The 1887 James B. Gillie House (St. John's Baptist Church) - 448 West 152nd Street

 

Born on June 23, 1854, James Bruce Gillie was a prominent builder and real estate developer by the last quarter of the 19^th century.  Early in 1887, he commissioned architect Martin V. B. Ferdon to design a freestanding residence for him and his wife at 448 West 152^nd Street between St. Nicholas and Amsterdam Avenues.  Ferdon’s plans, filed on February 11, laid out a “two-story brick and basement brown stone dwelling” that would cost Gillie $12,000 to construct—just under $400,000 in 2024.  (His costs were drastically reduced since he would be erecting the house himself.)
 
The 33-foot-wide residence would sit within a 50-foot-wide parcel.  Ferdon blended two popular styles—Queen Anne and neo-Grec.  Completed within the year, the basement level was faced in undressed brownstone.  Iron, winged griffins stood in for the areaway posts, and larger examples perched upon the stoop newels.  An imposing portico with Corinthian columns upheld a substantial entablature and cornice.  The entrance sat within a projecting, single bay.  A triangular pediment above the bracketed cornice over that center bay was filled with a Queen Anne sunburst.

 
James B. Gillie and Sarah Elizabeth McWhinney had married on May 8, 1878.   They were 24 and 23 years old respectively.   The couple had three sons, George Ross, Robert Bruce and Leslie Beach.  Just four years after the family moved into 448 West 152^nd Street, Sarah Elizabeth died on August 15, 1891, at the age of 36.  Her funeral was held in the parlor on August 17.

Almost immediately Gillie sold the house to Philip Schaeffer, another contractor.  (Interestingly, James B. Gillie would marry Sarah's sister, Agnes May McWhinney, and they would have a son, Benjamin Austin.)

Schaeffer lost the property in foreclosure on April 15, 1897.  John A. Northwood, of the Northwood Malting Company, paid $32,000 (about $1.2 million today).  Just a month later, on May 28, Northwood sold 448 West 152nd Street to another beer dealer, Rudolph (sometimes spelled Rodoph) Oelsner.

Oelsner was born in Germany on New Year's Day in 1849.  He arrived in America at the age of 17 and found a job in a linen company.  Eventually, however, he introduced the Buergerliches Brauhaus Pilsener and other beers from Austria and Germany.  His operation grew to distribution branches in St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Boston and was one of the largest importers of beers in the county.

He was, as well, a restauranteur.  His Kaiserhof Restaurant was on the corner 0f 39th Street and Broadway where theater goers would stop before and after the performances.

Rudolph Oelsner's wife was the former Dorothea Ringer, known by friends as Dora.  When they moved into 448 West 152nd Street, their daughter, Martha, was 11.  The family's affluence was reflected in Oelsner's two yachts in 1905, the Dora and the Penelva.

In December 1905, Rudolph Oelsner purchased the high-stoop brownstone house at 135 West 72nd Street.  He sold 448 West 152nd Street to Alex Mackenzie, who quickly resold it to Isabella Wallace.  On September 1, 1906, the Record & Guide remarked, "The building will be altered and used as a dancing academy."  Only a month later, an advertisement for the George W. Wallace's Schools in The New York Times offered, "Class & private lessons.  Children.  Adults."

The dance academy's ballroom doubled as an event venue, The Wallace.  On February 7, 1907, for instance, Maida Peirce was married to Maurice Harrison Stearns here.  And in 1909, the Washington Heights School occupied space in the house.  An announcement in The New York Times on September 14 read, "Opens Oct. 1st.  Kindergarten, Primary, Intermediate, Academic Classes."

Wallace leased the property to Ernestine and Anton Fuerst around 1912, when they sublet the "two lower floors," according to the Record & Guide on September 14, "to the Mount Neboh Congregation."  The synagogue occupied the space for two years, when the congregation erected a building on West 150th Street.

The space resumed as The Wallace by 1917.  The Fuersts purchased the property, retaining the name.  It was a highly successful and popular spot for gatherings.  In its April 1917 issue, The Practical Druggist reported that at the last meeting of the Alumni Association of the Fordham College of Pharmacy Alumni Association, "The much-discussed topic was the annual affair which will be held at 'The Wallace', 448 West 152nd Street, on April 17th."

The Hebrew Standard, September 8, 1922 (copyright expired)

And on June 29, 1922, The New York Times reported, "The marriage of three young women, partners in business, took place in this city last Sunday."  Mildred Harris, Eve Lippman, and Ethel Westheimer were partners in a hat shop on Broadway.  They and their grooms were all married in The Wallace that day.

The Wallace (sometimes called the Wallace Mansion) operated until 1932, when the former house was purchased by the St. John's Baptist Church.  The congregation was founded in 1917 by the Rev. Wilson Major Morris.

In 1936, an interesting program was initiated here by the auspices of the Works Progress Administrations.  The New York Age reported on December 26, "A Major Bowes' gong, bells, blocks, drums, symbals [sic], and other such instruments, which are easily mastered, make up the equipment used in children rhythm bands at the St. Johns Music Center, 448 West 152nd street."  The article explained that children from 8 to 14 years old could participate.

"The rhythm bands provide a means for the youngsters to learn to listen to music intelligently and to think and do in terms of music."  If the children desire to progress further, they could partake in "classes in piano, violin, harmony, theory, or other musical classes available at these W. P. A. centers."

 

In 1941, the unpainted masonry shows Ferdon's contrast of brick and stone.  The wonderful griffin posts and newels survived.  from the NYC Records & Information Services.

