A Brutalized Marble Commercial Villa at No. 572 5th Ave.

In 1915 the Budd haberdashery was surrounded by equally high-end shops -- photo collection of the Museum of the City of New York

As the first years of the 20^th century unfolded, Fifth Avenue above 42^nd Street was changing.  While a few staunch millionaires remained in their brownstone mansions, most by now had moved north along Central Park, leaving their homes to be razed or remodeled beyond recognition into commercial structures.

Between 46^th and 47^th Streets on the east side of the avenue, the elaborate Beaux Arts style Windsor Arcade engulfed the block front.  On the west side the Chevalier mansion at No. 574 had been transformed in 1903 into a Northern Renaissance fantasy to house upscale retail shops.  Its next door neighbor at No. 572 had also become a commercial building.

In 1906 the area was called by The New York Times “the gilt-edged section of Fifth Avenue.”   Once the most exclusive residential neighborhood in Manhattan, it was now home to the most exclusive retail stores—jewelers, fine art dealers and high-end clothiers.  That year Henry A. Budd purchased the building at No. 572 for $350,000.

Budd was a partner in his father’s haberdashery, Samuel Budd—more familiarly known as “Budd.”  Samuel had come to New York City in 1861 at the age of 26 from New Paltz, New York, to start a men’s clothing business.    The store remained on Fifth Avenue at 24^th Street for 45 years, earning a reputation as one of New York’s most respected men’s outfitters.  But now, with high-end retailers entrenching themselves further up Fifth Avenue, Henry Budd intended to establish a second store.

Budd patiently waited for the lease, held by confectioners Charles A. Dean, to expire in 1907.  In the meantime he commissioned architect Augustus N. Allen to draw up plans to renovate the structure.  The Times reported that Budd intended to “remodel it and open it as a branch store.”

And remodel it he did.

Drawing inspiration from Southern Italian villas Allen created a white marble façade under a red-tiled Mediterranean sloped roof.  A three-story arcade rose gracefully to the fifth floor where three openings were separated by Corinthian pilasters, simulating a loggia.   A frieze of carved shields and the name “Budd” surmounted the impressive bronze store front fabricated by Estey Bros. Company.

The elegant men's store featured a bronze storefront -- Architectural Record June 1916 (copyright expired)

The new Budd store opened for business in 1907, catering to the same wealthy New Yorkers who had lived in the neighborhood a generation earlier.    The store was widely- known for its custom-made cravats which ranged in price from $1.00 to $6.00—upwards to $110 in today’s dollars.  An advertisement in the New-York Tribune touted “All the cravats sold by Samuel Budd are made in his own workrooms; the styles are original and the silks used in their manufacture are woven expressly in exceptional qualities under the supervision of his agents.  The patterns are the work of expert designers.”

Budd leased space above ground level to other high-end retailers.  K. E. Hanley Company was among the first tenants, sellers of women’s apparel.   On January 13, 1907 the store advertised a clearance sale of women’s suits “made up completed of foreign materials in fancy velveteens, in colors, and French Broadcloth.  The models are particularly exclusive and the workmanship throughout bears our well known stamp of superiority,” promised the ad.  The prices hinted at the wealth of the store’s clientele.  On sale some of the suits were priced at $62.50—about $1,100 today.

Shoppers on Fifth Avenue are dressed against the chill in 1915 -- photo collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Men’s tailors Schneider & Schmittlapp was leasing space on an upper floor by 1915.

Samuel Budd died in 1912 at the age of 77 after half a century of outfitting moneyed gentlemen.  Henry A. Budd continued the family business until 1933 when the Great Depression took its toll.   On June 7, 1933 the Mutual Life Insurance Company foreclosed on the building.  It would be the first of a rapid-fire string of turn overs of ownership.    In May 1943 Clarke G. Dailey purchased the property, selling it four months later to Frederick Brown.   Brown quickly turned a profit, selling the building a few weeks later, in November 1945.

The area remained the “Queen of Avenues” for several decades—the very term “Fifth Avenue” being synonymous world-wide with high-priced jewelry, clothing and artwork.   But by the end of the 20^th century more tawdry businesses elbowed their way onto the Avenue and several airlines headquarters took over former retail buildings—often brutalizing the architecture with their modernizations.  And such was the case with No. 572 Fifth Avenue.   In the 1960s Irish International Airlines moved in, to be replaced by a two-story bookstore in 1971.  The upper floors were renovated to offices at the time.

The delicate panel carvings, the rope-twist detailing and the slender white marble columns hint at the lost elegance--photo by Alice Lum

Allen’s graceful Mediterranean villa lost its red tiled roof and the fifth floor windows were elongated, thereby losing the carved panels in the process that had created the loggia-effect.

