The Lost James B. Clews Mansion -- 1039 Fifth Avenue

The Real Estate Record & Guide, November 28, 1908 (copyright expired)

In 1886, just as the first of the great residences began elbowing their way north of the Fifth Avenue mansion district below 57^th Street, Robert McBride and his wife Josephine lived in the comfortable brownstone-fronted rowhouse at No. 1039 Fifth Avenue.  Sitting at the corner of 85^th Street, across from Central Park, it and its neighbors had been built with financially-comfortable homeowners in mind.  Within a generation the townhouses would be razed to be replaced by the lavish palaces of Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens.

In 1908 the land on which the McBride home sat was owned by the New York and Harlem Railroad Company.   The railroad was liquidating its real estate in the area, including the large, now-vacant plot further down the block where the old Madison Avenue car stables had stood.  On April 23 that year The New York Times reported that “James B. Clews, nephew of Henry Clews” had purchased the corner lot at Fifth Avenue and 85^th Street.

Although James Blanchard Clews had millions of his own—serving as a director in several corporations and as the Chairman of the Board of the Standard Cordage Company--newspapers consistently followed his name with “nephew of Henry Clews.”  James had, by now, worked for several years in his uncle’s banking firm.

With the 44-year old bachelor’s wedding to Mrs. Meta Nicholas Livingston, the widow of Oscar Livingston, scheduled to take place on November 18, Clews set to work preparing a fitting home for his bride.  A month before the wedding, on October 18, 1908, The New York Times reported on the planned mansion.  Already the old McBride house had been demolished.

“What will undoubtedly be one of the handsomest of upper fifth Avenue’s many mansions is that to be built for James B. Clews…from plans by Horace Trumbauer of Philadelphia, who also designed the I. Townsend Burden residence at Fifth Avenue and Ninety-second Street and George Gould’s new house at Sixty-seventh Street.”

Clews had paid $100,000 for the land and Trumbauer projected the cost of the residence to be double that—an investment of over $7 million today.  The Real Estate Record and Guide noted one particularly interesting aspect of the design.

“In its planning, the edifice will show at least one departure from the ideas heretofore carried out in corner residences on upper 5^th av. in that it will have the entrance on the avenue front instead of on the street.”   Rather than center the entrance on the 100-foot long 85^th Street elevation; Trumbauer placed it in the 25-foot wide Fifth Avenue side.

The Record and Guide noted “The style of architecture will be the French Renaissance, with the exterior both on the avenue and street of Indiana limestone.”   The New-York Tribune disagreed on the architectural style.   “It will be of the modern Italian design, having a mansard and many windows, finished with decorative railings and large plaques, with a stone set below the sills.”

Trumbauer arranged the interiors to best make use of the long, deep floor plan.  “At each side of the main entrance on the first floor will be a small reception-room,” said the Real Estate Record and Guide.  A grand main hall stretched 34 feet from the foyer to the dining room at the rear.  “This hall will be of imposing proportions and will be elaborately finished in Caen stone and marble.”

The New York Times noted that the same materials “will be used lavishly throughout the interior of the house.”  A marble staircase in the center of the great hall rose to another spacious hall.  At the Fifth Avenue end of the second floor would be the Library and at the opposite end, “the salon.”

The third floor was reserved for the Clews living apartments; the fourth floor contained guest rooms (there were eight bedrooms in all within the house); and the entire fifth floor contained accommodations for the staff of 12.

Meta Nicholas Livingston was the daughter of Washington Romaine Nicols and a great-granddaughter of General  Benjamin Romaine, second Controller of New York City.   Her husband, Oscar Livingston,  had been dead for only about four years and her mother was recently deceased.  The wedding, therefore was quiet and understated.

It took place on November 18 at Cozy Nook, the Bernardsville, New Jersey summer estate of Meta’s brother.  Four days later The Sun reported that “Mr. and Mrs. James B. Clews will pass their honeymoon in Cuba.  On their return they will reside in a house which Mr. Clews is building on the northeast corner of Fifth avenue and Eighty-fifth street.”

In actuality, it would be quite some time before the newlyweds would reside in the house.  Construction of the massive mansion would take years.  The couple moved into the Plaza Hotel and spent the summer seasons, expectedly, out of town.

Living in a suite of rooms at the Plaza did not stifle Meta Clews’ entertaining.  Despite being four months pregnant, on February 25 she gave a dinner for Miss Catherine Hamersley followed by a jaunt to the Herald Square Theatre to see “The Yankee Girl.”  Among the Clews’ socially-prominent guests that night were Vincent Astor and John Jacob Astor. 

On July 29, 1910 while spending the summer at the Elberon, New Jersey cottage of Meta’s sister, a baby daughter was born. 

The newly-completed house shared the Fifth Avenue block with still-surviving brownstone rowhouses of a generation earlier.  photo by from the collection of the New York Public Library

The house was completed the following year and James, Meta and Little Leta moved in.  The family continued to lease or borrow country estates—in 1913 they rented the summer home of W. Crittenden Adams and the following season occupied Ellencourt, the country home “in the Red Spring colony at Glen Cove, Long Island,” owned by Mrs. Spencer A. Jennings.

