The Milton S. Sommerich House - 44 West 91st Street

 

After having been a broker, Dore Lyon turned to speculative building in 1877.  The change in careers worked.  The New York Times later said, "His first building operation was eight houses on Ninety-third Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues.  Others followed until his business amounted to millions of dollars."  

In 1887 Lyon began construction of an ambitious row of 18 brick- and stone-faced homes along West 91st Street, between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue.   In designing them, architect William H. Boylan enthusiastically embraced the Queen Anne style, creating nine delightful models arranged to create a mirror-image row.  Construction was completed in 1888.  Lyon did not sell the houses, preferring instead to lease them.  He shared ownership with his colorful wife, Anne E. Dore, known by the press as The Queen of Clubs because of her involvement in so many women's clubs, associations and committees.

Among the new residences was 44 West 91st Street.  Its basement and parlor levels were clad in rough-cut brownstone.  A slightly-bowed bay at the second and third floors rose to a  romantic pressed metal, crenellated parapet.  Lyon leased it to Philip Leserman on May 1, 1888.  He was the senior partner in the Leserman Mfg. Co. with his son, Philip, Jr.

The Dores sold the row in October 1890.  Six of the houses, including 44 West 91st Street, were purchased by music publisher James M. Jaques, who paid a total of $4.8 million in today's money.  Following his death in 1893 the houses were inherited by his children.

No. 44 became home to Benjamin Edmund David and his wife, the former Hannah Mendel.  Born in Krefeld, Germany, David was the principal in the silk firm B. Edmund, David, Inc.  The couple had two daughters, Marguerite, born in 1897, and Ruth Elizabeth, born the following year.  

Tragically, the house was the scene of a somber ceremony on May 18, 1899--the funeral of five-month-old Ruth Elizabeth.  Two years, on September 27, 1901, Benjamin Edmund David, Jr. was born.

Earlier that year, after having lived on a muddy, dirt street for years, Hannah David joined her neighbors in petitioning the city.  Their appeal said in part, "The laying of such as asphalt pavement would furnish the connecting link between Riverside drive on the west and Central Park West, on the east, making a continuous asphalt roadway from Riverside drive to Central Park, it being the only block on West Ninety-first street at present unpaved with asphalt."  The petition added, "The street at present is in a very poor condition."

Following the David family in the house was the Milton Sommerich family.  Sommerich's father had arrived in America in 1846 at the age of 16, eventually establishing S. Sommerich & Co., milliners, in 1872.  While his brother, Edwin, took over that business in 1889, Milton Sommerich  became a member of Sommerich, Kalischer & Loewith, importers of flowers, feathers and novelties.  In its March, 1917 issue, The Illustrated Milliner said, "For half a century the name of Sommerich has been identified with the millinery trade, and it is to be hoped that the younger generation will continue in business until it can celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of their connection with the trade."

The Illustrated Milliner, March, 1917 (copyright expired)

Like all well-to-do families, the movements of the Sommeriches were covered in the society columns.  On April 12, 1908, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Milton S. Sommerich, 44 West Ninety-first Street, will sail for Europe in a few days.  Mr. Sommerich has been in poor health for some time, and he will try Berlin for a season."

The Sommeriches' daughter, Aline, was not mentioned in the article because she had not yet been introduced.  Her social anonymity ended with her debut.  

On April 13, 1917 The American Jewish Chronicle reported, "Miss Juliette C. Rosenthal, of 21 Claremont Avenue, gave, last Sunday night, one of the many entertainments which have been lavished this winter on Miss Aline J. Sommerich...whose engagement to Mr. Herbert Schloss has, some time since, been announced."  The couple was married in the St. Regis Hotel on April 23.

Whimsical carvings decorate the second floor bay.

The Sommeriches remained at 44 West 91st Street until around 1922.  It remained a single-family house until 1997, when a doctor's office was installed in the basement and the third floor was converted to an apartment.  A subsequent renovation completed in 2021 resulted in two duplex apartments.  And while several of the houses along the row have lost their stoops, 44 West 91st Street is little changed since its completion nearly 135 years ago.

photos by the author

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

Dorothy Parker's Childhood Home - 214 West 72nd Street

In 1888 the Parks Commissioners voted to improve West 72nd Street "with macadamized pavement."  Considering the upscale tone of the street, with already more than 60 fine homes and the luxurious Dakota Apartments, the Commissioners agreed to broaden the sidewalks by seven feet, to accommodate the planting of trees and grass.

