Sylvan Bien's 1939 150 West 21st Street

 

Born in Austria, architect Sylvan Bien emigrated to San Francisco to work on the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition.  He relocated to New York City in 1919.  By the 1930s he was designing mostly apartment buildings and hotels.  As the Great Depression wound down, in 1938 Bien was hired by East Lane Inc. to design an apartment building at 150 through 158 West 21st Street, just east of Seventh Avenue.

Construction was completed the following year at a cost of $140,000 (about $3 million in 2026).  Bien executed his Art Moderne design almost entirely through contrasting brick and cast stone.  The centered entrance below a bronze grill was recessed within a dramatic polished black stone frame.  Matching bronze grills covered the windows on either side of the entrance.  Cast stone piers with reeded bands rose to create a frieze atop a reeded bandcourse.

The brickwork of the first floor was laid in a basketweave pattern.  Geometric bands of salmon-colored brick contrasted to a cream-colored brick background.  Multi-paned casement windows contributed to the Art Moderne geometry.  

Bien divided the upper five floors into three vertical sections by decorating the four-bay-wide central section with rows of salmon brick that vertically connected the windows with those above and below.  A parapet took the place of a cornice.  Two rows of brick bosses decorated the central section and Art Moderne railings provided interest above each of the two end bays.

Bronze grills at the entrance, multi-paned casements, and a bold parapet contributed to Bien's design.  from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

An advertisement in The New York Sun on June 10, 1939 touted, "Just Completed -- Latest home comforts."  Prospective tenants could choose apartments that ranged from one-and-a-half to three rooms.

Catherine Donohue was among the initial residents.  The 35-year-old was a close friend of the Croke family that included 35-year-old Catholic priest Rev. John Croke.  He lived at 201 West 95th Street and was attached to the Rosary Hill House in Hawthorne, New York.

Shortly after she moved into 150 West 21st Street, on October 3, 1939 Catherine was riding in Rev. Croke's automobile in New Jersey.  Croke was driving south along Route 9 West in Englewood when they were hit head-on by a car driven by 19-year-old Frank Grande.  The teen's 14-year-old brother, Joseph, was in that car.  It was a horrific crash.  Rev. Croke died in Englewood Hospital the following morning.  The New York Times reported that Catherine was "in the hospital with critical injuries."

Frank Grande, tragically, should not have been on the road at all.  He held a conditional driver's permit, which prohibited him to operate a vehicle without a licensed driver in the car.  He and his brother were only slightly injured.

Four days later, The New York Times updated readers, reporting that Catherine Donahue had succumbed to her injuries.  Frank Grande's joy riding with his brother resulted in his being arrested "on two charges of causing death by automobile and on a charge of driving without a license," said the article.

Bien used creative brickwork and color as part of his design.

Another initial tenant was Daniel B. Stampler.  The building was extremely convenient, since he was manager of the Empire Bar & Grill down the block at Sixth Avenue and 21st Street.  At the time, employees were paid in cash.  In most cases they received their pay envelopes on Friday evening or on Saturday.  Crooks, who were sharply aware of the practice, would stake out businesses and learn the schedules of bookkeepers or managers tasked with transporting the cash.

On the morning of July 5, 1940, Stampler drove to the National Safety Bank & Trust Company at 27th Street and Seventh Avenue and withdrew $5,206 in cash (about $116,000 today).  As he got back into his automobile, another pulled up beside it.  The New York Times reported, "At the point of pistols the thugs forced him to drive to Twenty-eighth Street and the North [i.e., Hudson] River.  Putting Mr. Stampler out of the car, the bandits drove off."  It is unclear whether the robbers were captured or if Stampler's automobile was recovered.

Vitter Cucio and his wife were also initial residents.  In the winter of 1939, they were the target of what The New York Times described as "two of the city's boldest robbers."  Salvatore Oddo, who was 33 years old, and his partner 25-year-old Dominick Mundo, were not only bold, they were dangerous.

The Cucio apartment was one of several the pair burglarized.  Fortunately for the couple, they were not at home at the time.  Mundo and Oddo made away with $500 in cash and jewels.  (The cash would translate to about $11,000 today.)  The criminals were captured and sentenced "to long prison terms," according to The New York Times on June 13, 1942.  Among Mundo's charges was the "shooting [of] a police lieutenant last February, after his arrest in the hold-up of a garage," said the article.

Sadly, Sylvan Bien's Art Moderne grills were removed in the late 20th century.

Residents of 150 West 21st Street continued to be victimized.  Dorothy Shugard was an athlete, described by The New York Times as "formerly a sprinter."  On Sunday night December 21, 1947, she was walking along Broadway near the Broadway Central Hotel when 27-year-old Arthur W. Seymour, who worked as a seaman, "seized her handbag, containing $50 in cash and a bracelet," according to The New York Times, and knocked her to the sidewalk.  Dorothy screamed out, "Stop, thief!"  (The article said she, "was hampered in the chase by her high heels.")

Happily for her, walking along the block was 27-year-old Emanuel Hauser and his bride.  Hauser, an Air Force veteran, had been sworn in as a police officer two days earlier and married the next day.  Hauser's wife exhorted, "Go get him, Mannie!"

The young police officer, who had not yet served a single day in uniform, chased Seymour, capturing him at Broadway and Waverly Place.  Dorothy Shugard was right behind.  At Police Headquarters, Seymour admitted stealing the handbag and told Officer Hauser, "Once more around the block and she'd have caught me."

