The Once Controversial Dante Memorial - 63rd and Broadway

In 1911 the annually-updated encyclopedia Americana noted that "The Sicilian sculptor, Ettore Ximenes" was working on a New York City monument.  "It represents Dante, the great Italian poet, and is cost has been met by private subscription among the Italian colony in New York."

The report sounded benign eough.  But a decade-long furor was about to be unleashed.

The project had been initiated by Carlo Barsotti, editor of the Italian-language newspaper Progresso Italo-Americano (better known as Il Progresso).  Barsotti was seemingly indefatigable when it came to erecting New York City monuments to his countrymen.  He was behind critically maligned statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi in Washington Square, erected in 1888; the Christopher Columbus monument in Columbus Circle four years later; the 1906 monument to composer Giuseppe Verdi in Verdi Square; and the Giovanni da Verrazano, dedicated in 1909.

The Verrazano monument had barely been unveiled before Barsotti was at work again.  On September 25, 1910 The Sun reported "the Italians of New York, who already have given to the city four monuments to their famous countrymen, are contemplating the erection of a monument to Dante Alighieri."  The article said that $8,000 of the estimated $20,000 cost had been received.

The proposed monument would stand 50 feet high and include complex marble groupings.  Americana explained that it "will consist of an obelisk surmounted by the national star of Italy, and adorned with the Roman eagle in bronze.  A life-size statue of Dante stands on the pedestal under the obelisk, supported by two female figures representing Language and Culture, which stand on opposite sides of the coat-of-arms of the City of Florence."

Three intricate groupings representing scenes from Dante's Divine Comedy--Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise--would adorn the sides and back.  Americana projected "This elaborate work will probably be unveiled in New York City sometime during the summer of 1911."

That was not going to happen.

For one thing, Barsotti had forged ahead with the project assuming he would have the blessings of the Mayor, the Parks Commissioners and the Municipal Art Commission.  He had also assumed that members of the Italian community, many of them with little cash to spare, would happily continue to fund his unceasing monument building.  Both of his assumptions would cause significant problems.

On July 30, 1911 The Sun reported "At least part of the Italian community in New York is opposed to giving any more monuments to the city until the community has raised money for a hospital or two or a school or other kind of institution that will uplift some of the crowds of Italians that they are sure need helping in the worst kind of way here now."

Additionally, the four other Italian-language newspapers accused Barsotti of seeking "personal glory."  An editorial in the Italian Journal said in part "We do not need more monuments.  We are constantly hearing in America of the numbers of criminals in the Italian community.  We constantly see the number of poor among us.  We need to avoid this charge of becoming a burden upon the State and we can't do it by monuments, but by schools and hospitals."

Frank l. Frugone, editor of the Bolletinno Della Sera, said "this monument craze was entirely the wrong lead for the Italians in New York...and it is time that it should be stopped."  He sent a letter to Mayor William J. Gaynor insisting that the majority of New York Italians were opposed to the Dante memorial and that "there is too much personal and newspaper aggrandizement in the scheme."

When newspapers in Rome took up the cause against the memorial, Carlo Barsotti counter-attacked.  On January 21, 1912 the Virginia newspaper the Times Dispatch reported he had sued "several Roman newspapers for alleged libelous statements in connection with the erection of the Dante statue."

Despite the turmoil, Barsotti ordered the massive monument shipped, fully aware that the City had not provided a site for it.   A special cable from Naples on May 11, 1912 to The Sun read: "The Dante monument which is to be erected in one of the New York city parks was shipped to New York to-day on the steamer Moltke."  The newspaper added, however, that the memorial "has been the cause of much dissatisfaction among a large part of the Italian population in New York" and that "Commissioner Stover has refused to grant a site for the Dante monument until he sees the statue."

The Dante memorial arrived in Hoboken with no place to go.  On June 1, 1912 the New-York Tribune ran the headline "Dante In Inferno Here / Poet's Statue Ingloriously Scattered About Piers."  Parks Commissioner Charles B. Stover refused to grant a site, saying "I have not been convinced that the Italians as a whole want this monument.  In fact, the Italian government will not participate in its erection  in any way, and when you come to think that Dante was the greatest Italian of all items, and the government does not care to take part in the unveiling of a monument to him, it is best to consider the reasons why."

