Schwartz & Gross's 1926 215 West 78th Street

 

When Leopold M. and Lina R. Whitehead moved into the high-stooped brownstone at 215 West 78th Street, their home was the height of domestic fashion.  It was one of ten high-stooped brownstones designed by Thom & Wilson in 1890.  By the post-World War I years, however, the vogue for apartment living had supplanted that of private homes.  In 1926, the Brevoort Estates, Inc. demolished four of the vintage homes--211 through 217 West 78th Street, and hired the architectural firm of Schwartz & Gross to design a nine-story apartment building on the site.  

Construction cost $300,000, or about $5.5 million in 2026 terms.  The architects designed the building in a 1920s take on Renaissance Revival.  A classic broken pediment with a cartouche and shield sat above the centered entrance within the rusticated limestone base.  The upper eight floors were clad with red brick and trimmed in stone and terra cotta.  Schwartz & Gross arranged them into two matching side-by-side sections--both flanked with full-height rounded bays.  Every other spandrel of the bays were ornamented with elaborate Renaissance-style decorations.  The architects forewent a cornice in favor of a brick parapet.

Canvas awnings at every window shielded heat and damaging sunlight.  The building replaced brownstones like those seen on either side.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Potential renters could choose apartments of either four or five rooms.  An advertisement in The New York Times on November 14, 1926 was headlined "New Building" and touted, "Baths, glass enclosed showers, beautiful bay windows."  It noted there was a "special doctor's or dentist apartment with A-C and D-C current" available.

Among the early residents was bachelor William McCabe, also known as "Tough Willie."  He was described by The New York Evening Post as a "Broadway sport."  McCabe owned a stable of race horses and financed prize fighters.  Most importantly, however, he was a close associate of gangster Arnold Rothstein.  

On November 1, 1928, Willie McCabe and Arnold Rothstein joined other underworld figures in a "high spade" poker game.  Three days later, the game was still going on and Rothstein had lost $320,000.  Claiming the game was fixed, Rothstein refused to pay and was gunned down.  Willie McCabe suddenly disappeared.

The New York Evening Post reported on November 14, "McCabe has not been at his home, 215 West Seventy-eighth Street, since the shooting."  The article said, "McCabe, now sought by [District Attorney Jaob H.] Banton, is in Savannah, Ga., promoting dog races."

But then, The New York Times reported that McCabe had "dropped out of sight...only to bob up a week or so later with what District Attorney Banton said was an iron-clad alibi."

Willie McCabe continued to skirt law enforcement, but his gangland career ended on August 26, 1931.  The New York Times reported, "The underworld went about its robberies, its stabbings and its threats yesterday."  The article said that while McCabe had managed for years to be "unmolested by the police, [he] got into trouble with his own kind."  McCabe was fatally stabbed "in an early morning brawl in the 61 Club at 61 East Fifty-second Street."   

Details inspired by the Italian Renaissance decorate the facade.

Willie McCabe was assuredly well-acquainted with another resident, Herman Handler and his wife, Thelma.  Born in 1895, Handler was, like McCabe, a bookie.  In April 1935, while he was in Hamburg, Germany, he met Margie Lee, a "member of a group of acrobatic dancers," as described by The New York Times, while her troupe was touring.  Herman and the blonde dancer began an affair, although Margie would later insist she never knew he was married.

In July, Thelma found a photograph of Margie and the couple separated.  Thelma "insisted, however, that she and her husband remained friendly and kept in touch with each other by telephone," said The New York Times.  Herman moved into the Hotel Belvedere on West 48th Street.  Like Willie McCabe, he would run afoul of "his own kind."

Two months after leaving 215 West 78th Street, on September 12, 1935, The New York Times reported, "Herman Handler, 40 years old, a bookmaker...was found shot dead at 7 o'clock yesterday morning in his roadster."  Detectives said that evidence showed that Handler was shot in his car and "driven to the place as he was dying."

The family of David and Etta Simon, lived here in the early 1940s.  Born in 1902, he was an insurance broker.  The couple had two sons, Lewis and Robert, born in 1928 and 1932 respectively.  On December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, America declared war on Japan.  It would make a significant impact on the Simons. 

On March 18, 1942, The New York Sun said that "everything was peaceful in the household of David Simon, 43...until a reporter arrived with the information that Simon's serial number was drawn fourth in the draft."  The article said that Robert and Lewis "started jumping about the living room, shouting, 'Daddy's in the army, Daddy's going to war.'"

Simon told the reporter he was ready to fight.  "I'd like to be with MacArthur."  And Etta was equally enthusiastic.  "They ought to take all the men," she said, adding, "I can go to work.  I was a stenographer before I was married and I could go back to that."

Another family in the building directly affected by the war was that of Eugene and Florence B. Moses.  The couple was married in 1914, and had two children, Eleanor, born in 1916, and Charles G., born in 1919.  Like David Simon, Charles was inducted into the army.  On September 2, 1943, the War Department issued the latest list of missing and wounded in action.  Among those injured in the "North African Area including Sicily" was Charles G. Moses.  (Happily, Charles returned to America safely, and on February 28, 1947, The New York Times reported that he and his wife, the former Peggy Levi, had welcomed a daughter.)