It was not a lack of money that prevented the Clews from purchasing their own country estate during those first few years.  Before long they would own what the New-York Tribune deemed an “English country estate at Brookville, Long Island,” which sprawled over 127 acres.  It included a “stone dwelling and numerous other buildings and cottages.”  The Tribune added “The residence consists of a collection of Eighteenth century English and Irish furniture.”

In the meantime, the Fifth Avenue mansion continued to be the scene of glittering entertainments; including the luncheon for Governor and Mrs. Whitman on the afternoon of January 14, 1917.  But Meta Clews’ days of staging social functions, dinners and receptions were coming to an end.

While the family was at the Long Island estate in August 1919, Meta Clews died.  James and his nine-year old daughter returned to the Fifth Avenue mansion alone.

In 1923 James Blanchard Clews succeeded his deceased uncle as head of the brokerage firm of Henry Clews & Co.  Three years later, on September 26, 1926, a headline in The New York Times announced “Betrothal of Mary Ann Payne to James B. Clews Is of Wide Interest.”   The newspaper said the engagement “is of interest to society in Europe as well as here.”

Mary Ann Payne came from what The Times called “distinguished ancestry.  Her family dates back several centuries to the noble houses of Pagnel and Hambie, whose members settled in Devonshire, England, at the time of William the Conqueror.”  The newspaper added, “Miss Payne is a direct descendant of Sir Robert Payne, one of the first settlers in Virginia.”  And, as always, it reminded its readers “Mr. Clews is a nephew of the late Henry Clews, of this city and Newport who founded the banking house of Henry Clews & Co.”

The nearly-private wedding was held in the White and Gold room of the Plaza Hotel the following month.  The New York Times reported that “After a motor trip, Mr. Clews and his bride will return to his home at 1,039 Fifth Avenue.” The bridegroom was now 62 years old.

The Clews would not stay much longer in the Fifth Avenue mansion, however.  In 1929 they moved to No. 1 East 62^nd Street.  By now the golden age of the grand private mansions was essentially over.  Wealthy New Yorkers now mostly preferred the convenience of lavish, modern apartment suites.

The James Blanchard Clews mansion was demolished; replaced in 1930 by the 17-story structure designed by eminent apartment building architect Rosario Candela.  The new building also took down the mansion of architect Whitney Warren.

Although Candela’s handsome apartment building is well regarded among architects today; the short-lived palace by Horace Trumbauer that it replaced is a significant loss.

http://www.cityrealty.com/nyc/carnegie-hill/1040-fifth-avenue/1412

The 1897 Miner Mansion -- No. 40 Riverside Drive

photo by Alice Lum

In her 1904 book A Loiterer in New York, Helen W. Henderson describes the completed Riverside Drive.  “When one turns through many busy byways, from the banal city straggling northwest from Columbus Circle into the romantic windings of the Riverside Drive, the whole face of nature assumes a different aspect.  This priceless view of the Hudson, then revealed, saved by some miracle from the base uses of commerce, yet terribly menaced by railroad encroachments, as we are daily reminded, is one of the enchanting reserves of New York, the one instance, as one might say, in which advantage has been taken of the inherent beauty of the island formation.”

The “enchanting reserves” took decades to complete.  Along the curving Drive that followed the contour of the cliffs rose mansions that rivaled Fifth and Madison Avenues.  Their breathtaking views of the Hudson across Riverside Park were unrivaled.

By the time Helen Henderson wrote about the Drive, architect Clarence True had clearly made his mark here.  Responsible for scores of houses on the Upper West Side, by the mid-1890s he was working both as developer and architect.  Much of the flavor of the area—Flemish gables, hefty turrets and whimsical balconies—were the result of his preference to historic architectural styles.  While True turned to historic styles for inspiration, he was not a slave to historical accuracy; preferring to create a picturesque and charming structure rather than a reproduction.  The New-York Tribune said of him “Mr True is noted for boldness and originality in his building enterprises, and has probably done more toward the introduction of new styles and plans in our local domestic architecture than any other architect.”

In 1897 Clarence True completed a row of houses that included the 32-foot wide mansion at the northeast corner of Riverside Drive and 76th Street.  Constructed of buff-colored brick on a base of limstone, the French Renaissance residence was five stories tall with 17 rooms, an elevator and four bathrooms.  True took full advantage of the corner plot by designing a nearly-circular bay that separated the two nearly planar elevations on either side.

A stately entrance hinted at the elaborate interiors -- photo by Alice Lum

The new mansions were sold to wealthy businessmen.  No. 337 West 76^th Street was sold on November 17, 1897 to a vice-president of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad; just three days after The New York Times had reported that “The purchase of a Riverside Drive residence by Henry C. Miner stands at the head of a small list of dealings in private dwellings.”  That house was No. 40 Riverside Drive and cost the new owner $125,000—over $3 million today.