The surviving traces of the Budd Building could indignantly be called "ruins." -- photo by Alice Lum

But the greatest insult occurred in July 2010 when a two-story storefront of polished black stone and blue neon was installed.   Today only traces of the Budd Building remain.  What was once a graceful white marble villa with a bronze storefront is the victim of brutal architectural vandalism masquerading as “improvement.”

A New York Thanksgiving -- 1871

Thanksgiving postcards, like Christmas cards, would become highly popular by the 1880s.

At the beginning of the 19^th century Thanksgiving had already become an established American tradition.  In her 1827 novel, “Northwood; or, a Tale of New England,” Sarah Josepha Hale wrote an entire chapter about a contemporary Thanksgiving dinner.   In 1846 the author, now editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, began a campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday.

For seventeen years she tirelessly wrote to Congressmen, governors and influential businessmen seeking to have the last Thursday in November proclaimed Thanksgiving Day.  By 1859 30 states and three territories observed the holiday on the third Thursday of November; but the nationwide status eluded Hale until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November a national day of thanksgiving.

It was about this time that the turkey was becoming accepted as the de rigueur main course of the Thanksgiving table.   For a time a roast goose was the preferred fare, in New England it was beef, and chickens were also served.  But by 1871 the turkey was as much a symbol of Thanksgiving as the pilgrim hat.  And, to the offense of some Victorians, the holiday meal had supplanted the original purpose:  giving thanks.

In 1871 workers on a turkey farm pluck and clean birds for Thanksgiving -- Harper's Weekly (copyright expired)

Scribner’s Magazine stomped its editorial foot that year, saying that Americans had “almost lost sight of” the religious purpose of the holiday.  The writer was especially critical of the cities—like New York—where attending church services was not considered obligatory on Thanksgiving Day.   Instead of prayer and reflection, said the article, “what has grown to be considered the real event, the raison d’etre of the day, namely, the dinner.” 

A contemporary cigarette card emphasized the meal’s importance.  “We must not fail to state a hearty dinner of roast-turkey and cranberry sauce, etc., is necessary to all those who would properly celebrate the day.”   The sideboards of 5^th Avenue and the dining tables of Murray Hill groaned under the weight of soup tureens, platters of oysters, fish, steaming vegetables and, of course, the roast turkey.   Elegantly-dressed guests alit from carriages despite the bone-chilling cold that year and the howling winds.  The New-York Tribune reported the following day that “All classes were fully predetermined to enjoy themselves yesterday, and neither the bitter wind that blew with cruel violence during the day, nor the almost arctic temperature, altered the fixity of their purpose in the slightest degree.”

New Yorkers in 1871 who could afford it spent lavishly on their Thanksgiving feast.   When Mrs. Honora O’Brien of No. 46 Mulberry Street set off to buy the provisions for her dinner, she took ample cash for her purchases.  14-year old John Connolly snatched her pocketbook, making off with the $33—nearly $500 today.  The O’Brien family had a sparse holiday dinner and young Connolly spent Thanksgiving in jail.

The term “dinner” has grown imprecise as far as timing is concerned; however to Victorians it referred specifically to the afternoon meal.  Thanksgiving dinner was served around 1:00.  When John Jay, the American Minister to Austria, hosted a Thanksgiving Day “supper” for Americans in Vienna in 1871, the Tribune was aghast.

“We are suspicious of Thanksgiving ‘suppers,’ for dinner is the orthodox meal for the great day; and no man having done justice to an adequate Thanksgiving dinner could eat supper, even if he ‘stood up,’” railed the newspaper.

Furthermore, the journalist could not conceive of a Thanksgiving meal anywhere outside of the United States.  “They may have turkeys in Vienna—fair birds, perhaps, but not what would be called turkeys in Rhode island—but who for a moment can suppose that any cook in Austria knows how properly to roast a turkey?  Then if we pass to the still more important matter of pumpkin-pies, we are ready to declare, without fear of contradiction, that there is not one kitchen artist in all Germany who knows how to make that peculiarly American pie.”

Pie, as the editor of The New York Times pointed out, was a Thanksgiving must-have.

The matter of Thanksgiving pie concerned the editor of The New York Times.  “The Thanksgiving array of pie is usually of so varied, as well as lavish a nature, that it seems cunningly devised to entrap even the most innocent palate.  If mince-pie alone were set before a virtuous family, it is quite probable that many of its members would have the courage to turn in loathing from the deadly compound, but the thanksgiving mince-pie is always accompanied or preceded by lighter pies, in which weak-minded persons think they can indulge without injury.  The thoughtless matron—for thoughtlessness, and not deliberate wickedness, is indicated by the presence of Thanksgiving pie—urges her guests to take a little chicken-pie, assuring them that it cannot injure a child, and thus it cannot be politely declined.  The guest who tampers with the chicken-pie is inevitably lost.  The chicken-pie crust awakens an unholy hunger for fiercer viands, and when the meats are removed, he is ready and anxious for undiluted apple or pumpkin pie.  From that to mince-pie the transition is swift and easy, and in nine cases out of ten the man who attends a Thanksgiving dinner and is lured into touching chicken-pie abandons all self-restraint and deliveres himself up to the thralldom of a fierce longing for strong and undisguised mince-pie.”

