The 1831 Hamilton-Holly House - 4 St. Mark's Place

A retail doorway replaces a parlor window, the once-elegant Federal entrance now has security doors, and the bowed cast iron balcony is long gone; but the Hamilton Holly House retains much original detailing.

By 1830, the area north of Bond Street on Manhattan’s east side was filling with stately brick Federal-style homes as New York’s wealthy sought refuge from the cholera epidemic and the crowding further south.  In 1831, real estate developer Thomas E. Davis lined the entire block of St. Mark’s Place between Second and Third Avenues with residences meant to appeal to those well-to-do clients.

Davis’ houses were exceptional.  Wider than most with a comfortable 26-foot frontage, the Flemish bond, red brick facades were trimmed with white marble.  At the parlor level, floor-to-ceiling length windows opened onto elegant cast iron balconies and high, wide stoops led to dramatic entranceways.  The doorways were framed in Gibbs surrounds–deeply carved stone with interspersed quoins of varied width and vermiculated marble blocks fashioned to appear worm-eaten.  The treatment was named after Scottish-born architect James Gibbs.

Among the row was No. 4 and like the rest, it sat upon a high English basement.  Above the third floor an pitch-roofed attic featured twin dormers.

While the row of homes was being built, the widow of Alexander Hamilton, Eliza, was dealing with the many debts her husband had incurred in building his “sweet project,” The Grange--his grand country estate in northern Manhattan.  Hamilton’s death left her nearly penniless with seven children.


In 1833, Hamilton’s son, Alexander Hamilton Jr., purchased No. 4 and moved in with his wife, Eliza, his mother, his sister Eliza, and Eliza's husband Sidney Holly.

If the house were not crowded enough, a year later author James Fenimore Cooper moved in.  According to biographers Ernest Redekop and Maurice Geracht, in 1834 “he had settled himself and his family comfortably in a large town house at 4 St. Mark’s Place, New York City, and was gradually renovating Otsego Hall, his recently repurchased boyhood home at Cooperstown, in the picturesque British style.”

from James Fenimore Cooper by Mary Elizabeth Phillips, 1913, copyright expired

Mary Elizabeth Phillips, in her 1913 James Fenimore Cooper, lists Then Homeward Bound, Home as Found, and Chronicles of Cooperstown as being written at No. 4.  Within walking distance were the homes of Walt Whitman and Herman Melville.

By 1836 Otsego Hall was completed and the author noted in a letter, “family leaves house at St. Mark’s Place in May and moves the remainder of their furniture to Cooperstown.”

In 1843, Isaac C. Van Wyck and his son, Cornelius purchased the house.  The two were successful oil and candle merchants and, although they moved out in 1849, the Van Wyck’s retained the property, leasing it as a boarding house until 1863 when it was sold to butter merchant John W. Miller.  

By the start of the Civil War, the neighborhood had started its slow decline and the noble residences along St. Mark’s Place had become rooming houses or semi-commercial spaces. 
Miller added a large two-story annex to the rear that he rented as a meeting hall.  It was here in 1880 that the Republicans of the 14th Assembly held their district meetings.

John Miller sold 4 St. Mark’s Place to the musical instrument firm C. Meisel, Inc. in 1903.  The company held the property for half a century, using it as its retail outlet and offices until 1952.

In the late 1941 C. Meisel had its offices here.  The cast iron balcony is gone and a fire escape installed; however little else had changed -- photo NYC Department of Taxes

The last surviving house of Thomas E. Davis’ grand row, in 1955 4 St. Mark's Place began a new life as a series of live theatres.  Until 1957 it was the Tempo Playhouse, where several Bernard Shaw productions were staged as well as works by Jean Genet, Gertrude Stein and Eugene Ionesco.  Briefly, it was the Pyramid Theatre and then, from 1959 to 1961, it was the Key Theatre, which staged several Eugene O’Neill plays.  Later, the venue became the Bowery Theatre, where edgy artists like Yoko Ono and The Fugs took the stage, and finally The Howff.

