The 115th Street (Harry Belafonte) Library Branch - 203 West 115th Street

 

photo by Mcmillin24

In 1901, millionaire Andrew Carnegie offered the City of New York a gift of $5.2 million to build free circulating libraries.  The condition was that the city would provide the land and maintain the buildings.  The city commissioned the most eminent architectural firms of the time to design the libraries, including the famed McKim, Mead & White.  On May 9, 1907, four years after the firm designed the Tompkins Square Library, the New-York Tribune reported that McKim, Mead & White had filed plans for the 27th Carnegie library at "Nos. 201 and 203 West 115th st."  The article said it would be "of classic design," costing $70,000.  (The construction cost would translate to $3.2 million in 2025.)

Called the 115th Street Branch Library, it opened on November 7, 1908.  Three stories tall and clad in rusticated limestone, the voussoirs of the first and second floor arched openings radiated like sunbursts.  Above the central window of the ground floor was a full-relief sculpted cartouche holding the city's coat of arms flanked by bas relief cherubs.  The design was finished by a projecting stone cornice on carved brackets.

A row of delicate antefixae original lined the top of the cornice.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.  

The New York Times reported, "It is a three-story and basement structure, the first floor being devoted to adults and the second floor being reserved for children.  When its complement of books is on the shelves there will be between 10,000 and 12,000 volumes at the disposal of the readers."

McKim, Mead & White designed the Children's Reading Room as an inviting and home-like space, with a fireplace and informal tables and seating areas.

Three girls in the Children's Reading Room around 1908.  Their clothing attests to the upper-middle-class of the neighborhood.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Public libraries were not merely places to read and research.  They were the venues of lectures, readings, exhibitions, and meetings.  On November 16, 1913, for instance, the New-York Tribune reported that the five-year anniversary of the library included a concert by cellist Vladimir Dubinsky.  And on December 27, 1920, the Drama Calendar announced that the monthly meeting of the Drama Discussion Circle would be held here on January 12, 1921.  "The plays to be discussed are Enter Madame and Samson and Delilah."

Among the exhibitions held here was that of the work of Spanish-born artist Ismael Smith, which opened in October 1921.  Leah Lewinson, the branch librarian, told The American Hebrew, "The exhibition includes some of the artist's plates and tools used by the engraver and has, therefore, an educational as well as an artistic value."

An exhibition of "small canvases," done by the students of the National Academy of Design was held in May 1925; and during November that year a series of "Drama Discussions," was held here. 

In the winter of 1929, 15-year-old Howard Melvin Fast was hired at 15 cents per hour.  It was a fitting job for the teen.  Fast would become a prolific novelist, playwright and television writer under the pen names E. V. Cunningham and Walter Ericson.  The job in the 115th Street Branch Library would have an impact on his future life.  In his autobiography, Being Red: A Memoir, Howard Fast writes:

I loved working in the library.  The walls of books gave me a sense of history, of order, of meaning in this strange world...My wages averaged between seven and eight dollars a week, but in the shattered prices of deflation, that was decent money.  The important thing was the world of books around me.  I read everything without discrimination--psychology, astronomy, physics, history, and more history--and some of it I understood and some of it I didn't.

When Howard Fast was hired, the demographics of the Harlem neighborhood was changing from white to black.  The events within the library reflected the shift.  On March 21, 1936, The New York Age reported, "Aaron Douglas, noted artist, will be the guest speaker at the meeting of the Discussion Group...next Monday.  His subject will be 'The Negro in American Culture.'"  And on November 23, 1940, the newspaper announced on the upcoming talk by novelist Claude McKay about his latest book, Harlem--Negro Metropolis.

Beyond the wooden separations, adults read within a much formal setting than the children's on the first floor in 1908.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Thirty-five years before President Gerald Ford acknowledged Black History Month, the 115th Street Branch held events.  On February 15, 1941, The New York Age reported, "'The Negro Defender of Freedom' will be the subject of a forum in celebration of Negro History Week at the 115th Street Branch of the New York Public Library...on Monday Evening, February 17."

A series "in the problems of young people" was held here in 1942.  The New York Age, February 21, 1942.

Regina M. Andrews (whose husband was Assemblyman William T. Andrews) was appointed head librarian here in 1940, becoming the first black head librarian of a local branch.  The New York Age commented on January 12, 1946, that since her appointment, "the 115th Street Branch...is known for its interracial program."  Andrews was, as well, a member of the Board of the National Urban League.

The building was temporarily closed in 1964 for refurbishing.  The branch continued to host programs, like the children's puppet show on February 24, 1987 by the Winnie Wilson Puppet Players.  Because it took place during Black History Month, the show included a "special tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King," announced New York Magazine.

At the time, Leslie Harrison had been head librarian here for two years.  He proved to be as influential as Regina M. Andrews.  That year he asked Manhattan Borough President David N. Dinkins to speak here.  Three years later, when Dinkins was the Mayor, he returned to speak in one of the 40 programs Harrison arranged for Black History Month.  Also speaking here that month was Rev. Calvin O. Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church; Supreme Court Justice Bruce Wright, who spoke of "African-American history" and read his poetry; authors Brenda Connor-Bey and William H. Banks, Jr.; and poet Adiodun Oyewole.

On February 26, 1990, Newsday reported, "The 30,000 volume library includes a formidable collection of books on black studies and other books catalogued under black experience.  It's no wonder that journalists like Bill Moyers would every so often turn to Harrison for help."