By the third quarter of the century, the church furthered its outreach within the community with the St. John's Baptist Church Credit Union.   In her article on June 2, 1973 in the New York Amsterdam News, Sara Slack noted, "The Credit Union members "range from beauticians to school teachers to building superintendents to government workers to domestics to those in the medical profession."  The Credit Union members took a long weekend to Nassau that year.  Slack said, "Anyone who thinks devout, church-going people are squares and have little fun have never spent a Memorial Day weekend here in the sun."

After more than 90 years in the former Gillie house, St. John's Baptist Church continues to serve for the Harlem neighborhood.  Although the masonry has been painted red and white, Martin V. B. Ferdon's striking Queen Anne structure is remarkably intact.

thanks for Mark Satlof for requesting this post

photographs by Mark Satlof

Geo. F. Pelham's 1926 310 West 106th Street

 

image via corcoran.com

Born in Canada, George Frederick Pelham was eight years old when his architect father, George Brown Pelham, moved the family to New York City and opened his office in 1875.  The boy learned in his father's office, eventually becoming a draftsman.  In 1890, he struck out and opened his own architectural practice.  (He abbreviated his name professionally, always being listed as Geo. F. Pelham, or Geo. Fred. Pelham.)  Pelham became known for his apartment building designs that drew from historical prototypes.  And that would be the case in 1926 when he was hired by the Harrod Construction Corporation to design a 15-story and penthouse apartment building at 310-316 West 106th Street.

Completed in 1927, Pelham's restrained Renaissance Revival design was faced in gray brick and trimmed in limestone and terra cotta.  The entablature of the noble entrance enframement was carved with foliate decorations that flanked a blank cartouche.  Its cornice supported a broken pediment from which rose a stone framing with swirling volutes that embraced two openings.  The 11-story midsection was relatively unadorned, save for stone quoins that ran up the sides, and a handsome stone balconette at the 13th floor.  Interestingly, Pelham executed the terminal cornice in cream-colored terra cotta.

image via streeteasy.com

The apartments of three or four rooms were described as having "excellent closets" and "modern kitchens."  The commodious living rooms measured 18 by 21 feet.  Rents started at $70 for a three-room apartment and $90 for the larger suites.  (The more expensive base rent would translate to about $1,860 per month in 2024.)

Among the initial residents were Sam Leavin and his wife.  Sam's brother, William, shared the apartment.  The brothers, who worked in the apparel industry, had started out humbly, but were now earning respectable incomes.  And in the summer of 1928, their fortunes seemed to be about to swell.

A decade before the DuPont company would invent nylon hose, American women dealt with expensive silk hosiery that easily snagged and ran.  And so, in 1923, the Leavin brothers had begun working on a machine that would repair runs in silk stockings.  They put their life savings into the project, which no doubt explains why they shared living space.  Now, five years later, they had a prototype.

The investment had been a substantial risk, especially for Sam and his wife, whose first baby was born that summer.  Sam's wife told the Yonkers Statesman, "Just before the baby was born we had our worst days, too.  I thought surely the baby would be sickly and sad, as a result of all our worries."

In August 1928, the Leavin brothers received an offer on their invention--$1 million, the equivalent of $17.8 million today.  But, somewhat surprisingly, on August 13, the Yonkers Statesman began an article saying, "They know what it is to be hungry, but William and Sam Leavin, brothers, of 310 West 106th Street, today had waved aside $1,000,000."  The article said the men decided their machine "is worth more than that.  So the $1,000,000 was given the go-by."  Sam told reporters, "We felt after we worked five years on this thing we couldn't part with it too easily.  There's a certain amount of pride, you know, and wisdom mixed with it."

Sam's wife stood by their decision.  "Sam staked his future on the idea," she said.  "If I hadn't had so much confidence in him, then life wouldn't have been tolerable.  But I was sure it would be successful."  The Yonkers Statesman said, "She suffered with her husband and his brother through the lean days and now she joins in their hope of making financial connections for marketing the invention."  In the meantime, the new baby was blissfully unaware of the passed-up fortune.  Mrs. Leavin said, "she's the best, smiliest baby ever born.  Maybe she realizes our good fortune."

Marcus and Florence Loeb were also early residents.  Born in 1892, Loeb had started out as a salesman with the Reich-Ash Corporation, makers of toilet articles in 1910.  His rise within the firm was swift and on January 1, 1931 he was elected president.  Tragically, his professional triumph would be short lived.  Five months later, the 39-year-old entered Mount Sinai Hospital for an operation.  He died there on June 1.

Not all the residents were so upstanding.  Pete Balitzer, a.k.a. Pete Harris, and his wife lived in the penthouse here in 1936.  They also rented another apartment for business purposes.  Baltizer was described by the Forth Worth Star-Telegram as the, "biggest 'booker' of prostitutes in the city," on May 29, 1936.  The article added, "Mrs. Baltizer [is] a link in the vice chain herself, (madame of a bordello beneath her penthouse)."

The couple's names would become known nationwide when the Federal government set out to break up the crime syndicate of Italian-born mobster Lucky Luciano.  The Balitzers realized that things were getting heated when, according to William Donati in his Lucky Luciano, The Rise and Fall of a Mob Boss, "Thelma Jordan was arrested as she walked toward 310 West 106th Street, the apartment where Pete Balizer lived."  The arrests came swiftly after that and both Pete and his wife turned against the mob boss. 

Even before the jury in his case could be selected, Balitzer "pleaded guilty to compulsory prostitution," reported The  Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky.  And Mrs. Balitzer testified against Luciano at his trial on May 28, 1936.  The Fort Worth Star-Telegram said she:

...looked the swarthy Luciano right in the eye as she told how he had been introduced to her as "the boss" by her husband.