Joining in on the development of the posh residential street two years later was developer William Miller, who commissioned William H. Boylan to design four townhouses at Nos. 208 through 214, between Broadway and West End Avenue.

Completed in 1892, they were designed in the popular Queen Anne style.  Four stories tall above English basements, they were faced in limestone and trimmed in contrasting brownstone.  Sharply angled bays, rusticated banding, limestone bracketed cornices and a profusion of stained glass put them on the cutting edge of stylish domestic architecture.

Real estate operator William H. Gray purchased Nos 212 and 214, hoping no doubt to make a quick profit.  On April 15, 1893 he advertised both houses, describing them as "four-story brown and whitestone houses, with butler's pantry extensions, on full lots, and are finished with all the improvements known to the builders' art."

Unfortunately, Gray would not live to see No. 214 sold.  Just over six months later, on November 2, The New York Times reported that J. H. Rothschild had purchased the 25-foot wide house from Gray's estate.  The $60,000 Rothschild paid would be more than $1.6 million today.

Jacob Henry Rothschild had come a long way.  His parents arrived among the large German-Jewish immigration of the 1840s.  Unlike so many Jewish immigrants who clustered in Manhattan's Lower East Side, they went to Selma, Alabama, where Jacob was born in 1851.

In 1860 the family moved to New York City where Samson Rothschild opened a "gents furnishings" store on Broadway.  Doing well, he leased half of a two-family residence on West 27th Street in 1868.  The other half was taken by the Thomas Marston family.  Among the Marston's three children was daughter Eliza Annie, one year older than Henry (by now he preferred to use his middle name more often than his first).

Despite both sets of parents disapproving of their romance, the stalwart lovers finally married in 1880; 12 years after they first met.  By the time Rothschild purchased the West 72nd Street house he was a highly successful businessman, a member of the cloak manufacturing firm of Meyer, Jonasson & Co.

Now hidden beneath a coat of gray paint, Boylan's use of limestone interrupted by brownstone bands and trim (like the wonderful rope detail) originally produced a stark contrast of white and brown stone.

Rothschild's substantial income enabled the family to take a cottage every summer in West End, New Jersey, near the fashionable seaside resort of Long Branch.  In the summer of 1893 Eliza was pregnant (quite possibly an unplanned circumstance given that the couple's three children were twelve, nine and six years old).   The baby, named Dorothy, was prematurely born in the summer cottage on August 22.

Three months later the Rothschilds were moving their things into No. 214 West 72nd Street.   Merchant class wealth provided the family with a staff of Irish servants and proper schools for the children.

Yet money rarely bought acceptance for Jewish families into mainstream society.  With little hope of membership into exclusive social clubs, wealthy Jews had established the Progress Club.  Henry was a member of both that club and the more inclusive Criterion Club.   In both members wore "club clothes," or evening clothes, and talked business and sports in the cigar smoke filled rooms.

In the spring of 1895 Police Inspector William W. McLaughlin suffered humiliation when he was arrested and charged with extortion.  He was accused of squeezing Francis J. Seagrist, Jr. for $50 years earlier while he was captain of the First Precinct.

As his trial neared in May, a friend, Leo Schlesinger, posted McLaughlin's $25,000 bond; but then he withdrew it.  The Evening World explained "It is understood that Mr. Schlesinger's reason for withdrawing from the bond is that he is to be a witness for McLaughlin."  He wanted to avoid the appearance of being a biased witness.

Henry Rothschild stepped in to free the disgraced officer.  His faith in McLaughlin's innocence led him to risk losing his relatively new home.   On June 1, 1895 The Evening World reported "He offered as surety the four-story dwelling-house at 214 West Seventy-second street in which he lives."  The New York Times added that he had $40,000 equity in the property.

Although it took two years and multiple trials, the charges against McLaughlin were dismissed in April 1897 and the Rothschilds' home was secure.

