James Renwick's Masterful 1846 Grace Church

Grace Church before the addition of Catherine Lorillard Wolfe's chantry in the south lawn -- photo  from the collection of the New York Public Library

According to New York City lore, Broadway swerves sharply to the northwest at East 10^th Street because the wealthy and influential Henry Brevoort refused to allow the thoroughfare demolish his orchard.

The fact that his tavern stood on the site is rarely mentioned.  But for whatever reason, that Brevoort is responsible for the dramatic turn in the road is uncontested.

By 1841, when Brevoort died, his land was developing into one of the most fashionable residential neighborhoods in the city.  The parish of Grace Church at Broadway and Rector Street was rapidly growing, and in 1843 Henry Breevort Jr. sold land on the northeast corner of Broadway and 10th Street as the site of a new structure.

Whether  Brevoort had anything to do with his nephew being given the commission to design the church is unclear; however 23-year-old James Renwick, Jr. had no actual experience as an architect.  The only job he had completed to date was a fountain downtown in Bowling Green.

Rector Thomas House Taylor had spent extensive time in Europe touring the great Gothic cathedrals and it was mostly he who influenced Renwick in his design.  Gothic Revival architecture was essentially unheard of in New York at this time, with most churches designed as Greek temples.

Grace Church was completed in 1846, three years after the cornerstone was laid.  Although the main building was constructed of white marble quarried by inmates at the Sing Sing prison in Ossinging, New York, the steeple–high above street level and not so noticeable—was wooden to reduce expense.  

Its ideal location in the elbow of Broadway gave the structure dramatic visibility along Broadway looking uptown.  In 1891 Gustav Kobbe wrote, “Hardly any building in the city occupies so advantageous a position from an architectural point of view, for it faces obliquely down Broadway, effectively ending off the vista from down town.”

As seen here in around 1890, the site at the abrupt turn of Broadway provided an advantageous setting -- photo NYPL Collection

Renwick had studied copybooks and etchings of the great cathedrals to design a remarkably perfect structure.  King’s Handbook of New York City said, “Few if any of the churches surpass Grace in beauty of interior design and decoration.  It is impressive and magnificent.”

The plain, wooden steeple is evident in an 1850 print -- NYPL Collection

The year that the church was completed, construction began on Renwick’s rectory, finished in 1847.  The complex sat on a broad lawn behind a cast iron fence.  “In front of the parsonage is a pretty garden,” wrote Kobbe, “with well-kept lawn, flower-beds and shrubbery, the whole forming a most picturesque break in the line of business houses.”

In 1888, Renwick was called back to design a replacement steeple, this one in marble.  He produced a lacy stone spire that magnificently complimented the original structure; although the stone came from Vermont and, upon close examination, is noticeably whiter.

Upon inspection, the difference in color of the Vermont stone is evident -- photo by Alice Lum

The congregation of Grace Church was composed of some of the wealthiest families in the city.  It was the second wealthiest Espicopal Church in New York, after Trinity.  In his 1882 New York by Gaslight, James D. McCabe, Jr. wrote “At the morning service a greater display of wealth and fashion is presented here than at any other city church.  Grace Church has been the scene of more fashionable weddings and funerals than any other place of worship.”

Indeed, it was considered the greatest of prestige to have either a “Grace wedding” or a “Grace funeral.”   Attending the funeral of Mary Rogers Rhinelander, for instance, were Mr. and Mrs. William, K. Vanderbilt, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Vanderbilt, Mrs. William Astor, Mr. and Mrs. John Jacob Astor, Chauncey M. Depew, M. Roosevelt Schuyler, and J. Pierpont Morgan among others of New York’s most socially elite.

Renwick's picturesque 1847 rectory -- Photo by Alice Lum

To prevent the common gawkers from ruining a Grace wedding, long awnings were erected from the entrance to the curb, with cloth panels extending to the ground.  These enabled the bride and the privileged guests to alight from their carriages and enter the church in privacy.  This highly-sought privacy scandalously collapsed, however, during the wedding of the Earl of Craven to Cornelia Martin in April of 1893.

“The disgraceful scenes which followed the opening of the side doors of Grace Church…was the main item of conversation of the ladies of fashion at luncheon and of the gentlemen of fashion at the clubs yesterday,” reported The New York Times.

