The Lost Peter and Elizabeth Schmidt House - 634 West 52nd Street

 

Although their neighbors to the west had been demolished for the coming Miller Highway, the Schmidts kept their house in relatively prim condition in 1933.  Savastano Photographic Studio, from the NYC Municipal Archives.

In the first years following the end of the Civil War, the neighborhood around Twelfth Avenue and West 52nd Street was filled mostly with ramshackle hovels.  The desperate conditions of the inhabitants earned the district the nickname Hell's Kitchen.  But the house at 634 West 52nd Street, between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues, was an exception.  

Three stories tall above basement and cellar levels, the frame house had a commodious wooden porch behind a front yard.  Designed by the builder, its rustic take on Italianate architecture included wooden lintels and an understated cornice that recalled the waning Greek Revival style.

As early as 1868, piano maker Phillip Rodenback (often spelled as Rodenbach) and his family owned the house.  He and his wife, Marie (who was 40 years old in 1868), would have at least two children, Kate and William.  The family took in boarders.  In 1868 they were Andrew Cumming, who ran a stone business at 51st Street at the Hudson River; carman William Williamson; and Jane Wright, a widow.  Andrew Cumming would live with the family through 1873.

In 1870, Kate Rodenback taught at School No. 32.  Fourteen years later, William Rodenback was enrolled in the Introductory Class of the College of the City of New York.  The family's boarders in the early 1880s included Elizabeth Kenny, a widow, and her son, William, who worked as a clerk.  Another widow, Mary Doughtery, boarded at the same time, as did engineer George Osborne.

Around the turn of the century, Peter Schmidt and his wife, Elizabeth, purchased the house.  They would have at least three sons here, Peter J., Andrew B. and George A.  Interestingly, it does not appear that the Schmidts took in any boarders.

Two boys, most likely Schmidt brothers, stand on the porch of 634 West 52nd St.  Warehouses had replaced most similar structures by the turn of the century.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

It is unclear when Peter Schmidt died, but Elizabeth was a widow when she died on December 31, 1911.  Her funeral was held in the house on January 3, 1912.  Four months later, on April 10, the "estate of Peter Schmidt, Deceased," offered the house at auction.  The announcement described it as a "3-story and basement frame Dwelling, containing 12 rooms and 2 toilets, with 1-story sheds in the rear."

The Schmidt brothers, it seems, were not ready to give up their home and purchased the property and continued to live here.  In 1925, Peter J. Schmidt enrolled in Fordham University; and the following year, Andrew was listed by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Navigation as operating an amateur radio station.  His equipment had the power of just 8 watts.

In 1934, the northward construction of the Miller Highway had reached the Schmidt house, seen here from the rear.  It barely escaped the demolition.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

George A. Schmidt was involved in an automobile accident in Kingston, New York on May 28, 1939.  By then, his childhood neighborhood had drastically changed.  In 1929, construction started on the Miller Highway (better known today as the West Side Highway).  Built in stages, decades later it would hug the entire Manhattan riverfront.

By 1933, the structures neighboring the Schmidt house to the west were demolished, and grading for the highway in the early 1940s left the Schmidt's porch a floor above the sidewalk.  In 1948, a store occupied the former basement level.  An office took over the parlor and second floors, and the third floor held one apartment.

The Raffaele Bazaar occupied the basement level in 1948.  A wooden staircase in the rear accessed the upper floors and a sign advertised the property for sale.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By the mid-1950s, the venerable wooden house was no longer recognizable.  The top two floors were lopped off, a veneer of brick applied to the facade, and a storefront installed.

The completed Miller Highway can be seen at the right.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The little relic survived until 1993, replaced by a bizarre Roman-inspired structure that would house Larry Flynt's "Hustler Club."

image via The Architect's Newspaper, February 28, 2023.

many thanks to reader Allen Sheinman for prompting this post

The Lost Striker's Cottages - West 52nd Street

 

The houses were somewhat bedraggled when this photograph was taken in the late 19th century.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society.

John Hopper the Elder acquired an estate north of New York City in 1667, known as Hopper Farm.  It comprised 80 acres and spread approximately from today's Sixth Avenue to the Hudson River, and from 48^th to 55^th Streets.  He built a house on the land for each of his sons.  His own house, Rosevale, sat near what is now 53^rd Street.  

When Mary Hopper married James Garret Striker in 1780, they moved into the house built in 1752 for John Hopper, Jr.  James's first American ancestor, Jacobus Van Strycker arrived in New Amsterdam in 1651.   The couple would have nine children.  