Things only got worse when, on July 3, 1912, the Municipal Art Commission announced that the monument "had been rejected because of its architectural defects."   It was not Ximenes's bronze figure that offended the committee (which included esteemed artist Robert W. De Forest and sculptors John Quincy Adams Ward and Carl Bitter), but his overblown marble base.  The Sun reported "No reflection was made upon the Dante statue, but it was said that the assembling of statue, pedestal, shaft and the architectural work generally was not acceptable."

Undaunted, the monument's supporters tossed ideas around for highly visible sites.  The New-York Tribune included among them, "Bryant Park, the Mall in Central Park, the 59th street and Fifth avenue plaza and Long Acre Square [later renamed Times Square]."

Four months later the 232 crates still gathered dust and storage fees in New Jersey.  Sculptor Ettore Ximenes arrived in New York to fix things.  The New-York Tribune reported on September 22, 1912, "The sculptor has brought with him from Europe a plaster model of the monument and this, he declared, would give the commission a far better idea than did the photographs."

Ximenes declared the split among New York Italians over the monument "deplorable" and said that not only the Italians, "but all persons, should be as one in the rearing of a monument to Dante."

Despite the sculptor's optimism that he could clear up the conflict, the project remained stalled.   The Municpal Arts Commission insisted that he simplify the base.  (The Sun ran a sub-headline saying "Figure Declared Unfit for Polite Park Society Unless Revised.")  Ximenes did not agree.

The Sun seemed to delight in reporting on April 6, 1913, "Dante in marble has been reposing on a pier of the Hamburg-American Line in the barbaric town of Hoboken, judged from the standard of the sculptor of the unhappy Italian poet, for one fretful year."  The article reported that the Hamburg Pier had lost patience and insisted that the crates on its several piers be moved.

They were brought to Manhattan and put in storage "in the Ninety-seventh street yards in Central Park," according to The Washington Times, which added "Things are, indeed, breaking badly for Dante.  And from all indications there is no telling when they will do otherwise."

Although Ximenes finally conceded to rework his plans as demanded by the Municipal Art Commission; Former Parks Commissioner Stover was still adamant that the monument would never be erected.  The Washington Times wrote "'Let the plans come,' he said. 'There are fully 10,000 Italians who do not want that monument erected in New York.  We are waiting for Mr. Barsotti to try to erect it.  Then we will go to Mayor Mitchel, to the Art Commission and park commissioner to have it stopped."

And, sure enough, the monument was stopped.  The crates sat forgotten by almost everyone but Carlo Barsotti and Ettore Ximenes.  Then, on February 20, 1921, nearly a decade after the monument arrived in America, The New York Herald reported that in a meeting in Rome, that city's mayor, Luigi Rava, and Ettore Ximenes had "urged the raising of a Dante monument in New York" and said "It was suggested that the present year would be suitable for the occasion as it is the six hundredth anniversary of Dante's death."

The City, seemingly begrudgingly, agreed.  But the over-zealous marble base was still deemed unacceptable.  The architectural firm of Warren & Wetmore was commissioned to design a simple stone pedestal.  The sole survivor from Ximenes's base design would be a single bronze garland announcing the poet's name.

The unveiling took place on November 5, 1921 in the little triangle called Empire Park at 63rd Street and Broadway.  It was an anti-climatic victory, largely ignored by newspapers.  There were no prominent articles on the ceremonies. 

The greatly scaled-down monument was dedicated with little notice.  Behind it sits the Hotel Empire, since demolished.  To the right is the 9th Avenue El.  photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Two weeks later, on November 29, The Committee on Public Thoroughfares resolved to change the name of the site to Dante Park.

Incidentally, Carlo Barsotti got revenge of sorts when he personally presented a second, identical casting of the statue to Washington DC on December 1 (it, too, had a simple stone base).  That ceremony was attended by President and Mrs. Harding.

Ettore Ximenes's marble sculptures remained crated and forgotten in the Central Park storeyard until, as described by The New York Times, they were "rescued from twenty years of oblivion."  The statues of angels and mortals were discovered by W. Earle Andrews, general superintendent of the Parks Department in 1934 "under a pile of scrap iron in the Ninety-seventh Street storeyard."

The statuary was resurrected and lined up in Central Park awaiting placement in various parks and playgrounds.  Then in the spring of the following year vandals attacked.  On March 21, 1935 The New York Times reported "Nine figures had been beheaded, and their heads lay yesterday in a neat row which also included parts of arms, broken wings, and anything, in fact, that had protruded sufficiently to be broken off."

