The Lost Rhinelander Office Bldg -- No. 155 W. 14th Street

In the 1950s a soda shop and watch repair store share spaced in the old Rhinelander Estate office.  photo by C T. Brady, Jr., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW8TBMQE&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

In the second half of the 19^th century three families held the reins of Manhattan real estate—the Astor brothers, John Jacob and William; the Goelet brothers, Peter and Robert; and the Rhinelanders.  

In 1878 the Rhinelander family had been in New York nearly 200 years; having arrived in 1686.  By the time of the American Revolution William Rhinelander had amassed a fortune in the sugar business.   The family’s wealth would increase enormously as it moved from sugar into real estate in the early decades of the 19^th century.  Recognizing the potential of the rural land north of the city, William Rhinelander purchased vast tracts of real estate for development.   He died on September 9, 1825 leaving, according to The New York Supplement, “a very large amount of real estate, including a large farm in the upper part of this city.”

As the city inched northward, his son, William C. Rhinelander developed, in some cases, full blocks of structures.  In 1842, for instance, he erected 11 houses known as Cottage Row on Seventh Avenue between 12^th and 13^th Streets.  When he died on June 20, 1878 he left an estate of “50 millions” according to The New York Times five days later.   The newspaper added that he “inherited a strong bias toward the English method of keeping family estates together and regarding them as almost sacredly indivisible; and it is hence more than probable that he has expressed his wishes most decidedly upon the point, and that the integrity of the property will be practically preserved.”

Regarding the vast Rhinelander holdings, The Times said that there was no practical way of measuring its monetary worth.  “Of the value of the down-town property it is not possible to form any estimate.  It has increased tremendously in value since the erection of the immense warehouse and dry goods establishments on West Broadway, and is increasing even during the present depression.”

As The Times anticipated, the William Rhinelander's estate would operate as a real estate development business for decades.  Among the first items of business was the erection of a new office building and the family considered West 14th Street as its site.

Around 1840 West 14^th Street, much of it owned by Rhinelander, saw the rise of elegant brick-faced mansions.   At No. 155 stood the home of Alexander J. Norwood.  On the morning of Monday, July 19, 1852 Jacob Aufelter sneaked into the home of the wealthy merchant and helped himself to two gold watches and other property, valued at $400—about $12,400 by today’s standards.  “The rogue entered the premises with a skeleton key,” explained The New York Times, “and while he was coming down stairs, he was met by some of the family, whom he told he was looking for Dr. Smith.  The ruse did not answer, and he was locked up for trial.”

The Norwood family would stay on at No. 155 West 14^th Street until at least 1857.  By 1860 it was home to the Meader family.  In September that year Mrs. Maeder was walking on Sixth Avenue when “a German lad, named Jacob Calston, snatched her reticule, which contained $25, from her arm and ran away,” according to The New York Times on September 7.  People on the street yelled “stop thief!” and Officer Christopher captured the crook and Mrs. Maeder’s money.

As the 1870s approached, the northward movement of Manhattan’s well-do-to families left West 14^th Street behind.  Elegant homes were operated as boarding houses or taken over by charitable institutions for purposes such as homes for wayward girls.  On March 12, 1866 an advertisement in the New York Herald offered “Elegantly furnished room on second floor, to let, with board, at 155 West Fourteenth street.”  The boarding house required references from potential tenants.

Among the respectable boarders here was Miss C. A. Butler who acted as representative for St. John’s Church at the House of Mercy at the “foot of West 86^th Street, North River.”

But at the time of William C. Rhinelander’s death commerce was overtaking the last of the residential structures on West 14^th.  Now the family demolished the old mansion at No. 155 and replaced it with a handsome brick office building two stories tall.   Gone were the florid, scrolling lines of a generation earlier.  The Rhinelander office building was all about the sharp geometry popularized by the Victorian Gothic style.   Brick laid both diagonally and on end provided textured panels and bands.  The construction date was proudly announced in a central panel.   Projecting wavelike bands followed the shapes of the elliptically arched openings; the only curves in the design.  Above it all wonderfully intricate cast iron cresting completed it all.