Upon James Garret Striker's death on December 15, 1831, the Hopper Farm passed to his son Garrit Hopper Striker.  Born in 1784, he would live in the John Hopper, Jr. house until his death in 1868.  

In 1850, Garrit Striker made a somewhat surprising move, given the remoteness of the Hopper Farm.  He erected a row of eight, two-story frame houses along the north side of 52nd Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues.  He christened the block Striker's Row and the houses the Striker Cottages.  (A similar row would follow on the south side, and while no photograph survives of those, they were most likely carbon copies.)

The design of the houses was almost assuredly the product of the builder rather than a trained architect.  Best termed vernacular, they borrowed elements from several current styles.  Sitting back from the dirt road with commodious front yards, they shared a common veranda supported by delicate wooden railings that smacked of Chinese Chippendale.  Floor-to-ceiling French windows at the ground floor offered fresh air in warm months, and transoms over the single-doored entrances supplied additional light.

Striker erected the houses as rental income, and an advertisement in the New York Sun in 1850 offered, "To Let: Eight entire[ly] new two-story cottages, piazza and verandah fronts, courtyards 35 feet deep, filled with elegant forest trees."  The ad boasted, "four bedrooms, two parlors and kitchen" in each house, and "hard finished walls with cornices and centre piece."  (The "centre piece" was, most likely, the elaborate plaster ceiling medallion in the parlors and dining rooms.)

The Kyle family lived in 7 Striker's Row in 1861.  They placed what today might be viewed as a somewhat bizarre ad in the New York Herald on March 2 that year:

A Private Family will receive a little girl to Board and educate.  She will be kindly treated, and carefully instructed in the English branches, Drawing and Flower Painting.  Terms $15 per month in advance.  Apply to Mrs. Kyle, No. 7 Striker's row, West Fifty-second street, near Eleventh avenue.

The monthly fee the Kyles were charging to essentially foster the child would translate to about $514 in 2023.

Amos Colt was an agent of Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company, founded by his cousin, Samuel Colt.  As tensions between North and South intensified, Sam Colt sent Amos to the Deep South "to reap his share of the gun orders that came flooding in to the North," according to James L. Mitchell in his 1959 Colt, A Collection of Letters and Photographs About The Man--The Arms--The Company.  The Yankee agent managed to return to New York before war erupted.  Mitchell writes,

It is apparent that Amos Colt while in Mississippi did not express his sentiments concerning the natives of that state aloud for he lived to return to his native New York City...a check of the New York directory shows that as late as 1866 he was living at 5 Striker's Row, and his occupation was shown as "Agent."

The residents of 7 Striker's Row (possibly still the Kyle family) took in a boarder in 1866, offering three rooms for $15.  

By the 1870s, the houses were being engulfed by the neighborhood that would become known as Hell's Kitchen--one tainted with poverty and crime.  But for the time being, their middle-class residents continued to be respectable.  Most had at least one servant.  One of them was looking for a new position in 1872.  Her advertisement on June 25 in the New York Herald read:

1 Striker's Row, between West 52d and 53d streets--A respectable young girl (lately landed) as chambermaid and to do washing and ironing, and willing to do according to orders.  Call for two days.

In 1882 Henry Steinberg and his family occupied No. 1.  He was in the "waters" business.  Two widows, Rose Everhardt and Alice McPhilips, lived at 11 and 5 Striker's Row respectively, possibly operating them as boarding houses.  Charles Meyer, who worked as a weaver, occupied No. 9, and notary John McDonald and his family lived at 7 Striker's Row.  The McDonalds took in a boarder for extra money.  In 1882 James F. Degnan, a butcher, lived with the family.

John McDonald was a recently arrived immigrant.  He was born in Baillborry, County Cavan, Ireland.  Unfortunately, his life in America would not be a long one.  He died in his Striker's Row home in 1884 at the age of 45.

Alice McPhillips, Rose Everhard, and Charles Meyer were all still living on Striker's Row in 1886.  Other occupants included Irish immigrants Thomas F. McCauley, a driver, at No. 11; Patrick Clawsey, who worked as a cutter in a garment factory and lived at 9 Striker's Row; and George Ferguson at No. 1, who worked in an ice business.  All of them would have to find different accommodations before long. 

In 1890 the houses had suffered noticeable neglect.  Elsworth L. Striker demolished the row.  On December 20, 1890, the Real Estate Record & Guide began an article saying, "The Striker family have been in possession since 1640, directly or by heritage, of the property they have improved in the neighborhood of 52d street and the Hudson River."  The article said that Striker was in the process of constructing "three five-story brick and brown stone front apartment houses...on the north side of 52d street, between 10th and 11th avenues."