Thanksgiving in New York in 1871 went beyond the steaming platters beneath the glowing chandeliers of comfortable rowhouses.   Victorians were acutely aware of the less fortunate and Thanksgiving was a time for charity. 

Thanksgiving dinner is laid out in the Home for the Friendless

On Randall’s Island the waifs in the House of Refuge, the Nursery and the Infant Hospital were provided with a hot meal.  “The three or four boxes of chickens and cakes sent up by the Commissioners were duly weighed and distributed to the different institutions,” reported The Tribune.  The 150 soldiers in the Soldier’s Home “many of whom are cripples,” said the newspaper, “enjoyed the extra viands with much zest.”   The aged and the poor in the asylums and Homes received meals provided by charitable organizations and church groups.  “The poor in the County Almshouse at Flatbush partook of a substantial dinner provided by the ladies of the Episcopal Churches of Brooklyn,” reported The New-York Tribune.   Inmates in the Raymond Street Jail and the Penitentiary in Flatbush “were treated to a substantial dinner of fowl and meats, provided by charitable citizens, and the iron hand of justice was lifted for the time, that they might keep Thanksgiving Day.”

This 1871 stereopticon slide was entitled "Beggar Boy's Thanksgiving"

It would seen that the only group to miss Thanksgiving dinner in 1871 were the prisoners of the Tombs—the Egyptian Revival prison downtown.  Although the Financial Panic of 1872 was a year away, the city’s budget was strained.  “Contrary to the usual custom, there was no special dinner prepared for the prisoners in the Tombs in consequence of a lack of funds, the Commissioners of Charities and Correction not feeling warranted in expending the sum necessary to procure the luxuries necessary for a Thanksgiving dinner for so many persons,” explained the newspaper.

European immigrants quickly absorbed the American tradition.  The Tribune reported that year that “Among the Germans the day was celebrated in the customary manner by a series of social festivities including balls, musical entertainments, and banquets under the auspices of vocal and musical associations and the Turner and Schutzen organizations.”

A Victorian cigarette card depicted a comely servant girl and equally attractive roast turkey.

By the onset of evening on Thanksgiving Day 1871 guests returned home, nurses nudged the children up the stairs, and kitchen servants worked over turkey carcasses that would be transformed into soup the following day.  The uniquely American holiday had developed all the trappings and traditions familiar to us today—except for the football games.

The 1834 Thomas Cox House -- No. 17 Barrow Street

photo by Alice Lum

Greenwich Village with its winding streets and quaint buildings has long inspired romantic stories and interesting tales—whether or not they are true.

In 1834, as the village of Greenwich experienced a boom in development, a handsome Federal-style double house was built at Nos. 15 and 17 Barrow Street.   The two mirror-image homes, two and a half stories tall, featured Flemish bond brick and tall prim dormers.   A horse walk, or passageway to the rear yards, tunneled through the center of the homes accessing the two private stables.

The modest but attractive houses were constructed for Thomas and Henry Cox, presumably brothers.   Both men were carters—the equivalent of today’s local truck drivers or deliverymen.  Thomas Cox lived at No. 17.

photo by Alice Lum

The block along Barrow Street between West 4^th Street and 7^th Avenue remained quietly residential for most of the century.  In 1875 Laura Trace, a teacher in the Girls’ Department of Grammar School No. 10 on Wooster Street, was living at No. 17.   But by 1894 when Edward Kelly lived in the house, changes were on the way.

Irish immigrant Michael Hallanan was a force in that change.  The blacksmith had arrived in New York from Galway, Ireland in 1861 and his fortunes took a turn when he invented a vulcanite rubber horseshoe pad.  The New York Times would remark “His inventions proved not only profitable to himself but a blessing to horses.”

In 1896 Conrad Schafer demolished No. 15 Barrow to construct an imposing private stable designed by H. Hasenstein.   The following year Michael Hallanan purchased No. 17 and renovated it as his horseshoeing operation.  An immense arched opening with double carriage doors was installed that engulfed the basement and parlor floors and the horsewalk became the entrance to the upstairs living quarters.

