The 1894 Goebel Building -- No. 94 Bedford Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1894 Herman Schade lived in a comfortable brick home at No. 20 Bedford Street in Greenwich Village.  The Federal-style home, while outdated, reflected Schade's financial success in the plumbing business of Shade Bros. & Co.  That year he commissioned architects Kuzer & Kohl to design his personal stable a few blocks to the north at No. 95 Bedford.

Two wide arched entrances with double doors marked the first story brownstone base.  A smaller arched doorway led to the upper floors.  Three stories of brick trimmed in brownstone with exceptionally tall windows for a stable building sat above.  The facade was distinguished by handsome brick panels beneath the windows of the upper floors.  The additional floors (stables were normally two-stories high) and the Queen Anne-inspired cornice, found more often on tenement buildings than private stables, suggests Schade may have leased living space for additional income.

Attractive brick panels between the windows were an added touch -- photo by Alice Lum

His completed building cost the plumber $14,000--about $300,000 today.

Schade was apparently a man of strong conviction or, at least, had little intention of sitting on a jury.  On May 21, 1895, when he was called for jury duty for the trial of Police Inspector McLaughlin, charged with extortion, Schade was obstinate.

The New York Times reported "Schade finally declared that he would be guided by his own opinion and would not be likely to take instructions from the court.  He was excused."

While Herman and his brother Henry were establishing their plumbing business, Julius Goebel was importing clay crucibles, the holders for molten glass.  Goebel arrived in America from Germany during the turbulent Civil War years, around 1865.  The Goebel company was the sole American importer of Grossalmerode clay, a German clay highly resistant to heat and perfect for the crucibles.

J. Goebel & Co. was located far downtown at No. 129 Maiden Lane for nearly half a century.   The firm exhibited its crucibles and clay at the 1877 Philadelphia International Centennial Exhibition, drawing the attention of glass makers.

Upon the death of Julius Goebel, the operation of the firm passed to his son, Julius Goebel, Jr. In 1927 J. Goebel & Co. moved into the former stable of Herman Schade.  A molded insignia was installed over the arched entrances announcing the firm's name, surmounded by a crest with stacked crucibles.

The stacked crucibles in the shield confuses modern locals, who mistake them for wine vats -- photo by Alice Lum

While the firm converted the lower floors to its warehousing, shipping and office facilities; the upper stories became eight rental apartments.  If Goebel had ever manufactured any of its crucibles, it would appear that by 1928 it was importing and selling only.  An advertisement that year in Ceramic Products Cyclopedia touted "sole importers and sellers of Goebel's Grossalmerode Clay."

The company diversified its products before long and in 1940 advertised selling "crucibles, tongs, fluxes, furnaces and casting equipment" from the building.   The Goebel family sold the building to an investor in 1946 for $40,000.

photo by Alice Lum

Greenwich Village had been the Bohemian section of New York City for decades--its winding streets and charming buildings attracting musicians, artists and writers.  Once such artist was Victor Seydel, the Brussels-born decorator and muralist.   Among Seydel's commissions was a mural for the Hotel Martinique to commemorate (or possibly celebrate) the end of Prohibition.  The mural was unveiled on October 2, 1934. 

Seydel and his companion, former model Marion Getty, were living at No. 95 Bedford Street when he died in October 1948 at the age of 66.  Marion would stay on in the studio she shared with the artist for several more years, living with his paintings.

Greenwich Village teems with buildings that enjoy romantic and untrue stories told and retold as local lore.  The quaint former stable of Herman Schade is commonly reported to be a former winery or brewery--most likely because of the German-sounding name in the molded ribbon over the door and the crucibles in the crest which are easily mistaken for wine vats, and the grape-looking clusters beneath them.

The original doors with their wonderful strap hinges and multiple-paned openings still survive -- photo by Alice Lum

The handsome building has survived with its original carriage doors and little alteration; a charming element along a Village street.

The Fisk-Harkness House -- No. 12 East 53rd St.

photo by Alice Lum

In 1871 when Charles Moran purchased the building lot at No. 12 East 53^rd Street the march of millionaires up Fifth Avenue would take a few years to reach this far north.  Along the block between Fifth and Madison Avenues, brownstone row houses were being erected by developers; but many of them were still intended for the comfortable merchant class; not the fabulously wealthy residents that would soon arrive.

Moran’s site was a bit grander, however.  At 37-1/2 feet wide and 100 feet deep, it was significantly broader than the standard 25-foot width of building lots.   For his architect Moran went straight to the top.  He hired architect Griffith Thomas, whom the American Institute of Architects would years later deem “the most fashionable architect of his generation.”

The resulting mansion rose four stories over an English basement.  Clad in brownstone it had the expected steep, broad stoop and flat roof emblematic of New York residential architecture of the period.

Six years after Moran’s house was completed Harvey Edward Fisk graduated from Princeton University in 1877.  He entered the banking firm founded by his father, Fisk & Hatch, which was reorganized at Harvey Fisk & Sons in 1885.  By the turn of the century the successful banker was a partner in Fisk & Robinson, an investment banking firm.

And things had changed along East 53^rd Street off Fifth Avenue.

The avenue and its side streets were now lined with the mansions and clubs of New York’s wealthiest citizens—the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers sharing their neighborhood with the exclusive Union and University Clubs.    It was the sort of area that attracted wealthy bankers like Harvey Edward Fisk.

