The Dr. F. W. Lilienthal House - 408 West 154th Street

Despite his decidedly French-sounding name, Henri Fouchaux was American, born in Coytesville, New Jersey in 1856.  By the turn of the century he was the most prolific architect in Washington Heights and Harlem, responsible for scores of homes and business buildings.

Among them were the eight upscale residences he designed for developer William H. Lake in 1898--three on West 154th Street and two around the corner on St. Nicholas Avenue.  His plans, filed in August that year, estimated the cost of the 20-foot wide homes at $15,000 each; or around $468,000 today.

Completed the following year, Fouchaux had turned to the popular Beaux Arts style for the project.  The three 154th Street homes were designed in an A-B-A configuration.  The two matching end houses were a restrained example of the often flamboyant style.  Like its identical twin, No. 408 was three stories tall above an English basement, it was clad in limestone and featured an angled bay at the second floor, supported by ornate stone brackets.

Fouchaux stepped away from the French motif by embellishing the newels of the dog-legged stoop and the spandrel panels of the second floor bay with Renaissance-inspired carvings.  Above the understated third floor was a bracketed pressed metal cornice.

No. 408 is at the left.  The steep incline of West 154th Street necessitated a higher stoop than that of its twin at No. 412.

In 1900 Lake sold all eight of the completed houses to Charles Hibbard.   The ambitious real estate operator seems to have been overly-optimistic, for he lost six of the houses in foreclosure in 1902.   At the time of the auction on March 29 he owed the bank $16,690 and back taxes of $600--or about $550,000 today.

At the time Dr. F. W. Lilienthal and his wife, Auguste, were well-known among the German community.  He emigrated from Germany in 1861 and was one of the founders of the German Dispensary that served the often impoverished population of the East Village, known as Kleindeutschland, or Little Germany.  But the couple was also known for their fearless support of the working class Germans and Dr. Lilienthal was described by The New York Times later as "one of the pioneers of the Socialist Party in this city."

The devastating economic depression known as Financial Panic of 1873 lasted for several years.  It put thousands of New Yorkers out of work, including the tenement dwellers in the German district.  With no civic funded relief available, the people grew desperate.  Committees and organizations were formed to meet with the city government in hopes to organize public works programs to provide jobs.  But they were rebuffed.

On January 13, 1874 about 7,000 unemployed workers gathered in Tompkins Square Park.  A force of about 1,600 police officers entered the park wielding clubs to disperse the crowd.  When the workers fought back, mounted police charged the crowd.  A witness, Samuel Gompers described them "riding them down and attacking men, women and children without discrimination.  It was an orgy of brutality."

Two weeks later, on January 30, what The New York Herald described as a "German mass meeting" was held at Cooper Square.  The newspaper reported "the approaches to the Great Hall were blocked by a motley crown of Germans."

Presiding over the meeting and giving the first speech to the "boisterous and demonstrative audience" was the outraged Dr. Lilienthal.   He stressed the importance of protecting "the rights of citizens in this crisis" and to "protest against this flagrant violation of the right of free assemblage."

Among the strong male voices that night was one that was perhaps unexpected by the press covering the event.  Auguste Lilienthal stepped to the dais as one of the last speakers.  The Herald described her as "a tall, stout lady."  Her impassioned speech accused the police of a "felonious outrage perpetrated upon working-men in Tompkins Square."  She said they had robbed the people of the right of free speech guaranteed by the Constitution.  "Would the police have disturbed Messrs. Astor, Stewart, Vanderbilt, &c., in a meeting of theirs?  Oh, no, they would have taken great care to secure them a peaceable and quiet gathering."

"Who were the men clubbed in Tompkins Square?" she asked.  "They were the real citizens, the real workers, the real taxpayers."  Auguste's speech was repeatedly met with a chorus of "Bravos!"

Dr. Lilienthal's practice provided him the income to afford his upscale home in what had become a stylish suburban neighborhood.  After Charles S. Hibbard sold No. 408 in 1901 it became home to the Lilienthals.  The couple maintained a country estate in the Catskills near Tannersville, New York, as well.

Auguste was helped by a small staff of domestic servants.  An advertisement in The New York Herald read, "Two German girls, a cook and a chambermaid by small family in private home.  Two sisters or mother and daughter preferred."  Auguste's preference was most likely well-founded.  A family member, especially a mother, might keep the other from dawdling.