The demolition of half of the double house resulted in an odd window above the new entrance where the horsewalk had been -- photo by Alice Lum

Hallanan’s patented rubber horseshoe was not only earning him a sizable income, but he received awards at the Paris, Louisiana Purchase, Pan-American and St. Louis Expositions.   Fame and fortune, however relative, did not entice the blacksmith from his shoeing profession; however he began cementing his financial security by investing in Greenwich Village real estate.

By 1901 he had leased No. 17 Barrow Street to Abraham J. Norris while he moved his own operation to No. 186 West 4^th Street, just down the block.     An idea of Hallanan’s growing real estate holdings is evident in a petition signed by Norris and him that year.  The men joined other businessmen in the neighborhood seeking to have “the carriage way of West Fourth Street, from McDougal street to Barrow street…repaved with asphalt pavement on concrete foundation.”  Norris listed No. 17 Barrow as his address; Hallanan listed Nos. 186, 188 190, 194 and 196 West 4^th Street.

Hallanan did not attempt to match the brickwork when he created the large arched entrance.  The origin of the coat-of-arms type decoration remains arcane. -- photo by Alice Lum

Abraham Norris was still leasing the building in 1917 and living upstairs when he served as agent for the State Fair Commission’s Division of Agriculture.

By the time Hallanan died in April 1926 he had earned the affectionate nicknames of the “Greenwich Village Blacksmith” and the “Father of Sheridan Square.”  The latter was due to his influence in the naming of that park.  The 79-year old was the largest property holder on Sheridan Square.

Within two decades, the former blacksmith shop was converted to a restaurant.  And with its new life another set of romantic Greenwich Village stories was born.

Popular lore suddenly made No. 17 Barrow Street the former carriage house of Aaron Burr.  And to spice up the story, the building was haunted by the spirit, not only of Burr, but of his daughter Theodosia.   The wonderful and spellbinding tale sidestepped the historic facts that Cox’s 1834 house was a residence, not a carriage house; and that it was built exactly three decades after Burr fled New York.  Additionally, the educated and privileged Theodosia Burr would never have visited a utilitarian structure filled with horses, hay and manure, let alone haunt it.

With or without ghosts the latest restaurant (established here in 1973), One if By Land, Two if By Sea, is a charming upscale restaurant that remains here four decades later.  Upstairs are two apartments.   The nearly 200-year old house is perhaps even more charming because of its Victorian alterations and the tall tales that it tells.

The John J. Emery House -- No. 5 East 68th Street

photo by Alice Lum

John J. Emery was born in England—far from New York City—in 1838.   When he was still a boy, his parents immigrated to the developing Midwest, settling in Cincinnati, where opportunities were limitless.    They purchased property and began land development.

With his brother, Thomas, young John followed his parents' lead and entered the real estate field with vigor, establishing Thos. Emery's Sons, Inc.    The brothers enjoyed shared success and their fortunes soared.   By 1892 they had moved to New York City and, according to The New York Times, John himself owned 2,00 buildings in Cincinnati, a hotel and two theaters at the time. 


In 1892 John, aged 54, married the 18 year old Lela Alexander, the daughter of U.S. Army surgeon, Charles T. Alexander who would achieve the rank of Brigadier General.   The new Mrs. Emery had been born in a U.S. Army fort in the Indian Territories.   Theirs was a socially prominent wedding and the Emerys would produce three daughters and two sons.

John and Lela Emery would enter East Coast society by constructing two mansions—a Manhattan residence and the socially-required summer cottage.    Architect Bruce Price was commissioned in 1893 to design The Turrets—a massive granite summer house on Mount Desert Island in the exclusive Bar Harbor, Maine, community.  Costing $100,000—about $2 million today--it would take two years to complete and was among the grandest of the Bar Harbor retreats.

With that taken care of, John Emery turned his attention to Manhattan.  On May 13, 1894 the New York Tribune reported that he had purchased two lots from Dr. C. M. Bell on the north side of 62^nd Street, 200 feet east of 5^th Avenue, for $140,000.  “This is said to be the highest price paid for lots in this part of the city,” the newspaper said.

Emery had chosen well.  The neighborhood off Central Park had already begun filling with the marble and limestone mansions of New York’s wealthiest citizens as they moved north away from encroaching commerce.    The real estate titan chose Boston architects Peabody & Stearns to design the house.   The firm was responsible for a number of Newport estates, including Rough Point and Rockhurst.    The firm did not struggle with the design.  In 1893 it had completed the mansion of railroad tycoon Charles L. Colby directly behind the property at No. 8 East 69^th Street.  The back-to-back mansions would be near mirror images of one another—an architectural and social oddity at a time when one-upmanship was paramount.

