Rosario Candela's 1926 607 West End Avenue

 

image via streeteasy.com

Real estate developer Bernard Wilson commissioned the architectural firm of Thom & Wilson in 1887 to design a row of ten upscale houses at 601 through 619 West End Avenue between 89th and 90th Street.  The handsome, Renaissance Revival-style dwellings would become home to well-to-do families for decades.  But the post-World War I years saw nearly all the opulent private residences that lined the thoroughfare being replaced by apartment buildings.  

In 1925, the newly-formed 607 West End Avenue Corporation purchased and demolished the houses at 607 through 613 West End Avenue and hired architect Rosario Candela, known for his high-end apartment buildings, to design a replacement structure.  Plans were filed on August 12, 1925 and construction was completed in 1926.

The 16-story edifice cost $500,000 (about $8.9 million in 2026 terms) to construct.  Candela's subdued neo-Renaissance design included a two-story stone base.  Its centered entrance was flanked with highly unusual, double-height rusticated Corinthian pilasters that upheld a broken pediment that interrupted the second floor cornice.  An intricately carved,  Renaissance-inspired spandrel panel sat above the doorway.  The nearly unadorned Flemish bond brick midsection included stone balconies at the fourth floor.

The rusticated pilasters are highly unusual, if not unique.

The building opened in May 1926.  Describing an 11th floor suite as "an ideal apartment in a just completed house," an advertisement in the New York Evening Post on September 4 that year touted:

6 rooms, 2 baths, built-in shower, electric refrigeration, kitchen and pantry walls tiled, floor covered in inlaid rubber tiling, cedar and numerous other closets; other attractive features.

Society columns reported on the residents' marriages, births, engagements, travels and entertainments.  Such was the case on December 12, 1926 when the engagement of Harry Halbren to Eleanor Finn was announced.  Harry was the son of Jacob Halbren and the two were partners in the fixture company Jacob Halbren & Son.  Harry and Eleanor were married in her parents' home at 838 West End Avenue on January 11, 1927.

Jacob Halbren had six children with his late wife, Rosie.  When the family moved into 607 West End Avenue, he and his second wife, Pauline, had recently married.  Also living with them was at least one of Jacob's unmarried daughters, Gertrude.

On January 7, 1928, Jacob Halbren died in the Post-Graduate Hospital at the age of 63.  He left an estate of $250,000 (about $4.5 million today).  His will vividly disclosed tensions within the household.  On February 7, The New York Times titled an article, "Disappointed Husband Cut Off Wife In Will," and reported, "Because his recent marriage to her had not been 'productive of the happiness' he had 'anticipated,' Jacob Halbren, a retired businessman...cut off his second wife, Pauline Halbren."  The estate was divided among his six children with Pauline receiving nothing.

Gertrude Halbren remained in the apartment, presumably with her step-mother, for another year.  On June 9, 1929, The New York Times reported on her engagement to James Deyong "of London, England."

In the meantime, the William H. Rankin family were conspicuous initial residents.  Born in New Albany, Indiana in 1878, William brought his family to New York City in 1921 and opened an advertising agency, William H. Rankin Company.  It would eventually have offices in Chicago and London.

Rankin and his wife, the former Roberta Risk, had two daughters, Frances and Mary, and three sons, William Jr., Robert and Charles.

On October 1, 1927, the New York Evening Post reported that Frances H. Rankin had sailed for Europe that morning on the Homeric.  "She will go to Versailles, France, where she will attend the Finch School during the coming year," it said.  Young unmarried women did not travel unescorted and the article noted, "Miss Rankin will make the trip with Mrs. Horace Stilwell and Mr. and Mrs. Earl Stewart."

Interestingly, Frances remained abroad for the holidays.  On December 20, 1927, The New York Sun reported, "Mr. and Mrs. William H. Rankin and their three sons of 607 West End avenue sailed on Saturday on the Iroquois to pass the Christmas and New Year holidays in Miami, Palm Beach and Hollywood."

On July 26, 1929, The Christian Science Monitor ran a full-page article on "skyscape gardening."  It revealed to non-New Yorkers that "flowers and shrubs abound atop Manhattan apartments."  The article noted, "One of the finest terrace gardens in New York is the home of William L. Goodwin, head of Goodwin, Morton & Bradian, marketing counselors."

The Goodwins' 16-floor apartment had "a broad terrace on two sides of the building."  Comparing their garden as a "Babylonian King's terraces," the article said in part:

Along the outside edge of the setback a row of leafy shrubs and dwarf evergreen trees forms a pleasing border, the fresh green of which serves as a background for a generous sprinkling of Privet and Vincas, or red geraniums and purple and white petunias, of yellow and purple and pink hollyhocks.  On the inside--against the building--are many more varieties of green plants and flowers, morning glories, phlox, clematis and even sunflowers.

Living here at the time was the Simon Liebovitz family.  Born in Russia in 1854, Simon came to America as a boy "landing at the Battery virtually penniless," according to The New York Times.  He and his wife, Fannie, founded the Liebovitz Shirt Manufacturing Company in 1877.  The couple had six sons and a daughter.

