The Ladies' Art Association Building - 4 West 14th Street

In the years prior to the outbreak of Civil War, the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 14th Street was an impressive address.  Both thoroughfares were lined with opulent rowhouses.  Among them was the high-stooped brownstone at 4 West 14th Street, home to attorney John H. Glover and his family in 1860.

The post-Civil War years saw a quick succession of occupants in the house.  In 1864 through 1866 Dr. Manual G. Echeverria lived and worked here.  His office was opened from 10 a.m. to noon daily--not an especially over-taxing schedule.  In July 1867 Dr. Lighthill relocated here from 34 St. Mark's Place.  He offered daily consultation on "deafness, catarrh, and all the various diseases of the eye, ear, throat and lungs."

Following the Lighthills in 4 West 14th Street was the Goldman family.  Marcus Goldman and his wife, Bertha, had five children, Rebecca, Julius, Rosa, Louisa, and Henry.  Goldman had emigrated from Germany in 1848 and initially settled in Philadelphia.  In 1869 he moved his family to New York City and into 4 West 14th Street.  That same year he opened Marcus Goldman & Co., setting himself up in an office on Pine Street, as a broker of IOU's.

Marcus Goldman (original source unknown)

Goldman's one-man operation was a success and in 1869, according to William D. Cohan in his 2011 book Money and Power, "may well have been making some $250,000 a year."  That sum would translate to about $4.5 million today.  

The family remained at 4 West 14th Street until around 1873.  Nine years later Goldman would take his son-in-law, Samuel Sachs, into the business, creating M. Goldman & Sachs.

When merchant George H. Maclean moved into the house in 1876, the neighborhood was changing.  After living here only a year, he altered the ground floor to a shop and moved his store from Pearl Street into the space.  At the same time he relocated his family to the less-commercial East 22nd Street and the upper floors of 4 West 14th Street became an upscale boarding house.  Mrs. Jane M. Boudinot typified the social and financial status of the select residents.  Following her death in the house in 1880, her will left an 1780 portrait of George Washington painted by Charles Wilson Peel to her daughter, Jane.

Two years after Jane Boudinot's death, the property was acquired by the Ladies' Art Association.  Founded in 1867 for the "mutual benefit" of female artists, it provided classes and exhibition space at a time when women's artistic talents and abilities were underrated.   It was most likely the Ladies' Art Association that remodeled the façade with grouped openings that allowed northern light to flood into the upper floors.

An article in The American Garden in November 1884 gave an insight into the classes here:

Mr. Anthony Hockstein, the well-known artist of this city, teaches on Saturday afternoons at the rooms of this excellent society, No. 4 West Fourteenth street.  His instruction is specially adapted to the higher education of those who are already teaching in schools and seminaries, as well as to those who wish to draw on wood for book illustrations.  To those desiring to perfect themselves in the arts this offers a rare opportunity, as in the delineation and portraiture of flowers, plants, and natural objects generally Mr. Hochstein has few, if any, superiors in this country.

Among the artists who maintained studios in the building in 1887 was Mary Kollock, who also taught in the Ladies' Art Association.  A student of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Art Students' League, she first exhibited at the National Academy in 1868.

Mary Kollock's Woman on an Alée 

Also teaching here that year were well-known artists William de Leftwich Dodge and George Brant Bridgman.  Bridgman also taught anatomy at the Art Students' League, where he would remain for nearly half a century.

In its January 1888 edition, Godey's Lady's Book explained that the Association sometimes deferred tuition to students unable to pay.  The amount "is paid for later from the pupil's earnings; and the amount is then used for the benefit of the next needy student."  Despite having some male instructors, the article stressed, "The fees are very moderate; there are only lady pupils, and the Association is officered and managed exclusively by women."

The Ladies' Art Association moved out in 1890 and the building became home to A. McDowell & Co., publishers, and The Memory Co., which offered correspondence courses in "Mind Culture."  A. McDowell & Co. published fashion journals, like the Paris Album of Fashion, Le Mode de Paris, La Mode, and La Couturiere.  Women who subscribed to any two of the journals in 1892 by sending $3.50 in advance (about $103 today), received a complimentary copy of Dressmaking Simplified.

William L. Dodge had retained his studio, and was still here in 1892.  Along with A. McDowell & Co., the New York Portrait Supply Co., T. O'Donaghue's millinery shop, and Coyne & Locke, makers of artificial flowers, were in the building.