Henry C. Miner had one of the most varied resumes of his day.  After graduating from the American Institute School he became a pharmacist.  The New-York Tribune would later say “He grew tired of the drug business and studied medicine under his brother, Dr. Edward Miner.”  When the Civil War broke out he enlisted as a pharmacist in the Mechanics and Artisans’ Regiment.

Following the war he became an agent for Professor De Courcey who lectured on medical subjects.  Then, in 1864, he became manager for Signor Blitz, a magician and bird trainer.  Then he managed the Thayer & Noyes Circus.  When the American Institute opened its fair in the Crystal Palace in 1868, Miner served as Secretary.  Still bored, he thought perhaps his career should be in police work.

Henry Miner joined the police department and was stationed at the Mercer Street Station.  “This was even more unpleasant than being a drug clerk and Mr. Miner decided to get into something else,” said the Tribune.

The ever-resourceful “Harry” C. Miner built and managed a series of theaters including the London Theatre in the Bowery, the Fifth Avenue Theatre, Miner’s Bowery Theatre, and Miner’s Eighth Avenue Theatre among others.  In addition, he founded the Henry C. Minter Lithographing Company, a drugstore on the Bowery and one on West 125^th Street (operated by the Henry C. Miner Drug Company); held large interests in locomotive companies and controlled the Piedmont Cable Road of Oakland, California.  And with all of this he still had time to serve a term in Congress.

Henry C. Miner -- New-York Tribune, February 23, 1900 (copyright expired)

Miner and his wife of thirty years, Julia, had four grown sons when Julia died in 1894.  Less than two years later the 64 year old Miner met the much younger actress Annie O’Neill while she was playing in “His Wife’s Father” in Washington.  In February 1896 their engagement was announced and they were married within the year.

The newlyweds moved into the Riverside Drive mansion; but all was not serene on the family front.  Miner’s sons were vehemently against the marriage and a rift developed between them and the millionaire.  The Evening World reported “Mr. Miner did not attempt to conceal his bitterness toward his sons after he married Miss Annie O’Neill, a well-known actress…He declared that the young men had not only opposed his marriage, but had persistently slighted their stepmother.”

Also in the house with the Miners and their staff was Annie's mother.  Although Henry was an active member of the New York Athletic Club and visited the clubhouse frequently, the family was socially quiet. 

The Evening World said “The house is filled with beautiful furniture, rich hangings and rare bric-a-brac.  Mrs. Miner’s apartments, on the third floor, overlooking the Hudson, are luxurious, and in these are many interesting souvenirs of travel, picked up in this country and abroad.  A fine library is a feature of the Miner house.”

The population in the mansion increased when Harry Miner became a father again.  Little John L. Miner was born on January 10, 1900.

A few weeks later, on Wednesday February 22, the new father spent the evening playing billiards at the New York Athletic Club.  He returned home around 1 a.m., rose around 10 in the morning and spent the day at home.  Around 3:00 he decided to go out driving, as he did every day, and ordered his carriage.  While he waited, he asked the butler to bring a cup of tea and suggested to Annie that she call her mother down to join them.

The New York Times reported “Mrs. Miner left the room to comply with his suggestion, and as she did so Mr. Miner arose from the chair in which he was sitting and started to walk to the table on which the butler had placed the tea tray.  As he moved he staggered and turned pale.”

According to the New-York Tribune, “He had just strength to reach a chair and call: ‘Annie, Annie, come quick! I feel so queer!’”

Annie, her mother, and the servants did what they could for him and messengers were sent for Drs. Steven Edson and George Rogers, both of whom lived nearby.  Another servant rushed to find a priest.  When the doctors arrived at the house, Miner was unconscious.  According to The Times, “Father Taylor of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament had been sent for, but he arrived too late to see Mr. Miner alive.”

The Evening World, on February 27, wondered about the state of the will and the $2 million estate: “Mrs. Miner, it is said, has persistently pleaded the cause of his sons, and has urged him to overlook his grievances and to make ample provision for them.

“If he adopted his wife’s suggestions, the four sons by the first marriage will receive comfortable fortunes, and there will be no cause for a contest.  The birth of a son about six weeks ago will involve a complication, unless Mr. Miner, as thought probable, specially provided for this contingency last Summer or made a later will.”

Thanks to Annie’s gentle intervention, Henry C. Miner’s four grown sons were included in his estate of around $2 million.  His infant son, John, however, was not.  Miner had not gotten around to amending his will. 

Despite for former animosity between the grown sons and the former actress; the settlement of the estate was amicable.  On February 28 The New York Times reported that the provisions of the will “are entirely satisfactory to all the members of Mr. Miner’s family, and that there will be no contest.”  The estate was divided among Annie and the sons in five equal portions; and little John Lansing Miner who was not included in the will was provided for “by agreement of all parties.”

The youthful widow Annie Miner -- The Evening World, November 25, 1901 (copyright expired)

The will instructed that “Mrs. Anne O’Neill Miner is also to receive the testator’s residence at 40 Riverside Drive, New York, free of all encumbrance, together with his horses and carriages, and other provision for her maintenance.”

