The Wm. Alciphon Boring House- No. 172 East 71st Street

In 1867 Dr. William S. Wood commissioned architect Frank S. Dwight to design three speculative rowhouses at Nos. 168 through 172 East 71^st Street.  The neighborhood, two blocks east of Fourth (later renamed Park) Avenue was developing as one of middle-class homes far north of the bustling commercial area.  That Wood intended the houses for middle-income families is reflected in their surprisingly-narrow width.  At just 16 feet they were four to six feet narrower than the normal residential building plot.

Nevertheless, the completed Italianate-style homes were stylish, up-to-date, and highly unusual.  Three stories high over a rusticated English basement, they stepped away from the cookie-cutter design reflected in the scores of other speculative brownstones being erected at the time.  Dwight outlined each home with quoins and floated carved lintels over the elliptical-arched openings of the second and third floors.  The skinny doorways were flanked by paneled pilasters and framed in
stone carved to resemble blocks.  Despite their foliate brackets, the highly-unusual entrances were much sterner and geometric than the more common doorways in the neighborhood.

The three homes were originally identical.

By the turn of the century, as the neighborhood was becoming decidedly more upper class, No. 172 was home to architect William Alciphon Boring and his family.  Boring had studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1889 through 1890.  He married Florence Kimball and in 1898 and the couple had one daughter, Louise.

Boring’s less-than-grand house did not necessarily reflect his professional acclaim.  In 1897 he and partner Lippincott Tilton (both had worked for McKim, Mead and White before striking out on their own) had won the competition to design the Ellis Island Immigrant Station.  The completed structure won them a gold medal at the 1900 Paris Exposition.  Boring would become President of the Architectural League of New York and the Dean of the School of Architecture at Columbia University.

The house retains its interesting and unusual entrance doors.

The peaceful home life of No. 172 East 71^st Street was shattered on Wednesday night, October 16, 1907 when 9-year old Louise died.  The little girl’s funeral was held in the house two days later.  In reporting her death the New-York Tribune mentioned “Mr. Boring has designed and erected buildings in the principal cities of the United States and Cuba.”

Boring’s career continued to expand and in 1910 he was appointed a member of the Board of Examiners.  The Board was responsible for passing on all building plans that were rejected by the Buildings Superintendent.  For every meeting attended, the Board members received $10 compensation.

Later that year, on November 3, William A. Boring sold the 71^st Street house for $15,000—a little over $350,000 in today’s dollars.  It became home to 36-year old Dr. Thomas Wood Hastings and his wife, the former Athenia Belknap.  The couple was in their new home only a few weeks before a son was born on December 1.

Although he maintained a practice at No. 777 Madison Avenue, by now Wood was primarily an author and instructor.  A graduate of John Hopkins University, he had held the positions of house officer of Hopkins Hospital; surgeon of the Hospital Ship of Maine; instructor of clinical pathology in the Medical College of Cornell University; and since 1906 was a professor there.  Since 1908 he was the assistant visiting physician of Bellevue Hospital.  In addition, he was the author of Clinical Medicine, Feeding of Children, and other related works.

Athenia Wood and their young child would find themselves alone in the house when the United States entered World War I.  Dr. Hastings served abroad as a major in the U.S. Army medical corps.  Shortly after the war was ended the family left East 71^st Street.

For a while the house was owned by Henry Thacher and his wife; but by 1930 it was home to the family of Dr. James W. Babcock.  Mrs. Babcock’s father was Robert Ralston Jones, an eminent civil engineer and author of books on history and engineering.  The elderly man moved in with the Babcocks and it was here, on October 20, 1930 that the 81-year old suffered a fatal heart attack.

Despite the Great Depression, the Babcocks, like most of residents in the now-affluent neighborhood, went on with their upscale lifestyle.  1937 was the year of daughter Virginia Ivins Babcock’s debut and her schedule was a whirlwind of glittering events.  On September 14 a local newspaper announced that “Dr. and Mrs. James Bloods Babcock 2d and members of their family have returned to 172 E. Seventy-first Street from Nantucket.”  As the height of the winter season came, The New York Times reported on December 27 “Miss Virginia Ivins Babcock gave an eggnog party yesterday afternoon at their home.”  She was home from Goucher College at the time.

The Babcock family still owned the house in the 1950s but was by now leasing it to upscale residents.  In 1953 Marguerite Lee Waterhouse was living here.  During World War II she had served as assistant field director in the Red Cross both in the United States and in India.  Marguerite’s mother lived in Beaufort, South Carolina.  When Marguerite and Edward Gideon Herendeen, an assistant vice president of the Hanover Bank, were married in April 1953, the ceremony took place in Beaufort.

Three years later, on April 24, 1956, The New York Times reported that the house “formerly the home of Dr. James W. Babcock,” had been sold to Judith Clark.  She would not retain possession extremely long and by the early 1960s it was home to the William H. Button family.  Mrs. Button regularly opened the gardens for the City Gardens Club’s annual Manhattan garden tours.  In 1962 The Times made special note of “the glassed-in terrace of Dr. and Mrs. William H. Button.”

Flat carved lintels float above the elliptical arched windows.

Throughout its near 150-years existence the narrow brownstone house has never been converted to apartments.  Alterations include early replacement windows, the smoothing over of the rusticated basement and installation of a professional office, and the loss of the carved frame of the parlor window.  And yet those remarkable entry doors of the architecturally-unusual house survive.

photographs by the author

The Sacred Heart of Jesus Rectory -- 340 West 53rd Street

Sparked greatly by the Industrial Schools Acts of England, Ireland and Scotland, the concept of Industrial Schools had reached New York by the end of the Civil War.  The lofty purpose of the schools was to care for “neglected, orphaned and abandoned children” and to teach the “street arabs” a trade so they could survive in the world.

By 1872 the Fifty-Third Street Industrial School was established at No. 340 West 53^rd Street.   A year later there were 986 children enrolled, with an average attendance of 269.  That year the Twenty-First Annual Report of the Children’s Aid Society reported that the school “has grown steadily in numbers and usefulness.  The Infant School is made especially interesting.  Through the aid of Dr. Leigh’s type, the children make rapid progress in learning to read.  All departments are well conducted.  The industrial work is made attractive and profitable.”