In 1957, singer Johnny Mathis released his second single to sell one million copies, "Chances Are," and later that year his "Wild is the Wind" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.  Riding high on his success, the following year he purchased 215 West 78th Street.  It was, perhaps, his first real estate investment.  He later would tell a British reporter, "I've bought apartments in New York, and a post office in the Midwest."  Mathis owned 215 West 78th Street until April 1963.

Among the tenants at the time was Lucy Seckel Stark, the widow of surgeon and gynecologist Meyer M. Stark, and former wife of poet and novelist James Oppenheim.  Lucy graduated from Hunter College and Teachers College.  She began teaching English in 1925 and did not retire until 1955.

Freelance photojournalist Solomon Charles Tobach and his wife, Dr. Ethel Tobach, were residents by the 1960s.  The couple was married in 1947.

Ethel was born on November 7, 1921 in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and was brought to America as an infant.  She received her Ph.D. in comparative psychology from New York University in 1957.  By the time she and Solomon moved into 215 West 78th Street, she was affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History.  She co-founded the Animal Behavior Society in 1964 and in 1972 became vice president of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Solomon Tobach "specialized in taking pictures of news personalities," according to The New York Times.  He worked for The Associated Press, the Agence France Press, United Press International and The Medical Tribune.  Solomon suffered a fatal heart attack in their apartment at the age of 51 on February 19, 1969.  Ethel would survive to the age of 93, dying on August 14, 2015.

The building became a co-op in the 1970s.  It is essentially unchanged, sans the canvas awnings, since its opening in 1926.

photographs by the author

The 1889 Wickliffe - 226 West 78th Street

 

image via apartments.com

In 1899, builder W. G. Horgan acquired the two rowhouses at 226 and 228 West 78th Street.  He hired architect George F. Pelham to design a six-story apartment building on the site.  Pelham had learned his trade in the architectural office of his father, George Brown Pelham.  He opened his own office in 1890 and would focus on apartment buildings, hotels and commercial structures, drawing from a variety of historic styles.

For the six-story Wickliffe apartments, completed the following year, Pelham drew on Renaissance prototypes while giving it a decidedly 19th century flair.  He created three vertical parts by rounding and projecting the two-bay-wide end sections.  Verticality was softened by intermediate cornices at the second, third and sixth floors, and by decorating the turret-like bays with intricately carved bands at the fourth and fifth.  Classical Renaissance-style pediments crowned the center windows at the third and fourth floors.  The building wore an ornate bracketed cornice crowned with alternating stylized anthemions and fleurs-de-lis.  

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

An advertisement in The New York Times touted, "Elegant light, large 8-room apartments, all improvements, near Subway and all cars.  Rents $1,200 to $1,350."  The monthly rents would translate to $3,500 to $4,000 in 2026.

The tenants were, expectedly, professional.  Among the initial residents were Dr. James J. Phillips, a graduate of North Carolina University; and Prince and Princess Auersperg.  The Austrian Prince had recently relocated to New York City.  His wife was what newspapers called at the time, "a penny princess."

Earlier, The New York Times reported, "Miss Florence E. Hazard...created a sensation by her marriage on June 14, 1899, to Prince Francis Joseph von Auersperg," and the Morning Call said that when the engagement was announced, "much surprise was manifested on account of her youth.  She was then but sixteen years old."  Florence's father, Edward C. Hazard, was described by The New York Times as "the wealthy wholesale grocer."  

Florence Ellsworth Hazard was young, beautiful and wealthy when she met the prince.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

Prince Francis Joseph von Auersperg was 30 years old when he married Florence.  (original source unknown)

Prince Auersperg desperately needed a wealthy wife.  His title "dates back to Charlemagne," said the Paterson, New Jersey newspaper The Morning Call.  But, said the article, "Adventures in Vienna and in other European cities took much of the prince's money."  The New York Evening News was more direct saying, "the Prince came to America in 1896 having exhausted his patrimony and run half a million dollars in debt."  He entered the Long Island College Hospital to study medicine and it was shortly after that he met his future wife.

At the time of their marriage, the groom's older brother sent Florence "several rings, and a valuable diamond necklace," said The Morning Call, and her "father settled a fortune upon her."  But the titled newlyweds would not be living in the prince's homeland.  The newspaper explained, "in spite of her immense dowry, the princess would not be received by the Austrian nobility."  And so, they secured an apartment in the Wickliffe and, like Dr. Phillips, the prince opened a medical office.

The road for the titled couple was rocky nearly from the start.  On April 18, 1900, The New York Times reported that Princess Auersperg, "was robbed of jewels to the value of nearly $10,000 yesterday by an unknown man."  Those jewels included the wedding gifts from Florence's brother-in-law.  A workman was in the apartment because "all the electric bells in the house were out of order."  When Florence was called to the telephone, the workman grabbed her "heart-shaped silver box on the bureau" and left.

Less than a month later, on May 9, 1901, The New York Times reported that Prince Francis Auersperg had declared bankruptcy.  The article explained that his problems arose "out of a real estate transaction which took place in Austria, in which the Prince obtained possession and ownership of an old ancestral estate belonging to [Count Ernest and Countess Gabrielle Coreth] and never paid them for it."  The couple sued him for $40,000 (about $1.5 million today).  The New York Times said, "His visible assets he enumerated as twelve pairs of silk stockings."  Luckily, Edward Hazard had wisely put his wedding present into Florence's sole control.

Then, on March 30, 1903, The World titled an article, "Doctor Of Royal Birth Is Sued."  Prince Auersperg had borrowed $1,000 from Theodore Marburg in 1901 and failed to repay it.