In the meantime, although little was heard about Eliza, Henry was visible in Jewish and business activities.  He was on the Reception Committee of the Purim Ball in the Metropolitan Opera House on January 19, 1897, for instance.  Other moneyed committee members included Isidore Strauss, James Seligman and Adolph Lewisohn.

He was a member of the Businessmen's Republican and Sound Money Association, which staged a dramatic demonstration in 1897 in the form of the Sound Money Parade.  Rothschild was a marshal, and the official handbook called him "one of the best known manufacturers of cloaks in New York."

Little Dorothy was four years old when her life was unexpectedly thrown into shambles.  On July 20, 1898 Eliza died in their cottage at West End, New Jersey.  Just four months later, on November 28, her father sold the 72nd Street house to Thomas Henry Wheeler.

And then, on January 3, 1900 he married Eleanor F. Lewis, described by School magazine as "the former accomplished principal of the Primary department in [Public School] No. 96."  Dorothy's tranquil existence simmered into one of bitterness.   According to Joan Acocella in her 2008 book 28 Artists & 2 Saints, Eleanor was a "hated stepmother" and "In later years, [Dorothy] rarely spoke of her father without scorn."

Dorothy married Wall Street broker Edwin Pond Parker II in 1917.  Despite her unhappy formative years, or perhaps because of them, she went on to become one of America's best known writers and critics, and a founding member of the famous Algonquin Round Table literary group.

In the meantime, Thomas Henry Wheeler had paid Rothschild $62,500 for the house--a mere $2,500 more than Rothschild had originally paid.  Wheeler was a vice-president with the Standard Oil Company, having been one of the firm's founders.  He had married Celia Roberts, "an accomplished musician, excelling as an organist," as described by The New York Herald, in 1872.

Like several other Standard Oil executives, Wheeler had relocated his family from Ohio.  The couple had four children, daughters Leita, Stella and Mary Louise; and son Ernest.

Celia slipped into Manhattan society, involving herself in charitable works like the Jennie Clarkson Home for Destitute Children.  When a benefit concert was held in the Waldorf-Astoria in January 1905, Celia's name appeared on the list of patronesses along with socialites like Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Helen Miller Gould and Mrs. Harry J. Luce.

On April 25, 1905 Leita married Lieutenant Charles Preston Nelson of the United States Navy in the Marble Collegiate Church.  It was an impressive ceremony, with the ushers in naval dress uniforms.  Following the wedding, a reception was held in the 72nd Street house.

Nelson had graduated from Annapolis in 1898.  He was already recognized for his roles during the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars.  But his action during World War I would make him a darling of the press.  Commanding a fleet of submarine chasers, he earned the nickname "Daredevil Nelson" and eventually rose to the rank of Rear Admiral.

But before any of that happened, it would be Mary Louise's turn to marry.  In April 1908 she became Mrs. William Thompson Dewart in the same church where Leita had been wed.  The New York Times description of the bride hinted at the family's upscale lifestyle.  "Miss Wheeler is a musician, an equestrienne and an accomplished linguist." Once again a reception was held in the Wheeler townhouse.

Dewart was vice president of the Frank A. Munsey Company, publishers of periodicals like Munsey's Magazine, and nearly a score of newspapers, including the New York Daily News, the Washington Times, and The Boston Journal.  He was, as well, president of the Mohican Company, a department store firm formed with his boss Frank A. Munsey.

Thomas H. Wheeler owned the luxurious yacht, the Empress, and the family maintained a "villa" named War-Winett, on Win-Net Island in the fashionable Thousand Islands district.   Their names appeared in society columns routinely for their entertaining both upon the yacht and in the summer home.

On December 15, 1919 Leita may have shocked society when she divorced her well-known husband.   Two months later, on February 25, she and Henry George Pearce, a Philadelphia steel executive, obtained a marriage license. 

Despite her marriage to a millionaire steelman, Leita would always be linked to Daredevil Nelson.  The New York Herald, March 14, 1920 (copyright expired)

The couple was married in the apartment of Mary Louise and William Dewart in the Apthorp Apartments.  The Times noted that the "wedding was a very small one, the bride's only child, Miss Leita Nelson, aged 13, being one of the guests."  Like the other newspapers reporting on the wedding, The Times could not help adding "her first husband, Captain Charles Preston Nelson, commander of submarine chasers in the United States Navy, [is] known as 'Daredevil' Nelson."

