The Lost Chickering Hall -- 130 Fifth Avenue

from the collection of the New York Public Library

During the turbulent Civil War years, piano and organ dealers clustered along Broadway, mostly below Houston Street.  In 1860 there were no fewer than four piano showrooms along the block between Prince and Houston alone.  Among them was Chickering & Sons, a Boston-based firm renowned for its superb quality and design, at 694 Broadway. 

In 1864, William Steinway jumped ahead of the piano district by erecting an elegant showroom building on East 14^th Street near Fifth Avenue.  Well-heeled customers could browse among more than 100 Steinway & Sons pianos here, away from the distraction of competitors’ showrooms.  Two years later, Steinway scored a coup when he ingeniously constructed a concert hall at the rear of his building.  Now audiences who came to hear performances would get first-hand demonstrations of the Steinway instruments played by top musicians.

Steinway’s luck increased when Manhattan’s premier concert venue, the Academy of Music, burned down four days before Steinway Hall’s grand opening.

By 1874, Chickering was ready to meet the challenge posed by Steinway Hall.  The firm broke ranks with the Broadway piano merchants and signed a 25-year lease on the lot at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 18^th Street—a neighborhood that a generation earlier had been the city’s most exclusive residential district and included Frank Chickering’s own mansion at 5 Fifth Avenue.  Architect George B. Post was hired to design a structure that could house a vast piano showroom, music store, warehouse and—most importantly—a concert hall to rival Steinway’s.

Chickering’s planned move would instigate a migration of the piano and organ dealers.  Before the turn of the century Fifth Avenue and Union Square would see the construction of grand buildings of piano makers—the Sohmer Piano and Decker Brothers buildings among them.  But for now Chickering could claim Fifth Avenue.

Chickering invited "friends and the public" to the new structure -- The Sun, December 18, 1875 (copyright expired)

Post’s Chickering Hall was completed within six months of breaking ground.  The impressive structure cost $175,000—a substantial $3 million today.  At four stories tall, pretending to be two, it was a stocky red brick structure trimmed in marble and brownstone.  Immense arches, two stories tall, commanded attention.  There were three along the Fifth Avenue façade, mimicked by five blind arches down 18^th Street.  Post capped it all with a tiled hipped roof.

Chickering Hall sat among the mansions of a still-residential Fifth Avenue.  Note the smart carriage and footman to the left -- photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEPNPNP&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=579

The auditorium engulfed the second and third floors.  Praised for its acoustics, it could accommodate 1,500 patrons.  The hall was hastily opened on Monday evening, November 15, 1875 before the interior decorations were fully finished.  The rush to throw the doors open was the result of a one-time opportunity for Frank Chickering’s firm.

Internationally renowned pianist Hans Von Bulow had planned his American debut for November 1875 in New York City.  The eccentric musician was highly selective about the make of piano he would use and discussions had gone on for months.  Finally he settled on Steinway and Chickering as the only pianos he would play.  Von Bulow’s manager entered into negotiations with both firms.  Newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic reported that both Steinway and Chickering had offered $20,000 to land Von Bulow on their stages.

 

Frank Chickering was no doubt jubilant when Hans Von Bulow agreed to open at Chickering Hall.  The opening night of Chickering Hall was a stellar one.  Hans Von Bulow was backed up by Leopold Damrosch’s orchestra—which two years later became the New York Symphony Orchestra.  It was marketing gold when Von Bulow told the press, “On other pianos, I have to play as the piano permits; on the Chickering I play just as I wish.”

Hans Von Bulow plays with Damrosch's orchestra on opening night -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

A journalist in the audience gave the performance a rave review, saying, “From the moment he touches the keys Bulow disappears, and nothing but the work…remains.”  He called the Chickering piano, “the wonderful instrument which served Mr. von Bulow so faithfully, so obediently, so lovingly.”

The Von Bulow tour stretched on for weeks, both in New York at Chickering Hall and on the road.  Chickering pianos followed the artist, but his intense dislike of commercialism repeatedly caused problems.  More than once the pianist kicked over the large signboard advertising Chickering Pianos, once sending it sailing behind the orchestra.  When Frank Chickering tried to solve the problem by stenciling the name Chickering in gold letters on the instrument, Von Bulow pulled out a penknife and scratched out the name.