The school continued here until 1890, when it was either razed or remodeled for the German-Swiss Evangelical Church.   Its congregants lived surprisingly far from the established German neighborhoods of the Lower East Side and Yorkville, further to the north on the East Side.  At the same time another immigrant group was increasing in number.

By 1890 2,038 Greeks had arrived in the United States, most of them through the Port of New York.  On March 12, 1892 the religious journal The Friend reported “A new Greek church was opened in this city January 10^th.  The services were attended by about 500 persons and were conducted by the priest, T. Ferendinos, who has the rank of Archimandrite, and is in full charge of the church, having been appointed by the Metropolitan of the Greek Church in Albany.  The place of worship is in the basement room of the German-Swiss Evangelical Church, No. 340 West 53d Street, which has been refitted for this special need.”  Among the worshipers that day were the Consul-Generals of Greece, Russia and Turkey. 

In 1897 Frank Moss, in his The American Metropolis, briefly mentioned the congregation which was referred to by most simply as the “Greek church.”  He said that the Eastern Orthodox “have their principal church at Number 340 West 53d Street, and [their] principal minister is the Reverend Agathodorus Papageorgopoulous.  These people follow the Nicene Creed, and they show their devotion to it by standing during prayer,.”

Ironically, Moss’s mention of the Greek church came during its last year on West 53^rd Street.    

On Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, the Church of Saint Benedict the Moor was founded in 1883.  The ground-breaking church was the first established for black Catholics north of the Mason-Dixon line and was named for St. Benedict, born of African slaves on a Sicilian estate.  Now, in 1883, the church moved to No. 340 West 53^rd Street. 

By 1917 St. Benedict’s had moved to the former Baptist Church nearly next door, at No. 344, built in 1869.  No. 340 now became the School of St. Benedict the Moor.  The Official Catholic Directory felt it prudent to add the apostrophic note “for Colored People.”  Two sisters of the Blessed Sacrament taught the 21 boys and 36 girls enrolled here that year.

 

A Victorian building squeezes up against the church in 1929, separating it from the school.  photo by P. L. Sperr, from Wikipedia.org

The Church of Saint Benedict the Moor was a fixture on West 53^rd Street through the first half of the 20^th century.   Beginning in 1953 it was reassigned to Spanish friars of the Third Order of St. Francis and became Sacred Heart of Jesus Church.    In 1965 the old school and the adjoining building at No. 342 were demolished, replaced by a three-story rectory designed by architect Joseph Mitchell.  The structure, costing $200,000, was completed in 1967 and reflected the Spanish roots of the friars.

Mitchell’s stucco-covered façade harkened to the Spanish missions of the Southwest.  A niche above the entrance was created for a statue of the Virgin Mary which had perched at the main church’s second story for years.   The focal point was the scalloped parapet which housed the bronze bell; iconic of Spanish mission architecture.

In 2011 the statue of St. Mary still stood in the niche.  photo by James Russiello

Although gentrification was changing the gritty Hell's Kitchen neighborhood by the late 1980s; even priests were not exempt from danger here.  On April 30 the 63-year old Rev. John Riera was walking into the rectory around 1:45 in the morning after visiting a friend.  He was attacked from behind, pushed into the foyer and knocked to the floor.  The thug stole $50 from the elderly priest.

Later the parish was reduced to mission status and the rectory building converted to apartments after 2011.  The religious statue was removed from the niche; yet otherwise the exterior of the surprising Alamo-like structure was little changed.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

The 1905 Reed & Barton Bldg -- No. 320 Fifth Avenue

In 1877 Mrs. Mary Bell spent a considerable amount--$80,000—for the brownstone mansion at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 32^nd Street.   The house had been built by Thomas Rigney and purchased by Isaac Underhill Coles in 1861.  When Mary Bell purchased it from the Coles heirs, the house sat in the most prestigious residential district of Manhattan—just one block south of the mansions of John and William Astor.   The exclusive neighborhood explained the hefty price—nearly $2 million in today’s dollars.

Two years before Mary bought the house, the adjoining home at No. 322 Fifth Avenue had been purchased by banker David Stewart.  Following his death, his widow married the eminent artist Albert Bierstadt and the newlyweds continued living in the home.

By 1903 the area was nearly unrecognizable.  The Astor mansions had been replaced with the hulking Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and many of the brownstone residences around Mary Bell had been converted for business purposes.   The coming invasion of commerce was even more clearly evident south of 22^nd Street where developers like Henry Corn purchased and razed old mansions to erect modern loft and retail buildings.

Recognizing the inevitable, Mary Bell purchased the Bierstadt house in 1903 for $400,000.  She now controlled a plot, including her private stables to the rear, which was estimated to be worth $1.25 million.  The shrewd woman partnered with Henry Corn and on January 22, 1904 The New York Times announced “Henry Corn will erect for Mrs. Mary Bell an eleven-story store, loft and office building at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-second Street.”

The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide announced the following day said “Robert Maynicke, who will draw the plans of the new building, estimates its cost at $700,000…Mr. Corn is to pay a fixed percentage as rental.”  Mary Bell had already agreed to lease the building to Corn for 21 years at an aggregate rental of $2 million.  In addition to her lofty position in society, the widowed Mrs. Bell was proving herself to be an astute businesswoman.

In February, even before plans were finalized, the high-end jeweler and silversmith, Reed & Barton, signed a long-term lease for the ground floor and basement.   It signaled a migration of Manhattan’s jewelers, including Tiffany and Gorham, from Union Square to Fifth Avenue.   The total rent Reed & Barton agreed to pay over the 21-year lease was $1 million; or about $1.3 million per year today.

By April 30, as mentioned in the Record & Guide, the vintage brownstones were in the process of demolition.    Finished just over one year later, the completed structure commanded attention.  Robert Maynicke had created other structures for Corn; but this was one of the most ambitious. 

The three-story base featured rusticated piers which framed cast iron openings.  At the second floor, thin free-standing columns supported elaborate broken pediments.  Stone balconies at the seventh floor broke up the unembellished middle section.   Maynicke adorned the topmost two floors with columns, festoons and wreaths; and crowned the structure with a deeply-overhanging cornice trimmed with copper antefixes.    By curving the corner, Maynicke not only produced a gentle elegance, but provided additional sunlight into the interiors.

 

photograph Architects' and Builders' Magazine February 1906 (copyright expired)

Following the jeweler’s move into its new quarters, the building became known as the Reed & Barton Building.  On October 22, 1905 the New-York Tribune commented on a few of the items available in the store.