A fire in at 8:20 p.m. on the night of January 9, 1892 may have prompted one of those tenants to leave.  Before the year was out Sister Mary Angelina had opened her Silent Unity rooms here.  She was a follower of the Olombia Commonwealth, or The New Order of Builders and University, which sought "the conversion of sinners and the abolition of money."  On December 21, 1892 The Evening World described a meeting of ten members the prior evening:

It was some time before the Ten settled down to the business of the evening, which was to sit in profound silence around a table in the centre of the room and to concentrate their thoughts on the subject of eliminating from the world Mammon, the God of Gold, the instigator of all that is evil.

At the turn of the century the cloak and fur store of Solomon Feldstein & Co. was in the ground floor store.  A. McDowell & Co. was still here, now offering instruction on ladies' tailoring.  It branched out with the subsidiary McDowell Garment Drafting Machine Co. in 1903.

On the night of December 2, 1904, James Cocker, the building's janitor, heard noises on the third floor.  He shouted down from the fourth floor and a voice said something about "working."  As Cocker went to investigate, he heard the crash of glass.  He ran to the street and found a policeman, and the two returned to search for an intruder.  They found a burglar who had crashed through an interior skylight, breaking his leg.  The New York Times said the bungling burglar "left behind him two 'jimmies,' or chisels, and $5,000 worth of furs, all done up in a bundle."

In 1934 the building was leased as additional premises of the Hearn Department Store, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 14th Street.  It was, at the time, one of the largest department stores in the city.  In 1945 the two buildings were joined internally.

Once home to one of Manhattan's wealthiest families, 4 West 14th Street now had a much less glamorous life.  In the 1960's the ground floor was home to the Esther Shops, which sold electronics like tape players and radios.  The 1980's saw Lucile's Bridal Shop in the space, and most recently Namaste Bookshop, specializing in Eastern philosophy and religious books, and meditation items occupies the space.  Despite its gruesomely abused ground floor, it retains much of its appearance from when aspiring female artists took classes here in the 1880's.

photographs by the author

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The Mark J. King House - 50 West 22nd Street

 

An outdoor dining shed currently obscures the extant stoop of 50 West 22nd Street.

In 1850, two decades after Henry Brevoort, Jr. erected the first mansion on Fifth Avenue, grand homes had spread northward as far as 23^rd Street.   The development of the retail shopping district along Sixth Avenue, known as the Ladies’ Mile, would not be in full swing for years.  And so, the blocks between Fifth and Sixth Avenues took on an elegant residential nature.

That year developer John Latson erected a row of carbon copy brownstone-fronted residences on the south side of West 22nd Street.  Each twenty-three feet wide and three stories tall above a English basements, their Italianate elements included handsome stone entrances with carved pilasters and dentiled cornices, heavy iron stoop railings and fencing, and unassuming bracketed cornices.

Among the row was 50 West 22nd Street, described in an advertisement in February 1855 as "The medium sized three story stone front House...containing all the modern improvements and conveniences."  Among those conveniences was indoor running water, made possible by the opening of mains from the Croton Reservoir in 1842.

The house became home to the Mark J. King family in 1861.  King was the principal in Mark J. King & Co., a retail furrier at 62 Broadway.  He and his wife, Sarah, had two sons.  Initially living with the family was Mrs. Ella Hall.

They had barely gotten settled when youthful burglars broke in.  On the night of February 23, 1861, Police Officer O'Connor saw "three lads, named Patrick Farrell, Michael Farrell and Patrick McDonnell," carrying a mantel clock.  The New York Times reported, "believing they had stolen it, he arrested them."  The boys languished in jail for three days until Mrs. Hall appeared to report the burglary.  They had not only stolen the mantel clock, but "sawed off the water-pipes and did other damage."

The three Irish boys confessed to the crime, "stating that they had entered the building by sliding down the coal-hole, not to steal but merely to have a slide for the fun of it."  Once in the coal cellar, they could not escape without going upstairs.  "Then they found the clock and took it away," they explained.

The King boys were teenagers when the Civil War broke out.  On July 11, 1863 the nation’s first attempt at a military draft played out in New York with a lottery, but newspapers explained "Isaac M. King and H. King were disposed from the draft as being under age."  In fact, few sons of wealthy families were inducted, their parents having bought exemptions or used their political power to circumvent the draft.  It resulted in the infamous Draft Riots, a three-day reign of terror and carnage unlike anything seen in the country before.  That the King boys were truly ineligible for the draft is questionable, given that shortly afterward King changed the name of his firm to Mark J. King & Sons.

King had renamed the firm and moved further up Broadway by 1866.  New York Dispatch, December 30, 1866.

Mark J. King died in 1866.  Sarah and Isaac lived on in the house until 1869.  Isaac had decided not to continue in the fur business, and in 1868 was listed as Dr. Isaac M. King.  

