The Jacob Herrlich & Sons Building - 332 East 86th Street

photo by Ted Leather

Early in 1885, developer Gotthold Haug completed construction of three "four-story stone front flats," as described by the Real Estate Record & Guide, at 332 through 336 East 86th Street.   Their openings sat within pronounced architrave neo-Grec-style frames and bracketed cornices with paneled friezes crowned their facades.

On November 15, 1898, Jacob and Christine Ruth Herrlich purchased 332 East 86th Street for $16,150 (about $630,000 in 2025 terms).  The following month, on December 31, The New York Times reported that Herrlich had contracted architect Charles Stegmayer to make renovations.  

The alterations converted the ground floor to a commercial space.  It was originally home to the Yorkville Court (or headquarters) of the I.O.F. (the Independent Order of Foresters).  But by 1905, the Jacob Herrlich & Bros'. Funeral Parlors occupied the space.

Jacob Herrlich had opened his funeral operation in 1875.  Living above the funeral home with Jacob and Christina were sons August Jacob and Philip C.  August was made a commissioner of deeds in 1906, a civil service position similar to a notary public.

Other tenants in the building at the time were William Wheeler, a tile-layer, and his mother; and Caroline A. Wieler who, like August Jacob Herrlich, applied for a civil service job in 1909.  But her application for Typewriter Accountant was denied.  The minutes of the Municipal Civil Service Commission of July 14, 1909, said, "It appeared that the candidate had been disqualified for placing the examination number on her papers."  Caroline appealed, submitting a statement that "the error was unintentional and made with no thought of revealing her identity."  Upon consideration, the commission granted her papers for examination.

Jacob Herrlich died in 1907 and by 1910, the business was renamed Jacob Herrlich's Sons.  Philip and August Herrlich made renovations to the building in 1923, resulting in the funeral parlor on the ground and second floors, and one apartment each on the third and fourth.  The Herrlich brothers and their families were now the only occupants of the building.

Jacob Herrlich & Sons was the scene of notable funerals over the decades.  Annie White Strathern's funeral was held here in October 1920.  Never married, she devoted her life to social work and was a teacher and social worker for 55 years, 43 of those working with the Children's Aid Society.  She spent every summer vacation at the fresh air branches of that society.  In 1908 she organized the Mothers' Helpers' Association, which trained young girls in domestic science.

Another notable funeral was that of Police Sergeant Herman R. Blohm, held here on August 23, 1922.  Blohm had taken his family on vacation to Highland Lake.  The previous summer his family "were annoyed by rattlesnakes," according to The Evening World, so this year Blohm left his service pistol home "and bought a vest pocket automatic," to deal with the reptiles.

On August 20, Blohm and his wife headed to the lake.  He saw and killed a rattle snake on the way.  Uncustomed to the new weapon, he forgot to adjust the safety catch.  The Evening World said, "The trigger caught on his trousers and the weapon was discharged."  His funeral here was crowded with police.

A Nazi parade marched past the Jacob Herrlich & Sons building on October 30, 1937.  A prominent blade sign identifies the funeral home.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Perhaps none of the funerals attracted more public attention than that of Krao Farini, known as the "bearded lady," the "missing link," and the "ape-woman" of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.  

Born in Laos in 1876, Krao was afflicted with what today is known as hypertrichosis--an abnormal amount of hair growth.  She and her parents were captured by explorer Carl Bock during an expedition in 1881.  Bock put her on exhibition in 1882 as an example of the missing link between apes and humans.  By the 1920s, she lived in Brooklyn and when not on exhibition with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, she wore a heavy veil in public.

Krao Farini, cabinet card by Obermuller & Son, around 1890.

Krao died from influenza on April 16, 1926.  Her funeral was held here on April 18.  The New York Times reported on the service, spattering the article with callous descriptions of the mourners.  It described Carrie Holt as "the fat lady," and said Jim Tarver, the "Texas Giant" had "to bring his own chair."  The article said, "Victoria Anderson, 'leopard girl' with the spotted hair and skin, cried a bit as she looked at Krao for the last time."  Krao Farini had requested that her body be cremated to preclude her corpse becoming a post-mortem freak attraction.

Philip C. Herrlich died in his apartment on April 8, 1926 at the age of 53.  In reporting his death, The Casket and Sunnyside called him "one of the most widely known members of the profession in Greater New York, and a power in the State and local associations."

A coat of white paint covered the brownstone in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

August Jacob Herrlich continued the family business.  At mid-century, the firm merged with Frank E. Campbell Funeral Church, and after occupying the space for half a century, left East 86th Street.  By 1954, it was home to the office of attorney Richard E. Bauman.

In the summer of 1968, the seafood restaurant Brigadoon opened here.  Food critic Craig Claiborne of The New York Times said on August 30, "As to the decor and table service, there isn't a lot to praise in this recently opened fish and seafood house."  He deemed the fish, however, "impressive."

The venture was short lived.  It was replaced by Alda's Ristorante in 1970.  The restaurant offered "heartwarming Italian cuisine," according to its advertisement in Gourmet magazine that year.  The end of Alda's Risatorante came 15 years later when the owners were caught selling heroin in addition to pasta.

The former funeral home space continued to see a turn-over of occupants.  Christine Polish Restaurant was here in 1987, replaced by Pasta Vicci in 1989, and the following year The Well Bred Pedigree, a pet shop, was here.  Most recently, a hair-removal clinic occupies the space.