From here the Rhinelander Estate continued to shape Upper Manhattan.   In 1880 an apartment building called The Manhattan was erected at the corner of 86^th Street and Second Avenue; and two years later eight four-story brick rowhouses were constructed on East 86^th Street from No. 309 to 323.  The land had been known, decades before, as the Rhinelander “farm.”

The quaint little building would be the scene of Rhinelander Estate operations until 1903 when Charles Duross moved in.  In reporting that he “has moved his real estate office to the office lately occupied by the Rhinelander Estate,” the New-York Tribune noted “he occupies the whole building.”

The highly successful Duross Company would stay on here for years.  As the United States entered World War I Duross was one of the real estate men who rallied for the sale of Liberty Bonds.  He endorsed an advertisement in The Sun on Sunday, April 23, 1918 that said in part “The Huns, the Hindenburgs and the Hohenzollerns Never shall exact tribute from the Metropolis of the World.”  The ad prompted real estate operators to buy the bonds “and buy them until your last dollar buys the last bullet to insure Freedom for all forever.”

A young girl passes the Duross offices around 1920.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Duross Company sold property from No. 155 West 14^th Street into the 1920s.  On February 1, 1920 it prompted potential homeowners to consider, instead, an income-producing building.  “Purchase a homelike apartment house, 5 story, 6 rooms each.  Total income $6,000.  Price, $45,000.  Nicest lower west side block.”  New Yorkers today would probably jump at the price, even at its equivalent value of $523,000.

By 1926 the upper floor had been converted to living space.   Paul E. Hilton was living there that year, making a living as a low-end crook.  On the night of March 25 his petty-thievery would take a violent turn.   According to his confession on May 5, he entered a house in Queens “and started to look for valuables.”  When he heard noises outside, he unsuccessfully tried to get out a basement window then left through the kitchen door.

“I saw some one come around the corner with a flashlight and a gun and I started to go back to the kitchen and some one said: ‘Who’s that?’ and I started to run down the stoop with my gun in hand.”

A foot chase and gun battle followed, with Hilton jumping fences and running down alleys.  At one point a policeman closed in and, according to Hilton, “started to raise his gun when I fired one shot and heard his groan.  Then I hurdled two fences to the street and walked to the elevated station and took the elevated to Park Row and then to the Bowery.”

Hilton left the body of Patrolman Arthur Kenney lying in the dark alley.  He was charged with murder in the first degree.

The delightful little building , once the seat of the vast Rhineland real estate empire, housed mom-and-pop stores downstairs and residential renters upstairs until 1961.  That year developers Hyman and Irving Shapiro filed plans for a 21-story, $4.6 million apartment building to be called The Vermeer.

photo Cityrealty.com

The gargantuan 352-unit white brick structure (the brick color was changed in the early 1990s) wiped out the mish mash of 19^th and early 20^th century structures on the block, including the Rhinelander Estate office building.  What No. 155 West 14^th Street had in charm, the new building made up for in bland.  It was a circumstance perhaps explained by Hyman Shapiro himself when he told the New York Times in 1974 “Architectural amenities are sheer nonsense.”

The Lost 1848 Cottage Row -- 7th Avenue between 12th and 13th Street

On March 30, 1936 famed photograph Berenice Abbot captured Rhinelander Row, known popularly as "Cottage Row." -- photo Library of Congress

As Greenwich Village transitioned from a sleepy rural hamlet to a thriving extension of New York City in the first half of the 19^th century, William C. Rhinelander purchased vast tracts of real estate for development.   The Rhinelander family amassed enormous fortunes by recognizing northward growth of the city, purchasing land and developing blocks of rental properties that it would hold for decades.

Epidemics of cholera and yellow fever epidemics of the 1820s forced panicked New Yorkers to flee northward.  But before that, in the gently rolling hills to the east of the village were the sprawling country estates of landed gentry.  Here were the country mansions of Sir Peter Warren, “The Manse,” and “Richmond Hill,” the estate of British Major Abraham Mortimer, later to be home to John Adams and Aaron Burr.

But by the middle of the century things had changed.  Avenues and streets were laid out and row houses lined blocks that checker-boarded former pasture land.  Around 1842 7^th Avenue was extended to just above 13^th Street, in land owned by William Rhinelander.