When an American flag was burned during a performance in 1967, the police closed The Howff for the final time.
 Within a few years, the store Trash and Vaudeville took over the parlor and basement floors.  Catering to punk rock and other counter culture markets, the store has supplied clothing to Debbie Harry of Blondie, and The Ramones.  Professional wrestlers and celebrities came here to find their out-of-the-ordinary attire.  Trash and Vaudeville is still here 30 years after opening.

Through it all much of the exterior detailing of 4 St. Mark’s Place is intact.  Steel security doors replace the elegant originals, and the cast iron balcony is gone; yet the marble lintels and door surround remain, as do the original dormers above the cornice.

With little imagination, the passer-by can envision a time when near carbon copies of this house lined St. Mark’s Place and elegant carriages parked outside.

Uncredited photographs taken by the author. 

The 1884 German Dispensary (Ottendorfer Clinic) - No. 137 2nd Avenue

photo by Alice Lum

In 1854 the German Society attempted to establish a facility to care for German immigrants who could not afford to pay for health care. A small dispensary was formed, although the cost of its maintenance kept it teetering on the edge of extinction.

Finally, in 1861, with the help of wealthy philanthropists like August Belmont and dozens of successful German-born businessmen, the institution was incorporated and five years later became the German Hospital and Dispensary of the City of New York (later to become Lenox Hill Hospital).

Anna Ottendorfer, the wife of one of the hospital’s most active donors, Oswald Ottendorfer, took on medical care for the indigent German population as a passionate cause.  In 1880 she gave $68,000 for the construction of a wing devoted to women.

Anna Ottendorfer then turned her sights to establishing a dispensary in the Lower East Side district known as Kleindeutchland–or Little Germany.  In 1883 hired German-born architect William Schickel to design the structure.  He produced a robust Italian Renaissance building faced in red Philadelphia pressed brick and terra-cotta at 137 Second Avenue–one which, over a century later, the AIA Guide to New York City would call “simultaneously somber and exuberant in its rich molded red-brick and terra-cotta dress.”

Simultaneously, Oswald Ottendorfer had William Schikel design an abutting, nearly matching but less extroverted library building at 135 Second Avenue.

The facade is frosted with exuberant terra cotta ornamentation, including extraordinary portrait busts -- photo by Alice Lum

Schickel placed a dramatic portico at the entrance, laden with terra cotta ornamentation including busts of the Greek physician Galen; Celsius, the Roman medical writer; Asklepius, the Greek god of medicine, and the Greek physician, Hippocrates.  Beneath the cornice an elaborate terra cotta frieze incorporated busts of more modern medical figures: British physiologist William Harvey; Swedish biologist Carl von Linne; German scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt; and Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, German physician.

photo by Alice Lum

A vestibule just inside of the entrance doors was lighted by two skylights extending the entire length. On either side were the dispensary and a reception room for visitors.  The second floor housed treatment rooms and above were apartments for the surgeons and attendants.

The German Dispensary cost Anna Ottendorfer $140,000.  As the structure rose, her health failed.  She died in 1884, just prior to the building’s opening.  In her will she bequeathed another $10,000 to the German Society for medical help to the poor.  The building was dedicated on May 24, 1884 in an impressive ceremony that included music by the Liederkranz Quarter and “a long speech” by Dr. A. Jacobi who instructed those gathered on the history of medicine.

In February 1905, as the uptown Yorkville community of Germans developed, the dispensary moved closer to the German Hospital which was located between Park and Lexington Avenues, from 76th to 77th Streets. The Second Avenue building was sold to the Deutsche Poliklinik, previously operating at 78 East 7th Street, which also catered to the medical needs of poor German immigrants. A year later the Poliklinik repaired the aging structure.