The couple's small shirt company grew and by the time they moved into 607 West End Avenue it employed "several thousand persons and had factories in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee and Maryland," according to The New York Times on October 25, 1930.  

After the concern became self-sufficient, Fannie stepped away from the active operation and devoted herself to charitable and civic works.  She joined the Ladies Fuel and Aid Society and for years was president of the Reda Liebovitz Welfare League and the Regina Rose Aid Society.  The Liebovitz family were among the founders of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism.

Simon Liebovitz died in the apartment on October 24, 1930.  At the time of his death, three of his sons, Abraham, Harry and Ephraim were associated with the family business.  Fannie continued as its treasurer and a director.  Meyer Liebovitz still lived in the 607 West End Avenue apartment with his mother.  He was president of The John Forsythe Company, Inc., a men's and women's apparel firm.

Dr. Joseph Edwin Conroy and his wife, the former Ethel Palardy, were initial residents.  The couple had two children and living with them was Joseph's widowed mother, Winifred N. Moylan Conroy.

Conroy graduated from Fordham University in 1918 and served in the Navy in World War I.  He opened his medical office in 1920 specializing in cardiology, and was additionally on the staffs of Fordham and St. Elizabeth Hospitals.

Conroy's father, Edward, died around 1913.  Winifred Conroy was highly involved in civic affairs.  The honorary president of the Model Civic Club, she was active in the Federation of Women's Clubs and was chairman of that group's motion picture committee.  On June 19, 1933, Winifred Conroy visited her daughter and son-in-law in Brooklyn.  While there, she suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 62 years old.  Her funeral was held in the apartment here two days later.

On March 9, 1939, The Sun reported that Attorney-General John J. Bennett Jr. was "making arrangements for his first real vacation since the world war."  The article said he would sail on the Transylvania for a 12-day cruise in the West Indies.  Among the close friends accompanying him, said the article were Dr. Joseph E. Conroy and his daughter, Joan.

At the time of the Conroys' vacation, a six-room apartment rented for $1,750 a year, and an eight-room suite for $2,400.  The more expensive rent would translate to about $3,250 per month today.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Among the Conroys' neighbors in the building was Ira S. Atkins, vice president of the Sterling National Bank and Trust Company; and real estate dealer and developer Isidor Williams and his wife, Lillian.

Born in 1896, Williams was president of the Sconat Realty Corporation and Williams Homes.  His firm erected several apartment buildings in Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx.  Among those was Queensbury Hall on Queens Boulevard.

Williams was driving along Grand Central Parkway in Queens on the night of October 28, 1948 with Lillian in the passenger seat when he suffered a heart attack.  The New York Times reported that Lillian "took the wheel and drove to City Hospital, where Mr. Williams was pronounced dead."

Harry Colton, a lingerie salesman, lived here at midcentury.  On the night of February 26, 1952, his body was found in a washroom on the sixth floor of the Empire State Building.  The New York Post reported, "There was a gunshot wound in his right temple.  A gun was on the floor near the body."  Police listed his death as suicide.

The Conroys were still living here at the time.  In December 1953, Dr. Joseph Edwin Conroy became ill and he died in St. Clare's Hospital on March 23, 1954.  

image via streeteasy.com

Rosario Candela's dignified design remains as stylish as it was 100 years ago when the first residents moved in.

Latona Hall - 851 West End Avenue

 

photograph by Anthony Bellov

At the turn of last century, the mansions that lined West End Avenue were being rapidly demolished and replaced with apartment buildings.  While most developers accumulated several properties to accommodate their projects, in 1904 James H. Havens settled for just one plot--at 851 West End Avenue between 101st and 102nd Streets.  He hired the architectural firm of Neville & Bagge to design a six-story apartment building on the site.  

Completed in January 1905, the architects' Colonial Revival design was faced in beige Roman brick above a limestone base.  The double-doored entrance sat above a short stoop.  On either side were fluted pilasters that upheld an entablature that boldly announced "Latona Hall."  The scrolled design of the charming wrought iron railings on either side of the porch were reflected in the handsome, hand-wrought fire escapes above.  Splayed limestone lintels decorated the windows of the second through fifth floors.  Neville & Bagge strayed from the Colonial motif with the fussy, French-inspired terminal cornice.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

An advertisement for Latona Hall in the New York Herald on January 25, 1905 said, "Leases are now being made for these attractive five room and bath Apartments; private phone and hall service."  (Hall service referred to the uniformed hall boys on hand to help with packages, deliver mail, and execute other errands.)  Rents ranged from $38 to $43--the most expensive translating to $1,580 per month in 2025.

Among the initial residents were George Gallagher and his wife.  On the afternoon of March 18, 1905, Mrs. Gallagher left to see the matinee of The College Widow at the Garden Theatre.  On her way there, she visited a friend, who gave her a Maltese cat as a gift.  The Sun reported, "Rather than make another trip to the friend's house she took the cat to the matinee and had it checked at the cloakroom."  The attendant put the cat in a box, cutting slits on the side so it could breathe.  The Sun said flatly, "The cat didn't like it."