No. 214 West 72nd Street was the scene of an elaborate dinner and reception on May 21, 1922 in celebration of the Wheelers' golden wedding anniversary.  The New York Herald remarked that "Some of those present had crossed the continent for the occasion, others coming from distant cities."

An orchestra played during dinner, "which was served at small tables," according to the article.  The wealthy guests had, of course, provided expensive tributes; and The Herald mentioned one in particular.  "Many gifts had been sent by relatives and friends, including a table service of gold and other ornaments."

Among those in the house that night was the Wheelers' granddaughter, Leita Nelson, now 16-years old.  Two months later she and her mother were staying with the Wheelers at War-Winett.  Also at Thousand Islands that summer was the May family, described by The Times as "socially prominent in Philadelphia."  The Mays, who had a 20-year old son, William, and the Pearces were good friends.  The close relationship let to a romance between Leita and William; one which both families objected to "because of the youth of Miss Nelson and William."

On the night of July 25 everyone attended a dance at the Thousand Island Club.  When it ended, Leita could not find her daughter.  It was soon evident that William May was also missing.  Leita called John M. Gibbons, attorney for the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, who went to the garage where the May family's vehicles were kept and found William's speedster was gone.

Major Daniel Chandler, a friend of the Wheelers and an organizer of the New York State Police, was notified.  While troopers watched the roadways for the car, the Canadian Pacific Railroad was called.  Gibbons had heard at the garage that the runaways had asked directions to Montreal.

Just before dawn the following morning, the roadster was spotted just outside of Montreal.  Leita, Mary Louise, and a friend, Mrs. J. Christie headed off to Monreal to "have a talk" with the younger Leita.  Once again, in reporting on the elaborate process that led to upsetting the elopement, newspapers brought up the colorful and heroic Nelson.  "Her father [is] Captain Juggie Nelson, U. S. N., who was decorated by Italy, France and England during the war," noted The Times.

By the time Thomas Henry Wheeler died in 1926, West 72nd Street, once among the most exclusive of Upper West Side thoroughfares, had been heavily changed by commerce.   Two years later No. 214 was converted to a store at ground level, offices on the second floor, and eight "non-housekeeping apartments" (meaning they had no kitchens), on each floor above.  Only the three upper floors of the facade were left relatively untouched.

The address, once home to two wealthy families and their staffs of servants, would never again appear in society columns.  It would have one more recognized resident, however.  Gerard Alphenaar had been organist in St. Bavo Cathedral in Haarlem in his native Holland and a guest conductor of European orchestras.  He and his wife, Beatrice, immigrated to New York City in the 1930s.

In 1940 he became organist at the West End Collegiate Church.  Four years later he became director of the concert department at the Edward B. Marks Music Corporation on West 52nd Street as well.  By the early 1960s the couple was living at No, 214 West 72nd Street.

On Sunday, February 7, 1965 Alphenaar had just completed playing a service in a Bronx church when he suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 65.

Today the Rothschild house, where one of America's best known writers and brilliant wits spent her early years, has a nail salon and a massage studio in the lower two floors.  The end of the road for the only surviving house of Boylan's 1893 row, however, is on the near horizon.  In December 2017 plans were filed for a 21-story mixed use building proposed to rise 219 feet above Broadway and 72nd Street.

photographs by Sean Khorsandi

Forgotten Squalor -- The Lost 29 and 29-1/2 Cornelia St

No. 29 included the house (right) and store.  Little 29-1/2 was a store with "sleeping apartment" above.  Pictured here in 1900, they would survive only two more years.  photograph Early New York Houses, (copyright expired)

In 1794 a road was laid out on the Herring Farm (named for the family, not the fish) near the village of Greenwich.  It separated the plots inherited by the Herring daughters Sarah, who had married Dr. Gardiner Jones, and Cornelia, the wife of Samuel Jones.  The new lane was christened Cornelia Street.