She needed domestic help because she was no mere housewife.  Auguste was the editor of the woman's section of the Sunday magazine of The New York Volkszeitung.  (The Lilienthal's adult daughter, Meta L. Stern, incidentally, was a popular German-language author who wrote under the pseudonym of Hebe.)

Dr. Lilienthal's booming practice may have been boosted by his generous dispensing of medications.  Medical Leaves: A Review of the Jewish Medical World later commented, "A good physician with a great following was Dr. F. W. Lilienthal.  Patients were obliged to wait in line for hours at his office.  Dr. Lilienthal usually prescribed pills in large quantities; one hundred pills was his usual prescription."

The Lilienthals were at their summer estate on July 28, 1910 when the 77-year-old doctor died.  The New York Times, while noting that he was "one of the leading German physicians" in the city, focused on his political and social stances.  "He was also a founder of the Free Thinkers' Society, and a member of the various organizations which joined to form the present Socialist Party in this country.  He was a member of the International Socialist Union."

Within the year Lilienthal's estate sold No. 408 to Martin E. Roache.  He was the vice-president and the second-largest stockholder in James Butler, Inc., grocers.  The firm, which was started by James Butler, now operated 171 retail grocery stores in connection with its wholesale business.

The Roache family leased the house to Harry C. Hequembourg, purchasing agent for the American Locomotive Company in 1917; and in 1919 sold it.  By now the neighborhood had noticeably changed.  Subway service reached the area in 1904, making it more accessible to middle class New Yorkers.  Apartment buildings began sprouting along the avenues and the exclusivity of the neighborhood disappeared.

By the Depression years 408 West 154th Street was being operated as a rooming house.  At least one tenant, William J. Garvey, was financially comfortable enough to own an automobile.  On January 30, 1930 he was driving along South Broadway in Yonkers when a 19-year-old boy, Henry Offerman, stepped in the path of his car.   Garvey was unable to react and he hit Offerman, injuring the teen enough to require his treatment at St. Joseph's Hospital.  Garvey was held innocent of any negligence.

Mrs. Odette Kelly took the building manager to court in 1935, claiming he was pocketing her rent money.  On November 15, according to The New York Age, she complained that she had given Samuel J. Cottman (a "well-known realtor") her $67.50 rent on October 2.  She was later informed by the building's owner, Emanuel & Shure, that she was behind in her rent.  When she confronted Cottman he "kept making excuses to her about the money," she said.

The New York Age reported "Cottman was hauled into Heights Court."  The hearing was held on November 22 where Cottman's defense convinced the judge of his innocence.  "The realtor told the court that he had held the money up at the request of the woman's husband," reported The New York Age.  "The court agreed with him...and dismissed the charge."

By the last decade of the 20th century the neighborhood around No. 408 had revived.  Today there are four apartments in the Lilienthal house; but from the outside little has changed after more than 110 years.

photographs by the author

The Otto Presspritch House - 411 West 154th Street

In 1874 developer John Kelly acquired the large parcel at the southwest corner of St. Nicholas Avenue and 154th Street.  It would be years before the development of the Sugar Hill neighborhood was fully underway; and Kelly waited nearly a decade before hiring architect James Stroud in 1883 to design eleven row houses that wrapped the corner--seven on 154th Street and four others at Nos. 881 to 887 St. Nicholas Avenue.

In May 1883 Building, An Architectural Monthly remarked on the unusual setting.  "The architect, Mr James Stroud, has designed them on plateaus, giving the pleasing effect of green terraces, with walks of Seyssel Rock asphalt."  The writer described what today we recognized as the Queen Anne style.  "He has introduced colonial features of architecture, such as bow windows, irregular roofs, verandahs and balconies.  There will be ornamental sashes with glacier decorations and rolling Venetian blinds."  

A rendering released by Stroud's office reveal that the houses originally had covered porches--called "verandahs" by Building.  Building, An Architectural Monthly, May 1883 (copyright expired)

Each of the 21-foot wide houses had upscale detailing.  Expensive ash and cherry trim and hot and cold running water were expensive, modern amenities.  Building pointed out that at each stairway landing was a window "opening to the outer air," which it deemed "a decided improvement on the usual city house."  

Kelly erected the houses for rental income.  The Building journalist noted "Just why families are willing to pay $1,800 or $2,000 per annum for a suite of apartments on the eleventh story of an apartment house when they can rent a pleasant residence on its own ground for less than half the money, it is difficult to tell."  