Following the play, Mrs. Gallagher attempted to claim her cat.  The article said, "the cover was off the box and the cat was gone."  On March 23, Mrs. Gallagher demanded the price of the lost feline.  "She says the cat is valuable," said The Sun, which continued, "If the cat doesn't come back she demands its cash value."  The reporter ended the story saying, "The cat has not come back."

Other white collar residents at the time were B. Sterling Bottome, who worked as a court stenographer; dentist Walter B. Douglas; and Mrs. Elmer Hassan, who operated a "girl's nature camp" in New Hampshire during the summer months.

The St. Nicholas Magazine, December 1907 (copyright expired)

The very respectable Dr. Walter B. Douglas was the subject of awkward press coverage in the summer of 1907.  Like hundreds of Manhattanites, on June 13, he went to Coney Island to enjoy a day at the beach.  That evening, he was dining in Feltman's restaurant on Surf Avenue when something went very wrong.  The next morning The New York Times reported that he and the head waiter of Feltman's were "both prisoners."

According to Dr. Douglas, William Kennedy "struck him."  The waiter was arrested and charged with felonious assault.  The dentist, too, was arrested, charged with disorderly conduct.  The New York Times reporter was somewhat perplexed, saying that while Kennedy, who had been charged with a felony, "was allowed to remain out of a cell."  On the other hand, "The dentist, who says the waiter struck him, and against whom was made only the charge of disorderly conduct, was locked up."

William H. and Cecilia Gilmore were married in London, England, on July 25, 1903.  Their daughter, Ruth, was born on October 19, 1906, and in 1908 the family moved to New York City and into Latona Hall.  Three years later, the Gilmores' domestic bliss crumbled.  According to Cecilia, at the beginning of 1911 William started treating her "in a cruel and inhuman manner."  On July 25, she asked him what had made him change, and he replied, "that he was tired of living with her and wanted her to give him a divorce, and that she would be 'bloody mean' if she did not."

When Cecilia asked why he wanted a divorce he would not respond, saying only "that if she did not hold her 'rotten jaw' he would hit her with the heaviest thing he could lay his hands on."  According to Cecilia, little Ruth, who was now five years old, cried, "You must not talk that way to mama."

Finally, on August 11, 1911, William told Cecilia that he was having an affair and that if she did not divorce him, "he was going to make a scandal by living under the same roof" with his mistress.  Cecilia responded by fainting "for the first time of her life," according to court papers.

The divorce was granted.  William was directed to pay Cecilia a token of $1.00 a year alimony, and $720 each year in child support.

Actress Nellie Morgan lived here at the time.  The Evening World explained that she "is employed by a moving picture concern as an actress in the film plays."  On December 14, 1912, she was on a crowded subway car that pulled into the Time Square Station.  Also in the car was undercover Detective Finn, who witnessed a man open her handbag and take out a small purse.  As passengers filed out of the car, Finn pursued the pickpocket, telling the conductor to hold the train.

When Finn caught up with the man, he was still holding Nellie Morgan's pocketbook.  "The detective brought his prisoner back to the train and found the woman," said The New York Times.  Nellie identified her pocketbook, which contained two diamond rings valued at $300.  As Finn started away with his prisoner, the man fell to his knees and "pleaded with Miss Morgan and the detective to let him go."

Nellie told Finn, "This is Christmas time, and I am willing to be lenient if you are."

Less sympathetic were the other passengers, whose train had been held up for nearly 20 minutes, already.  "The crowd insisted that the woman press the charge against the prisoner," said the newspaper.  When Finn refused to release the man, "Miss Morgan became hysterical and then fainted."  Happily for her (and the impatient passengers) there was a doctor in the car who revived her.  In the meantime, "Finn took the pocketbook, the rings, and the prisoner to the West Forty-seventh Street Station, where he was locked up, charged with grand larceny."

Two months later, Nellie Morgan was in court as a witness in Charles Winters's hearing.  On February 11, 1913, The Evening World said she, "seemed in a very sympathetic and forgiving mood and even temporized to the extent of saying she was not sure Winters had opened her handbag."  Her unusual compassion led Judge Swann to question her.  She admitted that Winter's mother, sister "and other relatives had visited her in her home at No. 851 West End avenue, and had begged her not to testify against the young man," said The Evening World.  Despite Nellie Morgan's protests, the detective's testimony convicted the purse snatcher.

Latona Hall continued to attract middle class, professional tenants.  Living here in 1925 were newlyweds Sherman and Dorothy Anne Skinker Hooker.  Dorothy graduated from Barnard College in 1915 and worked as a high school teacher.  In 1926, a Dr. Raboniwitsch moved into the building.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Much less respectable were Harold Worthington Doman and Louis Zeno, who shared an apartment here.  In 1923, Vivian Gordon was arrested for prostitution by vice officer Andrew B. McLaughlin.  Years later, McLaughlin was investigated for corruption and was accused of "framing" Vivian Gordon.  His trial was scheduled for March 5, 1931.  Vivian Gordon would not appear in the courtroom.  Eight days before the trial, her brutalized body was discovered dumped in Van Cortland Park.