Three months later Annie was looking for a new butler and placed an advertisement in the New-York Tribune.  She insisted he be “German with good references” and offered wages of $45.

photo by Alice Lum

Within the year, however, Annie hung a yellow "For Sale" sign in the front window.  On November 25, 1901 The Evening World reported on Annie's inducement to sell.  "'I have my own ideas of a house,’ Mrs. Miner said when asked to give her reasons for disposing of the property, ‘and I intend carrying out these ideas.  Oh, yes, I know this house is very charming and of course beautifully situated.  But I have a longing to make a home which shall be just to my taste in every particular.’”

For her dream home Annie Miner said “First of all, the neighborhood must be unexceptionable.”  Her choice of a four-story home on the northwest corner of Madison Avenue and 63^rd Street apparently signaled a change of mind.

The sign in the reception room window did not produce a buyer and on December 7, 1901 the Riverside Drive residence and its furnishings were sold at auction.  Auctioneer C. E. Smith called the sale of the “magnificently furnished mansion” an “unparalleled display of rich effects and luxurious appointments, principally made to special order, and assuredly unsurpassed in any offering made this season.”

The house was purchased by Alan W. Wood, Pittsburgh steel tycoon “for something over $100,000.”  And the sale was an eerie case of déjà vu. 

Just before the Civil War broke out, Alan W. Wood had prepared to marry Sallie Suter (whom the New-York Tribune said “had no lack of admirers”).  Both came from prominent Pennsylvania families and Wood’s father owned the Conshokocken steel rolling mills. 

On the day before the wedding Sallie disappeared.  The New-York Tribune reported “When she returned she told her friends she was the wife of Theodore Mohr, who had been working in her father’s home, as a painter’s apprentice, and made love better than any of the students.”

Despite the scandal and humiliation, Wood remained friends with Sallie.   He married, had six children and amassed a fortune of between $15 and $20 million in the steel industry.  In the meantime, Sallie’s daughter, Goldie Lillian Mohr, grew to be a beautiful young woman and moved to New York where she took to the stage at the turn of the century.

“My face is my fortune,” she told a reporter.  “Without my beauty I could not get an engagement on the stage.  As it is, I can earn $25 a week for a season of forty weeks.  I can hold my beauty and my place on the stage for twenty years.  That is $20,000 and $10,000 for increased salary due to added experience and the total value of my beauty if $30,000.”

As it turned out, Goldie Mohr would not have to depend on the stage for her income.  Now, widowed, her mother’s former fiancé turned his attentions to her.  The romantic relationship between the chorus girl and their father caused heated animosity among Alan Wood's now-adult children.

The same year that Wood purchased the house, he sold his steel business to the United States Steel Corporation and retired.  He furnished the former Miner mansion with costly antiques, including a salon suite of Louis XVI furniture.  The furnishings were said to cost “more than $100,000”--equal to what he paid for the mansion itself.  Perhaps because of his family’s intense objections, however, he would not marry Goldie until March 1905.

Even before “he caused much gossip in social circles by marrying…Miss Goldie Lilian Mohr, at that time a member of Weber & Fields’s company,” as the New-York Tribune put it, Wood’s name appeared in local newspapers.  When bicycle policeman Kielly noticed the millionaire’s limousine speeding “at a lively pace” in the Bronx on the night of September 17, 1904 he pursued the vehicle and arrested the chauffeur, Joseph Romero.

The steel magnate was displeased with the inconvenience and shouted out to the cop “You will go out the first of October to make room for a good policeman.”

Two days later when Romero appeared before the judge, he protested “What could I do?  I had to obey my boss’s orders.”

The magistrate was inclined to agree and told Policeman Kielly “You should have arrested the owner of the automobile.  If you arrest any owners who are caught this way, I’ll hold then for trial all right.”

Perhaps as an appeasement, following the marriage Alan Wood “turned over his residence at No. 40 Riverside Drive to his children and lived with his wife at the Barnard, in Central Park West, in what might be called a modest apartment for a man of his wealth,” said The Evening World.  The autumn-spring couple lived quietly.  “They were infrequent visitors at the theatres and the restaurants where the gayety of Broadway life blossomed at midnight.  There was no flaunting of diamonds and fine raiment in the faces of her former associates by the wife of the elderly Pittsburg steel magnate.”

Goldie Mohr's face was her fortune -- The Evening World August 14, 1905 (copyright expired)

Five months after the wedding Alan Wood was operated on at Roosevelt Hospital for appendicitis.  On August 13, 1905 the New-York Tribune ran a headline “Alan W. Wood Seriously Ill.”  The following day he died.

On August 15 Goldie Mohr Wood left her apartment on Central Park West to look at her husband’s embalmed body for the last time.  The New-York Tribune said “she exhibited much grief.”  Another difficult hurdle lay in store.  “She will meet at the funeral to-day, for the first time, sons and daughters of Mr. Wood, who were offended by her marriage to their father and who may possibly contest his latest will, if it is found to give her too large a share of his estate,” said the newspaper.

The settlement of the estate was expectedly uncomfortable and contentious and the real property was liquidated as quickly as possible.  On Wednesday April 18, 1906 the mansion on Riverside Drive was once again put up for auction.  The auctioneer advertised the property as “one of the handsomest dwellings on Riverside Drive.”

