The 1897 Donac - 402 West 20th Street

photo courtesy of Brown Harris Stevens

Angelica Barraclough Faber was one of 13 children of Don Alonzo and Mathilda Charity Smith Cushman.  Cushman, a close friend of Clement Clarke Moore, began developing plots on the former's country estate, Chelsea, in the early 1830s.  Upon Cushman's death in 1875, he left significant real estate to his children in equal shares.

Angelica's husband, Gustavus William Faber, died in 1895.  Like her father, she turned to real estate and in February 1897, bought out her siblings to acquire full ownership of the vacant lot at 402 West 20th Street, just west of Ninth Avenue.  She hired esteemed architect C. P. H. Gilbert (who had designed several Cushman buildings) to design a flat building on the site.  His plans, filed on April 2, projected the construction cost at $15,000, or about $585,000 in 2026 terms.

To the east of the plot sat 169 Ninth Avenue, which Don Alonzo Cushman erected in 1845 and which hugged the 20th Street property line.  To the west was the 1830 house at 404 West 20th Street, which sat back to allow for its stoop.  Gilbert cleverly transitioned the two by concaving the western corner of his building, creating an elegant architectural link.  

C. P. H. Gilbert's design gracefully transitions from property line to set-back.  photo courtesy of Brown Harris Stevens

Faced in beige brick, Gilbert's tripartite neo-Colonial design included splayed lintels and paneled quoins.  Above the entrance, a stone entablature announced the building's name, Donac, a nod to Angelica's father (Don A. C.).  A three-story faceted bay filled the mid-section of the concave section.  It provided a small stone balcony to the fifth floor apartment.

Perhaps because the Donac faced the General Theological Seminary, several of the tenants were involved with the Episcopalian church.  Among the initial residents was Adelaide Oliver, who had lived across the street at 4 Chelsea Square with her husband, the Rev. Dr. Andrew Oliver.  On October 19, 1897, as construction of the Donac neared completion, Rev. Oliver died.  Adelaide could see the seminary and her former home from the window of her new apartment.

Adelaide Inlay Oliver was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1832.  She died in her Donac apartment on November 17, 1898 and her funeral was held in Trinity Chapel on November 21.

As early as 1908, John Wilson Wood and his wife, the former Harriet Roe Drom, lived here.  Born in New York City in 1866, he was the executive secretary of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States.  He was in charge of domestic missionary work in North America.

The Woods would remain in the Donac for decades. The 1929 American Biography noted, "Mr. Wood makes his home at No. 402 West Twentieth Street, in that charming part of New York City known locally as Chelsea."

Harriet died in the apartment in 1931, and eight years later John Wilson Wood married Regina Lustgarten, who had been a missionary in China for years.  John and Regina Wood still lived here on August 7, 1947, when he died at the age of 81.

In the meantime, author Edward Sim Van Zile and his family occupied an apartment as early as 1913.  Born on May 2, 1863, Van Zile married Mary Morgan Bulkeley in 1886 and they had five children.  An article about Van Zile in Book News Biographies in 1904 said, "for the past ten years, Mr. Van Zile has been known to the reading public through many short stories, novelettes and a few novels."

Edward Sims Van Zile ca. 1917, from the collection of the Library of Congress

Among the books written by him at the time of that article were the the 1890 A Magnetic Man and Other Stories; Don Miguel, and Other Stories, released in 1891; and the 1903 A Duke and His Double.

The Van Ziles' parlor was the scene of daughter Sally's marriage to Dr. Walter F. Scott on June 3, 1913.  The home wedding was, apparently a compromise.  The New York Times reported, "As Miss Van Zile is a Protestant and Dr. Scott a Catholic, the wedding ceremony will be performed by Mgr. [Michael J.] Lavelle of St. Patrick's Cathedral."  (The family moved next door to 404 West 20th Street, leasing it from the Cushman family, soon after.)

The staid atmosphere of the Donac was rocked in 1958.  Poet Hettie Cohen worked as a subscription manager at the Record Changer when author and poet LeRoi Jones applied for a job.  The two bonded, were married the following year, and leased an apartment in the Donac.  Hettie, in her How I Became Hettie Jones, recalls the Friday night, "just after we moved to Chelsea," that the couple attended a poetry reading by Jack Kerouac.  She writes:

Our new house was a straight mile downtown, just off Ninth Avenue, and we had nothing but party space to offer, so after the reading we just brought the audience home, to 402 West Twentieth Street, a once elegant six-room parlor facing the weatherbeaten brick of the Episcopal Seminary.

Hettie Jones writes that that Friday night never ended.  "Soon we had a studio couch and a folding cot, one or two weekly boarders, twenty or more weekend regulars, occasional bases for hundreds."  The Jones apartment fostered what became known as the "Twentieth Street poets," a group of Beat Generation poets, including figures like Jack Kerouac, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso.

LeRoi and Hettie Jones with Jones's parents in 1963.  Kas Heppner/Metropolitan Photo Service

In 1957, the couple founded the literary magazine Yugen and established the publishing firm Totem Press.  Not surprisingly, they published works by their friends--like Ginsberg, Kerouac and Frank O'Hara.  In 1962, they left the Donac to move into an apartment at 27 Cooper Square.

photo courtesy of Brown Harris Stevens

The building was purchased in 1981 by Marion Buhagiar, who initiated a facade cleaning and restoration.  Essentially unchanged externally, it was recently offered for sale, the realtor telling me it "can now be offered as a single-family home if desired."