Leslie Harrison initiated creative programs to draw youths to the library.  He asked basketball player Patrick Ewing and Rev. Jesse Jackson, for instance, to speak especially to schoolchildren.  He explained to Newsday, "Even if kids come to see them only for that one time, they get inside the library."

photograph by Americasroof

In May 2017, the 115th Street Branch was renamed The Harry Belafonte, in honor of the civil rights leader and entertainer.  The Harry Belafonte Branch continues to be an integral part of the neighborhood, including its Black History Month programs at a time when diversity and equality is being threatened.

The 1893 Francis M. Burdick House - 633 West 115th Street

 

In 1892 Columbia University professors Francis M. Burdick and Munroe Smith began construction on their side-by-side homes at 633 and 635 West 115th Street, respectively.  They had purchased the vacant 25-foot-wide plots a year earlier in anticipation of the university's proposed move from Midtown to Morningside Heights.  (The proposed site of the campus was just one block to the east.)  

Architect Henry Otis Chapman designed the two mirror-image houses in the Colonial Revival style.   Completed in 1893, the four-story homes were faced in yellow brick and trimmed in brown terra cotta.  Chapman gave them striking neo-Federal doorways with leaded, stained glass sidelights and magnificent fanlights.

Edwin Burrage Child painted Burdick's portrait in 1916.  from the collection of Columbia University.

Born in De Ruyter, New York in 1845, Francis Marion Burdick had a varied career.  After receiving his law degree in 1872, he became a member of the Utica, New York law firm Beardsley, Burdick and Beardsley.  He was the mayor of Utica in 1882-1883.  Five years later, upon the opening of Cornell University's law college, Burdick was among its faculty members.  And in 1891, the year he and Smith purchased the 115th Street properties, he was appointed as Columbia University's first Theodore Dwight Professor of Law.

Burdick married Sarah Underhill Kellogg on June 8, 1875.  The couple had a son, Charles, and three daughters, Anna, Katherine, and Flora.

Until 633 West 115th Street lost its stoop in 2019, the houses were perfect mirror images.

Sarah and her next door neighbor, Emma Gertrude Smith, apparently became close friends (the fact that there were no other houses on the block at the time no doubt helped foster the relationship).  On March 24, 1901, for instance, the New York Herald reported, "Mrs. F. M. Burdick, assisted by Mrs. Munroe Smith, has issued invitations for a tea on Saturday, April 6, at her residence, No. 633 West 115th street."

In the meantime, Frank wrote numerous legal works, including The Law of Partnership, The Essentials of Business Law, and Selected Cases on the Law of Partnership.  He was appointed a member of the Committee of Fourteen (founded in 1905 to reform liquor laws), and Commissioner of Uniform Laws for the State of New York in 1907.

In 1911, four years prior to his retirement, Burdick sold 633 West 115th Street to the Phil Omega Building Corporation of Alpha Chi Rho fraternity.  Now the Alpha Chi Rho House, its upper floors were leased to fraternity alumni, and the lower floors used as the clubhouse.

On July 12, 1913, the week-long First International Exposition of the Moving Picture Art and Allied Trades opened in the new Grand Central Palace.  Among the events was a talent search, during which aspiring silent film stars had a chance to display their acting skills.  Among them was George Beak, a resident of the Alpha Chi Rho House.  Moving Picture News said succinctly that he "showed adaptable qualities, under direction."  (Unfortunately for George, film stardom eluded him.)

A year after he graduated, Walter Funcke lived in the Alpha Chi Rho House, and took on the duties of managing the annual Variety Show of the university's Players Club.  It turned out to be a frustrating job.  On December 6, 1917, an article in the Columbia Spectator began, "Delay on the part of the undergraduate body to don its thinking cap and produce manuscripts and songs for the 1918 Variety Show has caused the Players Club to issue another urgent call for prospective playwrights and songsmiths."

Earlier that year, the house had been the scene of a more serious event.  America entered World War I on April 4, 1917, prompting many university men to leave school and enlist.  A month later, on May 8, the Columbia Spectator reported, "Alpha Chi Rho held a farewell party last night at the chapter house, 633 West 115th Street, for its members who may leave for Plattsburgh or other government service in the near future."  The light-hearted gathering included entertainments and "ended with a snake dance through 115th Street."

In 1927 the former Burdick house was sold to the Korean Methodist Church and Institute, established six years earlier.  Like the fraternity, it leased rooms on the upper floors to members.

While the door had been replaced by 1941, the entrance and stoop were otherwise intact.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Living here in 1934 was Frank Lee, described by The New York Sun as "a prominent Chinese [sic] importer."  In March 1934 his brother-in-law, Dr. Chang Sel Kim, asked him to stay at his apartment with him at night.  Kim, who held degrees from the University of Korea and Johns Hopkins, said "he was in fear of threats...made by a man who held some correspondence which the physician considered of great value," reported The New York Sun.  

Frank Lee complied, sleeping over in Kim's bedroom while the doctor slept on the sofa.  On the night of March 14, according to Lee, the two played cards until 2 a.m., then went to bed.  "Several times during the night he came in, and then went back to bed," he told officials.  When Lee got up the next morning, he smelled gas.  He rushed to turn off the stove burners and open the windows, but it was too late.  The mysterious circumstances that drove Dr. Kim to suicide were never uncovered.