At the time of the incident, America was seeing the rise of what would be called the Red Scare, or McCarthyism.  The Cold War prompted fears of Communism and they ballooned into hysteria.  It all resulted in Government investigations, blacklisting, and accusations.  

Minna Finkelstein lived here at midcentury.  The teacher had been with the New York Public Schools since 1932 and taught at Public School 11 in the Bronx.  In 1951, Superintendent of Schools Dr. William Jansen initiated a personal "investigation into Communist influence in the city school system," as reported by The New York Times, and Jansen told the newspaper, "quite a bit of work" had to be done "before the school system was completely free of possible subversive influence."

By October 1952, when Minna Finkelstein was summoned to be interrogated, 15 teachers had already been fired.  She and two other educators "balked at questions" put to them.  Three months later, on January 31, 1953, The Times reported that the three instructors had been suspected and "charged with insubordination and conduct unbecoming teachers."  The school system's assistant corporation counsel, Saul Moskoff, explained that Minna had "refused to answer all questions about alleged past or present party membership."  

In the second half of the 20th century, the building underwent an unfortunate modernization.  The bronze grills were removed from the entrance, the casement windows replaced, and the parapet stripped of its Art Moderne personality.

photographs by the author

The Lost Daniel Ransom House - 16 West 21st Street

 

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Daniel Ransom and his brother, Warren A., operated the boot and shoe business W. A. Ransom & Co.  Daniel and his family lived at 152 Second Avenue when an advertisement appeared in the New-York Tribune on March 20, 1851:

For Sale--the new 3-story and attic house, with freestone front, 16 West Twenty-first-st. 25 by 65 feet, built in the very best manner, and can be immediately occupied.

The newly-built residence was similar to the opulent homes being constructed on Fifth Avenue, just steps to the east.  The ornate cast iron area and stoop railings morphed to a full-width cast iron balcony at the parlor level.  The classical pediment above the arched, double-doored entrance was supported by foliate brackets.  Handsome molded lintels above the segmentally arched openings sat upon scrolled brackets.

Daniel Ransom married Esther A. Jones in 1842.  When they moved into 16 West 21st street, they had three children:  Helen, Frank, and Kate, who were eight, seven and four years old respectively.

In 1864, Daniel Ransom fell ill.  He died at the age of 51 on April 30.  His funeral was held in the parlor on May 2.

In an interesting turn of events, five years later the widow and her brother-in-law, Esther and Warren A. Ransom, were married.  Warren's wife, Mary Elizabeth Leavitt, had died in 1855.  Esther and Daniel's children were still unmarried and living in the house when their mother and uncle wedded.

The Ransom family's social position was reflected in Helen's, Frank's and Kate Ransom's being invited to the wedding of the Spanish Minister, Señor Mauritio Lopez Roberts to Angela Terre on November 28, 1870.  Others in the church that afternoon were the Ministers of Russia, Prussia, Portugal and Italy, the French Charge d'Affaires and high-level socialites with surnames like Fowler, Hewitt, Skidmore, and Sherman.

The following year, Helen was married to Celestin Astoin and the couple headed to Europe.  Tragically, Helen's honeymoon voyage turned to grief.  The 33-year-old groom died on  the steamer Pereire on October 25.  Helen arrived home with the body a month later and his funeral was held in St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mott Street.

(When Helen's father-in-law, Felix Astoin, died in January 1884, he left her a substantial amount of Manhattan real estate, including the famous Knickerbocker Cottage on Sixth Avenue.)

Ironically, Kate suffered a similar fate.  She married William Lowndes on May 22, 1875.  Less than four years later, on April 23, 1879, William died at the age of 35.  Kate moved back into her family's 21st Street home.

Kate Ransom Lowndes spent the summer of 1891 at the exclusive Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga, New York.  She died there at the age of 44 on August 17.   

By the time of Kate's funeral, Warren A. Ransom had retired.  Possibly a victim of a stroke, he was described by The New York Times as an invalid.  

The family's home was, by now, hemmed in by commercial buildings.  Stubbornly resisting the northward migration of their neighboring millionaires, the Ransoms' house was an anachronism of a more refined era.  Possibly because of  those changes, Kate's funeral was not held in the house.

Warren A. Ransom died at the age of 79 in the West 21st Street house on March 26, 1900, and his funeral was held in the Church of the Holy Communion on March 28.

Now only Esther and Frank, who never married, occupied the vintage residence.  Esther died here on October 15, 1903 at the age of 80.  Her funeral, too, was held in the Church of the Holy Communion.

Six decades after the family moved in, the last Ransom died on April 27, 1912.  Frank J. Ransom left an estate equal to about $14.6 million in 2025 money.  The New York Times said, "He was a bachelor and left no near relatives."  He left much of his fortune to institutions, like the St. Luke's, Roosevelt, and New York hospitals, and $200,000 to the Church of Holy Communion.  

He was generous to his domestic staff.  His coachman, Thomas Hart, and Francis Dawson, "who worked around his house," both received $1,000 (about $32,400 today).  Ransom left the same amount to two maids, Julia Cunningham and Maggie Burke; and $500 and $25,000 in trust each to servants Sabrina McGrath and Bessie Kane.

Two years later, on March 22, 1914, The New York Times reported that the Frank J. Ransom estate had sold 16 West 21st Street, mentioning that it, "has been in the family ownership since 1851."  L. Napoleon Levy paid $20,000 for the property, about $629,000 today.