In 1905 No. 12 was owned by Walter G. Oakman, the Chairman of the Board of the Guaranty Trust Company.  He sold the house to Fisk, and promptly moved three blocks north to No. 1 East 56^th Street.    Manhattan’s millionaires were routinely razing the outdated Victorian brownstones or remodeling them into unrecognizable, now-fashionable residences.  Fisk would follow the trend.

He commissioned architect Raleigh C. Gildersleeve to completely renovate the old house.    Gildersleeve was responsible for the neo-Tudor and Collegiate Gothic buildings of Princeton University where Fisk had studied.  Whether the connection had any influence on the choice of architects or the design is uncertain; but the result was Gildersleeve at his best.

Gildersleeve's attention to small details included carved heraldic shields, barely noticeable to the passerby -- photo by Alice Lum

Completed in 1906 at a cost of $25,000 (nearly half a million dollars today) the transformation was remarkable.  Gildersleeve did away with the outdated stoop and opted for an up-to-date American basement with the home’s entrance at street level.  The elimination of the stoop made it possible to move the façade forward 8-1/2 feet, and a 19-foot extension was added to the rear where the former Moran stables had stood—the residence was now a full 27-1/2 feet deeper than before.

The limestone façade rose five stories; a striking neo-Tudor Gothic palace that announced Harvey Fisk’s place among New York’s privileged class.   Diamond-paned windows, buttresses and drip moldings created a palace reminiscent of Anne Boleyn.

photo by Alice Lum

The extreme depth of the building allowed for three large rooms on the ground floor—a reception room, followed by the music room and the formal dining room to the rear.  The walls were hung with artwork and tapestries, and the rooms filled with antique furnishings.

Just four years later, on October 17, 1908 The New York Times surprised many with the announcement of the sale of the mansion.  “The sale of one of the finest residences in the Fifth Avenue section added a feature of unusual interest to yesterday’s real estate dealings,” it said.

The newspaper revealed that “The buyer is William L. Harkness, a cousin of Edward S. Harness of the Standard Oil Company.  Mr. Harkness lives at Glen Cove, L.I., and has acquired the Fifty-third Street house with a view to making it his permanent home in this city.”

Fisk had been forced to sell by financial setbacks.  The price he got from Harkness, no doubt, helped greatly relieve his money problems.  For the house, including the furnishings, artwork, antiques and tapestries, Harkness paid a staggering $400,000—an unprecedented sum for a house.

A contemplative carved head stares upward from beneath the stone balustrade of an upper balcony -- photo by Alice Lum

Considering his interest in Standard Oil, the residence was conveniently close to the Rockefeller houses across the Fifth Avenue on West 54^th Street.  Like the Rockefellers, Harkness traveled back to Ohio for business and pleasure.  In August 1911 Harkness entertained to New York guests named Harding on his $100,000 steam yacht Gunilda on Lake Superior.  Also on board were Edith Harkness and the children, Louise 9 years old and her brother Billy, 5.   The pleasure trip became less pleasurable when the yacht went aground in the fog.

The Sun reported that the party was stranded on board the yacht while Harkness and two crew members went ashore and made their way to a small fishing village for help.  “The passengers were badly shaken up and were frightened, thinking that the vessel was about to sink,” the newspaper said.

The 195-foot craft was rescued by a team of wreckers.

Most Harkness entertainments were more successful.  In December 1916 they included a stream of receptions, dinners and other entertainments in celebration of Louise’s debut.   On December 7 there was an afternoon reception in the mansion followed by an “informal dinner.”  (One is left to wonder how informal that dinner was.)  Afterwards, Edith took her guests to the Republic Theatre to see “Good Gracious Annabel,” and then to the Club de Vingt for supper and dancing.

A week later the Harknesses hosted a large dinner dance at the Colony Club for Louise with 150 guests invited to dinner and another 60 arriving afterward for the dance.

Three years later on May 10, 1919, William L. Harkness died in the 53^rd Street house.  His funeral was held on the first floor here three days later.   Edith was the principal beneficiary of the vast estate—over $700 million by today’s standards.  She retained the Manhattan house, the Glen Cove estate, Dosoris, and the yacht.  The two children divided the rest of the estate, held in trust until they reached 24 years of age.  There were “no public bequests.”

By now the Fifth Avenue neighborhood was once again changing.   In the Manhattan tradition of ever-expanding northward, the grand mansions built only a generation earlier were being razed or converted for commercial use as millionaires fled further up the avenue along Central Park.   On November 20, 1921 the New-York Tribune announced “The fine large home of Mrs. William L. Harkness is the latest to be taken over for trade in the new upper Fifth Avenue art colony…The property has been bought by Proctor & Co., interior decorators and dealers in furniture, fabrics, draperies and Oriental rugs.”

The house as it appeared when Edith Harkness sold it in 1921 -- New-York Tribune October 27, 1921 (copyright expired)

Thirteen years after her husband had bought the house for $400,000, Edith Harkness sold it for the same price—a reflection of the change in the neighborhood.  The 32-year old Proctor & Co. had been doing business from Nos. 3 and 5 West 36^th Street since 1906, and it announced that “extensive alterations” were planned for the Harkness mansion.

Among those alterations was a show window punched into the ground floor.

The interior decorators would not stay long, however.  Just three years later it sold the house to the Automobile Club of America.   The club functioned not only as an instrument to promote good thoroughfares, improved road signs, traffic regulations and the marketing of the automobile for recreational purposes; but as a social club as well.  The organization’s Women’s Committee redecorated the former residence.

The primary intention of the club was reflected in the “touring, supply and map departments.”  But the house was outfitted with the expected clubhouse features as well.  On the second floor was a restaurant; the third floor offered a library, sitting room, lounge and card rooms; there were baths, locker rooms and dressing rooms on the fourth floor; and executive offices above.