Another physician, Josiah Clark Nott, next occupied 50 West 22nd Street.  Born in 1804 in South Carolina, he was the son of politician and judge, Abraham Nott.  After receiving his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1827, he further studied medicine in Paris.  A esteemed surgeon, Nott is listed at the address in 1869.  He is best remembered for his studies into the origins of malaria and yellow fever (he was the first to suggest the mosquito was responsible for spreading the diseases), and for his racist theories.  A slave owner prior to the end of the Civil War, he wrote in 1847 that "the negro achieves his greatest perfection, physical and moral, and also greatest longevity, in a state of slavery."

Dr. Josiah Clarke Nott, from the collection of the Alabama Department of Archives and History

Nott was still listed at the West 22nd Street address when he died on March 31, 1873.  His body was returned to Mobile, Alabama.

The house was next home to Rev. James Mulchaney, a minister with St. Paul's Episcopal Chapel on Broadway at Fulton Street.  Mulchaney was a prolific author whose works include The Inspiration of History, The Witness of the Church to Christian Faith, and Christianity in the Daily Conduct of Life.

The Mulchahey's son, John Henshaw Mulchaney graduated from Columbia University in 1879 and the following year the family left 50 West 22nd Street.  By then the commercial tone of Sixth Avenue had begun spilling over to the side street.

In 1888 Ella Hoyt purchased the house and opened Miss Hoyt's Dance School.  Her advertisement that year promised "Strictly private lessons daily; classes for adults and children's private classes; special terms; all dances carefully taught."  It was most likely Ella Hoyt who converted the basement and parlor level for commercial purposes by installing storefronts.

Andrew J. Graham was the inventor of Graham's Standard Phonography, a method of shorthand writing based on sound.  He was, as well, the editor and publisher of The Student's Journal, affiliated with his process.  In its November 1890 issue Graham wrote:

We have opened at 50 West 22nd Street...a school of Standard Phonography and typewriting, where we can accommodate a large number of pupils...The school is on the first floor, and is thoroughly lighted and ventilated with windows and a large skylight.  The location is one of the finest in the city, and being so accessible, must be a popular one for all pupils, especially ladies.

St. Nicholas magazine, June 1891 (copyright expired)

The former residence would have a wide variety of commercial tenants.  In 1891 Emily M. Coe operated the American Kindergarten Normal School, here, and the millinery store of Sunderland & Son, importers of ladies hats was in the building.

By the end of 1899, Higgens & Seiter occupied space in 50 West 22nd, as well as in 52 and 54.  The firm dealt in "fine china [and] rich cut glass."  The company was joined in the building by G. F. Conlon, "practical furrier," the following year, and by the furniture store of Cowperthwait & Co. in 1901.  G. F. Conlon advertised, "the repairing and altering of seal garments and fine furs a specialty."

A surprising tenant in 1902 was the Koch Lung Institute, run by Drs. Edward Koch and Frank A. Bigelow.  The facility promised to cure asthma and consumption (the then-common term for pulmonary tuberculosis) through "The Koch Lung Inhalations."  The public may have first become suspicious when Bigelow was sued in July 1903 by the widow of Thomas H. Collie.  On July 22 the New-York Tribune reported, "Mrs. Collie told the magistrate that her husband began taking the Koch lung cure on March 1, and had been paying for medicine and treatment, which, she said, did him no good.  She also told the court that Dr. Bigelow had not been near her husband for a month before he died."

Higgins & Seiter, described by Recreation magazine in 1903 as offering "the most complete and extensive stock of fine cut glass and china ware in the world," remained at 50 West 22nd Street through 1912.  Most of the interior remnants of the once-refined residence were erased in 1917 when owner Henry Stein made renovations.  Upon completion, the Department of Building noted the structure was to be "occupied as tenant factory with not more than 22 persons employed above the first story at any one time."

The post-World War I years saw tenants like F. J. Bernard & Co., jewelers, the International Trimming Co., and King & Reissman, Inc. dealers in sewing machines.

Woolen & Worsted Piece Goods Houses, 1920 (copyright expired)

The building was sold in 1941, described as having "a double store on the street floor with lofts above."  By 1945, the Metropolitan Mechanical Display Co. was in the building.  The firm manufactured the motorized department store figures especially in demand at Christmas.  It would remain in the building at least through 1964.

The New York PM Daily labeled this drawing of the Metropolitan Mechanical Display Company's shop "Santa and satellites in the making" in December 1945.

The owner of the building in the 1950's was Jacques Gadiel.  Born in Germany in 1906, his dramatic, years-long escape from the Nazi regime had culminated with his arrival in New York in April 1941.  Gadiel established Cameo Novelty which originally manufactured large plastic buttons and shoulder padding, then transitioned to making the brass fastenings for women's handbags.