With the flurry of American patriotism and anti-German sentiment that accompanied the onset of World War I, the facility temporarily changed its name to the Stuyvesant Polyclinic. When the same problem arose during World War II, the name was changed permanently.

In the 1970's the clinic became affiliated with the Cabrini Medical Center and, while no longer free, was serving 2,800 patients in 1978 and around 35,000 in 1983. That year the exterior of the building was restored; however the interior spaces remained severely modernized.

The Cabrini Stuyvesant Polyclinic moved out in August of 2006 and the landmarked building sat empty for two years.  In 2008 it was placed on the market for $13 million.
When the British business strategy firm with the unusual name ?What If! purchased the former clinic, it commissioned architects David Mayerfield Associates to restore both the interior and exterior.

When dropped ceilings in the main hall were removed, the 1884 skylights, blacked out in World War II, were rediscovered.  Similarly, stained glass panels in the ceiling of the staircase were uncovered.  The colorful encaustic tile floors had been covered over with concrete which was meticulously scraped away.

The lobby staircase with marble wainscoting, prior to restoration.  Photo Curbed New York 

The staircase on the upper floors had been enclosed and removal of the walls exposed the beautiful cast iron railings and columns.

The encaustic tile floors and the ornate iron staircase on the upper floors were uncovered in the restoration -- photo Bonnie Rosenstock, The Villager

Mayerfield not only took the historic building back to its original appearance, but brought it up to date as well, focusing on environmentally-friendly installations whenever possible.
The German Dispensary building and the accompanying Ottendorfer Library were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

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The 1838 Ralph Mead House (Isaac T. Hopper Home) -- 110 Second Avenue

photo by americasroof

When brothers Ralph, Staats M. and Benjamin Mead erected four elegant brick rowhouses were constructed on Second Avenue between East 6th and 7th Streets around 1838, the area was one of the most prestigious residential neighborhoods in the city.  Nearby were the homes of the Stuyvesants, Alexander Hamilton, Jr., and other prominent families.

The identical Greek Revival-style houses featured stately brownstone porticos.  They were supported by fluted Ionic columns and sheltered grand double-entrance doors.  Floor-to-ceiling parlor windows opened onto cast iron balconies.

In 1839, David H. Robertson purchased No. 108 (renumbered 110 in 1868) for his widowed mother, Margaret. Robertson.  A well-to-do ship broker and tradesman, he declared bankruptcy only three years later.  The house was foreclosed and lost to auction in 1844. Ralph Mead took back the property.

The wealthy widower was the owner of a wholesale grocery business, Ralph Mead & Co., and rather than re-sell the house, he moved in the following year.  In 1846, he married his second wife, Ann E. Van Wyck Mead and the couple lived here until his retirement in 1859.  Although Ralph and Ann moved on, the house, along with the other three homes in the row, remained in the Mead family.

In the meantime, a group of women had met with abolitionist Quaker Isaac T. Hopper in 1834 and formed a committee to investigate the conditions of imprisoned women.  The women visited New York City prisons and were shocked at the environment female prisoners endured and the lack of rehabilitation services offered.  They reported back to Hopper that, “a home needs to be provided for the homeless; other doors need to be open to them than those that lead to deeper infamy.”

The Female Department of the Prison Association was founded by leaders Abigail Gibbons (who was Hopper’s daughter) and novelist Catherine Sedgwick.  Their goal was the “amelioration of the condition of female prisoners.”  The Women’s Prison Association and Home (popularly called The Isaac T. Hopper Home, or simply The Hopper Home) opened on East 4th Street.  It trained and attempted to rehabilitate women who had gotten in trouble with the law–very often Irish immigrant women addicted to alcohol.

The Mead family sold No. 110 in 1870 and four years later the Women’s Prison Association purchased it as the new Hopper House.  Supported solely by private donations, the 1890 Directory of Social and Health Agencies in New York City listed as the Home’s objectives as:

1st, the improvement of the condition of the female prisoners, whether awaiting trial or convicted or as witnesses; 2d, the support and encouragement of reformed female convicts after their discharge, by affording them an opportunity to obtain an honest livelihood and sustaining them in their efforts to reform.

