The Quirky Grosvenor Atterbury House - No. 131 East 70th Street

photograph by the author

In the first years of the 20^th century, Charles Larned Atterbury and his wife, the former Katharine Mitchill Dow, lived at the fashionable address of No. 23 East 62^nd Street.  The Yale-educated lawyer had been the solicitor for the Erie Railway Company before later becoming its Assistant President.  He also served as counsel for the Chicago and Atlantic Railway Company, and the Pullman Palace Car Company.

The couple’s son, Grosvenor, was 40 years old in 1909.  He too attended Yale before studying architecture at Columbia University and then working with McKim, Mead & White.  He was by now firmly established as a respected architect and was working on a major commission—designing the charming model housing community of Forest Hills Gardens for the Russell Sage Foundation.  But that year his parents would give him one more project—remodeling an old rowhouse for the family’s use.

Around 1871 architect Robert Mook designed two Anglo-Italianate brownstone houses for wealthy produce merchant and part-time developer Pearson S. Halstead at the northwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 70^th Street—Nos. 760 and 762 Lexington Avenue.  Halstead sold the newly-completed No. 762 to Ebenezer Hurd and his wife, Jane, for $26,000 (roughly $520,000 today) and kept the corner house for himself.

It is unclear whether the entrance to Halstead’s commodious home was always on the 80-foot long 70^th Street side; but as early as 1884 he was using the address of No. 131 East 70^th Street.  On July 22, 1889 the 78-year old Halstead died suddenly in the house.  His widow, Christina, lived on here until July 6, 1905 when Halstead’s estate sold No. 131 to “Chas. L Atterbury and Kath. M. his wife and Grosenor Atterbury joint tenants.”  The family paid $65,000 for the “four-story stone front dwelling.”

By October 16 Grosvenor Atterbury had filed plans and awarded the general contract to J. B. Acken to remodel the old brownstone.  The renovations would cost another $20,000 and result in a rather startling residence.

Viewed from Lexington Avenue, the rowhouse origins of the mansion are obvious.  photograph by the author

Oddly enough, Atterbury did little to the Lexington Avenue façade, retaining the Italianate quoins, the projecting sills on their little brackets, and the elliptical arched windows of the 1870s.  On the 70^th Street side, however, he went all out.

The house was a surprising mish-mash of shapes and protrusions.  House Beautiful May 1916 (copyright expired)

He splattered the façade with irregularly-positioned openings and bays; and added a two-story elliptical oriel.  Reportedly, the leaded glass in the seven-sided copper bay had once belonged to Louis Comfort Tiffany.  The intended effect was that the house had developed its quirky personality over decades, rather than a few months.  The up-to-the-minute home included a connected garage, below the drawing room, complete with reception room and leaded-glass windows.  It was accessed on the far west end of the house.  House Beautiful noted “This unusual proximity to the main entrance and to the living quarters has not proved in the least objectionable, while the direct access to the car from the main house is of inestimable value as an everyday convenience.”

To the left of and below the massive two-story copper-clad bay was the garage entrance; converted today to an upscale shop. photograph by the author

The Atterbury family moved into the house in 1911.  Grosvernor’s interior renovations reflected the sophistication and taste of the family.  Basically English in design, there was oak paneling, beamed ceilings and leaded glass throughout.  The House Beautiful commented “gloominess would be the last word to apply to Mr. Atterbury’s house.  Mr. Atterbury has progressed beyond the state of mind of a puristic practitioner.”

The entrance hall (left) featured a metal-faced fireplace and tile floors.  House Beautiful described the carved balustrades as suggesting "the Gothic cusp."  Beyond the arch is the living room.  House Beautiful May 1916 (copyright expired)

“Gloomy” was prevented by the use of color and material.  One fireplace was faced in bronze, the paneling of the dining room was enlivened by a frieze of blue-green Spanish leather; and the wooden details included carved thistle and rose elements—symbols of the Stewarts—and linen-fold panels.