The couple's relationship finally faltered following the death of Florence's father in 1905.  He left her a large inheritance and her husband insisted that she transfer it into his name.  Well aware of his financial history, Florence refused.  It resulted in her leaving him and moving into her mother's home in  Seabright, New Jersey.  She obtained a divorce in 1915 and married businessman John J. Murphy on May 1 that year.

In the meantime, The Wickliffe attracted several artistic residents.  Living here in 1903 was photographer Julius Ludovici.  He catered to well-heeled patrons and produced informal portraits with hand-colored tints.  He had a "photographic and crayon studio" on Fifth Avenue and, during the summer social season, a studio in Newport.

This charming portrait of a child--so unlike the stiff, posed images of most photographers--was typical of Ludovici's work.  from the Getty Museum Collection.

Also living here at the time were H. R. Humphries and Henry A. Ferguson.  Humphries advertised in the New-York Tribune on November 24, 1907 that he, "teaches singing, from rudiments of voice placing to artistic finishing for concerts, oratorio and church work, at his studio, No. 226 West 78th street."

Landscape artist Henry Augustus Ferguson, who lived here with his wife, Eleanor, and daughter, was born in Glen Falls, New York around 1842.  (The New York Times said, "his exact age was not known, as he never confided it even to his most intimate associates.)  He started painting in his teens and, according to The Times, "first gained recognition following a world tour in which he painted many pictures in Mexico, Italy, and Egypt."

This portrait of Henry August Ferguson may have been posed in his Wickliffe apartment.  via Seraphin Gallery.

In January 1911, he gave a private exhibition of American landscapes at the Century Association.  Two months later, on March 20, he became ill.  Pneumonia developed and he died in his apartment two days later.

A prominent resident at the time was author, artist and explorer Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh.  Born in McConnelsville, Ohio on September 13, 1853, he began exploring as a youth and was part of the expedition that found the Escalante River, the last unknown river in the United States, and discovered the Henry Mountains.

Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh, Touring Topics, November 1929 

In 1904 Dellenbaugh co-founded the Explorers Club.  While living here, in 1909 he was appointed librarian of the American Geographical Society.  Among his books are Breaking the Wilderness, published in 1905; the 1908 In the Amazon Jungle; and Fremont and '49, first published in 1913.

Dellenbaugh joined another expedition in 1923.  On November 11, The New York Times poetically reported, "The roaring, rapid-strewn reaches of the Colorado River, plunging down to the Gulf of California between the towering cliffs of the Grand Canyon, once more have been conquered."  Dellenbaugh was a member of the Geological Survey expedition headed by Colonel C. H. Birdseye.

Another writer living here by 1914 was journalist and author John Walker Harrington.  Born on July 8, 1868 in Plattsburgh, Missouri, he was on the staff of the New York Herald.  Among his works was the 1900 children's book The Jumping Kangaroo and the Apple Butter Cat. 

Illustrator Paul Goold returned to 226 West 78th Street and to his wife, the former Edith Chapman, after serving on the front in World War I.  He served as a captain with the First National Army and was celebrated with his comrades on October 16, 1918 as the members of the "Lost Battalion" of the Battle of Argonne.  Born in 1875, Goold began his career as an illustrator on the Portland [Maine] Sunday Press and Sunday Times after high school.  In 1899 he joined the art staff of The New York Times, leaving four years later to work as a magazine illustrator.  

Now back home, he opened a studio in Carnegie Hall.  He and Edith were still living in The Wickliffe on December 7, 1925 when he "jumped or fell from his studio on the twelfth floor of Carnegie Hall through a skylight into a hallway four floors below," as reported by The New York Times.  The article said, "The crash of the body plunging through the skylight aroused artists and musicians in near-by studios."  Goold had left a letter for Edith in the studio.  He was taken to Roosevelt Hospital with a fractured skull and died a few hours later.  Goold's private funeral was held in the apartment on December 10.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The press coverage of residents became less positive in the Depression years.  On November 28, 1931, for instance, Stephen A. Tillinghast and Joseph D. Kogan, presumably roommates, were arrested with 15 others as "a group of alleged racketeers who are said to have smuggled aliens into the United States," according to The New York Times.

Five years later, on May 14, 1936, 26-year-old dancer Margaret Rand was arrested for operating a "questionable 'studio'," as described by The New York Times.  Rand hired young women to provide "private dancing instructions."  Police highly suspected that dancing was not the only activity being practiced there.

In 1961, the once-proud apartment building was converted to a single-room-occupancy hotel.  Expectedly, not all of the residents were upstanding.  At 5:30 on the morning of October 5, 1968, two patrolmen saw smoke billowing out of an apartment window.  They rushed in and broke down the door of Antonio Cartagena who was semiconscious on the burning bed.  They extinguished the fire themselves, then discovered "three pistols, .22- and .25-caliber automatics and a .33-caliber revolver, on a night table next to the bed," reported The New York Times.  Cartagena was treated for smoke inhalation and then taken into custody.

image via apartments.com

A renovation completed in 1973 returned 226 West 78th Street to apartments, seven per floor.  Although nothing survives of George F. Pelham's 1899 interiors, the exterior survives remarkable intact.

