Charles T. Mott's 1887 258 West 73rd Street

 

William J. Merritt headed the real estate development firm William J. Merritt & Co. and often acted as his own architect.  But for the ambitious row of 19 four-story-and-basement houses he planned on the south side of West 73rd Street between Broadway and West End Avenue in 1887, he hired architect Charles T. Mott.

Completed in 1887, the row was a romantic take on French Renaissance architecture.  Nestled among the streetscape of turrets and battlements was 258 West 73rd.  A broad stoop with solid wing walls originally led to the brownstone-faced parlor level.  The third and fourth floors, clad in rough faced brick, were dominated by a charming angled bay, the balcony of which was crowned with a stone railing with pierced quatrefoil openings.  The fourth floor took the form of a tiled mansard, fronted by two dormers with elaborate French Renaissance crockets (still intact at the house's former twin at 250 West 73rd Street).

For some reason, the house sat vacant for two years.  On November 7, 1889, an advertisement in the New York World noted it was the only house for sale on West 73rd Street.  It was described as an "elegant 4-story house, 20 x 100; dining-room extension, new, never occupied; opposite Mayor Grant's."  (Hugh Grant was the city's youngest mayor, elected at the age of 30 in 1888.)

Robert A. Hollister purchased the house for $40,000 (about $1.37 million in 2025), apparently as an investment.  Living here in 1891 was the family of R. J. McCabe.

Early in March that year, Mrs. McCabe hired a 40-year-old English woman, Kate Mary Trigg, as a chambermaid and waitress.  (A waitress in 19th century homes served in the parlor and dining room.)  The 40-year-old had been living at the Young Woman's Christian Home on East 15th Street.  

Kate Mary Trigg often complained of severe headaches.  Just two weeks after taking the job, on the morning of March 27, she "packed up her effects and left the house, telling her employer that she was going away for good," as reported by The Evening World.  That night, reported the newspaper, a "well-dressed woman...attempted to commit suicide by throwing herself into a small creek in the Salt Meadows near Newark Bay Bridge."  Luckily, Trigg was seen by three employees of the Jersey Central Railroad who rescued her.  The article said, "Her mind is believed to be affected."

The following year, D. Laurence Shaw and his wife, the former Agnes Moen, purchased the house.  Shaw was a wholesale dealer in spices and baking powders at 62 College Place (today's West Broadway).  He also owned a "summer hotel" in Lakeville, Connecticut.  He and Agnes had a newborn son, D. Laurence, Jr. when they moved in.  

Anges immediately began staffing the house and on March 4, 1892 advertised, "Waitress Wanted--Swede or German preferred; must be competent.  Call, before 1 P.M. at 258 West 73d St."

Tragically, a month later, on April 18, the couple's baby boy died.  His funeral was held in the house on April 21.

The couple's problems continued when D. Laurence Shaw was forced to declare bankruptcy on July 20, 1894.  The New York Times noted, "Papers were also filed yesterday against Mr. Shaw to foreclose a mortgage of $5,000 on his house, 258 West Seventy-third Street."  It was auctioned on December 24 that year.  Foreclosure sales usually resulted in deals, but property on the West 73rd Street block was in high demand.  The New York Times remarked, "the bidding was quite brisk and the purchaser had to pay $35,000 for the house, very near its real value."

The buyer was W. L. McCorkel.  Living with him and his wife was their adult son, Henry H., who was a commissioner of deeds.  Their residency would be short-lived.  McCorkle sold the house to William C. Adams on October 21, 1897.  Adams was the president of the S. F. Adams Realty Co. and of W. C. Adams & Co.

Just before 6:00 on the morning of December 20, 1898, fire broke out in the house of Charles H. Raymond next door at 260 West 73rd Street.  The blaze swept through the house, trapping the occupants, several of whom jumped from upper floor windows.  One of them was Mrs. Raymond's sister, visiting from Ohio for Christmas.  She plunged to the sidewalk, fatally fracturing her skull.  The body of Harriet Fee, the cook, was found on the third floor.  Four people, including the Raymonds, were taken to the hospital seriously injured.  

The fire had been discovered in the pantry by a chambermaid named Mularkey.  She notified Harriet Fee who rushed upstairs to awaken the others in the house, while Mularkey ran into the street to get help.  "The maid ran up and down the street, shrieking, and several neighbors, hearing her, ran out," reported the New York Evening Post.  As the drama played out next door, the hysterical woman, suffering from shock, was taken into the Adams house.

The Adams family remained here until 1907, when they sold 258 West 73rd Street to Julia A. and Albert L. House.  Albert was a stockbroker.  The couple hired architect Frank Hausle in December that year to install a new bathroom.

The couple's affluence was reflected in a notice in The New York Times on August 22, 1909.  "Lost--A lady's Tiffany watch, diamond and pearl studded; owner's name inside; please return to Mrs. A. L. House, 258 West 73d St.; suitable reward."

Living with the Houses in 1910 was Isabelle Evesson.  She and her sister, Estelle, were partners in the Bassford Estate Corporation, formed to recover compensation for their grandfather's massive real estate holdings.  On April 25, 1907, the Montana Standard said, "these two Evesson sisters, year in and year out, are making their fight for untold millions."