While the president of the Art Commission, I. N. Phelps Stokes, lamented the vandalism, saying the sculpture was "a good piece of work by a capable artist;" Karl Gruppe, chief sculptor of the WPA's Monument Restoration Project, added to the insults of 1912.  The Times reported "He said it was of 'poor design' and should have been condemned and destroyed anyway.  In his opinion the work of the vandals merely had saved the Park Department some trouble and perhaps controversy."

The disgrace and controversy of Ettore Ximenes's noble (if somewhat sinister appearing) bronze figure of Dante faded.  In 1992 it was conserved and restored by the Radisson Empire Hotel; and again refurbished by the City Parks Foundation Monuments Conservation Program in 2001.

photographs by the author

"Transportation" -- the Grand Central Terminal Clock Group

photo by Mj

On February 1, 1913 Warren & Wetmore's magnificent, $35 million Grand Central Terminal was completed.  Almost.

Included in the architects' design was a monumental sculptural grouping and clock.  Rising above the uppermost cornice, it would serve as the crowning touch to the sumptuous structure.

A postcard, depicting the proposed terminal, made a stab in the dark at the possible clock and sculpture. 

Paris sculptor Jules-Felix Coutan had won the commission for the group.  Coutan was well-chosen for the Beaux-Arts style work.  He had recently completed the sculpture France of the Renaissance for the exuberant Alexander III Bridge in Paris.

When the new Grand Central opened, Coutan was still at work in his Paris studio on the group entitled Transportation.  His finished model, one-quarter sized, finally arrived at the stone yards of William Bradley & Son in Long Island City over a year later, in May 1914.  There the architectural sculpture firm of John Donnelly set to work recreating the limestone figures in full size.  Among the firm's sculptors working on the project was Oliver N. Burdett, whose work also appears on significant buildings like the Morgan Library and New York Public Library.

The massive scale of the grouping, touted by The New York Times on June 14, 1914 as "World's Largest Sculpture Group," required the work to be completed in sections and pieced together.  The article explained "The group...is constructed like the front of a building; that is, it is built up in continuous layers of stone cemented together."

The work, 50 feet tall and 60 feet wide, would weigh over 1,000 tons on completion.  Designed to embrace the massive clock--crucial to an early 20th century train station--it was surmounted by a figure of Mercury, messenger of the gods as well as the god of travel, speed and commerce.

To his right reclined the figure of Hercules, who symbolized strength.  Coutan depicted the god with a less-brawny physique than expected.  The Times noted he "is surrounded by objects familiar in daily life.  Here are the cogwheel, the anchor, the anvil, and the beehive.  Also there are sheaves of wheat, and branches of oak."  Coutan's intention was, apparently, to focus less on Hercules' musculature so as to give him a more commercial and domestic focus.

"If the figure of Hercules is indicative of strength and action, that of Minerva, on the other side of the central figure, typifies thought and study," explained the article.

About two weeks before the group's completion, Walter Roberts of William Bradley & Son described the figures to a New York Times journalist.  Leading him to a huge unworked block of limestone, he said "This is a head for the lady over there, Minerva.  It weighs some fourteen tons.  We hope to get out of it also her curls and ornaments.  And that block of stone coming down the shop on the overhead crane is a little memorandum, a book or scroll, which she may peruse during the rest of her life."

Mercury was being worked on in two sections.  "Up to the waist line we are building him on this side of the shop, and on the other we are taking care of the rest of him."

The Times told its readers "Mercury will stand with right hand extended and holding in his left the magic wand said to exercise influence over living and dead, and to bestow wealth and prosperity."  Behind Mercury, an immense eagle spread its wings, extending its rather threatening head around the god's right leg.

When Grand Central neared completion (and opening) in 1913, Jules-Felix Coutan was still working on the sculpture in Paris.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

John Donnelly and William Bradley & Son completed the monumental task within six weeks of receiving the plaster model.   Installed above the Park Avenue entrance, the figures surmounted a broken pediment which embraced the gigantic Tiffany glass-faced clock.  At 13 feet in diameter it remains the largest example of Tiffany glass in the world.  On either side of the clock, cornucopias spilled sumptuous fruits and grains over the ledge.

Throughout the subsequent decades Transportation became alternatively known as the Glory of Commerce.  This is possibly because of one magazine account which identified Hercules as depicting "moral energy," Minerva as "mental energy," and Mercury as "symbolizing the glory of commerce."