“When Shakespeare wrote ‘Who steals my purse steals trash’ he had never seen the vanity boxes at Reed & Barton Company’s, 5^th-ave. and 32d-st.  These little gold and jeweled purses, which are carried in the hand, with a chain around the wrist, hold, besides my lady’s carfare, her powder puff, her cards and memoranda, a pencil and a mirror.  Trash, indeed!  They are quite indispensable, and thimbles and pansies with little faces looking from among the leaves.”

On October 22, 1905 the New-York Tribune pictured a Reed & Barton vanity purse. (copyright expired)

The newspaper added “Little table novelties are to be found by the dozen in this store, and there are some that every good housekeeper will be glad to hear about.  A little silver holder for a jelly jar is cut to show the jelly, and there are condensed milk and cheese jar holders that look at lot nicer than the cans and jars.” 

Architects’ and Builders’ Magazine described the sales floor.  “The floors of the store are of Terrazzo, with borders of Mosaic.  The ceiling and walls are in tints of ivory and light green, respectively, while the show cases are of highly polished mahogany and plate glass.”

The cut glass department (above) dazzled with cut punch bowls and other items.  Silver hollow ware was displayed in polished wood cases (below) photograph Architects' and Builders' Magazine February 1906 (copyright expired)

“In addition to the superb line of sterling silver and electro-plated table and toilet wares of their own manufacture, departments devoted to diamond and gem jewelry, watches and clocks, and gold jewelry, canes and umbrellas, leather goods, finished in ebony and mirrors, and lighted by hundreds of electric lights.  This feature is considered by connoisseurs to be one of the most magnificent cut glass rooms in existence.”

Looming one block north, on the site of the old Astor mansions, is the massive Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.  A glass-and-metal hood protects Reed & Barton's entrance. -- photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

On the upper floors a wide variety of tenants took space in the modern building.  The office of the recently-established New York Yankees baseball team was here; as was Toch Brothers, who moved in in December that first year.  Run by Maximilian and Henry M. Toch, the paint and varnish firm had been in business since 1848.  In announcing the move, the Record & Guide mentioned “Their products, which consist of a full line of paints, varnishes, and the R. I. W. Damp Resisting paints, are considered standard by many of the leading architects and engineers throughout the United States.”

Dentist G. Gordon Martin was among the very first to move in.  The Evening World, on May 11, 1905, said “These offices are no doubt the most elaborate for dental use ever fitted out in this country.  There are laboratories and private offices as well as the newest appliances for the use of the expert dentists, each a specialist in his own line.  It may be said right here that this venture in behalf of Dr. Martin should not be confounded with dental ‘institutes,’ ‘parlors,’ and the kind who call attention to their announcements by a set of grinning teeth.”

Another early tenant was William G. Young who operated his Fifth Avenue Stenographic Bureau here; an employment agency for female stenographers.   Now long after Young established his office in the building, tragedy struck.

Young’s wife, Beatrice, was described by The Sun on August 20 that year as “a slim brunette who has a good complexion and wears eyeglasses.  She is about 31 years old.”   Beatrice had been “acting queerly” for about a year, according to her husband; and then in July 1905 had accused him of assault.

About the same time as Beatrice’s accusation, William Young had placed Mrs. Kathleen Morgan in the Hotel Imperial.   Now Beatrice decided that her husband was having an affair with Kathleen—whom The Sun said was “a good looking blonde, about 30 years old.”

Around noon on August 19, Beatrice walked into the hotel and found Kathleen Morgan taking dictation from Frank Wiggins, the assistant manager.  Despite that room being “well filled with men and women,” Beatrice pulled out a revolver and shot the stenographer.

Mrs. Morgan fell to the floor and “there was a great hubbub in the writing room and all over the hotel.”   As men constrained her, she cried “She wanted to kidnap my child, she tried to steal my child.” 

Kathleen Morgan, fatally injured, merely uttered, “Poor woman, she must have been crazy.”

The original bowed show windows on 32nd Street survive.

Several textile companies signed early leases, including woolen goods dealers R. B. Patterson Company and William Branchi & Co.   In August 1905 the Branchi firm was scammed out of $12,000 in goods by 26-year old Philip Wahlheimer and his 35-year old brother George.   The crooks ordered the goods under the name of J. F. Miller then had the shipments diverted.

By the time the Reed & Barton Building opened for business automobiles were appearing on the streets of Manhattan.   French auto maker Renault opened an office here, offering luxury vehicles to wealthy Fifth Avenue residents. 

Although the copper ornamentation of the cornice has been lost, the exuberant Beaux Arts decoration remains.

The potpourri of tenants included the salon of "face specialist" Madame Mayne.  The New-York Tribune touted her work on October 1, 1906.  “The necessity of a reliable specific that will destroy growths of hair on women’s faces forever and yet leaves the skin smooth and unhurt has long been felt.”  The newspaper said that Madame Mayne had made  such a preparation and “is ready to give a free demonstration at her offices to inquirers.”

On November 13, 1906 The Sun reported that Ernest Triblehorn “has removed his office from Madison avenue and Ninety-first street to No. 320 Fifth Avenue.”  The highly-successful real estate agent was wealthy enough to own a $2,500 automobile—worth in the neighborhood of $67,000 today.   A month after opening his office in the Reed & Barton Building, he found himself looking for a new car.

On October 8 he was traveling through The Bronx when his gas tank sprung a leak at 208^th Street and Woodlawn Avenue.  Suddenly there was an explosion and both Triblehorn and his chauffeur, Joseph Guzman, jumped from the automobile.

“In an instant the auto was afire,” reported The Sun the following day.  “A still alarm was turned in to the fire company at 212^th street and Webster avenue.  They turned out, but the machine was nothing but a pile of scrap iron when the fire was out.”

Disgusted, Tribelhorn and his driver boarded a trolley car back to the city.  Before he left, he told bystanders that “any one who wanted the machine could have it.”  The Sun reported “At an early hour this morning a dozen farmers were still wrangling over the pile of blistered steel.”

By 1907 the first of a long list of architects, Renwick, Aspinwall & Tucker, had moved in.  They would be joined in the building within a few years by Charles A. Rich, Arnold W. Brunner, Harry Allan Jacobs, Jerauld Dahler, S. Ben Algernon and others.