Inside the church 1,500 refined guests witnessed the ceremony, while outside crowds gathered hoping to catch a glimpse of the affair.  The sextons prematurely unlocked the side doors and were rushed by the crowd, many of them jumping the fence and leaving “portions of their clothing on the pickets.”

“Ladies and gentlemen whose dress and bearing showed a certain amount of refinement and good breeding disregarded every rule of etiquette in their mad desire to see the inside of the church,” reported The New York Times.

One wealthy guest, Mrs. S. Van Rensselaer Cruger, was repulsed.  “They talked in loud, vulgar voices,” she said, “Ladies forgot the modesty of their sex in elbowing their way to the front.  Men forgot their manliness in pushing others aside, and even used the backs of the pews as a highway to reach the front, and in the crush my dress was nearly torn from me.”

But despite the spectacle of the Earl’s wedding, no nuptial at Grace Church would ever attract more attention than the 1863 wedding of General Thomas Thumb and Queen Lavinia Warren.   P.T. Barnum’s famous show attractions, whom The New York Times dubbed “The Loving Lilliputians,” were married before a mixed audience including the Civil War luminary Major General Burnside and “each and every strata of New York’s respectable society.”

photo by Alice Lum

Broadway between Union Square and 19^th Street was packed with onlookers and from every window and door of nearby buildings people craned their necks.   The line of carriages dropping off wedding guests continued, unbroken, for over two hours preceding the arrival of the bride and groom.  After the ceremony, hundreds of people pursued the couple’s carriage on its way to the Metropolitan Hotel.

Renwick's graceful tracery of the rose window is unusually sinuous -- photo by Alice Lum

Gustav Kobbe pointed out that “there is an idea prevalent that [the congregation] is a self-satisfied collection of worshippers, partaking of religious stimulants in commodious and elegant quarters, and not caring very much what becomes of the souls of the rest of the world.”  On the contrary, he insisted, the church was engaged in a “vast amount of arduous mission work,” supporting its own missions, a library and reading room and a nursery.

Church member Catherine Lorillard Wolfe donated the chantry and two organs “connected by electrical machinery,” in 1879 as a memorial to her father.  Adjoining it, Grace House was erected two years later.   Wolfe additionally donated the chancel window, the altar and the lofty reredos.  Then, in 1903 architects Heins and LaFarge were commissioned to extend the chancel fifteen feet.

The chancel, donated by Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, with spires matching the main building, rises behind the elegant Gothic cast iron fencing -- photo by Beyond My Ken

Upon completion of the chantry, the rector hired Gotthelf Pach to photograph it.  When the magnesia powder was ignited to take a flash picture, the resulting explosion blew out some of the stained glass windows.

Grace House connects the Rectory to the main building -- photo by Beyond My Ken

As the 20^th century drew to a close, the iron plate that anchored the iron rod running down the center of the spire, pinning the stone together, had substantial rusted.  The result was that little-by-little the steeple began leaning until, in 1993, it was at a noticeable 6-inch tilt.

As correction of the problem began, “sugaring” of the stone was apparent–the powdering away of the surface due to weather and pollution.  Architect Robert Bates supervised a $3 million restoration that included removing and rebuilding 20 feet of the steeple, repairing the leaking roof and stone reparation.

In 2011 restoration of six complex stained glass windows was completed by Michael Padovan’s Jersey Art Stained Glass Studio.

photo by Alice Lum

Grace Church sits regally at the crook in Broadway as it did in 1846, a charming and magnificent assembly of historic buildings.  It is, as the AIA Guide to New York City called it, “One of the City’s greatest treasures.”

The 1890 Romanesque Wilbraham Hotel -- 1 West 30th Street

photo by Alice Lum

 The number of unmarried men in New York City skyrocketed between 1870 and 1890, when approximately 45 percent of the male population was single.  Finding respectable accommodations was difficult for these men.  Most boarding houses or apartment houses did not accept single men. 

As late as 1898 one observer commented that “the bachelor was not considered to be entitled to much consideration; any old thing was good enough for him…Anyone who was old enough and had the means to marry and yet did not, was not thought to be entitled to anything better.”