Exquisite leaded glass, English paneling and brass lighting fixtures provided the venerable feel of the dining room.  House Beautiful May 1916 (copyright expired)

Now displaying upscale accessories, the dining room retains its green-tiled mantel and paneling.  Sadly the leaded windows have been lost.  photograph by the author

In 1913, just two years after moving in, Charles Atterbury became ill.  A year later, on November 10, he died in the 70^th Street house less than a month before his 72^nd birthday.  Katharine was the same age as her husband.  She lived another eight years with her son, dying here after a short illness on Wednesday, December 21, 1921.

New York society may have been shocked when, on March 27, 1923, Mr. and Mrs. Homer C. Johnstone announced that their daughter, Dorothy, and Grosvenor Atterbury had been married four days earlier.  The quiet wedding of 54-year old architect and his bride had taken place in the 70^th Street house.   In reporting on the marriage on March 28, the New York Evening Post noted “Mr. Atterbury is one of the most prominent architects in this city” and added “Mr. Atterbury and his bride will sail to-day for Nassau, and upon returning will make their home at 131 East Seventieth Street.”

Two views of the living room.  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Like all well-to-do Manhattan couples, Dorothy and Grosvenor closed their city homes during the hot summer months.  The Atterbury’s 80-acre estate, Sugar Loaf Acres, was in Southampton.  In the summer of 1925 just two servants, sisters Frances and Elizabeth Koff were left back to watch over the East 70^th Street house.  Everything went fine until shortly after midnight on Friday, July 31.

Rain was beating against the windows as the sisters sat in the kitchen and prepared a pitcher of iced tea.  Frances asked Elizabeth if she were sure all the windows upstairs were closed. 

“I think so, but as soon as I finish making the iced tea I’ll go up and see.”

Instead, the sisters went together.  Elizabeth carried the pitcher of tea as the two rode the elevator to the top floor.  They checked the windows and the hatch leading to the roof, then headed back down.  Just as the elevator passed the third floor, it ground to a stop.  Concerned but not panicking, they both tried punching this button and that.  The elevator would not move.

Two days later The New York Times reported “Calmly the two surveyed their situation…They were alone in the house.  After some moments’ consideration one of the sisters pushed a button which rings a large gong in the basement.  There was no one in the basement to answer it, of course, but it was the only thing they could do.”

Of course, it was the dead of the night in a nearly-deserted residential neighborhood.  Although the gong kept ringing, there was no one to respond.  So they simply sat on the floor of the elevator and drank tea.

Almost four hours later beat cop Paul Minor heard the “incessant ringing of the gong.”  Assuming it was a burglar alarm, he called another policeman.  He and Officer Sullivan tried all the doors and found them locked.  They woke up the residents in No. 962 Lexington Avenue, crossed the roof, and started forcing the hatch.

The two servant girls, most likely afraid of the damage they would be held accountable for, shouted for them to stop.  The policemen hear Elizabeth calling to “get a ladder and try to enter one of the front windows.”

In the meantime, six more policemen arrived.  One of them sent for Hook and Ladder Company 16.  The fire truck’s ladder was raised to an upper window and the firemen and police clambered in.   Unable to solve the girls’ predicament, a repairman from the Otis Elevator Company was summoned.  Eric Granfeldt climbed up the fire truck ladder and into the house.  Within a few minutes he found that the safety control in the bottom of the shaft had somehow dislodged, preventing the elevator from moving.  The girls were freed.

The Koff sisters tempered their gratefulness with annoyance.  “We did not mind the wait at all, for we had our tea and we knew that we couldn’t stay there forever,” explained Elizabeth.  But she added “If someone had had sense enough to notify the elevator people immediately, we wouldn’t have had all this fuss.”

The top-most floor includes this Arts & Crafts-style room, with beaten iron strap hinges, exposed beams, and a charming brick fireplace.  photograph by the author

By 1949 the Atterburys had left East 70^th Street.  Grosvenor died in Southampton on October 18, 1956 at the age of 87.  No. 131 East 70^th Street was converted to a doctor’s office on the ground floor in 1949, with “showrooms and workroom” on the second floor, and two apartments each on the upper floors.