Isabelle Evesson, The Players Blue Book, 1901 (copyright expired)

While they litigated the estate, the sisters performed on stage.  Isabelle had appeared in the original cast of the 1887 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Richard Mansfield; and among her other Broadway appearances were Papa's Wife in 1899-1900 and Anna Karenina in 1905.

The Houses had an esteemed houseguest in 1910.  On January 15, The Mining World commented, "Lazard Cahn of Colorado Springs, Colo., dealer in mineral specimens, will be at 258 West 73d street, New York city, for the next few months."  A well-known chemist and geologist, Cahn first identified the mineral Cahnite, named for him.  

Lazard Cahn in his laboratory around 1930.  from the collection of the Pikes peak Library District

Shortly before noon on May 8, 1914, Albert L. House stepped off a southbound Fourth Avenue streetcar at 19th Street.  The New York Times reported, "as Mr. House got off the car he stepped in front of the oncoming truck and was knocked down and kicked by the horses."  House was taken to the New York Hospital where he died later that night.

Julia House sold 258 West 73rd Street around 1918.  It was converted to bachelor apartments (meaning they had no kitchens) the following year.  The stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to below grade.  The two ornate dormers were replaced by a tall shed dormer.  The Department of Buildings noted, "not more than 15 rooms to be used for sleeping purposes."  An advertisement for one apartment described, "Handsomely furnished, two rooms and bath apartment; all conveniences; direct private telephone; summer porch."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Among the tenants in 1923 was David Arnof.  That year he became involved in a mystery surrounding his brother, Jacob, who had gone to South America early in 1920 with a friend, Harry Wolfe.  Jacob had obtained a job as a clerk with the Buenos Aires office of the United States Shipping Board.  Letters from Jacob came regularly until the end of 1920, then they stopped for about three months.  On November 26, 1923, The Oshkosh Northwestern said, "When letters began arriving again, members of the family said the handwriting had changed entirely and no mention was made of intimate family affairs."

Early in 1921, Jacob drew a draft on his father's account for $500 (about $8,500 today).  In 1922, he drew another $250, and on August 6, 1923 he cabled his father for $25,000, saying "the family would be disgraced if it was not sent."  In addition to his desperate demands for money, the family's suspicions were heightened by "strange phrases" in Jacob's letters, his failure to mention his five siblings, and by photographs that only slightly resembled him.

Jacob Arnof was accused of defrauding his employer of 400,000 pesos in November 1923.  Shortly afterward, he committed suicide.  But a note found with the body was signed by Harry Wolfe.  It said he "wanted to clear the name of his friend."  According to the note, Jacob Arnof had drowned on November 7, 1920 while the two friends were canoeing.  Wolfe took over his identity for three years, using his passport and possessions.  During that time he embezzled from the United States Shipping Board, and deceived Arnof's family into supplying him with cash.

On December 27, 1923, the Republic City News reported, "Whether the body of the suicide is that of Arnof or of 'Harry Wolfe' will not be definitely established until David Arnof of New York...arrives in Buenos Aires."  In South America, David Arnof discovered the extent to which Wolfe had gone to carry out the deception.  The two friends resembled one another, but Jacob Arnof had a scar on his face.  On January 19, 1924, the Adelaide, Australia newspaper the Saturday Journal revealed that Wolfe "burned on his cheek with acid a scar similar to Arnof's scar."

A bit beleaguered today, there are nine rental units within the building.  In addition to the 1919 remodeling, an obtrusive drain pipe that snakes down the facade and protruding window air conditioners disguise the fact that it was once the home of wealthy families.

photographs by the author

The 1889 Albert Edmond Symington House - 275 West 73rd Street

 

William J. Merritt & Co. erected scores of houses in Harlem and the Upper West Side in the 1880s and 1890s.  In one month alone in 1888, Merritt & Co. advertised 38 new houses within a two-block area around West End Avenue between 73rd and 75th Streets: four on West End Avenue between 73^rd and 74^th Streets, seven harmonious dwellings on the corner of 75^th Street and West End Avenue, and the entire block—27 houses in all—on both sides of 73^rd Street between West End Avenue and Broadway (then called the Boulevard).

Although Merritt often acted as his own architect, he hired Charles T. Mott to design 18 upscale houses in 1887 that wrapped the northeast corner of West End Avenue and 73rd Street.  The ambitious project would take two years to complete.  Although somewhat overshadowed by its hulking neighbor at 280 West End Avenue, 275 West 73rd Street was nonetheless eye-catching.

Four stories tall above a high English basement, Mott gave the house a full-height, tower-like bay.  It was clad in planar stone while the remainder of the facade was undressed brownstone.  The tower was rounded at the basement and parlor levels, then morphed into sharp angles--its windows affording views in three directions.  Red clay tiles covered the conical cap of the tower and the steep attic roof.

The house became home to the Albert Edmond Symington family.  An attorney, Symington was a member of Symington, Symington & Symington.  Born in New York City on October 24, 1862, he graduated from Yale in 1883 and received his law degree from Columbia in 1887.

Symington married Edith Louise Harris in 1889, the year he purchased 275 West 73rd Street.  They would have five children while living here--William Harris, born in 1890; Edith Harris, born the following year; Hazen, who arrived in 1893; James Mansfield, born in 1894; and Albert, born in 1910.  Unfortunately Edith died at the age of one, and Albert died in infancy.  The family's summer home was in Seabright, New Jersey.