Back-to-back with the Emery House was No. 8 East 69th Street--a near twin -- photo by Alice Lum

A year after The Turrets was completed, the family moved into No. 5 East 68^th Street.   The mansion announced to New York Society that Mr. and Mrs. John Emery had arrived.  The immense limestone home rose four stories above a deep English basement.    A deep light moat was surrounded by a solid stone wall that kept passersby at a comfortable distance.  The western three bays bowed out, somewhat crowding the Corinthian entrance portico.   The stocky proportions would cause the AIA Guide to New York City to call it, decades later, “bloated.”

The portico was lavished with intricate carving -- photo by Alice Lum

Like the homes of other millionaires of the period, rooms of the house were imported from historic European structures.   Among these was a handsome Louis XVI room removed from a 19^th century hotel on the Avenue de Trouville in Paris.

John and Lela Emery entered New York and Bar Harbor society at full swing.   Lela quickly became a consistant entry in the society pages, hosting dinners, dances and teas.   A decade of magnificent entertainments would end sadly in the summer of 1908.   The Bar Harbor season started out normally for the Emerys.  On July 12 the New-York Tribune reported that “The first reception of magnitude occurred Saturday at the Turrets, the cottage of Mr. and Mrs. John J. Emery of New York.  Mr. and Mrs. Emery received from 5 to 7, and the greater part of the summer colony here was present.”  Lela had a band set up on the lawn playing “patriotic airs and popular music.”

Six days later twenty privileged youngsters were entertained at a birthday party for one of the Emery children.   But soon afterwards, the 70-year old John became ill.    Pneumonia set in, and on August 22 the New-York Tribune reported that he was “seriously ill with pleurisy.”   He temporarily appeared that to improve; then on September 4 he relapsed.  Early in the morning of the following day he died in The Turrets.

John J. Emery left his wife a fortune of about $40 million.    His funeral was held in Cincinnati and, after the expected period of mourning, the family continued its social functions on East 68^th Street and Bar Harbor.  Then in 1911 New York society’s attention was captured when Lela Emery announced she would remarry.

photo by Alice Lum

On July 1, 1912 in St. Bartholomew’s Chapel on Madison Avenue her marriage to the Honorable Alfred Anson “took place very quietly,” said The New York Times.  Anson and his best man, Lord Dalhousie, had arrived a few days earlier on the same steamer.  Unlike Lela’s first wedding, the ceremony was unquestionably understated.  There was no wedding announcement and she wore a “simple traveling gown.”  There were no ushers, and only four guests.  Lela’s father, General Alexander, gave her away.

The newspapers (and Manhattan society) took careful note of Alfred Anson’s pedigree.  The New York Times remarked “Mr. Anson is a member of one of the most noted families of the British aristocracy.”  His brother was the Earl of Richfield; his mother was the former Lady Harriet Hampton, the daughter of the Duke of Abercorn.  He was the nephew of the Marchioness of Blandford, mother of the Duke of Marlborough, and his aunt was the Duchess of Buccleuch.   Lela Alexander had come a long way from an Indian Territory Army fort.

In the wedding notice The Times mentioned that she had “inherited many millions…She owns a splendid house at 5 East Sixty-eighth Street, and The Turrets at Bar Harbor.”    The two properties would remain her homes as she started a new marriage and the couple immediately headed off to summer at The Turrets.

In 1916 Anson left New York to join the British forces in Italy fighting the war.  Lela Emery Anson managed without him for the remainder of the war, moving from Manhattan to Bar Harbor with the three children who still remained at home. 

While Lela Emery’s 1912 wedding in St. Bartholomew’s was a simple, quiet affair, the wedding of her daughter Alexandra in the same church eight years later would be anything but.   On December 9, 1920 she married Benjamin Moore, son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Clement C. Moore.  The New-York Tribune called it “one of the most brilliant weddings of the fall” and the church filled with society’s most celebrated names.  Among the guests were five Vanderbilts, John Jacob Astor, Mrs. Henry Clews, Mrs. I. Townsend Burden, Jr. and her daughter, and Mrs. Belmont Tiffany.  Following the ceremony Lela Anson hosted a reception at the 68^th Street house.

photo by Alice Lum

In 1925 Thomas Emery was married in London and the following year Lela’s last two single children were married and left the house.    On August 31, 1926 John married the daughter of artist Charles Dana Gibson and two months later Audrey wed the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia.

The Honorable Alfred Anson died in 1944 and Lela Emery Anson lived on, now alone, with her staff of servants.  Despite her advancing age she continued the life to which she was so accustomed, dividing her time among her New York, Bar Harbor, Palm Beach and Biarritz, France homes.   On July 15, 1953 the daughter of an Army surgeon who rose to become an internationally prominent society figure died in her massive Bar Harbor cottage at the age of 88.

Twelve years later, in May 1965, the Emery mansion became home to the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia.  The Consulate has lovingly maintained the house which looks nearly unchanged after 117 years.