Elegantly-dressed patrons ascend the grand staircase to the concert hall on December 4, 1875 -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

Two months after its opening, Chickering Hall received its $15,000 custom-built organ.  Constructed by Hilborne L. Roosevelt, The New York Times called it, “a very successful achievement.”  The organ was premiered in a concert by organists Morgan Whitely, George and William Warren, S. Austen Pearce and Dudey Buck.  The newspaper noted, “Some of the effects…were uncommonly beautiful, and the voix celeste approximated so closely to the ideal of angels’ chants, that the assemblage broke out into rapturous applause almost before the sounds had died away.”

Von Bulow’s widely-publicized concerts that inaugurated Chickering Hall had pushed, at least for a while, Steinway Hall off the entertainment pages.  But while famed musical artists, orators and singers would go on to grace the boards of Chickering Hall, not all the performances would be critically-acclaimed. 

On December 12, 1876, a young Russian pianist made her American debut here.  Mlle. Theresa Jakonbovitsch disappointed the critic of the New-York Tribune who wrote, “She promises more than she is as yet able to accomplish.”  Although he tried to be kind (“She seems to be intelligent; she certainly plays carefully”), he summed up her performance saying, “But, as it seems to us, she ought rather to be studying than playing in public.”

The vast auditorium was not devoted only to music.  Other large assemblages used the hall including, surprisingly, the proceedings in what The New York Times called, “the famous Forrest divorce suit” in April 1876; and Professor Huxley’s series of three lectures on The Theory of Evolution in September that same year.  The British scientist deftly presented his evidence of evolution while avoiding the bruising of some less broad-minded Victorian minds in the audience.

By the 1880s the mansion next door to Chickering hall had been converted for commercial purposes -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

The following year, in May 1877, audiences were spellbound by a demonstration by Alexander Graham Bell of his new invention—the telephone.  Bell’s demonstration, unfortunately, was only partially successful.  The New York Times reported on several of the experiments.  In one case, “Mr. Watson was asked to repeat some phrase loudly and slowly a number of times.  The phrase was announced to be, ‘Do you understand what I say?’  What came from the boxes was, “Oo, boo, boobooboo, boo, boo, boo.’  Mr. Watson next tried to say ‘How do you do?’ but only succeeded in transmitting ‘boo,boo—boo,boo.’”

In 1882, poet Oscar Wilde arrived in America for a lecture tour and on January 9 crowds filed into Chickering Hall to hear the famed Irish writer.  “Before 8 o’clock a placard setting forth that there was ‘standing room only’ within was displayed at the entrance.  A large portion of those who attended came in coaches, and there were many representatives of families conspicuous in the fashionable world,” reported The New York Times.  “Young men dressed as though for an opera night ranged themselves behind the rear row of seats and along the side aisles.  Ladies attired in rich costumes were numerous, and were prepared to level their opera-glasses at the lecturer upon his appearance.”

The newspaper was a much interested in Wilde’s appearance as in his subject, “English Renaissance.”  In detail it told its readers, 

His long and bushy hair crowded in front of his ears and nearly to his eyes, but it was brushed well off his forehead.  He wore a low-necked shirt with a turned-down collar and large white necktie, a black claw-hammer coat and white vest, knee-britches, long black stockings, and low shoes with bows.  A heavy gold seal hung to a watch-guard from a fob-pocket.  The poet had no flower in the lapel of his coat.  In his picturesque attire he was a study that seemed greatly to interest the audience.

Having recapped the lecture, The New York Times concluded saying, “At the finish of the lecture the poet was vigorously applauded, and when he retired from the stage he blushed like a school-girl.”

One-by-one the mansions along Fifth Avenue were converted for business purposes.  photograph by Adolph Witteman, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEPNPNP&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=579

In 1901, Chickering’s lease with the Mason estate elapsed.  The New York Times reported, “Some time before the expiration of the ground lease, it became known that the Chickering concern would not retain the property.”  By now the entertainment district, along with the piano companies, were already moving northward. 