The 1912 375 West End Avenue

 

On June 22, 1912, the Record & Guide reported on "The Reconstruction of West End Avenue."  The writer commented, "Often it is said that thirty years, a single generation in time, spans the average economic usefulness of buildings in the path of metropolitan progress."  The life expectancy of sumptuous homes on West End Avenue, however, was in some cases half that long.  The article noted that "West End Avenue is well started on its second era of reconstruction" with modern apartment buildings replacing private homes.

In listing the staggering number of construction projects, the article said, "At 78th Street the Cambridge Construction Co. is just finishing an operation."  The 12-story apartment building had replaced five rowhouses.  It was designed by Schwartz & Gross in the Beaux Arts style, with notable hints of the new Arts & Crafts style.  A two-story limestone base supported ten floors faced in Flemish bond brown brick.  A series of intermediate stone cornices visually relieved the block-like mass, while the architects drew the eye upward by adorning the mid-section corner windows with iron-railed balconies and framing them in limestone.  Frothy Beaux Arts cartouches and carvings decorated the tenth floor and terminal cornices.

from the 1913 Supplement to the World's New York Apartment House Album (copyright expired)

There were just two apartments per floor, one with 8 rooms and the other with 9, each with three bathrooms.  The World's New York Apartment House Album said, "Excellent judgment has been used in the layout of each apartment to make the arrangement of rooms meet the demands of the most particular housekeeper."  Up-to-date amenities included "modern clothes dryers, water filter, laundries with patent steam doors, a private locker and storeroom for each tenant."  The brochure said the apartments afforded "each tenant the luxury and exclusiveness of a private residence."

from the 1913 Supplement to the World's New York Apartment House Album (copyright expired)

For the most part, the well-to-do residents used their apartments only during the winter season.  They spent the warm months in country homes or resorts.  The summer house of retired commission merchant David Spero and his family was at Far Rockaway.  They closed it for the season on October 3, 1913, but just over a week later, Spero went back "for his golf sticks," according to The New York Sun.  He "found that 148 pieces of silverware, bronze ornaments and two blue bathing suits were gone."  The silverware was valued at $1,700, or around $48,000 in 2022.

The following Saturday, Detective Cooney was walking along Central Avenue in the neighboring village of Lawrence and noticed a young man wearing "under his coat one of Mr. Spero's blue bathing shirts."  David Murphy, who was 17-years-old, quickly confessed to the burglary, admitting "he and another carried the silverware away in four automobile suitcases they found in the house, and that before leaving they dined upon crème de menthe and sandwiches."  His confession led to the quick apprehension of his accomplice, 17-year-old Edward Seeley.  The New York Sun reported, "He too was wearing one of the blue bathing shirts."

The most intriguing resident of 375 West End Avenue was one of its first.  John Whipple Frothingham came from a prominent, old New York family.  The director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, he maintained a country home in Tarrytown, New York.

Passionately concerned about an outbreak of typhus in the Balkins during the First World War, Frothingham formed, funded, and sent a group of American nurses and physicians to Serbia in 1915.  Among them were nurse Stephanie Hampl of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and her fiancé, Dr. John Kara.  Tragically, while working there, Kara "fell a victim to the dreaded disease," according to the New York Herald.

The following year Frothingham launched a second expedition to Montenegro.  Stephanie Hampl again volunteered for the trip.  The group of doctors and nurses boarded the Italian ship Brindisi.  The New York Herald reported, "On board the Brindisi also was stowed the 600,000 pounds of provisions and articles which had been shipped from Halifax for the relief of the stricken Montenegrins by Mr. John W. Frothingham."

On January 7, 1916, the Brindisi struck a German mine.  The New York Herald wrote, "The vessel sank in ten minutes after striking a mine, which rent her forward compartments and hurled from her decks and gaping cabins the mangled forms of more than one hundred persons."  Of the 420 passengers and crew, more than 300 were lost.  On January 21, 1916 The Chicago Daily Tribune reported, "Miss Stephanie Hampl, the betrothed of Dr. John Kara, has followed her fiancé to the great beyond."

The wealthy Frothingham's support to the Balkins was not merely financial.  Between 1917 and 1919 he worked in Serbia with the American Red Cross.  There he met Helen Losanitch, a Serbian nurse working to set up field hospitals.  

Following the war, Frothingham returned to 375 West End Avenue and continued his philanthropy.  On April 2, 1920 The Yonkers Statesman reported that he had donated 18 acres to the village of North Tarrytown "for public park purposes."  He gave Tarrytown architect Walter D. Blair a five-year contract to oversee "the landscape gardening and construction of buildings."

Eight months later, on December 19, 1920 the New York Herald reported the "interesting engagement" of John Frothingham and Helen Losanitch.  The couple was married in two ceremonies on January 3, 1921--in St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Manhattan, and in the Church of the Saviour in Brooklyn.  Two years later a daughter, Anna, was born.  The Frothinghams established the Frothingham Children's Institute in Serbia, as well as the Serbo-American Institute of Serbia. 

Helen Losanitch Frothingham, The Anaconda Standard, February 24, 1920 (copyright expired)

John W. Frothingham died in France on November 20, 1935, leaving a net estate valued at more than $37 million by 2022 standards.  Among the rare books in his library were a first edition of John Milton's Comus, a first edition of Milton's Paradise Lost, and a first edition of Edward Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat.  Helen continued the couple's remarkable work.  Shortly after her husband's death, with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Helen established an orphanage in Guethary, France to care for war orphans.