The Lost Windsor Hotel -- 5th Avenue and 46th Street

Baggage entered the 46th Street side (right) and guests entered on Fifth Avenue.  The arrangement avoided "cluttering."  -- photo Library of Congress

Fifth Avenue above 42^nd Street had just begun seeing the arrival of grand mansions in 1869.   The former mayor, George Opdyke completed his sumptuous brownstone residence on the corner of 47^th Street that year—later to be home to Jay Gould and his family.  The block to the south of the Opdyke mansion contained a small skating pond.  It would be another decade before the white marble St. Patrick’s Cathedral was completed at the corner of 50^th Street and the great Egyptian Revival-style Croton Reservoir at 42^nd Street was still a Sunday afternoon’s carriage drive uptown for most.

But the completion of the new Grand Central Depot that year, just two blocks from Fifth Avenue, meant that scores of travelers would be arriving on 42^nd Street with the need for accommodations.   In 1871 construction began on the Windsor Hotel on Fifth Avenue where the little skating pond had been.  Stretching the entire block from 46^th to 47^th Street it opened its doors two years later.  Owner John T. Daly took advantage of the now-exclusive neighborhood to market his seven-story hotel to wealthy guests—both transient and permanent.   Nay-sayers warned Daly that his new hotel was too far uptown to succeed; not to mention that it sat squarely within a residential neighborhood making it inconvenient to traveling businessmen or female visitors with shopping on their agendas.

Daly needed a veteran hotelier to run his new endeavor and he found one in Gardner Wetherbee.  Wetherbee had helped manage the grand Fifth Avenue Hotel from 1859 to 1867, and had most recently run the Revere and Tremont Houses in Boston.   In accepting Daly’s offer to manage the Windsor Hotel, Wetherbee went into partnership with Samuel Hawk, creating the business of Hawk & Wetherbee.  Years later America’s Successful Men of Affairs would remember “This was a new and exceedingly handsome hotel, situated in the heart of the fashionable residence section of the city, requiring skillful management, but promising good returns to a firm, competent to conduct one of the finest public houses in the metropolis in a proper manner.”

Gardner Wetherbee, along with Samuel Hawk, would make The Windsor Hotel a smashing success -- "America's Successful Men of Affairs" 1895 (copyright expired)

The book added that the Windsor was “at that time, the most luxurious and aristocratic hostelry in New York.”   The New York Times remarked on the lavish appointments on opening day.  It found the main hall, 52 feet wide and 140 feet deep “with a high ceiling, tastefully decorated.”   Nothing was left out: “The barber’s shop, which is to be fitted up at a cost of some $10,000; the bathrooms attached, the grocery and general storerooms, the vegetable kitchen, and pantries innumerable with linenrooms and bootrooms, are also situated in the basement.”

The main dining room was on the second floor and deemed by the newspaper to be “splendid” with its frescoed ceiling.   So that guests would not be annoyed by interruptions to their meals, there were other, smaller, dining rooms “for the accommodation of late diners.”  Children, of course, dined separately in the children’s dining rooms—“one for those attended by white servants, and the other for such as have colored servants waiting on them.”

An early stereoscope view of the Main Dining Room shows the frescoed ceiling and sumptuous chandelier.

Servants’ accommodations and restrooms were in the basement.

The management was pleased with the precautions against fire.  Throughout the mile and a quarter of hallways there were seven miles of water pipes.  “On every floor are four water plugs in connection with the telegraph alarm, from which a floor could be flooded in case of fire in a few minutes.  There are fire-escapes in the rear at both ends of the building,” reported The New York Times.  The precautions, eventually, would not be enough.

The new Windsor Hotel was a marvel in modern conveniences.  There were 139 bathrooms and every suite had a private bath—a rare luxury in 1873.  The suites also boasted “clothes presses and closets, and every room has a fireplace in it,” according to The New York Times.

It was all reflected in the rent that Hawk & Wetherbee agreed to pay to Daly.  The lease for the first ten years demanded payment of $75,000 per year—around $1.3 million today.   Hawk & Wetherbee proved their expertise and the hotel that was too far uptown was a nearly-immediate success.

Three years later The New York Times still raved.  On December 12, 1876 it wrote  “This hotel is fortunate in having a very large patronage of ladies.  This is due to the elegance and refinement which pervade all the departments of this magnificent establishment.  The grand entrance and rotunda are of such magnitude as to afford abundance of room for many hundreds to assemble.  The same may be said of the large drawing-room, the two adjoining parlors, and the elegant octagon room.”

James D. McCabe, in his New York by Gaslight, called the appointments “palatial.”  The New York Times spoke of its 500 rooms and “the tallest and roomiest corridors and entrance hallways of any hotel in the city.”