The building of another piano manufacturer, Mason and Hamlin, had replaced the church behind Chickering Hall by the turn of the century -- photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEPNPNP&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=579

On December 4, 1901, Alliance Realty Company purchased the property for about $575,000.  Four days later, The New York Times reported, “A new mercantile structure will soon rise on the site of Chickering Hall.”  The days of the magnificent structure where New Yorkers heard the world’s foremost musicians, inventors, singers and lecturers had come to an end.

Within months, Chickering Hall was demolished and the foundation for an 11-story business building was excavated.  It was the scene of tragedy on May 27, 1902 when a crowd of excited viewers crammed the area of the construction site as a parade marched up Fifth Avenue.  The temporary sidewalk erected in front of the deep pit gave way, plunging about 100 persons into the excavation pit.  One man died instantly and “at least fifty were so seriously injured that they either had to receive medical attention on the spot or else were driven away in carriages,” said the police report.

The limestone and brick-clad building that replaced Chickering Hall survives, obliterating any memory of the once-famous concert hall that stood there before it.

(photograph by the author)

The 1894 Scribner's Sons Building -- No. 155 Fifth Avenue

1846 was at a time when quiet evenings were spent with a bound book and one’s level of sophistication could be measured by his personal library.  That year Charles Scribner and Isaac D. Baker formed the publishing firm “Baker & Scribner” which, after Baker’s death, became Charles Scribner Company.

Having started out in part of a chapel of an old brick church at the corner of Nassau Street and Park Row, the growing company moved in 1856 to 377-379 Broadway; then to 124 Grand Street in 1858; and later to 654 Broadway. In 1875 it moved again to 743-745 Broadway.  But by 1892 the firm would need to expand yet again.

Charles Scribner, Sr., had died in 1871 but his firm, now known as Charles Scribner’s Sons, continued its distinguished reputation as a publisher of theological, historical and philosophical books.  Scribner’s published the first American edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, started a subscriptions department, and expanded into magazine publishing with highly popular periodicals like Scribner’s Monthly, Century Magazine, and the children’s St. Nicholas Magazine.

The firm purchased the Glenham Hotel on Fifth Avenue between 21^st and 22^nd Streets for about $250,000 (approximately $5.5 million today).  The New York Times announced on August 3, 1893 that “an office building will be erected on the site.”

The “office building” would be designed by the well-respected architect Ernest Flagg.  At the time social reform was gaining steam; and Flagg was already recognized for his concern with adequate light and ventilation, sanitary conditions and zoning laws regulating the height of buildings and setbacks.  The architect was a major proponent of the Beaux Arts style, and the new Scribner’s Sons Building would be a fine example.

Flanking the central dormer, the dates of the firm's founding and the construction of the new building were carved.

Flagg looked to France for inspiration, as evidenced in the similarities between Edmond Guillaume’s 1880 Maison Commerciale at 3 rue d’Uzes and Flagg's designs for Scribner’s.  His resultant limestone-clad structure, completed in 1894, rose six stories to a mansard roof.  An elegant glass marquee sheltered patrons arriving at the first floor retail space.  Below ground was the packing department, offices took up the second floor, and the upper floors housed the subscription-book, surplus stock, magazine and mailing departments.

Ernest Flagg’s minute attention to the functional aspects of his designs extended to the bookshelves in the new building.  The New York Times noted that “at the suggestion of Ernest Flagg, the architect, they had their entire store…refitted with glass shelves.  Mr. Flagg originated the idea, having observed that wood and iron shelving, whether smooth or covered with cloth, had the effect of wearing the bindings of books.”

The heavy, pricey shelves were custom-made in France in two sizes and thicknesses—the larger being three-quarters of an inch and the smaller half an inch thick with rounded edges.  “This glass for one thing is perfectly inflexible,” explained the newspaper, “which gives it an advantage over wood.  Its strength also has been abundantly proved.  It is not only more cleanly looking than anything else in the way of shelving, but it in fact easier to keep clean.”

The Times said “The Messrs. Scribner are enthusiastic in praise of glass shelving, and all who examine it are impressed with it value in the preservation of books.”