Many thanks to reader Douglas B. Kearley for suggesting this post

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

The John Newcomb Stable -- 348 West 52nd Street

In the mid-1870's John Newcomb ran his auction business from No. 907 Eighth Avenue, at the southwest corner of 54th Street.  Any bulky items, like furniture, or large lots of goods would be delivered to the purchasers.  Newcomb's trucks and horses were housed in a two-story brick stable nearby at No. 348 West 52nd Street.  The block was a mish-mash of structures with several similar two- and three-story stables, tenement buildings and a few old residences.  

The 25-foot wide structure following the standard stable configuration.  A centered, two-doored carriage bay was flanked by a window (today converted to a doorway) and an entrance.  The architect of the utilitarian building added interest by slightly protruding the central section of the second floor where the loft opening received bales of hay and other supplies.  Small stone brackets below the stone bandcourse emphasized the projecting section.  A handsome bracketed cornice echoed the architectural detail.

Newcomb was still here in 1880 when on June 27 he advertised in The New York Herald for a "competent young man as porter or night watchman, good references, John Newcomb, private stable."  One of his drivers was hoping to elevate himself from a cartman to a coachman three years later.  In his April 1, 1883 advertisement in the same newspaper he described himself as "a Protestant young man, 28 years old, perfectly sober and reliable.  Please call or address private stable 348 West 52d st."

By the summer of 1889 Robert Hill had taken over the 52nd Street stable and converted it for his wholesale grocery business.  Although the location was far north of the established grocery district in what is now known as Tribeca, Hill succeeded.  On August 22, 1889 his advertisement in The New York Herald sought a "salesman who understands the grocery business."

Like John Newcomb, Hill needed a private stable for his drays and horses.  His was conveniently located two doors to the east, at No. 344 West 52nd Street.  His business grew to the point that in July 1905 he purchased a second stable at No. 511 West 52nd Street from Mrs. Isabella Widder.

That year Hill's crew included an unlikely character.  In the fall of 1905 Hill and other businessmen suffered labor problems when the drivers went on strike seeking shorter hours and higher pay.  Rather than concede to their demands, Hill simply replaced them.  Among those he hired early in November was Bradley Curzon.

Curzon had been living in the Mills House #1 on Bleecker Street, a sort of hotel which aimed to get unemployed men back on their feet.  But despite being down on his luck, Curzon stood out from his co-workers.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted on November 22, 1905, "He looks very different from the usual driver.  He wore a long, gray raincoat, a light tweed suit, a vest of fancy pattern, and spectacles fastened with a silk cord."

Strike breaking could be a dangerous venture in the early 20th century, sometimes ending in replacement drivers being beaten or even killed.  Curzon was luckier--he was accosted not with a club, but with theft of goods.  On November 21 he was driving a dray along West 47th Street, when a fired Hill employee, Louis H. Spero, jumped on the truck and grabbed two bags of sugar and a bag of starch and ran off.  Curzon's yells of "Stop, thief!" caught the attention of Patrolman Zorn who nabbed Spero.

The nattily-dressed Curzon accompanied the officer to the 47th Street police station to make a complaint.  The desk officer took note of his attire, then of his name, and jokingly said "That's a distinguished name you have.  You might be a relative of Lord Curzon."  (The renowned Lord George Curzon of Kedelston was Viceroy of India.)

Bradley Curzon surprised everyone in the room when he replied matter-of-factly, "I am.  I am a cousin of Lord Curzon."  He did not explain how he had come to be in such impecunious circumstances.

Robert Hill not only sold grocery items, he produced some of them as well.  A Health Department inspection in 1907 passed his O.K. brand and Export brand canned tomatoes as being "free from preservatives and artificial coloring matter."

Hill's success and sterling reputation led to his name being used in a scam in 1908.  "A rather tall, light complexioned man," as described by The American Produce Review, went to an upstate New York dairy and ordered 17 barrels of butter, even offering more than the going price.  He presented his business card which identified himself as "J. W. Harper, manager dairy department," of "Robert Hill, wholesale grocer and importer."  The address on the card was No. 383 Eighth Avenue.  

The dairy manager looked up Hill's credit listing "and found that he was rated $25,000 to $125,000 with good credit."  He failed to notice that the address listed was No. 348 West 52nd Street, not the Eighth Avenue location.