The ground floor space became the boutique of Eulalie, described by The New York Times on September 21, 1950 as “a promising newcomer to the field of fashion designers."  The second floor “showroom” was well-known to Manhattan women as the Pierre & Fred hair salon for years.

Nearly a century after Atterbury completed his remarkable remake of the house, owner E. William Judson finished an exterior renovation in 2006.  Sadly, the leaded glass in the second floor oriel was disintegrating and was deemed unsalvageable.  The panels were removed, but thankfully not discarded.

The parlor floor, where Pierre & Fred had been, is now home to the upscale Hayward House.  Its owners, John Goldstone and his wife, the former Marin Hopper (daughter of motion picture actor Dennis Hopper), live upstairs with their daughter.   Their meticulous restoration of the drawing room and dining room included resurrecting the ceiling stenciling from beneath decades of grime, repainting areas which were lost; and careful removal scores of nails and built up lacquer (from years of hair spray mist in the air).  The charming sixth floor where the elder Atterburys lived has exposed beams, strapwork hinges and other interior elements of the Arts & Crafts era.

John and Marin Goldstone have sensitively restored the drawing room floor where, thankfully, most of the original elements survive.  photo courtesy of John Goldstone

The façade was touched up, again, in 2015.  Grosvenor Atterbury’s eccentric and wonderful purposely-accidental design mostly survives and is still a cause of occasional head-scratching by passersby.

many thanks to John and Marin Goldstone for taking me through their exceptional home.

Murder at "The Monastery"-- No. 22 West 77th Street

The West 77^th Street block between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue was especially alluring to apartment building developers.  Its location across from the sprawling Manhattan Square and the grounds of the American Museum of Natural History assured that no high structures would ever be built to obstruct the abundant natural light.

On May 7, 1921 the New-York Tribune announced that Fred F. French had formed 22 West Seventy-seventh Street, Inc., and purchased the plot at Nos. 22 and 24 West 77^th Street.  The newspaper noted that the property was “bought for flat improvement.”

The Fred F. French Co. was an all-in-one development concern.  It handled every step of the real estate process from buying the property, designing the structure, constructing it and finally managing the completed building.  And the firm wasted no time with its newest property.  Just five days later plans were filed for “a six story apartment house” with an estimated cost of $300,000—in the neighborhood of $4 million in 2016.

Eager residents did not wait for the building to be completed before sign leases.  By the end of October Fred F. French had rented several of the apartments.  The finished six story building contained 42 apartments “in suites of one, two, three and four rooms.”  Fred F. French had designed a quaint brick-faced neo-Tudor structure with storybook half-timbering, pointed gables and picturesque rough-cut stonework around the arched entrance.

The New York Times (while getting the architectural style distinctly wrong) noted that the building was "so strikingly decorated in mission style as to bear the neighborhood name of the Monastery."

Among the first residents was a 22-year old music student, Louise Lawson, who rented one of the three-room suites.   Louise had enjoyed a privileged childhood, the daughter of wealthy Texans, Mr. and Mrs. A. P. Lawson of Walnut Springs.  She did not work; but her parents provided for her expenses which included Lillian Harvey, Louise’s maid who came every morning around 10:00.

Louise had arrived in New York with dreams of becoming a movie star.  She managed to land a small part in D. W. Griffith’s 1920 film Way Down East starring Lillian Gish (New York City was still the center of the motion picture industry).   She shared an apartment with her best friend, Ziegfeld Follies chorus girl Charlotte Wakefeld, at the time.

But her show business career wilted and she turned her focus to studying the piano.  In October 1922 she signed a lease at No. 22 West 77^th Street.  The rent was $1,900 per year, about $2,250 per month today.   Despite the fact that she was not working, The New York Times later mentioned “Persons who met her at the apartment said that she liked to be regarded as an actress, but that her success on the stage had been limited.”

Nevertheless, social life for a single girl in New York City during the Roaring Twenties was not wasted on Louise Lawson.   According to a newspaper “Occasionally, it was learned, Miss Lawson would surround herself with a lively crowd and hold a merry party in the apartment.  As a result of this she was cautioned several times.”