At some point the white paint was carefully removed from the brownstone facade, returning the upper floors to its 1895 appearance.

many thanks to reader Ted Leather for suggesting this post.

Robert Maynicke's 1906 Yorkville Bank -- 1511 Third Avenue

 

image via realestate.union-investment.com

Reinhold Van Der Emde was born in Germany on March 17, 1842.  After studying the pharmaceutical trade in Switzerland, he arrived in New York City in 1869.  The New York Times later said he, "got a position in Dietel's drug store.  He was thrifty, and soon started a business of his own on the Bowery."

Van Der Emde's drugstore thrived.  In 1893, he and Richard H. Adams founded the Yorkville Bank, erecting a building on the northeast corner of Third Avenue and 85th Street within the neighborhood that was greatly populated by German and Hungarian immigrants.  Reinhold Van Der Emde became the bank's president.  The New York Times recalled in 1909, "The institution was successful from the first."

So successful was the Yorkville Bank, in fact, that on July 30, 1904, the Record & Guide reported, "Robert Maynicke...is preparing plans for the new building to be erected by the Yorkville Bank."  (Van Der Emde's choice of the architect may have been slightly influenced by the fact that Maynicke was also German-born.)  He filed plans on January 7, 1905 for the $125,000 structure (about $4.47 million in 2024).  

The project moved fast.  On the same day of the Record & Guide's article, The Evening Post reported, "On Monday next the bank will be moved temporarily to Eighty-third Street and Third Avenue," and a month later, on February 4, the Record & Guide announced, "The old buildings are now being demolished and excavating will begin next week."

The new Yorkville Bank building was completed within ten months and its doors were opened on December 18, 1905.  Maynicke had produced a handsome Italian Renaissance banking palazzo of four floors.  A graceful arcade ran along the sidewalk, its tall arched openings separated by full-height pilasters.  A prominent intermediate cornice introduced the upper floors.  Maynicke carried on the Renaissance motif by treating the openings with terra cotta pediments, classical metopes between the third- and fourth-floor windows, and dentils below the stone cornice.

It appears that Van Der Emde gave Maynicke input.  On June 10, 1909, The Pharmaceutical Era wrote, "The bank's new building at Third avenue and 85th street, which is generally looked upon as a model for banking houses, was designed under the direction of Mr. van der Ende."

The upper floor offices were leased, mostly, to real estate and legal firms.  Among the first were realtors Nathan H. Weil, Arthur G. Muhlker, here in 1906, and the F. Dornberger Realty Co., which moved in in August 1909.

The F. Dornberger Realty Co. was headed by Frederick Dornberger.  Between 1:30 and 2:00 on the morning of October 11, 1910, he exited the subway at Eighth Avenue and 110th Street.  Dornberger witnessed a woman going through the pockets of an elderly, intoxicated man within the hansom cab sitting at the curb.  He demanded she stop.  Dornberger told a judge a few hours later, "She told me to 'beat it while my shoes were good and mind my own business.'"  

When the realtor continued to interfere with her larceny, she stabbed him with her hatpin, which pierced his cheek and tongue.  She then told the cabbie to drive as fast as he could.  Undeterred, Dornberger jumped into another cab, told the driver to follow her, all the while yelling, "Stop, thief!"

The commotion caught the attention of Patrolman Boylan who stopped the vehicles and took everyone in.  The next morning Lillian Harrison, described by The Sun as, "a handsomely gowned, golden-haired woman," and Dornberger faced off in the Harlem Court.  (The Sun noted, "the old man had promised to appear, but he failed to do so.)  Although Lillian denied the charges and the would-be victim was not in court, The Sun reported, "Magistrate Breen, however, was impressed so by Dornberger's story that he held her in $1,600 bail."

Reinhold Van Der Emde died in 1909.  August Zinsser, Jr. replaced him as president and continued the bank's policy of serving the mostly German neighborhood.  On February 27, 1910, for instance, The New York Times reported that the bank had partnered with Public School 77 in an innovative program.  The school formed a bank run by schoolboys.  Pupils made deposits and withdrawals "and even promissory notes are dealt with," said the article.  Zinsser was "a prime factor in establishing the right principles," said the article.  And when a student's bank account reached $5, it was transferred to the Yorkville Bank where it began receiving interest.

On September 22, 1922, The New York Times reported that the bank had purchased the 25-foot-wide, three-story building at 1515 Third Avenue.  Architect P. Gregory Stadler was hired to extend the bank building to the north and east.  His alterations, completed in 1924, honored Maynicke's design, resulting in nearly seamless additions.

An announcement of the merger of the Manufacturers Trust Company with three other banks, including the Yorkville Bank was published in the New York Evening Post on June 2, 1925.  It described the Yorkville Bank, "For many years the financial center of the great Yorkville District of Upper Manhattan."

At the time of the merger, Ernest Wolkwitz had been an employee of the Yorkville Bank since 1892, when he was hired as a clerk.  By now he had risen to vice-president.  He retained his title and was given charge of the branch here.  The new responsibilities may have been too much for him, and on July 1, 1927, he retired "on account of ill health," according to The New York Times.  At the time, he was being treated "for a nervous affliction."