She went further.  She told how Luciano had forced her husband to stay in the racket.  She said when she begged Luciano to let Balitzer go straight, the cobra-eyed gangster coldly dismissed her with, "You know he can't get out unless he pays the money he owes us."

The defense turned on Mrs. Balitzer, going after her "hammer and tongs," according to the newspaper.  The article said she was "soon forced...to admit that she had been married three times, that she started taking drugs in 1932, [and] that she had a daughter."

Understandably, two apartments in 310 West 106th Street became available soon afterward.

In 1952, newlyweds Stanley Zabar and Judith Segal moved in.  Zabar's father, Louis, was the founder of the well-known Zabar's grocery store, which by now had several branches.  Their daughter, Lori, who was born on July 16, 1954, noted in her 2022 book Zabar's, A Family Story, with Recipes, "my parents rented a one-bedroom apartment at 310 West 106th Street...and furnished it in the prevailing Danish modern style."  The couple had had to cut their honeymoon short, to be back in New York "for the opening of a new Zabar's supermarket at Ninety-Sixth Street and Broadway."

Among the Zabars' neighbors were David J. Dallin and his wife, the former Lilia Estrin.  Born in Rogachev in the Russian Empire in 1889, Dallin was arrested in 1909 while he was studying at the University of St. Petersburg.  He was imprisoned for anti-tsarist political activity.  In 1911, he fled to Germany where he received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Heidelberg two years later.

Dallin's history of conflict with political powers continued when he returned to Russian following the February Revolution of 1917.  He was elected to the central committee of a group within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.  He was arrested by the Bosheviks in 1920, and once again fled to Germany in 1922.  When the Nazis came to power, he and his wife, Eugenia, escaped to Poland in 1935.  He divorced Eugenia before relocating to the United States in 1939 with the outbreak of World War II.

He and Lilia lived together before marrying in 1944.  Dallin joined the staff of the anti-communist magazine, The New Leader, a position he would hold for two decades.  While living at 310 West 106th Street, he published ten important works on the Soviet Union.  Soviet defector Igor Gouzenko described his 1955 Soviet Espionage as "undoubtedly the major work on Soviet spy activities."

Dallin died in the couple's apartment on February 21, 1962 at the age of 72.  In reporting his death, The New York Times described him as, "an authority on Soviet affairs and an anti-Communist leader in Russia, after the Bolshevik revolution."

An interesting resident in 1970 was Constantin Antonovici.  Born in Romania in 1911, he studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Jassy and the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste in Vienna, Austria.  Before arriving in America, Antonovici worked in Paris, Northern Italy and Austria.

Among Antonovici's works was the tomb of William Thomas Manning, Bishop of New York, for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  (Antonovici said during testimony in 1970 that it was "sculpted out of a four ton block of Carrara marble.)  Other works were a wooden statue of St. Luke for St. Luke's hospital, and a marble bas-relief, the Praying Madonna, which was commissioned by the Vatican .

Bernard G. Richards lived here at the time.  The Jewish leader and author, born in 1877, had an astounding career.  He was a member of the American Jewish delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference after World War I, and in 1936 founded the Jewish Information Bureau.  His two-room office on West 57th Street "made a business of supplying instant information," according to The New York Times.  People could call or write in with questions like, "Where can Nazi victims register claims?"  Hoping to educate youngsters on Judaism, he published a series of leaflets, explaining that better Jews become better Americans.  Richards died in St. Luke's Hospital while still living here on June 26, 1971 at the age of 94.

image via streeteasy.com

A century after the first resident moved in, the exterior of Geo. F. Pelham's restrained, Renaissance-inspired building is greatly unchanged.

The Lost Mail and Express Building - 203 Broadway

The Mail and Express Building towered over the corner buildings.  Real Estate Record & Guide, June 25, 1898 (copyright expired)

The Real Estate Record & Guide reported on February 15, 1890 that Carrère & Hastings was designing an L-shaped, eight-story office building at 203 Broadway and 164-168 Fulton Street.  The owner was millionaire banker and attorney Elliott Fitch Shepard whose wife, Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt, was the daughter of multi-millionaire William Henry Vanderbilt.  The article noted, "The publication and business offices of the Mail and Express will be on the lower floor...The site will be cleared for the new building in May next."

The Mail and Express was founded in 1867 as the New York Evening Mail.   Owner Cyrus West Field acquired the New York Evening Express in 1879, renaming the newspaper the Mail and Express.  Elliott F. Shepard purchased it from Field in 1888 for $425,000 (equal to about $14 million in 2024).

 

For the newspaper's headquarters, Carrère & Hastings used an iron skeleton, allowing the outer walls to be only 16-inches thick.  By the time ground was broken, the height had changed to nine stories.  As the foundation was being excavated, the architectural critic of Harper's Weekly commented on the plans in the October 11, 1890 issue.  Interestingly, he noted that the Broadway facade was "planned largely in accordance with the suggestions of Colonel Shepard, and will have some features peculiar to itself."  One of the "peculiar" features was the inclusion of Shepard's monogram.

On one side of the large circular window in the second story is the legend "A.D. 1890," and on the other side the letters "E.F.S."  Across the front, on one cornice, are carved "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," and "E. Pluribus Unum," and in the cornice of the other stories are worked the coats of arms of the States of the Union.

The critic called the architecture, "of the Italian Renaissance style."  And while the Fulton Street elevation was, for the most part, Renaissance Revival, the Broadway front was what today would be termed Beaux Arts.