Louise’s fifth floor apartment, No. 56, was “luxuriously furnished,” including mahogany furniture and a grand piano fashionably cluttered with photographs in sterling silver frames.   Employees of the apartment building said she was never home on the weekends.  Like other girls with money in the Gatsby Era, she went off to country places, often whisked away from 77^th Street in a large olive green Pierce-Arrow touring car driving by a liveried chauffeur.

Louise, for example, was present at the scandalous party in Greenwich, Connecticut in September 1923 which ended with the drowning of Angier B. Duke, heir to the $5 million estate of Benjamin B. Duke.

In January 1924 there had been three burglaries at No. 22 West 77^th Street in quick succession.  They may have been on Louise’s mind when a knock on her door sounded one morning while a friend was visiting.  When the two men announced they had a delivery for her, she replied “I am not expecting any packages” and slammed the door.  Her friend later recalled that Louise “seemed to be upset by the episode and referred to it several times later.”

She had every reason to be unnerved by the matter.  Less than a month later, at around 8:00 on the morning of February 8, 1924, two men showed up at the service entrance.  The elevator operator, mindful of the string of burglaries, questioned them before taking them up.  They explained that they had a package for Miss Lawson.  About 20 minutes later one of the men called for the elevator.  He still carried the package and offhandedly said “Miss Lawson wanted scotch and not rye.  You never can tell what they want.”

It was not the delivery of alcohol during Prohibition that puzzled the elevator man—moneyed New Yorkers managed to get their liquor.  He wondered what had happened to the delivery man’s partner.

Later Louise’s next door neighbor, Peggy Tompkins, reported that she had heard Louise’s doorbell ring and heard her ask “Who is there.”

“A couple of expressmen.  We’ve got something here for you.”

Despite Louise’s cautious reaction just a few weeks earlier, she answered “I’m not dressed yet, wait a minute.”

Peggy Tompkins heard the door open and close a few seconds later; then heard nothing more until two hours later when screams emanated from Apartment 56.

Those screams came from Lillian Harvey.  Shortly before 10:00 the maid entered Louise’s apartment with her key.  “Removing her wraps, she went to work straightening out the private hall, a stretch of about ten feet, and then passed into the living room,” explained The Times the following day.

“As she entered she saw signs of disorder.  A big basket of American Beauty roses had been scattered over the Turkish rugs and the flowers had been torn apart by struggling feet.  Pictures were lying broken on the floor, and chairs had been thrown about.  The maid called for Miss Lawson, and then passed into the bedroom, which opened off the bathroom and a tiny kitchenette.”

Lillian found her employer face down on “the lace-trimmed linen cover of a mahogany bed in the dainty chamber.”  She was dead.  Police called her the victim “of one of the most savage crimes of recent years.”  She was bound at the wrists and feet, gagged with a Turkish towel held over her mouth by adhesive tape, and left to suffocate to death.

It appeared that the second man had waited for his accomplice to distract the elevator man so he could escape down the stairs with thousands of dollars in Louise’s jewelry and furs.   One missing ermine cape alone had been a $1,500 gift.

Police scoured the apartment for clues, but found little or nothing to go on.  The suite had been ransacked.  They even searched the ice box where they found no food, but two bottles of champagne and about a case of scotch. 

Although detectives repeatedly assured the public that they were closing in on the thieves; the trail eventually went cold and Louise Lawson’s murderers were never found.

Living in the building at the same time was wealthy bon vivant pen manufacturer Ignatz Salz, and Ralph Oyler, Chief of the Federal Narcotic Square.

The President of Salz Brothers, Inc., Ignatz Salz was 45 years old at the time of Louise’s murder.  Newspapers noted that he was “well-known” on Broadway—referring to the nightclubs rather than the theaters.  He was perhaps equally well known for his “attention to women.”  And Salz’s attention did not discriminate between married and unmarried females.

Three years after Louise Lawson’s murder, Ignatz Salz arrived home on Friday, January 14, 1927 around 6:00 and changed into his evening clothes.   Prepared for a night out with a companion and two women, he stuffed $4,000 in cash into his pocket and sported a diamond ring and diamond stickpin. 