Korean immigrants faced decided discrimination.  Among the residents in 1936 was Tu Jung, a member of the New York Korean Society.  He became concerned when Chang Soo Lee, a Korean houseboy, was accused of poisoning relatives of his White Plains employer.  The young man had been arrested and held without bail, despite his insistence that "he was ignorant of poisons and chemistry," according to The New York Sun on October 20.  Tu Jung traveled to Westchester County, telling officials he "wanted to find out if Lee had received a square deal and if there was anything he needed," according to the article.  He was refused permission to see the prisoner.

Three months before America entered World War II, 37-year-old resident Young Ho Kown, a cook, attempted to do his part in the war effort.  On September 4, 1941, he tested his helium-inflated "aircraft dirigible helicopter" at Roosevelt Field.  He had invested six years and $6,000 in the invention.  The Nassau Daily Review-Star said, "there were newspaper and newsreel photographers, newspapermen, airport officials and workers on hand" to witness the launch, "but Young, known as Charlie, would have been much happier if the engine of the odd-appearing plane hadn't balked."  Despite the failed test, Kown was undeterred.  He promised another ground test would be made "to be followed by an air test by a licensed pilot."

Following the country's entrance into the war, on January 25, 1942 The New York Times reported, "American Koreans, as 'the champion Jap-haters of the world,' are taking an active part in United States war work."  The article cited an announcement that the Korean Church and Institute had made the previous day.  A fund-raising drive had resulted in pledges of $9,000 for the Korean Army and more than $2,000 in defense bonds had been purchased.  The article noted, "many of the 10,000 Koreans in the United States have offered their services as trained linguists to ferret out the plans of the Japanese on the air waves."

In 1978 the Korean Methodist Church and Institute shared space in the building with the Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.  That year, on November 26, The Journal News reported that artist Richard Mayhew was one of more than 70 artists to be selected "by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters for inclusion in its 30th annual Hassam Purchase Fund Exhibition now underway at its headquarters at 633 West 115th Street."

It was around that time that Henry Otis Chapman's striking neo-Federal doorway was brutally altered.  The fluted columns were removed, the leaded sidelights and transoms covered over, and the door and frame painted teal.

photograph by Mx. Granger

In 2019 a renovation was initiated that included restoration and repair of the facade.  Among the alterations made, the stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to grade.  To compensate space-wise, a panel was installed between the doorway and fanlight.  Happily, the exquisite leaded glass was intact and restored.  The absence of the Ionic columns, however, is sorely apparent.

photographs by the author

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J. F. Miller's 1889 318 through 322 West 115th Street

 

Real estate developer P. H. McManus was busy erecting rows of handsome homes in the rapidly developing Harlem district in the late 19th century.  In September 1888, his architect J. F. Miller filed plans for eleven three-story brick rowhouses on the south side of West 115th Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues (today's Frederick Douglass Blvd. and Manhattan Avenue, respectively).  Miller arranged them in groupings of two and three.  Nos. 318 through 322 were designed in the Queen Anne style, with Romanesque Revival influences.

Perfectly balanced in an A-B-A configuration, each of the 12-room houses featured a dog-legged box stoop.  The arched openings and terra cotta eyebrows of the second floor were Romanesque Revival touches.  The Queen Anne style, however, was dominant, appearing in terra cotta panels, tympani and band courses, and the quirky metal hoods over the third floor windows of the end houses.  The center residence, which at 17-feet-wide was an imperceptible one foot wider than its siblings, boasted a striking second floor oriel and a prominent gable that overlapped the pressed metal cornice.

The center house became home to Dr. Edwin D. Simpson.  His methods were no doubt viewed with some suspicion by main line physicians.  In announcing his joining The American School of Metaphysics in November 1897, The Metaphysical Magazine said, "Dr. Simpson is a Theosophist, with a strong occult tendency, as well as a successful physician; qualities which, it would seem, should harmoniously combine to make the true metaphysician."  

Simpson's practice had begun like that of most other doctors.  The North American Journal of Homoeopathy said he "was for many years an old school man, but became convinced of the trust of homoeopathy and affiliated with us.  He was particularly interested in psychotherapy and taught this subject and physiological drug-therapy to the students at the New York Homeopathic College."

Simpson died on June 23, 1905.  For several years he had worked closely with Dr. Wallace Belding House, who lived nearby at 203 West 113th Street.  House not only absorbed Dr. Simpson's practice, but moved into 322 West 115th Street.  In its November 1905 issue, The Homoeopathic Record reported, "Dr. Wallace Belding House announces his removal to No. 320 West 115th Street, New York City, where he will occupy the offices and succeed to the practice of the late Edwin D. Simpson, M. D."

Born in Brooklyn, Michigan in 1871, House was educated in the Midwest, and in 1902 The Medical Visitor called him "one of the shining lights in the talented Ohio colony in New York City."  In April 1903 he was appointed "examiner in lunacy" and assistant neurologist to the out-patient department of Flower Hospital.

House's intimate relationship with his former colleague's family was strengthened on October 16, 1907 when he married Edwin D. Simpson's daughter, May.  The young woman who had spent much of her youth in the house now became its mistress.