Gabriel Millner, a spirited female attorney, was in the building by November 1907 when she represented Laura E. Skeels in her fraud suit against the indomitable Mrs. Augusta E. Stenson and the First Church of Christ Scientist. 

An ardent early feminist, she represented a group of women reformers in March 1909 in their push to restrict the rear cars of express subway trains for the exclusive use of women.  The complaint charged that “many women are not strong enough to contend with the crowding of the men; that women are compelled to use the subway during rush hours; that in the non-rush hours many women are accompanied by children, and that the women constitute nearly 25 per cent of the passengers carried on the express trains.”

Perhaps Gabriel Millner’s most unusual case was that of Henrietta Sarah Fox-Strangways.  Born in England, her parents had died while she was a child and she was reared by a wealthy aunt, Mrs. Jane Clarke, in Ireland.   Now, in the early months of 1910 Henrietta Fox-Strangways had fallen on hard times.

She came to Gabriel Millner’s office to arrange credit, saying that her aunt had died two years ago and she was due to inherit a small fortune.   Gabriel tried to find financial assistance for the woman, and she contacted a relative in Canada as well.  By the time a return letter arrived on Monday March 7, Henrietta Fox-Strangways--desperate and despondent--had been admitted to Bellevue Hospital, having taken poison.

The relative wrote that she “was prepared to do anything possible to rescue her,” Gabriel rushed to the hospital to give Mrs. Strangways the news.  She found her client semi-conscious.  Despite the good news, “the patient was too weak to rally.  She died an hour later,” reported The New York Times.

Gabriel Millner returned to her office in the Reed & Barton Building.  In her brief absence, a letter had arrived from the office of the British Consul, informing her that Henrietta Sarah Fox-Strangways’s inheritance—about $10,000—had been released.  The letter had arrived about 30 minutes after the poison Henrietta had dejectedly consumed killed her.

In 1907 another high-end custom automobile firm moved in.  An advertisement in The Sun on February 16, 1907 said “There are but three foreign cars wrought entirely and completely by the manufacturer.  Two are French.  One is The Zust, An Italian Car.”  At a time when motorists were arrested for driving more than six miles per hour, The Zust boasted “60 miles an hour—hour after hour.”

Harry M. Stevens, Inc. moved into the building in 1915.  Founded in 1887, the catering firm sold food and novelties at sporting venues like ballparks and race tracks throughout the country.

The Reed & Barton Building was purchased in 1917 by Dr. Denniston M. Bell.  Toch Brothers was still headquartered here in 1918 when, prompted by the war abroad, Henry M. Toch penned a letter to President Somers of the Board of Education.  He said he was “convinced” that a mandatory First Aid Course should be taught to every public high school or public college student “and no diploma given unless an examination is passed.”

“Terrible as this war is it brings some important lessons.  First aid to the injured is an essential of the highest order, either in peace or war, in air raids or explosions.”

At the time that Henry Toch pressed his case for First Aid in schools, the Reed & Barton Building was filling with underwear firms.  In 1919 the French Lingerie Co., Nelson & Levene,  Stohn Brothers and Windsor Undersilks were all tenants.

Nelson & Levene was a wholesale underwear firm, hence the "window pieces" advertised here.  The Corset and Underwear Review, February 2920 (copyright expired)

By 1921 Reed & Barton had moved northward and the Bank of United States established its headquarters in the building.  It would remain until 1928 when the location at No. 320 was reduced to a branch bank.  With the removal of Reed & Barton, No. 320 became known as the Bell Building. 

Toch Brothers was still going strong in the building.  In 1922 Maximillian Toch developed a deodorizing process “intended to neutralize fumes of garbage.”  On March 30 he and his co-inventor, Otto B. Shulhof, described it to the special committee appointed by Mayor Hylan “to study the city’s problem of refuse, ash and garbage disposal.”

Shulhof asserted that “they could take a half-gallon can of limburger cheese and make it odorless in fifteen minutes,” said the New-York Tribune.  “Chief Kenlon objected to having the demonstration in his office.  Street Cleaning Commissioner Taylor was requested to find a suitable place, preferably on some city dump, to conduct the experiment.”

Whether the pair’s deodorizing treatment was ever purchased by the city is unclear.

The building was still attracting architects and the same year that Maximillian Toch offered to deodorize limburger cheese, No. 320 was still home to Charles A. Rich as well as architects Charles E. Hubbell, Charles A. Luckhurst, Algernon S. Bell, and Frederick Mathesius.

For two decades, beginning in the 1930s, the Mosler Safe Company occupied the street and second floors.  Then, in January 1956 the firm, the largest manufacturer of safes and bank protective equipment in the world, purchased No 320.  The New York Times noted “Now called the Bell Building, the twelve-story structure will be renamed the Mosler Building after renovations have been made to the exterior.”

Mid-20^th century taste in architecture tended toward clean geometric lines.  Robert Maynicke’s Beaux Arts building was stripped of its balconies, the metal entrance hood, the exceptional Edwardian corner show window, and the copper cornice crown. 

Only five years later John Mosler, Executive Vice President of the firm, announced that the company would move to Park Avenue in January 1961.  The Fifth Avenue building was purchased by Jack Brause, real estate investor, in May that year and, once again, it got a new name: the Brause Building.

The following year in May the Bank of Tokyo Trust Company took over the ground floor and mezzanine.  Three years later Harry M. Stevens, Inc. surprised some New Yorkers when it leased the fifth floor of No. 521 Fifth Avenue in March 1965.   The company that had sold millions of hot dogs to baseball fans had been in No. 320 for a full half century.

The Bank of Tokyo Trust Company moved to No. 360 Madison Avenue in 1979.  Although denuded of some of its Edwardian ornamentation; the proud structure avoided any more serious alteration through the area’s brief decline prior to the turn of the century.

Today a chain pharmacy is housed in the old Reed & Barton showrooms.  Where wealthy women shopped for cut glass decanters and silver vanity purses, tourists drop in for Rolaids and soda.

non-credited photographs by the author

The Jeremiah Pangburn House -- No. 76 Perry Street

In the 1850s the new Second Empire style of architecture swept through the boulevards of Paris.  The Champs-Elysees would be lined with elegant structures in the style beginning in 1852, and the Louvre and the Elysee Palace would both get Second Empire additions or renovations. 