Edith's American roots were deep.  Her first ancestor, Thomas Harris, arrived in Rhode Island in 1686.  Her parents, Civil War veteran Lieutenant-Colonel William Hamilton Harris and the former Edith Witt, were prominent in society, despite their being newcomers to Manhattan.  The couple moved from the Midwest in 1889, the year the Symingtons were married, and lived nearby on West 75th Street.

The Symington boys received privileged educations.  They attended the Taft School, a preparatory institution, before entering Yale--William in the class of 1912 and James in the class of 1916.  

Attention was focused on Hazen in 1911.  On November 12, The New York Times announced, "Mrs. William Hamilton Harris will give a luncheon at Sherry's on Nov. 15 for her granddaughter, Miss Hazen Symington, the debutante daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Symington of 275 West Seventy-third Street."  It would be the first of several events for Hazen that winter season.

Three years later, on March 31, 1914, The New York Times reported that Edith and Hazen "are at their town home" after spending a few weeks in Miami, Florida.  The Sun added, "They will be at 275 West Seventy-third street until they open their summer place in Seabright."

This would be no ordinary summer there.  On June 28, 1914, The New York Times reported that Hazen had married George De Forest Lord in St. George's Church by the River Side in Seabright, New Jersey.  The article said, "The wedding breakfast and reception were at the Rumson Country Club, and afterward the bridal party drove to the Symington villa at Monmouth Beach."  

The Symingtons left 275 West 73rd Street that year, leasing the house first to J. E. and Eliza Morris.  Their tenants starting around 1917 was the Hackett family.  On November 5, 1918, Bernard Augustus Hackett, who was 33 years old, was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Quartermaster Section of the U.S. Army.  The family remained in the West 73rd Street house at least through 1919.

A top floor occupant surveys the scene in 1941.  At the time, the tiled roof, the stoop and sturdy wing walls, and double-doored entrance survived.  image from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Albert Edmond Symington died in 1930.  At some point Samuel Shaw, who owned the corner mansion, purchased 275 West 73rd Street and continued to lease it.  Living here in the early 1930s was actor, playwright and lecturer Frank Ferguson (not to be confused with the character actor of the same name, popular in the late 20th century).

Frank Ferguson, The New York Times September 10, 1937

Born in Boston in 1863, Ferguson started his career as a singer in light opera there.  He later became the dramatic critic for periodicals like The Saturday Evening Herald and The Boston Home Journal.  He was the author of more than 40 plays, one of which, Lucky Jim, ran for nine years in America and England.  For two years he served as the director in the dramatic department of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, taught drama at Long Island University in Brooklyn, and lectured at Columbia University and the University of Chicago.  A bachelor, he died while living here on September 10, 1937.

The estate of Samuel T. Shaw sold the house in 1946 to the 280 West End Avenue Corporation.  In 1961, it was converted to apartments, two per floor.  It was possibly at this time that the stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to below grade.  

While the apartment configuration remains, in 2010 the entrance and stoop were restored by EAB Architectural Designs, PLLC.  Although the roof tiles have been replaced with shingles, and the entrance is noticeably narrower, the refabrication of the stoop returns the house more closely to its 1889 appearance. 

photographs by the author

The Joseph J. O'Donohue, Jr. House - 262 West 73rd Street

 

In the 1880s, the Upper West Side experienced a flurry of construction as developers erected long rows of brick and brownstone rowhouses.  Among them was William J. Merritt, the principal in Merritt & Co.  He would be responsible for scores of residences in the area, designing many of them himself.  In 1888 alone, Merritt & Co. advertised 38 new houses, including both sides of the block of 73rd Street between West End Avenue and Broadway.

The four-story houses on the southern side, from 246 to 272 West 73rd Street, were not designed by Merritt.  A year earlier, he commissioned prolific architect Charles T. Mott, with whom he often worked, for the project.  The outcome was striking.  Mott drew inspiration from the French Renaissance, particularly, according to architectural historian Andrew S. Dolkart, the medieval castle Pierrefonds.

The romantic row evokes images of damsels and knights.

The picturesque assemblage of dormers and towers, oriels and mansards created a romantic streetscape.  Among the row was 262 West 73rd Street.  Its basement and parlor levels were faced in brownstone.  The brick-clad upper floors were almost completely consumed by a rounded bay, girded above the third floor by a complex, copper balustrade.  The fourth floor was capped with a conical tiled roof.

The house became home to William Stevens Louderback and his wife, the former Emma Beekman.  The family moved in just in time for a triple celebration.  On November 13, 1888, The New York Times reported, "Mr. and Mrs. W. Stevens Louderback celebrated their silver wedding last evening at their new residence, 262 West Seventy-third-street."  The New-York Tribune noted, "The anniversary was of three-fold interest, as it was as well the occasion of their daughter's introduction to society, and a housewarming.  Miss Etta Louderback assisted her mother to receive."

The triple entertainment was a sparkling opening of the new residence.  "Several hundred guests were present," said The New York Times.  Among the high society figures present was millionaire heiress Helen Gould.

The Loudebacks' residency would be short.  In August 1891, Joseph J. O'Donohue, Jr. and his wife, the former Marie Louise Bruner, purchased the house.  The couple was married on October 27, 1887 and had two sons, Joseph, 3d, who was three years old, and Henry, who was a newborn.  Two daughters would be born in the house--Marie in 1896, and Ethel in 1901.  The family's summer home was in Elberon, New Jersey.