The Cornelius Graham House - 218 West 20th Street

 

The door at lower right originally opened into a horsewalk.  photograph by Beyond My Ken

The families of Samuel Dearborn and John Gould shared the recently built house at 144 West 20th Street in 1847.  (The address would be renumbered 218 West 20th Street in 1865.)  The two men had much in common.  Dearborn was a shipmaster and Gould a steamboat captain.  The builder of the 25-foot-wide house straddled the Greek Revival and Italianate styles--the former was currently passing from favor and the latter quickly becoming the most popular domestic style.  

Three stories tall, its brownstone stoop with Italianate railings rose to a paneled door flanked by narrow pilasters which upheld a generous, three-paned transom.  The doorway, the simple brownstone lintels and sills, and the no-nonsense bracketed cornice were Greek Revival in style.

To the right of the stoop, a doorway opened into a horsewalk, or passage to the rear yard, where there was a secondary building.  John E. Caffrey operated his carpentry business there, specializing in making blinds and sashes.

Public pumps were dotted throughout residential districts, often in the middle of the street.  One of those sat directly in front the house.  It seems to have been an obstacle for Caffrey's wagons that brought supplies and removed finished goods.  On October 4, 1848, The Evening Post reported that he had petitioned the Board of Aldermen "to have pump removed and well filled, in front of lot No. 144 West 20th street."

As early as 1850, John E. C. G. Cooper and his wife occupied the house.  They had recently arrived in America and John worked as a steward while his wife operated her medical practice from the house.  Catering only to women patients, she advertised in the Sunday Dispatch on August 5, 1850:

Mrs. Cooper, hygeist and oculist, from Europe informs the afflicted that they may obtain her advice and pure Herb Medicines, at her office, No. 144 West Twentieth Street, N.Y., near 7th and 8th Avenues.  Mrs. C. has had 25 years practice, and has testimonies to prove that she succeeded in curing many cases which previously baffled the skill of the leading physicians of London and Dublin, and is now curing nine cases out of ten, by her superior treatment.

(It is unclear whether Mrs. Cooper invented the title "hygeist" or if it were merely a typo.)

John E. Caffrey's business flourished.  By 1855, David Flandreau was listed as working with him, and by 1859 Caffrey had expanded into construction.  On May 17, 1859, he advertised "the new finely finished four story basement and sub-cellar brick house" at 129 West 38th Street.  He boasted that it was "built in the best manner, and replete with all the modern improvements."

The main house was home to the Cornelius Graham family as early as 1864.  Cornelius worked as a clerk.  They occupied the top two floors while leasing the lower two.  Their advertisement in the New York Herald on September 19 that year offered, "To Let--First story and basement of house 144 West Twentieth street--four large rooms, five bedrooms, pantries, &c.  Rent $30 per month."

Living in the lower portion that year was Allan William, a teacher, and the following year, John Warren signed a lease.  The Civil War directly affected the household that spring.  On March 16, 1865, John Warren's name was pulled in the Union Army's draft lottery, and the next day the name of Cornelius Graham's son, listed only as P. Graham, was called.

The Grahams remained in the upper two floors and, little by little, raised the rent on the lower floors.  An advertisement in the New York Herald on May 30, 1865 listed "rent $38 per month.  Possession immediately."  Two years later, the rent had jumped to $55.  The price would translate to about $1,200 in 2026.

As early as 1868, Thomas Rusk, who lived on West 35th Street, had taken over the carpenter shop in the rear.  Around 1876, George Cavanagh and William Cameron took over the space, operating their Cameron & Cavanagh carpentry business.  And on February 1, 1880, J. E. Pearce and A. Lauzon partnered to form J. E. Pearce & Company, "to manufacture upholstered furniture," in the rear building, according to The Carpet and Upholstery Trade Review.  It noted that they made "principally lounges and couches."

In the meantime, among the tenants in the lower portion of the house in 1870 were Michael Donahue, who ran an ice business; and Samuel T. Munson, who was both a smith and a councilman.  Munson contracted "a severe illness," as described by the New York Herald, the following year, and died on June 6, 1871 at the age of 54.  His funeral was held in the house two days later.

The Grahams left West 20th Street that year and it appears that No. 218 became a rooming house throughout.  The tenant list was highly varied.  In 1876, it included James Carroll, a clerk; Michael and Thomas Cullen, an engineer and cartman respectively; Martin Maher, who ran a saloon; and Sarah Thompson, the widow of Dr. Joseph Thompson.

Starting around 1887, Philip and Mary Schmidt owned the property.  They converted the basement and parlor levels for factory purposes.  Cast iron piers were installed to support a storefront.  

In 1941, the stoop and railings were intact, as was the Greek Revival-inspired doorway.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The factory was leased by H. Y. Castner, who manufactured sodium.  In 1886, he had patented the "Castner's Process."  In his Aluminum; Its History, Occurrence, Properties, Metallurgy and Applications, Joseph William Richards quoted "one of the New York daily journals," which said, "Mr. H. Y. Castner, whose laboratory is at 218 West Twentieth Street, New York, has the first patent ever granted on this subject in the United States, and the only one taken out in the world since 1808."

Castner's "laboratory" had a decidedly industrial bent.  "The metal is reduced and distilled in large iron crucibles," said the article, "which are raised automatically through apertures in the bottom of the furnace, where they remain until the reduction is completed and the sodium distilled."

It appears that Philip Schmidt used part of the new space for his own manufacturing.  An article in The Independent Practitioner in May 1888 reported on improved "polishing wheels and points for cleansing teeth."  It said, "The manufacture of them has been placed with Philip Schmidt, 218 West Twentieth Street, New York, who is well known as a first-class repairer of dental instruments."