A search of her apartment discovered Vivian's diary, which revealed her involvement with gamblers, gangsters and prostitutes, prompting the New York Mirror to call her the "queen of the underworld."  The contents quickly turned attention to the Doman-Zeno apartment at 851 West End Avenue.  

The New York Sun reported on March 4, 1931, "Doman and Zeno were picked up late yesterday after an all-day search for the former...This address and the occupants were mentioned frequently in the diary."  The Albany Evening News reported that the pair "admitted they had lived at 851 West End avenue, an address described in the diary as 'a terrible place.'"

An entry on February 28, 1931 told of Vivian's visit to a girl's apartment in the Palace Hotel.  "I was nearly killed.  Went down fire escape to escape more," she said.  "I went to 851 West End.  Zeno [arrived] about 10:15 Saturday a.m.  Doctor came.  Ye gods, concussion of brain, two broken ribs, bruises from head to foot.  851 West End terrible place."  Although Doman and Zeno were held for questioning, they were not arrested.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

The following year, Latona Hall appeared in the news for another underworld-related incident.  On February 13, 1932, The Yonkers Statesman reported on a gang slaying in Riverdale.  A suspicious car had previously been seen where the body was found, "on the cliff overlooking the Spuyten Duyvil Station of the New York Central," said the article.  "Police said the machine, which is owned by Joseph Gsainsky of 851 West End Avenue, might have been used in the shooting of a detective downtown."

The Georgiaes family lived here around mid-century.  Helen Georgiaes was 17 years old in 1957, when she met 22-year-old John Antonacci.  He telephoned her in January and sweet talked her into living with him.  The Long Island Star Journal said he lured her "from her home on a promise he would marry her when she became 18."  Helen met Antonacci in front of a Jackson Heights theater.  "They rented a room in Woodside and remained there for 21 days," said the article.

Back at Latona Hall, Helen's father, Sonofronios Georgiaes, "took a dim view of the proceeding and ordered Antonacci...arrested on abduction charges."  The lothario was arraigned on February 24.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Latona Hall is little changed after 120 years.  Even its graceful, hand-wrought stoop railings have survived intact.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

George F. Pelham's 1899 300 West 107th Street

 

Real estate developer George Klingman hired George F. Pelham to design a "stores and flat" building on the southwest corner of West End Avenue and 107th Street in the spring of 1898.  Pelham's plans, filed in July, projected the construction costs at $70,000, or about $2.73 million in 2025 terms.  Completed in 1899, the seven-story structure was designed in the Renaissance Revival style.  

The basement and first floor were clad in limestone.  Possibly because of the noticeable incline of 107th Street, Pelham placed the stores in the less visually obtrusive basement level.  The entrance atop a short stoop sat within a handsome portico of paired Ionic columns upholding an entablature of intricate Italian Renaissance-style carvings.  The upper floors were clad in deep red brick.  Pelham rounded the northern corners and gave the second and seventh floors decorative terra cotta bands.  Elaborate terra cotta bandcourses defined the four-story mid-section.  

image via Landmark West!

The entertainments held by the building's well-do-to tenants appeared in the society columns.  Such was the case on December 6, 1903, when The New York Times reported on Mrs. Meyer Heineman's large musicale "in honor of Mrs. Charles Fleischman, mother of Mayor Fleischman of Cincinnati, and Mrs. Louis Meyer of Cincinnati."  Eight artists performed that afternoon.

Among the several physicians who lived here in 1909 was Dr. Harry McDonald Peggs and his bride, Helen Crosby.  Peggs earned an annual income equal to $255,000 today according to court papers.  The couple was married on June 2 that year.  Unfortunately, their union was not a blissful one.  According to Helen two years later, almost immediately Dr. Peggs began a "reign of terror," by "cursing and beating her." 

On June 2, 1910, Helen reminded Harry that it was their first year anniversary.  He replied, "We won't be living together next year."  Harry, it seems, was already shopping for a new romantic companion.  On October 7, 1910, he did not come home and Helen later discovered he had "been in the company of a Miss Oliver Palmer" that night.  Afterward, he "paid attention to a Miss Dunston," according to Helen's divorce filing in October 1911.  The New York Times reported, "She said she found the doctor and Miss Dunston in his motor car before 993 Columbus Avenue at a quarter of twelve one night and told Miss Dunston that her companion was her husband and she should leave him."  Miss Dunston, according to Helen, "paid no attention to her remarks."  After the incident, Harry returned to 300 West 107th Street only to get changes of clothing.

While the Peggs faced off in court, the family of Simon Docter had an even more serious issue with which to deal.  Caroline Docter went missing in October.  After a search of several days, her body was discovered "in some bushes at 190th street and Fort Washington Avenue," as reported by The Sun on October 29, 1911.  On October 31, the newspaper reported, "The autopsy showed that Miss Doctor [sic] had died of carbolic acid poisoning and the case was entered as a suicide."