O'Donohue's father was well known to New Yorkers.  A millionaire grocery dealer, he had been a member of Tammany Hall since 1856.  Joseph, Jr.'s business interests were wide-flung.  He was president of the Brooklyn and North Ferry Company, president of the Agatine Shoe Hook and Eyelet Company, vice-president of the General Realty and Mortgage Company, and a director in two railroads, an insurance company and other corporations.

The family was deeply religious and Marie involved herself with Catholic charities.  She was, for instance, president of the Ladies of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul.

The O'Donohues received unexpected house guests early in the morning of February 4.  The New York Times began an article saying, "The families occupying the handsome row of dwellings in Seventy-third Street, between West End Avenue and the Boulevard [i.e., Broadway] were aroused between 12 and 1 o'clock this morning by a fire which was caused by an overheated furnace in the basement of George Crawford's home, 272 West Seventy-third Street."

The family escaped into the cold night in their bedclothes.  While firefighters battled the blaze, which luckily did not extend above the basement level, The New York Times reported, "The Crawford family went to the home of Joseph J. O'Donohue at 262 West Seventy-third Street for the night."

Interestingly, O'Donohue's uncle, James O'Donohue, lived with the family by the turn of the century.  (This despite the fact that his son, Louis V. O'Donohue was a well-to-do manufacturer and banker.)  Born in 1830, James was at one time City Chamberlain and was a member of the coffee firm John O'Donohue's Sons before his retirement.  He died here at the age of 71 on December 12, 1901.

By 1911, Henry was enrolled at Princeton University and Joseph, Jr. was associated with his father in business.  On May 27 that year, Joseph was married to Rose Mildred Taylor in the Church of the Blessed Sacrament on West 71st Street.  

When The Sun reported on the Monmouth County Horse Show on July 29, 1915, it mentioned that Joseph J. O'Dohonue, Jr. was first vice-president of the association.  It also noted that his parents were among the viewers "in the boxes and on the lawn."  No mention of Rose Taylor O'Donohue was made.  That was because, as reported by The Evening World four months later, since April she had "been living in Reno in luxurious apartments."

Joseph, Jr. was now back in the West 73rd Street with his parents.  On October 16, 1915, The Evening World reported that Rose Mildred Taylor O'Donohue, "prominent in New York and Washington society," had been granted a divorce.  She charged her 27-year-old husband with "desertion and non-support."  The article said O'Donohue was said to be out of the city and "his father would say nothing about the case."

Joseph, Jr. was granted duel custody of the couple's son, Joseph J. O'Donohue, 4th.  He would live in the 73rd Street house six months of the year.

Ethel Louise was the first of the O'Donohue daughters to marry.  On May 30, 1920, The Sun reported that her wedding to Alwyn Ball 3d had taken place in the Louis XVI suite of the St. Regis Hotel.   "Miss O'Dohonue was once identified with the summer life in Elberon, N. J., where her parents had a villa, but for three summers they have had a place in Greenwich, Conn.," said the article.

The following year, on October 9, the O'Donohues announced Marie Gladys's engagement to C. R. Coster Steers.  The couple was married on November 7, 1922.

Joseph and Marie hosted a dinner party on December 20, 1925.  Among the monied guests was Thomas M. McCarthy, the treasurer of the wholesale grocery firm Austin Nichols & Co.  The Christmas week party ended tragically when, after dinner, the 74-year-old McCarthy suddenly became ill.  The New York Times reported he, "died a few minutes later, presumably from heart disease or acute indigestion."

As with all well-to-do New Yorkers, the society columnists followed Joseph and Marie O'Donohue's movements.  In July 1927, The Sun reported, "in June [they] will go to Bretton Woods for the Summer," and the following year, in July, the newspaper said that they would be taking Joseph J. O'Dohonue, 4th along with them "to the Apawamis Club at Rye for part of the summer."

Marie Bruner O'Donohue died on December 29, 1928.  Joseph remained in the house and it appears that his grandson was living with him full time by now.  On February 1, 1930, the Rye Chronicle reported, "Mr. Joseph J. O'Donohue, well known member of the Apawamis Club, gave a dinner Tuesday evening at his home 262 West Seventy-third Street to celebrate the birthday of his grandson, Joseph J. O'Donohue 4th.  Following the dinner Mr. O'Donohue took his guests to the theatre."

In 1941, the tile roof was intact.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

After living here for 44 years, O'Donohue sold 262 West 73rd Street in 1935.  (He died two years later.)  Architect Frederick S. Keeler was hired by the new owners to convert the house to furnished rooms.

It was purchased by architect Henry J. Gazon in January 1954.  It continued to be a rooming house until a renovation completed in 2012 resulted in ten apartments.

While little survives of Charles T. Mott's interiors, outwardly the picturesque house is greatly intact.

photographs by the author

Boak & Paris's 1937 5 Riverside Drive

image via corcoran.com

Beginning in 1934, a massive Government-sponsored New Deal project was undertaken that not only improved Riverside Park and the Drive, but provided needed jobs for Depression Era construction workers.  It leveled the park so the tracks of the New York Central Railroad now ran under it.