When the Automobile Club of America was in the building, the large show window had already been cut into the facade -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Social events were common here.  On December 3, 1927 the Junior League of the Union Hospital held a “bridge and dance” for the benefit of the institution here.  A month later on January 6, 1928 The Times reported that “Beginning tomorrow, a series of four tea-dances will be held at the Automobile Club of America, 12 East Fifty-third Street…There will be tables of bridge.”

The Great Depression took its toll on the Automobile Club of America and in 1932 it was forced to dissolve.   The Mutual Life Insurance Company acquired the building in foreclosure that year.

photo by Alice Lum

The mansion apparently sat vacant for six years until the Symons Galleries leased it from Mutual Life in 1938.  The firm dealt in European antiques and had been founded by Henry Symons in 1913.  After being “extensively renovated for its new tenant,” according to The New York Times, the building opened for business in May 1938.

Rooms throughout the former house were dedicated to the display of tapestries, porcelains, bronzes, paintings, and Renaissance jewelry.   The gallery announced that “French and English eighteenth-century furniture will predominate.”  At least some of the original Gildersleeve interiors still survived.  Two rooms were devoted to Jacobean and French antiques and the newspaper reported that the “former is a carved oak room with the original stone mantel.” 

In a striking example of misinformation, The Times added that “The building was designed in the Renaissance style by the late Stanford White.”

With the expiration of the Symons lease the building was offered for sale and in December 1948 the national advertising agency, Maxon, Inc., purchased the building.  The New York Times announced that “The advertising concern plans to occupy the entire building as offices for its New York staff.”

While glass and steel skyscrapers replaced the limestone and marble mansions along 53^rd Street, the Fisk house at No. 12 miraculously survived.  In 1964 it was purchased by the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising.   Founded in 1939, the school offers specialized education “focused on the business side of fashion.”   The once-magnificent interiors were partitioned into classrooms and suspended acoustical ceilings were hung over Tudor-style plasterwork.

In order to modernize and optimize the space, the school commissioned architectural firm Butler Rogers Baskett to renovate the interiors.  In what LIM’s website calls a “gut renovation,” the last vestiges of Raleigh Gildersleeve’s 1906 detailing were obliterated.

The mere existence of the mansion in the Midtown neighborhood of glass and steel skyscrapers is miraculous -- photo by Alice Lum

The exterior, however, is amazingly intact on a block where no trace of the once exclusive residential neighborhood remains.  The singularity of the mansion’s architecture is matched only by the miracle of its survival.

The Lost 1901 Wm. Hall Mansion -- No. 1008 5th Avenue

Montgomery Schuyler pronounced Welch's over-the-top architecture "vulgar" -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The approaching tide of New York’s millionaires up Fifth Avenue was well under way when brothers William and Thomas Hall purchased the blockfront between 81^st and 82^nd Streets with the intention of erecting four speculative and spectacular mansions.  The developers commissioned Alexander Welch of Welch, Smith and Provot to design the residences

Completed in 1901, each stood on its own architecturally; but they created a harmonious whole.   The grandest, a brick and limestone beauty that stretched down 82^nd Street, would become the home of Benjamin and Sarah Duke.  The mansion next door, at No. 1008, was purchased by William A. Hall.

Benjamin Duke would move into the house on the corner, next door to William and Sarah Hall -- photo NYPL Collection

William Hall was Director of the Publishers’ Paper Co.  He and his wife, the former Sarah Jewett Adams, had one son, Melvin.   Their robust Beaux Arts house was deemed by architectural critic Montgomery Schyler “vulgar,” but its location and neighbors firmly established the Halls’ social standing.   The deed was placed in Sarah’s name, and she filled the house with the expected French furniture, antique tapestries and expensive turn-of-the-century bric-a-brac.

Sarah Hall filled the entrance with a variety of furnishings--including a table placed oddly in front of the fireplace.  -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Just seven years after moving in, the Halls leased the house with all its furnishings.  The Sun, on September 15, 1908, noted that “Capt. James Pierre. Drouillard, a newcomer to the wealthy colony east of Central Park leased a handsome fireproof residence at No. 1008 Fifth avenue, contracting to pay $20,000 a year rental.”

The Drouillards leased the house with all the furnishings, including those in the dining room as pictured in 1905-- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Captain Drouillard, who had distinguished himself in the Boxer Rebellion and Spanish-American War, could afford the rent—which amounted to about $360,000 today.  His new bride, the former Ada Sorg had inherited a hefty $10 million from her father, Ohio tobacco manufacturer and politician Paul J. Sorg.  The captain entered the steel and fiber industry when he left the army and, according to The New York Times, “is also rich.”

Their move, said The Tribune, “practically completes the severance of the family of the late Congressman Paul J. Sorg from their old home in Middletown Ohio."  Sarah’s only brother, Arthur had already made New York City his legal residence and Captain Drouillard was in the process of doing the same.

The newlyweds moved into the Fifth Avenue mansion in 1909; but the honeymoon would not last long.  A few months later storm clouds gathered.  Ada would later relate that her husband had chosen the house and signed the lease without her knowledge.  “I had nothing to say about it,” she told reporters.

Tensions between the pair came to a head in September 1910.   Later, in July 1914, Ada would tell the court that “there was a misunderstanding between us that resulted in Capt. Drouillard leaving.”  As she explained it, “We had gone to a certain affair together and came back separately.  After that my husband never stayed there over night, but we attended dinners and teas together and my husband went to the theatre with me as late as last September.  After we separated I paid the household accounts and the rent.  Before that my husband paid them.”