The West 154th Street row was designed in an A-A-B-C-B-A-A configuration.  The pairs of "A" houses on either end were near mirror images of one another; the significant differences being in the treatment of the mansard towers.  No. 411 at the western end was, like its neighbors, three stories tall including the full-height mansard.  The openings wore brick lintels with stone keystones and imposts.  The dramatic mansard included a dormer and an oval window within the tower.

The 11-room house became home to the large Presspritch family.  Otto Presspritch and his wife, the former Marie Le Gendre, had been married in 1862.  The New York Times mentioned that Marie "was descended from an old family of New Orleans."  Otto was a cotton broker at the time.  Following the Civil War Presspritch was made Consul to the Russian Government and the couple moved to Liverpool, England, until 1875.

Otto and Marie had two daughters, Marie and Alice, and five sons, Henri, Ernest, Walter, Reginald, and Otto, Jr.  In 1887 Reginald was a freshman at the College of the City of New York, enrolled in its "Classical course;" while his brother, Henri, was studying a Columbia University.

In 1900 the Presspritches were paying $900 per year rent on the house--approximately $2,300 a month in today's terms.  But they would not continued to do so for much longer.  Perhaps because the children were now grown, In 1904 the family left No. 411.  In July that year it was purchased by Albert Pritchett and his wife, Mary Elizabeth.

Pritchett was a manager of the Baltimore-based Keen & Hagerty Mfg. Co. at No. 99 Nassau Street.  His residency in the 154th Street house here was a rocky one.  He troubles started in February 1906 when The Title Insurance Company of New York began foreclosure proceedings against him.  He owed $11,582.28 on his mortgage at the time, nearly $335,000 today.  The situation was grim enough that the house was scheduled to be auctioned on April 5.

Pritchett managed to wriggle out of that situation; but his problems were not over by far.  He attempted to improve his finances by gambling in 1907, but that ended badly.  On September 23 The Sun reported that he appeared in the West Side Court "with his right arm badly cut" and was charged with "being a disorderly person."

As the article explained, "Pritchett said that he had been to 141 West Ninetieth street to play in a poker game on Saturday night to see if he could win back some money he had lost.  He lost more, he said, and made a kick."  When his hosts demanded that he leave, he "got out by going through the glass panel of the door in the vestibule."   The judge was as much surprised by the fact that the poker game had not been raided as he was by Prichett's bad behavior.

Possibly in an effort to avoid another foreclosure, Albert transferred title to the 154th Street house to Mary Elizabeth on February 28, 1908.  Apparently desperate for money, two months later he turned to larceny.  On the afternoon of April 5, 1908 he accompanied a 30-year old woman, Frances Tenney, to the apartment of her friend, Amelia B. Liddy at No. 2337 Broadway.  The two women had been close friends for years so Amelia had no reason to be suspicious.

But as the three were sitting in the living room, Pritchett rose and boldly walked into the bedroom.  According to Amelia, he "went to a dressing table...and took from a drawer $2,650 worth of jewelry."  Included were a diamond and pearl ring, a diamond locket and a "snake pin" set with diamonds."  Pritchett then bolted from the apartment.

"Miss Tenney ran over to me and placed her hand over my mouth that I might make no outcry," Amelia said in her complaint.  "I tried to rise from my chair.  She pushed me back into it and held me there."  

When Pritchett had had sufficient time to escape, Frances ran away too.  It did not take long for authorities to apprehend her; and the following day The New York Herald reported "Police are searching for Albert G. Pritchett of No. 411 West 154th street."

Pritchett appears to have panicked.  When Amelia appeared before a judge the day after the incident, a man identified only as "Sam" entered the courtroom.  The Evening World reported he pleaded with her "to withdraw the complaint against Pritchett."   And when he handed her a chamois bag containing the stolen jewelry, she did just that.  "All I wanted was my jewels back," she said.

The Evening World described the detectives as being "dumbfounded."  Amelia told reporters "He's not a bad sort, anyhow.  He's Miss Tenny's friend.  I hated to have the dear girl arrested, but you know those diamonds are worth $2,700 and that's something."  The article said "Both women are considerate of Pritchett.  He is a married man with a family."