It was purchased by Max D. Brill, a founder of Brill Brothers men’s clothing firm.  A self-made man, Brill left New York in 1880 at the age of 14 to make his way in the West.  Seven years later he returned and, with $300, started a clothing business with his brothers Maurice and Samuel.  By the time Brill purchased the Riverside Drive house, he was making millions.

The Brills raised four daughters and a son in the house and Mrs. Brill was as well known for her political activities as for her social and philanthropic works.  She was chairman of several women’s Republican committees and in 1928 was personally thanked by President Coolidge for her work.

In the 1920s the Brills had erected a bug-proof enclosure on the roof of the circular bay -- photo by Wurts Bros from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYW5HS8DM&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

The Brills stayed on in the house for decades, eventually seeing the engagements and marriages of their children.  In the meantime, 1920 appears to have been a difficult time for Mrs. Brill in terms of staff.  In February she advertised for a “Butler and useful” and later that year for a “Ladies’ Maid, willing to go to West End, Long Branch, N.J. for the summer.”

On April 22, 1934 Mrs. Brill died in Mount Sinai Hospital at the age of 56.  Her husband would survive four more years, dying of a heart ailment at the age of 72 on January 29, 1938.  Seven months later the house was sold to the Riverside School.  The New York Times noted “The dwelling will be altered for school uses.”

The exclusive pre-school accepted students aged four or five and prepared them for elementary school.  Although the mansion was converted to classrooms throughout (an apartment for the caretaker and supervisor was arranged on the top floor); an incredible amount of original architectural detailing was preserved.

The school remained in the house for decades.  When the institution left, the house was divided into two grand, multi-story apartments.  As realtors are wont to do, a romantic back-story was invented that artist Marc Chagall lived here in the 1940s—sharing space, apparently, with kindergarten children.

photo by Alice Lum

The dramatic history that played out within the walls of No. 40 Riverside Drive, however, needs no embellishment.  The mansion was the stage for two fascinating acts in New York City social and theatrical history.

The 1902 Higgins & Seiter Bldg --Nos. 53-55 West 21st Street

photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel -- salokin.com

By the turn of the last century, the blocks between Fifth and Sixth Avenues below 23^rd Street—once tony residential enclaves—saw drastic change.  Retail establishments spilled over from Sixth Avenue, the major shopping district for women; and small businesses set up in converted rowhouses.

Well-dressed females shopping for wedding gifts or enviable cut glass lemonade sets for themselves most likely instructed their carriage drivers to take them to Nos. 50 through 54 West 22^nd Street.  Here Higgins & Seiter operated its china and glass emporium; considered among the foremost in the city.

The firm was organized just after the end of the Civil War by Colonel Charles Jacob Seiter of the 7^th Regiment and brothers Barton B. and Arthur Higgins.  The partnership was formalized in 1887 and the three men filled their warerooms with the highest grade and costliest home items imported from Europe.

Business was booming for the retailer and in 1901 it opened a connecting annex directly behind its store, at Nos. 51 through 55 West 21st Street.  The firm had purchased three abutting brick-faced homes which were demolished to make way for its new store and loft building.  Designed by architect Mortimer C. Merritt, who 14 years earlier had designed the massive block-wide cast iron store of Hugh O’Neill just steps away on Sixth Avenue, it was a dignified mixture of styles.  Its six stories made use of buff-colored brick, terra cotta and stone. 

An advertisement called the store "the largest and most celebrated glass and china store in the world" (copyright expired)

Two stories of expansive show windows framed in white stone would have flooded the showrooms with natural light, igniting rainbows around the crisp cut glass inside.  The motif of a Greek key within the frieze above the second story was carried on with a charming mini-Greek temple nestled within the openings of the third floor.  Since the architect felt no conflict in introducing a Greek theme into its overall neo-Renaissance design, he found no problem in splashing a few Beaux Arts elements into the mix as well.

The new structure was ready for occupancy in mid-November 1901 and Higgins & Seiter opened its new showrooms to an eager public.  On November 24 the New-York Tribune reported “Higgins & Seiter, Nos. 51, 53, and 55 West Twenty-first St., and Nos. 50, 52 and 54 West Twenty-second-st., are one of New-York’s best china firms.  Their place of business has recently been enlarged by the addition of a new six story building, richly stocked with beautiful china and glass.”

The newspaper went on to describe the opening sale bargains.  “This week they will signalize the opening of the first and second floors of their new building by the exhibition and sale of Carrara marble, bronzes, marble pedestals, dinner ware, etc.  They will offer many handsome bargains in their cut glass department.  Inspect particularly their cut glass decanters, cut glass jugs, Limoges china, Wedgewood china and English Caldron.”  The New York Times would later opine that it had "as its customers some of the best known people in the city.”