Nearly 135 years later, 110 Second Avenue is still owned and used by the Women’s Prison Association.  In the 1960s it received its first governmental funding and in the 1980s, for about a decade, the house was used as a federal work release facility.

By the early 1990s, women were the fastest growing population in the prison system.  In 1992, the Hopper House was renovated and reopened as a residential alternative to imprisonment; usually for women facing substantial state prison sentences for drug offenses.

The neighborhood around 110 Second Avenue has changed over nearly two centuries from one of refined, stately homes to one of bars, neon and edgy shops.  The house built by Ralph Mead is the last remaining of the row of four.  Much of the interior details are nearly unchanged since Ralph and Ann Mead walked out for the last time in 1859.

Despite modern ceiling fixtures, electrical conduits and fire sprinkler pipes that hug the ceiling and walls, the entrance hall retains its graceful, curved staircase with the niche in the wall just before the second floor landing that once held flowers or a classical statue survives.  Carved woodwork frames the polished mahogany doors that slide quietly into the walls.

While the house shows decades of institutional use, it has amazingly preserved a wealth of architectural detailing – both inside and out – and is a rare and wonderful survivor of the early days of Second Avenue.

Stanford White's Washington Square Arch

photo by David Shankbone

Victorian New Yorkers were eager for any reason to stage elaborate celebrations with public fanfare and the approaching centennial of George Washington’s inauguration on April 30, 1889 provided just such an excuse. The anniversary would also provide an opportunity to remind the country that New York was the nation's first capitol.

In 1887, while several different groups were hatching ideas for the celebration, William Rhinelander Stewart – a member of the wealthy Rhinelander real estate and sugar-importing family – devised his own idea of the festivities. That same year Queen Victoria’s 50th year on the throne was celebrated in London with elaborate displays around temporary triumphal arches.

While such arches had been a fixture in major European cities for centuries, there had never been a stone arch erected in the United States to date.

Stewart approached architect Stanford White to serve as director of the commemoration. The idea of a temporary arch was almost immediately brought up and equally-quickly agreed upon. White designed a wooden structure slathered with “staff” -- a mixture of molded plaster over straw. Costing $2,500 raised through private donations, it was erected one block north of Washington Square, spanning 5th Avenue a few days before the centennial date.

The original plaster and wooden arch spanned 5th Avenue  block north of Washington Square -- photo Library of Congress

The plaster was painted a gleaming ivory-white and adorned with molded ornamentation of festoons and wreaths. A 10-foot high polychrome statue of Washington found in an antique shop was placed on top.

The public loved it. Of the four temporary arches erected throughout the city for the event, this one took the cake.

“One of the most beautiful arches erected in the city is the Washington triumphal arch,” wrote The New York Times on April 28, 1889. “The idea has been to carry out a type of architecture whch prevailed during colonial and Washington’s own time, and which belongs more naturally to this country than any other.”

Bunting hung from the arch and bunches of flags were arranged at the sides including foreign flags of countries “from whom the population of this country is mainly recruited by immigration.”

Two stuffed American bald eagles were mounted on either side of the keystone, the larger measuring 7 feet, 6 inches. White embellished the arch with electrical lights, provided by the Edison Light Company, and powered by a generator in a neighboring yard. The noise of the generator proved nearly as irritating as the spectacle of the hundreds of lights were beautiful.

The arch was so well-received that there arose an immediate outcry for a permanent version. The newspaper, the Critic, first suggested a granite reproduction and the Committee on Art quickly applauded the idea. It was also quickly agreed that the stone arch would necessarily have to be located within Washington Square – the bases on the sidewalks of 5th Avenue would hinder foot traffic.