The Pritchetts managed to remain at No. 411 into 1912.  They were followed by Daisy L. Jordan, whose former husband Arthur M. Jordan was the proprietor of the Cedarcliffe Hotel in New Rochelle, New York.   Daisy took him to court in September 1912 claiming he owed $950 in back alimony--nearly $25,500 today.   Daisy Jordan's time here was short and in 1913 electrical engineer Virgil Ellsworth Metcalfe called No. 411 home.

By the Depression years the Sugar Hill neighborhood had significantly changed.  Most of the comfortable 19th century homes were converted to rooming houses, some with shops in the basement levels.  The end of the line for No. 411 as a dwelling came at the beginning of 1938.

In 1924 West 154th Street was still unpaved.  Several of the porches have been lost, as was a portion of the retaining wall.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York 

On January 24 The New York Sun reported "A stag stronghold, the St. Catherine's Boys Club, has been established in an old four-floor private house at 411 West 154th street, with as many officers as there are in a Mexican army."  Each of the 35 members, ranging from 15 to 22-years old, was at least a director.

The house had been acquired by the Catholic Youth Organization and Rev. Joseph A. Brady of the nearby Church of St. Catherine of Genoa gave the boys a daunting responsibility.  They were told, according to The Sun, "that they could have the house for a clubhouse if they would furnish it."  The article note "they have furnished the house partly with articles from members' homes, and are ready to make merry and make money."

To make money the boys organized their own "employment agency" to obtain after-school jobs like dog walkers, window washers, errand runners and "carriage-wheelers."  They also published an eight-page newspaper, the Armchair.

The boys were also responsible for the maintenance of the house as well.  Seventeen-year old Robert O'Brien, who acted as the Armchair's editor, for instance, tended the furnace.  So "in the heat of press time the clubhouse is cold," said The Sun.

It was not all work, of course.  St. Catherine's Boys Club also had "football, baseball, basketball, track and debating teams, a dance committee and a library," according to the article.

Unfortunately for the boys, the endeavor did not last.  Within a year it had become The Modern School, a private elementary school.  In the 2001 book Manhattan at Mid-Century: An Oral History, Barbara Pringle recalled that the first school she attended "was the Modern School at 154th Street, which was a feeder for white private schools.  Ethel Waters's daughter, W. E. B. Du Bois's granddaughter, a whole number of children who came from black professional families went there."

The girls of The Modern School were dressed for a program on Christmas Eve 1939.  from the collection of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The Modern School was founded in 1934 by Mildred Johnson Edwards.  A Black graduate of the teacher training program at the Ethical Culture Center on Central Park West, when she found that she could not get a teaching position in a New York City private school, she simply opened her own.  The school accepted children from 18 months of age through the fifth grade.

Mildred Edwards purchased No. 411 when her success demanded more space and her enrollment reached 200.  Years later, in 1999, Nina Seigal wrote in The New York Times, it "came to be respected as one of the best private schools in Manhattan."

Around 1954 the school moved to West 152nd Street.  No. 411 became home to Bryant Memorial Zion Baptist Church, which retains ownership.  Although sadly battered, the house has managed to retain its charm, silently begging for sympathetic attention.

photographs by the author

The Luther Halsey Smith House - 412 West 154th Street

By the time developer William H. Lake began construction of three homes on West 154th Street and five more around the corner on St. Nicholas Avenue, the neighborhood was quickly filling with upscale residences.   His architect, Henri Fouchaux, filed plans in August 1898 for the 20-foot wide homes, each estimated to cost $15,000, or about $468,000 today.

Fouchaux designed all eight of the houses in the popular Beaux Arts style.  The three 154th Street homes were designed in an A-B-A configuration.  No. 412, the western most, was like its neighbors a restrained example of the often gushy style.  Three stories tall above an English basement, it was clad in limestone and featured an angled bay at the second floor, supported by ornate stone brackets.

Fouchaux stepped away from the French motif by embellishing the newels of the dog-legged stoop and the spandrel panels of the second floor bay with Renaissance-inspired carvings.  Above the understated third floor was a bracketed pressed metal cornice.

In 1900 Lake sold all eight of the completed houses to Charles Hibbard.   The ambitious real estate operator seems to have been over-optimistic, for he lost six of the houses in foreclosure in 1902.   At the time of the auction on March 29 he owed the bank $16,690 and back taxes of $600--or about $550,000 today.