Wolkwitz and his wife, Minna, lived in a ninth-floor apartment at 115 East 90th Street.  On the afternoon of November 21, 1927, Minna went shopping.  When she returned, she found Wolkwitz's body hanging "from a pipe in the bathroom of his apartment," according to The Times.

image from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Twenty-two year old Patricia Ann Ryan was a teller in the Manufacturers Trust Co. branch in 1956 when she faced a terrifying incident.  On August 15, a man walked up to her counter and handed her a note that said in part that he had "nitro enough on me to blow all us up."  It seems, however, that this was the skittish bank robber's first heist.  The Citizen Register of Ossining, New York reported, "Before Miss Ryan had time to hand him any money, the man panicked, turned and ran."

Among the upstairs tenants in the late 1950s were the offices of the New York National Enquirer.  In 1974, a medical laboratory took over the entire third floor.  The bank left the ground floor in 1991.  A renovation in 2018 resulted in a retail store on the first floor and a health club on the upper floors.  Happily, Maynicke's striking 1906 design remains almost totally intact, including the graceful arcade of the first floor.

image via NYC.gov

Soon To Go - the 1886 York Hotel - 222-224 East 86th Street

photo by Beyond My Ken

By 1880 the Yorkville neighborhood was no longer a sleepy suburb.  Development following the Civil War was hastened by the opening of the Third Avenue elevated in 1878 and the Second Avenue line in 1879.  On June 15, 1882, Joseph Murray paid the extravagant sum of $10,000 for the 34-foot-wide, three-story wooden house at 222 East 86th Street (the price would translate to $307,000 in 2024).

Three years later, in March 1885, the Health Department approved the "plans for light and ventilation" for a new flat building at 222-224 East 86th Street.  Completed early in 1886, its Queen Anne design was rigidly balanced--a departure from the style's normally asymmetrical form.  Two storefronts flanked the residential entrance.  The upper section, faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone, featured brawny arched windows at the second floor, and a pair of prominent copper gables that fronted a paneled parapet.

A center stair hall separated 222 and 224 and residents were listed at either address.  Described as a "first class, well kept apartment house," each of its apartments held four rooms.

Among the initial tenants of 224 East 86th Street were Byron W. Anderson and his wife Lucette.  Living with them was Lucette's widowed mother, Elizabeth Wall, who had a fascinating history.

Born Elizabeth Thompson in Freehold, New Jersey in 1798, her father, according to The New York Times, "was a German slaveholder."  The newspaper noted, "His house at Monmouth was Washington's headquarters when the famous battle was fought."  An "intellectual girl and of singular beauty," Elizabeth married Major William Wall.  When he died in 1856, he left Elizabeth with 10 children and "a handsome pension."

Fond of knitting, Elizabeth would often walk to Central Park and sit on a bench where she knitted socks that she would offer to policemen or laborers.  But it appears she also shows signs of what today we would recognize as early dementia.  Lucette wrote "Anderson, No. 224 East Eighty-sixth-street" on a slip of paper and tucked it into her mother's bag.  The New York Times explained she "feared that some day her mother would lose her way or be taken sick."

On September 20, 1886, The Boston Globe began an article saying, 

For many seasons the old lady with the knitting has been a familiar figure in Central Park.  All the policemen and laborers knew her by sight, but were ignorant of her name and residence...Selecting a shady bench in some retired nook the old lady took her knitting from the reticule and worked industriously until the afternoon was far spent. 

The day before the article, Charles McGlone, a park watchman, "saw a woman's body floating close to the western wall of the North basin."  He and an assistant removed the body.  The article said, "it was the 'old lady with the knitting.'"

The family had been searching for Elizabeth for hours and Byron W. Anderson identified his mother-in-law's body at the morgue.  While The Boston Globe attributed her death to "mental weakness, the result of advanced age," Anderson was not so sure.  He told a reporter from The New York Times, "to get to the reservoir basin she would have had to scale a fence which it was no easy task for an able-bodied man to get over."  The article said, "He scouted the idea of foul play."

Another early tenant was Mrs. Katherine Bassett, who taught German in Grammar School No. 37 on East 87th Street.  Katharine was most likely a widow, since, for the most part, only unmarried women taught in public schools.

Traveling salesman Oscar Hammerslough and his wife lived here by 1897.  The couple was married in 1893 and their domestic life was already troubled.  The New York Herald said on June 27, 1897, "Mrs. Hammerslough, who is twenty-seven years old and an attractive brunette, is said by her husband to have a passion for drink."

On the morning of June 22, Hammerslough gave his wife $20 for shopping before leaving on a sales trip.  When he returned home three days later, she was gone.  With two detectives, he found her in the home of Laura Johnson and Elisha Brewer, described by the New York Herald as "colored."  The article said Mrs. Hammerslough was intoxicated.

In court, Mrs. Hammerslough explained, according to the New York Herald, "that she had gone to a house to get some washing, and that she had been given something to drink by the colored man.  She denied that the man had assaulted her."  Laura Johnson testified that Mrs. Hammerslough came to her house at 11:00 that morning to get her laundry, that she asked to be allowed to sit down, "as she did not feel well," and that Laura had left her alone with Brewer.

Oscar Hammerslough told the judge he would apply for permission to have his wife committed to a private sanitarium.  She pleaded with him, "This will kill me.  Let me go, and I will go to my sister's."  The article said, "But her husband, who was standing close to her, turned his back and would not pay any attention to her.  He said afterward that he was going to apply for a divorce."

Interestingly, at the turn of the century the building was racially mixed.  Among the black tenants were the Robert W. Carter family.  Their movements were closely followed by the society columnists of The New York Age.  On September 28, 1905, for instance, it reported, "Mrs. R. W. Carter of 222 East 86th street, who has been seriously ill for four weeks, is able to be out again," and the following year, on October 25, the newspaper announced, "Mrs. Robert Brown of Manassas, Va., left for home last Saturday after paying a six weeks' visit to her daughter, Mrs. Robert Carter, of 222 East 86th street."