Not everyone was in favor of the location, however. The Real Estate Record and Guide argured that “Twenty years from now the neighborhood will be so changed in character that no one will visit near it,” and wealthy politician Orlando B. Potter complained that the location would hinder the construction of a 5th Avenue elevated railroad.

The plan, nevertheless, went on.

A month after the centennial celebrations, Stanford White suggested that the arch be constructed of marble rather than granite and that it be decorated with sculptural groups. The amount of the fund necessary was raised to $100,000 for the arch and another $50,000 for the sculptures.

Other voices chimed in, The Charleston News proposing that the arch should be constructed of native stone from the 13 original states. “Let its base be made of South Carolina granite,” the paper said, “and let all the others of the original states contribute to the columns upon which the triumphal arch will rest.”

Ground was broken in an understated ceremony on April 30, 1890 and within two weeks laborers realized they were digging up skeletons, headstones and coffins. The site was besieged by curious onlookers and Stanford White instructed that work stop until “a sketch can be made of the scene.” Two stones inscribed 1803 confirmed that the workers had unearthed an old German cemetery which was buried under eight feet of new soil when the Square was leveled.

The bones were reinterred and the work went on above the graves.

The completed arch in 1895 nearly a two decades before the first of the sculptural groups would be installed -- photo NYPL Collection

On May 4, 1895 the completed arch built of Tuckahoe marble was dedicated with great pomp and ceremony. Sculpture Frederick William MacMonnies had designed the bulk of the ornamentation which was then carried out by the master Italian stone carvers of the Piccirilli Studio. MacMonnies used his own wife’s face as the model for Peace and Stanford White’s wife, Bessie, for War. The massive marble eagles were designed by Philip Martiny.

The south side (seen in 1901) was essentially identical before the statuary was added to the north elevation -- photo Library of  Congress

Despite both Stanford White and master building David H. King (who constructed, among other grand structures, the base of the Statue of Liberty and Cornelius Vanderbilt’s massive 5th Avenue mansion) donating their services, the cost of the arch neared $134,000.

The completed arch was not, however, complete.

The sculptural groupings White envisioned for the north piers were still to be executed. Another fund-raising campaign was initiated while designs were worked out.

Artist Hermon Atkins MacNeil designed the eastern statue depicting Washington as Commander-in-Chief. Behind him MacNeil placed bas-reliefs of Fame and Valor. The statue was installed in 1916. Two years later the companion group, by sculptor Alexander Stirling Caldor, was added. Caldor’s Washington portrays him as a statesman, accompanied by Wisdom and Justice. Both statues were executed in the Piccirilli Studio and carved of Dover marble.

A year before Caldor’s statue was installed a group of actors and artists including Marcel Duchamp and John Sloan who representated Greenwich Village’s growing bohemian nature, took over the arch. Occupying its roof and lighting bonfires, they declared Greenwich Village an independent nation.

Caldor's statesman Washington in 1934 (left) and in 2003 after decades of acid rain -- photo San Diego Miramar College

In 1964, after decades of acid rain and pollution had eroded the marble of the arch, a clumsy attempt was made to restore the Washington statues. The process left the priceless figures in worse condition. A $2.7 restoration was initiated in 2003 funded with private and city donations. The leaking roof was replaced, the statues repaired, the spandrel figures restored and 45 of the 95 rosettes on the underside were replaced or repaired.

photo by Matthew Jesuele

At its rededication ceremony, Mayor Michael Bloomberg quipped “Paris has one near the Champs Elysees, MacDonalds' are golden like French fries they say, St. Louis has one next to the Mississippi, but for every New Yorker, especially ex-hippies, the arch you love most of all is right there, shining gloriously over Washington Square.”

The 1900 Philip Lehman House -- No. 7 West 54th Street

A frescoed ceiling can be glimpsed through the second story French doors -- photo by beyond my Ken

As the 20th Century approached, the mansions of the very wealthy spilled from 5th Avenue in midtown onto the side streets. When the massive St. Luke’s Hospital was demolished after the facility moved to Amsterdam Avenue in 1896, valuable real estate became available.