While the Schmidts occupied part of the upper floors, they continued to rent rooms.  William H. and Julia P. Ferre lived here in 1888 when the couple was drawn into a highly visible domestic case.  Ferre was a friend with Samuel Henry Agnew, described by The Sun as "a cloth merchant in Ireland, who is reputed to be a millionaire."  In 1883, Agnew married an American girl from Bowling Green, Virginia named Pauline and they had a son, Albert, Jr. the following year.

In May 1887, the family traveled from Ireland to Virginia to visit Pauline's family.  In August, Henry went back to Ireland on business and when he returned, 'he found that his wife had left Bowling Green with valuables belonging to him."  (The valuables were bonds worth $2,000, or about $68,000 in today's money.)  He tracked her as far as Texas, then went back to Bowling Green, Virginia and took four-year-old Alfred from his in-laws.  The Sun reported on October 4, 1888 that he "brought him to the house of a friend, William H. Fore [sic], who lives at 218 West Twentieth."

Pauline Agnew tracked her husband to New York City and filed charges against him for kidnapping.  The Evening World reported that Agnew was arrested in the restaurant of the St. Denis Hotel on October 3, 1888, but he "absolutely refused to reveal the whereabouts of little Albert."  Nevertheless, detectives had their suspicions.  The newspaper reported that they "had been on Agnew's track and had seen him enter 218 West Twentieth street, and it was supposed that the child was there at the residence of W. H. Ferre."

Pauline Agnew and her attorney took a carriage to West 20th Street.  The Evening World reported, "in passing No. 218 the mother caught a glimpse of her child in the window.  The woman screamed, leaped from the carriage and frantically demanded admission."  The boy was "snatched away from the window and the shade hastily drawn."  While Pauline banged on the door and cried loudly, a crowd gathered.  Finally, officers arrived and the boy was removed.

The Ferres were still living here when Julia suffered a fatal heart attack on the morning of October 23, 1890 at the age of 70.  By then, the tenant list of 218 West 20th Street was racially mixed.  

Living here the following year was Lewis Washington.  He attended a ball where he got into an argument with Winfield Pope White "about a colored woman," according to the New York Herald.  White threatened to kill Pope "on sight."  

On the night of January 17, White spied Washington at Macdougal and Houston Streets.  In 19th century racist terms, the New York Herald reported, "Pope armed himself, and as soon as he caught sight of his dusky rival waiting on the corner he began to shoot."  After firing off two shots, Pope fled.  When he ran into a policeman, he surrendered, saying he had shot a man, but did not know how badly he had injured him.  Amazingly, one shot had gone wild, and the other "struck a button on his coat and glanced off."  As a result of his heavy brass button, Lewis Washington was uninjured.

Philip Schmidt died around 1896 and in January 1905, Mary sold 218 West 20th Street to William Hoehn and his wife, Emma.  The Record & Guide reported that they "will occupy the premises after alterations."  

Those alterations had much to do with the factory portion, which became home to the W. Hoehn Iron Works.  William Hoehn was born in Prussia in 1840 and became a blacksmith upon his arrival in New York.  Now his foundry produced manhole covers, fire escapes, and other industrial products.

Emma Hoehn died at the age of 54 on March 12, 1908.  Her funeral was held in the upper portion of the building on the 15th.  

Architect Joseph Harding was hired in May 1912 to design a new storefront.  Rather surprisingly, throughout these several renovations, the stoop and original doorway were untouched.

As early as 1925, the John McCrossin, Sr. family lived here.  On March 3 that year, The New York Times reported that 17-year-old John McCrossin had been captured with two other teens "after an attempted hold-up at the jewelry store of Samuel Shisko" in Astoria, Queens.  When the trio pulled out a gun, Shisko yelled so loudly that a policeman half a block away heard him.  He captured the boys as they ran out of the store.

The family was still here five years later when Mrs. McCrossin's letter to the Rinso laundry soap company was used in an advertisement.  She raved, "There's no scrubbing to wear out the clothes--they last much longer now."

Following William Hoehn's death in 1921, the firm continued at 218 West 20th Street.  After operating nearly half a century at the address, it closed in 1955.  That year, in April, the property was sold to Arthur Reich.

A renovation initiated in 2018 resulted in residential units throughout.  The factory front was converted to windows, and the former entrance to the rear yard became a door.  There are three apartments in the building today.  And while its lower portion smacks of a Mondrian composition, the upper floors retain their early 19th century appearance.

The DeWitt and Victorine Cole House - 436 West 20th Street

 

Clement Clark Moore donated the block of Ninth to Tenth Avenues from 20th to 21st Street in 1818.  Six years later, the first building of the Episcopal Church's General Seminary was erected on the property.  Within a few years, the first genteel residences began appearing on the opposite side of West 20th Street.  In 1835, John N. Smith erected one of the first homes to face the bucolic spot, at 280 West 20th Street (renumbered 436 in 1865).

Faced in red Flemish bond brick above a brownstone basement, the 25-foot wide house was a very early example of the emerging Greek Revival style.  Handsome iron fencing with acanthus finials ran along the areaway.  Fluted Doric columns upheld the heavy entablature of the double-doored entrance.  The squat windows of the attic level interrupted the generous, layered wooden fascia below the understated cornice.

The handsome columned entrance and the layered fascia survived in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The house was home to the William A. Duncan family in the 1840s.  He was a paper merchant at 77 John Street.  Starting around 1853, it was operated as a boarding house run by Harriet Maurice.  Among her tenants that year were M. L. Candee, a clerk, and importer Henry J. Moore.  An advertisement in The New York Times on March 13, 1854 offered:

Boarding--Rooms furnished or unfurnished, with board for gentlemen and their wives and single gentlemen, in a house with all the modern improvements.  Apply at 280 West 20th-st.