Before he was quite ready, his doorbell rang.  When he opened the door, he was accosted by two men, about 30 years old, who tried to push him back into the apartment.  When he struggled, one said “Give it to him.”

The second man drew a pistol and fired.  Ignatz Salz fell to the floor in his doorway.  The men rushed from the building, into a waiting automobile and sped down Central Park West.

Detectives bandied about several motives for the shooting.  “Their first belief was that the two men, probably night club habitués of the criminal type who knew that Mr. Salz carried large sums of money, which was said to be his habit, had waited for him to come home and had entered intending to rob him,” reported The Times.

But that theory quickly was dismissed.  The men had made no attempt to take Salz’s jewelry and cash; and James Salz, the victim’s brother, pointed out that “if the men were robbers, why one should say ‘Give it to him’ and the other shoot him almost immediately.  It made no sense."

Another theory was that the gunmen had mistaken Salz for Federal narcotic agent Ralph Oyler.  He was responsible for the recent take-down of a German narcotics ring which resulted in the arrest of 32-year old Alice Seaman earlier that day.

But the motive investigators most focused on was “that the gunmen were hired by a person who hated Salz because of his attention to women.”  The New York Times reported two days later “The police questioned the two women who called at the apartment after the shooting.  They had a dinner appointment with Salz.  The detectives refused to make public the names of the women.  It was ascertained, however, that one of the two women is married.”

James Salz dismissed the idea as ridiculous.  “I know my brother better than any one else does.  He was a home-loving man, had not an enemy in the world, and either his assailants were bent on robbery or else they mistook him for Mr. Oyler.”

Despite James Salz’s offer of a $5,000 reward, as in the case of Louise Lawson, Ignatz Salz’s assailants were never found.

For three decades the violent episodes at No. 22 West 77^th Street were forgotten.  Respected residents like the well-known stage actor Malcom Fassett continued to live in the building.  But then on July 9, 1955 the address was once again the scene of murder.

Mary Samuels was already living in the building when she married 63-year old power press operator Monte J. Samuels in January 1955.  Mary worked for the Child Guidance Division of the Department of Welfare and Monte was her third husband.  She was twice widowed.  Monte’s only other marriage had ended in divorce.

The couple’s honeymoon period was short-lived.  Unable to live with her new husband, Mary telephoned his sister, Mrs. Sarah Phillips, on the morning of July 9.  She was telling Sarah to “have her brother’s belongings removed from the house” when Monte walked into the room.

With Sarah still on the line, he began fighting with his wife, and dragged her away from the telephone.  When police arrived, they found the 53-year old Mary strangled to death on the kitchen floor.

The pseudo half-timbering on the eastern side has been plastered over and the gable removed.

To date the only other violence and tragedy to occur at No. 22 West 77^th Street is the vandalism of the architecture by subsequent owners.  But despite the disrespectful alterations, the building still exhibits American architects’ love of the romantically picturesque Tudor style in the 1920s.

photographs by the author

The Lost Coster Mansion - Nos. 539-541 Broadway

from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In 1830 John Jacob Astor laid plans for the most lavish hotel in Manhattan--the Astor House.  He envisioned it engulfing the block of Broadway between Vesey and Barclay Streets where the mansions of some of New York's wealthiest citizens stood--including his own.  One by one he purchased the properties until only the mansion of John G. Coster at No. 227 Broadway stood in the way of his ambitious project.

But Coster would not sell.

Forced into a corner, Astor finally paid $60,000 for the house and land; about $1.5 million today.  And now John G. Coster needed a new place to live.

Coster and his older brother, Henry, were born in Holland.  Henry arrived in New York prior to the Revolution and John (who had been educated at a physician) followed a few years later.  They established Brothers Coster & Co., later renamed "Henry A. and John G. Coster."