Looking back, in 1904, an old-time Greenwich Villager would recall that “it was all farms, with cornfields and other crops, with which it was laid out.  There was one very large frame mansion that I remember, and the avenue cut directly through it, so that two large houses were made of it.”

Around 1848 Rhinelander filled the 7^th Avenue block between 12^th and 13^th Streets with eleven three-story homes above English basements.  The simple, straightforward residences were intended for middle-class families and their design took into consideration the tenants’ comfort.

The homes sat more than twenty feet back from the street, providing grassy lawns and garden space.  In a time when summer heat was not only stifling but sometimes lethal, each floor of the had deep verandas that provided shade and caught the cooling breezes.  Mattresses could be pulled out onto the upper balconies for sleeping in the most oppressive nights.

Floor-to-ceiling windows and long, louvered shutters guaranteed air flow through the houses in hot weather -- photo Library of Congress.

Called “Rhinelander Row,” the eleven houses became familiarly known by locals as “Cottage Row” toward the end of the century.  Families stayed on in the homes for generations in some cases and the Rhinelander records showed that the homes were constantly occupied from 1848 through 1914.  The New York Times reminisced in 1937 that “the front gardens were fragrant with flowers from early Spring until late in the Fall.”

But then things changed.

Seventh Avenue, the southern end of which was 11^th Street, was extended down to Varick Street in 1914 and the Seventh Avenue subway line opened in 1918.  With these two factors, “a marked change in the character of the neighborhood took place and the popularity of the houses began to decline,” reported The Times.

In 1936, with their simple balconies and wooden porch stairs, the old houses looked oddly out of place.  The 7th Avenue subway entrance is at the left. -- photo Library of Congress

By 1927 occupancy had dropped to about half and a realty syndicate took a long lease from the Rhinelander estate “with the intention of building a large apartment house.”   But the Great Depression came along and Cottage Row received a brief reprieve.  In 1930 the Rhinelander estate took back the property.

Finally, in May of 1936, the few remaining tenants were requested by Rhinelander agents to vacate the premises.  A year later demolition of the buildings began.

Politician John Byrnes took advantage of the vacant dwellings to display campaign posters where once tenants relaxed in the shade of the porches -- photo Library of Congress

With a sigh of regret, The New York Times said that “these houses constitute the most characteristic landmark surviving to the present day of the upper Greenwich Village section.  With their wide piazzas and ample balconies on the upper floors they have been for many years refreshing reminders of the simple but comfortable residential days in that interesting part of the city.”

In 1937 the WPA was busy demolishing Cottage Row.  Already the top floor is gone.  -- photo Library of Congress

The property was turned over to the City Housing Authority with the stipulation that it would remain undeveloped for one year.  The Authority said the empty plot might be used as a temporary playground for children.

On December 16, 1938 the Rhinelander estate had made its decision.  The announcement was made that “the property has been vacant and now will be used for a gasoline station and lot for the selling of used cars.”  The 20^th century had arrived on 7^th Avenue.

Unlike Cottage Row which had survived nearly a century, the gas station and car lot were gone by 1964.  They were replaced by the masterful Mid Century modern Joseph Curran Building which remains today.

The 1892 Cammeyer Building

William C. Rhinelander died in 1878 but he had no intention of going out of business. The real estate tycoon left an estate valued at between $50 and $75 million, portions of which were bequeathed to his children and various charities. However, the will named a committee of Executors to manage his real estate holdings, directing them to increase “the rents, issues and profits of any part of his real estate, or of its ultimate value, to make improvements either by building or the acquisition of land adjacent thereto.”

And so William Rhinelander continued in the real estate business well past his death.

In 1892 his estate built a handsome retail and office building on the southeast corner of 6th Avenue and 20th Street.  Other high-end emporiums had already begun appearing along what would be known as the Ladies' Mile.  Where eight four-story brick homes had stood, architects Hubert, Piersson & Hoddick produced a six-story, red brick Neo-Renaissance building with white stone and terra cotta trim, Corinthian colonnettes, a heavy copper cornice and elegant iron balconies.