On October 5, 1936, The New York Sun reported that the architectural firm of Boak & Paris had filed plans "for a new nineteen-story and penthouse apartment building to be erected on the south corner of Riverside Drive and Seventy-third Street."  The article mentioned it would face "the newly landscaped Riverside Park" as well as "the lawn of Mr. Schwab's home."

The new building, "to be known as 5 Riverside Drive," was being erected by the Orphington Estates, Inc, a syndicate headed by developer Aaron Simon.  (Simon was a partner in the development firm Simon Brothers, founded by his brother Jacob, and the project quickly came under its oversight.)

The New York Sun reported, "The completed structure will accommodate 106 tenants and apartments will range from two to five rooms.  Dropped living rooms and fire places are among the features of the interior while the exterior of modern classic design will have a series of corner bay windows."

Boak & Paris embellished its late Art Deco design with elements drawn from Greek and Roman precedents, like stylized fasces and Greek key designs.  The stone base was heavily reeded, and the entrance was framed in reeding and surmounted by a classical urn--motifs that would make a return in the firm's 1941 20 Fifth Avenue, also designed for Simon Brothers.

image via landmarkwest.org

The cost of construction was $800,000, or just under $17 million in 2024.  Before the building opened in the fall of 1937, Simon Brothers made a staggering profit, selling it in March to the Protestant Episcopalian Public School organization, which bought it as an investment, for $2.5 million.  The New York Times said the transaction was "reported to be one of the largest New York realty exchanges in several years."

Among the early residents was David Rosen, whose job as manager of the Cosmopolitan Bridge Club in the Ansonia Hotel seemed perfectly respectable.  That is, until undercover detectives began visiting the club and quietly collecting evidence.  On November 17, 1939, Rosen, his assistant manager Joseph Reich, and their bookkeeper Emily Buxton were arrested at the club for running an illegal gambling operation.  On February 7, 1941, The New York Sun reported on "the conviction of Rosen and Reich as common gamblers and as maintaining a gambling establishment, and the finding of Miss Buxton guilty as a common gambler."

A horrific incident occurred here on the morning of May 28, 1943.  Gladys Deutsch, who lived on the 14th floor, was described by the Brooklyn Eagle as "a 50-year-old woman sociologist" and by New York Evening Post as a "wealthy and philanthropic spinster."  The Evening Post said, "Twenty years ago she inherited a considerable fortune from her father, and she had occupied herself with philanthropies and sociology."

That morning she wrote two notes, one (which unfortunately was discovered too late) was pinned to the outside of her door:  "Gas escaping.  Don't come in."  The other, addressed to "Civil Authorities," read,

Gas is escaping at 5 Riverside Drive, apartment 14-E.  Send cadaver, if any, to nearest institution requiring such supplies for medical research.  Gladys Deutsch

That afternoon, the Brooklyn Eagle reported, "An explosion in a fashionable Manhattan 16-story apartment house this morning blew out several walls and injured three tenants."  

Gladys Deutsch's apartment is at left, while her next door-neighbor, Joseph Fiddleman is seen in the photo a right, with a gaping hole blown into the wall between his and Gladys's apartments.  photos by Weegee, PM Daily Picture Magazine, May 28, 1943.

At least one resident of 5 Riverside Drive left home to serve in World War II.  Marine Corps Lieutenant Alan Shilip was a member of the Second Battalion that captured the Naha airfield on Okinawa in June 1945.  Upon taking the field, he remarked to a reporter, "If we have ever taken a more important Japanese airfield, I don't know what it is."

Resident Herbert H. McNeill, who was unmarried, garnered his fortune through a variety of positions.  He was not only the president, treasurer, and director of the H. H. McNeill Lumber Company, Inc., but the president and director of the McNeill Stewart Hoernie Company, Inc., a partner in the Stewart Stamping Company, and a director of the Clip Craft Corporation.

McNeill wrote out his will on February 20, 1948, but changed it less than three months later.  The amended document, explained The Herald Statesman, "left a major portion of his estate to a nephew, Patterson O. Stewart and his wife, Katherine A. Stewart, personal property."  Stewart was also named an executor of the estate.  Under the new will, McNeill's three brothers and a sister received "9/20ths of the residuary."

The significant changes were discovered after the 68-year-old McNeill died on January 29, 1949.  On May 16, 1949, The Herald Statesman titled an article "Two Chicago Relatives Dispute Validity of H. H. McNeill's Will."  The article said that a brother and nephew of McNeill "charge that the will was 'procured by the undue influence and fraud' of Mr. and Mrs. Stewart and a friend, Marion Rodriguez of New York, who is left $20,000 under the will."

The upper-story decorations were executed in cast stone.  image via landmarkwest.org

Determined to prove their point, the relatives obtained permission from State Supreme Court Justice J. Gordon Flannery on July 6 to exhume McNeill's body so an autopsy could be performed.  McNeill's siblings told the court they had been able to obtain only "the most sketchy, casual, indefinite, unofficial, and foggy" information regarding the cause of their brother's death.

Five months later, on December 31, 1949, The Daily Item reported that "despite the challenges of two brothers and a nephew," Herbert H. McNeill's amended will was upheld as valid.

In 1966, 5 Riverside Drive was converted to a cooperative.  And along with cooperatives come co-op boards that screen the acceptability of prospective owners.  The process ended badly for actor Werner Klemperer.