An "M. Miller" boarded here in January 1859, when his room was burglarized.  The thief made away with "a carpet-bag containing a number of deeds and bonds, a pocketbook containing $585 in $5 and $10 bills on the Brownsville Bank, Omaha City, Nebraska, and some valuable papers," as reported by the New-York Tribune on January 18.  Miller reported the theft to Police Sergeant Lefferts, who concocted a wily scheme.

Signing an announcement in the local papers "Jones," Lefferts offered $100 for the return of the bag, and used his personal address.  On January 17, two "rough-looking Irishmen" rang the bell of the Lefferts house.  Posing as "Mrs. Jones," Lefferts's wife explained that her husband was out, partially described the bag, and asked where her husband could call on them.  When they left, she rushed to the Detectives' Office and reported the incident.

Wearing plain clothes, Sergeant Lefferts and Officer McCord went to 103 Perry Street, the address the men supplied.  Some bantering went on, during which the two men questioned "Jones" about the description of the bag and its contents.  Satisfied that Lefferts was the actual owner, they released it after receiving the reward.

"At this point of the proceedings, the officers buckled on their shields and told the two men that they were prisoners," reported the New-York Tribune.  A fight ensued, but a "few well directed blows from the clubs of the [officers] brought the fellows to terms, and they submitted to be handcuffed," said the article.  The prisoners insisted they had found the carpetbag on the stoop of the Perry Street house.

The West 20th Street residence continued to be operated as a boarding house through 1863.  The next year it was purchased by Dewitt (sometimes spelled De Witt) Clinton Cole and his wife, the former Victorine Selena Crapser.  A Civil War veteran, Cole (perhaps appropriately) was a coal merchant, his business located at 165 Tenth Avenue.  He and Victorine had four daughters, Helen, Victorine, Marguerite, and Bessie.

As was common, the Coles rented unneeded space in their home.  In 1868, the Dexter family lived here.  Edward and Elias Dexter ran an art and framing store at 564 Broadway.  They would have occupied the second floor, while the Coles lived above and below them.  An advertisement in the New York Herald on May 2, 1872 offered, "To Let--with owner (private family), second floor, 5 rooms, all conveniences, in an American family; house 436 West Twentieth street; location first class."

Dewitt Cole had an interesting avocation--breeding pedigree dogs.  On April 9, 1879, he entered his English Setter puppy Boson in the Gilmore's Garden dog show.  The New York Times remarked, "The English setter dogs were magnificent.  Such a lot was never seen in any country before."

In October 1885, the Coles hired architect M. H. Roullier to enlarge the house with a full-height, 17-foot-wide extension to the rear.  The renovation cost them the equivalent of $135,000 in 2025.

In January 1887, the Coles took in two new renters, the fascinating Reverend Royal G. Wilder and his wife.  On February 17, The Sabbath Recorder reported, "With the January number, the Missionary Review begins volume ten.  The address of the editor and publisher has been changed from Princeton, N. J., to 436 West 20th St., New York."  Wilder had established the publication in 1875.

Born in 1816 in Bridgeport, Vermont, Wilder graduated from Middlebury College and two schools in Mississippi before entering Andover Theological Seminary.  In 1845, two years after graduating, he sailed to India as a missionary.  Although he would remain there for three decades, it was not an easy mission.  The New-York Tribune explained, "The natives of Kolapoor were a bigoted class, most of them being Brahmins, and his greeting there was in the shape of a petition to the government for his banishment."  For 12 years, said the newspaper, Wilder and his wife were the only Christians within a population of 4 million.

Wilder's health prompted his return to America in 1871.  He wrote Mission Schools in India and, now in the West 20th Street house, continued work on Missionary Review.  His heart, however, was in India.  After moving into the Coles' home, he said, "My whole soul would leap and jump at the chance if I had energy enough to go back to that dear native mission field."

Wilder's condition continued to worsen, but he carried on his work diligently.  On October 8, he published an edition of Missionary Review and three days later he died.  The New-York Tribune said, "Mrs. Wilder, her daughter and one son will return to India to complete the work already begun there."

At the turn of the century, the Coles' second floor tenants were Henry and Mary Hughes.  A machinist, he worked for the Charles K. Rogers & Co. factory at 161-165 West 18th Street.  Hughes became obsessed about the possibility of fire in the old building.  According to the New York Morning Telegraph, he regularly told Mary, "It's a regular fire trap.  I have a premonition that I'm going to die in a fire, and I think it'll be in that building."

The newspaper said, "Some time ago, his premonition constantly preying upon his mind, Hughes had his machine transferred from the third floor of the factory to a vault which was considered fireproof."  Next door to the vault was a storage room where excelsior, used for shipping, was kept.

On April 18, 1900, fire broke out in the excelsior room.  While the other 110 employees quickly exited the factory building, Hughes was trapped.  "He had no exit--no escape from the death he knew, or thought, the Fates had destined him to meet."  Had Hughes not moved his workplace into the vault, he, too, would have simply walked out of the building.  Instead, he met a grisly demise.  On April 20, the New York Morning Telegraph reported, "His charred and maimed body was found yesterday morning in the vault in the basement where he was penned in, a victim of smoke and fire, precisely as he had foretold."

The Coles apparently had no problems with their renters until the Arthur Lewis family moved in.  The couple had a small son, Arnold.  Things went smoothly until Arnold contracted whooping cough and had to be kept home from school.  The peace of Dewitt C. Cole's quiet domicile was shattered.  On June 23, 1909, he and his tenant faced a judge.