Dr. House had to make a difficult decision in 1909--one that would not be challenging at all for a physician today.  He was chairman of the annual alumni dinner of the New York Homoeopathic Medical College and Flower Hospital at the Waldorf-Astoria.  One member, Dr. Charles G. Pease objected  vociferously to the custom of after-dinner cigars.  The New-York Tribune reported that he "gave notice to the alumni that they would have to choose between him and the vile weed."  His note to Dr. House said in part:

Can you conceive of anything more monstrous and unprofessional than a roomful of doctors in an atmosphere of poisonous vapor, their lips puckered around a cigar or pipe stem, as they suck narcotic vapor from a weed?  Certainly not a picture that angels delight to look upon.

Dr. House was somewhat taciturn about the matter, the New-York Tribune saying he "did not go into the question very deeply."  He did confirm, however, that "as the majority of the physicians at the dinner desired to smoke, cigars had been provided."  And so, said the article, "Dr. Pease says he is sorry he can't attend, but he has a horror of gazing upon a roomful of doctors inhaling poison into their systems."

The Houses remained in 320 West 115th Street until 1910, when they moved into a home on West 78th Street.  In the meantime, 318 West 115th Street had been home to Civil War veteran A. Livingston Washburn and his wife, Rhoda.  Not coincidentally, Rhoda was the sister-in-law of Dr. Edwin D. Simpson.  She died in the West 115th Street house on August 13, 1907.

By 1914 the former Washburn home was being operated as a rooming house.  Living here that year was Jerome O'Driscoll.  A stenographer with the Civil Service Commission, he earned $1,050 per year, or about $29,500 in 2023 terms.

No. 320 West 115th Street, too, became a "furnished room house" after the Houses left.  Both it and 322 West 115th Street were operated by Louis E. Bowen, who lived in 320.

In 1911, a boarder in 320 West 115th Street, Professor G. G. Simonelli, advertised "Italian instruction, translations, researches; lessons at pupils' residence; only by appointment."  And the following year a resident, Herbert Eisenberg, was hired by the city as a "Searcher," with an annual salary of $1,050.  Like his next-door neighbor Jerome O'Driscoll, in 1914 Christian A. Merz was hired by the city as a Civil Service stenographer.  The government's pay scale was nothing if not consistent.  His salary was the same as O'Driscoll's and Eisenberg's.

In December 1920 all three houses were sold to Schutter Homes, Inc., which quickly sold them separately.  They continued to be operated as rooming houses for decades.  Not all of their tenants were upstanding citizens.

Fred Small lived in 318 West 115th Street in 1921.  The 40-year-old was a glassblower who had come to New York from Lynn, Massachusetts in 1920.  He caused an upheaval within the house on the night of March 6, 1921 when he came home drunk "and created a disturbance," according to The New York Times.  His landlady called the police who arrived with a patrol wagon.  "Small had barricaded himself in the bathroom," said the article, "turned on the gas and began tearing the fixtures from the walls and ceiling."  The three responding policemen forced the door open and "overpowered him after a struggle."  When the patrol wagon reached Harlem Hospital, Small was dead.  Dr. Brandstein said his death "was due to alcoholism and gas poisoning."

Four months later, one of the roomers at 320 West 115th Street was arrested.  Robert Umstead, who was 18 years old, was caught in Buffalo with two other men in a stolen car.  They had taken the vehicle from 44th Street and Broadway on June 13, and then used it for a crime spree.  On June 28, The New York Times reported that Umstead was one of the "three young men, believed by the police to be the trio of bandits who during the last month committed many hold-ups by means of an automobile between here and Niagara Falls [who] were locked up in Police Headquarters yesterday."  When apprehended, Umstead had two loaded revolvers on him.

All three stoops were intact in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

More respectable were Sam and Mary Young, who lived at 322 West 115th Street in the 1930s.  The young Irish-born couple ran the Old Log Cabin Grill at 103rd Street and Columbus Avenue, and the Log Cabin Hotel in Rockaway Beach.  The couple provided transportation from Manhattan to the hotel.  A 1934 advertisement said, "During the summer season buses will leave Young's Old Log Cabin Grill...every Friday."  It noted, "The Log Cabin Hotel is made up of nice, light, airy and large furnished rooms with the privilege of light housekeeping.  There is also an indoor and out-door restaurant where good home cooked meals are served at low prices."

Mary Young died on Christmas Eve, 1934.  Her wake was held in 322 West 115th Street.  Sam remained here for several more years.  

In the 1980s, a single room in 318 West 115th Street with "no cooking" cost $75 per week with two weeks' rent paid in advance and two weeks' security required.  Two doors away at 322 West 115th Street, rooms were slightly more expensive.  A well-worded advertisement in October 1983 was titled, "Is Harlem on your mind?" and offered "studios, ranging from $75 to $125 per week."  (The more expensive rent would translate to about $340 today.)

The West 115th Street neighborhood underwent significant change in the 21st century.  A renovation completed in 2012 resulted in two duplexes within 322 West 115th Street, and then in 2019 the house was reconverted to a single family home with one apartment in the basement.

The architects' released this rendering in 2015.  via newyorkyimby.com

In 2015 Madison Advisory Group announced plans to combine 218 and 220 West 115th Street and add two-stories set back from the roofline.  Designed by CTA Architects, the remodeled building contains six condominium apartments.

photograph by the author

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The 1893 Munroe Smith House - 635 West 115th Street

 

In 1896 Columbia University left its collection of Midtown buildings for a new campus in the remote Morningside Heights district.  The move created problems for fraternities and academic clubs, which had costly clubhouses downtown, and for faculty and staff.  Two Columbia professors, however, were far ahead of the game.

