The 1906 Engineers' Club Building - 32-34 West 40th Street

 

photograph by Epicgenius

Exclusive men's social clubs like the Union Club were formed in the first decades of the 19th century.  By the third quarter of the century, social clubs restricted to professions and interests were established--like The Players, for actors; and the Salmagundi Club for artists.  In 1888 The Engineers' Club was founded, the first purely social group organized specifically for engineers.  The group initially leased a mansion at 374 Fifth Avenue in Midtown for its clubhouse.

Then, on February 14, 1903, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that William M. Martin had sold the Engineers' Club the two five-story, high-stooped houses at 32 and 34 West 40th Street.  The article explained, "a new clubhouse will be built on the site."  The club was being astonishingly proactive--their lease on the Fifth Avenue house would not expire for another four years.

As was common, the club initiated a competition for the design.  Esteemed firms like Clinton & Russell and Carrère & Hastings (whose masterful New York Public Library was under construction) were surprisingly edged out by the fledgling firm of Whitfield & King, composed of Henry D. Whitfield and Beverly S. King.  (Perhaps not coincidentally, Henry Whitfield was the brother of Andrew Carnegie's wife, Louise.  Carnegie had guaranteed half of the $900,000 construction cost.)

On September 10, 1904, the Record & Guide reported that the firm expected their plans to be completed within a month, and that the old dwellings were currently being demolished.  The article said, "The building will cover the entire space with the exception of a court on the west side.  It will be 12 stories with a basement and sub-basement."  Directly behind, on 39th Street, the United Engineering Building would go up simultaneously.  "Both structures are expected to be finished early in 1906," said the article.

The Engineers' Club would be one of three high-end clubhouses on the block, the others being the Republican Club at 54 West 40th Street, and the New York Club at 20 West 40th.  The cornerstone of the Engineers' Club building was laid on December 23, 1905 by Carnegie's wife, Louise Whitfield Carnegie, and the structure was completed within the year.

photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The building had gone over budget, costing $550,000 to construct.  Including furnishings, the outlay was close to $870,000--more than $29 million in 2023 terms.  

Whitfield & King's neo-Renaissance tri-partite design included a three-story marble base, with dignified double-height fluted pilasters at the second and third floors.  The seven-story mid-section was faced in red brick, its windows sitting within stone architrave frames.  The two-story top section was fronted by a balustraded stone balcony.  Engaged columns separated the arched windows of the eleventh floor, and a pierced stone parapet crowned the cornice.

The massive arched windows of the eleventh floor provided stunning views from the 300-seat dining room, which engulfed the entire floor.  The second floor held the main club room and library.  There were 66 bedrooms for members, a few of whom would live here permanently, like Robert Stafford Towne, president and director of the Mexican Northern Railway, the Alvarez Land and Timber Company, and the Bubble-Column Corporation.  The formal dedication of the clubhouse was not held until December 1907, during which  Mark Twain was the principal speaker.

Two views of the Dining Room.  photos by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The clubhouse was the scene of meetings, lectures and testimonial dinners.  On August 21, 1922, for instance, engineer Calvin W. Rice was honored with a dinner before leaving for Rio de Janeiro to represent American engineering societies at the Engineering Congress.  The New York Herald reported, "The guests included engineers, scientists and educators from all parts of the country."

Other groups, like the Mining Society and the American Institute of Steel Construction met within the building.  On June 24, 1938 the latter held a dinner to present its annual awards.  Its jury of engineers and architects awarded first prize that year to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Similarly, the Radio Club of America held its annual awards banquet in the Engineers' Club.  On November 11, 1942 the recipient of its yearly medal was Harry William Houck, recognized for his "outstanding contributions to the radio art."

In July 1971, gunned men made off with $1,000 from the club's lobby cash register.  Four months later, on November 6, another robbery occurred.  Its tragic coincidence of timing ended the life of a member.  Two policemen, Ralph Hayes and Joseph Nuovo, entered the lobby around 11:15 to use the restroom.  Fifteen minutes later, member Mario Sereni started across the lobby heading home.  Just then, two armed men entered and held the bellman at gunpoint while they rifled the cash register.  

Officers Hayes and Nuovo exited the men's room to find themselves in the middle of an armed robbery.  The New York Times reported, "A chase ensued, and the robbers ran into the street.  There were several bullet holes in the glass-paneled entrance to the club...Mr. Sereni, who was leaving the club, was shot several times in the chest."  The suspects and their get-away driver were arrested later.  Sereni died on the site.

Eight years later the Engineers' Club left its lavish clubhouse for good, selling the property to developer David Eshagin.  He hired architect Seymour Churgin to renovate the building into apartments.  Churgin managed to preserve some of Whitfield & King's sumptuous interior details, like the wide marble stair hall, some of the paneling, and at least one original mantelpiece.  Called The Columns, the building was converted to a co-operative in 1983.