Ada Sorg Drouillard remained in the house along with her brother-in-law until 1912.  She moved up the avenue to No. 1014 Fifth Avenue and continued her odd relationship with her husband.  “We never knew…whether we would live together again,” she later recalled.  “It was just one of those cases where we might have made up any day and again we might not.”   She frequently consulted him regarding household and business matters and he was in charge not only of the Drouillard estate, but the Sorg estate as well.

In the meantime the Hall family was enjoying their wealth and traveling extensively.  On January 23, 1913 Sarah and her son Melvin “steered their car into its Broadway garage,” as reported in the New-York Tribune.  Parking one’s car would normally not induce press coverage; but in this case it signaled the end of a 33-country road trip—the first ever attempted by amateur drivers.

When the Halls sailed from New York on June 10, 1911 they took along their 4-cylinder phaeton motorcar.   Sarah and her son did not originally intend do a two-year global automobile tour.  “They motored through England and Wales and then through nearly every country in Europe,” said The Tribune.  “From Naples their automobile was shipped to Bombay, and they spent several weeks driving through India.  They wore out dozens of tires on the roads to Ceylon, Sumatra, Java and the Malay Peninsula.  They motored up through Cochin China and southern China to Hong Kong, then through Japan and the Philippines.”

Now that they were in the Far East, the closest port to New York was California.  “Landing in San Francisco, the motorists traveled through northern Mexico, and then came home by way of the Santa Fe trail and through Denver, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Washington.”   Their 40,000-mile trip “wore out 117 tires and burned up 5,000 gallons of gasoline, but suffered no serious mishaps,” said the newspaper.

Now home, Sarah checked on her vacant house at No. 1008 Fifth Avenue.  And she was not pleased with her findings.

Not only did Captain Drouillard receive a divorce suit that year, he was sued by Sarah Hall for damages inflicted on the house and furnishings.  The New York Times reported that the complaint claimed “that through carelessness and inefficiency $9,000 worth of damage was done to the furnishings.  An extra $850 is demanded in order to restore the billiard room to its former condition, Capt. And Mrs. Drouillard, according to the complaint, having divided it into bedrooms.”

Ada Drouillard described Sarah Hall's antique chairs as "rotten." -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Because the Drouillards were now amicably divorced, Ada was sued as well.  She appeared in court on July 6, 1914 and scoffed at the allegations.  She had, she said, made a “mental inventory” upon leaving and all was in proper order.  “The only thing that was broken was a plaster bust of a lady, which was smashed by my maid a few days before we left, and the broken pieces were left there,” she said.

While Sarah listed damages and losses including holes in the rugs, stains on the upholstery, a missing tea set, artwork and a lamp; Ada vehemently accused her landlady of providing shoddy furnishings.

The holes in the entrance rug were already there, she insisted, and she hid them with jardinieres.   She described the two leather screens in the dining room as “on their last legs” and told of the rickety condition of other pieces.  “A month after she occupied the house she gave a party and in the midst of the gayeties the divan in the library broke and the guests went through to the floor.  Then Mrs. Drouillard had new springs put in, she said,” reported The Sun.

She testified that she had never seen a “brass smoking lamp, a number of ivory miniatures or a South American tea set,” reported missing.  She complained that the draperies were “just in shreds,” and she had to cover a stained leather couch with a silk rug.  A desk had lost its gilt and couldn't be used in a strong light.

“The mahogany piano was so stained it showed just plain wood.  It was out of tune and sounded tinny.  The keys were yellow, the legs were scratched and it was absolutely a disgrace.  It was even better looking when we came out than when we went in.”

Interesting electric light fixtures in the form of opaque glass seashells hang in the second floor stair hall -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Sarah Hall no doubt bristled in the courtroom when Ada Drouillard described a number of antique chairs as “rotten.”

After the war, William and Sarah spent less and less time in New York, preferring their Paris home.  Melvin, who graduated from Princeton in 1910 and rose to the rank of major in the army, was now employed in the American Embassy in London.  He married Josephine Johnson in Paris on November 14, 1922.   The Hall ties to New York were essentially severed.

The mansion was acquired by the Scoville School for Girls in 1927.  The exclusive school was founded in 1882 as the Classical School for Girls.  Its name change came in 1905 when it was purchased by Mrs. Helen M. Scoville.   Helen Scoville instructed her well-heeled students in “music, art, household economics.”  Girls could participate in “gymnasium, riding, outdoor exercise” and social recreation.  An annual “European travel party” introduced the girls to a lifestyle they could expect.

Only five years later, however, the house was sold at auction.  It was purchased by the National Association of Audubon Societies.   The interiors that had already been significantly altered into classrooms and sleeping rooms, were now converted to exhibition halls, a library and committee rooms, and offices.  This new arrangement, too, would be short-lived.

In 1945 The New York Times reported that the house, assessed at $135,000, was sold; to “be altered into doctor’s suites.”

By now the two houses at the southern end of the block had been demolished for a tall apartment building.   The William Hall mansion and its rich history would survive until 1979 when a modern apartment building, not especially attractive, took the place of No. 1008 and its next door neighbor.  The sole remaining survivor of the 1901 row—the Duke mansion—amazingly endures as a private residence.