Bachelor flats began appearing in 1880 – apartment buildings specifically intended to house single respectable men.  The Real Estate Record & Builders Guide in 1890 noted that the bachelor flat “is a product of our modern life.  It is not a social fad, ready to disappear directly.  It has ceased to be a novelty.  It has come to stay, for it filled a gap in the life of every unmarried man who has become weary of the boarding house, the furnished room, or the hotel.”

Scottish-born William Moir had made his fortune in the jewelry business and his elegant cast iron store at 23^rd Street and 6^th Avenue was well known among the ladies of the upper classes.   Moir recognized the potential of the bachelor flat concept.  In April of 1888 he purchased through real estate broker Herbert A. Sherman the brownstone townhouses at 282 and 284 5^th Avenue. The transaction cost the jeweler $245,000.

Although this section of 5^th Avenue was still quite fashionable, the mansions here were slowly being replaced with high-end men’s clubs and exclusive retail shops.  Moir commissioned the brothers David and John Jardine, also born in Scotland, to design his “fireproof” residential hotel.  

The architects produced drawings for a six-story medieval-looking, Romanesque Revival influenced structure in red Philadelphia brick, Belleville brownstone, white limestone and cast iron.  However, in June 1889 an amendment was filed with the Department of Buildings increasing the height to eight stories, including a lavish mansard roof.  A month later an additional amendment was approved allowing a penthouse with servants’ rooms ad kitchen.

The rough-cut brownstone seventh floor and the imposing mansard were not included in the original drawings -- photo by Alice Lum

Competed in May 1890, it included a high-end, two-story retail space on the first floor with apartments above.  The Wilbraham was intended for financially-comfortable tenants.  Each apartment had a parlor and a bedroom and, the ultimate in luxury for the time, private bathrooms.  Typical of bachelor flats, there were no kitchens – residents ate in the communal dining room on the top floor.

The Wilbraham was the latest in residential design with electric lighting (and gas for those times when the unreliable electricity would fail), an internal communication system allowing residents to speak to the superintendent, an Otis elevator and steam heating.  Housekeeping services were also provided.

Intricate ornamentation like this heavily-carved capital cover the facade -- photo by Alice Lum

The Real estate Record & Guide was impressed calling it “the most elegantly appointed among the bachelor apartment houses in New York City” and “certainly the ‘crack’ apartment house of its kind…quite an imposing piece of architecture.”

That imposing architecture included monumental rusticated columns, medieval-style carvings, a large stone arched entrance with WILBRAHAM carved into a stone banner above, and the imposing slate tiled mansard (now covered in copper).

The Wilbraham as it appeared two years after opening -- King's Handbook of New York

Reflecting the elite tone of the area, china and glass merchants Gilman Collamore & Co. took over the retail space, explaining in their moving notice that the neighborhood of their former store at 19 Union Square had recently become “degraded.”

The exclusive shop was described by "King’s 1890 Handbook of New York City" as having “a veritable art exhibition in their usual display of fancy glass-ware and fine china.  The firm occupies a handsome sandstone and brick building…Their grand display-rooms are so laid out and arranged as to promote the artistic effect of the exceedingly choice stock of goods.”

The Jardines alternated thick, rough-cut blocks with narrower ornamented courses to create the piers -- photo by Alice Lum

Wealthy socialites stepped from carriages to survey Sevres, Royal Dresden and Royal Berlin china and “the products of the best English and German factories.”

Meanwhile high-toned bachelors filled the apartments.  The ever-feisty Colonel Thomas Ochiltree lived here, eating the steak smuggled in by a friend against his doctors’ orders when he was bedridden with an enlarged liver and weak heart.   Ochiltree fell into “a state of collapse” having eaten the steak.

Upon being revived, he instructed his physician that “it was a good way to go to the next world with a fine bit of meat between one’s teeth.”  As his condition slowly improved, he insisted that it was the steak – despite the period of unconsciousness—that brought him back to health.

Another Civil War Colonel Henry L. Swords lived here as did “The Copper King” Fritz Augustus Heinze and Judge William Frierson Cooper.