The structure underwent a $350,000 restoration, completed in 1995.  Among other repairs, the architectural firm Midtown Preservation reproduced the crumbling cornice and the damaged marble with fiberglass replicas.  The reproductions are indistinguishable from the street from the original materials.

non-credited photographs by the author

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The Lost Sunshine Chapel - 550 West 40th Street

The Brickbuilder magazine, May 1909 (copyright expired)

 

On March 13, 1875, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper published an article about the work of St. John's Guild, whose members ventured into the dangerous and impoverished Hell's Kitchen neighborhood to offer food or shelter.  In describing the conditions, the article noted,  "Another place visited was 550 West Fortieth Street, where in a tumble-down shanty a poor Frenchwoman lived with six small children."

The house at 550 West 40th Street in 1875.  Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 13, 1875 (copyright expired)

Another group that worked in the district was the Sunshine Mission.  It operated from rented rooms at 484 Eleventh Avenue, "under difficulties that might easily discourage the ordinary Settlement worker," according to the New-York Tribune later.  In 1886 the Marble Collegiate Church took over the struggling mission.

After it was evicted from its rooms in December 1905, a single, temporary room at 509 Tenth Avenue was rented.  The reduced space, according to the New-York Tribune, "made it necessary to disband the clubs and other work was neglected."  In response, the Marble Collegiate Church purchased the property at 550 West 40th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, and hired the architectural firm of Werner & Windolph to design a structure that could accommodate the many works of the Sunshine Mission.

Plans were filed in January 1906 for a "two-story brick and stone parish house" which would cost $12,000 to erect.  The total expense of the project, including the property and furniture, would total $30,000 (around $932,000 in 2022).  Construction forged ahead rapidly and by November the structure was nearly completed.  The New-York Tribune called it "a handsome structure, that will be an ornament as well as a blessing to the neighborhood."

Construction was nearing completion in November 1906.  The windows and doors had not yet been installed.  The New-York Tribune, November 22, 1906 (copyright expired)

The following month, The New York Observer reported, "The lower floor contains a commodious auditorium, reading room, office and kindergarten.  On the upper floor are a large clubroom and a gymnasium."  The basement held a basketball court--a significant lure to keep young Hell's Kitchen boys away from the dangerous streets.

The Brickbuilder magazine, May 1909 (copyright expired)

Once in its new building, the name of the organization was changed to the Sunshine Chapel.  The number of groups it supported was exhausting:  a Young Men's Guild, a Martha and Mary Society, a Senior and a Junior Boys' Club, and a Sunday School.  Free classes were offered in cooking and sewing, and another in gymnastics.  The kindergarten classroom was located at the rear of the first floor.  Directors told reporters, "it is believed that the accommodations in the new building will be as pleasant and as suitable as those of any kindergarten rooms in the city."

Like other missions, in the summer the Sunshine Chapel did "fresh-air work," which took children who had never played on grass or enjoyed fresh air into the country.

On December 17, 1907 the Sunshine Chapel celebrated its first anniversary in the new building with a two-part reception.  The New York Post reported "From nine to twelve...the kindergarten will welcome visitors," and that evening, "The clubs, physical culture class, and basketball teams will be seen in operations."  The basketball teams were a major source of recreation for the neighborhood youth, and their victories and defeats were followed in the sports columns.

The auditorium of Sunshine Chapel was the scene of nearly weekly lectures throughout the fall through spring seasons.  The topics were more likely to attract a middle- or upper-class audience, rather than the impoverished and ill-educated locals.  On October 21, 1908, for instance, Rubin Goldmark discussed "Siegfried," and on February 2, 1910, Dr. Toyokichi Iyenaga spoke on "An Andean Tour."  Although the lectures were free, the affluent audiences were almost assuredly asked for donations.

Donations, after all, were essential in keeping the Sunshine Chapel in operation.  Groups around the city routinely held benefit activities to support it.  On April 30, 1915, for instance, The Sun reported that the students of the private Gardner School on Fifth Avenue had presented Robert Bridges's play Achilles in Scyros at the Bandbox Theatre.  "It was an annual effort of these pupils in aid of charity," said the article.   "The proceeds this year are for the benefit of the Sunshine Chapel, at 550 West Fortieth street, a mission which is seeking to relieve some of the conditions brought about by the hardships of the winter."

Children are corralled to either side to allow the photographer a clear shot of the building.  photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York. 

By 1913 the chapel operated an industrial school, as well.  Here local boys learned skills that would enable them to find work as adults--carpentry and metal working, for example.  On August 9 that year, the New York Herald reported that the school had 200 enrollees.

Since the building's opening, Rev. Harry Williams Murphy had been in charge of the Sunshine Chapel.  His varied experiences here prompted him to write his 1931 book, Twenty-five Years in Hell's Kitchen.