The most fashionable Americans closely watched Paris for trends and filled their homes with French art and furniture.  The wealthiest New York socialites shopped for millinery and gowns in France.  So, it was no surprise that by the time of the American Civil War, French Second Empire buildings were appearing on the streets of New York.   In 1866 it would visit Greenwich Village’s Perry Street.

The once-rural hamlet which three decades earlier was known mostly for modest two-story brick-faced Federal or Greek Revival homes was seeing the appearance of rather opulent residences.  In 1866 the New York City Department of Buildings noted that real estate developers Bogart & Pangburn had begun construction on two new houses at Nos. 64 and 66 Perry Street.  Jeremiah Pangburn was already well-established in Greenwich Village as a developer and his partner, A. J. Bogart was a construction contractor.

The firm had commissioned architect Robert Mook to design the homes and he drew on the newly-fashionable Second Empire style.  While Nos. 64 and 66 would be identical; Mook would separately design the house next door at 62, begun and completed a few months later, as a near twin; adding a stylish mansard roof.

The houses sat back from the sidewalk where handsome cast iron fences protected the deep areaways.  This provided Mook the opportunity for dramatic 10-step brownstone stoops that led up to the wide homes.  Jeremiah Pangburn took No. 66 (later to be renumbered 76) for his own residence.  Like its neighbors, it boasted a graceful carved stone entranceway with a deep arched pediment sitting on scrolled, foliate brackets.  The paneled double doors carried on the French motif as did the segmental arched windows with their carved enframements and dignified cornices.

Pangburn not only dealt in real estate, but was a broker of bank and insurance stocks.   He opened his business around 1855 and gained much of his success and wealth through the development of the former Abraham Van Nest property—a 300-acre country estate engulfed by the expansion of Greenwich Village.  He quickly gain a favorable reputation, prompting New York’s Leading Industries to remark in 1885, “Mr. Pangburn is a recognized authority as to real estate values.  He numbers among his permanent customers many of our leading capitalists and investors, and has carried to a successful issue transactions of great magnitude.”

Pangburn was also a director in the West Side Savings Bank and a member of the New York Consolidated Petroleum Exchange.  Born in the city in 1826, he had married twice, and lived for several years at the corner of Charles and Washington Streets.  He moved into the Perry Street house with his wife and four children—three sons and a daughter.

Unlike today’s detached services in commercial funeral homes; Victorian funerals were held in the families’ parlors.  Family members were intimately aware of the immediacy of death as the body of their loved one lay awaiting the service; often for a day or more.  When Jeremiah Pangburn’s 57-year old brother William died in Albany on New Year’s Day 1886, his funeral was held in the Perry Street house three days later.

That same year Pangburn would testify on behalf of the elevated railroad planned for erection on Greenwich Street.  Although Pangburn took the stand to support the project; the attorney for the property owners who filed suit against the plan successfully forced him to back down.

When the lawyer asked Pangburn where he resided, the answer was “In the City of New York; never lived out of it.”  He gave his Perry Street address to the narrower follow-up question.

“You own the house there, or rent it?” asked the lawyer.

“I own the house; yes sir.”

The attorney recognized his opening and struck.  “Would it be a damage to the rental capacity of that house to have an Elevated Railroad—a double track railroad—put through that street?”

Pangburn was cornered.  “It would,” he replied.

Jeremiah’s now-grown sons were doing well for themselves as well.  Jeremiah, Jr. was in the coal business and in December 1886 was instrumental in organizing the coal dealers into the West Side Coal Dealers’ Association.  For decades he would be an officer and moving force in the union.  Son James T. Pangburn was appointed a City Marshall in 1895.

On May 18, 1900 the 74-year old Jeremiah Pangburg died in the house at No. 76 Perry Street.  A year later on March 7, 1901 his heirs sold house their father had built 35 years earlier.

The house became home to the Walter Logan family which, like the Pangburns, would remain for decades.  Walter and his wife, the former Caroline Holtz, had four daughters and one son.  Following Walter’s death, Caroline lived on in the Perry Street house along with daughter Caroline Daisy Logan.

In 1933 Caroline Holtz Logan died in her bedroom.  The last funeral to be held in the parlor here, this one for her daughter, Caroline Daisy Logan, would be in January 1958.

Since Jeremiah Pangburn first turned the key to No. 76 Perry Street in 1866 much has changed.  Handsome black carriages once waited at the curb for the well-dressed Pangburn family to descend the brownstone stoop.  In the 1920s the Logan family listened to a hulking radio in the parlor and in the 1960s trendy Greenwich Village residents in tie-dyed shirts passed along the sidewalk.

But little has changed to Jeremiah Pangburn’s handsome brownstone residence, itself.  It serves as a reminder of the days when this block of Perry Street began flexing its muscle as a fashionable residential area.

photographs by the author

The Lost 1641 Stadt Huys, Broad and Pearl Streets

from Popular History of the United States, 1876

On June 22, 1920 The New York Times reported on the sale of an old, six-story building at 73 Pearl Street at the northwest corner of Coenties Alley.   The reporter paused to mention “The structure occupies one of the most interesting historic sites on Manhattan Island.”

It was on that site, in 1641, that Governor Willem Kieft erected the Stadt Herberg, or “City Tavern.”   A substantial structure, it rose five stories tall—the skyscraper of mid-17^th century New Amsterdam.    As much a community center as tavern and inn, its entrance faced Fort Amsterdam, the administrative headquarters for the Dutch. 

Kieft’s governorship came hand-in-hand with his position as director-general of the West India Company.   Historian Mary Louise Booth in her 1860 History of the City of New York explained “As yet, no tavern had been erected within the settlement for the accommodation of strangers, and the numerous visitors from the New England colonies as well as from the interior were compelled to avail themselves of the hospitalities of the director.”  Kieft understandably grew impatient with strangers coming and going in his house; and so had the stone tavern erected at the Company’s expense.

from Annals of Old Manhattan 1609-1664, in the collection of the New York Public Library

His problems started when he tried to tax the local Native Americans.  When that failed, he attempted to expulse them.   He ordered military attacks on villages on February 25, 1643 which resulted in the massacre of 120 Native Americans, including women and children.   It did not end there.