Among the fashionable, upper-class homes that were erected along the north side of West 54th Street was No. 7 in the popular Beaux Arts style, directly across the street from the substantial brownstone mansion of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. at No. 4.

The residence was commissioned by financier Philip Lehman whose father, Emanuel, had co-founded Lehman Brothers in the 1850s. By the time Philip hired architect John H. Duncan to design his new home Lehman Brothers was one of the world’s most important banking firms.

As the street developed, the residences of other high-level bankers rose alongside the Lehman house including James Goodwin of J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Duncan produced a rusticated, 4-story limestone structure with a tall, nearly-vertical slate covered mansard roof, completed in 1900. Two deep copper-framed oculi, or round windows, pierced the mansard above the carved fourth-floor window surrounds. A bowed stone balcony connected the tall French doors of the second floor, and elaborate carved festoons and cartouches filled the spaces between the second and third stories.

On August 17, 1901 The American Architect published its photograph of the new residence

Carrie Lehman died in the house on November 10, 1937 at the age of 72. After Philip’s death a decade later, his son Robert took up residency. Robert had the mansion redecorated in the 1960s and focused much of his attention and passion on enlarging the family’s art collection which already included works by painters such as Rembrandt, Goya, Durer, Renoir, Ingres and El Greco.

Lehman’s keen eye and adept negotiating skills resulted in a treasury of over 3,000 works of art; one of the most extensive and exceptional collections in the United States. The home became his private gallery and his wish was that it be dismantled and reconstructed as a wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in which to house his collection. In 1962 the house was opened to the public for one week to view what The New York Times called “one of the last great privately held art collections in the world.” The $25 entrance fee was donated to the Institute of Fine Arts, a graduate school of New York University.

When Robert Lehman died in 1969 his will bequeathed the artwork to the Metropolitan Museum with the caveat that it must always remain together.

Rather than move the entire mansion, the Metropolitan Museum dismantled several of its room which were installed as part of the Robert Lehman Wing which opened in 1975.

The Lehman House was purchased by the 7 West 54th Street Realty Corp. in 1974 and went through a series of owners until 2006 when it was purchased by Zimmer Lucas Partners for renovation into offices and entertaining spaces. The hedge fund firm commissioned architect Belmont Freeman Architects to restore the house as much as possible to its appearance during Robert Lehman’s ownership. The architects not only restored the limestone façade, but brokered a deal between the Metropolitan Museum and the new owners to return architectural artifacts which the museum was holding in storage. In addition, the Met allowed the firm to take casts of other architectural details for replication purposes.

The Lehman House in 2011

A modern glass penthouse addition, invisible from the street, was constructed and high-tech systems were installed throughout the property.

Today the Lehman House is one in a row of five surviving turn-of-the-century residences on West 54th Street; a rare and remarkable glimpse back to a time when millionaires and their families lived on 5th Avenue’s side streets.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

A Wooden Charmer at No. 128 E. 93rd Street


 In 1866, the year after the end of the Civil War, East 93rd Street was still part of the sleepy hamlet of Yorkville, well north of the established city. Small frame houses dotted the gently rolling landscape and the open, clean air made the area an attractive alternative to the congestion of New York.

It was here that Henry W. Shaw hired Edmund Waring to design a modest but comfortable wooden home. The house was a speculative project for Shaw, whose main profession was the manufacture of artificial limbs but who dabbled in real estate.

Edmund Waring, who was listed in Trow’s New York City Directory as Edmund Waring & Son Architects at 20 Chrystie Street, drew on the latest architectural fashion of the day – the French Second Empire style. Born in Paris, the elegant style was just reaching New York and the wooden house would be the last word in residential design.