Gadiel's son, Peter, recently recalled his visits to the building in the 1950's:

The stoop on the east side of the building front led to the main entrance door, behind which was a small vestibule with stairs straight ahead that led up to the main floor.  At the top of the stairs was a statuary niche...Behind the offices and separated from them by a wooden wall were large power metal stamping presses producing the brass parts used in the handbag “turnlocks.”  On the floor above were smaller foot powered presses used in assembly. Other than the wall enclosing the offices there were no other interior walls. 

Change in the neighborhood was evident in the last decade of the 20th century.  In 1990 the Swiss Sun Tanning Salon, one of four in the city, occupied space; and in 1995 the upper portion of the building was converted to apartments--one each per floor.

A subsequent renovation, completed in 2008, resulted in an eating and drinking establishment in the basement level.  It is home today to BXL Zoute, a Belgian pub.  (BXL is the airport code for Brussels, and Zoute is a high-end neighborhood on the North Sea.)  On June 12, 2018 The New York Times called BXL Zoute "a home base during major [soccer] tournaments for fans of all stripes, not just those of the Red Devils."

photos by the author

many thanks to Peter Gadiel for suggesting this post

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The R. Horace Gallatin House - 36 East 75th Street

 

Born in Baden, Germany, Jonas Weil arrived in New York City in 1860 and, initially, engaged in the live stock business.  He then turned to Manhattan real estate, establishing the firm of Weil & Mayer.  By the last decade of the 19th century he had amassed a fortune.  He and his wife, Therese, had four children, Benjamin, Louis V., Sarah and Bella.

In March 1892, architect George F. Pelham filed plans for the family's new 25-foot-wide home at 36 East 75th Street.  The construction cost of the four-story, high-stooped house, just over $1 million in today's money, reflected the high-tone character of the developing area a block east of Central Park.

Weil downplayed his involvement in Jewish philanthropies, most often keeping his gifts private.  He contributed, for instance, $10,000 cash towards the founding of Lebanon Hospital and donated a plot of land valued at $$15,000 as the site of its training school for nurses.  He erected Zichron Ephraim Temple on East 67th Street to commemorate his father, Ephraim Weil; founded and was president of Mount Zion Cemetery; was a founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropic Societies.  He would eventually give away the equivalent of $20 million today, not including bequests left in his will.

The 75th Street house was well-populated.  Living with their parents after the turn of the century were Benjamin and Lewis, as well as Sarah and her husband, the Rev. Dr. Bernard Drachman (rabbi of Zichron Ephraim), and the Drachmans' daughter Madelaine.

In February 1911, Weil sold 36 East 75th Street to Gherardi Davis.  The Real Estate Record & Guide pointed out that the house had been listed at $120,000--more than $3.3 million today.  An attorney, author and politician, Davis had served in the New York State Assembly from 1899 through 1903, when he was appointed Third Deputy New York City Police Commissioner.

It appears that Davis and his wife, the former Alice King, never intended to live in the house.  Instead, they immediately leased it to Dr. Joseph A. Blake as a home for his wife, Catharine Ketchum Blake.  Things were not going well within the Blake household.

The couple had been married on December 17, 1890 and lived happily, according to Catharine, for four years.  Trouble began when Blake, a well respected surgeon, became the personal physician of millionaire Charles H. Mackay.  Blake operated on Mackay twice, and his close contact with the couple resulted in an illicit romance developing between the doctor and Katherine Duer Mackay, a well-known socialite and suffragist.

Now, Catharine Blake was forced out of her home on Madison Avenue with her sons, 19-year old Joseph, Jr., and 9-year old Francis H.  According to her, when she moved into 36 East 75th Street, "it was on the assurance that her allowance was to continued to be $1,000 per month."  That amount would translate to more than $335,000 per year today.  It eventually became an obligation her husband was unwilling to honor.  He first reduced her monthly allowance "against her protest" to $600, and then in July 1913 stopped payment altogether.

Catharine took Joseph to court in October 13 where she aired the deliciously dirty details of the situation.  She sued for separation, asking for an allowance of $1,500 per month as temporary alimony, as well as $3,000 to cover the bills she had incurred since he cut her off.  She charged her husband with "coldness and indifference" and "at times with harshness."  Separately she sued Katharine Mackay for $1 million "for the alienation of her husband's affections."

The untidy and public situation resulted in the Mackays divorcing in February 1914, and in Katharine Duer Mackay giving up her American citizenship and custody of their three children, and moving permanently to Paris.  A month later, Dr. Blake sailed for Europe.  "Before leaving New York he withdrew from many clubs and hospitals, and it was believed that he had no intention of returning to this country, except for occasional business trips," said The New York Times.