In 1891 Francis M. Burdick and Munroe Smith acquired two 25-foot-wide plots on the undeveloped block of West 115th Street, between Riverside Drive and Broadway.  The site was just one block west of the proposed campus.  The educators hired architect Henry Otis Chapman to design mirror-image houses at 633 and 635 West 115th Street.  Construction began in 1892 and was completed the following year.  

The handsome Colonial Revival style houses were faced in yellow brick and trimmed in terra cotta.  The design was dominated by the striking Federal-style arched doorways with leaded and stained glass sidelights and exquisite fanlights.  Each of the four stories was defined by a terra cotta bandcourse.  The houses shared a delicate dentiled cornice.

Edmund Munroe Smith, who went professionally by Munroe Smith, moved his family into 635 West 115th Street.  He and his wife, the former Emma Gertrude Huidekoper, had one daughter, Gertrude Munroe, who was two years old at the time.

Munroe Smith from the collection of the Columbia University Archives.

Smith was a very well-educated man.  He graduated from Amherst Collect in 1874, earned his law degree from Columbia Law School in 1877, re-enrolled in Amherst in 1879, and received his J.U.D. from the University of Göttingen in 1880.  That year he was hired at Columbia University as an instructor in history and Roman law.  When he and his family moved into the 115th Street house, he was a full professor of Roman law and comparative jurisprudence.

The Smiths' large house afforded them the ability to take in other Columbia educators.  By 1906 Dr. Henry Rogers Seager, a professor of political economy, lived with the family.  Born in Kiev, Russia, he earned his Ph.D at the University of Michigan in 1890.  Both he and Munroe Smith were members of the Century Association, the membership of which was composed of authors, artists, and "amateurs of letters and fine arts."  

Henry Rogers Seager, from the collection of the Library of Congress

Another Columbia professor, John Bates Clark, and his wife, the former Myra A. Smith (no relation to their landlord), were listed here by 1909.  Born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1847, Clark taught economics.  His controversial views about capitalism had softened by the time he boarded with the Smiths.  Early on he had been a critic of capitalism, favoring instead German Socialism.  His views eventually evolved to make him a leading proponent of capitalism.

All three men wrote extensively.  They were the authors of academic books, articles and monographs in their respective areas.

The professors would have to find alternative lodging in 1910.  The Smiths moved out in 1910, and an advertisement in the New York Herald on October 2 offered the unfurnished house for rent.  It touted "11 rooms, 3 baths, immediate possession, refined residential section."

The house became home to Edward Purcell Slevin, his wife, the former Josephine Mary Hecker, and their daughter Elizabeth.  The couple's country home, East Clive, was in West Orange.  Another daughter, Paula, had been married on January 11 that year to Stephen Valentine Farrelly.

Only months after moving into 635 West 115th Street, Josephine died on March 15, 1911.  Edward remained in the house for years.

Then, on October 6, 1921, the New York Herald announced that "the Catholics of Columbia University" had purchased 635 West 115th Street "for occupancy as the Newman Club, an organization of Catholic students, who will occupy it after extensive alterations are completed."  The article added, "The present plans embody an assembly hall, committee meeting rooms, space for informal dances and other features, besides a library and reading room."

A chapel was installed in the basement level, where mass was said every day and twice on Sundays.  On the parlor floor was a "large comfortable reception room" where lectures were sometimes given, as well as social events.  The reading room and library were on the second floor.  Father H. F. Riley of the Paulist Fathers, the club's chaplain, resided in the house.

On April 7, 1922, the Columbia Alumni News reported on the opening of Newman Hall.  The article noted, "An inspection of the newly opened club house was made under the guidance of Father Riley, the resident Chaplain."  The Handbook to Catholic Historic New York City explained in 1927:

Newman Hall is the center for Catholic students.  The Newman Club of Columbia University was established in 1902.  Its headquarters at No. 635 West 115th Street is a meeting place for the members of the Newman Club in and around New York City.

The Newman Club remained until the early Depression years, selling the property to Armic Restaurant, Inc., which leased it.  Living here in 1938 was John M. Kelly, chief supervisor in the Department of Markets.  Kelly had been a city employee since 1920.  Two years later, Angelina Geminiani was leasing the house.  Living with her were her 17-year-old daughter, Regina, and two boarders, John and Eleanor Morgan.

The house in 1941 appeared little different than it does today.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1946 Columbia University purchased the former Smith house.  It became the center of the school's Modern China Research Project in 1958.  Professor Howard L. Boorman, its director, said that year, "One phase of this project is to compile a biographic dictionary of Chinese personalities as a basic reference tool to enable scholars to fill more readily the research gap for the transition period between 1911 and 1949."  The Modern China Research Project was still here as late as 1967.

Trouble came to Columbia University in the spring of 1972 when anti-war protestors shut down the campus.  On May 4, 1972, The New York Times reported, "Black and Latin students continued their occupation of Lewisohn Hall and an off-campus brownstone at 635 West 115th Street, which is owned by the university."  Over a week later, on May 13, the newspaper reported that the house had been "voluntarily vacated by the black and Latin students."

On the same day, the N.Y. Amsterdam News reported, "The University President has also agreed to an extension of the CEEP Program through 1974 and to provide the university facilities at 635 West 115th for the exclusive use of the CEEP Program."  That project, the Community Educational Exchange Program, "provides compensatory education for Harlem residents," as explained by The New York Times.