In his 1863 The Old Merchants of New York City, Walter Barrett wrote "No better merchants ever lived in this city than these two.  When these two honest, guileless merchants formed a partnership in the town, for it was a small one, their place of business was at 20 Dock--now Pearl--street...The great success of these two excellent men was in the store No. 26 William street. They dealt in all sorts of Holland goods--one article in particular, called "Krollenvogel," a species of tape, made of flax. They imported all kinds of oil cloths. Not only did they import, but they were constantly buying and shipping to Europe all kinds of produce. They had strong connections in the old Dutch cities, for they had heavy orders, and they traded also in their own ships, sending out supercargoes."

Following Henry's death in 1821 John continued amassing his fortune.  In 1826 he succeeded Henry Remsen as President of the Merchant's Bank, and he was a director in the Manhattan Bank, the Phoenix Insurance Company and the Globe Insurance Company.  By the time Astor purchased his Broadway mansion, Costner was one of only five millionaires in New York, the others being Astor himself, Nathanial Prime, Stephen Whitney, and Robert Lenox (the Los Angeles Herald, nearly a century later would mention "Cornelius Vanderbilt was at the time struggling with his ferryboat business).

John G. Coster purchased two plots at Nos. 539 and 541 Broadway, between Spring and Prince Streets.  He commissioned Alexander Jackson Davis and Ithiel Town, two of the preeminent architects of the day, to design his new home.  Completed around 1833, the free-standing mansion was faced in granite.  Three stories tall, its hipped roof sat behind a parapet with a central section of balustrades.  The double-doored entrance sat within an elegant, columned portico.

The first floor contained massive rooms and a grand, sweeping staircase at the end of the reception hall  -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Former Mayor Philip Hone's diary made mention of Coster's "noble granite house, furnished in the most elegant style."  And historian Walter Barrett called it "a splendid granite double residence...That was a palace in its day."

The Coster fortune was suddenly increased when John's wife, the former Catharine Lorillard, received one sixth of her bachelor uncle's estate in April 1839.  George Lorillard's property consisted of "upward of four hundred houses, stores, and blocks of property in the city, and is valued at upward of three millions of dollars," according to the Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania The Columbia Democrat on May 4.

The Costers had nine children whose pampered lifestyle was openly criticized by some.  On February 21, 1840 the Morning Herald wrote of Coster "This gentleman is so well known in New York, that it is hardly worth saying one word respecting him.  His immense wealth has made him conspicuous...Mr. C. has been rather too indulgent a parent; but immense wealth in the hands of a parent is apt to make children careless."

Son John H, Coster posed in Newport in 1852, seated at left.  Next to him is Julia Ward Howe and standing behind, at right, is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  photo from the archives of the Perkins School for the Blind

One by one the children wed, all "intermarrying" as one historian put it, with the great fortunes of New York City.  Daniel married a daughter of Oliver Delancy, Gerald married a daughter of Nathaniel Prime, and John H. (widely known more as a playboy than a businessman) married the daughter of Daniel Boardman, "a very rich man," according to Walter Barrett.

Behind the mansion the Coster stables stretched through the property to Mercer Street.  contemporary sketch by Samuel Dunbar from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

When John G. Coster died in 1846 the neighborhood around his granite mansion was shockingly changing as the entertainment district inched up Broadway.  In February that year W. Dinneford leased No. 559 Broadway for his Alhamra theater.  He advertised on February 26 "The Saloon is better adapted for sound than any other in the city, and will be let for Lectures, Concerts, Balls, &c. on the off-nights."

Only 15 years after its completion the Coster mansion was humiliated by also being converted to a theater.  On December 4, 1848 The New York Herald announced a "new music hall" in the building.  An assortment of acts played at the Melodeon.  In April 1853 Heller's Soirres Mysterieuses shared the stage with Owen's Alpine Rambles.

The variety of acts included singers, dancers and popular minstrel performances with black-faced comedians.  During a single week in August 1859 patrons of the Melodeon could hear Master Dave Williams "in his banjo solos every evening this week;" "The Ethiopian Opera, entitled 'Oh, Hush;" the dancer Miss Augusta L Walby; Max Irwin, "the best delineator of the Southern darkey in the United States; and Miss Eva Brent who sang "this beautiful ballad," We Met By Chance; among a host of other entertainments.