Unfortunately, the Broadway cable railway was being excavated at the same time.  On July 4, 1891, Architecture and Building wrote, "Probably but few of our citizens are not seriously incommoded by the tearing up of Broadway...Still we cannot but sympathize with Architect John M. Carrère, who has found the work on the new Mail and Express building seriously impeded from the fact that the contractors now at work on the cable railroad or other works have torn up the street and built plank bridges, which are hardly strong enough to carry any heavy traffic, so that when a truck with material drives up it is unsafe for this truck to pass over or to stand on this bridge in order to have this material delivered." 

Despite the setbacks, the building was completed in 1892.  Barr Ferree, writing in Stone magazine, said Thomas Hastings was the lead architect.  He attributed the stark difference in the appearance of the two facades to the demands of Elliot F. Shepard.  The "richness" of the Broadway elevation, he explained, "was demanded by the gentlemen for whom the building was erected, and his architects, therefore, had no other choice than to follow his directions."

The two disparate facades annoyed the critic of The Engineering Magazine.  In June 1896, he wrote that the criticism of the building "has been based on the highly-enriched and narrow Broadway front."  On the other hand, he said, "the larger front on Fulton street is conceded to be one of the most notable successes in commercial architecture."

The Beaux Arts Broadway facade was contrasted with the more sedate Fulton Street side in Harper's Weekly on October 11, 1890 (copyright expired)

The up-to-the-date building was equipped with its own "electric and steam plant" in the cellar, and was supplied with Croton water.  Of the four elevators in the building, one was dedicated to Mail and Express employees.  The hallways throughout the building were wainscoted with marble.

The newspaper would occupy the first floor "and will be elegantly fitted up," said Harper's Weekly.  Included was a "commodious waiting-room for newsboys" outfitted with a drinking fountain.  Facing Broadway on the second floor were the private offices of Elliot Shepard.  

The eighth and ninth floors held the newspaper's editorial, composing and stereotyping departments, and the individual editors' offices.  The reporters and editors worked from the eighth floor, where a dedicated room held "all the bells, speaking-tubes, telephones, and the like."  There was also a library on that floor.  The composing room took up most of the top floor, partially illuminated by vast skylights.  "On the very top of the Broadway wing, where its odors cannot interfere with any one's olfactory sensibilities, is to be a kitchen, and under it, on the ninth floor, a restaurant, especially for the employés of the paper."  Elliot Shepard's private dining room was also on that floor.

Harper's Weekly pointed out a singular detail:

One of the noteworthy features of the building is to be the photograph-room, situated alongside the kitchen, at the very top of the building.  Here distinguished visitors may be captured by the camera, and their likenesses printed in the paper while they wait.

Although the building would fill, mostly, with attorneys and brokers, one of the first was unique.  The Bureau of Subscription for the World's Columbian Exposition operated from Room 304 in 1892.  On November 26, an advertisement in The New York Times announced that New Yorkers could obtain a "World's Fair Souvenir Coin For A Dollar" here.

French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi visited New York City in 1893.  The height of the skyscraper created the perfect vantage point to view his Liberty Enlightening the World, commonly known as the Statue of Liberty.  On September 5, the New-York Tribune wrote, "M. Bartholdi took his first view of the statue yesterday from the top of 'The Mall and Express' building.  He was greatly pleased with the view of the bay and the position of honor and prominence which the Statue of Liberty occupies."

In 1894, the Ottoman Empire began a sweeping massacre of Armenians.  Regardless of age or sex, thousands of innocents were brutally butchered.  Before tapering off in 1897, an estimated 300,000 Armenians were slaughtered in what would be known as the Hamidian massacres.  New Yorkers responded and in 1895 the offices of the Armenian Relief Association opened here.  On the night of November 21, what The Sun said would be "one of the largest gatherings held in this country for protest against the Turkish atrocities" was held in Chickering Hall.  In reporting on the meeting, the newspaper said, "the names of well-known business men and clergymen who have taken up the cause of Armenia are pouring into the office of the association in the Mall and Express building."

Two months later, the association issued a bulletin "with the hope of arousing American sympathy," according to The New York Times on January 17, 1896.  It included a desperate cable from London from a missionary that said:

Armenia is at her last gasp.  The work of extermination continues.  The number of people massacred reaches 100,000, and half a million survivors have taken refuge in the forests and mountains, where they are feeding on herbs and roots.  Hunger and cold have begun to make great ravages among them.  In the name of humanity and Christianity, save us!

The Excise Board was faced with a puzzling predicament in March 1896.  Because the top floor restaurant served alcohol, it fell into the category of a saloon.  By law, no saloon could operate within 200 feet of a house of worship.  Directly across Fulton Street was St. Paul's Chapel.  On March 1, The Journal explained, "The question is raised as to how the 200-foot limit shall be measured...Shall the measurement be made as the snail crawls or as the swallow flies?"  It appears that the serving of wine with lunch was allowed to continue.

Both elevations can be seen in this 1902 photograph by Irving Underhill.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Elliot Fitch Shepard died on March 24, 1893.  The Mail and Express Building was inherited by his wife.  And so, when Susan Brady fell into the sidewalk coal hole on December 12, 1896, she sued Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt Shepard personally for $20,000 damages.  The weighty amount would translate to about $758,000 today.  It is unclear how the case was settled.

The "fireproof" quality of the building was first tested on January 23, 1901.  At 4:00 in the morning, John Hunt, a watchman, discovered fire on the ground floor.  He and the building's engineer went to the seventh floor, where the family of janitor James Draper lived.  The Evening World reported, "Mrs. Draper and her three children were seized with panic, but the janitor ordered them back to bed."

"'This is a fire-proof building,' he said, 'The fire will not burn beyond one floor.'"