For some reason, Robert W. Carter lived apart from his family, only occasionally visiting.   On April 25, 1907, The New York Age reported, "after making a ten days' visit in different parts of Virginia, [he] spent the remainder of his vacation with his family.  He left for Boston on Sunday, April 21."  And on April 23, 1908, the newspaper reported, "Mr. R. W. Carter, of Brookline Mass., is spending two weeks in the city with Mrs. Carter and his daughter, Beatrice, at his house, 222 East 86th street."

No mention was made of the Carters' son, Myron L. Carter, in that article.  Eight months earlier, his name had appeared in newspapers for a a hideous crime.  On August 8, 1907, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that "Myron L. Carter, a mulatto, 19 years old, of 222 East Eighty-sixth street" had been arrested for the murder of eight year old Katie Tretschler.  The article recounted that she "was found strangled and outraged [i.e., raped] in the cellar of 203 First avenue" on August 1.

By 1917, State Senator Robert Ferdinand Wagner and his wife, the former Margaret Marie McTague, lived at 224 East 86th Street.  Born in Prussia in 1877, Wagner was elected to the State Assembly in 1905 and to the State Senate in 1909.  He was Acting Lieutenant Governor of New York from October 17, 1913 to December 31, 1914.

Robert F. Wagner, from the collection of the Library of Congress

Wagner left the Senate in 1918 to serve as a justice of the New York Supreme Court.  He remained in the 86th Street apartment following Margaret's death in 1919.  Journalist Ada Patterson titled her article in the June 1921 issue of The New Success, "The Janitor's Son Who Became a Judge."  She began her article saying,

He lives in a comfortable home, with his ten-year-old son at 222 East Eighty-sixth Street, New York City.  His recreation is grand opera.  Once a week he goes to the Metropolitan Opera House, or he puts a Caruso or a Barrientos record on his victrola and the music is an aid to him as he reads or studies...Robert F. Wagner was a poor immigrant's son.  He arrived in this country when he was eight yeas of age--and he could not speak one word of English.  His father secured a job as janitor in an East Side apartment house.

Patterson attributed Wagner's success to hard work, determination, and academic excellence.  Six years after her article, he was elected to the United States Senate and would served until June 28, 1949, succeeded by John Foster Dulles.

A socially visible tenant was Mrs. Lucelle Shiloh.  On March 3, 1923, The New York Age reported on the "Martha Washington dinner dance" she hosted in her apartment "in honor of Mrs. M. Patillo Harper of New Rochelle" on February 22 (George Washington's birthday).  The article listed 17 guests, who must have experienced snug conditions in the four-room apartment.

On November 12, 1926, The New York Sun reported that the Joseph Murray estate had sold 222-224 East 86th Street.  The next year the second floor was converted to offices and the upper floors to "non-housekeeping" apartments, meaning they had no kitchens.  That year G. Lipksin & Son, violin dealers, moved its shop into the western store.  In reporting on the move on September 24, 1927, The Music Trade Review noted, "This firm is thirty-five years old and specializes in fine repairing."

John Szabo operated his travel agency from the other store in 1937.  He ran afoul of anti-Nazi groups in September that year when he displayed American flags along with posters advertising German Day.  He was summoned to appear in the Yorkville Court on September 13 to answer to charges by the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League and the German-American League for Culture of "misuse of the American flag."  

The cut-up apartments no longer housed well-to-do residents.  Among the tenants in the spring of 1940 was 28-year-old James Russell Osterman, an unemployed shoe salesman.  On March 9 that year, he applied for a job at the shoe store of William Shapiro at 1485 First Avenue.  When Shapiro turned him down, Osterman reacted violently, stabbing him fatally with a hunting knife.  Before Osterman could escape, according to The New York Times, Shapiro, "with his last strength, kicked out the plate glass window before he died."  It attracted a crowd of passersby, who trapped Osterman in the store.  Police found him "crouching in the rear of the store grasping a hunting knife," said the article.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By the third quarter of the 20th century, the building was known as the York Hotel, a squalid SRO.  The New York Times journalist Sarah Lyall called it "a single-room-occupancy hotel that was little more than a flophouse."  In 1992, the nonprofit group Postgraduate Center for Mental Health purchased the building with financial help from New York State.  The group announced plans to convert the building into a group home for 38 mentally ill people.  It's president, David Glazer, told Lyall, "it was small [and] so rundown that repairs could only be welcomed by the community."

There were only two tenants in the building when the Postgraduate Center purchased it.  One left after she was found an affordable new apartment and given $3,500 for expenses.  The other, Jerome Smith, refused to budge.  Smith, who owed nearly $40,000 in back rent since 1988, "has refused to leave even as his neighbors moved out, as the paint peeled away in strips, as the curtains turned from yellow to brown and the rats took over," Lyall reported on March 8, 1993.

Despite all incentives--including an apartment in the renovated building--Smith stayed on.  The city, concerned about tenants' rights, would not allow the Postgraduate Center to evict him, threatening to "deny the group permission to renovate the hotel" if they did.

Finally, after a 14-month standoff, Jerome Smith accepted a $10,000 payment for moving expenses and the forgiveness of the back rent.  On March 13, 1994, The New York Times reported, "After being blocked for a year and a half by a tenant who would not move out, work began last week on the decaying York Hotel at 222 East 86th Street."