The Blake divorce was granted on November 27, 1914.  The following day Dr. Blake and Katharine Mackay were married in Paris.

The Davises sold 36 East 75th Street three months later, on March 26, 1915, to Rolaz Horace Gallatin and his wife, the former Emily Lorillard Morris.  On June 4 that year, The Sun reported: 

R. Horace Gallatin is to have his residence at 36 East Seventy-fifth street extensively altered.  Plans for the changes filed yesterday called for the building of a new façade, of the American basement type, installing of an automobile elevator and a number of fireplaces and a three story extension to the rear of the house, which is four stories high.

The changes, designed by architect F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr. would do away with the stoop and give the outdated residence a striking neo-Georgian make-over.  The massive renovations would cost the Gallatins the equivalent of just under $800,000 in today's money.

The scope of the ongoing gut renovation is evident in this photograph.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The resultant patrician residence, completed before the year's end, was clad in red brick with contrasting limestone trim.  The centered entrance sat below the balcony of the second floor, or piano nobile, its stately window graced with a swan's neck pediment and stylized pineapple--the symbol of hospitality.  The openings wore layered, splayed keystones, while a solid brick parapet partially disguised the fifth floor.

The childless couple came from old, prestigious families.  Gallatin was the great-grandson of Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury from 1802 through 1814, and of Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  Emily descended from the socially eminent Lorillard and Morris families, her grandfather being Lewis Gouveneur Morris of Morrisania.

The solid shutters, intact until recently, added to the Georgian flavor of the residence.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Although Gallatin had studied law at the New York Law School and was a member of the bar, he never practiced professionally.  Instead, he sat on the boards of several hospitals and firms, and was a member of multiple social clubs like the Knickerbocker, Tuxedo and Regency Clubs.  Living with him and Emily were five servants: the cook, a chambermaid, Emily's personal maid, a footman (who no doubt doubled as valet), and a "kitchen maid."  

The couple's Newport estate had been built by Edmund Schermerhorn, first cousin to Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, in 1860.  They purchased it in 1911 and Emily renamed it Chepstow, the town in Wales from which the Morris family came.

photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel

R. Horace Gallatin was a trustee, treasurer and vice-president of the New York Historical Society.  He and Emily filled 36 East 75th Street with an impressive art collection.  Among the works that hung on its walls were Théodore Rousseau's Landscape with Boatman, John-François Millet's The Bather, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's River View, sketches by John Singer Sargent, five by Rembrandt van Rijn, and numerous works by Albrecht Durer.

Charles-Francois Daubigny's 1865 Washerwomen at the Oise River near Valmondois was among the artworks displayed in the 75th Street house.  from the collection of the National Gallery of Art

On May 18, 1942 The New York Sun reported, "After rounding out twenty-six years of occupancy, R. H. Gallatin has sold his five-story American basement house at 36 East 75th Street...to the 36 East 75th Street Corporation."  The article noted that architect Alfred A. Tearle had already submitted plans "to convert the dwelling to apartments."

The renovations resulted in a duplex in the first and second floors, and two apartments each on the upper stories.  The house had a brush with another renovation in 1970.  On September 26 that year the Buffalo Courier-Express reported that the Museum of American Folk Art "has set its sights on a permanent home."  The article explained, "A building already has been located, a former town house at 36 East 75th Street, within a few steps of the Whitney Museum of American Art."  The museum had allotted $650,00 for the purchase of the building and $200,000 to renovate it.  But the plans never came to fruition.

Instead, the lower floors became home to the Xavier Fourcade Gallery, where masterful pieces by artists like Le Corbusier, Willem de Kooning, and Joan Mitchell were exhibited and sold for years.  Following Fourcade's death in 1987, the space became home to Geneva-based fine art auctioneers Habsburg, Feldman, Inc.

A renovation completed in 1996 returned 36 East 75th Street to a single-family home.  

photos by the author

many thanks to NYC Sights Sounds for requesting this post

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

The Charles E. Bigelow House - 251 West 72nd Street

 

On April 2, 1892 the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported "Lamb & Rich are preparing plans for four modern dwellings, which J. R. Stimpson will erect on the north side of 72d st."  The 25-foot wide residences were designed as two distinctively different pairs.  Nos. 251 and 253, faced in brownstone, were much more sedate than their brick-clad neighbors at 247 and 249 with their tall crocket-topped gables.  It may be that included in Stimpson's contract with the architects was partial ownership.  Lamb & Rich held title to two of the completed structures, including 251 West 72nd Street.  