A bride's basket, advertised in Harper's Magazine in 1905, illustrated why Higgins & Seiter called itself "The Great Present Store of the Metropolis" (copyright expired)

It would seem that there was no end to the success of the high-end retailers and about six years later they expanded again.  On January 13, 1907 The New York Times reported that Higgins & Seiter had leased the store and basement of the 12-story building adjoining its 22^nd Street property.  The china and glass store now boasted an L-shaped emporium that stretched from No. 50 through 58 on West 22^nd Street and through the block to three full lots on West 21^st Street.

But while Higgins & Seiter was expanding, other retailers along the Ladies’ Mile were moving on.  In 1902 Roland Macy startled many when he moved his department store from 6^th Avenue and 14^th Street to Herald Square—far above the retail district.  It was the first domino to fall in what would be the end of an era.  Two years later Benjamin Altman reported that he intended to build “an enormous store” on Fifth Avenue diagonally across from the exclusive Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

On October 9, 1910 Charles Seiter suffered a heart attack while playing golf at the Siawanoy Country Club.  He was brought home to his Mount Vernon, New York home and his wife gave him bicarbonate of soda while awaiting the doctor.  Before he arrived, Colonel Seiter was dead.

Along with his bequeaths to his widow and six children, Seiter left the firm a life insurance policy of $50,000—over $1 million today.  Now the remaining partners had to decide how to invest that windfall into the company.

A miniature temple rests on a cornice embellished with a Greek key design -- photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel -- salokin.com

By now Higgins & Seiter was among the handful of exclusive retailers left along 6^th Avenue between 14^th and 23^rd Streets.  The partners, too, decided to move northward.  In 1911 they abandoned their expansive store to move to Nos. 9 through 11 East 37^th Street.  It would be a fateful decision.

If the expansive store on West 22^nd and West 21^st Street was no longer a good location for Higgins & Seiter, the company found out that it was not a good location for anyone else, either.  The buildings that once glittered with cut glass whiskey sets and offered bronze and marble statues for the home now sat empty and unrentable.  The vacant real estate was a heavy drain on the company’s finances.  To make matters worse when war erupted in Europe the inflow of elegant china came to a standstill.

Despite Colonel Seiter’s hefty bequest, and the lease of the 21^st Street building finally in 1914; on February 20, 1915 The Times reported that “Higgins & Seiter of 9 East Thirty-seventh Street, one of the best-known and oldest china houses in the city, filed yesterday…in involuntary petition in bankruptcy.”

The 21^st Street building was taken over by William R. Noe & Sons, manufacturers and dealers in “illuminating glassware, mahogany lamps and silk shades.”  The firm used No. 53-55 West 21^st Street as a “large lamp, shade and novelty factory.”  William R. Noe & Sons would continue manufacturing lamp parts here through the 1920s, finally opening a Brooklyn factory in 1930.

On February 1, 1928 A. I. Shiplakoff purchased the six-story building for $125,000.  Space was leased throughout the Depression years to small manufacturers and it became the headquarters of the Pocketbook Workers’ Union.

The Pocketbook Workers’ Union would stay in the building for several years; carefully guarding the well-being of its members.  When the industrial Council of Leather Goods Manufacturers’ initiated an “open shop policy” in 1933 the Union revolted; calling for a general strike.

During the second half of the 20^th century the Ladies’ Mile suffered neglect and abuse.  The grand emporiums lining Sixth Avenue sat desolate for years until a rediscovery of the area towards the turn of the century.  In 1992 the first floor of Nos. 53-55 West 21^st Street—where wealthy women once shopped for Limoges tea sets—was converted to an “eating and drinking establishment.”

Other than the renovated street level, Mortimer Merritt’s handsome 1901 design remains unchanged.  Mostly overlooked on the side street, it is a fine example of the work a once-prominent architect who is now largely forgotten.

The Twin 1874 Homes at Nos. 351 and 353 W. 22nd Street

By 1842 the neighborhood of Chelsea which had been just a few decades earlier the country estate of Clement Clarke Moore’s family, was rapidly developing.  The block of West 22^nd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, had already seen the construction of several high-end residences.  Now the plot of land at No. 353 was about to become the site of a new church.

Johathan Greenleaf, in his 1846 "A History of the Churches, of all Denominations, in the City of New York,” explained “As the population had increased, and was fast increasing in the upper section of the city, on the North [i.e. Hudson] River side, it was judged important to provide the means of grace there in greater abundance, and several members of the Presbyterian churches living at Chelsea, as it is called, established a prayer-meeting in the spring of 1842.  During that summer, arrangements were made, principally through the liberality of an individual, to erect a house of worship, and in the summer of 1843, a substantial brick building was finished on Twenty-second street, near the Ninth avenue, on what is termed ‘Lennox Place’…In November following, the Rev. Edward D. Smith who had been the last pastor of the Eighth [Presbyterian] Church, was installed pastor of the ‘Chelsea Church.’”

At the time of Greenleaf’s writing, the congregation of Chelsea Church numbered about 100.

Three years prior to the construction of the church, 18-year old Scottish immigrant James Condie arrived in New York.  The young man arrived with what the American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record called “a good knowledge of the drug business, having served his apprenticeship in Glasgow.”