The actor best known for his role as the comical character Colonel Klink in the "Hogan's Heroes" television series, Klemperer was rejected by the board in June 1982.  The New York Times reported, "But what troubled him most, he insisted, is that no law requires that he be told why."  

Klemperer said, "I'm not being given a clue.  I don't involve myself in the rock scene, the dope scene.  It makes me almost think back on the 50's, when people could insinuate something about other people without saying anything."

In an effort to discover answers, The New York Times reporters Clyde Haberman and Laurie Johnston called Dr. Edwin I. Levy, who headed the review committee.  He "told a caller that he had no comment and hung up."

image via landmarkwest.org

Although most of the windows have been replaced, affecting Boak & Paris's original design, 5 Riverside Drive remains a handsome presence on the drive after nearly a century.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochran for suggesting this post

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George H. Griebel's 1891 34 and 36 West 73rd Street

High stoops originally led to the entrances, which are now the wider windows or the second floor.

In 1891 developer F. G. Pourne completed a row of nine impressive stone-faced homes at 28 through 44 West 73rd Street.  Architect George H. Griebel had designed them in the Romanesque Revival style with elements of Renaissance Revival.  They were configured in an A-A-B-A-A-B-A-A-C pattern, the second story oriels of the A models and the three-story bowed bays of the B's creating an undulation of rounded forms.

Among the matching A models were 34 and 36 West 73rd Street.  They were faced in limestone from the basement through second floors, and beige Roman brick above.  The second floor oriels, with their blind balustrades and bearded portrait brackets, stole attention from the parlor level.  Equally eye-catching were the openings of the top floor, arranged in an arcade separated by ornate, engaged columns.

Pourne sold 34 West 73rd Street to Henry Bramble Wilson, a partner in the banking firm of Emerson McMillin & Co., and his wife, the former Mary Elizabeth Willard.  Both had been born in Ironton, Ohio and lived there until 1890, when they relocated to New York City.

The couple filled the house with fine artwork.  The New York Times later commented that Wilson was "known as an art connoisseur, and owned many valuable paintings."  He was, as well, a member of the National Arts Club and the chairman of the Art Committee of the Union League Club.

The Wilsons had three daughters, the eldest of whom made her debut five years after the family moved into the 73rd Street house.  On December 12, 1896, the New York Herald announced, "Mr. and Mrs. Henry Bramble Wilson, of No. 34 West Seventy-third street, gave a reception, followed by an informal dance, last night at Sherry's to introduce their daughter, Miss Ella Willard Wilson."  Ella was married to Captain Paul Comstock in the drawing room on April 29, 1903.

In the meantime, Evaristo Vicente Montalvo y Rodriguez-Prieto and his wife, the former Maria Louisa Leblanc y Hernandez, had purchased the house next door.   The wealthy owners of a Cuban sugar plantation, the couple had a son, Evaristo Vincente, who was 16 years old at the time.  

In 1895, young Evaristo entered Princeton University.  He was the only Cuban and one of just two Roman Catholics among his classmates.  His studies were interrupted when the United States intervened on behalf of Cuba against Spain in its fight against colonial rule.  After the USS Maine was sunk in Havana Harbor, the Spanish-American War broke out and Evaristo enlisted to fight.

He later wrote in the Record of the Class of 1897 of Princeton University, "It was Cuba's fight--my fight.  Duty stared me in the face."   Evaristo did not see combat, however.  He was sent to the Philippines to serve as a translator.

Evaristo did not finish his studies at Princeton University and in 1900 Triennial Record light-heartedly updated the 1897 class:

Cuba freed, the Count has returned to his ancestral estates, and is now basking in the sunshine of the tropics, surrounded by a score of obsequious attendants, who fan his fevered brow and press to his parched lips costly goblets wherein is the clink of ice and the sparkle of nectar.  The enervating influences of such a life have destroyed all his epistolary energy...His mission in life accomplished, his sword has been beaten into a plow-share and his spear into a sugar-hook.  The raising of cane (sic) once more engrosses his entire attention.

Indeed, at the war's end, the entire family had returned to Cuba.  On October 31, 1900, the New York Post reported that the De Montalvos had sold 36 West 73rd Street to the Edward C. Clark estate.  At the same time the Montalvos left West 73rd Street, so did the Wilsons.  Like their next door neighbors, they sold 34 to the Clark estate, which rented the houses.  The former Wilson residence became home to Dyer Pearl and his wife, Euphemia Caroline, known familiarly as Carrie.  The couple had three children, William, Dyer, Jr., and Elsie. 

Pearl was the senior member of the brokerage firm Pearl & Co and a member of the New York Stock Exchange.  Following his graduation from City College in 1874, he had joined Dyer, Pearl & Co., which his grandfather had founded in 1830.  He and his brother, William renamed the firm following their father's death in 1881.

Like their predecessors in the house, the Pearls were staunch Roman Catholics, and on October 6, 1905, the New-York Tribune reported, "The Pope to-day received in private audience Dyer Pearl...and Mrs. Pearl."