Storekeepers around No. 383 Eighth Avenue (which, incidentally, was a store that sold flags and "lodge paraphernalia") noticed a stranger loitering around the block for about a week.  When a delivery wagon pulled up one afternoon with a load of butter, the man signed for it.

After waiting a reasonable time for Hill to pay his bill, the dairy called him.  Hill informed the caller that he had no one by the name of J. W. Harper in his employ, "and that he would do everything possible to aid in detecting the man who was using his name."  Nevertheless, the dairy was taken for $265, nearly $7,500 today.

Grocery men city-wide were most likely stunned when they read in the New-York Tribune in April 1919 that Robert Hill, Inc. was bankrupt.  On April 12 the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that Hill had leased No. 348 to the Middleton's Stone Ginger Beer Co., Inc.  "The tenant will make extensive alterations," said the article.

Middleton's Stone Ginger Beer Co. was run by brothers Hubert J. and James G. Middleton.  Bottled to resemble alcoholic beer, their product was one of several beverages that took advantage of the newly-ratified 18th Amendment that would outlaw alcohol.

By 1925 the ginger beer company was replaced at No. 348 by the Ellis-Davidson Co.  Distributors of "sanitary supplies," it listed among its products "disinfectants, deodorants, insecticides, sanitary supplies to hospitals institutions, etc."

Ellis-Davidson Co. was not merely about antiseptics and soaps.  The firm had a side-line in perfumes, as well.  On March 15, 1925 it advertised for a "Young Girl, experienced in wrapping and bottling perfumery."  The same day another advertisement sought a "Stenographer--Must be good penman, neat appearance."  Ellis-Davidson Co. remained in the building until June 1934 when it moved to No. 38 West 21st Street.  

The Briefstein Lumber Co. next took over the building.  It would remain here for years.

The original, inward-opening carriage bay doors are still intact in this photo taken around 1940.  Before the building was painted, its limestone trimmings, like the ears of the upper floor openings, were obvious.  photo via the NYC Department of Records & Information Services.

The Hell's Kitchen neighborhood around No. 348 continued to be gritty throughout most of the 20th century.  But gentrification arrived by the late 1990's.  The change was no more in evidence than at No. 348 West 52nd Street when, in 2003 Therapy, a trendy gay bar, opened here.

Both the business and the building were threatened in 2019 when the structure next door at No. 340 was deemed structurally unstable by the city.  Therapy was ordered closed until that building could be stabilized and then safely demolished.  The timing could not have been worse--just days before the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and the Pride-related festivities that would draw world-wide crowds.  (Happily for the bar, it was allowed to open in time for the event.)

At some point the stable building was extended into the rear yard to accommodate the manufacturing inside.

Where once delivery horses once munched oats, and where Robert Hill canned tomatoes, Hell's Kitchen patrons now sip drinks and enjoy shows; no doubt completely unaware of the long history of the building.

photographs by the author

The Queen Anne Holdout at No. 406 West 52nd Street

In 1861 nine-year old Adam Huston came to New York from County Derry, Ireland, with his parents.  At the time the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood had filled with poor Irish immigrants who had fled the Irish Potato Famine and were attracted by work on the docks and Hudson River railroad.  Another Irishman, John Cassidy lived there in a two-story wooden house and store at No. 406 West 52^nd Street.  Cassidy, a native of Slane, County Meath, died in the house on Thursday, November 4, 1869 of typhoid fever.

In the meantime, Adam Huston attended public schools.  He then went immediately into the plumbing business and, according to A Standard History of Freemasonry years later, applied “himself with determination to learn all its details, and succeeded so well that it was not long before he was recognized as being ‘as good as a journeyman.’”

Adam Huston -- The Plumbers' Trade Journal, 1907 (copyright expired

In fact, he was so successful that in 1882 he partnered with another Irish-born plumber, James R. Corbitt, to form Huston & Corbitt Co.  Within five years the men had established their firm as one of the leading plumbing contractors in the city, and laid plans to construct their own business building.

On December 28, 1887 they took title to the old frame house and store once home to John Cassidy.  Despite the gritty neighborhood, the property cost the plumbers $5,000—about $130,000 in 2016.  They commissioned architect C. Abbott French to design a multi-purpose building on the site; one both commercial and residential.

C. Abbott French & Co. was responsible for scores of rowhouses and other buildings in Manhattan.  Earlier that year French had designed a remarkable row of 12 Queen Anne style residences on East 95^th Street.  For Huston and Corbitt the architect turned to the same style on a less grand scale.