As Greenwich Village developed Dr. Gardiner Jones sold twenty building lots to Charles Oakley, “merchant,” for $8,000 on October 5, 1819—a reasonable $151,000 in today’s dollars for the rural land.  Oakley built a few structures along Cornelia Street and struggled to make a financial go of it.  His small house at No. 29 was leased in quick succession in the 1830s to working class families.  Henry Cooper, a carter, was here in 1834; Peter D. Demarest, another carter, a year later; and Nathaniel Voorhis, grocer, lived in the house in 1839.

The turnover continued in 1841 when tailor Samuel Hirst listed his address at No. 29, and a year later when Martin Branagan, who earned his living as a baker, lived here.   That year was the end of the line for Oakley’s ownership and for the wooden house at No. 29 Cornelia.  According to historian William Smith Pelletreau in 1900, Oakley lost all the Cornelia Street property in foreclosure to the East River Mutual Insurance Company in 1842.

Builder David Bebell purchased the lots on April 25, 1843 for $3,300.  He replaced Oakley’s structures with modest homes; some with storefronts at street level.  Rather than construct brick-faced Greek Revival homes like the dozens that were appearing throughout Greenwich Village, Bebell erected frame houses “of a very cheap grade,” as described by Pelletreau.  As he explained “This part of the city was never fashionable nor inhabited by families of wealth and respectability.  As lots were sold cheap they were bought by a cheap class of people and small and squalid houses were erected.”

In fact, the surrounding neighborhood was one of wooden structures and indigent residents.  The nearby Minetta Lane was by now the center of the city’s black population (slavery had been outlawed in New York in 1827).  Its houses could be sympathetically called “humble” or realistically, as described later by reformer Jacob Riss, “vile rookeries.”

Bebell divided the two lots at Nos. 27 and 29.  He expanded No. 29 across the property line, creating a small house with an adjoining store, one and a half lots wide.  The remaining plot became No. 29-1/2 Cornelia Street, a small store with a sleeping room for the proprietor above.   In the rear were two additional wooden houses.

Pelleatreau described the buildings in 1900 saying “The monstrous chimneys, which seem out of all proportion to the houses, are reminders of the time when wood was used almost exclusively for fuel, and the huge fire places in which it was consumed still remain.  These houses are probably a fair sample of the cheapest kind of dwellings in Old New York.”

The wide proportions of No. 29 provided housing for several residents.  In 1846 Henry Demott, a carpenter, and his son John, a carman, lived here along with shoemaker George Stanley, Lewis A. Dean, a “staircaser,” and carpenter Jacob A. Cole.  The Demotts and Dean were still in the house in 1849.

Rather surprisingly, the unmarried Harriet Kirtland took a room in the house in 1853.  She taught at Primary School No. 8 at No. 23 King Street.  Her need to find cheap accommodations is explained by her salary.  That year she earned $50—about $1,500 today.

Next door at No. 29-1/2, James Burns ran a grocery store in 1860.  He lived in what The New York Times referred to as the “sleeping apartment” on the second floor.   His stock was estimated to be worth about $150 and he had insured it for $500 with the Hamilton Insurance Company.

Between 5:00 and 6:00 on the morning of April 9, 1860, fire broke out below the stairs leading to his room.  Even in the days before scientific forensic fire investigation, the volunteer fire fighters were quickly on to Burns’ scheme.

“The fire was quickly put out,” reported The Times, “when an investigation developed the fact that several bundles of kindling-wood, upon which Camphene had been poured, had been placed where the fire was discovered.”  Burns was arrested on suspicion of “having made the incendiary attempt.”

Burns was held on $1,000 bail.  He contacted Stephen H. Chase to provide his bond.    Chase gave as security the property at No. 134 2^nd Street, valued at $11,000.  He later appeared before the court for another client, this time giving his name as Stephen H. Chapin.  And once again he offered the 2^nd Street property as bond.  This time the ruse did not work.  Had Chase checked his own story, he would have discovered the property belonged to a policeman.

 “It having transpired that the real estate in question belongs to Police Capt. Hart, Chase was committed for trial on a charge of perjury,” reported The New York Times on May 7.  In the meantime, James Burns pleaded guilty to setting his grocery store on fire.