Three robust, hooded dormers graced the mansard above a heavy, bracketed cornice. A steep stoop rose to the entranceway at the parlor floor above a deep English basement.

Woodworker Bernhard Flach purchased the completed house.  Flach, who worked far downtown near City Hall would have had a long daily commute.

Edwin Henes bought the house in 1879. Although Henes and his family owned it for decades, he was apparently renting the home to Mrs. K. E. Fitch by 1915. That year her 30-year old suffragist daughter , Isabel, noted as an expert in outdoor sports, married the Commissioner of Public Works, Ralph Folks.

By now, East 93rd Street was no longer part of a quiet village, but had been swallowed up by the Carnegie Hill neighborhood which included grand mansions that lined 5th Avenue and spilled onto the side blocks. The house continued to be rented after millionaire brewer George Ehret purchased it in 1920.

Two years later as 93rd Street was widened, the stoop was removed and the entrance moved to the sidewalk level, sadly marring the charm of the overall design.

When, in 1966, the house was nominated for landmark status owner Dorothea Fiske Page Darlington opposed the designation.  In 1989 it was purchased by Bradley Reifler, CEO of investment firm Pali Capital, and his wife Ashley for $2.5 million.

An owner's opposition in 1966 resulted in the charming house being one of the few wooden structures not landmarked.

Interior renovations had been done in the 1980s and again by the Reiflers in 1995 which resulted in the removal of walls and the loss of many of the interior details; however the exterior appearance of the building remained relatively unaltered.

Although, in 2008 the house was put on the market for $12.5 million, it was purchased for just $6.8 million two years later by Geraldo Rivera’s former wife C. C. Dyer. A major selling point for Ms. Dyer’s three children was the large treehouse in the backyard.


The treehouse that helped sell a house -- photo Corcoran Realty

Athough when writing about No. 128 East 93rd the AIA Guide to New York City lamented that “too much restoration can put out the flame,” the rare wooden house is a charming residential survivor of the Civil War period in New York.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

The 1903 Joseph Pulitzer Mansion -- No. 11 East 73rd Street

photo by cityrealty.com

In 1899, after two small fires had started in Joseph Pulitzer’s mansion on East 55th Street within a year, Fire Chief Binns gave the publisher a stern warning. “I told Mr. Pulitzer that his house was a dangerous one for fires and that if ever a fire got headway his family would have to jump from the windows inside of fifteen minutes after it started should they then be inside and no other means of escape be at hand.”

On January 9, 1900 the chief’s warnings became fact. Although Pulitzer and his son Joseph, Jr. were away at Lakewood, New Jersey and the eldest son was away at Harvard, the rest of the family and 19 servants were at home. At 7:30 in the morning smoke was seen billowing from lower windows.

By the time those inside could be alerted, fire and smoke were rising quickly upwards in the mansion. Mrs. Pulitzer, barefoot, and her three children narrowly escaped down the main stairway in their bedclothes. The houseman, James Kane, ripped a curtain from a doorway to throw over Mrs. Pulitizer’s shoulders.

Within minutes the house was in smoldering ruins and two servants, Mrs. S. S. Morgan Jellet, the companion of Mrs. Pulitzer, and Elizabeth Montgomery, the governess, were dead.

The family temporarily leased the Sloane Mansion at 9 East 72d Street and Pulitzer set about acquiring a new home. And he had specific ideas for it.

On April 12 the publisher purchased four plots of land on the north side of 73rd Street between 5th and Madison Avenues: No. 7 from Mrs. Clarence Brooks, No. 9 from Mrs. W. K. Major, No. 11 from James Lenox Banks and No. 11A from Leo Schlesinger. Together they formed a plot 76 by 100 feet “on which Mr. Pulitzer will erect a mansion which, it is said, will be one of the handsomest in the city,” reported The New York Times.