In the meantime, the names of 375 West End Avenue residents regularly appeared in the society pages.  Among them were family of Theodore W. Stemmler.  He and his wife, the former Jennie Taylor Hunting, had five children, Theodore Washington, Lorraine Brevoort, Yvonne Randolph, Marcelle Ogden Post, and Adrian T.  It was Jennie and her daughters, of course, upon whom the social spotlight shone.  On October 20, 1916, for instance, the New York Herald announced that "The Misses Lorraine, Yvonne and Marcelle Stemmler...have had a series of teas and receptions for their young friends at their apartment, at No. 375 West End avenue.  Miss Yvonne Stemmler made her debut last winter after her return from school in Paris."

Lorraine, Yvonne and Marcelle Stemmler.  New York Herald, October 29, 1916 (copyright expired)

In October 1916 Emilie D. Lee Herreshoff (known to her friends at Mildred) quietly moved into an apartment here.  She had been living nearby at 620 West End Avenue with her husband, John Brown Francis Herreshoff, a wealthy metallurgical chemist.  But things were not going well with the couple.

Two years later the New-York Tribune reported, "The latest edition of 'The Social Register' shows that the couple have been living apart.  The address of Mrs. Herreshoff is given as 375 West End Avenue, while Mr. Herreshoff, with his son Francis, lives at 620 West End Avenue."  The next day the newspaper expounded, "John Brown Francis Herreshoff...said yesterday that although their homes were within a few blocks of each other, he had not seen his wife for two years."

Emilie's divorce suit was followed closely by the newspapers.  She alleged "misconduct with an unidentified woman at hotels in this city, this month and last July," according to the New-York Tribune.  The case came to court in June 1919.  Mildred told the court that her husband "in the latter years of their life together" had "displayed indifference toward her."  She blamed the marital troubles on a "woman with strawberry blond hair."

Because Herreshoff had been giving her $18,000 a year, Mildred asked for no alimony.  Five days after their divorce was granted, her former husband married the strawberry blond, Carrie Ridley Enslow.  She was his third wife.

Mildred's problems did not end following her divorce.  In November 1920 her automobile was stolen.  It became part of a corruption trial of two police officers in January 1921.  The two extorted money from insurance companies for the return of stolen cars, including Mildred Herreshoff's.

In December 1922 Herkimer, Inc. acquired 375 West End Avenue.  In reporting on the deal, The Daily Argus called it, "one of the finest apartment houses on West End Avenue."  The article said the buyers planned to convert it "into an apartment of co-operative ownership which has become so popular among the high-class apartment structures," adding, "This building which represents the highest advance in the builders' art, is admirably adapted for this purpose."  Indeed, it was; however the conversion would not come to pass for another seven decades.

Wealthy real estate operator Max Verschleiser lived here by the mid-1920's.  Born on March 14, 1868, he and his wife, the former Annie (known as Minnie) Margolies, had two sons and four daughters.  Son David worked in his father's business.

Verschleiser was a mover and shaker in the real estate community.  In January 1929 he paid $3.375 million for the 104th Field Artillery Armory, which engulfed the entire block between Columbus Avenue and Broadway, and 67th and 68th Streets.  According to The New York Times, he planned "a large sports arena and amusement centre" on the site.  Unfortunately for Verschleiser, the Great Depression halted his renovations and he lost the property in foreclosure the following year.

The building continued to be home to impressive New Yorkers over the succeeding decades.  Editor and publisher Archibald Seixas lived in 375 West End Avenue until his death in October 1953.  He had published and edited The Shipping Digest since 1923.

Dr. Henry Slonimsky and his wife, Minnie Tennenbaum, were residents by the 1960's.  Born in Minsk, Russia on October 9, 1884, he was brought to the United States in 1890.  After studying at Haverford College and the University of Pennsylvania, he did his graduate studies in philosophy and Greek at the University of Berlin and the University of Marburg, Germany.  He earned his Ph.D. in 1912.  Slonimsky's stellar academic career included lecturing in philosophy at Columbia University, teaching at Johns Hopkins University, and at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.  He was dean of the New York School of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion until his retirement in 1952.

Another notable resident was theatrical designer S. Syriala (whose first name was Sointu, although professionally he used only his initial).  Born in Toronto in 1909, he studied at the National Academy of Design and the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts.  He designed the sets for productions through the 1930's through the 1950's, and was responsible for the restoration of the stage area of Ford's Theater in 1968.  

Exactly 70 years after its change to a cooperative was suggested, the conversion was accomplished in 1992.  The building that originally held 24 apartments now holds 47.

photographs by the author

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The 1890 Emil Rinke House - 145 West 78th Street

 

In 1889 developers Perez M. Stewart and Charles McDonald hired architect Henry L. Harris to design an ambitious row of ten brownstone-fronted homes along the north side of West 78th Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.  Completed in 1890, Harris had designed the 20-foot wide residences in an A-B-C-A-B-C-A-B-C-A configuration.  They were a blend of several currently popular styles.

Among the "C" houses was 145 West 78th Street.  Its basement and parlor levels were faced in rough-cut blocks, typical of the Romanesque Revival style.  And then, surprisingly, he overlaid the chunky stone with formal, dressed and fluted pilasters on either side of the parlor windows.  They upheld a single ornate lintel carved with delicate Renaissance Revival decorations.  The doorway was given the identical treatment.  The upper two floors were faced in planar stone.  Harris duplicated the treatment of the parlor openings on the second floor.  A complex cast metal cornice completed the design.