The PCMH Residences provided apartments to mentally ill residents until 2022, when a demolition permit was issued for the building.  On January 3, 2023, Nick Garber, writing in Patch, opened an article saying, "A nearly 100-year-old [sic] Yorkville building, home since the 1990s to a mental health facility, will be demolished by its nonprofit owner."

photograph by the author

More than a year later, the striking Queen Anne style building survives, but its future is shaky at best.

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The August R. Zicha House - 516 East 87th Street

 

In 1874, real estate developer John Hillenbrand erected a long row of identical, Italianate style rowhouses on the south side of East 87th Street between East End and York Avenues.  Faced in brownstone, the 20-foot-wide homes were three stories tall above high English basements.  Robust stone stoop railings with urn-shaped balusters terminated in finial-capped newels.  The arched double-doored entrances sat below impressive pediments on scrolled brackets, and the floor-to-ceiling parlor windows most likely had cast iron balconies.

The title to 516 East 87th Street was held by Hillenbrand's wife, Elizabeth.  The couple initially leased the house.  Their first tenant, John Hunt, was here only a few months before his death at 73 on March 14, 1875.  The house was next leased to the Burns family, whose son Charles Henry was attending New York City College in 1878.

The Hillenbrands sold 516 East 87th Street on April 15, 1880 to William Arnold for $9,000 (about $266,000 in 2024).  He continued to lease it to the Burns family.

Annie M. Burns went shopping downtown on Broadway on May 12, 1881.  While making some purchases in a drygoods store, she laid her pocketbook on the counter, and it disappeared.  The New York Times reported, "It was found in Mrs. Conterno's pocket and returned after having been demanded twice."  Annie Conterno (who had wrapped a handkerchief around the pocketbook) proclaimed her innocence.

Annie Burns appeared in court on May 24 to face Annie Conterno and Pauline Vibert, who had been arrested as an accomplice.  Conterno took the stand in her own behalf after Mrs. Burns testified.  The New York Times reported,  

She said that the had forgotten her pocket  book previously in another store.  When Mrs. Vibert, therefore, gave her the pocket-book belonging to Mrs. Burns, saying. "That's twice you've for gotten your pocket-book,” she put it into her pocket without looking at it.  She denied that she had wrapped her handkerchief around it. 

Annie Burns told the court she did not want to press charges, "as she had reason to believe that the accused were respectable persons."  Justice Wandell was less charitable.  Grumbling, "I am instructed by my colleagues to discharge the accused," he did so with a formal dissent.

In September 1906, the house was purchased by August R. Zicha, a partner in the Cork & Zicha Marble Company and an officer in the Home Alliance Realty Company.  He was, as well, the secretary of the Czecho-Slavonian Fraternal Benefit Union.

By 1920, the name of the firm had been changed to the August R. Zicha Marble Company, Inc.  On December 11, the New-York Tribune ran the headline, "29 Stone Men Indicted as Anti-Trust Violators" and reported on the smashing of a price fixing "ring" that had rocked the industry.  Among those indicted were Henry Hanlein, "whose $2,372,000 limestone contract for the proposed new courthouse would have mulcted the city of close to $1,000,000;" Wright D. Goss, known as the "brick king;" and August R. Zicha.

Of the 29 company heads indicted, 19 were found guilty, including Zicha.  On December 24, 1921, the Record & Guide reported, "The prison terms were for six months to three years in the penitentiary, but will not be enforced at this time.  Each of the defendants will be released on a suspended sentence on payment of a fine."  Zicha got off with a $250 fine--equal to about $4,000 today.

Living with the family at the time was August Zicha's nephew, Joseph.  The 24-year-old was the victim of an ambush in the winter of 1921.  He had known Beatrice Dorsey "for some time."  She lived in Long Island City where the Zicha marble works were located.  On the evening of February 10, according to Zicha, Dorsey telephoned "and made an appointment to meet him."  Later that night, he walked her home and as they approached a secluded spot, Zicha was set upon by two teens.  The New-York Tribune reported, "the youths beat him when he refused to hold up his hands, and robbed him of his watch and $11."

As it turned out, Beatrice Dorsey had set up the ambush.  She and two 18-year-olds, Joseph Mascio and John Penno, were arrested on a charge of highway robbery.  (Beatrice was unable to make her $10,000 bail and was jailed.)  The newspaper reported, "The boys in court accused the girl of planning the holdup.  This she denied, and said she merely asked them to assist her in getting rid of the attentions of Zickla [sic]."

In 1930, Sibyl A. Scott, who also owned 514 East 87th Street next door, purchased the former Zicha house.  She removed the stoop and lowered the entrance to the basement level.  It appears she converted the interior to unofficial apartments.

516 East 87th Street originally matched its neighbor to the left.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Living here in 1951 were Marjorie and Edward O. Salant, along with Marjorie's adult twin children by her late husband Dr. Joseph J. Asch--Thane, who had served in the Air Force during the war, and Meadra.

In 1941, "when my job as a mother seemed to be nearing its end," as Marjorie worded it, she started taking courses at Columbia University.  Meadra began her music studies at Columbia in 1945, and the following year Thane enrolled in the university's pre-medical courses.  It all came together in 1951.

On February 8, the Columbia Daily Spectator reported, "A mother and her 23-year-old twins discovered last week while registering at Columbia's School of General Studies that they were classmates in the Senior Class."  The article said, "to their surprise" they found that "in adding their credits that they would all bring a diploma to their home at 516 East 87th street in June."