The house was converted to the headquarters of the Waistmakers' and Dressmakers' Union.  By 1919 the name was changed to the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.  During a sweeping labor strike, on February 11 that year, the New-York Tribune reported, "A bank for the payment of strike benefits to 20,000 striking dress and waist workers is to be opened to-day at 16 West Twenty-first Street."   

In the 1920s, other unions joined the ILGWU in the house.  On December 19, 1929, The Daily Worker reported, "A pre-convention membership meeting of the New York District of the National Textile Workers Union will be held this evening at 8 o'clock at 16 West 21st St."

The stoop was removed by the time this photo was taken in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

All of the organizations were closely scrutinized by Congress's Special Committee on Un-American Activities.  In 1938, the Workers' International Relief was in its crosshairs.  The Committee noted that the group was founded in 1921 "on Lenin's suggestion."

In 1942, the venerable Ransom residence was demolished, replaced with a one-story truck garage.  

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

That building was replaced in 2005 with a 14-story apartment building.

The Ill-Treated Houses at 228 to 232 West 21st Street

 

Only the cornice and fourth floor windows hint at the homes' aristocratic beginnings.  Two of the unusual overhanging window cornices survive.

In 1845 William Jay Haskett and his family lived at 34 Cottage Place in Greenwich Village.  (The street, lined with refined homes at the time, would be erased by the extension of Sixth Avenue in the 1920s.)  Within five years he would move the family to the rapidly developing neighborhood of Chelsea.

Haskett purchased 228 West 21st Street, one of three recently completed homes between Seventh and Eighth Avenue.  Their up-to-the-minute Anglo-Italianate style forewent the ubiquitous high stoops seen throughout the city in favor of short, three-step porches.  The most unusual elements were the bold, projecting cornices of the second and third floor windows.  A single cast metal cornice with paired backets connected the trio.

The Haskett house with its doorway intact, is at  left.  The row retained its window cornices in 1941 (note the Victorian garden urn in front of 230).  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

William Jay Haskett was a well-respected citizen.  An attorney with offices at 15 Centre Street, he was also an alderman, a trustee with the Board of Education, and in 1862 would be appointed Excise Commissioner.  The Hasketts had two children, Carrie Matilda and William Jr.

The Enrollment Act of 1863, otherwise known as the Civil War Draft, was passed to augment the Union Army's fighting force in the South.  On August 22, 1863, The New York Times reported on the previous day's lottery, saying "Messrs. Wm. Jay Haskett, Alderman, Lewis R. Ryers and Councilman Munson were appointed to count the ballots."  Presumably to ensure impartiality in drawing the names, "Mr. Benson, the blind man, took out the ballots."  One can imagine the emotions William Haskett felt when among the 1,181 names pulled that day was that of his son, William Jay Haskett Jr.

William Jr. marched off to war.  At the battlefront he, like thousands of soldiers, was afflicted with disease.  He was sent home on the riverboat St. Patrick in early summer 1864.  But the 18 year old would not survive the trip.  He died on the boat at Louisville, Kentucky on June 11.  His body was brought home to the West 21st Street house where his funeral was held on June 17.

By 1866 the Haskett family had moved to 340 West 21st Street, a block to the west.  William Jay Haskett would die there in December 1876, The New York Times saying, "he lost a son in the late civil war, and grief on account of the death of his daughter, his only remaining child, is thought to have so depressed his spirits as to hasten his death."

No. 228 West 21st Street was now the home of the Henry Leo family.  Henry was in the fur business on Canal Street, and his son Simeon was a physician.  Henry's wife was the president of the B'Nai Jeshurun Ladies' Benevolent Society for the Relief of Indigent Females.

On September 21, 1867, The Medical and Surgical Reporter announced, "New York has a Medico-Legal Society."  The article said the organization was formed "on Tuesday evening of last week at Dr. Leo's dwelling, No. 228 West Twenty-first Street," where "subjects of interest to the medical and legal professions were discussed."

It appears that his mother had recruited Simeon Leo to her cause.  In 1870, The Jewish Messenger reported, "An excellent project is to be shortly set in operation by the Directresses of the 'B'nai Jeshurun Ladies' Benevolent Society.'  They intend to open in a central location an Industrial Home where indigent Jewesses, married or single, will receive different kinds of work, or be taught sewing."  The article noted that additional information "will be readily furnished by the Secretary, Dr. S. N. Leo, 228 West 21st Street."

In the meantime, the house next door at 230 had been operated as a high-end boarding house by widow Elizabeth Herbert for years.  That changed around 1881 when attorney Christopher Fine purchased the property.

Born in New Jersey in 1825, Fine was described by The New York Times as "a large man, with a leonine countenance"

whose success in the courtroom was a result of his "fervid style of oratory, which was very effective with juries."  Among Fine's private clients was millionaire Edward S. Stokes.  

He and his wife had seven daughters, the eldest of whom was approaching her debutante years.  The ability to dance was a must for young people, and mothers often involved themselves in that training.  On November 29, 1882, The New York Times reported, "The Hawthorne, a new dancing club, gave its first reception last evening at the residence of Mrs. Christopher Fine, No. 230 West Twenty-first street."

By 1896 there were just three daughters still unmarried and living in with their parents, and there was about to be one fewer.  On February 23, 1896, the New York Herald reported, "One of the prettiest home weddings last week was that of Miss Christine Fine to Mr. Robert Besson McCague...which took place at half-past eight o'clock on Tuesday evening at the residence of the bride's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Fine, No. 230 West Twenty-first street."  The families' affluence was evidenced in the article's noting, "The bride, who was given away by her father, wore a gown of white satin, elaborately trimmed with pearls.  Her veil of tulle was fastened with a cluster of orange blossoms and a diamond sunburst, a gift from the groom."