The Duke mansion sits uncomfortably next to the soaring skyscraper where William Hall mansion stood -- photo by Alice Lum

The 1831 No. 52 West 10th Street

photo by Alice Lum

The quiet block of West 10^th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues had seen much change by the time the Civil War ended.  The modest brick homes of the 1830s built on the eastern fringe of Greenwich Village now shared the block with wide Greek Revival and Ango-Italianate residences.  Although a private stable had elbowed itself in at No. 50; the block off Washington Square retained its respectability.

Among the earliest structures was the handsome Federal home built for carpenter Abner Tucker between 1830 and 1831 at No. 52.  Two stories high with a dormered attic, it reflected Tucker’s successful business.  The Flemish bond brickwork and paneled lintels were extra touches that told the passerby that the family inside could afford a little extra. 

A high stoop with delicate iron railings let to a sophisticated entrance—an eight-paneled door framed by wooden columns and a glazed overlight that allowed sunlight into the foyer.

It was perhaps the coming of the stable next door that changed the fate of the charming little house; but in the last half of the century the parlor floor was gutted and a wide opening gashed into the façade.  The house that had been Abner Tucker’s pride and joy became a stable, as well.  Another door in the back allowed access straight through to the back lot.

The little house gained a gaping door, like the white-painted stable next door, in the second half of the 19th century -- photo by Alice Lum

By the turn of the century William and Alice Evens owned both the stable at No. 52 and the four-story brick house next door at No. 54.  The couple dabbled in real estate, buying and selling houses in the neighborhood and they ran No. 54 as a boarding house.

In 1918 when William Egloff leased the stable, Greenwich Village was luring artists, poets and musicians.  The Washington Square neighborhood filled with artists’ studios, and Bohemian cafes and nightspots sprouted in basements of the surrounding streets.

The widowed Alice Evens sold her 10^th Street properties in 1922.  On July 2 the New-York Tribune announced the sale, noting that the two buildings had “been in the possession of the selling family for a great many years.”

photo by Alice Lum

The humiliation of being used as a stable was about to end for the prim little Federal home.  It had been purchased by painter and sculptor Frederick MacMonnies who lived down the block at No. 20 West 10^th Street.  MacMonnies paid $25,000 for the building and immediately set to work to convert the ground floor into his studio.  The upper floors would become a spacious apartment.

Although he was also a portraitist, he was best known for his sculptures and was as highly regarded in Europe was at home.  Through his associations with Stanford White and Carrere & Hastings, he received numerous architectural-related commissions, including the spandrel reliefs for White’s Washington Square Arch, the Nathan Hale monument in City Hall Park and several groupings for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Other artists settled on the block and on March 6, 1927 they and other residents were aroused by gunshots and police whistles.  Two doors east of MacMonnies’ studio artist  Juliet Thompson lived at No. 48.  The New York Times reported that “Shots and a chase over the roof of 48 West Tenth Street and adjacent apartment houses aroused members of the artists’ colony in that vicinity early yesterday morning.”

Policemen rushed up the stairs of No. 48 and onto the roof where a chase of three men ensued.  The Times said “The roofs in this block contain a succession of skylights, the top floors being occupied largely by artists.”  Despite the gunfire and commotion, the article reported that “No arrests were made.”

MacMonnies leased the apartment upstairs—in 1931 Baird Hall lived there—and sculpted below.  Among his subjects who posed in the space was Giulio Gatti-Cassazza, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera.  When Gatti-Casazza announced his forthcoming retirement, Paul D. Cravath commissioned MacMonnies to sculpt a bust to be placed in the foyer of the opera house.  For five weeks in 1935 Gatti-Cassazza visited the studio on West 10^th Street for sittings.

MacMonnies died on March 22, 1937.  His studio was taken over by modern dancers Bruhs Mero and Felicia Sorel .  Called the Dance Gallery, it served to showcase their avante garde routines—making West 10^th Street just a little more Bohemian than it already was. 

On June 30, 1942 The Brooklyn Eagle described the weekly “Sunday Nights at 9” at the Dance Gallery.  “You go in through doors large as an entrance to a stable, pass through a pleasant room with uneven floor, sit down in one of some 25 or 30 seats and you are in a studio with polished floor and a skylight far above.  The lights go out and in a moment the darkness is cut by a sliver of light fro a little spot, and there before you in the beam one of them is dancing.  It’s pretty lovely.”

The article described Mero’s “dream dance” that began half-way up a ladder, and Sorel’s dancing to “short blue poems of Langston Hughes.” 

Other artists followed.  Sculptor Isamu Noguchi, whose studio was at 33 MacDougal Alley, lived here for a period at the beginning of World War II, and sculptor Concetta Scaravaglione used the studio space several years later.

In 1954 the end came for artists and dancers in the former stable.  It was converted to a garage “for one motor vehicle,” according to the Department of Buildings, with a one-family dwelling above.  Through all of  its incarnations, the façade of the delightful Federal house remained perfectly preserved (well, except for the stable door).

The entrance retains the original paneled door, the prim dormers survive unscathed, and the iron railing with its well-worn boot scraper still remains after nearly 200 years of use.

No. 52 survives as part of a treasure-trove of architectural gems along the block -- photo by Alice Lum

The 1870 St. Ann's School -- No. 113 East 11th Street

photo by Alice Lum

Bishop Hughes formed the parish of St. Ann’s in 1852 to serve the fashionable Bond Street neighborhood.  Father John Murray Forbes acquired an old church building on East 8^th Street that had been built by Episcopalians and then taken over by Presbyterians.  Bishop Hughes dedicated the building on June 1, 1852 and the parish prospered.

In 1863 the congregation was large enough to support a school and St. Ann’s Parochial School was opened nearby.  Here young Catholic children were educated by Sisters of Charity.