The clock, the sculptures and the building itself were threatened several times in the 20th century.  In 1954 William Zeckendorf hired architect I. M. Pei to design an proposed 80-story structure on the site.  Pei's concept was a somewhat hour-glass shaped skyscraper.  And although in 1963 the Pan Am Building replaced the six-story Terminal office building; the main structure survived.

Grand Central was blackened with dirt by the second half of the century.  photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was highly instrumental in thwarting Penn Central's 1968 plans to erect an office tower on top of Grand Central.  Among her arguments, she said "Is it not cruel to let our city die by degrees, stripped of all her proud monuments, until there will be nothing left of all her history and beauty to inspire our children?"

Grand Central was designated a New York City monument, saving the building.  In 1992 a complete restoration of the soot-blackened building was initiated.  Included in the 12-year project was the dismantling and restoration of the Tiffany Glass clock by Rohlf's Stained & Leaded Glass of Mount Vernon, New York.

photo copyright Bo Zaunders via http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2271436/Grand-Central-Stations-100th-anniversary-A-palace-Manhattan.html

The studio replicated damaged or missing pieces, cleaned the existing elements, and reinstalled the restored clock face.  Today, as it was in 1914, the monumental sculptural group and clock are the focal point of one of Manhattan's most recognizable landmarks.

The Sidney Ripley Mansion -- No. 16 East 79th Street

Before Henry H. Cook erected his massive stone mansion on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 78th Street, he took steps to assure the exclusivity of the neighborhood.   He purchased bought the entire block from Fifth Avenue to Madison Avenue, 78th to 79th Street; and then slowly and methodically sold off the plots of what became known as “the Cook Block” with the codicil that only high-end, single-family homes could be built on the site.

In 1912 The New York Times would recall “Not only, according to his idea, was the block to be used for private homes forever, but the new houses were all required to be of a certain type of construction, and he would not sell to any one who was not able to or willing to improve his plot in splendid style.”

By the turn of the century Manhattan’s millionaires had reached the Cook Block.  In 1901 Sidney Dillon Ripley, treasurer and director of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, commissioned Warren & Wetmore to design a 35-foot wide mansion at No. 16 East 79th Street.  It was the first step in what would be a very long and possibly frustrating process.

On January 11, 1902 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide mentioned that the foundations were under way.   More than two years later on February 13, 1904--at a time when substantial construction projects were often completed within 12 months—the Guide noted that the house was still under construction.   By July the interior trim was being installed; and finally on November 26, 1904 the mansion was completed.

In 1908 when Wurts Bros. shot this photograph, the foundation was being dug for the J. Woodward Haven mansion at No. 18.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Warren & Wetmore had designed a five-story brick-and-limestone urban home reminiscent of 18th century London.  The neo-Georgian design featured a rusticated limestone base and columned portico above a two-step porch.  The red brick of the upper floors formed a canvas for the white stone window enframements and cornices, and bandcourses.  A dignified Georgian balustrade crowned the cornice, upon which perched four massive stone urns.  It slightly disguised the mansard roof with its copper-clad dormers.

Sidney Ripley had married Mary B. Hyde in 1886.  Mary’s brother, James H. Hyde, was the principal shareholder of the Equitable Assurance Society, where Sidney was now a high-level executive.  The Evening World said of the Ripleys in 1905, “[they] are well known in society.  They have given many entertainments and last year’s coming-out ball for their daughter, Anna, at Sherry’s was the largest of the season.”

Mary Hyde Ripley in 1889, three years after her marriage.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society.

After waiting three years for their new home to be completed, they would not live in it very long.  On the evening of Tuesday, February 21, 1905, just three months after moving in, Ripley noticed a slight pain in his abdomen; but gave it little thought.   But later that night the pain was so intense that the Dr. Joseph A. Blake, was called. 

Blake recognized the problem as appendicitis, but was seriously concerned about his patient’s condition.  He called for Dr. W. T. Bull and they decided an immediate operation was necessary.  The Evening World reported “The physicians were amazed at the rapid advance of the disease, which appeared in a malignant form.”

The long operation in Ripley’s bedroom was completed at around 8:00 the following morning.  Almost immediately the doctors were aware that peritonitis had set in.   Two days later there was little hope.  The New-York Tribune reported that Ripley’s condition was “extremely critical” and that “The crisis is rapidly approaching.”  Sidney Dillon Ripley died in his new home later that afternoon, on February 24, 1905.