Four years later, on December 20, 1899, Christopher Fine died at the age of 74 in the West 21st Street house.  In reporting his death, The New York Times described him as "one of the last survivors of a famous school of lawyers."

The house at 232 West 21st Street was originally home to Charles Sands, an educator, and his family.  Son Henry F. Sands was an official in the Customhouse downtown.  Living with the family was Charles's mother, Elithear, the widow of James Sands.  The Sands family remained here through the Civil War.

By the early 1890s, 232 West 21st Street was operated as a boarding house.  Among the residents that year was the medium, Mrs. Carrie M. Sawyer.  Spiritualism, which was rampant at the time, was fertile ground for scammers intent on taking advantage of grieving widows and relatives.  But not everyone was easily convinced.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

On June 1, 1892, Rev. Dr. Robert Collyer spoke to a group about his experiences at Mrs. Sawyer's séance the previous evening.  He said, "I went there open to conviction--in a state of suspended expectation.  I went there eager to know the truth and willing to be convinced.  I left troubled.  The séance seemed absurd." 

He told of apparitions that appeared in the darkened room, and while someone in the dozen or so participants might recognize a loved one, he said, "I think all these forms were represented by one person, and the forms were clothed in calico and not in celestial attire."

Two months earlier the world famous actress Sarah Bernhardt had attended a séance here with members of her company.  Her resultant outrage far surpassed that of Rev. Collyer.  The evening started out quietly, the New York Herald reporting on April 23, "Two carriages drove up to the house of Mrs. Carrie M. Sawyer, a materializing medium at No. 232 West Twenty-first Street at half-past eleven o'clock.  Mme. Bernhardt jumped out of one."  The séance took place in the second story parlor, and Bernhardt made an entrance befitting a star.

"Mme. Bernhardt was attired richly...Her thick hair of burnished gold was thrown to the breezes like the flowing locks of Paderewski, and she wore no hat or bonnet when she entered.  Her pose was that of Cleopatra on her throne."  The calm of the room and the regal demeanor of the actress would not last.

After a dozen spirits had manifested themselves from a "spirit cabinet," Bernhardt became suspicious and angry.  Accusing the members of her company of conspiring with Mrs. Sawyer against her, she spat, "You must be in league with the medium...You are all fools or confederates."  The New York Herald reported, "Madame Bernhardt left the house in a towering rage.  The members of her company followed her, greatly chagrined at her conduct and humiliated at the suggestion she had made that they were in a conspiracy to deceive her."

Living at 228 West Twenty-first street at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War was Vincente Hauria-Martens, his son Richard, and daughter Elsie, who was an actress.  Hauria-Martens had arrived in New York from Spain in 1868.  He initially was an agent for a champagne firm, but then went into the insurance business.  Following his wife's death, he had expressed a desire to return to his homeland.

Now, after the U.S.S. Maine was blown up in Havana Harbor and the Spanish were blamed for it, he made up his mind to return and to fight for his country.  The decision caused a major rift in his family.  In his 1899 book Reminiscences and Thrilling Stories of the War, Congressman James Rankin Young quoted Hauria-Martens as saying, "It is my country, and I love it far better than this land."

Richard replied, "Well, this is my native land, and to my thinking the Stars and Stripes float over the best people on the earth."  The New York Herald reported that he added, "I am a New Yorker, and stand ready to fight for my flag."  The article said, "The quarrel terminated by the father taking the first steamer for Madrid after the war was declared."

"I go to fight the Yankees," he vowed.

"I shall enlist to oppose you," declared Richard.  

The next day Richard enlisted in the 71st Regiment.  The New York Herald wrote, "in a letter to his sister, he said he was chafing at the delay in invading Cuba, and hoped to see his father in the ranks of the enemy."

All three houses were operated as rooming houses throughout most of the 20th century, their tenants not always on the right side of the law.  And then, a renovation completed in 1981 combined them internally, resulting in duplex and triplex apartments and a new penthouse level.  The configuration of the doorways was changed, and nearly all of the mid-Victorian details removed.  Only (oddly enough) two of the window cornices, the top floor details, and the cornice were left intact.  A stucco-like substance was applied over the brownstone.  In all, the attempt to modernize the facade fell on its face, leaving the former homes sadly disfigured.

photographs by the author

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

George Keister's 1892 222 and 224 West 21st Street

 

Michael H. Gillespie was a prolific real estate operator in the last decade of the 19th century.  Early in 1891 he hired architect George Keister to design two "five story flats" on the south side of West 21st Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.  On April 4, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide noted that one would be 27-feet-wide and the other 19-feet-wide.  Construction costs for the project were estimated to be $41,000--or about one and a quarter million in 2023 dollars.

Keister faced the buildings in variegated beige brick above the base of rough-cut stone.  His tripartite Renaissance Revival design borrowed liberally from Romanesque Revival, notably in the arched openings and brick eyebrows of the fourth floor.  Bull-nosed brick softened the edges of the three-story mid-section piers.  The narrower building at 222 West 21st Street was two bays wide, its fraternal sibling three bays wide with a centered entrance.

Elaborate Renaissance-style carvings embellish the entrances.

The tenants were middle-class, like Frederick S. Farrell, an early resident of 224 West 21st Street.  He was a salesman for the Whiting Manufacturing Company on Union Square.  Unfortunately, several of the tenants' names often appeared in newspapers for the wrong reasons.   