As it turned out, Draper was correct.  The New-York Tribune reported, "The flames are said to have originated in the fileroom of 'The Mail and Express.'"  The burning paper created dense smoke that caused firefighters "great difficulty in getting at the fire."  

James Draper had an opinion as to the cause, telling reporters, "the building is infested with rats, which may have caused the fire by gnawing matches."  The fire was extinguished after doing only about $1,500 in damage.

The fireproof qualities would be put to the test again three years later.  On December 11, 1904, a phone call from Police Headquarters notified the New York City News Association on the second floor that the fire department was on the way.  That the building was on fire was news to the person who answered the phone.  It had broken out in the seventh-floor offices of advertising agent J. M. Pearsall.  The New York Times reported, "The firemen kept the flames right there and the big water tower out in Broadway didn't have to lend a hand."  The article added, A dozen compositors who were at work in the offices of The Evening Mall scurried out to the street when the engines arrived.  They soon went back again, however."

On February 5, 1916, the Record & Guide reported that the American Telephone & Telegraph Company had purchased the Mail and Express Building from the Shepard Estate.  The journal said acquisition was to "protect the light and air of the new twenty-eight-story" Western Union building the buyers had just completed.  The Evening Post was not so sure.  On the same day, the newspaper opined, "as the telegraph and telephone business is growing in leaps and bounds, the acquisition was doubtless made primarily to provide room for extending the recently completed skyscraper."

Indeed, the Mail and Express Building was soon razed for an seamless extension of the Western Union Building, designed by William W. Bosworth.

The corner addition on the site of the Mail and Express Building, completed in 1922, it nearly seamless.  photo by Jim Henderson

The West 135th Street Branch Library (Schomburg Collection) - 103 West 135th Street

Ivy trailed over the facade in 2009.  photograph by McMillin24

On March 12, 1901, Andrew Carnegie offered the City of New York a gift of $5,202,261 (about $192 million in 2024) to build free circulating libraries. The condition was that the city would provide the land and maintain the libraries.  An agreement was reached and the plans for fifty libraries throughout the five boroughs were begun.  

The firm of McKim, Mead & White received the commission for the West 135th Street Branch.  Principal Charles McKim and William Kendall took the reins in designing a sedate, neo-Classical structure faced in white limestone.  Three stories tall, it sat upon a rusticated base.  Double-height pilasters separated the upper bays.  A dramatic Palladian window dominated the second floor, its third-floor fanlight was ornamented with an elaborate wrought-iron grill.  McKim and Kendall finished the design with a deeply overhanging cornice.

Theodore Wesley Koch, in his 1917 A Book of Carnegie Libraries, noted, "The branch of 103 West 135th Street is a departure architecturally from most of the Carnegie buildings, inasmuch as it has an overhanging tile roof and a large arched central window in front running from the second to the third story."  

The deed to the property, according to Koch, provided, "that a strip of land 10 feet wide should be left free" on both sides.  The result was light and ventilation on all four sides of the building.  The architects took advantage of the western strip to provide an outside entrance to the basement assembly room.  The ground floor held the adult circulating and reference department, the second was the "children's room," and the third floor held the periodical room and janitor's apartments.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Harlem neighborhood around the library was composed mostly of middle-class and upper-middle-class Jewish families.  They utilized the routine functions of a branch library, while enjoying programs and activities within the basement assembly room.  On November 3, 1906, for instance, The School Journal announced that Dr. J. H. Canfield of Columbia University would be giving a series of eight lectures on "The History of Civilization" on Tuesday evenings.

At the time of Dr. Canfield's lectures, the demographics of Harlem had begun to change.  In 1904, subway service was extended northward, making the district more accessible.  The increasing influx of blacks ignited white panic among some residents, like Irish-born retired police officer John G. Taylor, who moved to West 136th Street in 1903.  In 1910, according to Mike Wallace in his Greater Gotham, A History of New York City From 1898 to 1919, Taylor "opposed allowing blacks to use the New York Public Library branch at 103 West 135th Street."  (A panicked Taylor, writes Wallace, "advocated building a 24-foot-high wall along West 136th Street to keep blacks from moving north.")

Noticeably not racist were the inclusive policies of the West 135th Street Branch.  Black faces would have been among the audiences at the January 1912 lecture on "Cowboy and Engineer in Colorado" by Graham C. Hunter, and Mrs. Emma P. Telford's talk on "Arizona: the Cradle and the Wonderland of the New York" later that month.

Gradually, the library became an integral part in the developing black community.  On September 17, 1914, for instance, The New York Age reported, "The Negro Civic Improvement League plans to organize its first neighborhood Association in Harlem at a meeting to be held in the Library, assembly room, 103 West 135th street, on Friday evening, September 18, at 8.15 o'clock."

In pre-air conditioning days, the second floor windows are opened wide.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1917, the assembly room was the regular meeting space for what the Young Men's Christian Association termed the "Colored Men's Branch" while its new building at 179-183 West 135th Street was being constructed.  The "Big Meetings" were held here every Sunday.  Dr. Adam Clayton Powell addressed the assembly on April 29 that year.

The themes of the lectures reflected the issues important to the locals.  On October 14, 1917, Dr. Mason Pitman, superintendent of the Colored Orphan Asylum gave a lecture on "The Colored Orphan," and Captain Charles W. Fillmore spoke on "The Negro as Soldier."

A letter to the editor of the New-York Tribune published on September 6, 1921 foreshadowed things to come.  It began:

Sir:  Readers of The Tribune will be interested in knowing that there is on exhibition at the New York Public Library, 103 West 135th Street, a unique collection of negro works of art.  Among the pieces displayed are paintings, drawings, etchings and work in sculpture.  There are also some rare books produced by negroes during the days of American slavery, and others of historic and racial value written by black men of America and other countries.