When Rev. Murphy died in 1935, the West Side Improvement Project was seeking to redevelop the squalid Hell's Kitchen neighborhood.  The following year, the Sunshine Chapel along with blocks of surrounding properties, were demolished to make way for the New York Central railroad beds.

The entire block was rubble on May 1, 1936.   In the background is Sts. Cyril & Methodius, St. Raphael Croatian Catholic Church, which survives.  photo from the collection of the New York Public Library.

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The Lost New York Club - 20 West 40th Street

The newly-completed clubhouse sat among brownstone residences of a generation earlier.  photograph by Wurts Bros from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Organized in 1845, the New York Club was the oldest men's social club in Manhattan.  After having already relocated several times, it moved into the renovated the former Philip Caswell mansion at No. 370 Fifth Avenue in 1888 after a fire destroyed its clubhouse in 1888.

The New York Club occupied the former Caswell mansion for nearly two decades.  -- photographer unknown; from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York -- http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHZECLN&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=603#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHZECLN&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=603&PN=3

But the exclusive residential neighborhood around the clubhouse quickly changed.  Just two years later William Astor demolished his childhood home a block to the south and replaced it with his Waldorf Hotel.   And in 1894 his aunt, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, followed suit, razing her brownstone mansion next door and erecting her own hotel, the Astor, joined with the Waldorf by both an apostrophe and the famous Peacock Alley.

Perhaps the last straw for the club's dignified members was the demolition in 1901 of its only neighbor on the block, the white marble palace of Alexander T. Stewart.  Commerce was overtaking the neighborhood.  After lengthy (and heated) discussions, members decided on a new site overlooking the rising New York Public Library and Bryant Park behind.  The block was transforming into a "club block," with the new Engineers' Club and  Republican Club buildings recently constructed.

On April 11, 1905 The New York Times quietly mentioned that "W. Clarence Martin has sold to E. Clifford Potter 18 and 20 West Fortieth Street, two four-story brownstone dwellings."  The site would soon be added to with the purchase of No. 22 as well.   Later that year, in December, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide revealed that the New York Club had commissioned Henry J. Hardenbergh to design a nine-story clubhouse.

Describing the proposed structure as being clad in brick and trimmed in terra cotta, the journal placed the cost of construction at $300,000--nearly $8.5 million today. "The first story will contain the club offices and cafe, and the second and third stories the library and card, billiard and committee rooms."  The entire eighth floor was consumed by the "dining hall," and the seventh held private dining rooms.  The fourth, fifth and ninth floors were filled with "sleeping rooms," necessary for wealthy club members whose mansions were shuttered during the summer months yet who needed to return to the city for business.

Hardenbergh's rendering was published in the Architectural Record on June 8. 1906 (copyright expired)

When the New York Club moved into its completed home in March 1907 The New York Times called it "a bachelor's heaven."   Hardenbergh had created a confection of deep red brick, white limestone, and terra cotta.  The first three floors were highly influenced by the Beaux Arts movement.  The centered entrance at sidewalk level was overshadowed by the three two-story arches, fronted by bowed and balustraded balconies directly above.  French gave way to Dutch on the upper floors, where Flemish Renaissance Revival referenced the city's early history.  It all culminated in a two-story, tile covered mansard with stepped gables, a prominent pediment, spiky finials and a massive terra cotta roundel.

The sleeping apartments were also used by "non-resident" members--the small group of wealthy out-of-towners who visited Manhattan regularly.  Among these was the former mayor of Toledo, Ohio, Guy G. Major.  He arrived in New York on January 6, 1912, expecting to spend a few days in the city.  His stay was prolonged when he soon developed pneumonia.  Three weeks later, on January 30, Major died in his room in the Club.


The New York Club was still one of the most prestigious of men's social clubs in 1914.  The high social standings of its 675 members high were rarely soiled by scandal.   That was sometimes simply because nearly unlimited wealth could buy one's way out of public ignominy.  Such was the case with one member that spring.

Benjamin Odio was 71 years old; a respected, retired merchant and a member of the New York Produce Exchange.  He was startled by detectives who broke into a West 47th Street apartment house in the early morning hours of May 9.  Four women were arrested, one charged with keeping and maintaining a disorderly house, or brothel, and the others for "being inmates."   Odio was taken in as well for soliciting the services of the women.

But when he was brought before the judge, it was not the wealthy clubman who was in trouble, it was Detective Lydig of the Central Office Squad who had arrested him.  Magistrate Corrigan found the officer's testimony "was insufficient to support the charge," according to The New York Times the following day.  The newspaper added "The Magistrate became indignant, and calling Lydig to the bar, censured him.  He then discharged the prisoner.  The women were held for trial."

By the time of the Great Depression the New York Club was seeing its neighborhood, once again, succumbing to commerce.  On January 25, 1931 The New York Times commented on the migration of social clubs from the area.  "In years gone by, when Fifth Avenue below Fifty-ninth Street was the fashionable residential thoroughfare of the city, it was perfectly natural that many of the best known clubs should make their headquarters there."