A payment envelope reminded guests "All Bills Payable Weekly" -- NYPL Collection

That same year the Spanish pretender to the throne, Don Carlos, stayed at the Windsor for several weeks.  The New York Evening Mail reported on August 1, 1876 “He is so well pleased with all he sees, and particularly with the comforts of the Windsor, that he has prolonged his stay much beyond the time intended.  He expresses wonder that the cuisine and service of the Windsor should be even better than at any hotel in Europe, and often compliments the management upon the quiet and order of that large and magnificent establishment.”

Despite the financial success of the hotel, the original outlay was too much for John T. Daly.  The land was owned by Goelet estate and he owed the family a $200,000 mortgage.  By 1877 his debts, including numerous builders’ liens, amounted to about $400,000.  When he failed to make interest payments on the mortgage, the Goelet estate began foreclosure proceedings.  “His trouble unbalanced his mind,” reported The New York Times, “and he took his life by hanging himself in a barn on Long Island.”

A stereoscope view of the hotel shows the Gould Mansion on 47th Street (far left)

For years New York’s financial wheelers and dealers had made the Fifth Avenue Hotel their unofficial headquarters.   But little-by-little the Windsor became home to the late night meetings and plots.  In 1880 Jay Gould had moved into the Opdyke mansion across 47^th Street from the hotel and William H. Vanderbilt was living at the corner of 40^th Street.

In 1881 Andrew Carnegie shared a plush suite with his mother here.  Carnegie was then around 35 years old and it was during a meeting in the hotel that year that he became partners with Henry Frick in the coke trade.  

There was another person haunting the public rooms of the Windsor Hotel that year.  For about six weeks in late Spring a man whom The New York Times described as “shabby in dress and erratic in manner” came and went.  Although he never took a room, he invariably asked the clerk “Any letters for me today?”  There were never any letters for the man whose calling card read “Charles Guiteau, Illinois.”

The New York Times reported later that “He became well known to the clerks, who came to look upon him as a sort of nuisance, and ridiculed him not a little.  They described him as a man of slight build, whose actions were of a most peculiar character and conveyed the impression that he was mentally unsound.”

On July 2, 1881 the man who skulked around in the hallways of the Windsor Hotel fired two bullets into the body of President James A. Garfield who died of his wounds eleven weeks later.

Windsor employees felt that the man haunting its hallways in 1881 was unsound.  Weeks later he would assassinate the President.

In 1884 a rumor was spread by Democrats that Jay Gould had used the Western Union telegraph to falsify the returns in the Cleveland-Blaine Presidential election.   Gould got word that an angry mob was on its way uptown singing “We’ll hang Jay Gould to a sour apple tree.”  He rushed across the street and hid out in rooms on the top floor of the Windsor for several days until things cooled down.

By now Samuel Hawk had died and his nephew, also named Samuel Hawk, had taken his place alongside Wetherbee in running the hotel.   It became the choice of the world’s most important and most celebrated names.  Opera diva Nelly Melba always stayed at the Windsor during her New York stays, as did soprano Adelina Patti.  The New York Times noted in 1899 that Patti “always stopped there when in this city and occupied the same suite of rooms on the third floor looking out upon Forty-seventh Street.  She had a private billiard table and was very fond of knocking the ivories about, as also was her second husband, Nicolini."

Heads of state stayed in the Windsor.  The Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro; President Diaz of Mexico; and Presidents McKinley and Arthur were guests here. 

On the afternoon of March 17, 1899 thousands of people crowded Fifth Avenue as the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade filed past the Windsor Hotel.  Around 3:00 a guest lit a cigar in an upstairs hallway and tossed the still-lit match which accidentally caught a curtain ablaze.  Panicking, the man rushed out of the hotel without summoning help.

The fire intensified with unbelievable speed, roaring up stairways and trapping guests in their rooms.  The New-York Tribune the following day said “But the fact remains that the fire could scarcely have burned with more rapidity had the building been constructed with an eye to making one grand bonfire out of it.”  The street below, moments before the scene of carefree celebration, was suddenly one of terror and horror.

In the first minutes of the fire a painting is handed down from the second floor.  Before long the pavement would be littered with bodies. -- photo Museum of the City of New York

Dora Gray Duncan was conducting her dance class of forty boys and girls, aged 5 to 7, including her daughter Isadora Duncan.  The maids of the children sat patiently by watching the class.  Just past 3:00 Mrs. Duncan went to a window to raise the shade.  According to The Sun “As she did so the body of a man flashed past the window.  Then the bodies of two women went dashing down.”

A maid who had just arrived to pick up one of the children, quietly whispered to Mrs. Duncan that the hotel was on fire.  By maintaining calm, Mrs. Duncan managed to safely lead all of the children out onto the street.  Others were not so lucky.