The house was sold in January 1890 to Emil Rinke and his wife, the former Grace T. Berliner, for $24,500--approximately $710,000 in 2021.  Rinke was a partner in Edelhoff & Rinke, importers of hat trimmings.

Emil Rinke, from The Great Sound Money Parade, 1897 (copyright expired)

When the Rinkes moved into their new home, their son, Arthur Werner, was six years old.   He would receive a private education at the esteemed Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School before entering Yale College.  Following his graduation in 1906, he went on to the Columbia Law School.

In the meantime, Emil Rinke was highly visible in business circles.   In 1896 he was appointed the treasurer of the Great Sound Money Parade, a massive demonstration of Manhattan businessmen in support of Presidential candidate William McKinley and and his running mate, Garret A. Hobart.

A few months later, on January 6, 1897, Rinke traveled to Washington D.C. to testify before the Committee on Ways and Means.  He pointed out to the congressmen "the great injustice which has been done to the wool-hat industry" by classifying wool hats in the tariff laws with blankets.  Somewhat sarcastically he explained, "wool hats are certainly wearing apparel."

The Rinkes sold 145 West 78th Street to Dr. John H. Huddleston and his wife, the former Mabel Parker Clark, in 1906.  The couple had been married in 1894 and had two daughters and a son.

Huddleston was born in Boston and had graduated from the Harvard Medical School in 1891.  His expertise on communicable diseases, especially tuberculosis, brought him to the forefront of the medical community.  

Shortly after buying the 78th Street house Governor Charles Hughes was appointed Huddleston Trustee of the State Hospital for Incipient Tuberculosis.  He was, as well, an instructor and Chief of Clinic at the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College and served on the advisory board of the New York Department of Health. 

His affluence and social position were reflected in his several club memberships.  They included the Century, Harvard and Barnard Clubs.  He was the Permanent Secretary of his Harvard graduating class and, according to The New York Times, was "widely known to Harvard men throughout the country."

Mabel was highly involved in civic issues.  She was an officer of the Woman's Municipal League and the Association of Collegiate Alumnae.  Guests in her drawing room were often there for socially and politically relevant discussions.  On January 8, 1910, for instance, she hosted a gathering in the house during which William M. Ivins spoke on "The New York City Charter."  One month later, on February 3, she was appointed a member of the Board of Education.

Dr. John H. Huddleston in 1911.  from the collection of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

In the fall of 1915 Huddleston contracted pneumonia and died in the 78th Street house on October 30 at the age of 51.  In reporting his death The New York Times noted, "Dr. Huddleston was visiting physician at the Gouverneur and Willard Parker Hospitals, consulting physician at the United Hospital at Port Chester, and was connected with several other hospitals."

The following month a contributor to The Bryn Mawr Alumnae Quarterly wrote, "The most splendid tribute to him was from the fine men and women who gathered weeping at his funeral.  Few men, I am sure, have been more truly respected and beloved."

In September 1926 Bertha M. Bentley purchased 145 West 78th Street.  The Sun reported that she "will alter the building for a private school."  The alterations were apparently minimal, for less than two weeks later, on September 14, the newspaper reported, "The Bentley School, 145 West Seventy-eighth street, will commence its school year September 27."  The article said, "the school is an outgrowth of the Social Motive School founded eleven years ago by Miss Bentley."

Students here would experience an innovative curriculum.  Described in advertisements as "A progressive all day school for children," The Bentley School's classes included "citizenship, social life, morality, work and recreation."  Most significantly, Bertha Bentley was a pioneer in individual instruction, rather than formal group training.

The school did not remain in the house for especially long.  By 1933 it had moved to 48 West 86th Street and the 78th Street location was being operated as a "furnished room house" with four rooms per floor.

When the house was sold in 1940, the price raised the eyebrows of a reporter at The New York Sun.  He asked on June 20:

There is a three-story dwelling at 145 West Seventy-eighth street, between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues, which is assessed by the Tax Department at $29,000 for taxation.  When this property was sold recently it brought only $15,000.  If, as the Tax Department says, this property is worth $29,000, why does it command a price of only $15,000 in the open market?  And if it brings a price of only $15,000 in the open market, why must the owner pay taxes on an imaginary value of $29,000?

It was not until 1977 that the former Rinke house was converted to apartments, two per floor.  The exterior has been remarkably preserved, including even the original entrance doors.  The interiors have not been so lucky.

photographs by the author

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The 1890 Elmer E. Hartzell House - 141 West 78th Street

 

In 1889 developers Charles McDonald and Perez M. Stewart, normally rivals, joined forces to erect a row of ten stone-faced homes along West 78th Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.  Architect Henry L. Harris's three designs were configured in an A-B-C-A-B-C-A-C-B-A pattern.  Three stories tall above English basements, the houses were completed in 1890.

The B houses, which included 141 West 78th Street, were designed in the Romanesque Revival style--albeit with Queen Anne pressed cornices.  The basement and parlor floors were faced in chunky, undressed brownstone blocks.  The arched parlor openings were ornamented with hefty quoins and stone eyebrows which terminated in gentle scrolls.  The unusual incised panels capped with molded cornices that separated the windows of the upper floors smacked of wainscoting more expected in an interior space.

The carved keystones of the parlor level include a serpent-like monster.