Exquisite carvings surround the plaque that originally announced Scribner's Sons.

By May 25, 1894 the move into the new building, deemed by The Times as “built of white limestone and graceful with classic simplicity,” was nearly completed.  Over 300,000 volumes had been carefully packed and moved over a period of a month.  The newspaper was astounded that there had been no damage to the inventory.  “Of all the delicately beautiful volumes which were transferred from the old building to the new—missals, books of hours, incunabula, bindings of the old masters, and of Cobden-Sanderson, new editions in covers fresh as the lilacs o May—not one was even imperceptibly damaged.  Not one!”

Well-dressed women window shop in front of the bookstore in 1895 -- King's Photographic Views of New York (copyright expired)

The Times estimated the cost of the new building by using the taxes and interest on the property as a guide.  It arrived at a figure of “more than $500,000.”

A clever cover illustration depicts women gazing into the store window of the new Scribner bookstore in November 1894 -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

Scribner’s Sons was not the only large publishing house and bookstore to move that year.  Dodd, Mead & Co. established itself right next door at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 21^st Street, and D. Appleton & Co. moved into its new building at Fifth Avenue and 13^th Street.  A journalist noted in December 1894 that “The growing literary taste of the public is being shown by the publishers who are moving into enlarged quarters to meet the demands of their customers.”

A white marble staircase led to additional retail space.  Note the interesting gas lights encircling the columns -- King's Photographic Views of New York 1895 (copyright expired)

The writer made note of Scribner’s retail area.  “Inside the new building of Charles Scribner’s Sons there is the appearance of a large public library, with a wonderful collection of books, fresh and new, and in beautiful bindings of many kinds.  Book shelves run up into a second story, and in the rear there is a top light of glass so large that there is not a dim nook or corner to be found.”

Scribner’s was fortunate to have published The Sherman Letters that year—a 50-year compilation of correspondence between brothers General William Tecumseh Sherman and Senator John Sherman dating from 1837 to 1891.  The firm also published Frances Hodgson Burnett’s newest children’s book Piccino that year; the latest in a series that included the popular Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Meticulous in its choice of authors, Scribner would introduce and represent over the years Edith Wharton, Henry James, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling and George Santayana among many others.

In honor of Theodore Roosevelt's return from his African safari in 1910, Scribner's is framed in bunting and a two-story picture of Roosevelt is decorated with two large flags -- photograph by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWE01010&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=667

Scribner’s Sons tradition of uptown moves continued.  After just two decades in its handsome headquarters, the firm called back Ernest Flagg to design another, larger, office building and bookstore further uptown in 1913. 

The Scribner family retained ownership of the old property, however.  In January 1934 it leased the building to the 153 Fifth Avenue Corporation which announced plans to remodel “with stores on the first floor and lofts above, at a cost of about $40,000.”  Architect Arthur Weiser made the renovations and it was possibly at this time that the marvelous glass marquee was removed.

The store level was modernized again in 1969; yet the beautiful French detailing of Ernest Flagg was mostly preserved.  By now the Scribner family no longer owned the building, having sold it in 1951.

Lacy cast iron spandrels trace the shape of the original glass marquee. 

In 1973 the United Synagogue of America purchased the former bookstore/publishing building.  Organized the same year that Scribner left the building—in 1913—its goal was to establish a middle-ground between the Reform and Orthodox communities. The group dubbed the building "Rapaport House."

The organization of 700 affiliated congregations used the building until 2007 when it was sold to Philips International Holding Corp. for $26.5 million.  A year later the company resold it to the Eretz Group for $38 million.

Ernest Flagg’s handsome and restrained Beaux Arts building survives essentially intact—a reminder of a time when publishing houses populated Fifth Avenue south of 23^rd Street, and when families settled in at night with a book.

Snarling lions adorn the brackets upholding the carved balcony at the third floor.

photographs taken by the author

The Uneasy Marriage of Styles at No. 30 East 74th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In the first years after the end of the Civil War, before the arrival of the marble and limestone mansions of the city’s wealthiest citizens, developers lined the blocks off upper Fifth Avenue with rows of carbon-copy rowhouses.   Central Park, now nearing completion, was a selling point for the potential merchant class  homeowners.