By 1863 the former Coster house was known as the Chinese House. That year Walter Barrett explained "The occasion of its being so named, was from the fact that a Canton merchant brought an immense quantity of Chinese articles, and exhibited them in that mansion.  It was one of the most attractive exhibitions ever got up in the city."

On November 25 that same year The New York Times reported "Divers attempts have heretofore been made to establish a menagerie on Broadway, but have invariably failed because of the absence of all proper arrangements, and the preponderance of discomfort to visitors, and of the odors of sawdust, and musty, antiquated animals."  Now, said the article, that was all changed.

"The menagerie opened at Nos. 539 and 541 Broadway is successfully in advance of all previous efforts.  The capacious building has been remodeled, admirably and elegantly arranged, and visitors will find a novelty, in the absence of all the unpleasantness which have marked similar exhibitions."

Almost unbelievably, the mansion that once house fine artwork, costly furniture and imported carpeting, was now home to "the wonderful elephant, Tippoo Saib," lions, panthers and other beasts.  Van Amburgh & Co's. Menagerie remained here for nearly two years.  On February 29, 1864 The Times glowed "This meritorious exhibition...was crowded to excess on Saturday by the juveniles, and it is not in the least strange that the great lion-tamer should be patronized extensively when we take into consideration that an exhibition of such magnitude, established by private enterprise, does not exist on either side of the Atlantic."


But following the catastrophic fire at Barnum's American Museum on July 13, 1865, P. T. Barnum leased the Chinese Building as a replacement.  Only seven days after the blaze, The Times noted "He has engaged an army of architects, masons and other artificers, and in a very short time will have fitted up a spacious museum, lecture-room, and circus."

The Lecture Room.  Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, September 30, 1865 (copyright expired)

On September 30, 1865 Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper remembered the building's history (while completely forgetting about the Coster family).  "It is a spot long known to New Yorkers as the Chinese Hall, where 16 years ago the elder Patti charmed the ears of concert-goers, and where four or five years later the Buckley Minstrels produced those capital burlesque operas...which [were] the crowning triumph of burnt cork and melody."

But now, reported the article, it would be Barnum's American Museum.  There were "five long saloons, and a splendid Lecture Room...The stage of this room is 50 feet wide, by 45 feet deep, and the auditorium is about 80 feet deep and calculated to hold 2,500 persons. The decorations are very elegant."  Barnum, according to the article, had sent agents throughout Europe "to gather up, without any regard to cost, every article of purchasable curiosity they could find."

The Coster mansion was still recognizable behind the signage.  Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, September 30, 1865 (copyright expired)

Barnum's American Museum and menagerie was a popular Broadway destination.  But then disaster struck again between midnight and 1:00 on the morning of March 3, 1868.  Fire broke out and spread rapidly.  The bitterly-cold night and "a bitter gale," as described by The New York Herald, "rendered the efforts of the firemen almost fruitless."  Inside were dozens of wild animals.

"The giraffe tumbled down near the doorway, and thus blocked up the egress.  A number of the other animals were then rescued, and finally a rope was put around the giraffe's neck and leg and he was raised up, but refused to move.  At this time the flames were bursting through the partition, and the hind part of the poor animal commenced to burn," reported The Herald.

A tiger burst through a basement window on Broadway, "and a scare ensued which was terminated by an intrepid policeman with a revolver in hand, who stationed himself with a huge fire ladder between himself and the animal and fired shot after shot until he finally gave the tiger his quietus."

from the collection of the New York Public Library

The building, still owned by the Coster estate, was a total loss of about $50,000.  Barnum lost everything other than a few animals and stuffed birds.  He suffered "something over $300,000" in losses, according to the newspaper; in the neighborhood of $5.2 million today.

The sites of the Coster mansion and the neighboring No. 537 Broadway which was also destroyed were cleared away.  Within a year the cast iron S. A. Beekman & Co. building was completed and the memory of John G. Coster's granite palace faded.

photo by the author