By the end of the Civil War, neither the old church nor school building was sufficient.  In 1870 pastor Thomas Scott Preston, as Father Forbes had done before, purchased an existing church building.  The 1847 structure at No. 120 East 12^th Street had been built as a church and was until recently used as a synagogue.  Directly behind, on East 11^th Street, land was conveniently available for construction of a new school building. 

The school opened later that year.  Fr. Preson’s obituary in November 1891 would mention that “He was a firm supporter of the parochial-school system, believing that the education of the young should devolve upon the Church, and to exemplify his belief, he built a commodious school-house on Eleventh street.”

And commodious it was.  The non-nonsense brick edifice stretched from No. 113 to 117 East 11th Street and rose four stories above the basement.  The architect made creative use of brick, on the whole, to embellish the structure.  Limestone eyebrows over the arched windows and stone door framing were the exception.  A carved stone disc in the shallow gable announced the school’s name.

A pleasing row of brick corbels lined the gable and band courses of saw-tooth brick broke the heavy mass.   As with all Catholic schools, boys entered through one door; girls through another on the opposite end.

The improvement to the block led the Board of Alderman to approve three street lamps in front of the building that year.  The school opened with an attendance of 560 students.

Stairs originally rose to the boys' and girls' entrances -- photo NYPL Collection

Despite the modern design, the school was built with little thought to the threat of fire.   In March 1883 Elbridge T. Gerry, President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, sent a letter to the Inspector of Buildings, William P. Esterbrook “calling his attention to the condition of a large number of school buildings in this City.”  Among them was St. Ann’s.

The Society found that all the outer doors were kept locked, there were no fire escapes and no fire drills were ever conducted.  It was a disaster in the making.

The violations were corrected and things at St. Ann’s progressed quietly for another three years.  But in 1886 construction of Charles Goldstein’s Webster Hall next door at No. 121 was nearing completion.  The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide described it as “a large ball and concert hall.”  Fr. Preston dug deeper and discovered that Goldstein had applied for a liquor license.

Preston lodged a complaint with the Excise Commissioners based on the location next to the school.  Goldstein countered through The New York Times saying that the “hall was intended for balls, receptions, Hebrew weddings, and sociables, and not a bar room.  The bar would not be opened until 8:30 or 9 o’clock in the evening, at the hour the school would be closed.”

Other newspapers were not so understanding of Goldstein’s position.  The New-York Tribune, on December 30 mentioned “The Excise Commissioners have reserved their decision, though they ought to have been prompt in denying the application.  Hesitation is not creditable in such a case.”

A day later The Sun chimed in.  “A place such as this dance hall draws to it and about it characters with whom children should not become familiar, and creates noise and confusion intolerable in the immediate vicinity of a school and church.  The proprietor of this establishment deserves no consideration at the hands of the Excise Commissioners, who have full authority, and are under positive obligation to refuse him a license.”

Whether Fr. Preston or the newspapers like it or not, Goldstein got his license and Webster Hall became one of New York’s most popular gathering spots.

photo by Alice Lum

Although St. Ann’s congregation continued to be among New York’s wealthiest into the 20^th century, the school saw a decline.  In 1914 it had an attendance of 157 boys and 147 girls—a drop of nearly 50 percent. 

Yet the school endured, with no help from Webster Hall next door.  In 1902 the banquet hall caught fire, then again in 1911.  In 1930 the building was partly destroyed by another blaze and then, on February 22, 1938 the entire neighborhood was evacuated as yet another fire raged through the hall.   The conflagration, which The New York Times said “menaced St. Ann’s Parochial School,” nearly destroyed Webster Hall and resulted in two deaths.

The East Village neighborhood changed as the 20^th century progressed and in 1978, five years before the church was re-established as St. Ann’s Armenian Rite Catholic Cathedral, the old school building was converted into apartments, four to a floor.  A later conversion was completed in 2010.

The boys’ and girls’ entrances were partially bricked over, transforming them to windows, and the street and basement levels were painted an industrial red.  Although the apartments are roomy it appears that any sympathetic treatment of the exterior design is purely accidental.

"The Immigrants" -- Battery Park

photo nycparksgov.org

The end of the Revolutionary War did not mean the end of tensions between Great Britain and the fledgling United States.   In 1806 the British blockaded New York Harbor and fired on American ships, killing a helmsman.  

Two years later construction began on the West Battery—a circular stone fort that would double the protection provided by Castle Williams on Governors Island, then known as the East Battery.  Designed by Jonathan Williams and John McComb Jr., the new battery would sit on a man-made island off the tip of Manhattan.  

Although the fort was completed in 1811, just in time for the outbreak of the War of 1812, it saw no military action.  A decade later the Army withdrew from the fort and it was leased to the city as a pleasure garden, “Castle Garden.”   A room was eventually added and the old, renovated fort saw headline making events like Jenny Lind’s first American concerts and, in 1851 Lola Montez performing her shocking tarantula dance.

The renovated fort became a refreshment and entertainment center -- NYPL Collection

By the middle of the century thousands of European immigrants were swarming into the harbor.  To establish an orderly, formalized means of processing them, the State used the building as the nation’s first immigrant reception facility, now called the Emigrant Landing Depot.  Opened on August 1, 1855, the former fort received between 8 and 12 million immigrants before Ellis Island took over the task in 1892.

The newcomers, mostly impoverished who spoke no or little English, arrived after weeks-long voyages in cramped, unsanitary conditions.  Dropped into a sometimes unfriendly city, with no job nor place to live, the immigrants were no doubt at once terrified and excited.   As they stepped onto foreign soil for the first time, they each shared one thing:  hope.