But now, noted the article, of the more than 20 clubs that had been located on the avenue only three remained.  And the New York Club was one of the few to hang on along the blocks just off the avenue.  But that was about to change, as well.

Once one of the most financially stable clubs in the city, in 1933 its members had to decide whether to completely disband, or to sell its clubhouse and share the Lotos Club's clubhouse at No. 110 West 57th Street.  In February the board of directors made the choice to sell.   President Clarence G. Meeks put the best possible spin on the announcement.  "In taking this step, it is to be understood that the New York Club will not be disbanded, but will really be a 'club within a club.'"

With the repeal of Prohibition in sight, the building was purchased by Schenley Distributors.  On the night of December 5, 1933, the official end of Prohibition, the New York Club's members were spending their last few days in the clubhouse.  Despite the repeal, The Times noted that the club "did not serve last night."

With alcohol once again flowing freely, Schenley soon became Schenley Affiliated Corporations, described by The Times as "formed largely of wine and liquor companies."  The various distilleries and plants were situated in New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana. 

The general offices filled the entire building.  In January 1934, the same month the firm moved in, it announced further expansion.  The Times reported "It was learned that in addition to manufacturing and marketing the present Schenley products, the company contemplates manufacturing certain food products as a by-product of its present industry."

The rapid and massive growth required more office space and in 1937 Schenley took more than four full floors in the Empire State Building.  By September that year the firm had leased No. 20 as the headquarters of the American Legion.  The Boy Scouts of America also maintained a first aid station in the building.  It was a coexistence that caused hearsay and uproar.

On September 23 B. B. Galasi, District Scout Commissioner of Manhattan Council squelched unsavory rumors.  He admitted the Scouts "have given aid to the Legion officials in many ways" and said "A few of their tasks consisted of escorting visitors around the city, bearing colors for State delegations [and] acting as messengers."

But, according to The New York Times, he "denied reports that the youngsters had been detailed to attend intoxicated Legionnaires."  He was backed up by Major F. J. Swentzel of the American Legion.  "We don't allow those boys to go anywhere where there are liable to be drunks...That detail is taken care of by our service committee composed of Legionnaires."

In 1945 Schenley Affiliated Corporations sold No. 20 to supporters of Freedom House, a not-for-profit group "devoted to strengthening free societies."  NAACP members and supporters had contributed towards the $150,000 purchase price.  The renovations cost another $65,000.

Now called the Wendell Willkie Memorial Building, it was dedicated on October 8, the first anniversary of Willkie's death.  Among the speakers were actress Helen Hayes, former Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, president of Brooklyn College Dr. Harry D. Gideonse, and NAACP secretary Walter White.

Approximately 2,000 persons filled West 40th Street for the ceremony as the building was promised to be a "living center" for agencies which supported his ideals.

The headquarters of the NAACP originally took two full floors.  Here the association's official journal, The Crisis, was published.  The publication continues to cover issues of civil rights, history, and politics.   The NAACP was one of seven agencies in the building, the others being the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, the Citizens Housing Council of New York, the Common Council for American Unity, the Public Education Association, the World Student Service Fund, and Freedom House, itself.

Crowds gather before the flag-draped building during the dedication.  photo New York Times October 9, 1945

The Freedom House was founded in October 1941 and its charter described it as "a symbol and center" for the fight for freedom.  It was a time of international tension and threats to religious and political liberties.  According to historian David P. Forsythe in his 2008 Encyclopedia of Human Rights, "Its Wendell Willkie Memorial Building was the reply to Adolf Hitler's Braunhaus in Munich, Germany, the center for Nazi propaganda."

Beginning in 1943 the Freedom House Award was presented to an individual for "outstanding contribution to freedom" the previous year.  That year it was awarded to Walter Lippmann, and in 1944 to Sumner Welles.  The first awardee in the Wendell Willkie Memorial Building was General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who personally received the award here on April 2, 1946.   A comment in his acceptance speech noted "It is my conviction that the United States entered the war in the belief that it represented the forces of good against evil"

In 1967 the limited space in No. 20 forced the National Office of the NAACP to move uptown to No. 1790 Broadway.  It opened its new space on October 16.

photograph by Edmund Vincent Gillon from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

By 1983 another agency had moved into the Wendell Willkie Memorial Building.  The American Movement for World Government, Inc. was incorporated in 1954 "to promote he establishment of federal world government as a necessary condition for world peace and security."  Its founder, former commercial airline pilot William H. D. Cox, was influenced by Albert Einstein's believe that "mankind's desire for peace can be realized only by the creation of a world government."

Among the focuses of the Movement in the 1980s was nuclear disarmament.  It published a pamphlet in 1983 entitled "How to Achieve a Nuclear Freeze and Disarmament," free with a $20 membership.  An advertisement in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in December that year began "If extinction is to be avoided as the fate of the earth and all of us who inhabit it, a multilateral nuclear freeze will be an excellent beginning."