At the time, Phoebe Palmer Knapp lived in a Brooklyn mansion described by The Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1889 as "historic," owing to the Knapps' many distinguished guests, including Generals Sheridan and Grant and "famous statesmen, Jurists and soldiers."  The Knapp family had been in Paris in the summer of 1891 when Joseph F. Knapp became so ill it was decided to rush home.   Knapp, who was the president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company died on the steamship while at sea.

On January 28, 1894, soon after the 72nd Street row was completed, The New York Times reported that Lamb & Rich had traded Phoebe Knapp's Brooklyn mansion for the "handsome four story brick and stone front dwelling, 251 West Seventy-second street."

The wealthy widow did not remain here especially long.  She sold it to Charles Emerson Bigelow and his wife, the former Isabella Lyall Dean, in September 1900 for $60,000 (or about $1.9 million today).  Phoebe Knapp moved to a suite in the Hotel Savoy.

The Bigelows had been married in Isabella's parents' home on March 14, 1893.  When they moved into the West 72nd Street house they had two children of their own, six-year old Dorothy and four-year old Emerson.  A third child, Lyall Dean, was Isabella's son from a former marriage.

Born in Brooklyn in 1851, Charles Bigelow's ancestors had arrived in America in the 17th century.  He had entered his father's firm, the Bay State Shoe and Leather Company three days after he graduated from Yale.  In 1879 he was made president of the company.

The Bigelows' summer estate, The Knolls, was in Norfolk, Connecticut.  Society columns reported on their annual coming and going as the two residences would be opened or closed for the season.  During the winter season, 251 West 72nd Street was the scene of social events, like the reception Isabella gave in January 1902.  Brooklyn Life listed the five other women in the receiving line.

Lyall Dean graduated from Yale, his stepfather's alma mater, in 1909.  His engagement to Helen Stearns was announced in November 1912.  It was a rather long engagement, the wedding in the fashionable St. George's Church on Stuyvesant Square not taking place until November 3, 1915.  Among the large wedding party was Dorothy, who was an attendant, and Emerson, who stood as his half-brother's best man.

The brackets upholding the second story bay terminate in sculpted lions' heads.

Between Lyall's engagement and wedding, Isabella focused on Dorothy's introduction to society.  On November 29, 1913 Form, An Illustrated Weekly reported that the Bigelows would be giving a reception on December 6 "to introduce their daughter, Miss Dorothy Bigelow."

In 1917, immediately upon graduating from Yale and with war raging in Europe, Emerson joined the United States Navy Reserve Force.  War frequently put wedding plans on a fast track, often disregarding the formality of the announcements of engagements.  Later that year, on November 3, Brooklyn Life reported "Announcement has been made of the marriage of Mr. Emerson Bigelow, U.S.N.R.F....who is stationed at Newport, R.I."  The apparently hurried ceremony had taken place in the home of his bride, Marian Fuestman, on West 86th Street the week before.

However, war would not prevent the Bigelows from formally announcing Dorothy's engagement to Ward Melville the following year.  The fact that the groom-to-be was working in the office of the Army's Quartermaster General in Washington D.C. meant that there was little chance of his being deployed to Europe.  Nevertheless, it was a short engagement.  It was announced on April 18, 1918 and the couple was married two weeks later.

By now West 72nd Street was no longer the quiet, residential district it had been in 1900.  The avenue-wide street had become a busy thoroughfare as many of the private homes were being converted to apartments and stores.  With their children gone, the Bigelows left the commodious house.  On August 16, 1919 the Real Estate Record & Guide reported they had leased it to Abraham Garfein "for business."

Charles E. Bigelow initiated a renovation for his tenant.  Completed the following year, it resulted in a "dwelling for two families and non-housekeeping apartments."  The seemingly confusing description meant that there were now two apartments with kitchens and several others where no cooking was allowed.  The stoop had been removed and the entrance lowered to the former basement level.

Other than the lost stoop, the renovation made little exterior change to the house.  via NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Among the first tenants were Alexander S. Vale, his wife, Rhea, and their six-year old daughter.  Vale was an architectural engineer who earned the equivalent of $76,500 today.  But there were troubles in the Vale household.  The Daily News reported on June 24, 1920 that Vale "described the wife as a 'pleasure-loving woman' who had caused her husband...to live beyond his means."

When the money ran out, Rhea sued for divorce.  In court Vale's attorney said, "He tried to hold this pleasure-loving woman by using part of a trust fund, of which his mother is a trustee, which he must now pay back."  Rhea was reportedly also involved with a married man in Far Rockway.  The judge gave custody of the child to the father and granted no alimony to the pleasure-loving mother.