Renier Herriger and his wife Annie lived at 222 West 21st Street.  On Saturday night, January 27, 1894 the couple had already been drinking when they arrived at the Park Avenue Hotel.  It is unclear if they were unaware that Duncan Campbell worked there as the night clerk, or if they went there specifically because he was.  What is clear is that a confrontation ensued.

Campbell and Annie Herriger had a past, and before long Annie and Renier were in the Jefferson Market Court on charges of disorderly conduct.  Campbell testified, "Herriger and his wife were drunk, and made a disturbance because they could get no drink."  Annie Herriger defended her actions, saying that she and Campbell had been "good friends in Montreal," but that "He had thrown her over."  The Herrigers were released after they promised "not to trouble Campbell."

A tragic story involved the Denby family, who lived at 224 West 21st Street.  Mrs. Denby's brother, Michael F. Fitzgerald, had run away from home at the outbreak of the Civil War when he was a teenager.  The New York Herald explained, "While connected with a recruiting camp in Massachusetts an accident befell him which affected his head.  The family never knew whether he was hit with a musket or kicked by an animal."  However Fitzgerald sustained his injury, it resulted in brain trauma.   

Fitzgerald occasionally became irrational, at which times his sister committed him to asylums.  He had been released to her custody in September 1896, but three months later, on December 7, the New York Herald reported, "He has been subject to insanity for many years, and a new attack had forced Mrs. Denby to cause his arrest."  

The problem became evident in court.  As Magistrate Simms was speaking, the 53-year-old Fitzgerald spoke up, "Judge, stop your damn noise!"

When the judge continued, he broke in again, "You'll have to talk a little louder, Judge.  I can't hear you."  Magistrate Simms sent Fitzgerald to Bellevue Hospital where "he will be confined again until an improvement sets in," said the article.  

E. A. Raper was also a resident of 224 West 21st Street, here by 1902.  He was an agent of two Scranton, Pennsylvania-based brokerage firms, Murphy & Co. and E. E. Smathers & Co.  On the night of March 10, 1902 two detectives knocked on his apartment door and arrested him for having misappropriated $15,000 in funds from Scranton investors.

Living next door in 1904 was Harry Root, known on the street as Baltimore Harry.  He was arrested in January 1905, charged with being involved in the jewels theft in the Hotel Seville on September 9, 1904.  When arrested on Sixth Avenue, he had an $850 brooch, which was part of the loot, and a lockpick in his possession.  (The value of the pin would be about $27,000 today.)

A month later, another resident of 224 West 21st Street was summoned for jury duty.  William M. Denman was chosen to sit on the case of two youths charged with burglary, one or both of whom were Jewish.  The trial was set to start on the morning of February 23, when suddenly the jury foreman, Abraham Abrams, stood up and addressed the court.

"I fear I cannot sit as a juror in this case, because one of the other jurors when in the jury room on another case declared he would not believe a Hebrew under oath," he declared.

Judge McMahon was taken aback.  "This is most extraordinary.  Has any one of you gentlemen made such a statement?"

When no one admitted to having made the comment, Abrams pushed on.  "The statement was made, and by Juror No. 9 in his box."  Juror No. 9 was William M. Denman.

The New York Herald reported, "Other jurors then arose and corroborated Mr. Abrams, saying they had heard Mr. Denman make the remark.  He made no attempt to deny this."  Denman was excused from the jury for his anti-Semitic remarks "and the trial went on."

The disturbing string of arrests of residents of both buildings continued in May 1911 when George Gebhard was apprehended for "enticing a man to his room in No. 224 West Twenty-first street and robbing him of $40."  It was a costly crime for Gebhard.  He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in the penitentiary.

Albert McCass lived at 222 West 21st Street in 1912.  The 22-year-old was a member of the notorious Gopher Gang which, according to The Sun that year, "for years has subjected the lower West Side to terror."  The gang operated out of a second-floor room in a vacant house on West 16th Street.  The Sun explained, "they persisted in entering the house by climbing through the back windows and making the night hideous for the neighbors by carousing until the early morning.  So thoroughly had they intimidated the residents of the district, however, that not even the owner of the house, Dennis J. Keating, a horseshoer, who has his shop on the ground floor, would make a complaint against the gangsters."

Finally, on June 23 1912, a brave neighbor "unable to endure the racket from the house," went to the police, saying if something was not done it "undoubtedly would end in a shooting."  A squad went to the house "and found it in a state of uproar."

An armed standoff ensued.  The Sun reported, "Two of the gangsters, so the police say, brandished revolvers and threatened to shoot 'the gizzard out o' any copper' that dared attempt to get into the house."  Sergeant O'Connor distracted them from 16th Street "by engaging the gangsters in a dispute over their right to be in the house," while two policemen went around the back and entered a window.  They unlocked the door and admitted the rest of the squad "who dashed upstairs and overpowered the young men, not one of them being more than 23 years old."  Among those arrested was Albert McCass.

Spiritualist Helen Moore lived at 222 West 21st Street in 1915 and held seances in her apartment.  The mystical sessions may have proved disruptive to her neighbors, however.  An advertisement in The Spiritualist magazine in November read, "Helen Moore, 222 West 21st St. New York City.  Trumpet séance every Thursday 8 P. M.  Will accept appointments out."