No. 412 soon became home to Luther Halsey Smith.  Born in Pittsburgh in 1842, he had run a "plate manufacturing" business there before moving to New York in 1900.  He and his wife, the former Anna Mitchell Gardner, had five children, all adults by now.

In May 1909 the 67-year-old suffered "an attack of paralysis," as worded by The New York Herald--what would be called a stroke today.   On November 4, 1910 he died in the house of a second, massive stroke.

No. 412 changed hands several times over the next decade.  In the years following World War I it was owned by Joseph Fleischman, who was leasing it to Mary Gardner Smith.  In May 1921 he hired architect Charles Sheres to make $7,000 in interior alterations.  The plans were vague and may have been merely updating to the plumbing and other modernization.

The unmarried Mary Gardner Smith was active in clubs and charities.  She sat on the Board of Managers of the Florence Crittenton Home, an organization founded in 1883 "to aid and encourage destitute, homeless, and depraved women who wish to seek reformation," and was a member of the Daughters of Pennsylvania, the Riverside Park Protection League and the New York City Federation of Women's Clubs.  In 1921 she was appointed a delegate to the State Convention of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Mary had moved on before 1923 when the house was being leased by the Legal Fraternity of Gamma Eta Gamma as the Chapter House of its Fordham University branch.   Some members lived in the chapter house, including William O. Hubertson and Russell H. Corcoran, both of whom passed the bar exams later that year.

By the end of the decade the residence had once again changed hands.  It was home to spiritualist preacher Syrenus Heylieger, who claimed to be a member of the General Assembly of Spiritualists.  The New York Age, saying that "Mr. Heylinger hails from the 'sunny isle' of Bermuda," noted on November 12, 1932, that he "admitted that he conducted spiritualistic seances to augment his unstipulated salary."

Heylieger's unstipulated salary was enough that he could afford a chauffeur and in 1929 he hired Albert Hodge, one of his followers, at a salary of $35 per week.  Hodge's wife had recently died and on February 1 the spiritualist offered to handle the funeral arrangements.  Hodge gave him $147 for the undertaker's fees.  According to him, Heylieger told him shortly thereafter than he needed another $560.  When Mrs. Hodge's $502 insurance benefits arrived, Hodge signed the check over to Heylieger.

Hodge held the chauffeur's job until the summer of 1930.  He was shocked in the summer of 1932 to receive a bill from the undertake for $287.  He had Heylieger arrested for grand larceny.  In court the spiritualist denied ever receiving the $147.  Instead he claimed he had paid Mrs. Hodge's medical bills and the cost of a nurse; and following her death had bought flowers (a bleeding heart), paid for the shroud, dresses for the two children, $65 in rent and bought a new suit for the now-revolting Hodge.  The New York Age said "Heylienger prefaced and concluded all of his statements with 'If I remember well.'"

The once-gracious home continued to see various tenants and uses.  Another minister, William A. Campbell, lived here in April 1936 when he filed for bankruptcy, listing nearly $29,000 in liabilities and no assets.  

And in the mid-1940's Almot Products Company, a wig maker, operated from the house.  An advertisement in the Pittsburgh Courier on March 1, 1947 entitled "Human Hair / Hair is Woman's Glory and Success" offered "hair fascinators," like the popular Page Boy style ("Once you try our Page Boy you will never buy elsewhere"), or the V-Roll.  "New York is the style center of the world.  Nearly every girl in New York wears a V-Roll," said the ad.  The wigs cost $3.50 by mail order, about $40 today.

The house was unofficially divided into apartments by the late 1960's.  Twenty-seven-year-old James Mueller occupied a two-room apartment in the winter of 1971 when on February 6 seven detectives armed with search warrants forced their way in.  They found a "narcotics factory" where Mueller and a 20-year old woman, Cheryl Cherry were "cutting the heroin...and already had packed some of it in 900 glassine bags," according to The New York Times.

An official renovation to apartments came in 1977.  A duplex now engulfed the basement and first floor, with one apartment on the second and four one-room apartments on the third.

The revival of the neighborhood was evidenced when Marie Brown, proprietor of Marie Brown Associates, moved her office here around 1990.  The African-American Writer's Survival Handbook said of her in 1991 "she has been a major force in the publishing industry for more than 20 years."

Henri Fouchaux's limestone-faced row looks much as it did in 1899.

Despite its sometimes rocky history, the 120-year old structure is little changed outwardly from the time when Luther Halsey Smith's carriage waited by the curb.

photographs by the author