Immigrants disembark into a new land exhibiting a variety of emotions and costumes -- Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion 1851 (copyright expired)

Among those who arrived through the Emigrant Landing Depot in 1883 was a young Jewish couple who, like every other immigrant who arrived here, sought a better life.   In 1896 the Rudins had a son, Samuel, who would fulfill every dream his parents brought with them.

In the meantime, in 1892, the Emigrant Landing Depot was closed as the new Ellis Island complex opened to receive and process immigrants.  The old fort would be renamed Castle Clinton.

In 1902 Samuel purchased his first piece of Manhattan real estate.  In 1923 he married May Cohen, whose parents had also arrived through the former immigrant center.    Within the next few decades the Rudin Management firm owned dozens of skyscrapers valued in the millions of dollars.  But with success and fortune, the Rudins never forgot their humble roots at Castle Clinton.

In 1973 Rudin commissioned Spanish sculptor Louis Sanguino to create a statue to memorialize not only his parents, but the throngs of immigrants who arrived through Castle Clinton.  Rudin envisioned the memorial standing near the stone fort that where his parents had been processed nearly a century earlier.

Two years later Samuel Rudin died.   His will established the Samuel and May Rudin Foundation which would disburse millions of dollars in grants supporting education, hospitals and health organizations, social and religious welfare agencies, museums and performing arts.  The Rudins were the first corporate sponsors of the New York City Marathon.  Family members, including May, were determined that his vision of the immigrant memorial would be realized.

Sanguino’s sculpture took a decade to complete.    The powerful, heroic-sized group encapsulated the emotions of the wide variety of immigrants landing on New York’s shores.   Cast in the Modern Art Foundry, it was first dedicated on May 4, 1983.  Entitled “The Immigrants,” it depicts a spectrum of feelings—anxiety, relief, joy, and uncertainty.  Each figure is obviously unrelated to the others; yet they are all connected by the common experience of the tortuous voyage to a place of hope.

photo nycparksgov.org

Sanguino included a freed African slave, an Eastern European Jew, a priest, a mother clutching her baby to her breast, and a common worker.   Etched onto the red granite base is “Dedicated to the people of all nations who entered America through Castle Garden.  In memory of Samuel Rudin 1896-1975 whose parents arrived in America in 1883.”

As Rudin intended, the commanding bronze sculpture sits near the entrance to Castle Clinton in Battery Park—a powerful reminder of the struggles and hardships of the millions of immigrants who entered New York’s harbor in the 19^th century.

photo nycparksgov.org

The 1909 Arthur Sachs House -- No. 58 E. 66th Street

photo by Alice Lum

With the return of New York’s laborers at the end of the Civil War and the official completion of Central Park in 1873, the blocks just east of Fifth Avenue above 54^th Street experienced a building boom.  In 1877 Ira E. Doying built a string of ten rowhouses on East 66^th Street, stretching from No. 46 to No. 64.  Designed by J. H. Valentine, the comfortable brownstone residences were intended for the merchant class.  The mansions of New York’s wealthiest citizens were still 20 blocks to the south.

But by the turn of the century things had changed.  Hotels and retail shops were overtaking the Fifth Avenue mansions of the Astors, Vanderbilts and Goelets, and “Millionaires’ Row” had moved northward along the Park.  One by one the brownstone homes of a generation earlier were being replaced or altered.

In 1903 the brownstone house at No. 58 East 66^th Street was owned by Samuel Adams, a 67-year old married man who had an eye for the younger ladies.  On July 14, of that year it landed him in the Yorkville Court.

The New York Times explained that Adams “has clung to the flirting habit, although the hair on the top of his head has long since let go.”  The proximity of his home to Central Park made his “flirting habit” easy.  “Naturally poetic and aesthetic, Adams has also the correlative—a fine discrimination of the value of the glint and sheen of sun and moon on leaves and foliage—and so has made the Ramble in the Park the scene of his attacks upon many hearts,” said the newspaper

The man with the wandering eye had finally been caught in his “heart-breaking campaign extending over a period of four years” when Annie Stein charged him with promising to marry her.  Having told the woman that he was 49-years old, he led her to believe he was rich; saying that he owned a brownstone worth $25,000.

When Annie Stein found out he was married, the jig was up.  Her lawyer told the judge, “He is not fair.  He flirts with girls so young that he might be their father’s father; and he makes promises which he cannot keep.  Just in this instance—to Miss Stein—he promised her a brownstone house.  He’s married too!”

Adams protested that it was all just a joke.  Explaining that his wife was at home, sick, he said “I did it merely for a little fun.  Just went into the park to have a little…”

The Magistrate finished the sentence for him.  “Flirtation.”

The judge then turned to the complainant and asked why Miss Stein “had not repulsed this aged wooer.”  She could not answer, so her attorney replied for her.

“You see this woman is single and thought the man a catch.”

The judge considered the case and ruled in Adams’ favor.  “The Magistrate decided that Miss Stein had met Adams freely of her own volition after he had first cast his magnetic glance upon her and discharged him,” said The Times.

Samuel Adams would have to find a new spot for flirting before long.  Five years later the house was purchased by financier Arthur Sachs.  A member of the firm Goldman, Sachs, Co., he had married the former Alice Goldschmidt two years earlier.  Now with their first child, James Henry Sachs, a year old it was time for a new home.