Living here in the mid-1970s were Jane S. and Charles Clay Dahlberg.  Married in 1959, the couple had four sons.  Charles Dahlberg was a psychoanalyst, described by Dr. Mark Blechner in Contemporary Psychoanalysis as "a maverick, known for tackling difficult and cutting-edge subjects."  Jane received her Ph.D. from New York University in 1964 and was the author of the 1966 The New York Bureau of Municipal Research.

In 2000, plans were filed for structural work described as being "for expansion of town house."  Once again a single-family home, a fourth floor was added and the 1874 details enhanced with architrave window frames.  The entrance was returned to the parlor level and given a sharply angled pediment.  The house received period-appropriate cornice and a coat of pink paint.  

photographs by the author

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The Joseph Hillenbrand's 508 East 87th Street

 

Joseph Hillenbrand was highly active in developing the Yorkville neighborhood in the 1870s.  In 1874 he purchased a large parcel on East 87th Street between East End and York Avenues from Bernard Havanagh for $36,000--a significant $995,000 in 2024.

Hillenbrand erected a long row of identical, brownstone-faced rowhouses on the plots.  Three stories tall above English basements, their pedimented, arched entrances sat above high brownstone stoops.  The windows wore molded cornices, and their handsome individual terminal cornices featured scrolled, foliate brackets and decorated panels.

No. 508 East 87th Street seems to have been operated as a boarding house from the beginning.  Listed here in 1876 were Samuel K. Brown and John D. Terry, both clerks.  Leopold Affelder, a toy merchant, lived here in 1879.  An advertisement in 1880 read, "To let cheap--Nicely furnished front and back parlor; also third floor, unfurnished.  508 East 87th st."

The Jacob Wick family rented rooms here in 1884.  Like Joseph Hillenbrand, Wick and his son were active in Yorkville real estate development.  In February that year, Jacob Wick Sr. hired architect John Brandt to design a "three story brown-stone front dwelling" on East 92nd Street.  The cost of its construction, equal to half a million in 2024 dollars, testifies to its high-end status.  

Five months later, The American Architect and Building News reported that Jacob Wick Jr. had received a building permit for a five four-story brick tenements with stores on First Avenue at the corner of 71st Street.  Like his father, he used the services of John Brandt.

Unmarried sisters, Minnie D. and E. L. Ryerson lived in the house from 1888 through 1890.  Minnie taught in the Primary Department of Grammar School No. 14 downtown on East 27th Street.  Her sister was the corresponding secretary of The Daughters of The King.  The monthly magazine Church Work described the group in 1889 as "a rapidly-growing church order of young women, corresponding to the St. Andrew's Brotherhood among men," noting, "Its sole aim is the spread of Christ's kingdom among young women."

Joseph J. Cassidy lived at 508 East 87th Street in the spring of 1908.  He was a clerk in the United Cigar Store in the Manhattan Hotel.  On Sunday morning April 5, he valiantly fought with three would-be thieves.  The Tobacco Leaf reported, "The daring attempt to rob was made at 8 a.m. while Mr. Cassidy was alone.  Although nearly beaten to death by a blackjack and a rubber covered club, the young clerk succeeded in capturing two of his assailants and in frightening the other away."

Cassidy suffered several scalp lacerations and his right thumb and left wrist were broken.  The article said, "Both eyes were blackened, and several of his teeth were knocked out."  When Dr. Hastings from Flower Hospital arrived, Cassidy insisted that he dress his wounds on site so he could continue minding the store.  Instead, he was transported to the hospital "against his will."  

The dramatic story caught the attention of the president of United Cigar Stores Co., who read about Cassidy's exploits the following morning.  The Tobacco Leaf said the firm's general superintendent, F. J. Rosenfeld, visited Cassidy at 508 East 87th Street and handed him a letter from vice-president H. S. Collins.  It expressed the company's gratitude and included a $1,000 check.

Michael Wirth lived here in 1926.  A carpenter, he was estranged from his wife, with whom he had eight children.  On August 29, he was convicted of non-support and sentenced to six months in the City Prison.  Considered a low threat and because of his carpentry skills, he was made a "trusty," which came with broad freedoms so he could work in different parts of the jail.  

With only weeks left on his sentence, on January 12, 1927, the Brooklyn Standard Union reported, "The body of Michael Wirth, 45 years old, of 508 East Eighty-seventh street, father of eight children, was found hanging from a beam in the cellar of the City Prison in Long Island City at 10:45 A.M. to-day by Keeper Eugene Carney."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Martin Kulmier, who lived here at the time, was affluent enough to afford a large automobile.  On the afternoon of April 5, 1927, he took another resident, 25-year-old Rose Raanes, to Queens where they picked up 41 year old Delicka Eugine.  Prohibition did not stop Kulmier from acquiring liquor.  The trio's partying, however, did not end well.

On April 6, the Brooklyn Daily Star reported, "Two women were injured at 6 o'clock last night when a touring car in which they were riding left the roadway and crashed into an electric light pole on Rock Hill Road."  Delika Eugine was cut on the cheek and Rose Raanes suffered contusions and a sprained back.  Kulmier was arrested, charged with driving while intoxicated.