In the early morning hours of October 15, 1922, Robert Cooper was noticeably drunk.  John Fitzgerald, a tenant of 224 West 21st Street, and two friends saw him as an easy target.  At the corner of Eighth Avenue and 21st Street, according to Cooper in court, they "hailed him, compelled him to stand facing a brick wall and robbed him."  His yells attracted Patrolmen Mullin and Flynn who arrested the trio.  Unfortunately for Cooper, he was arrested, too, and held on $1,000 bail "for drunkenness," according to the New-York Tribune.

Without a doubt, however, the worst crime committed by a tenant came in 1964.  Twenty-six-year-old John Driscoll, who was released from prison on a charge of armed robbery that year, moved into the apartment of his mother, Frances Parker in 222 West 21st Street.  While he was incarcerated, his wife had found another love interest and was living with him under her maiden name with the Driscolls' daughter and son in the East Bronx.  John Driscoll found out where they lived and on Christmas Eve set out for revenge.  The New York Times reported the next day that Ann Bescia, Fred Papro, her partner, and her 23-year-old daughter Ann had been stabbed to death.  Anthony, the 19-year-old son was in critical condition.  John Driscoll was arrested after his mother called an ambulance "when she saw his wounds."  

The city's Housing and Development Administration acquired the two buildings in 1970.  The tenants were promised, according to spokespersons, "low-interest loans to buy and renovate their buildings."  When the loans were not actualized, the tenants rebelled.  On October 12, 1971 The New York Times reported, "traffic on Eighth Avenue at 21st Street was blocked for an hour yesterday afternoon as 50 tenants demonstrated against what they called the city's retreat from a promise."  Seven protestors were arrested, after which the group moved to West 20th Street in front of the 10th Precinct station house.

The following year, on June 8, 1972, The New York Times reported, "After turbulent sit-ins at...222-224 West 21st Street, the city's Housing and Development Administration was persuaded to come up with financing plans involving subsidies that reduced the rent of renovated apartments to a level close to what the tenants had been paying before." 

 

There were six apartments per floor in 222 West 21st Street and three each in 224.  That changed in 2015 when a renovation resulted in two apartments per floor in 222 West 21st Street and  and three and four each per floor in 224.  The disturbing decades-long tradition of crimes and arrests in the buildings ended in the last quarter of the 20th century.  Today's tenants live quietly, drawing no unwanted publicity to George Keister's handsome structures.

photographs by the author

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

The Charles Edward Strang House - 207 West 21st Street

 

In 1845, the family of Charles Stirling lived in the recently completed house at 163 West 21st Street (renumbered 207 in 1865), just west of Seventh Avenue.  The high-stoop, 25-foot wide residence was three stories tall above an English basement.  Most likely designed by the builder, its design was transitional--straddling the Greek Revival and newer Italianate styles.  The floor-to-ceiling parlor floor windows were likely fronted by a cast iron balcony, and photographs show what appears to be a carved portrait keystone over the arched entrance.  The simple bracketed cornice drew heavily from the earlier Greek Revival style.  Inside were 21 rooms, according to a later advertisement.

Stirling listed his occupation as "liquors" nearby at 185 Eighth Avenue.  The term could have meant either that he ran a retail store, or a saloon.  In either case, he was affluent enough to afford the high-end residence.   The family took in a border, as was common.  In 1845 Asa Smith, a teacher, lived with the family; and in 1848 Angeline Slater boarded here.  She, too, was an educator, teaching in the Girls' Department of Ward School No. 18.

In 1851 the family of Charles Edward Strang moved in.  A partner in the barrel-making factory of Strang & Bogert, he boasted a long American pedigree.  His ancestors Daniel L. Estrange and wife Charlotte LeMestre, had escaped Huguenot persecution in France, arriving in New York in the 1670s.  Charles's wife was the former Maria Storm, of Katonah, New York.  The couple had four children, Mary E., Sarah Frank, Susan, and Charles Jr.

Like most wives of affluent businessman, Maria involved herself in worthy causes.  In 1853 she was a "lady manager" of the New-York School of Design for Women on Broadway on Broome Street.  The New New York Times noted its purpose was "to give instruction to women, either gratuitously, or at very low rates, which will qualify them to earn a living by the practice of some of the branches taught in it, or to become teachers in other schools."   Through her position with the school, she would have come in contact with some of the most influential men and women in New York.  Among those sitting on the Advisory Committee were Moses Taylor, Alexander Hamilton, Jr., George L. Schuyler, and Robert Bowne Minturn.

Mary Elizabeth Strang married into another old New York family on February 20, 1856.  Aron B. Kipp's first American ancestor was Hendrick Hendricksen Kip, who lived in New Amsterdam before 1636.  The family's farm on the East River eventually lent its name to Kips Bay.  The bride was 19 years old and Aron was 22.   The couple initially moved into the West 21st Street house with the Strangs.

A daughter, Mary Ann, was born to the Kipps on September 1 that year.  On September 28, 1858, another baby girl, Catherine Louisa came along.  Tragically, Mary Ann died at the age of three on September 20, 1859, and her sister died the following year at the age of two on  October 10, 1860.

While he retained his partnership in Strang & Bogert, in 1864 Charles moved his family upstate to Maria's hometown of Katonah, New York.  The family leased 207 West 21st Street to Benjamin Odell, a wholesale grocer, and then to Samuel Friedberger, a shirt merchant, before selling the property to Thomas T. and Anna M. Bryce in 1869.