The structure was leased to Alfred J. Cammeyer, the foremost shoe vendor in the city.  Born in 1840, Cammeyer started in the business at the age of 15, working as a clerk in a shoe store. As he learned the business, he saved enough money to open a store of his own at Bleecker and Carmine Streets in 1876. By the time the Rhinelander building was being constructed he occupied a much larger shop at 6th Avenue and 12th Street.

On September 29, 1893 The New York Times reported that Cammeyer’s “spacious premises proved unequal to the demands upon them” and the store would be moving to the building at 6th Avenue and 20th Street.

The new building, said The Times, “constructed in massive and dignified style is, architecturally speaking, a welcome addition and ornament to Sixth Avenue…and is probably the largest and best equipped boot and shoe establishment in this country, if not the world.

“The main floor of the mammoth shoe store is beautifully finished in mahogany. There are separate departments for men, boys, ladies and children, besides a slipper department and a mailing department, the house having an enormous trade on mail orders.”

A year later there were 400 employees working in Cammeyer’s store. His hand-made, affordably-priced foot ware (advertised as “foot clothing”) kept the store constantly busy selling “dainty and substantial shoes and boots.”

On the night of January 18, 1899 that all nearly came to an end.

About an hour after the store closed at 8:00 that night watchmen in the store across the avenue noticed smoke and pulled a fire alarm. Police officer George Reid entered the building to check for anyone left inside. On the second floor he found Margaret Lynett “diligently sewing and unconscious of the fire.”

Officer Reid instructed the woman to hurry outside, but when they entered the hall and Mrs. Lynett saw the smoke, she fainted. “Reid made a gallant rescue by carrying the woman to the street where she was resuscitated,” said The Times.

By 1:00 am the first two floors were in ruins. Six feet of water flooded the basement and charred shoes littered the burnt interior. The next morning the newspapers told of the huge “stalactites” of ice that hung from throughout the interior, making the blackened store look like “a cavern.”

The substantial brick and stone building, however, was not seriously damaged and on March 6 the store reopened. Cammeyer stocked 25,000 souvenir tape measures for re-opening day, but they ran out before closing time. Hundreds of customers lined 6th Avenue all day waiting to get in.

It was necessary for Alfred Cammeyer to increase his sales staff to 600.

advertisement from NYPL Collection

A crowd of deal-hungry shoppers, Cammeyer’s would find out in 1903, was not always a good thing.  On Feburary 10 the store promoted a “bargain counter.” Sixty-year old Mrs. Olonzo A. Emery traveled in from Sommerville, New Jersey for the event. As she was about to be waited on, the crush of other women around her became too much. She “uttered a cry” then fell to the floor. By the time the store’s physician, Dr. Schfeldt, could attend to her she was dead.

On August 14, 1909 Alfred Cammeyer died “of apoplexy” at 69 years old. The man who started out as an impoverished Yiddish-speaking teenager ended life in a mansion on Central Park West and 72nd Street, the owner of the largest shoe store in the country. His funeral was conducted at The Church of the Holy Communion – across the street from his beloved store.

Cammeyer’s will bequeathed the business to his “friend and trusted employee,” Louis M. Hart, with the express wish “that Mr. Hart would continue the business under the name of Cammeyer.”

As the great stores gradually moved away from 6th Avenue, following Macy’s and Benjamin Altman’s northward past 34th Street, Hart followed.  In 1914 Cammeyer’s Shoes moved to 381 Fifth Avenue.

It was the end of the opulent days for the building at 6th Avenue and 20th Streets. The grand shoe store was divided into small retail spaces, then office space. In 1937 the interior walls between the Cammeyer Building and the Alexander Building to the south were broken through, joining the two buildings.

Eventually the space was taken over by the Audits and Surveys offices and drab governmental work spaces filled the building for decades. The once-exclusive Ladies Mile deteriorated and most of its imposing retail palaces sat empty and dark.

In the late 1990s the district was rediscovered. One by one the enormous Victorian stores were recycled into luxury residences or new retail spaces. In 2010 the Cammeyer Building was renovated into 67 residential condominiums, “The Cammeyer.”