An advertisement in 1921 described "three rooms, 25x25, bath, kitchen, every modern convenience and privacy."  The rent was $160, or in the neighborhood of $2,300 per month today.

Another tenant who appeared in the newspapers for the wrong reasons was Ezra Reed Vail.  On February 19, 1923 he pleaded guilty to "bucketing" and was sentenced to 18 months in Sing Sing Prison.  Bucketing was the term for brokerage fraud, by which a broker would mislead his client regarding the purchase of stocks.

A month earlier, tenant Joseph Tierney had driven his automobile onto the Staten Island Ferry.   His car was the first in line to drive off and as the boat pulled into the slip, 24-year old Peter Simpson stepped in front of the car.  The proprietor of the terminal's restaurant and candy stand, he was apparently in a hurry to disembark.   Suddenly the ferry "came to a sudden stop," according to the Perth Amboy Evening News on January 17.  The article continued, "before the driver could apply his brakes, [the automobile] struck the man and pinned him between the chain and the car."  Tierney drove the injured man to the hospital in his car.

Performer Sunya Shurman operated the Shurman School in Carnegie Hall above the Ballet Arts in the 1940's.  By 1955, she had opened the Shurman Center, a performance venue, in 251 West 72nd Street.  On June 29 that year, for instance, The New York Times reported "Priyagopal, the Hindu dancer who taught at the famous Tagore school and is said besides to be the only exponent in this country of the Manipuri style, is giving a series of studio recitals under the auspices of Sunya Shurman at the Shurman Center."

By 1962, the Academy of Mental Sciences operated from the address.  That year it offered the new book Auto Suggestion You Can Use, by hypnotist Joseph Lampl for $2.50.  Sharing the commercial space at the time was a much different tenant, Design Knitting.  The store offered "astonishing yarns, over 5,000 patterns" and free expert instruction so a novice could "create designer sweaters at a fraction of the price!"

photo via apartments.com

The second floor was home to Gryphon Record Shop for more than a decade, starting around 1991.  And in 2010 the Prenatal Yoga Center operated from the building.  Rather amazingly, much of Rich & Lamb's interior detailing survives on the upper floors after more than a century and a quarter.

photographs by the author

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The Lost Dry Dock Savings Bank - 341-343 Bowery

 

original source unknown

Starting early 1820's, the former Stuyvesant family land along the East River east of the Bowery became Manhattan's main shipbuilding location, earning the district the name of the Dry Dock Neighborhood.  The following decade saw banks opening along the Bowery--first the Bull's Head Bank (an outgrowth of the Bull's Head Tavern), followed by the Butchers and Drovers Bank in 1830, and the Bowery Savings Bank in 1834.

In 1848 The Dry-Dock Savings Bank was formed by "a number of gentlemen principally interested in [the shipbuilding] industry."  According to King's Handbook of New York, they hoped "to encourage thrift and prudence among their workmen."  Originally located on East 10th Street near the river, it moved to 339-341 East 4th Street in 1859.

And then, in 1872, the directors purchased the properties at the southeast corner of the Bowery and East 3rd Street, "in part occupied as a marble yard," according to the New York Herald on December 12.  The newspaper somewhat lamented the deal, saying, "This precludes the possibility of a new German theatre on what was the favorite site with that part of our population."

The bank hired Prague-born architect Leopold Eidlitz to design its new home.  Generally considered America's first Jewish architect, he was a founding member of the American Institute of Architects.  

Construction began in June 1873 and was completed in December 1875.  Saying the building was "valued at $250,000" ($6 million in today's money), King's Handbook of New York called it "one of the finest buildings in the country for its purposes." Eidlitz's Victorian Gothic, or Ruskinian Gothic, design was striking.  An enclosed portico served as the base for a charming gable-roofed balcony.  Stone balconies clung to the East 3rd Street façade, and the arched openings wore variegated voussoirs, nearly obligatory in the Victorian Gothic style.  The upper floors transitioned to a mélange of shapes and angles, with crisp dormers poking through the several steep roofs.

The bank's name was worked into the arch of the balcony.  original source unknown

The princely building easily stood out among its humbler neighbors.  On October 16, 1886, the Real Estate Record & Guide commented, "people were surprised, and criticized the directors for erecting an ornate and imposing building in so unpromising a region."  Eidlitz had designed one of the last New York City buildings in the fading style.  On April 9, 1898, the Record & Guide said, "In 1868 Victorian Gothic was far from being a new story, even in New York...The movement, however, was closing and of the last notable buildings it gave to New York may be mentioned the Jefferson Market Court House [and] the Dry Dock Savings Bank."  