The cover of the 1921 catalog.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The exhibition came from the collection of George Young, who ran a bookshop at 135 West 135th Street.  In its October 1922 issue, the Fisk University News said, "Young's Book Exchange contains the largest collection of books by and about the negro race that has been assembled anywhere and which is open to the public."  The article said, "From the beginnings six years ago with six books, Mr. Young's collection has grown to 8,00 to 10,000 books by and pertaining to negroes.  Some of the rarest copies of first editions are there, for Mr. Young has had exceptional opportunities for collecting."

The article said, "Miss Ernestine Rose, the librarian, and Augustus Dill have arranged an exhibit to show the colored people of the neighborhood, and the white people, what the negro has accomplished." Its success was such that the showing became an annual event.

Like George Young, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg was an avid collector of black history.  Born in Puerto Rico, Schomburg arrived in New York in 1891 at the age of 17.  He obtained a job with the Bankers Trust Company where he stayed for two decades.  According to his biographer, Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, his passion for collecting black history stemmed from his fifth-grade teacher's offhanded remark, "Black people have no history, no heroes, no great moments."  

Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, from the collection of the New York Public Library

Shelley Fisher Fishkin writes in her Writing America--Literary Landmarks from Walden Pond to Wounded Knee:

On May 19, 1926, more than a hundred packing crates were delivered to the central building of the New York Public Library to be prepared for shipment to their final destination: the 135th Street branch of the library, where thousands of books, manuscripts, etchings, portraits, and pamphlets would be made available to the public the following January.

The crates contained the accumulated collection of Arthur A. Schomburg.  On January 14, 1927, a private viewing was held of the Schomburg Collection prior to its official opening.  Arthur Schomburg would be appointed curator of the Negro Division of Literature, History, and Prints in 1930.

Although now the greatest repository of black history in the nation, the 135th Street Branch library continued its regular programs.  On July 16, 1932, The New York Age reported that the staff, "cordially invites the summer students and their friends to their annual reception and dance, to be held in the auditorium of the library."  

The branch operated a Book Club and speakers regularly appeared at its meetings.  On May 19, 1933, for instance, Alain Locke of Howard University spoke on "Contemporary Drama and Negro Life" and Dr. Charles Augustin Petioni discussed, "The American Negro Colonist in the West Indies."  The New York Age mentioned that the latter was the "second of a series of lectures especially planned and promoted by A. A. Schomberg [sic]."

During the Depression years, the Federal Works Project funded the American Negro Theater, which was based here.  Called "the Library Theatre," on July 6, 1940, The New York Age called it, "the ideal place for a summer theatre and in the heart of Harlem."  On May 30, 1942, the newspaper announced the upcoming opening of Starlight.  Included in the cast was "Ruby Wallace Dee."  A month later, the newspaper called her "the greatest find of 1942."

The New York Age was correct.  The following year, Ruby Dee made her Broadway debut in South Pacific.  She would go on to win an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, and an Academy Award nomination, among many other honors.

The Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library became central to Harlem community activities.  On July 18, 1959, the New York Age reported on a new exhibition "commemorating the 50th anniversary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People" here.

The aging building was in need of maintenance in August 1968 when Black World/Negro Digest reported that the city had set aside $54,000 "for an engineering survey of the old Harlem building to house endangered Schomburg Collection."  At the same time, the state had allotted $80,000 "to aid its manuscript preservation campaign."  The Board of Estimates anticipated that "an additional $966,600 would be forthcoming to reconstruct the library building."

In 1974, a series of buildings were vacated in preparation for groundbreaking for a new building for the Schomburg Collection, including a tenement next door.  The ten-foot space between the structures set forth in the 1904 deed proved fortuitous.  On April 9, The New York Times wrote, "Smoke filled the reading room of the Schomburg collection of Negro History and Literature last week as a fire set in an empty tenement next door threatened the irreplaceable collection of memorabilia, art, history and literature housed in the old library building."  It was the most recent of several arson fires in the neighborhood.  "Several weeks ago a custodian spent the night wetting down the sides of the library...as sparks from a burning tenement at 108 West 135th Street licked the side of the Schomburg."

The new building, the Countee Cullen Library branch, was opened in 1980.  Seven years later, in August 1987, Howard Dodson, chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, escorted a New York Times reporter through the still vacant McKim, Mead & White building.  The landmark building was undergoing a $3.4 million restoration project.

He reminisced, "how Alex Haley researched 'Roots' there; how James Baldwin in the heyday of his Harlem youth discovered literature there; how Kenneth Clark studied there; how such entertainers as Harry Belafonte and Ossie Davis trained there," said the article.

image via marblefairbanks.com

The project resulted in a gift shop and exhibition hall, and the restoration of the American Negro Theatre space.

Cass Gilbert's 1930 NY County Lawyers' Association Bldg - 14 Vesey Street

 

photo by Beyond My Ken

On April 25, 1908, the New-York Tribune reported on the first "organization meeting" of the New York County Lawyers' Association, which had just been incorporated.  The article stressed that it "will in no sense be competitive with the Bar Association," and explained, "One of the main objects of the association will be to add to the influence of the bar in this city in the making of laws and the administration of justice."

Three months later, on July 29, the newspaper reported that the group had signed a lease for part of the 26th floor of the City Investing Building "for a term of years."  Astoundingly, the newspaper mentioned, "The association has a membership of about four thousand."

In 1929, the New York County Lawyers' Association acquired the Real Estate Showroom property at 14 Vesey Street, owned by the Astor estate.  The group commissioned Cass Gilbert to design a permanent headquarters on the site.  The esteemed architect had embellished his Gothic inspired Woolworth Building with terra cotta ornamentation, completed 16 years earlier.  The New York County Lawyers' Association building would be starkly different.