The Evening Post said Cole told Magistrate Krotel in the Jefferson Market Court "that the small son of Mrs. Arthur Lewis made the day hideous."

Mrs. Lewis explained, "Your Honor, my boy Arnold has only two drums, four horns, a couple of whistles, and one rattle.  He's had the whooping cough, and I had to keep him at home.  So I got him these toys."

When does all this happen?" asked the magistrate.

"From one to five in the afternoon."

The article said, "Mrs. Lewis was told by the magistrate to keep Arnold quiet."

Victorine Selena Cole died on July 24, 1920.  DeWitt and his daughters noted that her funeral would be "private."  Still living here with DeWitt was his only still single daughter, Victorine.

On February 24, 1925, the New York Evening Post reported, "De Witt Cole, ninety, one of the oldest residents of Old Chelsea, died this morning at 436 West Twentieth street, where he had lived for more than fifty years."

In October 1929, the Cole daughters sold 436 West 20th Street to Aaron J. and Elizabeth Colnan, "for their residency," according to The New York Times.  Interestingly, they inherited renters, Cornelius Blauvelt Zabriskie and his wife, Augusta.  Zabriskie was the registrar and bursar of the General Theological Seminary across the street.  The couple had rented from the Coles as early as 1923.

Zabriskie had retired in the spring of 1929.  He died here at the age of 71 on February 22, 1930.  In reporting his death, The New York Times remarked, "He spent much of the early part of his life in the West."

Actress and swimmer Frances Gaar purchased 436 West 20th Street in 1962 for $12,000 (about $124,000 today).  She had appeared in the motion picture Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates four years earlier and now appeared in television shows like The Defenders.  A champion swimmer in college, a biography by the Actors Fund said she "turned down an offer by MGM Studios to be a stand-in for Esther Williams in order to study acting in New York."  Two years after moving into the West 20th Street house, Gaar returned to the water doing an underwater ballet in the 1964 World's Fair's "Sea Hunt" exhibition.  

Gaar rented rooms in the house, mostly to actors.  A long-time resident was actress Glenn Close, "who lived on the parlor floor for many years," according to The New York Times on October 11, 2009.

Frances Gaar died at the age of 89 in 2008.  Just before her death, she sold the house to Michael Bolla and Michael Daniel, developers, "who promised her they would preserve it," according to The New York Times.  Gaar donated most of the $6.1 million sale proceeds to the Actors Fund.

On October 11, 2009, The New York Times reported that the new owners were "rebuilding the structure...while preserving historic detail."  They had put it on the market a week earlier as "an unusually large family mansion" at $21 million.

Unusual paneled Greek Revival pilasters survive in the parlor level.  photograph by Chester Higgins Jr. / The New York Times April 27, 2011

The new owners converted it to "Chelsea Mansion," with short-term rentals.  The parlor floor rented in 2011 for $12,000 per month.

The house was on the market again in 2015 for $22.5 million.  In reporting the offering on March 18, Real Estate Weekly said, "The building has continued [to] attract celebrity tenants in recent years with Courtney Love among those calling 436 West 20th Street home."

Current owners have removed the Greek Revival entrance (perhaps to be reinstalled later) and replaced the complex 1835 fascia with a sterile example.  David Holwka, in an article called "The Seamy Side of 436 West 20th Street" in his Small House Lab blog on January 31, 2025, complains about the ongoing renovations that appear to be going forward behind the backs of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.  He points out, for instance, a "prominent steel I-beam above its roof ridge and a large skylight on its north slope."  There was, he says, "no evidence of applications or approvals for these additions."

The wonderful missing entrance, in place as late as September 2024, will hopefully be restored.

The 190-year-old house, the earliest one on the block, survives in remarkable condition.

photographs by the author 

The 1857 William H. Merrill House - 434 West 20th Street

 

Presumably, William H. Merritt and Stephen A. Dennis were well acquainted with one another.  In 1856 they hired the same architect to design their 26-foot wide mansions at 278 and 276 West 20th Street, respectively.  (The addresses would be renumbered 432 and 434 in 1865.)  Completed in 1857, the brownstone-faced, Italianate-style residences were essentially identical.

Robust cast iron railings and newels flanked the wide stone stoops.  Four-stories tall above a high English-basement, their segmentally-arched openings wore bracketed, molded cornices.  The floor-to-ceiling parlor windows were fronted with cast iron balconies. 

In 1941, most of the original 1857 architectural details of both homes were intact.  No. 434 is at the right.  via NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Born in 1812, William H. Merrill married Rachel Tallman in 1839.  The couple had five children, Albert Tallman, Emma Louise, Ellen Corey (known as "Nellie"), Rachel Augusta (known as "Katie"), and William Albert.  When the family moved into their new home, the children ranged in age from William, who was 6, to Albert, who was 17.

Merrill was a partner with Dennis M. Fitch and George Allin in the jewelry firm of Merrill, Fitch & Allin.  

The Watchmaker & Jeweler, April 1870 (copyright expired)

Merrill died on January 31, 1872 at the age of 59.  His funeral was held in the parlor on February 3.  Rachel remained in the house with her staff of servants until her death on March 4, 1892 at the age of 74.  Her funeral was held two days later.

The Merrill heirs wasted little time in liquidating the estate.  The house was auctioned two months later, on May 18, and purchased by William H. and Margaret L. Schultz for $20,000--about $711,000 in 2025 terms.

William H. Schultz was a captain in the New York City Police Department's harbor unit.  Four years after buying 434 West 20th Street, he "took charge of the force," according to George W. Walling's 1887 Recollections of a New York Chief of Police.