The first of the firefighters arrived around 3:20 and by now guests were throwing themselves from their windows to their deaths on the concrete, amid the horrified St. Patrick’s Day revelers.   The firemen got as many guests and employees as possible out before the heat made it impossible to be inside.  The New York Times reported that “the heads of panic-stricken people protruded from the hotel windows, turning now toward the flames and now toward the sidewalk, and calling for help in tones that made the hearers sick.”

photo Museum of the City of New York

Two more alarms were sounded.  Firefighters, many of them still wearing their parade dress uniforms, hosed down the surrounding mansions to keep the fire from spreading.  Included was the house of Helen Gould, who opened her parlor as a triage center.  The Fellowes mansion at No. 570 Fifth Avenue had already begun burning.

Within an hour and a half, the grand hotel was gone -- photo Museum of the City of New York

Around 4:00, just one hour after the insignificant match was lighted, the central section of the hotel fell in and twenty minutes later the 46^th Street wall collapsed.   It would be days before the ruins were cool enough to dig for human remains.  In the end at least 90 people were dead and for over a year the block-long plot of scarred ground—called by The New York Times “the dreary void”—was a reminder to the surrounding wealthy residents of the horrific catastrophe of St. Patrick’s Day 1899.

Workmen sift through the smoking rubble on March 18, 1899 -- photo Museum of the City of New York

On the site in 1901 rose the ebullient Windsor Arcade—a high-class, early 20^th century version of the shopping mall named with respect to the grand and tragic hotel.

Many thanks to reader Allen Kaufman for suggesting this post

The 1850's "Muffin House" -- No. 337 W. 20th Street

Its original use as a foundry most likely accounts for the building's extra-wide frontage.  The decorative cornice has been lost.

When Samuel Bath Thomas left his home in England in 1874 the Chelsea region of New York City had already become a vibrant, mixed neighborhood.    Half a century earlier the once-rural family estate of Clement Clarke Moore had been cut into building plots as the streets and avenues invaded the property.

By now row houses, churches and businesses lined the avenues and side streets.     The westerly location of Chelsea near the Hudson River, still north of the established business district and many blocks from 5^th Avenue, kept property values affordable.  Yet it was also near enough to the Broadway hotels to be advantageous to businesses serving those establishments—like a commercial bakery.

Along with his personal effects, Samuel Bath Thomas brought his most valuable possession—a muffin recipe.   Thomas’s muffin was totally unlike anything American breakfasters were accustomed to and it would lead to his fortune in his new country.

In 1880 Thomas opened his first bakery at No. 163 9^th Avenue.     He sold only to commercial establishments, possibly to the discontent of passersby who smelled the aromas wafting from the bakery.   He advertised delivery “to hotels and restaurants by pushcart.”

Before long the demand for Thomas’ English Muffins was such that a second bakery was necessary.  Thomas opened the branch location just around the corner at No. 337 West 20^th Street.  What would seem to be a rather surprising spot on an otherwise quiet residential street directly across from St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, was most likely a shrewd move.

The existing brick-and-brownstone building had been built a decade before the Civil War.  A foundry was once housed in the lower levels which would have necessitated large brick ovens.   It was nearly a custom fit.

Thomas renovated the existing building and, perhaps with deference to the neighbors and the church, only slightly altered the Anglo-Italianate street level.  It was possibly at this time that the pressed copper cornice above the first floor was added.    

In the basement massive brick ovens stretched back underneath the garden.    From here the Thomas bakery produced the tasty English muffins for decades.

When Thomas died in 1919 his family took over the bakery, later selling the business.   Eventually the West 20^th Street location was abandoned and the former bakery became, like the upper floors, apartments.  The great brick ovens under the garden were walled off and forgotten.  In 1952 there were two apartments per floor and any memories of Thomas’s baking operation in the basement were long forgotten.

Then around 2005 Mike  Kinnarie and Kerry McInerney purchased their duplex apartment—the first floor and basement--in the building which was now a co-op.   In July 2006 Kinnarie was in the process of some home improvement and removed an old radiator on the first floor.  In the process some floorboards were pulled loose.

In the darkness below he could see bricks and what appeared to be a door or perhaps a window.  In an act of urban archeology, Kinnarie cut a section from the basement bedroom wall and aimed a flashlight beam into the darkness.  There were Thomas’s ovens—an arched grotto-like brick structure bearing the black scars of years of intense heat.

The co-op at No. 337 West 20^th Street has been christened The Muffin House.   The mid-19^th century building draws little attention by its unexceptional architecture.  Yet underneath the garden are remnants of a most interesting page of New York and culinary history.

photographs taken by the author