In the 2000 Inventing the Skyline, The Architecture of Cass Gilbert, Margaret Heilbrun notes, "The association preferred a building in a classical revival style.  This meshed with Gilbert's interest in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century architecture...For the law association, Gilbert believed that the colonial, or Georgian, style provided the building with a 'simple, dignified and impressive' image."

While the Landmarks Preservation Commission describes the style as Federal Eclectic, its roots are more British than American.  Heilbrun notes, "The exterior of the Lawyers' Association was similar to rowhouses of Lincoln's Inn Fields, London."  The wrought iron fencing would not be out of place in front of an 18th century men's club in London's West End.

Completed in 1930 and faced in limestone, Gilbert divided the four-story structure into five distinct bays, the openings of the two-story midsection separated by double-height fluted Corinthian pilasters.  Bas relief rondels and panels dignified the spandrels between floors.  The fourth floor sat behind a handsome stone balustrade above a bracketed cornice.  

Gilbert's son, Cass Gilbert, Jr., worked with him on the project, especially, according to Heilbrun, on the interiors.  The ground floor held offices and reception rooms.  On the second floor were the auditorium and lounge, and the third held reading rooms.  The committee board rooms were on the fourth floor, and the janitor's quarters occupied the penthouse level.  While the exterior was English, the design of the auditorium was inspired by Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

The Auditorium - image via showcase.com

The ongoing Great Depression played a part in the interior design.  Heilbrun writes:

Initially, both Gilbert and the association wanted to segregate any women using the space, whether they were members of the association or relatives of a member.  The association wanted a balcony in the auditorium for wives.  Gilbert contemplated separate lounge and reception areas for the few female members.  In both cases, the added expense of providing these areas persuaded the association to allow women to mix with men.

While the association could not influence the Depression, it had a strong impact on America's other significant issue at the time--Prohibition.  On December 17, 1930, The New York Times reported on the "movement begun late in 1927 by the New York County Lawyers' Association to bring about a clear-cut test of the amendment's validity."  Now Federal District Judge William Clark had declared the Eighteenth Amendment "unconstitutional because [it was] illegally ratified."

image via showcase.com

The New York County Lawyers' Association Building would be the scene of innumerable hearings over the decades.  On November 24, 1964 alone, for instance, The New York Times reported on two hearings held the previous day.  One, by the Temporary State Commission on Revision of the Penal Law and Criminal Code urged the state "to make a prostitute's customers guilty of a crime."  The other had to do with cruelty to animals.  The Commission had asked that "intent be made a factor in prosecution."  That drew heated testimony from irate organizations, including the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Humane Society of the United States, the animal Welfare Institute and the Friends of Animals.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Perhaps the most consequential reviews were the Joint Legislative Committee on Crime hearings conducted by Senator John H. Hughes in January 1970.  For days crime figures like Mafia leader Joseph Colombo, Carlo Gambino, and Domenico Arcuri testified.  On January 15, The New York Times explained, "the aim of the hearing is to increase 'public awareness' of criminal activity in many fields."

The following year, in August, a two-day hearing conducted by the City Board of Corrections interviewed witnesses concerning "the incidence of death and suicide in city prisons."

The New York County Lawyers' Association left 14 Vesey Street in 2020.  The building was listed for $35 million and sold to Jack Terzi, founder of  JTRE Holdings for "in the low $20 million range," according to The Real Deal.  

photo by Americasroof

Cass Gilbert's dignified limestone structure was designated an individual New York City landmark in 1965 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

The J. William Clark Mansion (Automation House) - 49 East 68th Street

 

image by Jim Henderson

Millionaire banker Frederick Dobbs Tappen died in his brownstone-fronted mansion at 49 East 68th Street on February 28, 1902.  Just over a decade later, on January 4, 1913, the Record & Guide reported that the house had been sold, noting it, "adjoins the residence of Percy R. Pyne, at the northwest corner of Park av."  (The Pyne mansion had been designed by McKim, Mead & White two years earlier.)

The buyers were John William Clark and his wife, Margaretta Brua Cameron.  Born in 1867, Clark was president of the Clark Thread Company and the Spool Cotton Company, founded by his grandfather in Paisley Scotland.  (Its O. N. T. brand, short for Our New Thread, was a staple in stores and homes throughout the nation.)  Margaretta was the daughter of former Senator J. Donald Cameron.  The couple had three sons, William, Jr., John Balfour, and James Cameron.  The family's summer estate, Peachcroft, was in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

Peachcroft, from the collection of the Bernardsville Public Library

The Clarks hired the architectural firm of Trowbridge & Livingston to design a replacement home on the site of the Tappen mansion.  On April 23, 1913, The New York Times reported, "Plans have been filed for a new five-story private residence for J. William Clark...The facade will be of brick and marble in the Colonial style of architecture."  The neo-Federal style was, almost assuredly, meant to blend harmoniously with the Pyne mansion next door.  The architects placed the cost of construction at $60,000 (about $1.9 million in 2024).

John William Clark, United States Passport Application, 1923

On October 4, 1913, the Record & Guide reported that excavation was underway for the Clark house.  Its completion would be too late for the Clarks' eldest son, William, to occupy it.  He was married to Marjory Bruce Blair at Blairsden, the country estate of the bride, a month before the article.

The family moved into 49 East 68th Street the following year.  The main and service entrances were recessed within a double-arched loggia.  The upper floors were faced in Flemish bond red brick.  French windows at the second floor opened onto a full-width iron balcony.  The metal-clad attic level was fronted by two elegant, Federal style dormers.