 

Schultz was depicted on one of 95 "One of the Finest" tobacco cards issued in 1888 (copyright expired)

William and Margaret (who was known as "Mamie") took in a boarder, apparently just one at at time.  Living with them in 1895 was Henry Haverstrom, a letter carrier.  That fall, according to the New-York Tribune, "Many complaints have lately been made that letters mailed for collection on Haverstrom's route never reached their destination."  On October 19, Haverstrom was arrested along his route at Greenwich and Perry Streets.  Secreted in his uniform were several opened letters that contained cash or checks.

James Hanlon and his family lived with the Schultzes in 1899.  At 1:45 a.m. on May 15, Hanlon was found unconscious on the sidewalk at Eighth Avenue and 14th Street.  In the ambulance, he regained partial consciousness and mumbled repeatedly, "got a bad clubbing."  Because his money and a valuable gold watch were still in his pockets, doctors opined "the man may have got into a quarrel with a policeman and been clubbed," reported The New York Times.  If that were true, it would have been an embarrassment to Hanlon's landlord, Captain William H. Schultz.  "The police believe that Hanlon received his injuries by falling from a car," said the article.

The Schultzes sold 434 West 20th Street to John L. and Isabelle Jordan in 1901.  Jordan was an architect, a member with his father in John Jordan & Sons, and Assistant Superintendent of Buildings.  Before moving in, the Jordans made minor interior renovations.  Not surprisingly, The New York Times reported on September 5 that the architects would be John Jordan & Son.

The couple had one child, John Jordan 3d, born in December 1900.  Also moving into the house with them was Isabelle's parents.  Her father was former Police Superintendent William Murray.  He had "preceded Superintendent [Thomas F.] Byrnes as the head of the police force," according to The Evening World.

Murray was also depicted on one of the 1888 "One of the Finest" tobacco cards (copyright expired)

 

Tragically, John Jordan 3d died on May 1, 1902 at the age of one-and-a-half.  His devastated parents announced that his funeral would be "strictly private."

The Murrays' living with the Jordans might have had to do with William Murray's physical condition.  The Evening World said in 1904, "for a long time [he] has been a sufferer with locomotor ataxia."  (The condition affected his balance and coordination.)

Murray caught the flu in April 1904, which worsened to pneumonia.  On April 15, The Evening World began an article with the alarming notice, "William Murray, formerly Superintendent of Police in this city, is dying at the home of his son-in-law, John L. Jordan."  The article added flatly, "The physician in attendance on Mr. Murray says he probably will die to-day."  As it turned out, the dire prognosis was overstated.  A week later, on April 23, The New York Times reported that Murray "was doing well."

The Jordans sold 434 West 20th Street on June 29, 1904 to Joseph Elias.  The following year, he leased it to the newly organized Chelsea House at $1,300 a year (about $47,800 in 2025 terms).  A home for working girls, it opened in August 1905.  Three years later, The Common Welfare explained that the organization provided:

...a home where [working girls] could get good beds and food, and especially where they could receive their friends, for at that time there were few boarding houses in the vicinity of Twentieth street except those houses from which the girl met her "gentleman friend" on the corner, or, worse still, entertained him in her hall bedroom.

The Common Welfare said, "The wages of the girls living at Chelsea House range from seven to fifteen dollars, averaging ten and a half dollars, and their occupations cover many branches of industry."  The house accommodated 36 young women who paid from $4 to $6 a week "for board and lodging, including lunch."  The 17 bedrooms held from one (there were five single rooms) to four residents.  "There is also a large drawing room, a dining room and four bathrooms," said the article.

Residents of Chelsea House were entrusted with "latch keys," and were supervised by "a competent and sympathetic house mother," according to The Common Welfare.

That "house mother" was Mrs. George E. Haskell, described by  The Sun as "widely known in New York as a settlement worker, and a member of an old New England family."  Her daughter, Margaret, according to the New-York Tribune, "was educated in a convent in France and speaks several languages."  Margaret's profession as a private nurse brought a momentary spotlight on Chelsea House in the spring of 1918.

Rufus Gaynor was the son of former New York City Mayor William J. Gaynor.  He served in the Argonne sector of France as an ambulance driver during World War I.  In 1916 he was sent home with shell-shock, known today as post traumatic stress disorder.  He returned to the Plattsburg, New York military camp, but a second breakdown forced him to leave after a month of training.  His doctor provided him with a private nurse, Margaret Haskell.  The relationship became romantic and on March 23, the couple was married.

Chelsea House operated from 434 West 20th Street at least through the mid-1920s.  The former mansion was run as rented rooms until 1962, when it was purchased by Elizabeth Lyon, "who plans extensive alterations," according to The New York Times on November 21.  Lyon converted the residence to Bierer House, a half-way house "for mentally disturbed people who do not require hospitalization and who benefit from group living," as described by The New York Times on June 28 the following year.  The article described,

Bierer House, at 434 West 20th Street, is a brownstone with 40 rooms.  The elegance of times gone by is seen in the marble-floored front hall and the French windows and moldings in the spacious parlor.  Some of the residents hold regular jobs outside, and most continue to receive psychiatric care outside.  The house is thus a "halfway" home between a hospital and complete independence.