Later the building became home to the university's Office of Environmental Stewardship.  Appropriately, in November 2007 it was one of two Columbia buildings to receive a "green roof."  Nilda Mesa, Director of Environmental Stewardship explained in December that year, "Grass and plants growing on green roofs take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turn it into oxygen, helping cool temperatures in the hottest months and cleaning the air supply."

While its fraternal twin next door has been slightly altered, 635 West 115th Street is remarkably intact, including its wonderful 1893 doorway.

 photographs by the author

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J. F. Miller's 1889 308-312 West 115th Street

 

As the Harlem district changed from one of rural summer estates and farms to blocks of prim rowhouses and stores in the late 19th century, real estate develop P. H. McManus was a strong proponent.  He moved his family into a house on West 135th Street and erected rows of handsome homes.  In September 1888 J. F. Miller filed plans for another--11 three-story brick rowhouses on the south side of West 115th Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues (today's Frederick Douglass Blvd. and Manhattan Avenue, respectively).  Miller arranged them in groupings of two and three.  Nos. 308 through 312 were designed in the Queen Anne style, with Romanesque Revival influences.

Perfectly balanced in an A-B-A configuration, each of the 12-room houses was approached by a dog-legged box stoop.  Romanesque Revival appeared in the arched openings and terra cotta eyebrows of the second floor.  It was Queen Anne that took center stage, however, with terra cotta panels, tympani and band courses, and quirky metal hoods over the third floor windows of the end houses.  The center residence, which at 17-feet-wide was an imperceptible one foot wider that its siblings, boasted a striking second floor oriel and a prominent gable that overlapped the pressed metal cornice.

By 1892 the recently married H. Richard Payne and Bertha B. Payne lived at 310 West 115th Street.  Tragically, Bertha died in the house on January 19, 1893 at just 20 years of age.  H. Richard Payne remained at least through 1895.

Living next door at 312 West 115th Street was Henry Steinhardt, whose liquor store at 315 Bowery was the scene of a bizarre incident on the night of May 16, 1895.  Policeman Timothy Keyes, who was on duty that night, was described by The Evening Telegram as having a reputation "of being observant and highly intelligent."  At 10:00 he blew his whistle in front of Steinhardt's liquor store.  "Policemen in plenty and a crowd of people were soon on the scene," said the newspaper.

Keyes explained that he peered into the store and saw a juvenile burglar on his knees, working the safe.  The would-be thief looked up, saw the policeman, and bolted to the rear of the store.  The Evening Telegram reported, "Keyes says the burglar was about seven years old, of the male sex and had brown eyes, untidy hair and a pale complexion.  He wore short dark trousers, a striped shirt and a small round cap."

The police surrounded the store to prevent escape.  A messenger notified the station house and a telephone call was made to Steinhardt.  At 1:00 in the morning he and two salesmen arrived.  By then the policemen had broken in by smashing a lock.  An hour-long search of the premises were made and all the doors and windows were found to besecure.  Steinhardt and the salesmen decided to wait until daylight inside the store.  At 7:00 they gave up.  The Evening Telegram titled its article "Burglar Vanished in Air" and ended it saying that Officer Keyes was "of a sober disposition, and was not addicted to ghosts."

Living with the Steinhardts in 1896 was E. J. Saunders.  He became involved in the push to have sculptor Ernst Herter's marble monument to poet Heinrich Heine, called the Lorelei Fountain, brought to New York.  Sculpted in 1896, it had been intended to sit in Dresden, but antisemitism and the German Empire's nationalist propaganda derailed the plans.  In February 1896 Saunders signed his name with scores of other businessmen imploring the Board of Aldermen to accept the fountain.  (It was accepted and now sits in Joyce Kilmer Park.)

At the turn of the century 308 West 115th Street was occupied by F. M. Davis and his wife.  The couple ran Grangely Hall, a private school for boys and girls, within the house.   When a crime wave hit the district in the summer of 1904, the Davises were hit hard.  On September 12 the New York Herald reported that there had been 42 robberies within a 35-day period.  The article noted that on August 12 the "house of Mrs. Davis, No. 308 West 115th street, [was] entered by [a] thief and nearly everything of value taken."  It would not be until New Year's Day 1905 that the James G. Walker, alias Lawrence Macy, was captured.

At the turn of the century, 310 West 115th Street became the fraternity house of Columbia University's Beta Theta Pi chapter.  A member wrote in the 1900 Convention Minutes:

We rent a very comfortable house five minutes walk from college at 310 West 115th street.  A colored man and his wife take care of it and do the cooking.  We own all the furniture in the house, including a pool table.  As yet we have not started to think of building, but that is merely a question of time.  Land and building are expensive in New York, but we hope that some plan will present itself that will enable us to own a house before many years...Four men live in the house.  We can accommodate seven or eight.

Among the members living here in 1903 was A. E. Thurber, who also served as secretary of the Intercollegiate Lawn Tennis Association.  The chapter continue to rent the house for several years.  Upon its departure, 310 West 115th Street was operated as a rooming house.  (Rooming houses differed from boarding houses in that there were no meals provided.)  It was offered for rent in March 1918, the advertisement reading, "Furnished rooming house, $300 cash; all rooms rented; in good order."