Two years later the Willkie Memorial Building was sold to the Republic National Bank.  The structure had been "mentioned as a prime candidate for landmark status," according to Joseph Berger in The New York Times on February 16, 1985.  It had been identified as early as 1979 by the Landmarks Preservation Commission "as having architectural significance."

Republic National Bank set a demolition team to work under cover of night.  Berger reported "A crew this week began ripping the carved stone and other ornaments from the Willkie Memorial Building on West 40th Street."  Buildings Commissioner Charles M. Smith, Jr. ordered the work suspended and asked the police to monitor it.  But significant damage had already been done.  The stone balustrades and carved stonework had been jack-hammered off and the chances of landmark designation were now successfully aborted.

Before long an empty lot occupied the site of Henry J. Hardenberg's fanciful New York Club.  In January 2014 plans were filed for the 33-story mixed used building designed by David Chipperfield, known as The Bryant.

The Bryant is the light-colored structure just to the left of the Empire State Building in this rendering.  via the Bryant website

The Lost 3rd Unitarian Church -- Nos. 54-56 West 40th Street

The Third Unitarian Church was equal in height to the abutting five-story houses.  Note the iron fencing of Reservoir Square (now Bryant Park) in the foreground.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

On October 5 1858 fire erupted in the magnificent Crystal Palace, the glass-and-iron exhibition hall erected five years earlier.  Twenty-one minutes later the world-renowned structure was a smoldering ruin.

The Crystal Palace had taken up about half of the block between Sixth and Fifth Avenues, from 40^th to 42nd Street.   The eastern half, facing Fifth Avenue, held the massive Egyptian Revival style Croton Reservoir which provided fresh water to the city to the south.  Half a decade later it would become the site of Carerre & Hastings’ magnificent New York Public Library.  But the Crystal Palace site would remain a park, known as Reservoir Square, as the mansions of Manhattan’s millionaires slowly engulfed the neighborhood.

About the time of the fire, the Third Unitarian Church was organized with the young Octavius B. Frothingham as its pastor.  The New York Times would later remember “He never wished to preach in a church, and when his society determined to build him one in Fortieth-street, he refused to enter it until every dollar of its indebtedness had been discharged.”

The church that Frothingham so vehemently did not want was at Nos. 54-56 West Fortieth Street, facing Reservoir Square.  While the congregation worshiped from a rented hall at the northeast corner of Broadway and 32^nd Street, it worked feverishly to raise the funds to pay off the rising building.

The structure was completed in January 1864.  On Thursday evening January 14 the trustees held an auction for the pews.  “Free churches” (those not requiring the renting or purchase of pews) were still relatively rare.  A notice of the auction in the New York Herald that day advised “A full and punctual attendance of the subscribers and congregation is requested.  Diagrams of the pews will be ready on Thursday morning at the church, which will be open during the day and evening.”

The congregation’s new Gothic Revival edifice was faced in brownstone.  Entrance doors flanked an arcade of openings, over which rose a dramatic three-story stained glass window.  Whether he wanted it or not, Rev. Frothingham was now the pastor of a substantial and fashionable church.

Among the pastor’s first notable ceremonies here was the funeral of John Hopper.  Like his father, the well-known Quaker abolitionist Isaac T. Hopper, John had ardently opposed slavery and he had been active in New York’s Underground Railroad.  As early as the 1830s his reputation had reached the deep South and on April 28, 1837 he narrowly escaped being lynched after arriving in Savannah on business.

On July 23, 1864 the New York Herald described Hopper’s funeral, saying that Reverend Frothingham “delivered a touching eulogy of the deceased.”  Following the services the coffin “which was covered with wreaths and festoons of flowers, was carried from before the pulpit outside the church, and placed immediately in the wooden case.  It was deposited in the hearse at once; the funeral cortege formed and drove to Greenwood, where the remains were buried beside those of his father, the late Isaac T. Hopper.”

For some former slaves, emancipation solved one problem and caused another.  Employment and financial stability were not guaranteed by-products of freedom.  And while the Civil War put an end to slavery, it had little effect on racism.  The well-heeled congregants of Third Unitarian Church did their part to help.  On January 19, 1868 the New York Herald reported that “A dramatic entertainment, in aid of the freedmen, was recently given in this city by the social committee of the Third Unitarian Church.  The performance consisted of the drama of ‘The Jacobite,’ the farce of ‘Popping the Question’ and other novelties.”

Octavius B. Frothingham never warmed to the lavish brownstone church.  A few months after the fund raiser for former slaves he “persuaded his followers to sell the church and return to a hall, which he has ever advocated as far less expensive and in every way more independent,” as reported in The New York Times.