The forensic evidence of the scene where Caroline's body was discovered, however, prompted Coroner Feinberg to reconsider the suicide ruling.  The following day, The Sun reported, "he believed that the body had been carried there after her death."  Caroline's dress had been neatly arranged and the shrubbery was undisturbed.  (Feinberg explained that death by swallowing carbolic acid would be accompanied by "death struggles.")  Importantly, there was no bottle found at the scene.  Had Caroline taken the poison at the location, the container should have been nearby.  Feinberg ordered police to conduct a search for witnesses.

Dr. George Peasles Shears and his wife, the former Susan H. Moore, lived here at the time.  Shears was born in Dutchess County, New York on January 15, 1860 and graduated from the New York University Medical School in 1889.  He was assistant surgeon at the Babies' and Mother's Hospital and an instructor of obstetrics at the Cornell University Medical School.  

The New York Times noted that he "was the author of various monographs on medical and allied topics."  But medicine was not the physician's only passion.  The Evening Post said, "Dr. Shears was deeply read in metaphysics and was in particular a student of German thought."

Among the white collar tenants in the World War I years were William R. Clendinning, a 1915 graduate of Yale; George Jacob Soper, a director of the Metropolitan Designing Co. and treasurer and director of the Unity Brotherhood Association; and Edward M. Biggs, a director of Brokaw Brothers.  (Soper's wife filled her time with various causes.  In 1920 she was a member of the International Sunshine Society, the Legislative League, the Health Protective, and the Woman's Forum.)

Teresa Collins shared an apartment with her sister in 1925.  The 23-year-old, who worked as a private secretary in a large rubber firm, was instrumental in catching a conman that year.  Teresa's sister went on a vacation to the West and on the evening of August 10, while a female relative was visiting, someone knocked on the door.  The caller identified himself as "Detective Sergeant McDonald from Commissioner Enright's office," and said charges had been made against her, but "the matter could 'be straightened out for $500.'"

Upon telling the man that her sister was in Wyoming, he pulled his revolver and ordered the women into the bathroom.

"How about the money?" he asked.

Teresa and her visitor gathered up $300.  The detective left, saying he would return for the balance.

The savvy young woman immediately called the police.  They arranged a scheme by which Teresa would give a signal to the hall boy (an employee in high-end apartment buildings who were on call for helping with packages and such) to notify Detectives Fitzgerald and Josephs.

The next morning, the "detective" returned and demanded his $200.  Acting on the arranged signal, the hallboy called police headquarters.  Teresa stalled long enough for Fitzgerald and Josephs to arrive and arrest Joseph O'Leary.  As it turned out, O'Leary had been a policeman until being fired three years earlier.

In 1930, Mrs. A. Wells Green invited Lillian Reute to stay in her fourth-floor apartment while her houseguest underwent treatment.  Lillian, who was 63, was the widow of a General Electric Company executive and lived in Schenectady.  On June 24 she fatally plunged to the sidewalk.  The Standard Union reported, "Detectives believe she had fallen from a chair on the fire escape landing."

Lillian Reute fell to her death from the fourth-floor fire escape.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

A renovation completed in 1948 resulted in three or four apartments per floor.  Among the first residents of the remodeled suites were Dr. Siegfried Boxer and his wife, the former Ella Weinberger.  Born in Vienna, Austria, Boxer graduated from the University of Vienna and served as chief of obstetrical surgery at the Lucina Hospital.  He escaped Nazi Austria to America in 1940.  When the couple moved into 300 West 107th Street, he had been director of the clinic at Gouverneur Hospital for four years.

Boxer assuredly was well acquainted with another tenant, gynecologist and obstetrician Dr. Robert Koehler and his wife, Mitzi.  Like Boxer, Koehler was born in Vienna and graduated from the University of Vienna.  He headed the Vienna Women's Hospital until 1938 when the Germans occupied Austria.  Like the Boxers, he and his wife fled to New York.  He was resident gynecologist at the Brooklyn Hebrew Home and Hospital for the Aged and served as a gynecologist at Beth Israel Hospital.

In the spring of 1960, Clara Panken moved into an apartment here.  The 41-year-old had suffered recently.  She and her former husband, attorney Morton L. Panken, were divorced in 1954 and Clara was given custody of their adopted daughter Bess, who was five at the time.  On March 24, 1960, a few weeks before moving into 300 West 107th Street, Bess, now nine years old, fell to her death from a window of their West End Avenue apartment.  After an investigation, the girl's death was ruled accidental.

Shockingly, on July 2, Clara Panken walked into the 126th Street police station and confessed that she had murdered her adopted daughter.  Described by police as being "conscience-stricken," she said that on that afternoon she picked up Bess at P.S. 75.  At home, she took her into the bathroom, "which has a 20-by-30-inch window," according to The New York Times, and told Bess "she would teach her to fly."  She persuaded her to climb through the window and onto the ledge, then pushed her to her death.  Clara was charged with homicide.