Although in 1902 "Appleton’s Dictionary of New York and Vicinity" said “Many buildings are now devoted especially to apartments for bachelors, among which are the Benedick, east side of Washington Square, the Jansen, Waverly Place, and the Wilbraham, 30^th Street and 5^th Avenue;” the Wilbraham had began accepting women in the early days of the century.

Upon the death of Mrs. Fannie S. Steel in 1910 The New York Times noted “For several years Mrs. Steele made her home at the Wilbraham Apartment Hotel, Fifth Avenue and Thirtieth Street.”

Apparently quite satisfied with the location, in January 1908 John J. Gibbons, head of Gilman, Collamore & Co., purchased the building from Moir’s widow, Emily, for $1 million.  It was described by The Times at the time of the sale as “one of the first and finest bachelor apartment houses erected in the Fifth Avenue section.”

Gibbons expressed his belief that this part of Fifth Avenue “by reason of its accessibility, will continue to be the best for high-class retail trade.”  Gilman, Collamore & Co. would continue to do business here until 1920.

In 1927, the Gibbons estate sold the building which by now had more female occupants than male.  The Great Depression hit the new owners, 1 West 30 St. Corp., hard and the group lost the property through default to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in 1934.  The firm set about modernizing and improving the aging hotel.   

Architects Emery Roth and D. Everett Waid were immediately brought in to do renovations.  The penthouse was enlarged to create two new apartments, six apartments with kitchens were fashioned and office space was carved out on the second floor.  The New York Times pointed to the renovations as proof that “Fifth Avenue south of Thirty-fourth Street has not entirely lost its charm.”

In 1944 Metropolitan Life sold the building to Maxwell Handelsman “for investment purposes,” initiating a string of sales throughout the 20^th Century that included a 1984 name-change to The Tiffany.

Thankfully, the apartment building’s name has been returned to The Wilbraham.

Evidence for the need of a full restoration can be seen in the piecemeal facade repairs -- photo by Alice Lum

The building which the AIA Guide to New York City calls “lovely and lusty” remains as it was designed:  retail space on the ground floor and residential units above.  The intricate carvings of knotted geometrics and medieval faces are well worth a pause when passing the Jardines’ commanding structure.

The 1896 Beaux Arts Pierrepont Building - 103 Fifth Avenue

photo by Alice Lum

 Around 1855 Edwards Pierrepont and Marshall O. Roberts built adjoining four-story brownstone houses, each 29 feet wide,on Fifth Avenue between 17th and 18th Streets. The wide, elegant homes, each costing about $15,000, reflected the status of both owners.

Pierrepont was an esteemed lawyer and judge of the Superior Court of New York City.


He was appointed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 to try prisoners of the State and went on to become the United States Minister to Russia in 1873, Attorney General of the United States in 1875, and United States Minister to Great Britain in 1876. It was Pierrepont who urged Queen Victoria to give the visiting General Grant the proprieties given former heads of state.

The corner of 5th Avenue and 17th Street in 1893, a year after Pierrepont's death, was still a highly-fashionable neighborhood -- etching by E. H. Del'Orme, NYPL Collection

After four decades in the house at No. 103 Fifth Avenue, Edwards Pierrepont died there on March 7, 1892. Two years later, in December, Mrs. Pierrepont sold the house, removing some of the exquisite marble mantels for use in her new home.

By now the once-fashionable section of Fifth Avenue was seeing the demolition of mansions and the rise of loft and office buildings. The New York Times reported that “The purchasers will build on the site an eight-story fire-proof business building with a front of iron and glass. The store will be 16 feet high, the first loft 18 feet, and the other stories each at least 12 feet.”

Josiah S. Lindsay was the buyer and he commissioned Louis Korn to design his new building. The architect drew upon the popularity of the Beaux Arts style overtaking the country after Chicago’s 1893 Columbian Exposition. Completed in 1896, the building soared upward, its focal point being the grand arch encompassing the third through fifth floors. Terra cotta pilasters and swagged panels embellished the façade throughout, the swags being repeated below the cornice.

photo by Alice Lum

Lindsay paid homage to the venerated attorney whose home had stood here by naming the structure The Pierrepont Building. Centered above the first floor, a terra cotta frieze prominently announced PIERREPONT.

photo by Alice Lum

The earliest tenants were publishing and school supply companies. In 1897 publisher Frederick Warne & Co. was here followed soon by Art Interchange, also in the publishing business. At the turn of the century Central School Supply House was here, selling “maps, globes, scientific apparatus, writing tablets, etc.” as was Globe School Book Co.