Condie opened a pharmacy at No. 165 Eighth Avenue in Chelsea; then moved to the corner of Ninth Avenue and 22^nd Street, just down the block from the church.  Condie’s business flourished—perhaps in part because of the remedies he purveyed, like “The Pure Juice of the Grape 14 Years Old” that he advertised in The Sun on September 7, 1879.  Modern pharmacists may wonder if “Dr. Underhill’s Union Port from the Croton Point Vineyards” was less medicinal than it was simply alcoholic.

James Condie was not content with the comfortable income from his pharmacy business.  He branched into real estate development and would form a syndicate that ran a lumber mill at 19^th Street and Eleventh Avenue.  When the Chelsea Church and school were demolished around 1872, Condie went into action.

Where the church had stood Condie erected two mirror-image townhouses, completed in 1874.  Although the name of the architect is in question, it is tempting to think that, perhaps, Condie’s son-in-law, architect Charles R. Lamb, was responsible.

The speculative homes stood out among their earlier Greek Revival neighbors.  Four stories high over a high, rusticated brownstone English basement, they showed off with a handsome neo-Grec design.  Somewhat odd, however, is that the style had essentially fallen out of fashion nearly a decade earlier; and the heavy Italianate cast iron railings and fences were incongruous with the overall style of the homes.

The windows sat within deep, carved stone frames that sat on small brackets.  Stealing the show were the wonderful carved and paneled wooden entrance doors.  The paired, arched doors were surrounded by elaborate carved stone openings.  The pairing of the entrances created a dramatic brownstone stoop that spilled down to the sidewalk.

The inset glass panels in the lovely carved entrance doors allowed sunlight into the foyers beyond.

By the first years of the 1890s No. 351 was home to the respected attorney, J. J. Day.  Next door lived the actress Clara Louise Thompson.  The actress brought much more attention to the block than did her lawyer neighbor.

On March 14, 1890 The Evening World reported on an upcoming play.  “Great preparations are being made for the production of the spectacular melodrama, ‘The Knights of Tyburn,’ at Niblo’s, April 7.  It is to be a very elaborate and costly affair.”  It was not especially uncommon for Victorian actresses to take on a male role and the newspaper noted that Clara had already been engaged for the starring role.  “Miss Thompson is to play the part of Jack Sheppard.”

Also in rehearsals was English-born actor Henry Aveling who was cast as Jonathan Wild.  Aveling was described by The Evening World as “a fine young actor, with robust physique and powerful voice.”  He had married actress Mittens Willett in the fall of 1884; however by now the couple was separated “probably on account of Aveling’s intemperate habits,” suggested the newspaper. 

The pairing of Clara Thompson and Henry Aveling would end in tragedy.

But before that came to pass, The Knights of Tyburn successfully concluded at Niblo’s, played in New Jersey, then opened at the Windsor Theatre on the Bowery.  Clara Thompson had already earned a reputation as a difficult, self-important diva and on May 23, 1890 The Evening World reported that “There has been a flare-up at the Windsor Theatre.  Last night the star of ‘The Knights of Tyburn,’ Miss Clara Louise Thompson, did not appear, her part being played by Miss Louise Sylvester.  Fred McCloy, the manager,…appears to have suffered a good deal from Miss Thompson’s caprices.”

When things did not go as Clara wanted, she walked out on the play.  “I asked her if this pretty chorus-girl trick was designed to close the theatre,” McCloy told reporters.  He fired the actress and said “I have been treated very badly.”

Clara’s ability to draw audiences outweighed her difficult temperament and that same month The Evening World reported “There is some talk of Miss Clara Louise Thompson, the Jack Sheppard of ‘The Knights of Tyburn,’ appearing as Josephine to the Napoleon of Percy Hunting at a matinee shortly.”

On March 10, 1891 Henry Aveling checked into Room 305 at the Sturtevant House hotel on Broadway at 28^th Street.  A week later, on Wednesday the 18^th, a chambermaid knocked on his door shortly after he returned to his room.  When he did not answer she summoned a clerk who had the door broken in.

“On the bed lay the actor, cold in death, while beside him was a small vial of cyanide of potassium of which he had evidently partaken,” reported The Evening World the following day.  Nearby was a letter addressed to “Miss Clara Thompson” which read:

Clara Dear:  We could not live as we wished for, and so I go—into the great futurity.  Find me there, darling, if you can.  Henry

At the time Aveling was earning a salary of about $100 a week—a comfortable $2,500 today.  The Evening World noted that “He was very popular among his associates” and “Those who watched his work carefully predicted a bright future for him in the line of his profession.”

Suspicion regarding the cause of his suicide, therefore, was directed at Clara Thompson.  Reporters descended on the West 22^nd Street house.  Clara denied being overly-familiar with her former co-star and said she had not seen him for about a week.

“The first time I met Mr. Aveling was last Spring at Niblo’s Garden in the play ‘Knights of Tyburn,” she said.  Typically, she took the opportunity to take the spotlight.  “I was the star, taking the part of Jack Sheppard, and he took the role of Jonathan Wild.