Thomas T. Bryce was a partner with his brother James in the cotton factoring firm William Brice & Co. at 29 Chamber Street, founded by their father.  The Bryce family remained here until June 22, 1878 when they moved to Garden City, Long Island, and sold 207 West 21st Street to John and Mary Tiernan for $12,250--or about $343,000 by 2023 terms.

John Tiernan ran a restaurant, or "eatinghouse," on Sixth Avenue.  His sizeable income afforded him a membership in the exclusive Down Town Association, a businessmen's social club.  In November 1885 Mary had twin boys, James Bernard and John Thomas.

The family suffered horrible tragedy in the summer of 1888.  Both twins contracted diphtheria.  James died on June 27 and his brother died the following day.  The boys were two years and eight months old.

In addition to the Sixth Avenue restaurant, in 1894 John Tiernan was proprietor of the Windsor Hotel in Rockaway Park on Long Island.  His advertisement on May 27, 1894 touted it as "strictly a family resort."

The Tiernan's daughter Mary was a teenager at the time, and in 1898 ventured into the world of business.  On March 7 that year the Board of Education met, and among the agenda points of the Special Committee of Five was:

Your Committee urges the immediate appointment of a stenographer and typewriter.  For this position, it recommends to you Miss Mary P. Tiernan, 207 West Twenty-first street, Borough of Manhattan, recommending that her salary be fixed at and after the rate of $60 per month.

The term "typewriter" at the time referred not only to the machine, but its operator.  And Mary's salary would equal about $2,000 per month in today's money--a very acceptable amount for a women in 1898.

The Tiernans left 207 West 21st Street just prior to the turn of the century.  In 1900 it was being operated as a boarding house.  

Among the tenants that year was Morris Cowan, who became involved in the three-day race riot that started on August 14.  The night before, plain clothes police officer Robert J. Thorpe had accosted Arthur J. Harris, a black man, and his girlfriend May Enoch in the notorious Tenderloin District.  Thorpe mistakenly believed Enoch was a prostitute and Harris her customer.  Not realizing Thorpe was a policeman, Harris cut him with a knife and the couple fled.  Thorpe died the next day.

The Tenderloin District was peopled with blacks and Irish, and their already tense coexistence boiled over into horrific violence.  On August 20, 1900, The New York Press reported, "Three colored men were prisoners yesterday in the West Side Court.  One, who acted as if demented, was accused of stabbing a peddler in the back with a fork and of knocking down a little child in the street.  He said he was Morris Cowan of No. 207 West Twenty-first street."  Cowan admitted to having stabbed the man, but claimed it was done in self defense.

Like Cowan, the other tenants were working class.  Among them were a freight elevator operator, a cook and a draughtsman.

In 1941 the stoop and entrance were intact.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Renting a room here in 1921 was Juan Ramirez, who had enough money to afford an automobile (possibly a taxi).  He stopped for dinner at a restaurant on West 27th Street on December 26 and happened to glance out the window to see three men attempting to steal his car.  Luckily for Ramirez, his outdated car did not have a self-starter, so the would-be thieves had to crank it, giving him time to dash out to the sidewalk and catch 20-year-old Thomas Daly.  The other two ran, with patrolman John Heinold on their heels.  After Heinold fired one shot into the air, Anthony La Salle stopped.  When the officer returned with his suspect, Ramirez still had Daly firmly in his hold.

In 1953, 207 West 21st Street was converted to apartments, two per floor.  The stoop was removed, the entrance lowered to the basement level, and a slathering of stucco applied over the brownstone.

The beleaguered house is easily ignored today.  But with a little imagination, the astute passerby can envision the Strang house as it appeared when well-dressed Victorian men and women alit from their carriages at the curb.

 photographs by the author

LaptrinhX.com has no authorization to reuse the content of this blog

The Henry Bruner House - 165 West 21st Street

 

In April 1856 William H. Stansbury advertised, "For Sale--A superior three story and attic brown stone front House, No. 121 West 21st street, containing all the modern improvements."   The 20-foot-wide Italianate style residence sat just east of Seventh Avenue in an upscale neighborhood two blocks from the mansions of Fifth Avenue.  Its full-height parlor windows were, almost assuredly, fronted by a cast iron balcony, and the molded framing of the entrance was crowned by a carved pediment.  The slightly shorter attic level was a hold-over from the Greek Revival style, and a handsome paneled cornice with foliate brackets ran along the roofline.

Henry Bruner purchased 121 West 21st Street (renumbered 165 in 1865).  At the time the 41-year-old owned a furniture dealership at 75 King Street, but his large fortune came mostly from real estate investments.  According to the New York City Tax-Book, in 1856 he paid $63,450 in real estate and $20,000 in personal taxes--a staggering total of $2.75 million in 2023.

Henry and his wife Catherine (known as Kate) would have at least six children.  Sadly, on September 15, 1860 their eldest son, Harry, died at the age of five-and-a-half.  As was customary, his casket sat in the parlor until his funeral there on the afternoon of September 17.

Bruner continued adding to his extensive real estate holdings.  He seems to have been an astute buyer, recognizing the potential of still undeveloped areas.  On December 26, 1868, for example, the Real Estate Record reported on the auction of the Morris Estate in Westchester County, just above the Harlem River.  The article noted, "Mr. Henry Bruner bought considerable."

At the time of that sale, Bruner was a director in the Germania Bank, in the People's Fire Insurance Company, and a trustee in the Shreve Farm Oil Company, a petroleum operation.  Additionally, he now operated a furniture store at 22 Clarkson Street and a furniture factory at 396 Hudson Street.

