Church was no different.  On February 14, 1890, for instance, an "illustrated lecture on 'The Land of the Greeks'" was given by W. L. Cushing.  But perhaps no speaker garnered more attention that did Elizabeth Bacon Custer the following year.

On November 6 the widow of General George Custer gave her first public appearance, speaking on her latest book, Life on the Western Plains.  The New York Times reported "The applause and laughter of the audience showed the interest of her subject and the skill with which she handled it."

Among the items Mrs. Custer spoke about was the love of a cavalry soldier for his horse, the arrangement of buildings within military posts, and the dangers wives faced on the frontier.

"At our last post," she said, "none of the ladies went outside the post limits without an escort for three years.  It was hard to believe that the bluffs that looked so inviting were filled with Indians, lying behind sage and cactus, bent upon mischief.  When we all went out for a picnic one day an entire troop of cavalry, completely armed, accompanied us.  We were so accustomed to it then that we though nothing of it, and it is only since I have been living in the States that it has occurred to me that perhaps nobody but military women ever went on merrymaking excursions in such a manner."

from Nickerson's Illustrated Church, Musical and School Directory, (copyright expired)

Rev. Duryee officiated at many funerals, of course.  But it was an especially emotional service on April 21, 1906--that of his wife, Margaret.   By now the couple's four children--Marjorie, Maria La Grange, Elisabeth Sloan, and Samuel Sloan--were nearly grown.

Marjorie would be the first to wed.  She married Rev. Elmer Orlando Weld, assistant pastor of Brooklyn's Grace Church in November 1911.  They put off their wedding trip until May the following year.  Then devastating news arrived from London on June 17, 1912.

The Sloan family had been highly involved in the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company for decades.  Marjorie visited the firm's London office that morning, and waited for her husband there.  Weld was running late and at around 11:00 headed across busy Cockspur Street.  A telegraph explained that in dodging a taxicab, he did not see a motorbus coming around the corner.  "He was struck by the side of the omnibus and thrown on the asphalted street."  Weld was dead by the time he was taken to Charing Cross Hospital.

Happier times for the minister came eight months later when he announced that both Maria and Elisabeth were engaged.   The Times reported on July 6, 1913 that "The wedding of the two sisters will be celebrated at the same hour at the Summer home of their father in the early Autumn."

The idea of a double ceremony may have seemed a good idea for the sisters at the time, but as the date neared, they changed their minds.   Elisabeth was married in Wyndune on August 26 and her sister was married there about five weeks later, on October 2.  Their father, of course, officiated.

Samuel Sloan Duryee was a captain in the U.S. Army when the United States entered World War I in April 1917.  The conflict may have hastened his own wedding plans and he was married to Mary Ballard in Maine on August 20 that year.  Again, Rev. Duyree officiated.

One wedding he could not officiate was his own.  After being widowed for 14 years and with his children now gone, he married Mabel Dunham Thurber in 1920.  Concurrently, he resigned from the church he had served since 1879.

Whether Duryee's retirement was the catalyst is uncertain; but the same year that the only pastor the church had ever known stepped down, the Dutch Reformed Church closed its doors.  After it sat empty for nearly two years, The New York Herald reported on March 2, 1922 the Reformed Protestant Church had sold the property for $450,000.  The article noted "The Grace Reformed Church was abandoned as a place of worship in 1920."

Seven months later The New York Times offered more details.  Builder Marcus Brown, it said, had purchased the site "for a fourteen-story apartment house" and added "The undertaking, which will involve a total outlay of $1,500,000, will be started immediately."

The replacement building, known as The Congress today, survives.

W. Wheeler Smith's 1882 No. 361 Broadway

The massive cast iron structure stretches far down Franklin Street -- photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

In 1837 merchant Peter Crary lived in his comfortable home at No. 361 Broadway, at the corner of Franklin Street.  But the tide of change was rapidly moving north from Lower Manhattan and would soon engulf Crary’s residential neighborhood.  Only five years later Adam Stodart operated his business from the address, and it appears the three-story house had been replaced by a modest commercial building.  His “pianoforte salesroom” offered “Soldart, Worcester & Dunham” pianos to New York homeowners.

Within the decade almost all of the Federal-style brick homes had been replaced by looming stone or cast iron loft buildings.  On November 1, 1852 Gleason’s Pictorial was staggered by the rapid transformation.  “The entire length of Broadway seems to have been measured for a new suit of marble and freestone—six and seven story buildings going up on its whole length, of most magnificent elegance in style.” 

One of the last loft and retail structures to be erected would be No. 361 Broadway on land owned by the White family.  As the tall buildings that so impressed Gleason’s Pictorial rose around it, a dry goods merchant still operated here.  On April 28, 1857 Bulpin enticed feminine shoppers with an advertisement promising “Five cases of mantillas, decidedly new in style, in texture, form and color, not to be seen at any other house, will be opened this week.”

Then in 1881 James L. White commissioned architect W. Wheeler Smith to design a commercial structure that would steal the spotlight from most of the surrounding structures.  Although cast iron architecture was, by now, quite common in the area, it was an unusual choice for Smith.  Nevertheless, he handled the project like a master and No. 361 Broadway, completed a year later, was nearly unique.