St. Paul’s Reformed Dutch Church had been worshiping in Lyrick Hall on Sixth Avenue at West 21^st Street.  On June 23, 1868 that congregation held a fund-raising “strawberry and music festival” there.  It was most likely no coincidence that Lyrick Hall would become Third Unitarian’s worship space.

On April 10, 1869 The New York Times reported that St. Paul’s had purchased the Unitarian Church.  “Some few alterations and improvements will be made in the interior of the building, and the new congregation will take possession on the first Sunday in May.”

An undated photograph shows the sanctuary prior to the 1880s.  A History of the Parish of Saint Ignatius, by Louis H. Gray, 1946

St. Paul’s Reformed Dutch Church brought an understated religious approach to the fashionable neighborhood.  While other society churches placed announcements of their extensive Holy Week services in 1870, the notice in the New York Herald for St. Paul’s read simply “Please God there will be divine service and a sermon in this church this (Good Friday) afternoon, at 4-1/2 oclock.”

The congregation’s stay on West 40^th Street would be short-lived.  In December 1871 the Episcopalian Parish of St. Ignatius was founded by Reverend Dr. Ferdinand Cartwright Ewer.  His “high church” stance was in direct opposition to mainstream Episcopal leanings at the time.  Suspicion and distrust of “Papists” and “Romanists” ran high.  Ewer’s adherence to “Catholicity” forced him to resign his rectorship of Christ Church and found the new parish.  Somewhat surprisingly, the powerful Bishop Horatio Potter approved the organization.

Within months the Church of St. Ignatius had rented the 40^th Street building from St. John’s Reformed Dutch Church.  Rev. Ewer wrote in his 1884 Sanctity “It was speedily altered to adapt it to the services of the Church, which were celebrated in it, for the first time, on Easter Sunday, 1872.”

The congregation agreed to a one-year lease on the building at $5,000—a significant $100,000 annual rent in 2016 terms.   The lease was extended; but the expense was eventually unsupportable.  On June 21, 1874 the New York Herald noted “They have spent large sums of money in decorating and fitting up the church and it is probable they may make the purchase.  In any case no further lease of the property will be made, as the congregation of St. Paul’s wants the money to build.”

The congregation now had to decide whether to build or to meet the $80,000 price tag on the brownstone church.  Negotiations resulted in a discounted sale and on February 20, 1875 the Real Estate Record reported that St. Paul’s Reformed Dutch Church had transferred title at a cost of $50,000.

If Rev. Ewer had been seen as “high church,” his successor would far surpass him.  In April 1884 Frank Leslie’s Sunday Magazine reported that Rev. Arthur Ritchie of Chicago would succeed Ewer.  A vestryman told the periodical “He is not more than thirty-five years old, but is above the average minister in ability, and will take a foremost place among the Episcopal clergymen of New York…Yes, he belongs to the High Church—we could have no other rector—and he is a man of strong and earnest conviction.”

Rev. Arthur Ritchie would cause significant waves within the Episcopal community.  Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine, April 1884 (copyright expired

Frank Leslie’s clarified the vestryman’s comments.  “Mr. Ritchie is more than a High Churchman.  He is a Ritualist of the most advanced type, going even further in that direction than did the late Dr. Ewer.  In September 1882, he occasioned much controversy and excitement in Chicago by his use of the term ‘Mass’ in referring to the office of Holy Communion.”

The redecorated sanctuary at the time of Rev. Ritchie's rectorship.  A History of the Parish of Saint Ignatius, by Louis H. Gray, 1946.

Under Ritchie the church, which the same vestryman had claimed “has never been prosperous,” thrived.  Within ten years of his arrival there were three full masses being celebrated every Sunday and the vested choir boasted “34 boys, women and men.”  But Rev. Ritchie’s insistence on the rituals of the High Church flew in the face of high-powered mainstream Episcopalians—most notably Bishop Henry C. Potter, who had taken over from his uncle.

It all came to a head in March 1894.  The New York Times ran a headline that read “St. Ignatius’s Under The Ban – Omitted From Bishop Potter’s Confirmation List.”  The Bishop of the New York Diocese was required to celebrate the rite of confirmation in each church at least once every three years.  Potter chose to do it every year.  Except now, for the second year in a row, he ignored St. Ignatius on his schedule.

The newspaper said the snub had caused “much bitterness of feeling” and noted “the trouble is of several years’ standing, and may result in an open breach between Father Ritchie and his Bishop.”  The main problem, Ritchie admitted, was that the Bishop disapproved of how he celebrated Communion.  In the Catholic tradition, only the celebrant received the bread and wine.  Too, Father Ritchie did not read the confession and absolution, “as is generally understood to be obligatory,” explained The Times.

Father Ritchie was fearlessly outspoken, calling the omission a “snub” and “discrimination.”  He threatened Bishop Potter, saying that he had clearly outlined his method of worship prior to coming to New York and he had the Bishop’s approval letter.  “If he does not visit our church next year, as he is bound to do by the laws of the Church, I may see fit to give it out for publication.”