Pulitzer had lost a priceless collection of silver, art and antiques in the fire. He directed architect Stanford White to produce a fireproof house. He also gave explicit instructions to shun the ostentatious displays so prevalent in other contemporary mansions. It was to be a simple house with “no ballroom, no music room, or picture gallery under any disguise…no French rooms, designed or decorated to require French furniture…I want an American home for comfort and use and not for show or entertainment.”

Joseph Pulitzer was almost completely blind while working with Stanford White, making him a cranky and difficult client -- photo National Parks Service

By now Pulitzer was almost completely blind. White fabricated scale models of proposed designs so his client could run his fingers over the surface to determine what the home would look like. After a few rejections, a design was settled upon.

Melding features of the Palazzo Persaro in Venice with others from the Palazzo Rezzonico, White produced a dignified Italian Renaissance palace with galleries of arched windows, balconies and Doric, Corinthian and Ionic columns. The home was completed in 1903 and whether by Mrs. Pulitzer’s urgings or the architect’s, Pulitzer got a music room and a French salon, like it or not.

In deference to the publisher’s sensitivity to noise as his eyesight failed, his personal rooms were soundproofed. His circular breakfast room was centered within the house, far from intruding street noises. The only window was constructed of glass blocks and light was provided by a sealed skylight.

An acoustics expert from Harvard University was consulted regarding Pulitzer’s bedroom. Ball bearings were installed beneath the floor to prevent vibration, the windows were three-panes thick and the walls heavily insulated.

It didn’t work. Despite White himself testing the sound-proofing of the bedroom by having workers pound on the walls and shout, Pulitzer complained he could not sleep for the noise. White accused his client of trying to drive him mad.

Frustrated, Pulitzer commissioned architects Foster, Gade & Graham in 1904 to build a new bedroom annex to the rear of the house. After the first night, he announced that he was kept awake all night by the noises seeping into the room.

White returned, discerned that the outside noises were entering the room from the fireplace and had thousands of silk threads stretched across the flue opening. The room was finally quiet.

The cost of Pulitzer’s house, not including the price of the land, was $369,000; around $8.7 million in today’s dollars. The wrought iron entrance doors led to a monumental staircase in the wide entrance hall. A custom-built electro-pneumatic Aeolian organ filled the house with music from an ornate cabinet of pipes at the top of the stair hall. The 50-foot ballroom with five elegant French doors faced the street on the second floor.

An elaborate pipe organ cabinet stands at the top of the staircase next to a large stained glass widow -- photo nyago.com

Eight years after moving in, Joseph Pulitzer died on October 29, 1911. The family almost immediately left the house; however the magnificent mansion sat unsold and uninhabited. On January 6 and 7 of 1928 the house was thrown open to the public to view the tapestries, Oriental rugs, bronzes, porcelains and antique French furniture that the family would put at auction by the American Art Galleries. The sale netted $69,428 including one Gobelin silk tapestry that sold for over $12,000.

In 1930, out of desperation, Pulitzer’s sons leased the property to a group of investors who planned to demolish the house and erect an apartment building. Their plans were foiled by the Great Depression, however, and in 1934 Henry Mandel signed a two-decade lease. The real estate developer hired architect James E. Casale to covert the mansion to apartments.

Casale deftly drew up plans that would transform the home without destroying the façade nor most of the interior detailing. Even the squash court and basement swimming pool would became apartments. But Mandel did not go forward with the plans and returned the property to the Pulitzer boys. The sons approved the plans and Casale’s designs were implemented in 1937, creating 17 apartments within the mansion.

The now-renovated building was sold to the William Waldorf Astor Estate as an investment property. Three decades later in 1952 the estate sold the magnificent mansion for what The Times called “improvement of the site with a modern apartment building.”

A change of heart intervened and rather than destroying Stanford White’s limestone Renaissance palace, the owners converted it to cooperative apartments.  Pulitizer's magnificent mansion remains divided into high-class coops; while from the street it remains essentially unchanged since the grouchy publisher took moved in in 1903.