“Mr. Aveling was of a cheerful disposition, and I never heard him say anything which might lead to a suspicion that he intended suicide.”  Clara apparently thought it best to try to quiet wagging tongues.

“I was not on intimate terms with him, however,” she concluded.

While thespians and other mourners filed into the funeral parlor where Aveling’s body reposed, Clara avoided that spotlight.  On March 19 The Evening World noted “Miss Thompson has not called at the undertaker’s where the body lies, and at her house it was said this morning that she would not be one of the mourners at the obsequies.”  The newspaper said “Miss Thompson was greatly affected over the publication of Aveling’s letter to her.”

Aveling’s funeral was held the following day at “the cosy flat of the suicide’s widow, Mittens Willet, in the Stanhope, at 229 East Fourteenth Street.”  The Evening World reported on the service and could not refrain from dredging up the deceased actor’s letter to Clara.

“The flat was crowded with members of the theatrical profession who knew Aveling well, and had only kindly words and expressions of regret for him.  With the exception of Miss Clara Thompson, to whom Aveling addressed an endearing communication before killing himself, every member of the ‘Paul Kauvar’ company, to which the dead actor last belonged, was present.”

The bad press coupled with her firing from The Knights of Tyburn prompted The Evening World to publish a catty remark a few months later.  On June 24 it wrote “Miss Clara Louise Thompson, with bonbons in her arms and smiles upon her lips, was one of Broadway’s pedestrians yesterday.  Miss Thompson’s experiences last season were not happy ones, yet she smiles and smiles and is an actress still.”

The many-paned windows were the result of late-Victorian interest in things Colonial.

It was probably during the last decade of the century that the windows of both homes were replaced with small panes—an attempt at “Colonialization” as a wave of interest in early American history swept the country.

By the turn of the century Clara Thompson had left 22^nd Street, as had her former neighbor.  In 1900 Charles B. O’Neill lived at No. 353.  He, along with his brother Thomas P. McNeill, had been clerks in the County Clerk’s office until the year before.  Both men “had to walk the plank,” according to The Sun on September 17, 1899, “because of their affiliation with John C. Sheehan, who is fighting to maintain the Tammany leadership of the Ninth Assembly district.”  The powerful political boss Sheehan held sway over the Tammany Pequod Club nearby at No. 267 West 25^th Street.

Next door Lucius A. Waldo had moved in by 1904.  A lawyer and stenographer, he had offices at No. 38 Park Row.  His services to the Lexow Investigation which brought an end to corrupt police bosses in 1895 had earned him a windfall of $17,439.

Waldo would not be in the house for long and in 1908 No. 351 was home to John W. Yates.  That year he partnered with Frank F. Smith and Edward A. Zink to form the Frank F. Smith & Yales Mfg, Co. to manufacture locks.

In the 1920s and ‘30s both homes were being operated as rooming houses.  The once refined neighborhood had suffered, as reflected in its residents.  On October 2, 1925 Louis Bernardo was shot dead in his pool parlor at No. 108 Thompson Street.  His business was then robbed.  Detectives searched for suspects Peter Cinnamo and John Stoppelli for months before Cinnamo was recognized on March 21, 1926. “They were arrested in a furnished room at 351 West Twenty-second Street,” reported The New York Times.

The men insisted that the shooting was in self-defense.  “Cinnamo admitted having shot Bernardo, according to detectives.  He said the shooting occurred during a fight.  Cinnamo said Bernardo drew a pistol, but he knocked it from his hand.  When Bernardo ran toward the rear to loose a pair of savage police dogs he said he fired.”

The thugs denied that they had robbed the pool room—at least not this one.  “Detectives said they admitted living on the profits of hold-ups, but denied the one of which they were accused,” reported The Times.

Ten years later the family of 16-year old Joseph Hallam lived in the building.  On August 19, 1936 the boy was in the wrong place when Detective Edward F. Hoolahan was escorting a prisoner to the station house.  At 8^th Avenue near 22^nd Street, just a block from No. 351, Paul Fournier pushed the detective to the curb and fled.  Hoolahan fired two shots in the air as a warning, then twice more at the fleeing figure.  Although one bullet hit Fournier in the shoulder; the other hit young Hallam in the thigh.

In 1933 28-year old David Kennedy lived in No. 353.  That summer was extraordinarily hot and humid and on July 9 Manhattan residents abandoned the city for the beach in hopes of relief.  Newspapers reported that 800,000 crammed public transportation heading to Coney Island, 400,000 to the Rockaways, and similar crowds to the other beach areas.

Unfortunately, others tried to find relief in the nearby rivers.  Five persons died, including David Kennedy who drowned in the Hudson River off 26^th Street.

While many other 19^th century homes along the block were heavily altered throughout the 20^th century, the twin houses at Nos. 351 and 353 West 22^nd Street were little changed.   In 1968 both were converted to three large apartments each—a duplex in the basement and parlor level, one apartment on the second, and a duplex on the third and fourth floor.

Although the brownstone facades have  been painted, the charming twin houses are lovingly maintained.  Residents are most likely unaware that within their walls a egotistic actress and a pair of murderous crooks once lived.

photographs taken by the author