On March 11, 1901 the church building had only a few months left.  New-York Tribune (copyright expired)

The ugly episode eventually blew over.  Growing ever more prosperous the congregation looked for a new home as the new century dawned.  By 1900 the Upper West Side was the city’s most vibrant area of development.  On April 20, 1901 The Church Standard reported that the Diocese had approved the move of the Church of St. Ignatius to its new plot on West End Avenue and West 87^th Street.  The article mentioned that $50,000 had already been amassed for the new building.

Two weeks later the New-York Tribune mentioned that the Transfiguration Chapel would possibly take over the 40^th Street church.  That would not come to pass.  Shortly after the Church of St. Ignatius moved out, the old building was demolished to be replaced in 1902 by the Republican Club headquarters.  The 12-story limestone-clad structure, designed by York & Sawyer, survives.

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The 1891 Wylie Mansion -- 28 West 40th St.

Above the street level, original brownstone and Roman brick details survive -- photo by Alice Lum

When the gargantuan Egyptian Revival-style Croton Reservoir was completed in 1842, the Murray Hill neighborhood surrounding Fifth Avenue was only sparsely developed.   Eleven years later the magnificent Crystal Palace was erected directly behind the reservoir for New York’s International Exposition.  The two monumental structures now filled the area from Fifth to Sixth Avenue, and from 40^th Street to 42^nd.

Rapidly the avenue and its side streets filled with the homes of New York’s wealthy; although the West 40^th Street block was slow to follow--possibly because of the restricted view of the great granite walls or, perhaps, the noisy throngs of visitors to the exhibition hall.    The Crystal Palace was consumed by fire in 1858 and within the next decade residential development along the block would pick up.

In 1861 The Art Journal noted that “Up to this point the Fifth Avenue—the street of magnificent palatial residences—is completed, scarcely a vacant lot remaining upon its borders.”  And by the mid 1880s the same would be true of the West 40^th Street block.

In the meantime Walker Gill Wylie had been a busy man.   Born in Chester, South Carolina in 1849, he had an unusual and wide-reaching thirst for knowledge.  After serving in the Confederate army, he graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1868, having taken every course offered and earning a civil engineering degree.

With the war over, he traveled to New York where he received a medical degree from Bellevue Medical College in 1871.  A gynecologist, he began his practice at Bellevue, taking time off to travel to England and Europe to study modern hospital operations.  Upon his return he helped establish the Bellevue’s Training School for Nurses, the first in the United States, and actively recruited women into the nursing field.

Dr. Wylie wrote the ground-breaking essay “Hospitals, Their Organization and Construction” that would become the standard for management and design of hospitals throughout the country for decades.  In 1876 he received Harvard University’s Boylston prize for that work.

A year later  he was assisting Dr. J. Marion Sims in the field of abdominal surgery; a position that afforded him the income to comfortably marry—a particularly sensitive issue with Wylie--and he wed Henrietta Frances (Fanny) Damon.  In 1882 he was made visiting gynecologist at Bellevue Hospital and he helped organize the New York Polyclinic where he was named professor of gynecology.

The Wylies already had a daughter in 1891 when they chose one of the last available building plots on West 40^th between Fifth and Sixth Avenues for their new home.  The doctor commissioned the well-established architect R. H. Robertson to design the house.   Robertson was best known for his own take on the Romanesque Revival style, using chunky blocks of rough-cut stone blended with brick and terra cotta.   But for the Wylie mansion he stepped away from arches and gargoyles and created a distinguished Renaissance-inspired structure with a projecting two-story bay.  The Roman brick and brownstone played off one another to create vertical bands and visual interest.

The diversely-talented Dr. Walker Gill Wylie

The street was populated with respectable residents like the Wylies; next door at No. 26 was Dr. Herman Knapp, the founder of the New York Ophthamalic and Aural Institute.

Before long four more children would arrive, all born in the West 40^th Street house:  Julia Agnes, Lucilla Damon, Sims S. Gill, Edward Alexander Gill and Walker Gill, Jr.  Because the sons were all given the name Gill, like their father, newspapers would sometimes later become confused, reporting their surnames as “Gill-Wylie.”

Wylie’s prominent reputation as a doctor and surgeon resulted in his patronage by the wealthiest of families.  When Adeline Townsend, wife of the millionaire R. H. L. Townsend, returned from Mexico to their Madison Avenue mansion, she was seriously ill.  The Sun reported on March 29, 1893 that “Her husband, who went down to bring her home, noticed on the way up that she did not seem to be in her usual good health.”  

Dr. Wylie was called in.  He diagnosed the problem as typhus, the disease that had killed the son of Franklin Pierce in 1843 and caused epidemics in Baltimore, Memphis and Washington DC between 1865 and 1873.  Dr. Wylie had the uncomfortable position of treating one of the hospital’s major contributors while at the same time easing the fears of the community.  