A two-year war ensued, called Kieft’s War, that resulted in heavy loss of life on both sides.  The Board of Directors fired Kieft in 1647, replacing him with Peter Stuyvesant.  The new governor seized Kieft’s tavern and renovated it as his City Hall, the Stadt Huys.  A cupola with an all-important bell was added to the tiled roof and the entrance relocated to face the East River.  The bell was rung at 9:00 on the mornings of “court days.”

A turn of the century postcard included the stocks (right) and public well.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Lawrens Duyts was on the wrong side of the law at least twice here.  Records showed that Anneke Jans Bogardus sued him for the rent of a tract of land near where Trinity Church now stands.  Duyts’s defense was that Mrs. Bogardus had released him from the rent—two hogs—and that he had already paid one hog.  The magistrates ordered him to pay the other hog.

Things were a little more serious for Duyts when he was found guilty of “selling his wife to one Jansen.”  There was no jail in New Amsterdam and justice was served physically.  Lawrens Duyts was sentenced to a flogging and the cutting off of his right ear.

In 1652 the surgeons of the colony petitioned for a law prohibiting that no one could shave people but them.   The magistrates wisely decided “That no man can be prevented from operating herein upon himself, or doing another this friendly act, provided that it be through courtesy, and that he do not receive any money for it.”

One trial record included a remarkable description of the courtroom.  “Over the bench of the Justices are interweaved the orange and blue and white colors of the West India Company, with the tricolor of Faderland.  Around the room hang the leather fire-buckets ready for use.  On the magisterial seat are placed the stuffed red cushions, which are carried to the church on Sundays, and which are to hold the weight and judicial wisdom of New Amsterdam.  Behind is the painted coat of arms of the City, sent over by the Directors from Holland in 1634…Against the wall is the nut-wood chest, where are kept under massive clasps and bands the records and archives of the court.”

Trials here settled complaints large and small.  Jan Haeckins and Jacob Van Couwenhoven came to court with a somewhat subjective problem.  Couwenhoven brewed beer and sold a quantity to Haeckins.  Haeckins then refused to pay for the beer.  “The defendant says the beer is bad,” said court documents, according to historian James W. Gerard in his 1874 book The Old Streets of New York Under the Dutch.

Couwenhoven protested, saying that if his beer were bad, why would other people keep buying it?  “He further insists that the beer is of good quality, and such as is made for exportation.”  After much such bantering the magistrates arrived at a Solomon-worthy decision.  They adjourned court and went off to try the beer for themselves.

The Stadt Huys served the Dutch until 1664 when English forces seized Manhattan and overtook New Amsterdam.   The colony was renamed New York on September 8 of that year, in honor of the Duke of York, later James II.   On October 14 the Dutch magistrates and some of the higher ranking residents were assembled in the Stadt Huys by order of the English Governor Nichols.  They were read the oath of allegiance to Great Britain which they were expected to take.

They refused.  Only after significant amendments were made did the Dutch citizens agree to the oath.

The Stadt Huys would be the scene not only of government meetings, trials (under Governor Nichols the only trial for witchcraft in Manhattan’s history was held here) and civic decisions; it was the place of ceremonies and tributes. 

By 1679 the Stadt Huys, now called City Hall, was in disrepair.  Supreme Court records documented appropriation for studs and planks to shore up the walls.  It survived another two decades before the city abandoned it in 1699. 

Stuyvesant moved the entrance to the building facing the East River.  watercolor by Louis Oram, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEL7L7L&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

City documents recorded “On the 25^th day of May 1699, Johannes Depeyster, being mayor, James Graham, recorder, Messrs. Boelen, Lewis, Walters, Wenham, and Cortlandt, aldermen, present.  The board taking into consideration the necessity of building a new citty hall, doo unanimously resolve, (Alderman Cortlandt only dissenting,) that a new citty hall shall be built with all convenient expedition, and that the same be erected and built at the upper end of the Broad street within the said citty.”

The aldermen also agreed to sell the old building for its materials and lease the ground “to farme for the terme of ninety-nine years.”  Merchant John Rodman purchased City Hall for 900 pounds on August 17, 1699.

Long before construction of the new City Hall on Broad Street was started in November 1700, the old Stadt Huys had been demolished.

In 1979, 279 years later, ground was about to be broken for the Goldman Sachs Building at 85 Broad Street at the corner of Pearl Street.  Archeologists studied maps and documents and concluded this was the site of the Stadt Huys.   Dollar Savings Bank owned the property and backed a $155,000 dig.  Nearly two dozen archeologists spent 11 months carefully working down from street level.

More than four tons of artifacts were unearthed—pottery, buttons, coins, delftware plates and tiles, and other fascinating relics.    On April 12, 1981 The New York Times reported “They uncovered what they believe to be the remains of the Stadt Huys.”   Later investigation revealed that the walls were more likely those of the Lovelace Tavern which was built next door to it in 1670.  Today the outline of Stadt Huys is marked by light-colored paving stones on the plaza outside of 85 Broad Street.   Visitors can view the Lovelace Tavern foundations from a section of sidewalk left open and protected by brass railings.

photo therealdeal.com

Gimbels Dept. Store -- 6th Avenue and 33rd Street

As the building neared completion, Daniel Burnham released a sketch  Real Estate Record & Guide, July 10, 1909 (copyright expired)

At the turn of the 20^th century, the main shopping district in Manhattan stretched from 14^th Street to 23^rd Street along 6^th Avenue and along Broadway—the area known as The Ladies’ Mile.  Rowland Hussey Macy ran his successful department store at 14^th Street, just below 6^th Avenue where palatial emporiums filled entire blocks.

But in 1902 Macy took a brave gamble.   He leap-frogged the district and built the largest store of them all ten blocks north at 34^th Street.   Near the mansions of Fifth Avenue, the new Macy’s was set so far apart from the other dry goods stores that a steam-powered omnibus was provided to shuttle shoppers back and forth.

Macy no doubt felt secure with his competitors located far to the south.  But his greatest rival was not yet in New York City; but in Philadelphia.

Sixty years earlier Bavarian immigrant Adam Gimbel opened a lace shop in Vincennes, Indiana.  In 1886 the first “Gimbels” store opened in Milwaukee, followed seven years later by a large department store in Philadelphia.