Ripley’s standing in New York business and society was evidenced at his funeral at the Church of the Heavenly Rest on February 27.  Not only was the church filled with powerful businessmen and politicians like Peter Cooper Hewitt, Chauncey M. Depew and Elihu Root; but his pallbearers included Oliver Ames, August Belmont, and H. C. Deming.

Mary Ripley left the 79th Street mansion, never to return.  She leased it that year to Charles and Gustavia A. Senff, whose country home was at White Stone, Long Island.  (The New York Times deemed it “one of the finest residences on Long Island Sound.)  Others would lease the mansion over the next few years—like James W. Lane who took it in 1909—but Gustavia Senff would eventually return for good.

Charles Senff was related to the Havemeyer family—the Sugar Kings.  He was a director of the American Sugar Refining Company and, like his relatives, had amassed a fortune.  He died at the Whitestone estate on August 23, 1911 at the age of 74, leaving his widow an estate valued at approximately $11 million.

At the time Mary Hyde Ripley was considering marriage to Charles R. Scott.  It was most likely this that prompted her to sell No. 16 East 79th Street in January 1912.   The sale caught the attention of real estate operators city-wide.  “The price paid for the Ripley dwelling is said to establish a record for the sale of a private residence of that size on a side street,” noted The New York Times on January 24.  The newspaper added “It contains a number of large rooms admirably designed for entertaining.”

The buyer was recently-widowed Gustavia A. Senff.  She paid Mary a staggering $400,000 for the mansion—about $10 million today.  Gustavia would be moving into an exclusive neighborhood.  Her neighbors would include millionaires Stuyvesant Fish, James B. Duke, Isaac D. Fletcher, and J. Woodward Haven.

Gustavia filled No. 16 with the priceless artworks she and Charles had collected.  The paintings ranged from Old Masters to modern masterworks and the Senff collection was well recognized during their lifetimes.

The mansion was the scene of Gustavia Senff’s upscale entertainments; like her occasional hostings of the exclusive Thursday Evening Club.   No hint of scandal or disrepute could be linked to the address until she left New York in 1921 for an extended trip abroad.

On August 16 that year the New York Herald reported that “Mrs. Charles H. Senff…well known in New York society, has joined the list of Americans who have rented historic English houses during temporary residence abroad.”  The article said she had leased Cobham Hall in Kent for the autumn; followed by Invercauld Castle in Scotland.

Gustavia would not return for a year, and in the meantime would be living among history.  The Herald pointed out, for instance, that “several British sovereigns have lived or been entertained” at Cobham Hall.

While she was gone she leased No. 16 to millionaire and mining engineer Edward M. Breitung.  She had barely boarded her steamship when her tenant was arrested on September 21, 1921 following a raid on a tenement house brothel.   “Mr. Breitung was alleged to have been in the apartment of a Mrs. Kifr, at 840 Madison Avenue, with two women when the place was raided by detectives,” advised the New-York Tribune.

Brietung escaped prosecution.  On November 10 the Tribune reported that his case was discharged after the judge, Moses R. Ryttenberg, decided that “only persons deriving remuneration from the violation” were subject to court action.

When Gustavia A. Senff returned to No. 16 so did respectability.  She stayed on until her death in the house on November 15, 1927.

In April 1929 the mansion was purchased by Lewis Nixon, Jr. and his wife, the former Sally Lewis Wood.   Married in 1891, the couple had an adult son, Stanhope Wood Nixon.  Nixon had retired from the United States Navy the year he married Sally; the same year that he designed three battleships—the Oregon, Indiana and the Massachusetts.  He was now the President of the Nixon Nitration Works.

Sally, who included among her ancesters General Andrew Lewis of Colonial Virginia, was a member of the Colonial Dames of America and the Daughters of the American Revolution.

In the fall of 1936 Sally fell ill.  Her condition did not improve and at 10:00 on the night of June 15, 1937 she died in the 79th Street house.

No. 16 continued life as a single-family home until 1956.  That year an interior conversion resulted in doctors’ offices throughout the first four floors, with two apartments on the fifth.  Sadly, at this time the exterior was altered as well.   The elegant portico was removed and the window surrounds drastically reduced, including the loss of their handsome cornices.  Although the lovely Georgian balustrade survived above the cornice, its hefty stone urns were removed.

Among the many doctors who practiced from No. 16 throughout the next decades, none would draw as much attention as Steven Levenkron, a psychotherapist who specialized in eating disorders.  In 1981, began treating pop singer Karen Carpenter who suffered from anorexia.