Winters & Hunt were among the speculators transforming the rocky landscape into regimented blocks of homes.  In 1870 they commissioned brothers David and John Jardine to design a row of eleven Italianate brownstone-clad houses—Nos. 30 through 50 East 74^th Street.  The firm, D & J Jardine, was busy at the time designing similar groups of homes throughout the city.

This row, a block away from the park and just east of Madison Avenue, was not exceptional.  Four stories tall above high English basements, the houses shared the unremarkable architectural elements of hundreds of similar structures built around the same time.  One of them, however, would flex its individuality a few decades later.

Anchoring the western end of the row was No. 30.  By the 1890s it was being operated as a boarding house for upscale, respectable residents.   It was owned by the retired manufacturer and dealer of knit goods, Martin J. Weil.  The German-born immigrant had arrived in New York in 1852 at the age of 14.  Weil and his wife Malvina, had six children and the aging couple lived here with their boarders.

In 1895 The Chironian, a newsletter published by students of the New York Homoeopathic Medical College, announced that graduate Dr. H. Everett Russell had moved into the house along with his practice.   The well-heeled physician would live here through the turn of the century and his comings-and-goings during the summer social season would be noticed.  In 1902 The North American Journal of Homoeopathy reported that “Dr. H. Everett Russell, of 30 East 74^th Street, will be at Squirrel Inn, Haines Falls, NY from July 1 to September 25.”

Another boarder at the time was Miss Josephine E. Stone, a teacher in a nearby public school.

On October 7, 1901 Martin Weil died in the house at the age of 63.   Two months later, on December 11, Malvina sold the house.    Sometime before the house changed hands again, in 1905, Dr. Russell moved to the northeast corner of Bedford and Morton Streets in Greenwich Village.

The newest owner was George E. Marcus.  Marcus was a partner, with his father and brother, in the exclusive Marcus & Co. jewelers at No. 544 Fifth Avenue that The Sun deemed “a famous jewelry house.”  The newspaper noted that “His knowledge of art was used to great advantage in the business.”

Marcus & Co. created high-end items like this art nouveau wine cooler.

The days of taking in boarders were over.  Marcus moved into the house with his wife, Anna, and their son Herman (who would later be better known as Peter).  By now the neighborhood was one of high-end residences and modern mansions.   Wealthy homeowners often either razed their Victorian brownstones to replace them with more stylish residences; or simply remodeled them to reflect the current architectural fashions.

On September 8, 1906 The Sun reported that Marcus had filed plans for “a two story bay extension in the colonial style for the four story residence…at No. 30 East Seventy-fourth street.”  The newspaper noted that the cost would be $5,000—about $95,000 today.

Marcus hired architect George A. Glanzer to design the addition which in no way could be described as “colonial.”   Unlike most renovations in the neighborhood which obliterated the old brownstone facades; Glanzer left the top two stories untouched.  He lowered the stoop and disguised the first two floors with a neo-Gothic addition.  Red brick laid in Flemish bond was trimmed with brownstone quoins, carved eyebrows terminating in gruesome faces, and bandcourses.  Apparently both the Marcuses and their architect hoped no one passing by would look up.

Brownstone quoins and trim accented the red Flemish bond brick, creating a charming update -- photo by Alice Lum

The Marcus family summered at the fashionable cottage community at Moose Head Lake, Maine and entertained through the winter season in the 74^th Street house.  In April 1909 Herman’s engagement to Francesca Steele Butler of Washington D.C. was announced.  Soon George and Anna would be alone in the house with their staff of servants.

In 1911 the Marcuses completed another renovation when they added the picturesque second floor oriel with its intricately-designed multi-paned windows and quatrefoil-carved brownstone panels.  The artistic addition greatly improved the visual appeal of the house—although the starkly incompatible upper floors continued to be the house’s sore thumb.