Following the turn of the century, construction began on the mammoth Pennsylvania Station near Macy’s.  The increased potential of the area was not lost on Benjamin Gimbel and, despite his five brothers’ reluctance, he convinced them to open a Manhattan store.  The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide would later recall “In those days the site of the present Gimbel Building and the Pennsylvania station were occupied by dwellings and old-fashioned flats and tenements typical of the period.”

The Gimbel brothers leased land atop the “McAdoo tunnel system” for a term of 105 years.  The New York Times announced on January 30, 1909 that the “massive store” would “be the terminal of the McAdoo tunnel system, or Manhattan tunnels, which, by the time the store building is completed, will connect with the Pennsylvania Railroad, Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Erie system, and the Lackawanna & Western Railroad, handling, it is estimated, 1,000,000 persons daily.”

The department store site covered the entire blockfront from 31^st to 32^nd Street facing Sixth Avenue and across from Greeley Square.  Gimbels chose Chicago-based Daniel Hudson Burnham as its architect—possibly influenced by his design of other department stores including Marshall Field & Co. in Chicago and the McCreery Department Store in Pittsburgh.  Burnham filed plans for a 10-story structure above ground, with more floors below street level.

The understated Renaissance-inspired design belied the list of superlatives used by the press.  Newspapers and journals made note of the 2,406 support columns, the 12 “vast entrances with seventy-two doors,” 27 acres of floor space and the 45 show windows.

On July 10, 1909 The Record & Guide reported on “A mile and a half of banister” that would run along the stairways, the 8,000 automatic sprinklers and the 50 electric elevators.  The journal estimated that the construction of the mammoth store gave “directly and indirectly, employment to thousands of operatives.”

Armies of workmen scrambled to complete the store in record time -- photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library

A copper box containing a history of the Gimbel operation and “other data which will be of curious interest to some future generation,” according to The Record & Guide, was placed in the corner stone on December 8, 1909.  The excavation of the foundation had taken five months alone and strikes slowed construction.  Nevertheless on June 11, 1910 the $12 million store, including land, was completed ahead of schedule.

Gimbel Brothers immediately capitalized on the convenience of sitting directly above the subway.  A double-height “Subway Store” was designed to make subterranean shopping as chic as the upper floors.  Advertisements boasted of the easy accessibility for shoppers even in remote areas.  Adding to Gimbels’ accessibility to mass transit was the 6^th Avenue Elevated train.  A station stop was created directly outside the store at 33^rd Street.

The Subway Store was a retail innovation -- The Sun, October 5, 1910 (copyright expired)

Macy’s greatest threat had arrived and a decades-long competition for patrons was on.

 

Shortly after opening Gimbels advertised black beaver hats for $5.75 and ostrich plumed hats for $15 -- The Evening World, December 6, 1910 (copyright expired)

While Gimbels did offer high priced goods, it mostly targeted the middle-class woman.  Gimbels advertisements repeated the word “plain” – “Plain as a butter tub” and “Plain old Gimbels,” for instance.  It gained a loyal customer base of women who knew they were getting quality items at affordable prices.

The Gimbels New York department store was so successful that in July 1919 the brothers broke the 105-year lease by purchasing the property for $7 million.

The Bernard Gimbel, who oversaw the New York store, was a brilliant marketer, staging fashion shows, carnivals and other gimmicks to draw customers.  In March 1920 wealthy socialites worked as saleswomen, donating their 10 per cent commissions to Bellevue Hospital.   On March 13 The New York Times commented, “Miss Fay Bainter sold a hat almost the moment she arrived, but selling became difficult, for customers increased so swiftly that the floor space was congested.  Mrs. George Baker, Jr., has been on duty for three days and Mrs. Charles Dana Gibson worked hard all Thursday afternoon.  Mrs. F. N. Watriss and Mrs. Mary Hoyt Wiborg are among the more recent workers.”

The 6th Avenue Elevated station was directly outside of Gimbels -- Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYWV0O7FN&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

Among the conveniences offered was the nursery where mothers could drop off their children while they shopped.  On September 10, 1921 at 2:30 a young woman in a black silk dress dropped her one-month old baby girl with Stella Ellis, saying she would pick up the infant later.  When the store was closed, the baby was still there.

A policeman was called who took the child to Bellevue Hospital.  The nursery, it appeared, was an easy way for the mother to abandon her infant with the knowledge it would be cared for.

A model strikes a post during a fashion show around the time of the store's opening -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

Sitting between Macy’s and Gimbels was the nine-story Saks & Co. department store, engulfing the 6^th Avenue blockfront between 33^rd and 34^th Streets.  In 1922 the firm began construction of its new building on Fifth Avenue at 50^th Street.  Although the project would take two years to complete, Gimbels was quick to react. The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported on June 15 that Gimbels had leased the structure for 21 years at an annual rental of “between $400,000 and $500,000 net.”  It was, no doubt, no coincidence that the move followed closely on the heels of R. H. Macy & Co.’s announcement to erect an addition to its store.

In reporting on the lease, The New York Times mentioned “It was said that it was too early yet to make any definite announcement of plans for the actual physical linking together of the two structures, but two ways of joining them may be used.”  One idea was a tunnel, connecting to the various passenger tunnels already in place.  “There is also the possibility of building an overhead bridge,” said the newspaper.

But before any of this could take place, less than a year later, on April 25, 1923, The New York Times reported that Gimbels and Saks had merged.  “When Saks & Co. move to their new store at 617 Fifth Avenue, Gimbels, [which] already had acquired the present Saks building just across Thirty-third Street from the Gimbel store, will open there a special store similar to that now conducted by Saks.”

When Gimbels opened in the former Saks building in 1924, a platform from the 6^th Avenue El was extended down 33^rd Street and a connecting bridge built between the two structures at the second floor.  Now customers could easily alight from the elevated and enter either store.  The bridge had its drawbacks, however.  It became a favorite escape route for shoplifters who would dash from Gimbels into the former Saks building, or vice-versa.

A postcard captured the bridge between Gimbels and the former Saks Building after the demolition of the El.

Gimbels’ long list of innovative marketing perhaps reached its apex in September 1924 when it opened a radio station on the 8^th Floor.  “The entire station, including the studio in which the artists perform, the transmitting room and power room, will be in a glass enclosure, so that the public can see how broadcasting is done and how the apparatus functions,” reported The Times.  Shoppers were allowed into the studio during program were being aired; and a special “receiving room” was available for people to gather to hear important news events.