The terra cotta swags below are mimicked in the pressed cornice -- photo by Alice Lum

By 1908 the apparel district was inching onto this part of Fifth Avenue and Fred W. Quanz moved into No. 103 in 1908, selling “kid gloves, collars, cuffs and shirts. Other such firms, like A. H. Rice Co., who sold braids, and Joseph Balesh & Brothers followed suit.

The Pierrepont Building managed to survive throughout the 20th Century with extremely little alteration to the façade. The end piers of the first floor are intact and with the exception of replacement windows, very little has changed.

photo by Alice Lum

Today Louis Korn’s attractive Beaux Arts building contains both office and residential space. The loft apartments each occupy an entire floor and the penthouse encompasses three full floors.

Saloon to Mission to Nightclub -- No. 290 8th Avenue

When exactly the broad red brick Federal style building at No. 290 8th Avenue was converted to accommodate a store or saloon on the first floor is uncertain; however the unassuming building had been there since around 1845.

After the Civil War, in 1868, just two blocks to the south at 23rd Street and 8th Avenue stood the Grand Opera House; anchoring the growing entertainment district that stretched to Fifth Avenue and Madison Square Park.  It was a vibrant, bustling neighborhood.

Painter John H. Schmitt was living next door at No. 292 on July 12, 1871 when Irish Protestants, known as the “Orangemen,” began a parade from their headquarters called Lamartine Hall on 8th Avenue and 29th Street. The parade celebrated the anniversary of the victory of King William II, the Prince of Orange, over James II at the Battle of Boyne. The cause for celebration was not shared by New York’s Irish Catholics.

Approximately 5000 National Guardsman and 1500 policemen accompanied the marchers; but 8th Avenue around 23rd Street filled with hundreds of Catholics. Bricks and rocks were hurled at the marchers. The militia responded with gunfire and the police charged the mob with their batons.

Militia fire on rioters on 8th Avenue as depicted in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper.  No. 290, where shots were fired from an awning, would be just out of the frame to the far right. -- Library of Congress

The New York Sun interviewed Schmitt and reported “that just previous to the firing by the troops, he saw a man with a red moustache” who fired a gun from atop an awning at 290 8th Avenue.

Before it was over 60 civilians and three National Guardsmen were dead. Nearly two dozen policemen were injured, four of whom were shot, and about 150 others were wounded.

By 1886, when the Alaska Club held its meetings here, a fourth floor had been added.  Where, most likely, three dormers had stood, were squat windows with prominent keystone lentils under a Victorian cornice. The building had been extended a few feet to the north where a passageway once separated it from No. 292 (where John Schmitt had lived), throwing it visually off balance.

When Police Captain Schultz took over he 20th Street station house in 1891, No. 290 was home to Herman’s Concert Saloon. The proprietor, named McLaughlin, ran a gambling house here.  Schultz not only allowed the illegal club to operate, he openly joined in.

A Senate group called the Lexow Investigating Committee, was formed to look into corruption, including Schultz’s indiscretions. An employee of McLaughlin testified that the proprietor “ran a ‘faro bank.’ It was a ‘brace’ game. He also ran a red-and-black game, a roulette wheel, and a ‘sweat’ game.”

When asked whether Captain Schultz was aware of the illegal activities he said the captain “was brought in and introduced all around. He asked all hands to take a drink. He was a nice, social fellow, and spent money freely.”

Schultz's troubles had come about when he went on vacation in 1893 and left Sergeant Coffey in charge as Acting Captain. Coffey discovered the gambling operation and ordered it shut down. All the equipment was moved next door to No. 292 in secret where it continued to operate.

Captain Schultz no doubt regretted his decision to put Coffey in charge as he sat in the senate hearing room.

Although the gambling house moved on, the saloon stayed in business and was run by Otto Ahrendt until 1898.

Then there were changes made.

Miss May Agnew leased the building from Fannie Crawford and opened The Eighth Avenue Mission. She was soon joined in her work by the English-born Sarah Wray. The Mission was nondenominational and was open 365 days a year for a gospel service, preceded by an open air meeting.