A fascinating tenant arrived in 1962.  Artist Alice Neel was born in 1900 in Philadelphia, but spent most of her life in New York.  Self-taught, she painted mostly portraits, using as models her Harlem neighbors, "as well as artists, activists, mothers, children, and a series of pregnant women, a subject long ignored in the history of art," according to her biography by the MoMA.  In 1974, the Whitney held a retrospective of her work.

Alice Neel died in 1984.  Afterward, Phoebe Hoban visited her eight-room apartment.  In her 2010 Alice Neel, The Art of Not Sitting Pretty she writes:

There are paintings everywhere--on the walls, stacked in the hall.  Everything has been left just as it was when Neel lived and worked here, covering hundreds of canvases with ruthlessly honest portraits of the people who intrigued her, from neighborhood children to Andy Warhol.

Alice Neel's family retained the apartment, keeping it as a type of time capsule of her residency here.

Alice Neel's granddaughter, Olivia, looks over her shoulder in this January 5, 1979 photograph in the apartment.  Alice Neel, People Come First, by Kelly Baum and Randall Griffey

The building was remodeled again in 1986.  Other than the commercial basement level, little of the building's exterior has been changed.

photographs by the author

Neville & Bagge's 1899 862 West End Avenue

 

In 1898, developer James Livingston hired the architectural firm of Neville & Bagge to design five "four-story American basement" houses on West End Avenue and six nearly identical others around the corner on West 102nd Street.  An advertisement for 862 to 868 West End Avenue in March 1899 described the residences as, "Elegant four-story houses, highly finished throughout; 3 large chambers [i.e., bedrooms], saloon [i.e., salon or sitting room], and bathroom on second floors; 20 feet front, 55 feet deep; with 30-foot extension.  Clothes dryer in basement."

No. 862 was faced in gray Roman brick above the limestone basement and parlor levels.  The architects bowed the three upper floors.  The openings of the second and fourth floors sat atop molded sill courses and were grouped by a single eyebrow.  The third-floor windows featured splayed lintels with foliate keystones.

The house would see a rapid-fire turnover in owners.  In May 1899, Livingston sold the West End Avenue group to Charles F. Richards.  No. 862 would see three more owners before Anna Galbraith purchased it on March 20, 1903.  Like her predecessors, she purchased the house for rental income.

Living here as early as 1911 was the Michael Gernsheim family.  Living with him and his wife, the former Emilie Loeb, were their unmarried adult children, Felix M. and Alice.  

Felix, who was 40 years old in 1915, was an attorney.  He had a bit too much to drink on the night of September 16 that year.   At the corner of Broadway and 96th Street, he came upon two soap box orators, the opinions of whom did not align with his.

The New York Times reported that he, "dragged Joseph L. Kaufman, a Socialist speaker, from his platform and disturbed the crowd listening to a suffragette speaker on the opposite corner."  He was not done yet.  The article continued, "he then went into a near-by restaurant, pulled a man to the street and when Patrolman Walsh...tried to arrest him threw himself to the ground."  

Gernsheim was charged with intoxication and disorderly conduct.  Although he denied having been drunk, when he appeared before Magistrate Appleton the next day he promised "he would not touch a drop of liquor for a year."  The Times reported, "he was discharged in the custody of his mother."

In 1917, the Gernsheims moved two doors away to 866 West End Avenue where Felix, still unmarried, died of pneumonia on February 9, 1920.  

Anna Galbraith rented 862 West End Avenue in March 1917 to Katherine V. and George A. Sipp, a highly colorful couple.  Although she used George's surname, Katherine was actually Katherine Lynch.  He and his wife, Catherine V. Lynch, were married in 1883, but he left her for Katherine in 1913, with whom he had two children.

George and his legitimate son, Howard, ran the Commonwealth Hotel in Harlem.  When he and Katherine leased 862 West End Avenue, he and Howard were deeply involved in a case against New York City policemen.  On January 1913, The Evening World reported on the graft case of "high police officers" implicated by the Sipps of extorting money from "the keepers of disorderly houses."  As the trial date neared, George Sipp announced that he had been offered a $700 bribe from a defense attorney "to leave New York."

The Sipps were not always on the right side of the law, however.  On December 25, 1918, the New-York Tribune reported on a warning issued by the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World about an advertising scam.  The New-York Tribune editors added to the message, giving an example of an advertisement in their newspaper on December 11, 1918:

A ladies' natural muskrat coat, forty-five inches long, full flare, belted model; never worn.  SIPP, 862 West End Avenue; private house.

The article continued, "Tribune readers will recall the conviction of George A. Sipp, who, in September, 1917, was fined $250 in the Court of Special Sessions for fraudulent advertising."

The couple had other worries at the time.  Two months before the article, Catherine V. Sipp sued George for divorce and Katherine for $100,000 "for alleged alienation of Sipp's affections," according to The Sun on October 22, 1918.

The Sipps remained here through 1920.  The following year the house was converted to non-housekeeping apartments, meaning they had no kitchens.  The basement level was now a physician's suite.  An advertisement in the New York Herald on January 28, 1921 described, "Doctor's office, waiting room and apartment--five rooms, bath, $2,100."  (The yearly rent would translate to about $3,000 per month in 2025.)  A two-room apartment with bath in the upper floors rented for the equivalent of $1,700 a month today.