No. 312 was also a rooming house by 1912.  Two of its tenants were well-known criminals--"Red" Walker and "Jew" Baylies.  They were spotted by Detectives James and Gus Reilly and James Fiman on a westbound crosstown 116th Street streetcar on September 6 that year.  The pair was unwilling to be arrested and a "hard fight" resulted.  "The fight in the car," said the New York Herald, "caused intense excitement in 116th street and alarmed the many passengers in the car."  That "excitement" was no doubt intensified when the detectives determined "it was necessary to subdue their opponents with drawn revolvers."

At the station house they were charged with having "jimmies" and other burglar tools on them.  Detectives escorted the pair to their rooms at 312 West 115th Street, "where a large quantity of silverware, jewelry and men's and women's articles of apparel were found."

Following World War I 308 West 115th Street was also operated as a rooming house.  Truck driver Joseph Giordano lived here in 1922.  He was driving along Skillman Street in Brooklyn on July 14 that year, the sign on his truck reading "Carpets and rugs cleaned, dyed, washed and repaired."  During the Prohibition Era, random stops of trucks was common and that afternoon Giordano was pulled over.  Police Lieutenant Patrick Sheridan asked the 21-year-old, "What have you got in there, son?"

Giordano was unexpectedly candid.  "Whisky," he said.

The truck was searched and detectives found 110 burlap bags of 660 bottles of rye.  They also discovered that the license plates were fake.  Not surprisingly, Giordano was taken in.  Police believed the illegal liquor was "cached in the harbor."  The New York Times explained, "The burlap bags were dripping wet and the corks showed the effects of immersion.  Smugglers are suspected of bring contraband up the harbor and hiding it under water in bags attached to a buoy until the coast is clear for delivery to trucks."

The decline in the neighborhood was reflected in the death of Leonard Mastromanaco, who lived at 312 West 115th Street in 1933.  The 18-year-old was playing cards on the night of October 12 when two men called him into the hallway.  The Yonkers Statesman reported, "They held a whispered conversation in the hallway and suddenly one of the strangers fired at Mastromonaco."  The bullet entered his left temple and he died at the Harlem Hospital later that night.  Police told reporters the argument was "over a young woman."

At the time of the incident, 308 West 115th Street was owned by Jacques Danielson and his wife Fannie, who was better known by her penname, Fannie Hurst.  The novelist's Imitation of Life was published that year.  It is doubtful that the Danielsons lived in the 115th Street house, and most likely rented it.  They sold it in November 1934.

All three houses suffered in the subsequent decades.  No. 310 was converted to furnished rooms in 1937.  By the last quarter of the 20th century, at least one of the homes had been acquired by the city in a valiant, but failed, rehabilitation effort.  On February 8, 1988 The New York Times wrote, "The city had hoped to stem the decay of the housing by seizing it from tax-delinquent landlords and by quickly turning it over to new managers.  But the buildings, often in the poorest neighborhoods and in need of major repairs, proved unattractive to investors."  

The article pointed out 308 West 115th Street, where it said the single-room occupancy building had been redesigned into apartments by the city, "creating some that were windowless."  It noted, "One apartment did have an 8-by-10, single pane skylight, but it had been nailed shut and had been covered with a glass dome."

Time and a rediscovery of the neighborhood changed all that.  In 2003 308 West 115th Street was reconverted to a single family home with a basement apartment.  Plans were filed for interior renovation of 310 West 115th Street in 2017.   The trio creates a charming architectural ensemble on the ever-changing block.

photographs by the author

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The Matthew M. Looram House - 316 West 115th Street

 

A stoop originally led to the entrance within the larger opening at the left.

In September 1888 architect J. F. Miller filed plans for an ambitious row of homes on the south side of West 115th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues (later renamed Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Manhattan Avenue, respectively).  Developer P. H. McManus was active in the developing Harlem district, and these eleven three-story and basement houses would nearly fill the blockfront.  Each of the high-end residences cost him $10,000 to construct--approximately $295,000 in 2023.

Miller designed the row in groupings of two and three.  One mirror-image pair, 314 and 316 West 115th Street, stood out because rather than the red brick and brownstone facades on either side, he clad them in light, cream-colored sandstone.  His take on the Venetian Gothic Revival style was understated.  Instead of the expected, bold voussoirs of alternating colors almost obligatory in the style, these melted into the facade.  Each level of the 16-foot-wide houses was marked by a projecting stone course, and a prominent corbel table upheld the cornice.  

No. 316 West 115th Street became home to Matthew M. Looram, the principal in the brokerage firm of M. M. Looram & Co. at 20 Broadway, of which Albert Biddle was his partner.  

Matthew Looram's brother and sister, James P. and Catharine, lived with their mother, Mary, at 351 East 39th Street.  The three siblings had inherited the house in equal portions upon the death of their father.  In 1889 they transferred title to the 39th Street house to their mother.

James P. Looram died there on January 17, 1890.  The following year, in July, Mary transferred title to Catherine and moved into 316 West 115th Street with Matthew.  Her residency would be short lived.  She died on May 21, 1892 at the age of 71.  Interestingly, Matthew did not hold her funeral in the parlor, as would have been customary, but at the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle on 118th Street.

Looram drew nationwide attention when he sued the Western Union Telegraph Company.  Looram had leased stock tickers from the Gold & Stock Telegraph Company, which he used in his Broadway office.  In June 1897, after acquiring the Gold & Stock Telegraph Company, Western Union canceled his contract and removed the machines.  An irate Looram demanded the tickers back, protesting that "he would use the tickers only in the business conducted by him and not to run a so called bucket shop."  (A bucket shop was an illegal gambling operation that took bets on the rise and fall of stocks.)  After a long-fought legal battle, Looram lost his suit in August 1899.