On December 23, 1908 The Times reported that plans had been filed for a five-story dwelling on the site of Adam’s brownstone.   Sachs commissioned the firm of Buchman & Fox to design his mansion.  The eight year old partnership had already produced apartment buildings in Manhattan and sprawling country homes.  The architects told the newspapers that “It is to be of limestone in the design of the French Renaissance, with a balcony with large casement windows over the central entrance.”  

The mansion was completed within the year at a cost of around $25,000—about $750,000 today.  As was common, the deed was put in Alice’s name, assuring her financial stability.  As promised, the limestone house smacked of France.  Formal and grand, it sat on a rusticated base where the centered, recessed entrance was framed in leafy carving.  A dramatic arched lintel over the French doors and flanking windows of the second floor was echoed in an elaborate arched pediment at the fourth story that burst through the cornice into the mansard roof.

The second story windows are boarded closed in 2013 as renovations are done -- photo by Alice Lum

The Sachs family would stay on at No. 58 until 1919.  That year Sachs purchased two brownstone homes on East 69th Street and built a mansion over twice the width of the 20-foot wide 66^th Street house. 

The earlier mansion was purchased by Yale-educated banker Lewis Brown Gawtry and his wife, the former Olive Van Rensselaer.  The socially-prominent couple moved in with their two daughters, Olive and Beatrice.  Gawtry  was a significant figure in the power companies of New York.  He was Vice President of Consolidated Gas Co. of New York; secretary and director of New York Edison Company; and sat on the boards of the United Electric Light and Power Co., the Brush Electric Illuminating Company, Consolidated Telegraph and Electric Subway Company, National Code and Coal Company, Mutual Gas Light, Company, and several others.

But it was his work with the Boy Scouts of America for which he would be remembered.

In 1910 when the Boy Scouts was founded child labor was common.  Most workers had only six years of formal schooling and 1.7 million children between the ages of 10 and 15 were full-time workers.  Boy Scouts were recruited in the schools, so working boys had little chance of joining the organization.

In 1914 Gawtry was a member of the BSA’s National Council and it occurred to him that a troop could be formed within his Consolidated Gas Co. for its young workers.  On May 1 that year he founded the first of what would be known as the “industrial troops” for office boys and clerks in three utility companies.  Consolidated Gas Co. then paid for the establishment of Camp Gawtry 40 miles north of the city.

Here struggling youths spent weekends in the country, both summer and winter.  Calling themselves the “gas house gang,” they enjoyed a large building with a dormitory that housed thirty scouts, assembly room with a stone fireplace, and kitchen.  Most of the boys had never left the city and suddenly they were learning nature skills, sledding and taking field trips to a Pennsylvania mine to see where the gas for their company’s fuel came from.

Gawtry believed that the boys would be more efficient workers because their health would be improved by the outdoor live.  He further thought that the teamwork they learned at camp would carry through to the workplace and life in general.  His firm belief in the ideals of the scouting program and his interest in the welfare of the boys resulted in his position as National Treasurer of the Boy Scouts of America.

photo by Alice Lum

In the meantime, the house on East 66^th Street continued to be the site of glittering entertainments, including the debutante teas and receptions for Olive and Beatrice.  None of the events was more noteworthy than the wedding of Olive to Robert Wallace Tilney in mansion on May 3, 1934.

With their daughters grown, the Gawtrys moved to a lavish apartment at No. 610 Park Avenue in 1942.  The house was leased for a year by Cecil Rhodes; then purchased by the Joseph L. Ennis & Co., operators.  The cash sale was one of six houses the firm bought simultaneously, possibly causing speculation among real estate watchers.

But any thoughts that the mansion would be razed for an apartment building were put to rest when Dr. Gerald O’Brien paid $57,000 in cash for the house in February 1944.  Before the 45-year old O’Brien moved in with his wife, Felice, he had some alterations done.  The first floor was converted to the doctor’s office, connected to the couple’s duplex apartment on the second and third stories.  The two floors above each became a luxurious rental apartment.  One of the windows flanking the entrance became a door to access the residences upstairs.

O’Brien was on the staff of St. Vincent’s Hospital and St. Clare’s Hospital;  but his income was fattened through other enterprises.

O’Brien was the medical director of the International Longshoremen’s Association—an organization notoriously connected at the time with gangland activities and corruption.   Unlike Lewis Gawtry’s ideals, the doctor’s may not have fallen along the lines of the Boy Scouts of America.

Among the patients visiting No. 58 West 66^th Street was the infamous mobster Frank Costello.  The Italian-born gangster was known as “the Prime Minister” and had risen to the top of America’s underworld.    His testimony during the 1951 Senate Kefauver hearings caused a sensation since, by now, he was considered the number one gangster in the U.S.   He caused problems for himself when a committee member asked “What have you done for your country, Mr. Costello?”  The mobster spat back “Paid my tax!” and walked out of the chamber.

His defiance cost him an 18-month jail sentence for contempt, followed by a five-year sentence for tax evasion in 1954.  Although free on $50,000 bail, the 63-year old Costello was restricted from leaving the State of New York.  He sought the help of Dr. O’Brien to lengthen his leash.

On November 1, 1955 The New York Times reported that the physician recommended a month in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  His patient, he said, “was suffering from laryngitis and a post-nasal drip.”  The judge apparently did not agree with the treatment and a month later the same newspaper reported “Frank Costello will spend the winter in and around New York—by court order.”

On September 19, 1959 Dr. Gerald F. O’Brien died at his summer home in Croton Falls, New York.  The doctor was just 57-years old.

photo by Alice Lum

Today the French-inspired mansion is little changed.  Its reserved façade gives no hint at the three remarkably different families who lived inside.