In 1949, 508 East 87th Street was converted to a two-family home, with a triplex in the basement through second floor, and one apartment on the third.  A subsequent renovation completed in 1996 returned the house to a single family residence.

photograph by the author

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The James E. Dillon House - 510 East 87th Street

 

Born on June 25, 1842, Celinda Jane Porter had an impressive American pedigree.  She descended from Dr. Daniel Porter who arrived in Connecticut in the first half of the 17th century.  She married Henry C. Robinson, and when the couple moved into the newly-built house at 510 East 87th Street in Yorkville around 1872, they had three children, Henry Porter, Edith, and Irene.

The Italianate style house was one of a long row of identical, brownstone-clad homes on the south side of East 87th Street, between York and East End Avenues.  Three stories tall above an English basement, its arched, double-doored entrance featured a faceted keystone and an impressive pediment supported by scrolled brackets.  Prominent cornices sat above the upper story windows, and a cast metal cornice crowned the design.

A fourth child, Joseph Royal, was born in July 1874.  More than two decades earlier, on November 26, 1851, The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal had published an article by Dr. A. I. Cummings titled "Cholera Infantum."  It said in part, "Of all the diseases to which children, and especially infants, are liable, particularly in summer and the first months of autumn, cholera is by far the most fatal...It is the scourge of childhood."  Tragically, the affliction arrived at 510 East 87th Street.  On June 30, 1875, little Joseph Royal Robinson died of cholera infantum at the age of 11 months.  His funeral was held in the parlor on July 1.

No. 510 East 87th Street would have two more owners before the turn of the century.  By 1878, the Kelly family occupied the house.  Their children, Nathaniel C., Edward C., and Emma S. were all well-educated.  Nathaniel enrolled in Free Academy in 1878, followed four years later by his brother.  And Emma almost assuredly attended the Normal College, which prepared women for teaching.  In 1883, she taught in the Girls' Department of Grammar School No. 53 on East 79th Street.

John C. Betjeman purchased 510 East 87th Street on October 31, 1883 for $8,250 (just under $250,000 in 2024).  Following his death, his son, John Jr., sold the property to James E. and Mary J. Dillon on March 30, 1905.

Dillon was born in New York City in 1862 and joined the New York City Police Department on March 18, 1885.  Two years before purchasing the 87th Street house, he was promoted to captain.  A life-long member of the Irish-American Historical Society, he and Mary had ten children.

James E. Dillon, image via Sparrow Cop: Honest Jim Dillon and the Square Deal for New York.

One month after buying 510 East 87th Street, Dillon made headlines.  On April 20, 1905, The New York Times titled an article "Capt. Dillon Rescues Six."  At the time, Dillon was attached to the Central Park Precinct.  He was on his way home when he noticed smoke pouring from the apartment building at 415 East 86th Street.  As he ran in, he called to a pedestrian to turn in a fire alarm.  The article said in part:

As the Captain reached the top stair, he tripped over the body of Mrs. Carson.  She was picked up and carried to the street by firemen.  Capt. Dillon, pushing open the doors  of the Carson family rooms, found three children unconscious.  He carried them to the roof, where all were revived.

Returning he broke open the door leading to the rooms of Mrs. Mary Grigneen and her daughter Jennie, who had been ill for a month.  Both were lying on a bed unconscious, and he carried them to the roof.

Dillon was promoted to inspector in January 1907.  Only four years later he was elevated again.  On June 7, 1911, The New York Times reported he "was picked yesterday to be the first member of the uniformed police ever removed directly from the force to occupy a desk in Headquarters as Deputy Commissioner."  The article noted, "There is no more popular man in the department than Dillon...He has the reputation of being fair and capable."  With the promotion, his salary was raised to $6,000--a comfortable $191,000 by today's standards.

Dillon's new status within the Police Department exacted a quiet revenge on an old adversary.  Years earlier, while a roundsman (or patrolman), he had been disciplined for being absent from his post.  Dillon had been unjustly accused.  In April 1915, he told a reporter from the New-York Tribune, "I said that I would make the man responsible for it salute me, and I did, for before that man died I became his superior officer."

Two years later, on December 21, 1917, Dillon was promoted again.  Police Commissioner Arthur Woods resigned and named James E. Dillon to fill his position.  A month earlier, when the decision was announced, The Sun reported that the police force not only gave "three rousing cheers" for Wood and for Dillon, but "a lot of whoops for themselves in general in their joy of Mr. Wood's choice of a chief inspector to boss them."

Bouquets of congratulations were brought into Dillon's office.  He told a reporter, "Oh, I'll send 'em to the poor devils in the hospitals.  But first, of course, I'll have to have them carted up home so my lassie can see them."  At the time America was embroiled in World War I.  The article added, "Chief Inspector Dillon is the pardonably chesty father of ten young American citizens, two of whom wear the uniform of Uncle Sam's new army, while his lassies knit socks and sweaters for their brothers and their brothers' bunkies."

Around Christmas that year, Dillon was afflicted with a painful skin infection.  On January 3, 1918, The New York Times reported, "Police Inspector James E. Dillon was confined to his home at 510 East Eight-seventh street yesterday by an attack of erysipelas.  He will be unable to resume his duties for two weeks."  

While he was away from his desk, a new mayor, John Francis Hylan, was installed.  Like most new mayors, he made changes in personnel.  When Dillon returned to work, according to The New York Times on March 2, his temporary replacement, Inspector John Daly, "told Dillon that there was some question about the return of the Chief Inspector."  The article continued, "Dillon went at once to Commissioner Enright and on the same day called upon Mayor Hylan.  After several other visits to the Mayor and the Commissioner, it was announced that Chief Inspector Dillon would have a leave of absence for twenty days."