The configuration lasted until 1965, when a remodeling resulted in two apartments per floor.  Living here in 1970 was the family of John Hewitt, a medical writer.  His son attended the Fieldston School in Riverdale.  On March 24 that year, The New York Times reported, "A group of about 60 students, most of them black, calmly took over the three-story administration building of the Fieldston School...yesterday morning and, in a well-planned maneuver, barricaded themselves inside."  The article said this was "one of the first instances in the country where minority students in a private preparatory school actually took over a school building."

John Hewitt, who was also the chairman of the school's Black Parents' Association, rushed to the school and climbed the fire escape of the administration building to the only unbarricaded entrance.  He was not intent on persuading his son to leave, however.  The Times said, "He was carrying seat cushions for his son to sleep on."  Hewitt told a reporter, "We're fully in back of these students."

The house would undergo another renovation in 1991.  There are now a duplex apartment in the basement and parlor floor, and two apartments each on the upper levels.

photographs by the author

The 1913 The Dallieu - 838 West End Avenue

 

On July 6, 1913, The New York Times remarked that "the west side will always remain the great apartment district of the city, a fact has been doubly pronounced during the past few months by the demolition of rows of fine private residences for towering apartments."  Among those "towering apartments" was the recently completed The Dallieu at the southeast corner of West End Avenue and 101st Street.

Erected by the real estate development firm Julius Tishman & Sons, Inc., it was designed by the fledgling architectural office of Blum & Blum.  George and Edward Blum were nine and twelve years old when they arrived in America from France in 1888.  Educated at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the Blum brothers' grasp of architectural trends that transcended their Beaux-Arts training—like Art Nouveau and Art Deco—would impact apartment designs in New York. 

For the 12-story The Dallieu, they turned to Arts & Crafts.  Encrusting the two-story base was a sumptuous tapestry of terra cotta tiles of swirling vines, grapes, berries and flowers.  The upper floors were clad in Roman brick, except for the tenth floor.  Its terra cotta panels delineated the midsection from the top.  Iron-railed balconies clung to the facade at the fourth and ninth floor, and a continuous balcony girded the building at the eleventh--its Arts & Crafts-style iron railing a work of art.  A parapet with decorative panels forewent a cornice.

The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1913 (copyright expired)

The apartments ranged from six to nine rooms with three baths.  Rents started at $1,800--about $4,750 per month in 2025 terms.  An advertisement in The Evening Post on August 23, 1913 touted, "These Apartments have unequalled arrangements such as filtered water throughout the building, steam driers on the roof.  Two passenger and two service elevators, thus assuring privacy on each floor by elimination of public halls."  The ad noted that "extra servants' rooms" and private storage rooms were available on the penthouse level.

There were four apartments on most floors.  The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1913 (copyright expired)

Residents of The Dallieu were professionals, like civil engineer John C. Underwood, who graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1862; and Loren Albert Scott, a 1904 Harvard graduate.  Scott was the president of the Hasco Building Company and the Aeon Reality Company.  Adhemer Fieux was a member of chocolate making firm Runkel Brothers, "one of the best known in the trade," according to The New York Times.  Born in Bordeaux, France in 1843, he married Fannie Runkel (the sister of one of his business partners) and the couple had three sons.

Less typical was Alice Redding, another initial resident.  When she divorced Arthur Maurice Werner in 1910, she retook her maiden name.  Alice, who shared the apartment with her two sisters, was pulled into a scurrilous incident in the spring of 1914.  Arthur Werner and his current wife, the former Giulia Morosini, who were married in 1911, lived in a lavish home, Elmhurst, in Riverdale.  Giulia was the daughter of banker Giovanni Morosini, a former partner of Jay Gould.

In March 17, 1914, the Oakland Enquirer reported that Giulia had filed for an annulment.  The heiress barred Werner from the estate.  The Sun said Giulia protected herself by replacing the grounds staff with "about twenty men sent up to Riverdale by the Burns Detective Agency."  Suddenly, Giulia was mysteriously missing.

  

The first and second stories display a dizzying profusion of Arts & Crafts designs.

Suspiciously, authorities could not locate Werner for questioning.  Investigators learned he had been seen at The Dallieu.  The Sun reported on April 6, 1914, "At the home of Werner's first wife, 838 West End avenue, it was said that Werner was not there and had not been seen for two days."  Later that afternoon, a maid said Alice "went out of town."  Reporters returned the next evening and were told the same message.  Finally, Giulia turned up and the press's harassment of Alice ended.  

On October 13, 1914, the New-York Tribune reported on the Connecticut marriage of Lorne Albert Scott to Lutie Wilson Babb the previous day.  Reminding readers that Scott was involved "in various real estate and construction ventures," the article said, "The couple will spend their honeymoon in the South.  After their return they will live at 838 West End av."

The newlyweds' wedded bliss would be short.  On October 24, 1915, The Sun reported that Lutie sued for separation, charging "that it is unsafe to live with her husband, who has a violent and ungovernable temper."