In 1979 the lower floor of No. 16 was converted to an art gallery, the Saidenberg Gallery, the first in several to be housed in the space.  Today it is home to the Bjorn Ressle Fine Art gallery.

Warren & Wetmore’s once stunning neo-Georgian mansion still hints at its former glory.  And it perhaps makes us wish that landmark laws had been in place a few decades earlier.

photographs by the author

The 1921 Heckscher (Crown) Building - No. 730 Fifth Avenue

In describing Fifth Avenue around 57th Street in 1876, a writer pointed out the newly-built mansion of Adele L. S. Stevens at the southwest corner.  He said that with the exception of Alexander Stewart’s white marble palace, “It is the most expensive house ever built in this city.”  The value of the land alone was $250,000.  By the turn of the century Cornelius Vanderbilt’s mammoth chateau filled the entire block to the north and William C. Whitney was living in the Stevens house.

But times were changing.  In February 1920 The New York Times remembered “At that time the neighborhood of Fifty-seventh Street was called pre-eminently the aristocratic quarter of the city.  It retained that prestige until half a dozen years or so ago, when the upward march of trade invaded Fifty-seventh Street, and now few of its handsome residences remain.”

Among those last few survivals were the Whitney and Vanderbilt mansions.  But while Alice Vanderbilt remained until 1926, the Whitney home had been converted for commercial purposes years earlier.   The end of the line for the Stevens-Whitney mansion was inevitable following its purchase by August Heckscher in 1919.

On February 15, 1920 the New-York Tribune announced “The sensational development planned for the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street by George Backer and August Heckscher will mark a new epoch in the structural and commercial future of Fifth Avenue.  The building is to be thirty stories high and will be a combination of stores, showrooms, offices, apartments and a theater.  At least $8,500,000 is involved in the project.”  The ambitious scheme would include 10 stories of theater, concert and art exhibition space.

August Heckscher had leased the land to Backer; but after Backer disclosed his grand plans, Heckscher purchased a half-interest in the project.  “Heckscher Building is the title selected for the great structure,” reported the Tribune.

The men had commissioned the architectural firm of Warren & Wetmore to design the building, deemed by the Tribune to be “in the modern French Renaissance style.”  Perhaps best known for Grand Central Terminal, completed in 1913, the architects had designed a towering shaft atop the ten-story theater block.  But there were problems.  The 1916 Zoning Resolution provisions mandated set-backs to prevent the blocking of sunlight to the city streets.  Warren & Wetmore were forced to go back to the drawing board.

Warren & Wetmore's original design.  New York Tribune, February 15, 1920 (copyright expired)

On August 15 The New York Times reported that a “radical change” had been made in the Heckscher Building plans.  The entire theater idea was scrapped and the structure’s height, originally 32 stories, was reduced to 25.  The architects now described the style as “Francis I,” which The Times felt “will make the building one of the finest examples of its type in the country.”

“The first nine stories of the main portion of the building and the entire Fifty-sixth Street façade will be built of limestone, the exterior of the remaining walls to be face brick ornamented with terra cotta,” advised the newspaper.

The completed structure was decorated with French Renaissance elements and rose to an imposing chateauesque tower with a pyramidal roof accentuated by ornate dormers and oculi.  Above the crown-like finial a 12-foot gold-plated weathervane in the form of a rooster perched.

The Architectural Forum, October 1921 (copyright expired)

Critic C. Matlack Price commented on the architects’ successful dealing with the new setback laws.  “Conforming to the law, architectural thought has turned the situation to splendid account.”  He compared the “pyramidal profile” to “great Babylonian buildings, with terraces and gardens flaunting themselves hundreds of feet in the air.”  The Architectural Forum agreed.  In October 1921 it wrote “the silhouette of the building is perhaps as attractive as that of any in the city with the exception of the Woolworth Tower.”

The weathervane and the decorative four-story chimney are evident in this photograph.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The advertisements for space in the new building were fashioned as letters from August Heckscher, complete with signature.  One, published in The Evening World on September 27, 1921, ended with a reference to the golden rooster and the change in the neighborhood.  “Le Coq d’Or, which crowns the Heckscher Building, will always stand as the beacon of progress.”