“Dr. Wylie…knew that Mrs. Townsend, although sick with typhus, could remain in her own house if the rules of the Board of Health in such a case were complied with,” reported the newspaper.  Wylie committed her to an isolated room with two trained nurses.  “Felt was stuffed in around the connecting doors and heavy paper was pasted over the door cracks.”

photo NYPL Collection

All the while, as his children were born, socialites were contracting diseases, and hospitals were being planned, Wylie turned his engineering interests to good purposes.  He became interested in the theory of hydroelectric power at a time when turning water into electricity was generally scoffed at.  In 1896, having convinced tobacco mogul James Buchanan Duke that his concept of hydroelectric dams was plausible, he and his brother Robert built the hydroelectric power plant at Portman Shoals in South Carolina.  Using Duke’s financial backing, they established what would become the Duke Power Company.  The power plant was put in operation in May 1895 and the resulting power lit all of Anderson, South Carolina—earning the little town the nickname of the “Electric City.”

Somehow Walker and Fanny Wylie managed to maintain their social responsibilities as well.  On the afternoon of December 17, 1898 they gave a “largely attended tea” to present Julia and Lucilla to society.  The Sun reported that “A dinner of twenty-six covers followed the tea, and a number of young people came in for the dance afterward.”

The doctor’s advice and opinions were not restricted to medicine and engineering.  In 1900 he made his thoughts known about the treatment of girls in schools.  “Dr. W. Gill Gylie thinks that our schoolgirls are overworked, and that at an age when a great part of their strength is needed for healthy physical development they are subjected to a ruinous strain through intense application to studies in competition with boys,” reported the New-York Tribune on December 29.  He said that “the American horse receives on the average better treatment than the young women of America from the time of early girlhood until the age of development has passed.”  He was against, however, changing the curriculum or watering down the course work for the girls.

In the meantime, son Sims Gill Wylie showed little interest in education at all.   Unlike his father, Sims was uninspired by the acquisition of knowledge.  He dropped out of Harvard at the beginning of his junior year and, much to his father’s frustration, was unable to decide on a career.  He became romantically interested in Louise Sayre Woodruff of Staten Island and expressed his intentions of marrying her.

Dr. Wylie refused to consent.  He later told a reporter “I told him that I was opposed to his taking a wife until he was able to support her in comfort.  Mr. Woodruff, naturally, wouldn't give his consent until I did.”  

On September 22, 1905 the Wylies and the Woodruffs agreed to allow their children to announce their engagement.  The wedding would be put off until young Sims, now 23, could obtain a job and an income.   Rather than enter the medical or engineer professions, Sims found employment in the automobile business.

Both families were shocked a few months later when the young couple eloped.  On April 16, 1906 Sims and Louise were married at St. George’s Church with four friends as witnesses.  “Mr. Woodruff said yesterday that the bride’s parents didn't know about the wedding until after they had a son-in-law in the family,” reported a newspaper.

Dr. Wylie, obviously, did not know either and his disapproval was thinly veiled.  “The boy is 24 years old, and is accordingly his own master.  Now that he is married I see no reason why I shouldn't be satisfied if he is.”

One by one the Wylie children left the house on West 40^th Street as they married in a more socially-expected manner.   When Edward married Emily Nelson McLean on June 8, 1911 at the Church of the Heavenly Rest, his sister Lucilla was a bridesmaid and his brothers were among the ushers.

By now the millionaires along Fifth Avenue were slowly moving northward; their mansions taken over by commercial concerns or razed for businesses.  The houses along the 40^th Street block, too, began disappearing.  In 1901 the Beaux Arts Studio building replaced homes at the corner of Sixth Avenue and the Republican Club rose in place of the house at No. 54.   The Engineers Club was built in 1905, just two doors away at No. 32.  And in 1919 Dr. Knapp's house next door was remodeled as the Knickerbocker Whist Club.

The Wylie Mansion stubbornly holds out while surrounded by office buildings and clubhouses in the 1920s -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

But Dr. Wylie stayed on.   In 1923 the handsome house where he had lived for 32 years and reared his family was an anomaly—the last holdout of a previous era, squashed between two soaring clubhouses.

That year, on March 13, Dr. Walker Gill Wylie died in his house at the age of 74.  His obituary in The New York Times cataloged his long list of achievements without even touching upon his engineering accomplishments.

Although the ground floor has been brutalized beyond recognition, much of the structure is intact -- photo by Alice Lum

Surprisingly, the Robertson-designed house survived as Manhattan’s skyscrapers engulfed the neighborhood.  The ground floor was obliterated for retail space and in 1957 the upper floors were converted to apartments.  Today co-op owners look out their windows at Bryant Park and the Library  building; a view not much different that than Dr. Wylie enjoyed a century ago.