The indefatigable women also ran a Sunday School every Sunday. The 1912 Directory of Social and Health Agencies of New York City added that “A trained nurse ministers to the sick poor. Workers visit the homes relieving cases of distress and caring for the temporal and spiritual need of the neighborhood.”

On November 17, 1947, almost half a century later, Sarah Wray finally retired from the Mission which, despite being totally dependent on private donations, was still firmly ensconced at No. 290 8th Avenue.

After the Mission moved out, the building suffered a period of neglect before briefly being home to “Rome,” a gay bar. Then in 2003 the one-time saloon and Christian Mission experienced an astonishing make-over.

As the vintage Biltmore Hotel near Grand Central Terminal was being demolished, interiors were salvaged and some were installed here. Passing through great wrought iron gates outside, the patron found himself surrounded by marble panels, bronze ornamentation and Versailles-type mirrors.

Now called The Biltmore Room it was a high-end, high-priced restaurant run by Chef Gary Robins.

photo thegatesnyc.com

By 2009 the space was taken over by Danny Kane who converted it to a dual-purpose venue – an upscale restaurant during dinner hours transforming into a nightclub late at night. 

photo thegatesnyc.com

The ambitious project did not last, however, and the chunky little off-center building with its rich and intriguing history sits vacant behind its ornate entrance gates.

A Marble Palazzo for a Piano Store -- No. 433 Fifth Avenue

Although the millionaire Theron Butler had died in his brownstone mansion at 433 Fifth Avenue in 1886, the house was still referred to as the Theron Butler house 24 years later.

By 1910, when the former president – now known popularly as Colonel Roosevelt – returned from his sweeping European tour, the days were numbered for the staid old home. On June 13 the piano manufacturer Hardman, Peck & Co., signed a 21-year lease for the property from the Butler Estate on which to build its new showroom and offices; agreeing to rent ranging from $17,000 to $23,000 a year.

Six days later the Roosevelt family borrowed the mansion from Mrs. Alexander from which to view the massive parade welcoming “Colonel Roosevelt” home. The Roosevelts lunched, surrounded by Butler’s art collection including works by Corot, Millet, Bonheur and Rousseau, then watched the parade pass under the windows.

“Few of the crowd seemed to realize that they had an opportunity of seeing the Roosevelt family at Mrs. Alexander’s house, 433 Fifth Avenue. Yet there, balancing himself on the edge of some board sloping to the sidewalk, was Quentin Roosevelt. In the centre window Mrs. Roosevelt, Mrs. Alexander, and Miss Alexander sat and chatted, while behind them glimpses could be obtained of a tall young man, who was identified as Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.” reported The New York Times.

“Miss Alexander” was Eleanor Butler Alexander, Theron Butler's granddaughter. Before long she would be the wife of young Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.

The next month plans were filed for the Hardman, Peck & Co., building. They called for “a six-story building of brick and stone, fitted with stores and showrooms.” The estimated cost of the structure was $50,000.

Before long the Theron R. Butler mansion was no more.

In its place rose a white marble Italianate palazzo designed by Harry Allan Jacobs. The 1911 Architectural Record glowed “The piano house at 433 Fifth Avenue, by Harry Allan Jacobs is one of the unqualified success of the year in the list of new business buildings.”

Flowers vined from the arcade and a theatrical drapery framed the shop window in 1911 -- photo Architectural Record (copyright expired)

At the second floor, Jacobs placed a triple-arched arcade that gave the façade depth and shadow. By placing the main cornice above the fifth floor, rather than atop the sixth, he downplayed the top floor and visually lowered the building’s height. Bas reliefs of musical instruments flanked the three windows below the cornice. A charming juliette balcony gave dimension at the fourth floor, over which the firm’s name was announced in a long panel.

A lighting fixture was suspended from the center of the arcade and a bas-relief panel over the doorway depicted children playing musical instruments -- photo 1911 Architectural Record (copyright expired)

The Record deemed it “one of the most exquisitely graceful buildings ever dedicated to a commercial use,” and said that of all the Italianate structures on Fifth Avenue this was “the most charming.”