James Cameron was 22 at the time and John Balfour was 17.  The boys prepared at St. Mark's School and James was currently a junior at Harvard.  When America entered World War I in 1917, both young men entered the United States Army Air Service.  While John would serve in France, earning the rank of lieutenant, James was stationed in Texas for the war's duration.

The Clark house enjoyed an unexpected second wall of light and ventilation.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The global conflict was unable to hinder James's romance.  On December 6, 1917, the Air Service Journal reported on his engagement to Teresa Fabbri, the daughter of multimillionaire Ernesto Fabbri and the great-granddaughter of William Henry Vanderbilt.  He obtained a ten-day pass and the pair was married at Bar Harbor, Maine, on December 11.  Two days later, The New York Times reported, "Lieutenant James C. Clark and his bride, formerly Miss Teresa Fabbri...are on their way to San Antonio, Texas, where Lieutenant Clark is in the Signal Corps of the ground school for the Aviation Corps."

At the war's end, James was discharged on December 20, 1918 with the rank of first lieutenant.  He and John went into the family's business.  (John would eventually become its president, by then renamed Coats & Clark, Inc.)  William, in the meantime, had pursued law and eventually became a Federal judge. 

On January 16, 1924, The New York Times reported on John's engagement to Rhoda Cameron.  The couple was married later that spring.

John and Margaretta were at the Bernardsville estate on July 15, 1928 when John suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 60.  He left an estate of $12,957,775, according to The New York Times.  The figure would translate to $236 million today.

In May 1937, Margaretta leased 49 East 68th Street.  It was occupied by Walter Mack and his family when she died in March 1941 at the age of 71.  Two years later, her estate sold the mansion to Leroy Alton Lincoln.

Lincoln was chairman of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.  Born in 1880, his earliest American ancestor had arrived in Hingham, Massachusetts in 1635.  His wife, the former Hilda F. Deyoe, was his third, his two previous wives having died.

The Lincolns resided here for a decade, selling the house in November 1953 to the Soviet Government for $150,000 ($1.7 million today).   The New York Times explained it would be used "as a residence for Andrei Y. Vishinsky, the Soviet Union's permanent delegate to the United Nations," adding, "The property has twenty rooms, an elevator, and three floors below ground."

In 1967, the mansion was purchased by Theodore Kheel for his American Federation on Automation and Employment.  Now called Automation House, its lavish 1914 interiors were gutted.  The renovations resulted in a "private museum" on the first and second floors, and office and exhibition space on the upper floors.

On March 2, 1970, New York Magazine announced, "Automation House...opens this week.  It is a kind of electrical service station for artists to plug in to.  Its first show will be The Magic theatre, an exhibition of electrical environments by eight artists."

Automation House was more than that.  Theodore W. Kheel was described by the Staten Island Advance in November 1970 as "the famous lawyer-mediator."  The venue for years was the scene of tense labor negotiations and was the headquarters of the Board of Mediation for Community Disputes, founded here in January 1969.

Automation House was outfitted with "telephones and electrowriters, as well as telex, Xerox and Magnavox facsimile machines," according to Catherine Spencer in her Beyond the Happening, Performance Art and the Politics of Communication.  Here, she writes, "Groups of children were invited to inhabit them simultaneously and use the technology to send each other text and picture messages."

The house served as meeting space, as well.  On January 27, 1970, for instance, British Prime Minister Wilson addressed a gathering of management and labor leaders here.  And later that year, on July 1, Samuel R. Pierce was sworn in here as general counsel to the Treasury Department by Secretary David M. Kennedy.  (Pierce was the first black to receive an appointment to a sub-Cabinet post in the Treasury Department, according to the Associated Press.)

A riotous situation occurred on July 13, 1976 when Rolling Stone Magazine, "long a fount of anti-establishment culture," as described by The New York Times, hosted a "big party for the new Jimmy Carter establishment."  The organizers miscalculated the response and at 11:00 p.m. the Automation House executives ordered the doors barred.  The New York Times reported, 

Left out on the sidewalk were the likes of: Warren Beatty, the actor, and Representative Bella S. Abzug, who later sauntered off as a twosome; Jane Fonda, the actress; Katharine Graham, publisher; and Benjamin Bradlee, editor of The Washington Post; William vanden Heuvel, Carter campaign manager here; Theodore H. White, the chronicler of presidential campaigns, and for a while, Lauren Bacall.

A few of the celebrities who had made it inside before the doors were locked were Paul Newman, Shirley MacLaine, and Walter Cronkite.  Apparently Bella Abzug was not overly-bruised by not gaining admittance and the following year, on December 19, 1977, she used Automation House to announce her candidacy for Congress.

Richard Feigen purchased 49 East 68th Street in 1991.  He told James McElhinney in an interview for the Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution in 2009, "All the detail was gone from the inside...And it appealed to me because you had brick walls; you could hang early paintings and contemporary art and everything in there.  And I've always enjoyed mixing these things up."

On September 23, 1991, New York Magazine reported, "Richard L. Feigen settles into his new location with paintings and drawings by the Italianate Dutch landscape painter Bartholomeus Breenbergh."  It was the first of a long string of  important exhibitions that would last through 1999 when  composer Mitch Leigh and his artist wife Abby Leigh purchased the property for $1.1 million.

photo by Jim Henderson

The couple hired Wendy Evans Joseph to reconvert the building into a single family home.  Mitch Leigh, who won a Tony Award for composing the music to Man of La Mancha, died in 2014.  Two years later, Abbie Leigh, whose works hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim and the Whitney, sold the house for $20.4 million.