McDonald and Stewart sold 141 West 78th Street to Edward Dreyfus and his wife, the former Fannie Wallach, on January 31, 1890.  The couple paid $23,500--just over $680,000 in today's money.  

The Dreyfuses had one child, Aline, who was about two years old when they moved into the new house.  By the end of 1891 her nursemaid was no longer needed.  An advertisement in The New York Times on November 5 read:

Nurse--A lady wishes to find a place as infant's nurse; a reliable, trustworthy, competent person; take entire charge; understands bottle feeding.

By 1897 141 West 78th Street had become home to Elmer E. and Hannah Cornelia Hartzell.   Born in 1861, Hartzell was nine years older than his wife.  He was the president of the Magi Washing-Crystals Co. and a partner in the garment manufacturing firm of Hartzell, Leich & Wildey.

Elmer was riding along in the Locomobile (a steam-driven automobile) of his friend Dr. Wallace C. Clark on July 30, 1900.  Clark was arrested at the corner of Broadway and 79th Street for speeding--the officer estimating that he was zipping along at 15 miles per hour.  The doctor explained he "wanted to get to a patient's home."  The sergeant was not convinced (the fact that a friend was riding along made that excuse slightly implausible) and Elmer Hartzell had to bail Clark out of jail.

The Hartzells were affluent enough that their movements were noted in society columns.  On May 25, 1910, for instance, The Post-Standard reported "Mr. and Mrs. Elmer E. Hartzell of New York are visiting Mr. and Mrs. W. R. King of Victoria place [Syracuse, New York]."

Hannah was highly involved in the West End Exchange and Industrial Union, formed in 1869.  By 1915, she held the position of corresponding secretary.  The purpose of the organization was to provide an outlet for goods produced by "self-supporting women."  The 1915 volume of the New York Charities Directory noted:

In the Domestic Department are to be found home-made bread and cake, candy, delicacies for the sick, and various kinds of dainties for the table.  Also a large assortment of articles in the Fancy Work Department.  There is a Sewing Department for children's clothes.

In 1916 the Hartzells moved to 222 Riverside Drive.  Rather than sell 141 West 78th Street, they leased it to Dr. Adolph L. Ringer.   Ringer was a professor of clinical medicine at Fordham University at the time.  The respected educator and physician would rent the house until Hannah Cornelia Harzell's death in 1920, after which he moved to 3 West 73rd Street.

Ringer's good name was threatened a few years later.  On January 8, 1923 his automobile scraped the running board of a taxicab at Fifth Avenue and 58th Street.  The passenger was motion picture actress Georgia Hopkins.

Hopkins was best known for appearing in the 1921 silent film Bachelor Apartments, but her career had stalled.  It may have been that she saw the incident as a means of refilling her dwindling bank account.

Georgia Hopkins in a still from Bachelor Apartments.  from Exhibitors' Herald, December 1920

In December 1925 the actress sued Dr. Ringer for $25,000, saying that since the accident "her nerves were shattered" and "she has been unable to work."  On December 16 the Daily News reported that in court the "former motion picture actress, was having one hysterical outbreak after another."  The article said she "swooned several times while on the stand Monday, and yesterday was carried out of the courtroom in a faint."

But on the stand, Dr. Ringer testified "that, in his opinion, the former actress was enacting a role."  The Daily News reported, "At [the time of the] collision, he said, she displayed symptoms of hysteria, which, for the moment, he believed were genuine.  After seeing Mrs. Hopkins in the courtroom, the doctor said, he had changed his mind."

Dr. Ringer's attorney brought up another suit Georgia Hopkins had filed ten months earlier.  In February 1925 she sued millionaire Henry Sanford for $300,000 for an alleged breach of promise of marriage.  The lawyer noted that during that trial "Mrs. Hopkins asserted that when she discovered Sanford had a wife the shock caused her to become ill, and that she feared her ailment might be permanent."  It was damning evidence that derailed the actress's case.

photo via landmarkwest.org

In the meantime the former Hartzell house was being operated as a rooming house.  In 1925 actor Charles Frederick Clair and his wife lived here.  Born in London in 1871, he had come to the United States in 1892.  In 1900 he married Hannah Krueger, a German immigrant.

 

Living here in 1928 was Hector G. DuBois.  He shared a two-bedroom suite with his wife, Bonnie, and their son, Richard.  Except that Bonnie was married to Harvey A. Gordon at the time.  It all came to a public and sordid two-week divorce hearing in February 1930.  On the stand Bonnie confessed, "I committed adultery between May 31, 1928, and March 15, 1929, with one Hector G. DuBois at 141 West 78th Street."

In 1967 the house was converted to apartments.  It may have been at this time that the ill-advised coat of robin's egg blue paint was applied.  Today there is a duplex in the basement and parlor levels, two apartments on the second floor, and one on the third.  

photographs by the author

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The 1891 Flats at 200 to 204 West 78th Street

 

On March 29, 1890 the Real Estate Record & Guide reported, "Bernard S. Levy will build three five-story Tiffany brick and brown stone flats on 78th street, southwest corner of 10th avenue, with stores on the avenue, at a cost of $225,000."  The construction cost would equal more than $6.5 million today.  (Levy had already been busy along the block, having erected 15 row houses designed by Raphael Guastavino, including Levy's own home, a few years earlier.)