While the couple was in Italy, drama played out at home.  Pearl & Co. securities worth $359,330 had disappeared from the National City Bank on September 27.  It was a massive theft, worth about $10.7 million today.  Then, three days later, a messenger dropped of a bulky envelope with a servant at the Pearl home.  The New-York Tribune reported, "Dyer Pearl, jr., a student at Princeton, went to the house Sunday, saw the envelope and telephoned to E. F. Slayback, a member of the firm...saying he suspected the envelope contained some of the stolen securities."  And it did.  There was $269,000 worth of the missing securities in the envelope, which had been dropped off by a regretful National City Bank Clerk.  The remainder was later recovered.

Dyer, Jr. was the last of the children to leave the house.  He was married to Bessie M. Pond Phipps on May 28, 1912.

Dyer and Carrie Pearl attended the Metropolitan Opera on February 10, 1913, and when they arrived home, Carrie realized that silver and diamond pin was gone.  She went back to the Met, only to find it had been claimed that night.   Much annoyed, she placed two announcements in the newspapers:

Will the lady who on Monday evening, February 10, claimed a silver Bar Pin from the doorman at the Metropolitan Opera House please send her name and address to box office and oblige the doorman?

and

Will person who claimed Pin at Opera House Monday night return to owner?  Reward and no questions.  34 West 73d.

As it turned out, there were two lost bar pins that night.  Carrie's chagrin was unfounded.  The New York Herald reported, "A few hours after the advertisements appeared Mrs. Pearl's bar pin was returned to her by a man who resides in Newark, and who found it on the night it was lost."  The article said the "I-would-worry" lines on the face of the Metropolitan Opera doorman were replaced by an "I-told-you-so" smile.

The Pearls suffered another troubling incident later that year.  Their close friends, William Henry Maule and his wife, who were from Philadelphia, were returning home on September 3 from "an automobile trip through the White Mountain region," as reported by The Brooklyn Daily Eagle.  They stopped at the Pearl house for a few days.  Just two hours after arriving, William went to the New York Club where, while talking to a friend, he collapsed and died.

After leasing the house for two decades, the Pearls purchased 34 from the Clark estate in March 1920.  That year the estate sold 36 West 73rd Street to conductor and voice coach Percy Rector Stephens.  Born in Chicago in 1876, Stephens had graduated from the University of Notre Dame and began his teaching career in New York City in 1897.

The year after he purchased the house, on September 14, 1921, Stephens married Jeannette Vreeland.  In 1925 the couple outfitted a floor as a rental apartment.  An advertisement that year described a four-room and kitchen space with "3 closets, parquet floors, paneled walls, 2 colonial fireplaces."

Carrie Pearl died suddenly on February 11, 1922.  Her funeral was held in the house three days later.  Dyer sold the residence in July 1924 to John Enos Quinn and his wife, Ethel C. Quinn.  Ethel continued the tradition of entertaining in the house.  On January 16, 1925, for instance, The New York Times announced, "Mrs. John Enos Quinn, President of the Women's Democratic Club of the City of New York, will entertain on the remaining Sundays in January at her home." 

The end of the line for both houses came in 1944 when developer Frederick A. Jambes purchased these and four others along the row.  On December 1, The Sun reported, "The buyer now controls a combined frontage of 120 feet on which he plans to build a twelve story apartment house after the war."  And, indeed, two years later plans were filed by architect H. I. Feldman for a $450,000 apartment house at 28-36 West 73rd Street.

Those plans, however, were never carried out.  Instead, both 34 and 36 West 73rd Street were converted to apartments.  Their stoops were removed and the entrances lowered to the former English basement level.

John Harms, the head of the John Harms Chorus, operated his vocal studio from an apartment in 36 West 73rd Street.  His chorus's presentation of Elijah in Town Hall on May 31, 1944 "evoked great praise from the critics in New York papers," said The Diapason.   The journal added that his studio "at 36 West Seventy-third Street in New York, is one of the most spacious private studios in the city."

Another artistic tenant were dancers Daniel Nagrin and his wife, Helen Tamiris.  Helen's career began in 1926.  Born  Helen Becker of Russian immigrant parents on the Lower East Side, she studied dance at the Metropolitan Opera's ballet school.  The New York Times recalled on August 5, 1966, "In 1929 she introduced Negro spirituals to the Salzburg Festival in Austria in a recital there, and the follow year she joined Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman in founding the Dance Repertory Theater.

Turning to Broadway after the war, she arranged the choreography for Annie Get Your Gun, Showboat, Plain and Fancy, and Inside U.S.A.  In 1960, Nagrin and Tamiris founded a new concert company.

Other than their lost stoops, the two handsome houses are little changed since their first owners moved in their furniture and artwork in 1891.

photographs by the author

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The 1892 Louis Ottman House - 38 West 73rd Street

 A window occupies the arched opening that was originally the entrance.

In 1891 developer F. G. Pourne completed a row of nine impressive stone-faced homes at 28 through 44 West 73rd Street.  Architect George H. Griebel had designed them in the Romanesque Revival style with elements of Renaissance Revival.  They were configured in an A-A-B-A-A-B-A-A-C pattern, the second story oriels of the A models and the three-story bowed bays of the B's creating an undulation of rounded forms.

Among the B-designs was 38 West 73rd.   A stoop rose to the Romanesque Revival arched entrance, flanked by engaged colonettes and surmounted by robust, undressed voussoirs.   It contrasted sharply with the formal Renaissance Revival decorations seen elsewhere on the facade--the classical pediment over the charming second floor hallway window, the stone balustrade at the fourth floor, and the intricate carved panel below the parlor window.