C. Abbott French filed plans on January 27, 1888 calling for a brick “dwelling and store” at a cost of $12,000.  The delightful structure was completed within the year—five stories of brick, iron and terra cotta like nothing else in the neighborhood.   Huston & Corbitt Co. would operate from the ground floor “store” space; while the upper floors were residential, including one two-story apartment. 

French’s design had striking similarities to architect C. P. H. Gilbert’s four-story apartment house at No. 348 West 23^rd Street completed about a year earlier.  A three-story angled bay of pressed metal included rope-twist colonnettes, a panel of honeycomb design and one of scattered nubs, leaded transoms, and a foliate cornice influenced by the Aesthetic Movement.   Atop the bay a delicate, lacy cast iron cresting sat like a diadem.  French saved Huston & Corbitt money by executing much of the decorative detail in brick.   At the top floor, for instance, he repeated the honeycomb motif, created a corbel table and a layered cornice all in brick.  A whimsical false gable in cast metal at this level provided a cottage-like feel.

A slathering of paint disguises details like the stone keystone and bands, now barely discernible.

Before long the relationship between Huston and Corbitt moved from professional to familial.  On April 30, 1889 Adam Huston married Annie Corbitt and the newlyweds moved into the two-story apartment at No. 406 West 52^nd Street.  Rather surprisingly, C. Abbott French also lived in the building until around 1904; and William Truitt Godfrey, a notary public, was here at least from 1896 through 1900.

The firm's advertisement in the 1893 Catalogue of Exhibition for the Architectural League of New York was exceptionally understated.  (copyright expired)

Huston & Corbitt Co. continued to thrive.  In 1901 the company was awarded the contract to install the plumbing in the huge Ardsley Hall apartment building on Central Park West and 92^nd Street.  Interestingly, an inspection by the State of New York that year showed only three full time employees—the third most likely was a bookkeeper or other office worker.  The army of plumbers it would take to fulfill a project like the Ardsley Hall commission were apparently hired as contract workers.

By 1906 Adam and Annie Huston had four children—Mabel, Walter, Ethel and Amy.  One of the upstairs apartments was now being rented by Dr. Alan G. Terrell and his wife, Estelle.  But things in the Terrell household were not going as well as within the Huston family.

In 1906 Estelle sued Alan for divorce through lawyer George W. Case.  Case was a personal friend of both parties.  The doctor felt divorce was unnecessary and that things could be worked out.  He went to Case’s office at No. 35 Nassau Street, and asked him to arrange for a meeting with his wife.

Estelle never showed up at the arranged appointment.  Later, Case told Dr. Terrell that “his conduct had been such that he could not advise any reconciliation.”

Confused, Alan Terrell became suspicious and had Estelle followed.  He discovered that she and George Case were spending “most of their time together.”   On August 21, 1906 Dr. Alan Terrell filed a counter suit for divorce, as well as a $50,000 suit against George W. Case for alienating his wife’s affections.  The hefty amount for damages would be equal to about $1.4 million today.

The rusticated cast iron piers are all that survive of the original shop space.

On Wednesday, October 2, 1907, Adam Huston began feeling ill.  Within an hour and a half the 55-year old was dead from pneumonia.  His funeral was held at No. 406 West 52^nd Street three days later.  In reporting his death, The Plumbers Trade Journal called him “one of the old-time master plumbers.”

Annie and the children remained in the building for at least a few years.  Mable received her training license as a school teacher in 1909.  And James R. Corbitt continued to operate Huston & Corbitt Co. from here under the old name, at least through 1918.

But by 1923 both the Huston family and the plumbing business were gone.  That year the Prescott Realty Company sold the building to an investor.  It was described at the time as a “five-story tenement.”

In 1929 architects Van Wart & Wein were hired to connect the building internally with No. 771 Ninth Avenue.  Simultaneously the second floor was converted to an office for the ground level store, and the third and fourth floors to a single “housekeeping apartment” (meaning there was a kitchen included).  The top floor became furnished rooms.

The apartments were divided in 1959 to two per floor, including the fifth floor.   It was most likely around this time that S. Wolf opened his paint and wallpaper store in the old Huston & Corbitt Co. space.

The paint store continues to operate at No. 771 Ninth Avenue.  But in 2011 the Department of Buildings closed No. 406 West 52^nd Street for building violations.  Now vised between unexciting modern brick buildings, its survival was a fluke, resulting from the mid-century connection to the Ninth Avenue building.  Today C. Abott French’s Queen Anne relic is painted barn red; yet its delightful design is mostly intact.

photographs by the author