The area had been for several years the center for New York’s high-end interior decorating and art firms.  Several became early tenants in the Heckscher Building.  The first was Warwick House, Ltd., “dealers in tapestries and paintings” which leased the entire 22^nd floor in November 1921.  For years it had done business at No. 45 East 57^th Street.  The New-York Tribune reported they “expect to move into their new home about January 1 after making extensive decorations.”  The newspaper saw the move as significant as “it marks the first step on the part of art and antique dealers to abandoning the customer street level locations in favor of a floor at such height.”

Two eras:  The Heckscher Building looms over the massive Cornelius Vanderbilt mansion.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

Warwick House would be joined by Stroheim & Romann, interior decorators, who took 15,000 square feet at $45,000 a year in January 1922.  On January 15 the New York Herald mentioned that “in light of the fact that Fifth avenue and Fifty-seventh street is firmly ensconced as the center of dealers in objects d’art, antiques and of decorators, the establishment of a new center of the upholstery and decorative trade in the Hecksher Building seems both inevitable and imminent.”

Other tenants included the newly-organized Hamilton National Bank; the Consolidated Cigar Corporation; Mosse, Inc., “retailers of linens, trousseaux and children’s layettes;” which took three floors including basement space; and I. Miller shoes.  In 1923 the newly-founded American Mercury Magazine, edited by George Jean Nathan and H. L. Mencken, took space in the Heckscher Building.

The extremely high rents (Stroheim & Romann was paying the equivalent of $636,000 a year in 2016 dollars) were turned into a marketing tool in Heckscher Building ads.  One in March 1922 touted in part “Just as first water diamonds command a price in excess of paste, just as real Oriental pearls command a price in excess of imitations, so space in the incomparable Heckscher Building…commands a price in excess of other buildings with less value in location, appointments and prestige.”

The advertisement exploited snob appeal, saying “And there is a genuine satisfaction in knowing that your neighbors are automatically restricted, by this item of price, to those who appreciate and value ‘prestige’ in location.”

Unlike the Francois I exterior, the arcade flaunted its modern Art Deco design photo by Byron Company from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

One effect of soaring high above the rooftops of the neighboring structures was unexpected and unwelcome to one tenant.  Novelist Eleanor Gates moved into her glamorous offices overlooking the Plaza and Central Park; but as autumn 1922 neared, she made a disturbing discovery.  A pair of large brown hawks had made their nest “in the plumage of a gilded rooster which tops the tower of the building,” as reported in The Evening World on October 2.

The ceiling of the elevator lobby was arched and stenciled.  photo by Byron Company from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

While New Yorkers today are happily excited to find hawks roosting on their buildings and welcome the flying predators’ thinning of the vermin population; it was not the case with Eleanor Gates.  For months she noticed them returning with Central Park pigeons in their talons.  She had pleaded with the Parks Department to do something about the birds with little success.

“Her hatred against [the male hawk] came to a climax Thursday when she saw it flapping its way to its home with a pigeon in its talons, while a flock of little sparrows flutter about it, even settling on its back, picking between its wings in an effort to help the victim,” reported The Evening World.  “A few minutes later a little cloud of feathers floated past her window.”

An investigation by Parks Department Superintendent Allen Parke, revealed the remains of a carrier pigeon with aluminum bands on its legs.  The Evening World’s somewhat sensational headline read in part “Bird of Prey, Nesting in Gilded Rooster Atop Heckscher Building, Terrorizes Central Park.”

Warren & Wetmore had designed the two-story Fifth Avenue entrance with a blind shell-topped niche flanked by matching leaded glass windows.  The architects apparently never intended the niche to hold a statue.  It was an element that exasperated internationally-known author and art critique Perriton Maxwell.   Complaining to the editor of The New York Times on September 20, 1925, he called New York “a city of empty niches” and said its architects “have left their jobs unfinished.”

The Architectural Forum, October 1921 (copyright expired)

Maxwell pointed out, among others, the Heckscher Building which “sports a giant niche on its conjoining walls…It is a niche very purposely designed, it would seem.  Its obvious completion would be the placing of the counterfeit presentment of a well-known New York philanthropist within its semi-circular sides.”  Maxwell’s annoyance would wait more than 60 years to be satisfied.

The building had to contend with worse press than an empty niche.  On the afternoon of November 13, 1924 Nell Hansell was working alone in the small office of retired jeweler Walter D. Tusten.  At around 1:00 she heard the door open and then gently close.  Through the opaque glass of a partition she could see the shadow of a man moving in the outer office.