Inside, heavy molded plaster ornamented the arches and ceilings.

Inside the Hardman, Peck pianos were displayed in a setting similar to a Fifth Avenue mansion. A graceful winding staircase curved up the rear wall beneath an arched stained glass window. Grand archways embellished with molded plaster separated show areas.


The 1911 issue of Bricklayer pointed to No. 433 as an example of the "extremely attractive small buildings" being built on 5th Avenue -- photo Bricklayer Magazine (copyright expired)

Hardman pianos rivaled Steinways and the firm enjoyed not only the patronage of the Metropolitan Opera Company and the famed tenor Enrico Caruso, but it was the chosen piano for the White House during the Franklin Delano Roosevelt term of office.

After more than a half-century in their building, Hardman, Peck & Co., moved to their new location at 33 West 57th Street in 1934. The bronze letters on the façade were removed, to be replaced with VIRIBUS UNITIS at some point thereafter. The reason for the Austrian imperial motto to appear on the building (which is loosely translated as “with united forces”) is unclear.

VIRIBUS UNITIS replaced Hardman's name mid-century -- photo by Beyond My Ken

In March 1958 Bill Meyer-Fifth Avenue, Inc. bought the building for a home furnishings retail store and wholesale showrooms.  But by the end of the century, the once-elegant piano showrooms were used as a discount merchandise store.  Hulking air conditioning ducts clung to the ornamented plaster ceilings and inexpensive backpacks were piled on the sill of the stained glass window.

A graceful staircase still winds upwards below a stained glass window.

Although the retail space is now used as an apparel store, the interior is still badly neglected.  Outside, the elegant marble palazzo has changed little.  The fifth floor cornice and balcony have been lost, the Austrian motto has been removed and the graceful arcade has been glassed in to maximize floor space inside.  Yet No. 433 remains an elegant fixture on midtown 5th Avenue.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

An 1893 Moorish Fantasy -- No. 256 Fifth Avenue

photo by Alice Lum

In the 1870s West 23rd Street from Fifth Avenue to Eighth Avenue had taken over as the entertainment district of Manhattan. Opera houses, theatres and music halls dotted the thoroughfare, promoting the construction of hotels and commercial buildings in the area.

Charles A. Baudouine purchased the plot at 256 Fifth Avenue, between 28th and 29th Street and began construction of a retail store and loft building in 1892. Baudouine had been an important furniture maker whose high-end Rococo-style furniture graced the parlors of New York’s wealthy and rivaled that of cabinet makers like John Henry Belter.

He retired in 1856 and turned his interests to real estate. For this project he commissioned architects Alfred Zucker and John H. Edelman. The six-story building, completed in 1893, would be one of the most interesting and unusual in the entire area.

Intricate pressed terra cotta encases the facade -- photo by Alice Lum

With fanciful abandon, the architects combined historic styles into a conglomeration loosely termed Moorish Revival today. The light colored brick façade is slathered in matching terra cotta. Two-story columns are banded and laced, intricate arabesques twine around the second story windows and rounded arches are capped with Gothic points. The face of the structure was broken by an ornate projecting balcony at the sixth floor.

Among the first tenants were apparel merchants. In its February 1894 issue, The Clothier and Furnisher reported “E. A. Newell will move from his old store, where he has been for many years…to his new store at 256 Fifth Avenue, in the handsome, new white-stone building recently erected.”

Rupert A. Ryler Co., tailors, also moved in, advertising “all the latest novelties in fine special cloths, golf suits, knickerbockers, mufti, tattersalls, vestings, and a host of others.”

Terra cotta blends with brick to form texture and dimension -- photo by Alice Lum

The building’s prestige was heightened when esteemed portrait photographer Napoleon Sarony established his studio here. Many of the popular “cabinet cards” featuring theatrical stars were shot by Sarony and the building’s proximity to the theatre district was ideal.

In February 1905 Braun, Clement & Co., leased the store along with the basement and second floor. The firm sold “carbon prints,” reproductions of “old and modern masters in the leading public and private art galleries of Europe.” The store offered over 100,000 different images.

Harry Rapp ran his Market Representative Company here in 1916--buyers of dress goods and designs for apparel manufacturers most of which were in the West.  Yet the 45-year old Rapp was discouraged about his business and his wife had recently separated from him.