A colorful resident was Charles Francis Phillips, a journalism student at Columbia.  On June 1, 1917, The Sun described him as "22 years old [and] is the son of a manufacturing tailor, who, though foreign born, is rated as a good American."  The previous day, Phillips had been arrested with three other Columbia seniors "charged with conspiring to violate the selective conscription law by urging resistance to the draft."  The article reported that Phillips's father, "said when his son was arrested, 'He got himself into trouble, let him get himself out of it,' but who is expected to relent and do what he can to help the boy through."

Charles Francis Phillips (left) following his arrest.  His father eventually posted the $2,000 bail.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Five days later, Charles Phillips was in the news again.  The Sun reported, "Phillips was seen several times yesterday loitering in front of the polling place in his district which is at 823 West End avenue, on the same block with his home, 838 West End avenue."  United States Marshal Thomas D. McCarthy had warned him the previous day "that should he fail to register a new charge would be lodged against him."  When he had not registered for the draft five minutes before the office closed, a warrant was issued and Phillips was again arrested.

Phillips would go on to be a force within the Communist movement.  He fled to Mexico and helped to found the Mexican Communist Party.  He eventually would live in Spain and Nicaragua, using the names Charles Shipman, Frank Seaman, Jesus Saremas, Jesus Ramirez and Manuel Gomez.  Phillips would become secretary of the All-American Anti-Imperialist League.

Joseph M. Simon was described by the New-York Tribune as a "wealthy hosiery and underwear manufacturer, in business at 19 East Twenty-first Street."  In March 1918, the Simons's daughter, Consahoe, eloped with Elwood M. Burgauer in a Municipal Building ceremony after a "romantic and rapid courtship."  Burgauer's father was as member of Kahn & Burgauer, lace importers.

When Joseph Simon discovered the elopement, he and his wife locked Consahoe in her room.  A year later, on July 8, 1919, The Evening World reported, "The only way his wife could tell him [i.e., Elwood Burgauer] how much she loved him was in notes dropped from a window of her father's home at No. 838 West End Avenue."  Elwood Burgauer filed suits of alienation against both of his wife's parents.

In addition to imprisoning Consahoe, as reported by the New-York Tribune, Elwood alleged that Simon, "told her such derogatory stories about his character that her love for him has been destroyed," and "interested his daughter in Christian Science in an effort to make her forget her husband."  The Simons denied having "anything to do with the estrangement of the couple," said The Evening World.

The families in The Dallieu maintained domestic staffs.  The 1920 census showed that of the 45 apartments, 39 of them had live-in cooks.  Among those families were that of real estate operator Bernard Reich.  Not only was he a resident, his firm owned the building.  

Reich was the president of the Marcon Realty Company and the Amri Realty Company.  In 1920, he read the heart-breaking story of a cobbler, Harry Zakow, and his wife who were searching for their lost boy.  The World said that in 1918, 12-year-old Samuel Kefovov (his parents changed their Russian surname to Zakow upon arriving in America) was "separated from his mother who was fleeing [from Odessa] with her five children."

Bernard Reich traveled to Jerusalem in 1921, and visited the Jewish War Orphanage that December.  He talked to a 15-year-old boy whose story was remarkably similar to the one Reich had read a year earlier.  He successfully reunited the family after being three years apart.

Even the service entrance is sumptuously decorated.

Before leaving on his trip to Jerusalem, Reich had made news for his philanthropy.  On April 28, 1921, The Evening World reported, "A drive for funds with which to purchase milk for poor children in this city was started to-day with...a $5,000 contribution by Bernard Reich of No. 838 West End Avenue."  The article mentioned, "Mr. Reich has previously distinguished himself by his generosity toward the penny lunch fund for school children."  

Three years later, Reich and his firm, Amri Realty Company, began acquiring the properties on the block directly south of The Dallieu as a potential development.  Standing in the way was Nat Levine's house at 830 West End Avenue, described by Reich's lawyer, Irving Gordon, as "a key piece" of the project.  Gordon told The New York Age in October 1925 that Levine, "wants to force it onto Mr. Reich at an exorbitant figure." 

When Reich would not agree to Levine's elevated price tag, the homeowner retaliated.  On October 31, 1925, The New York Age reported, "A large sign offering 'Furnished rooms for rent for Negro folks,' appeared last Saturday on the Nat Levine residence at 830 West End Avenue, and the property owners of that good residential section immediately began to worry."  Levine would not respond to reporters' questions other than to ask, "why did Bernard Reich...think he could buy the property at a ridiculously low price?"

Before 1952, the balconies and paneled parapet were in place.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

A renovation completed in 1952 resulted in six apartments per floor on the second and third, and four apartments each on the upper floors.  The penthouse level, formerly servants' rooms and the laundry, was converted to six apartments.  In the remodeling, the balconies were removed and the paneling of the parapet bricked flush.

Despite the regrettable modernization, Blum & Blum's Arts & Crafts building remains among the firm's most striking designs.

photographs by the author