This photograph of the corner of Cornelia Street and Sixth Avenue reflects the squalid conditions of the neighborhood.  photo by George F. Arata from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/Collection/%5BJunction%20of%20Cornelia%20Street,%206th%20Avenue%20and%204th%20Street.%5D-2F3XC5IW1KW7.html

Working class residents came and went at No. 29.  Gasfitter Bernard Macgovern was here in 1860.  Two years later G. Post was living here when he was drafted into the Union Army; and in 1865 shoemaker George Riegler called No. 29 home.  In the ramshackle building behind No. 29 the impoverished Lucas family lived in 1869.  On March 14 that year The Times reported “Henry Lucas, a child, died suddenly yesterday, in rear of No. 29 Cornelia-street.  Coroner Keenan was notified.”

Forty-one year old John Leahy operated the grocery store by 1876.  He identified himself in city directories over the next few years as “milk,” “butcher,” and “grocer.”  A widow, Mary Skelton, had moved into No. 29 that year.  Within the next few months she would be joined by two other widows named Mary—Mary Wilde and Mary Wind.  It is difficult to imagine the lives of the three women, with little means of support, in their meager rooms.

By 1884 George Pfeiffer had opened his cobbler shop in No. 29-1/2.  It was the scene of trouble on November 17 that year.  According to The New York Times, “George Pfeiffer, an industrious shoe-maker, of No. 29-1/2 Cornelia-street, has a son Otto, 21 years of age, who is an idle, shiftless fellow, and who has been for several years a source of trouble and annoyance to his parents.”

On that Monday night, Otto came into his father’s store drunk and rowdy.  “Pfeiffer ordered his unruly son to leave the place, but the youth refused, assaulted his father, and drawing a pocket knife threatened to kill him,” said the newspaper.   A nearby patrolman named Taylor came to Pfeiffer’s rescue.  But when he arrested Otto, he neglected to disarm him.

“When the officer got his prisoner into the street the latter attacked him furiously with the knife, and in endeavoring to stab him cut his uniform coat in several places.”  Otto may have regretted his aggression on the policeman.  “The officer was compelled to resort to violent measures to overpower and disarm the youthful ruffian,” reported The Times.

George Pfeiffer lodged a complaint against his son who was sent to prison for six months “for his future good behavior.”

The shoe shop was once again operated as a grocery, run by M. O’Brien, on April 18, 1891 when a small fire broke out at 8:53 p.m.  The blaze was quickly extinguished with little damage.

Theodore Brown was living in No. 29 in 1895 when he was in an accident.  Charles Gallagher introduced him to a lawyer who could handle his case.  Realizing that Brown was low on funds, the4 scheming Gallagher offered him a proposition.    Brown could make money as a paid witness in other cases.

According to Brown later, “Gallagher asked him to act as a witness for Domenici Delli Bori, who had been struck by a Third avenue cable car at 118^th street.  He also asked him to secure another witness.”  If he would perform this perjury, Gallagher would pay him and guarantee to have his own case settled.

The Sun reported later, on December 8, 1898, that Gallagher provided Brown with “a typewritten account of the Delli Bori accident, which he learned and also taught to a friend who was, as Gallagher insisted he should be, respectably dressed, so as to make a good appearance in court.  Both testified in the case, which was decided by Judge Dugro against the complainant.”

A year after the first perjury, in 1896, Gallagher came to Brown again “to get a witness to give testimony in the case of McNeil against the Metropolitan Street Railway Company.”   Again Brown abetted Gallagher in his plot.   In December 1898, when The Sun ran the headline “Ambulance Chaser Arrested,” referring to Charles Gallagher, Theodore Brown was still living in the Cornelia Street house.

By now the social reform movement was underway.  This section of Greenwich Village was a focal point for those who sought to rid the city of its slums and to erect healthful, safe housing for the impoverished.  The derelict Cornelia Street buildings would not survive much longer.

On August 24, 1900 the New-York Tribune reported that Nos. 29 and 29-1/2, along with the two- and three-story buildings in the rear, were to be sold at auction.   The owner, Nathaniel Niles, owed an unbelievable $20,923.40 on the properties.

photograph by the author

In 1902 the dilapidated but quaint wooden buildings were razed.  A year later the modern apartment house designed by William H. Boylan was completed. It survives, somewhat altered, today.  The wretched history of charming Cornelia Street has long ago been forgotten.