On March 1, 1918, the day before the leave of absence was to expire and less than three months after his promotion, Dillon retired.  The New York Times noted, "He had not served a day under the new administration."

The headstrong Irishman did not hold back when interviewed by the newspaper.  He said in part:

I was appointed Chief Inspector by Commissioner Woods and I'm very proud I was appointed by him.  I have known Commissioner Enright for many years and I hope he succeeds in this Police Department.  But I am very glad to get out, and I did ask for retirement, because it wasn't pleasant for me to stay.  They say that when a soldier is knocked unconscious by a shell over in the trenches, the rats run over his face.  You know I was a very sick man in January.  I wasn't able to stand up to fight for myself.

The New York Times concluded the article saying, "Inspector Dillon will enter the insurance business at once with his son at 11 Broadway."  Describing him as "fifty-five years old, of massive build and vigorous, the New York Herald noted that Dillon would receive a yearly pension of $3,000, or about $58,300 today.

As had been the case with Dillon and the policeman who wrongly accused him decades earlier, the enmity between him and Mayor Hyland simmered.  As elections neared in 1925, Dillon wrote an appeal "to members of the Police Department to vote for Senator Walker to 'drive Hylanism out of the Police Department'," according to The New York Times.  He got his jabs at Police Commissioner Richard E. Enright, as well, saying that under Hylan-Enright, "vice and gambling were not checked."

Enright fired back.  The New York Times quoted him on September 7, 1925, saying, "James E. Dillon, who will be remembered solely because he held the assignment and rank of Chief Inspector of this department for a shorter time than any other person who ever held the office, and who left the service not altogether of his own accord, is evidently trying to re-enter the department through the cellar."

The Dillons' summer home was in Belle Harbor Queens where, on October 9, 1925, James and Mary hosted a family reunion.  Eight of their children and spouses came.  "Mr. Dillon's twenty-two grandchildren were also present," said The New York Times.  The article explained, "A son, Lieutenant Joseph Dillon, a graduate of West Point, was unable to obtain leave from his post in Fort Ruga, Honolulu, and a married daughter living in Chicago was unable to make the trip."  As the children and grandchildren left, Dillon "bade them good-bye with an expression which he had in his long service in the police department made famous, 'Good-bye, good luck and God bless you.'," said article.

Four days later, Dillon left home for a meeting of the Arcanum Club.  In the early hours of the following morning, a patrolman wondered why the driver of an automobile stopped on First Avenue near 115th Street had kept his motor running so long and decided to investigate.  He discovered James E. Dillon dead.  His body was taken in his automobile to the stationhouse and word was sent to 510 East 87th Street.  Mary Dillon arrived shortly after with her son Raymond and they positively identified the body.  It appeared that Dillon had suffered a heart attack around midnight.

Dillon received an impressive police funeral on October 16.  The New York Times reported, "The procession from the house, 510 East Eighty-seventh Street, to the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, Eighty-fourth Street and Park Avenue, was headed by four automobiles filled with flowers, followed by the police band playing a funeral march, thirty companies of patrolmen comprising 320 men, 150 mounted policemen, ten Captains, twenty Lieutenants and twenty Sergeants, all under the command of Deputy Chief Inspector Coleman."

The Standard Union reported, "The funeral arrangements, so far as the Police Department was concerned, were among the most impressive and elaborate ever accorded to a member of the force," adding, "Hundreds of policemen and many firemen attended the funeral."

Dillon's exemplary service and fascinating story resulted in the 2016 book, Sparrow Cop: Honest Jim Dillon and the Square Deal for New York by Bernard Durning.

By the early years of the Great Depression, Joseph Weil owned the former Dillon house.  Perhaps his most colorful tenant in 1934 was Ellen Holmsen, who came from an affluent Southampton, Long Island family.  She rented what the New York Sun described as "a furnished room with a kitchenette" after leaving her husband M. Tilton Holmsen.  

Despite her family's social standing, Ellen's demeanor was considered shocking by some.  Early in September 1934, Ellen went to Reno to obtain a divorce.  She immediately caused a sensation there.  Describing her as "a slender attractive blonde," on September 20, The New New York Sun reported, "She has attracted considerable attention on the streets of Reno since she arrived here.  In shorts and shirt, she is seen daily astride a bicycle."

The windows of the rooming house were open in the summer heat when this photo was taken in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

It was too much for head waiter Les Lerude of the Wigwam Restaurant.  According to Ellen Holmsen, she was "virtually chased out of the restaurant" by an "unbelievably rude chief waiter."  She said his "views of modesty and morality" did not jibe with hers.  The United Press interviewed Lerude, who explained "Mrs. Holmsen entered the establishment minus shoes and stockings and attired only in men's shorts and a shirt."  He continued, "Her conduct was provoking.  She insisted on carrying on a flirtation with men who ordinarily wouldn't give her a tumble, except for her efforts to attract them with near nudity."

Ellen was equally critical of the waiter.  "It just so happens that I come from one of New York's very best families...but even if he doesn't know a lady when he sees one, no decent creature would treat another one in such a way."  She called Lerude "just a prude" and described herself as "a modern, up-to-date girl with no use for old-fashioned convention."

Despite being operated as a rooming house for a period, 510 East 87th Street was never officially converted to apartments.  It is externally nearly unchanged since the Robinson family moved in a century and a half ago.

photographs by the author

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