Elizabeth Lyon's renovations included the shaving off of the Italianate details, the removal of the parlor floor balcony, and replacing the 1857 ironwork.  Bierer House operated here until the early 1980s.  In 1982, a renovation resulted in nine apartments.  

many thanks to reader and resident Gianni di Cenc for requesting this post

photographs by the author

 

The 1857 Jacob Smith House - 330 West 20th Street

 

In 1857 broker Jacob Smith erected a home at 216 West 20th Street (renumbered 330 in 1866), between Eighth and Ninth Avenues.  He seems to have worked closely with H. Secor and J. W. Clark, whose houses went up simultaneously on either side.  Obviously the product of the same builder, the three houses were identical.  Three stories tall and two bays wide, they were clad in red brick above the brownstone-faced English basements.  The architrave frames of the double-doored entrance were unusually geometric for the Italianate style.  The floor-to-ceiling parlor windows and handsome bracketed and paneled cornices, on the other hand, were more typical.

Smith, who lived nearby on West 19th Street, initially leased the house to John and Annie J. Kirby.  Three years after moving in, Annie gave birth to a son, named Edward Mortimer.  Tragically he died soon after on May 30.  His funeral was held in the parlor on June 1.

In March 1861, a year before the Kirbys left, they looked for a family to share the house with them.  Their ad read:

To Let--To a small family, the upper part of a large three story House, containing the modern improvements, consisting of the second floor, room on the third floor, and front basement; has abundant pantry room, a fine wardrobe, closet, large bath room and wash tubs &c.

By 1867, Jacob Smith and his wife, the former Caroline Doremus Mead, moved into the house he had rented for a decade.  The couple had five children.  Living with them were their teenaged son Jacob Oscar; their married daughter Caroline Virginia, her husband John Roome, and the couple's two sons, John Benjamin and Howard S. (two years old and one year old, respectively).

The population of the house increased by one on June 30, 1872 when Jacob Oscar married Clara Elizabeth Inness.  Tragically, less than two months later, on August 25, the bride, who was just 19 years old, died.  Clara's funeral was held in the house on August 27.

Jacob and Caroline Smith's house was filled with the sounds of children throughout the coming years.  Caroline and John Roome would eventually have seven children.  (Sadly, two of them would die in infancy.  William H. was born in 1871 and died in 1872, and Mary Florence was born in 1872 and died in 1873.)

The Roome's first daughter to be born was Caroline Francis, in 1869.  Twenty years later, on October 16, 1889, the girl known as Carrie to her family was married to Louis Berhens in the parlor of the house in which she was born.

Caroline Mead Smith died on June 3, 1890 at the age of 75.  Jacob Smith lived to the astonishing age of 94, dying here on February 1, 1896.  His funeral was held in the parlor on February 4.

Caroline Virginia Smith Roome inherited the family home and continued to live here with her family.  As the children married and left, the Roomes leased extra space.  On November 17, 1907, an advertisement in the New York Herald read, "20th St, third floor, private house, five rooms and bath, for two adults.  330 West 20th st."

There would be two more Roome funerals at 330 West 20th Street.  Caroline died on October 19, 1908 at the age of 66, and John Roome died the following year at the age of 76.  On January 28, 1911, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that the estate had sold the property.  The buyer was real estate operator Maurice Mandelbaum of Mandelbaum & Lewine.

The new owners operated 330 West 20th Street as a rooming house.  Living here in 1921 was James Pheneuf who was looking for a job.  His decidedly non-specific ad in the New York Herald on July 8 read, "College man, single, 25, Christian, with varied business experience wants position."

A renovation completed in 1965 resulted in two-family home--with a duplex apartment in the basement and parlor levels, and another on the second and third floors.  Somewhat surprisingly, the lower level became home to the Apple Corps Theater by 1987.  On December 13 that year, Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times reviewed Marleen Pennison's dance piece Nightlight, which was being performed here.

By 2001 the space had become home to the Atlantic Theater Company.  In September that year An Evening of Shel Silverstein was staged here, ten short plays by the children's book author.

Opening nights came to an end in 2014 when a renovation returned the Smith house to a single family residence.

photographs by the author

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

St. Peter's Chapel (St. Peter's Rectory) - 346 West 20th Street

 

In 1818, Clement Clarke Moore donated 66 tracts of land (a full city block) of his ancestral estate Chelsea for the establishment of the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church.  As the complex grew, an associated chapel was deemed necessary.  St. Peter's Chapel was organized on May 9, 1831, with the seminary's Rev. Benjamin I. Haight slated to serve as its supply priest.  

In his 1883 The History of the American Episcopal Church, William Stevens Perry would write, "By strenuous efforts of the few inhabitants of the sparsely settled neighborhood a small chapel...was then built."  No one among those "few inhabitants" was more involved in the project than was Clement Clarke Moore.

Moore leased seven plots of land to St. Peter's Chapel half a block west of the seminary on 20th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues.  (He charged seven cents per year rent on the land.)  Moore attached a sketch to the lease that laid out his far-sighted plan for the property that would eventually also include a church and a rectory.

Moore's idea for the chapel was a Greek tetrastyle temple with classic Doric columns.  The design was modified to a unique brick-faced Greek Revival structure with massive, shallow pilasters taking the place of the columns.  The cornerstone was laid on October 8, 1831, and the building was consecrated less than four months later, on February 4, 1832.  A broad, low set of stairs led to the double-doored entrance.  Sitting back from the property line, the chapel was fronted by iron fencing with imposing stone fenceposts topped with urns.

Rev. Benjamin I. Haight served the chapel until December 1, 1833, replaced by the Rev. Smith Pyne.  His rectorship would be short lived.  When the Rev. Hugh Smith took over in 1835, development of the Chelsea neighborhood was no longer "sparsely settled."  His congregation had significantly outgrown the chapel and he initiated the second step of Moore's vision--an impressive gray stone church next door.