The delightful oriel window was a second thought.  The original Victorian facade looks down from above.  -- photo by Alice Lum

The summer of 1914 was a particularly satisfying one for George.   On August 2 The Sun reported on the goings-on at Moose Head Lake saying, “Golf matches, power boat racing and dancing have surpassed all other interests here and the large influx of new arrivals has made this the liveliest week of the summer.  Each evening the Mount Kineo is gay with the younger set who dance, while the dansant at the Moose Head Lake Yacht Club has given an attractive feature to the summer life.

“To George E. Marcus of New York belongs the honor of breaking the amateur 18 hole record for the Kineo links, a seventy-five made in a medal play competition.  A crowd watched the hardest struggle ever seen in match play on these Northern links.”

The summer resort where he enjoyed his golfing triumph would become the scene of his death three years later.   George went to Moose Head Lake alone “for a short vacation” on Saturday July 28.   Three days later he decided to take a swim in the lake.  “It is supposed that while swimming he was seized with an attack of heart trouble and drowned before help could reach him,” reported The Sun on August 3.

Violent storms that rolled in later that day took down the telegraph lines, so the family could not be informed of the tragedy until two days later.   At 9:00 in the morning on August 3 Marcus’s body arrived in New York by train and his funeral was held that afternoon at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church.  His obituary reflected Herman’s name change, “he is survived by his wife, who was Miss Anna R. Hand, and one son, Peter.”

Somewhat fearsome faces flank the entrance and parlor window -- photo by Alice Lum

Anna left the 74^th Street house, leasing it with all her artwork and furnishings for the winter season to Henry R. McLane, of Millbrook, New York.  She would continue leasing the residence, and the following year Mrs. Warren Kinney used it for the season.

Before long son Peter Marcus lived in the house.   An established artist, while here he endeavored to execute a series of paintings of Manhattan buildings which he brought together in a book titled New York The Nation’s Metropolis.   In its introduction J. Monroe Hewlett, the President of the Architectural League of New York, said “Peter Marcus is a painter not an architect, but he is also a designer experienced in the goldsmith’s craft and there is evident in these charcoal studies a pleasure in the delineation of the tracery of bridge cables and trusses, derricks, scaffolding and electric signs, that in contrast with his broad and greatly simplified expressions of architectural form and detail, adds vastly to the eloquence of his work.”

The year that the book was published, in 1921, Peter moved to Stonington, Connecticut where he died of a heart attacked on June 8, 1934 at just 44 years old.

On January 18, 1923 banker S. Barton Chapin purchased the Marcus home for $61,500.  He quickly turned a profit on the property, selling it in November for $70,000 to Colonel Lloyd C. Griscom “for occupancy,” according to The New York Times.

Griscom came to East 74^th Street with a broad and impressive political background.  He had served as Secretary of the United States Legation at Constantinople at the turn of the century; held the posts of American Ambassador to Italy, Minister to Persia, Japan, and Brazil, and in 1910 was the President of the New York County Republican Committee.  In 1919 he was made Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George at Buckingham Palace by King George for his service in World War I as liaison officer on the staff of General Pershing.  His far-flung interests by now included publishing several Nassau County Long Island weekly newspapers, studying painting with John Singer Sargent, and within a few years he would collaborate with John McGowan on a play, Tenth Avenue.

On September 17, 1929 the widowed 56-year old announced his engagement to Audrey Margaret Elizabeth Crosse, daughter of Marlborough Crosse of Southsea, England.  The wedding took place on October 3 at Marston Trussell Hall, Leicestershire.

photo by Alice Lum

In 1932 the Griscoms built a spectacular country home in Syosset, Long Island called Huntover Lodge, on a 54-acre estate.  When the house was completed they left East 74^th Street for good.  In 1938, the year that Huntover Lodge including Georgian paneling and rare prints and manuscripts burned to the ground, Mrs. Grace T. Lapham leased the house on East 74th Street.

In March 1950 the Harab Realty Corporation purchased No. 30 East 74^th Street and two months later announced plans for altering it into apartments.  Before the end of the year there were eight apartments in the building as well as an office.

photo by Alice Lum

Today the basement level office is a retail store and there are still two apartments per floor above.  The Marcus’s neo-Gothic addition remains an especially charming addition to the block; yet one still has to wonder why they stopped at the second floor.