When she opened the door of her room, she came face-to-face with a “tall, strongly built man, revolver in hand.”  He demanded she “Throw up your hands!”  But although Nell complied, the obviously surprised and nervous gunman fired his .32-calibre weapon.

The bullet grazed the secretary’s mouth, knocking out two teeth.  Although little harmed, she fell to the floor and pretended to be dead.   The would-be hold-up man, William E. Burns, panicked.  Expecting only to take whatever he could find in a vacant office, he now believed he had committed murder.

The following day The New York Times reported “The intruder looked down at the motionless form.  Then he put the weapon to his right temple and fired.”  Hysterical, Nell Hansell ran screaming down the hall to the office of Dr. I. Hirschfeld where she received emergency aid.  The dead man, who had previous criminal convictions, left a wife and five young children.

Fleur de lis filled the spandrel panels, carrying on the French motif.

More scurrilous was the shooting on March 29, 1928 which involved a well-known couple.  Not only were lawyer Dallet H. Wilson and his wife, the former Esther Evans, known in New York and Washington DC society for lavish entertaining; Esther was famous as a big game hunter in Africa and an amateur flier. 

In the fall of 1927 the couple separated and Esther moved into the Wardman Park Inn in Washington, where it was said “Her hotel rooms were filled with trophies of the hunt and with collections from her world tours.”

At 4:00 on March 29, 1928 she entered Suite 1500 in the Heckscher Building—her husband’s 10-room office suite.   The two conversed for more than an hour and a half, mostly in quiet tones.  Office workers who came in and out of the Wilson’s office noticed they were discussing money.  “Mrs. Wilson seemed to be demanding an allowance of $1,000 a month, instead of $450,” reported The Times.

And then the office staff was startled at the sound of two gun shots.  Esther had shot Wilson twice, one bullet going through his body.  The lawyer survived after two months “in a precarious condition” at City Hospital.  At the police station Esther “became hysterical and charged her husband with ‘running around with other women.’”  She told police that Wilson had encouraged her safaris and explorations in order to enable his dalliances.

The sensational trial began in on January 19, 1929 and lasted about a week.  Every scandalous detail was reported by the press.  Esther’s ever-changing testimony included the charge that Wilson had threatened her with a paperweight, that the shooting was an accident, and that she had lost all memory of the incident.

Although the jury found Esther Wilson guilty on January 24, 1929; her gender seems to have come to her advantage.  While she could have been sentenced to five years and $1,000 fine; the jury urged six months and no fine.

Later that year, in July, the Hecksher Building welcomed a prestigious tenant when the new Museum of Modern Art moved in.  The museum rented about 4,600 square feet on the 12^th floor for $12,000 a year.  The MoMa opened with an exhibition of 101 works by Cezanne, Gauguin, Seurat and van Gogh.

The museum’s arrival turned out to be as problematic as it was good for the building.  As its popularity increased, the building’s elevators were unable to accommodate the rush of visitors and long lines of tenants and museum-goers crowded the lobby.

The Museum of Modern Art remained through the 1932 season.  Its last exhibition, organized by architect Philip Johnson, was "Modern Architecture: International Exhibition."

Although August Heckscher had boasted that the golden rooster on the roof “will always stand as the beacon of progress,” it was removed in 1942.  The weathervane was donated to the war effort, to be melted down as scrap.

The Heckscher Building became the Genesco Building in 1964 for its newest and largest tenant.  Ground floor alterations were made by upscale retail leasers like Bulgari which essentially ignored and discarded Warren & Wetmore’s French Renaissance detailing.

In 1981 Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos sneakily purchased the building through a consortium of international companies.  Its name was changed to the Crown Building in 1983, a reference to the tower, and lighting designer Douglas Leigh was commissioned to gild and illuminate the façade.  The Times architectural critic Paul Goldberger was both pleased and displeased with the result, saying  “it is too gilded, particularly on the lower floors; they look not unlike a person with too much makeup. But near the top, distance reduces the garishness, and the effect is splendid.”

At the same time the empty niche which so annoyed Perriton Maxwell was filled.  The two leaded windows were remodeled as near-matching niches (sans shells) and given gold-covered statues.  Some called the sculptures the Three Graces, but they are most likely generic.

With the fall of the Marcos regime, numerous lawsuits—including one by the Philippine government—sought possession of the Crown Building.  It was acquired by Bernard Spitzer in 1991 for $95 million; sold again in 2014 and in 2015.  The $1.8 billion sales price was among the largest in Manhattan real estate history.

non-credited photographs by the author