Upon the completion of St. Peter's Church in February 1838, renovations were begun to convert the chapel into the rectory.  The modifications were completed in 1841.  

Connected with St. Peter's Church in 1843 was Arthur Carey, who also taught Sunday school.  After graduating from Columbia College he entered the General Theological Seminary, graduating first in his class in June 1842.  Because he was a year too young to be ordained, he remained at the seminary and worked in the church.  In 1843, The New Englander said of him, "He appears to have been not only diligent and successful in study, but eminently amiable and blameless in his deportment--the pride of his teachers and the joy of his friends."

Finally, in May 1843, he was eligible for ordination.  He and Rev. Smith sat down in the rectory for an interview on the afternoon of June 21.  What should have been a routine procedure turned into the single incident that would mark Rev. Hugh Smith's legacy and prompt The New Englander to write, "Mr. Arthur Carey has suddenly, and at a very early age, become a historical personage."

During the interview, Carey expressed views sympathetic to Roman Catholicism.  It was a serious matter in 1843—Roman Catholics were called “Papists” (and worse).  "After the most deliberate consideration," Rev. Smith wrote a lengthy letter to Bishop Benjamin Treadwell Onderdonk, explaining why he could not sign the testimonial.  He requested Bishop Onderdonk to hold a private inquiry of Carey.

What had started out as a routine interview in Hugh Smith's library morphed into an ecclesiastical tremor felt nationwide.  Bishop Onderdonk's deeming of Carey suitable for ordination resulted in a backlash.  Now the bishop, too, was accused of pro-Catholic sentiments.  And during the uproar, William Meade, the Bishop of Virginia, suddenly produced a number of affidavits from women who alleged Onderdonk had “engaged in improper touching” and had made inappropriate advances.  (It was an astonishingly early precursor to today’s #MeToo movement.)  It all ended in a trial before the House of Bishops that ended in Onderdonk's suspension.

When Arthur Carey stepped into Rev. Smith's library that afternoon, he was surrounded by an extensive library.  On April 20, 1849, following Smith's death, a public auction was held here, the announcement reading:

Theological Library--Very valuable and extensive Theological Library of the late Rev. Dr. Hugh Smith, embracing nearly 3,000 volumes of the rarest and choicest works in Theology, Divinity, the Classics, Biography, History, &c.

Rev. Hugh Smith was replaced in 1853 by Rev. Alfred Baury Beach.   He remained until his retirement in 1890, after which Rev. Olin Scott Roche took the pulpit.  Moving into the rectory with him was his 77-year-old father, the Rev. John Alexander Roche, and his unmarried sister, Sallie A. Roche, who apparently acted as housekeeper and hostess.  

In 1895 minor renovations at the rear of the aging rectory were performed.  They cost St. Peter's Church $1,150 (about $41,300 in 2023).

It was not unusual for couples to appear on a minister's doorstep and ask to be married.  On September 4, 1895, Ernest F. Brandt and Mary Anido were shown into the parlor where, after asking the normal questions, Rev. Dr. Olin Scott Roche married them.  But, unlike most of the weddings he performed, this one would end in what the Brooklyn Daily Eagle would describe on September 26, 1897 as "a curious divorce case."  

In court, Ernest complained he would not have married Mary "but for the fact that he was hypnotized by her," and insisted that Mary's former husband was still alive.  She countered by proclaiming she had refused to marry Brant "until [she was] held up by him at the point of a pistol."  Justice Pryor refused to grant an annulment until Brandt produced the living husband as proof of his claims.

On February 15, 1898, Rev. John Alexander Roche died in the rectory.  In his memory, Rev. Olin Roche commissioned a memorial stained glass window from Lamb Studios, Christ in the Home of Mary and Martha, to be installed in St. Peter's Church.

Stone railings flanked the stoop in 1914.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

During World War I, the Red Cross initiated a drive for clothing for victims in Belgium.  Public school children  joined in the project, contributing children's clothing.  The Sun reported on October 3 that a new collection station had been opened in the St. Peter's rectory.

A parlor wedding in the rectory conducted on October 19, 1922 ended much more happily than had that of the Brandts.  The groom, William K. Souther, called his wedding, "just a case of springtime capturing winter."  A retired businessman, Souther was 86 years old and his bride, Mary E. Brown was 35.  The Evening World said, "Mr. Souther, sturdy and smiling, welcomed his children and grandchildren to his second wedding."  Among the grandchildren was J. William Souther, a son-in-law of playwright and entertainer George M. Cohan.

Rev. Olin Scott Roche, Forty Years of Parish Life and Work, 1883-1923 (copyright expired)

Rev. Olin Scott Roche retired in 1923.  Earlier that year he had donated another stained glass window in memory of Sallie Roche to the church.  Also executed by Lamb Studios, this one was titled Archangel St. Michael Blessing a Knight.  A third window, The Resurrection, in honor of Rev. Roche, was dedicated around 1929 (also by Lamb Studios).

On September 7, 1935, following Roche's death, The New York Times reported, "Dr. Roche expressed the wish in case of sale or abandonment of the church that the three stained-glass windows, memorials to his father, the late Rev. John A. Roche; his sister, Sallie A. Roche; and the other to himself, be removed to some other Protestant Episcopal church, selected by the Bishop of the New York Diocese."  That wish would never have to be fulfilled, as St. Peter's Church shows no danger of "abandonment."

More than 190 years after the chapel's completion, and more than 180 years after its conversion to a rectory, the unique Greek Revival chapel building continues to serve that purpose for St. Peter's Church.

photographs by the author

many thanks to reader Douglas Kearley for suggesting this post

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com