The structures were completed the following year.  At 35-feet-wide the corner building, 200 West 78th Street, was five feet wider than 202 and 204.   Their brawny Romanesque Revival design included brownstone bases where the entrances above short stoops were flanked by medieval-inspired columns and carvings.  Romanesque gave way to Queen Anne on the upper floors in the form of spandrel panels laid in dog-toothed brick patterns.  The end buildings rose to brick parapets, while 202 West 78th Street terminated in a slate-shingled mansard with brick and stone dormers and lacy iron cresting.

Levy sold the structures to William H. Vrendenburg in August 1891.  He advertised the apartments as having "attractive prices" and noted, "steam heated; door attendance; hardwood throughout; tiled bathrooms."  The spacious apartments of seven to eight rooms included parquet floors, and built-in buffets in the dining rooms.  Rents ranged from about $1,400 to $2,385 per month in today's money.

The apartments filled with professional tenants.  Among the initial residents were architect Henry Ives Smith; former president of the New York State Bar Association, Edward C. Whittaker; and Clark and Helene S. Bell.

The Bells were a fascinating couple.  Clark Bell was described by Who's Who in America as a "medico-legal jurist, author, editor, judicial historian, farmer and breeder, publisher [of the] Medico-Legal Journal."  He was counsel for several railroads and president of the New York Infant Asylum and the Medico-Legal Society.

Helene S. Bell was also an attorney.  She was, as well, a manger of the maternity section of the New York Infant Asylum at 61st Street and Amsterdam Avenue, and was chairperson of the executive committee of women managers of the Hahnemann Hospital.  The couple would live at 200 West 78th Street into the 20th century.

Other early residents were William Tyler Bliss and his wife, the former Elizabeth Mary Sturtevant.  The couple lived in 204 West 78th Street.  Bliss was born in London on November 26, 1865.  He graduated from Amherst College in 1897 and married Elizabeth two years later.  He was managing editor of the New York Mail and Express.  Elizabeth Sturtevant Bliss was an accomplished artist and a member of the Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.

By 1910 authors Albert Payson Terhune and his wife, Anice, lived in 200 West 78th Street.  Born in 1872, Albert was the author of The Great Cedarhurst Mystery and other works.  Anice was both an author and a composer.  Among her books was the Home Musical Education for Children.  The couple lived here well into the 1920's.

Joseph Gardam was president of the William Gardam & Son machinists firm.  When his behavior became erratic in 1902, the 52-year-old was confined to the Kings Park Insane Asylum for about four months.  The New York Times later noted, "Soon after regaining his liberty Mr. Gardam gave over the actual management of the business to his son, but he continued to work at the shop."

Although Gardam's professional work remained excellent, his eccentric behavior re-emerged in the summer of 1904.  On July 20 The New York Times reported that he "was taken from his home at 202 West Seventy-eighth Street, at 4 o'clock yesterday morning to the psychopathic ward at Bellevue, suffering from hallucinations."  It seems that it was not necessarily visions that concerned the family, but finances.  "Dr. Wilgus said that Mr. Gardam had a mania for spending large sums on dinners for acquaintances, and that he had once laid out an extravagant amount of money on a yacht," said the article.

Bridget Hare and her brother, Daniel, shared an apartment in 204 West 78th Street in 1915.  They were two of a family of 16 children in Tuam, Ireland.   Daniel and another brother, Patrick, came to New York City in 1909.   It is unclear when Bridget arrived in America.  (Patrick Hare lived at 212 West 69th Street.)

In 1915 the Hare's father, William, was seriously ill and Bridget headed home aboard the RMS Lusitania.  She would never see her father or family.  On May 7, when the ship was just 11 miles off the coast of Ireland, it was torpedoed by a German U-boat.  Among the 1,198 fatalities was the 31-year-old Bridget Hare.

Retired businessman George Fields attended the first game of the 1928 World Series on October 4.  The excitement of the afternoon proved to be too much for his heart, however.  Upon returning home, he collapsed in the hallway of his apartment and died before medical help could arrive.  The Daily News attributed his death to "a heart attack, brought on by the excitement of witnessing the first game of the World Series."

Like many of the residents in the West 78th Street buildings, Anton Myslivec had a country residence.  His was in Medford, Long Island.  But unlike his neighbors, he had a murky past, having been sentenced to six months in 1925 on a charge of wounding a woman with a shotgun, and in 1927 he was sent to Sing Sing prison for attempted kidnapping and extortion.  Now, on November 22, 1938 police arrived at his apartment in 202 West 78th Street to arrest him for first-degree murder.

William Dobitz, a builder, lived with his wife Elizabeth, in Farmingdale, Long Island.  The night before Myslivec's arrest the 55-year-old Dobitz was shot dead as he whistled for his dog, Rex, in his back yard.  Before he died, Dobitz told police "he had no known enemies and could not understand why any one should wish to kill him."  Elizabeth, however, had an idea who the killer was.  She admitted to investigators "she had been friendly with Myslevic."

Myslivec denied any knowledge of the incident.  But, then, after failing a lie detector test he admitted to shooting Dobitz.  He explained he bought the shotgun as a present for Dobitz and as he was adjusting it while approaching the house, it "suddenly discharged."  The jury in his murder trial five months later did not buy his alibi.  On April 18, 1939 Myslivec was sentenced to die in the electric chair.

Throughout the decades and changing architectural tastes, the three remarkable buildings managed to survive essentially intact.  Today there are four apartments per floor in 200 and 204, and just two each per floor in 202.

photograph by the author

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