On April 24, 1870, seven days after his 55th birthday, Henry  Bruner died.  His funeral in the West 21st Street parlor on April 28 was followed by a service at St. Francis Xavier's Church on West 16th Street.

At least two of Kate's children, Marie and Peter, were still living with her.  Peter took over the management of his father's extensive real estate holdings, often partnering in deals with John L. Prime.  The close relationship between the Prime and Bruner families is unclear, although it seems they were somehow related.

Not long after Henry Bruner's death, the Primes moved in with Kate.  There would be two more funerals in the parlor within a few years.  On July 17, 1872 John and Louisa Prime's six-month-old daughter Kate died, and one year later, on July 24, their infant son Freddy died at 3 months old.  

Although she retained possession of the West 21st Street house, Kate Bruner moved out in 1875 following her marriage to Charles Happel.  She moved to 23 West 58th Street and apparently leased 165 West 21st Street to the Primes.

The high social status and immense wealth of the Bruner family, augmented by Kate's marriage to Happel, was evidenced in October 1887 when Marie Louise Bruner married Joseph J. O'Donohue, Jr.  The wedding took place in St. Patrick's Cathedral and was officiated by Archbishop Michael Corrigan.  It was a social event that prompted full columns in the society pages.  The Sun reported, "The invitations were confined to friends of the family, but nevertheless the big cathedral was filled long before 11 o'clock, the hour set for the wedding, and Fifth avenue was blocked with carriages."  The article noted the "crowd that filled the sidewalks and pressed close up to the lines of the canopied approach to the church door.

Among the socially elite in the cathedral were the Joseph H. Choates, the John D. Crimminses, future Mayor Hugh J. Grant, the Orlando B. Potters, the Henry O. Havemeyers, Mr. and Mrs. George Ehret, Baron and Baroness de Thomsen and others.  Among the gifts the newlyweds received were a "solid silver tea-set" from Edward Bruner, a sterling flatware service from Joseph Bruner, and $500,000 from the groom's father.

In the meantime, John L. Prime was in the fur business nearby at 16 East 23rd Street.  Louisa added to their income by taking a select number of boarders.  In 1876 they included George W. Mahoney, whose office was at 2 Nassau Street; chemicals dealer Robert F. Stobo; and Edward W. Rice, a teacher in the Boys' Department of Grammar School No. 26 on 13th Street near Sixth Avenue.

Among the Primes' boarders in 1889 was Mrs. Teresa Owens.  Her annoying habit of arriving late to the table for dinner grated on John Prime and finally, on August 6 "he told her not to be so late at meals," according to The New York Times.  Mrs. Owens had rented her rooms from Louisa, not from John, and "replied that he had no say in the management of the house."  The confrontation continued, and worsened, upstairs, ending in near tragedy.  

On August 8, The New York Times reported on Mrs. Owens's lawsuit against Prime for "pushing her down stairs in a wrangle."  Teresa Owens's suit alleged that Prime's action so injured her "that she was under a physician's care for several days."  John Prime insisted she had merely fallen down the staircase.  Although he was arrested and tried, he seems to have avoided conviction.

At the turn of the 20th century, Sixth Avenue had become one of Manhattan's great shopping thoroughfares, lined with magnificent retail emporiums.  By now almost all of the private homes of the West 21st Street block had been demolished or converted for business.  No. 165 West 21st Street, however, remained essentially unchanged.  It was being operated as a rooming house in 1905 when a near tragedy was averted.  On March 6 The Evening Telegram reported, "There was some excitement to-day when a fire was discovered on the third floor of the furnished room house at No. 165 West Twenty-first street.  A gas jet was burning, and the wind through the open window blew the flame against some curtains, igniting them."  Happily, the fire was quickly extinguished after causing the equivalent of about $8,000 today in damages.

The change from an upscale boarding house to a furnished rooming house brought a noticeable decline in the character of the tenants.  Living here in February 1912 were Annie Hull, known as "Swede Annie," and Edward "Eddie" Kinsman, her "companion," as politely described by the New York Herald.  Kinsman was part of a gang involved in a $25,000 hold up of two messengers from the East River National Bank on February 15.

Eddie Kinsman and Swede Annie.  The New York Herald, February 27, 1912 (copyright expired)

It was Swede Annie's boasting that led to the gang's arrest.  On February 27, The New York Herald reported, "The woman...was known to have talked of some great good fortune soon to be hers, and when it was found that she had disappeared immediately after the robbery the detectives guessed at the 'good luck' for which she had been waiting."  Second Police Commissioner Daugherty told reporters, "We learned that 'Swede Annie' expected to go with Kinsman or to join him and go to California.  We knew enough to be sure that we need only watch her and soon we would have Kinsman."

After owning the property for more than six decades, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported on September 11, 1920 that the Henry Bruner estate had sold 165 West 21st Street.  Six days later the New-York Tribune announced, "The Koch Building Company is the buyer of the building at 165 West Twenty-first Street."

A renovation, completed in 1922, resulted in factory space throughout the former Bruner residence.  Any hints of the 1856 interior elements, like mantels and carved staircases, were eradicated.  

Over the subsequent decades, the brownstone facade became severely weathered, the molded lintels and entrance pediment lost or disfigured, and the stoop ironwork replaced.  The Italianate areaway fencing, apparently original, somehow survived.  In 1999 the building was reconverted to residential use with a total of three apartments.  Despite decades of abuse, the Bruner house holds onto its early 19th century domestic appearance.

many thanks to reader Ted Leather for suggesting this post

photographs by the author

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