Louis Gimbel described the family-friendly programs, including “debates and concerts by school children and music students recommended by teachers of music.  A feature of the opening program will be Uncle Wip, the bedtime story teller of station WIP, Philadelphia, who has organized a club of 35,000 children by his broadcasts.”

Gimbels’ phenomenal growth was evidenced not only by its sales exceeding $100 million that year; but by the purchase the following year of the 18-story Cuyler Building at Nos. 120 through 126 West 32^nd Street.  When Gimbel Brothers announced the $2.5 purchase in October 1925, it said the acquisition “was made necessary by the great growth of the company’s business.”  To connect the Gimbels store with the Cuyler Building, architects Richard H. Shreve and William F. Lamb were commissioned to design another sky bridge—this one a three-story copper-clad Art Deco beauty.

An ambitious 3-story bridge connected Gimbels with the Cuyler Building.

The Gimbel store’s gimmicks to attract customers became more creative during the Depression years and in November 1935 the 6^th Floor was turned into a replica of the 19th century Barnum Museum on Broadway.  Adults paid 15 cents and children a dime to see the legendary museum’s attractions.

“It is really a complete Barnum,” said The Times.  “Joice Heth, wizened and witch-like, is there to remind you that she lived when George Washington was too young to chop down trees.  The Cardiff Giant looms coldly from his erect coffin in a corner.  The white whale, with an undulant tail and heaving sides, spouts regularly—at least as often as some one pushes a button hidden by the rail.”

Among the 60 life-sized models were Tom Thumb, the Fejee Mermaid, Jumbo the Elephant and Jenny Lind.  “Barnum himself stands at the side of his nightingale,” said The Times, “and when the electricians in the rear room see to it, he makes a speech of introduction.  Then Jenny sings, although her papier-mâché lips do not coordinate with the melody very well.”

On April 24, 1937 Amelia Earhart addressed a group of 500 in the department store’s restaurant.  The New York Times made special note of her announcement that “she purposed to attempt the ‘round the world at the Equator’ flight again ‘some time around the middle of May.’”

Although the old 6^th Avenue El was demolished in 1939, the second story bridge remained to link the Gimbels and Saks buildings. 

In August 1941, just months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the government instituted curbs on the manufacture of silk stockings.  Silk was necessary in the manufacture of parachutes.  The announcement sparked a near riot among female New Yorkers.  On August 5 a New York Times headline read “Women Stampede for Stockings As Result of Government Silk Ban.”

“Ropes controlled the crowds at Gimbel’s, where nineteen extra [employees] confronted the women who were lured there by a special sale of nylon and silk hosiery that disappeared early in the morning.  Even though salesgirls were summoned from near-by counters to assist with the stocking sale, there arose a plea from the buyer, ‘Get me some more girls, please,’ as the noon customers bunched in the store.”

Gimbels pitched into the war cause by selling Victory Bonds and, in 1943, installing a vegetable garden inside the store “to prove that two persons can grow all the vegetables they need for three months on a tiny plot,” said The Times.   It went even further, at the war’s end, by helping the Government sell off surplus property on the selling floor.

The rivalry between Macy’s and Gimbels was legendary; and never more so than during the Christmas selling season.  But in December 1955 an unexpected truce was called.  On December 9 The New York Times wrote “Bernard F. Gimbel, who has long been devoted to a department store that bears his name, did something extraordinary yesterday.  He went to Macy’s.”

Gimbel visited the office of Jack I. Straus, President of R. H. Macy & Co., with an surprising marketing strategy.  Soon “throngs of happy, rosy-cheeked shoppers, eagerly crowding one another off the sidewalks, were becoming aware of two huge signs on Macy’s and Gimbels.  The Macy sign read ‘This Way to Gimbels’ and ‘When Macy’s Tells Gimbels, It’s the Miracle on 34^th Street.’  The Gimbels sign was similar, except that it pointed to Macy’s.”

The competition was evident three years later when the motion picture Auntie Mame was released.  Rosalind Russell, in the role of Mame, walked off her job at Macy’s during the Christmas rush.  Infuriated customers wanted to know how they were to get the items they wanted.  “Go to Gimbels,” Mame responded.

Things were changing for Gimbels Greeley Square by the 1960s.  On December 29, 1965 E. J. Korvette, Inc. announced plans to take possession of the former Saks Building.  Four months later, on April 23, 1966, The Times reported on the removal of the second story bridge.  “After 42 years, the two-level bridge is being demolished.  In about a week, it will pass into oblivion—a fate that has overcome many other New York landmarks.”

Two years later Gimbels announced plans for a new store on the corner of Lexington Avenue and East 86^th Street.  The 14-story white marble and black slate building opened in February 1972, and the old 6^th Avenue building became known as “Gimbels downtown.”  But unlike its Upper East Side counterpart, the 1910 store sat in what was now an increasingly seedy neighborhood.

On June 6, 1986 the Associated Press reported “Macy’s no longer has to keep its secrets from Gimbels.  After 76 years of a fierce but friendly rivalry, Gimbels at Herald Square is going out of business.”   Within a year the Brooklyn-based department store Abraham & Straus announced it would take over the old 6^th Avenue building.  The intended gut renovation was part of an attempt to revive the Herald Square shopping district.  Earlier the old Saks-then-Korvettes building had become a vertical mall, Herald Center; however to date its reception among shoppers was tepid at best.

Burnham’s Edwardian façade remained—more or less—while the interiors were junked and replaced by the A&S Plaza that featured an enormous central atrium.  Walls of glass and a sleek two-story base retained the old structure's bones while giving it a decidedly modern feel.  And yet still clinging on high above 33^rd Street was the wonderful Art Deco sky bridge which had somehow survived.

The plan failed.  By 2002 when advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding leased the 270,000 square foot building, Times reporter John Holusha remarked “The building once housed Gimbels, then Abraham & Straus and then Stern’s department store and along the way became known as the Manhattan Mall.”

Foote, Cone & Belding decided on another direction for the property--a mixture of business offices, showrooms and stores.  In 2006 the building was sold once again, this time to Vornado Realty Trust for about $689 million.

Little remains to remind New Yorkers that a massive department store one engulfed three buildings here.  Except a fantastic copper sky bridge, long ago sealed up, high above 33^rd Street.

current photographs by the author
many thanks to reader Karina Romero for requesting this post