Originally sold to Channing F. Mark, the residence became home to the Ottman family by 1899.  Louis Ottman was president and director of William Ottman & Co., a wholesale provisions firm, and of the J. Ottman Lithographing Co.  A long-time resident of the neighborhood, he was elected to membership in the West End Association that year.

The Ottmans had three children, Helen, Elizabeth Anna,  and William.  Helen was the first to wed, marrying Henry Dunkak in the Brick Presbyterian Church on June 6, 1901.  The reception was held in the fashionable Delmonico's on Fifth Avenue.

The following year, in December, William's engagement to Arthemise Bouligny Baldwin was announced.  The New York Herald described the bride-to-be as "a prominent member of society in New Orleans, La."

As had been the case with her sister's wedding, the Brick Presbyterian Church was the scene of Elizabeth Anna's marriage to Victor de la Montague Earle on April 26, 1905.  The groom came from an old New York family, his father was General Ferdinand Pinney Earle, and his family lived in the famous Jumel Mansion, erected by an Earle ancestor, Captain William Morris.  The wedding reception was held in the West 73rd Street house where, noted The New York Times, "the young couple will also make their home after a brief Western trip."

In 1908 the house became home to Mengo L. Morgenthau and his family.  Morgenthau was born in Mannheim, Germany in 1860.  His parents had brought him and his 12 siblings to America in 1866.  As a young man he had tried several occupations.  Starting as a stock clerk for a shirt manufacturer, he went on to farming in Ohio, and then tried teaching school.  He returned to New York, eventually becoming a member of the dry goods stores Morgenthau, Bouland and Company. 

He changed careers again in the 1890's when he "determined upon a plan of candy production and retailing which should set up a standard of candy quality that could be absolutely guaranteed as to purity and wholesomeness of material, and manufactured under conditions of scrupulous cleanliness," according to The Americana: A Universal Reference Library.  The first of his Mirror candy stores opened on Sixth Avenue on October 15, 1896.  By the time he purchased 38 West 73rd Street, he ran nine stores.

Morgenthau had married Belle Mayer on April 8, 1891.  The couple had two daughters, Agnes Josephine, who was 16 years old in 1908, and Louise Henriette, who was 12.  The family's summer home was in Long Branch, New Jersey.

The family summered in Europe in 1910.  Their return trip on the luxury liner Mauretania ended badly.  Customs officials looked over Morgenthau's declaration, which mentioned clothing valued at $700.  When a doubtful agent questioned Morgenthau, he admitted quietly that he had, perhaps, undervalued the items.  That resulted in close inspection of the trunks.  "Customs Inspector Dolan found in the trunks new gowns, which appeared to be worth many times that amount," reported the Perth Amboy Evening News on September 17.

Dolan then ordered female inspectors to search Belle and her daughters, while another inspector patted down Morgenthau.  The article said, "Nothing was found on the young ladies, but on Mrs. Morgenthau was found a chamois bag containing two pearl necklaces and a rope of pearls."  Mengo had a pearl necklace and two gold watches hidden in his clothing.

The Perth Amboy Evening News began its article saying, "The arrest of Mengo L. Morgenthau, millionaire candy manufacturer, on a charge of smuggling, caused a distinct sensation here."  The undeclared jewelry was valued at $13,000 and the clothing at $2,100--or about $424,000 in today's money.  

Morgenthau pleaded guilty, and the expensive items were seized and sent to the Appraisers' Stores for liquidation.  Mengo and Belle were no doubt devastated by the embarrassing press.

Louise was married to Hugo S. Joseph in the Long Branch house on August 17, 1917.  The American Jewish Chronicle noted, "After the ceremony, there was a reception for two hundred people."

Agnes would never marry.  She involved herself in women's causes, hosting meetings of the Woman Suffrage Party in the 73rd Street house, for instance.

Morgenthau leased the house to Mrs. Anson Dudley Bramhall in 1919.  On May 27 The Sun's society page noted, "Mrs. A. D. Bramhall will leave her present home in East Sixty-fifth street early next month.  Later she will leave with her daughter, Miss Mary S. Sheppard, for Nantucket, Mass., where they will spend the summer."

Anson Dudley Bramhall had died just three weeks prior to the article.  He had been president of the First National Bank of Jersey City.    The socially prominent Mrs. Bramhall would remain at 38 West 73rd Street until 1921 when it was sold to Milton M. Dryfoos, a partner in J. Dryfoos Son & Son, Inc., underwear manufacturers.

Dryfoos and his wife, the former Esther Wallach, had a 16-year-old son, Stephen.  They occasionally appeared in the society columns, such as when they gave an anniversary dinner and dance at the ballroom in Sherry's on March 7, 1925.

The house was sold and remodeled in 1932.  It may have been at this time that the stoop was removed.  On December 5 The New York Sun reported it had been leased to "Lillian J. Coulter and her son, Dr. George Coulter, who will occupy the house."  A series of occupants leased the house over the next few decades.  Then a renovation completed in 1980 resulted in two apartments per floor, plus two duplexes on the fourth floor and new penthouse level, unseen from the street.

Even with the loss of the stoop and doorway, the replacement windows and the unsightly window air conditioners, the former elegance of the Ottman house is apparent.

photographs by the author

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