The defeated executive’s body was found on the shore of Block Island, Rhode Island after he failed to appear at his office for several days.

By this time the theatre district had shifted northward to Times Square and upscale manufacturers like Royal Copenhagen Porcelain made their home here.

photo by Alice Lum

Unfortunately, in the latter part of the 20th Century the unique storefront designed by Zucker and Edelman was ripped off, replaced by a flat polished stone façade identical to hundreds of others. Sometime before 2001 the sixth-story balcony was removed, leaving vacant slots in the decoration where the supporting brackets had been.

Voids remain where the brackets and sides of the sixth floor balcony once met the facade -- photo by Alice Lum

Despite this architectural vandalism, almost all of 256 Fifth Avenue remains intact; what the AIA Guide to New York City calls “a Venetian-Gothic phantasmagoria in terra cotta,”

The 1927 Art Moderne First Nat'l City Bank of New York -- 415 Broadway

415 Broadway shortly after construction.  The building embodied the principals of the new Art Deco and Art Moderne styles -- photo from author's collection

As early as 1856 the Cozzens brothers, John and Sylvanus, ran a hotel sat on the odd little sliver of real estate between Broadway, Canal Street and Lispenard Street.  As the century wore on, it became the sleazy Brandreth Hotel made infamous by its drug-dealing proprietor and at least one murder.

The Broadway-and-Canal-Street neighborhood changed dramatically in the latter part of the 19^th Century, with elaborate cast iron or stone retail and office buildings rapidly being built.  By the turn of the century the hotel was gone, replaced by the Brandreth Building, an “office and studio” building that was home to firms like the Hensel-Colladay Company that sold “dress, millinery and upholstery trimmings."

In 1917 the Columbia Bank opened a branch office here, to be replaced a decade later by the First National City Bank of New York.

The bank was founded as the City Bank of New York in 1812, changing its name when it joined the national banking system in 1863.  The bank grew rapidly and after World War I was expanding with new branches and in October 1926 bought the Columbia Bank’s plot of land.

Architects Walker & Gillette were chosen to design the new building.  Although the firm had become well-known for its neo-classical style buildings; with the coming of the Jazz Age it embraced something new:  Art Deco.

For the long, narrow plot Walker & Gillette designed an Art Moderne stone block with a soaring banking area and offices above.  The monumental entrance on Broadway was capped by idealized sculptures of side-viewed eagles flanking the bank’s inset seal.

Broadway and Canal Street bustle with activity in front of 415 Broadway in 1928, a year after the opening of the bank and one year before the stock market crash -- photo NYPL Collection

Completed in 1927, the bank’s streamlined, clean lines were in stark contrast to the busy cast iron Victorian structures that surrounded it.  Architectural critic for The New Yorker, Lewis Mumford, approved saying “The note of modernism pervades this structure…and is splendidly successful.”

The bank president at the time was Charles E. Mitchell and two years later he would be made chairman.  National City Bank of New York was growing at an blurring pace with branches in nearly two dozen foreign countries.  In 1929 it had become the largest commercial bank in the world.

Not all was rosy, however.

Mitchell’s aggressive and, some would say, questionable policies are blamed by historical economists as major influences in the stock market crash of 1929, leading to the Great Depression.  In 1933 the Pecora Commission was formed; a Senate committee set up to investigate Mitchell.  Committee member Senator Carter Glass reported that “Mitchell, more than any 50 men is responsible for this stock crash.”

The Depression eventually passed and the sleek bank building at 415 Broadway remained a fixture at Broadway and Canal Street.  The bank changed its name again in 1955 to The First National City Bank of New York, then to First National City Bank in 1962, and finally in 1976 to Citibank, N.A.

Citibank moved out of its eye-catching building in the 1990s.  Esteemed restoration architect Joseph Pell Lombardi, known for his work with numerous Manhattan vintage structures, remodeled the building for retail use.

A shoe store occupies the soaring bank space, now divided into two levels -- photo bridgeandtunnelclub.com

Although the streamlined interior details are gone – the polished stone teller counters and the zig-zag decorated cages – the wonderful Art Modern facade of Walker & Gillette is, for the most part, intact.