Only months after the bank moved into its new home trouble arose.  On June 22, 1876 The New York Times entitled an article "The Run on the Dry Dock Bank," and reported, "As early as 9 o'clock yesterday morning the depositors of the Dry Dock Savings Bank...began to congregate in front of the doors of that institution, and from that time until the bank was opened they elbowed and pushed one another in a somewhat vain endeavor to be first to enter."

The newspaper said that the bank's officers had anticipated the rush, and three policemen were there "to keep the excited men and women in line."  Dry Dock Bank's president, Andrew Mills, told the reporter that the bank's officers "were at a loss to account for the run," assuring that "They had plenty of money with which to pay off those then present."  Happily, two days later the Albany Morning Express reported, "The run on the Dry Dock Savings Bank is at an end.  Only twenty persons demanded their money yesterday morning, and were promptly paid.  Many came to draw, but went away without doing so.  Confidence was restored and business proceeded as usual."

The glass plate negative was reversed, resulting in a backwards photograph of the bank.  original source unknown

As the century drew to a close, many of the Bowery banks moved northward, following their depositors.  But the Dry Dock Savings Institution (the name had recently been changed) was firmly rooted in its site.  On May 14, 1896 the New-York Tribune wrote, "The Dry Dock Savings Institution, at No. 343 Bowery, seems as immovable as the hills.  Its building is substantial, commodious and impressive.  Its officers say that there is no talk that the bank will move to a new home."  And, indeed, it would operate from the location for decades to come.

But the neighborhood was, nonetheless, degrading.  At around 10:30 on the morning of July 19, 1909.  Mrs. Rosa Fleischmann arrived at the bank.  She was a long-standing customer and, because she had her two-year-old daughter, Mamie, in her arms, the bank treasurer offered to take her $40 deposit to the teller for her.  As she waited, a man rushed up, snatched her satchel and ran.

Rosa's screams sent Special Officer George Wilson on the thief's trail.  He caught him a block away at the Bowery and East 4th Street, and "hurried him back to the bank," according to The New York Times.  "The commotion caused a great crowd to gather in front of the bank, and President Mills came out and told Wilson to bring the fellow back into his private office."  

There the man turned the tables on Rosa Fleischmann.  Saying he was Aaron Wolberg, a cigarmaker, he insisted she had stolen his bag and he had simply gotten it back.  Inside, he said, was $2,000.  Mills asked him what else was in the satchel.  "Just the money and nothing else," was the reply.

The two-story banking banking room had polished marble columns.  Obligatory spittoons dot the mosaic-tiled floor.  Architectural Record, December 1911 (copyright expired)

Rosa Fleischman was then asked the same question.  She said it held her bankbook and a bottle of milk.  It was opened to reveal the book and the milk.  "It's hers," exclaimed Wolberg, as he bolted for the door.  He was overtaken by Wilson who held him on the floor until Policeman John Spath arrived.  

Wolberg "put up several hard fights on the way to court," said The New York Times, "and Spath's hands were bleeding from several wounds, most of them due to the sharpness of Wolberg's teeth."  Wolberg now changed his story, telling the judge "the bag had been given to him by a stranger."  A policeman suggested that Wolberg was a member of a gang known to loiter around the bank.  The New York Times explained, "It is said that women depositors have often been annoyed by members of this gang."

King's Handbook of New York, 1892 (copyright expired)

In October 1932, Hiram C. Bloomingdale of Bloomingdale Brothers sold four old four-story buildings the northwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 59th Street to the Dry Dock Savings Institution.  Andrew Mills announced that plans were being drawn for a branch bank on the site, while promising that the Bowery building "will continue to be its main office."

The following year the bank hired architect Louis S. Weeks to make interior renovations to the vintage Bowery building.  The updating was restricted to the cavernous banking room and the executive offices. 

By mid-century, the Bowery neighborhood had deteriorated to Manhattan's Skid Row.  On May 18, 1950, The Times Record explained that abandoned funds were not kept by the banking institutions, but after 15 years were turned over to the State.  The article delved into the reason why the owners were sometimes hard to track down.  It noted, "Illiterates are another problem.  The Bowery office of the Dry Dock Savings Bank reported last year that it has had some sad experiences with its unschooled depositors to whom the spelling of their name is a matter of supreme indifference."

from the collection of the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University

The demographics finally made it impossible for the bank to continue at its location.  On November 9, 1954, The New York Times reported, "A gasoline service station is to replace the old Dry Dock Savings Bank Building...The four-story structure, erected in 1875, has been sold by the bank to the L. B. Oil Company, Inc.

image via villagepreservation.org

The gasoline service station survived into the 21st century, replaced in 2008 by the 16-story Bowery Hotel, designed by Scarano & Associates.

image via tripadvisor.com

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