Cast iron facades were popular because highly-ornate designs could be produced quickly and relatively inexpensively.  They were also widely touted for their fireproof attributes.  For many of their cast iron loft and retail buildings architects simply chose elements from foundry catalogs.  W. Wheeler Smith was a bit more creative.

Simple fluting distinguishes the third floor columns; contrasted by swirling vines above -- photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

He designed the pilasters and columns of the six-story building so that each floor was slightly different.  Below the mid-height bands that wrapped the columns he spun vines.  Those on the street level bore berries and on the different levels the vines spiraled either left or right.  To add to the visual interest, the vines were omitted from the third and sixth floors in favor of fluting.  The Corinthian-capped pilasters, too, were slightly different from floor to floor.

The gigantic building—it was six bays wide on Broadway and stretched a full 16 bays down Franklin Street--opened in 1882.  Although the expected apparel firms did move in—Morris Kerstein was manufacturing ladies’ garments here in 1886—the address would soon be better known for its publishing offices.

A sidewalk bridge obscures the ground floor in 2014 -- photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

In 1845 Rufus M. Porter began publishing a new weekly called the Scientific American.  Porter was a man of many talents and interests.  He was a portrait and mural painter, author, and inventor.  His magazine focused on new inventions and patents, provided illustrations and updated readers on “the most interesting news of passing events, general notices of progress of Mechanical and other Scientific Improvements; American and Foreign.”

Ten months after printing the first issue in 1845, Porter sold the weekly to Orson Desaix Munn and Alfred Ely Beach.   The partners formed Munn & Co., Inc., publishers, and established The Scientific American in the New York Sun Building at Fulton and Nassau Streets.  Their first issue from here was printed on July 23, 1846. 

Munn & Co. would make two more moves before establishing its offices in No. 361 Broadway.  In 1886 the publishers described The Scientific American not only as a source of information on scientific and mechanical advances, discoveries and improvements; but as a means of self-improvement:

“It tends to improve the mind; encourages to self-exertion, activity, and development; furnishes hundreds of useful suggestions for business, and for simple, light, and profitable occupations.  It promotes Industry, Progress, Thrift, and Intelligence in every community where it circulates.”

The building was also home to the Freeman Print Works, known not only for printing fabrics but for its high-quality globes, maps and atlases.  In February 1891 the company was embarrassed by financial troubles; however its Boston manager put a positive spin on things, saying he believed “that the works will come out all right financially.”  On February 26 Levi L. Brown, President of the New York office assured reporters “that the company’s trouble was only temporary.”

Another publisher, the American Photographic Publishing Company, published the American Photography magazine from the building in the first years of the 20^th century. 

Although widely known for its publishing tenants, specifically Munn & Co. and its Scientific American; the building continued to lease to fabric and apparel companies.  One of the largest was A. G. Hyde & Sons.  The firm dealt in cotton goods but was more well-known for its creative alternatives to high-priced silk.  Marketed as “Hydegrade” and “Heatherbloom,” the taffeta fabrics were touted as costing a quarter as much as silk and available in 150 shades.

A. G. Hyde & Sons' Heatherbloom was promised to have "silk lustre and 'swish'" -- New-York Tribune, January 21, 1906 (copyright expired)

The successful business garnered the Hydes a substantial fortune.  President Seymour J. Hyde and his family lived at No. 375 Park Avenue and maintained an extensive country estate in Greenwich, Connecticut.  It was there, on January 31, 1915 that Seymour Hyde suffered a fatal fall from his horse.

In the meantime, the publishing offices of American Homes and Gardens magazine had moved into the building by 1913.  But the days of major publishing at No. 361 Broadway were coming to a close.  When the new Woolworth Building opened its doors in 1915 Scientific American was one of its first tenants.

Close inspection, nearly imperceptible from the street, reveals tiny differences in the oblong capitals -- photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

Throughout the first half of the 20^th century the building saw a variety of tenants—the Tide Water Oil Sales Corp. in 1919; Fred Butterfield & Co., Inc. in 1920, dealers in “organdies, ribbons and ribbons specialties, poplins, silk dress goods, mohairs, and alpacas;" and in 1943 a whopping 9,100 square feet would be taken by the Hospital Uniform Company and the Melrose Manufacturing Company.

Later, as the Tribeca area suffered neglect the building was home to a mish-mash of small businesses.  In the February 1970 issue of Popular Mechanics one business placed no fewer than three advertisements seeking agents for low-end merchandise.  One read “Make Extra Money—show friends, neighbors, All Occasion Assortments, Easter, Stationery, Wrappings, Gifts, Toys, Jewelry.  No Experience unnecessary.” 

photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

Then in 2010, as Tribeca emerged as one of Manhattan’s trendiest, most expensive neighborhoods, W. Wheeler Smith’s remarkable No. 361 Broadway was restored and converted to a school on the upper floors and retail space at sidewalk level.  Currently, in 2014, it is undergoing conversion to 13 enormous condominium residences.  Entirely intact, the extraordinary design and detail command attention as they did when the building opened in 1882.