In 1902 Matthew M. Looram erected a 22-room house in New Rochelle, spending over $1 million on the land and building.  His former Manhattan residence was now operated as a high-end boarding house run by Mrs. K. L. Reton.  Her boarders that year were Frank George White, a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and Henry Moore, Jr.  Moore was a graduate of the University of Virginia and a member of the New York Southern Society.

Mrs. Reton sub-let the boarding house in 1912.  Her advertisement read, "Furnished 10 room house, first class condition, good lease; rent $75; reasonable; going South."  The monthly rent was, indeed, reasonable, equal to about $2,000 today.

Eugene Geary moved in around that time.  Born in Kilderny, County Cork, Ireland in 1862, he was a journalist, serving sporadically on the editorial staff of different New York newspapers.  In 1911 he became editor-in-chief of Beverages, a trade journal.

A proud member of the American Irish Historical Society, Geary was best known for his poetry.  His poems were a regular feature of The Evening World and the New-York Tribune.  His humorous verse was typified by his "The New Romance," published in The Evening World on May 17, 1913, which poked fun a modern relationships.  It began with a couple's marriage ceremony and traced their eroding romance.  The ending stanza read:

Now he's gone afar,

Future's full of freckles--

She? Oh, she's a star--

Lots of fame and shekels.

Broken was Love's shaft,

Once a peacherino,

Till the wedded craft

Landed out in Reno.

In December 11, 1912 Geary died at the Harlem Hospital at the age of 52.  The Evening World said he "was one of the last of the old-time lyricists of the Tom Moore school.  His verse had a swing and a music that was irresistible."

In 1917 engineer Cevat Eyüp Tasman, who went by Djevad Eyoub moved into 316 West 115th Street.  Born in Bolu, Turkey on December 26, 1893, he earned his degrees in mining engineering from Columbia University.  After graduation he took a job as a mining geologist in New Mexico with the Anaconda Copper Company.  It was the beginning of a life-long career in oil exploration.  Years later he would help found the Petroleum Administration in Turkey.

The West 115th Street house was offered for sale in 1920 for $18,000, after which Djevad moved to Brooklyn.  The Harlem neighborhood at the time was quickly transforming into the center of Manhattan's Black community.

Not all the residents of the former Looram house were upstanding citizens during the Depression years.  When William Newman was arrested as a pickpocket on July 19, 1933, The New York Sun reported that his "record includes only nine arrests since 1923."

Carmemn Weeks, the only sister of poet Ricardo Weeks, lived here in the early 1940s.  He was a contributor to the Associated Negro Press.  In December 1941, Carmemn contracted walking pneumonia.  Three months later she was still confined to her bed.  Then, on March 7, 1942, The New York Age wrote, "It had been reported that the twenty-four year old girl was improving satisfactorily, until Thursday evening, without permission, she left her bed and went to the bathroom where she collapsed and died of a heart attack."

The mirror-imagine houses retained their stoops in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records  Information Services.

In 1965 315 West 115th Street was converted to apartments, two per floor.  The stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to the former basement level.

Then, in 1981, it was purchased by Raven Chanticleer, who began to return it to a private home.  Chanticleer was a colorful figure.  Born James Watson on September 13, 1928, his parents were sharecroppers in Woodruff, South Carolina.  With dreams of becoming an artist and fashion designer, he attended the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Sorbonne in Paris.  While in Europe, he took an excursion to London and visited Madam Tussaud's wax museum.  He later told a reporter:

I was captivated by this wonderous, vibrant art form.  But I was also upset that there weren't any black personalities represented.  It was then that I decided that one day I would have my own wax museum.  Why?  I don't know, just craziness, you know.

Chanticleer returned to New York in 1965 and became one of the first Black clothing designers for Bergdorf Goodman.  He founded the Raven Chanticleer Dancers, who performed in nightclubs around Manhattan and wore costumes designed by him.

One of the reasons he purchased the Harlem house was so he could work on his wax museum.  But there would be problems.  By now the neighborhood was derelict.  There was a crack den in the neighboring house and the occupants broke his windows, vandalized his automobile, and set fire to his trash cans.  But he persevered.  

Eight years later, after spending more than $60,000 on renovations and working on his figures, he opened the Harlem African-American Wax Museum.  He told The New York Times, "I created these was figures to keep alive their words and their deeds at a time when too many African-Americans think we have no heroes."  Among those heroes memorialized in wax were Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Joseph Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer.

And Raven Chanticleer.

During a radio interview in 2001, Chanticleer explained that he included himself "just in case something should happen to me, if they didn't carry out my wishes and my dreams of this wax museum, I would come back and haunt the hell out of them."

Raven Chanticleer posed between his figures of Malcolm X and Mayor David N. Dinkins in 1993.  photo by Chester Higgins, Jr., The New York Times, November 5, 1993.

Something did happen to Raven Chanticleer.  He died at the age of 72 on April 7, 2002.  A niece told Andy Newman of The New York Times, "We are hopefully, once we get through all the legalities, going to try to see if we can keep it going.  That was something he wanted us to do."

But, instead, the figures were reportedly destroyed in 2005.  Three years later the house was renovated and today is a single family home above a basement apartment.

photographs by the author

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