The 1904 Van Cordlandt - 1240 Park Avenue

 

photo by Deansfa

In the late 19th century, the soot-belching locomotives that ran down the middle of Park Avenue made the thoroughfare unappealing.  But with the trains converted to electricity, magnificent residences and upscale apartment buildings began appearing along the avenue.   In 1903, William F. Rohrig broke ground for a six-story apartment building, The Van Cortlandt, at the northwest corner of Park Avenue and 96th Street.  Designed by George F. Pelham, it was completed the following year at a cost of $195,000, or about $7 million in 2026.

Although The Van Cordlandt turned its shoulder to the busy avenue, its entrance on East 96th Street took the more enviable address of 1240 Park Avenue.  Pelham's tripartite Renaissance Revival design included a rusticated limestone base and an off-set entrance portico.  Its paired, polished granite Scamozzi columns upheld a substantial entablature that announced the building's name. It was crowned by a stone balustrade.

image via streeteasy.com

The brick-faced, four-story midsection was trimmed in limestone.  The Renaissance motif was carried out with arched and triangular pediments, occasional cornucopia-framed windows, and faux balconies.  Pelham emphasized horizontality at the top section with two running bandcourses.  A distinguished stone balustrade ran along the bracketed cornice.

The areaway was protected by high, wrought iron fencing.  The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1904 (copyright expired)

The Apartment Houses of the Metropolis described:

The suites are of seven, eight and nine rooms with two baths.  Parlors and libraries are finished in mahogany, whilst the dining-rooms are in unique quartered oak, with a high wainscoting and Dutch plate shelving.  The ceilings have oak beams.

There were four apartments per floor, the rents for which ranged from $1,050 to $1,400 per year--or $3,150 to $4,200 per month today.

The World's New York Apartment House Album, 1904 (copyright expired)

The Van Cordlandt filled with well-to-do residents.  Among them was Mrs. Mollie Anderson who became entangled in a debacle worthy of a silent film comedy on the afternoon of December 8, 1913.  That day the city experienced a gale with 88-mile-per-hour winds.  The following day, The New York Times reported, "Many persons were injured, much damage was done to property."  Mollie Anderson was unfortunate enough to have had ventured out.

She was walking along West End Avenue between 70th and 71st Street when, according to The New York Times, "she had occasion to open her handbag."  A gust of wind blew $50 in small bills into the air.  (The amount would translate to more than $1,600 today.)  As Mollie ran to gather up the bills, two rings--one containing five diamonds and the other a wedding ring--tumbled out of her bag "and were carried along by the wind," said the article.

Her increasingly panicked scrambling made the situation worse.  Two bank books fell out of her purse and were blown away.  Mollie's cries attracted a crowd as well as Patrolman Moskowitz.  People ran through the windstorm snatching at bills.  Mollie Anderson's struggle did not end well.  The New York Times reported, "The patrolman found only $17 of the $50 lost.  The bank books were found by a boy, but the rings, if found, were not returned."

Among the socially visible couples in The Van Cortlandt during the Depression years were Dr. William Wallace Whitelock and his wife, the former Baroness Mary von Stockhausen of Berlin.  The couple had one son, Otto von Stockhausen Whitelock.  Their country house, Tre Terrazzi, was in Pelham Manor, New York

An educator and author, Whitelock was born in Baltimore in 1870 and traced his ancestry to Sir Bulstrode Whitelock, the 17th century Governor of Windsor Castle, and to Richard Stockton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  Having received his Ph.D. from the University of Munich in 1893, he worked for The New York Times, interviewing celebrated figures like Thomas Hardy, H. G. Wells, George Moore, Rudyard Kipling, and Zola.  Starting in 1915, he was a contributor to the weekly humor magazine Life.  Among his several books were the  1903 The Literary Guillotine, the 1907 Foregone Verses, and a novel, When Kings Go Forth To Battle, published in 1907.

Born Baroness Mary Louise von Stockhausen in London, Mary Whitelock was educated in England, France and Germany.  She was presented at the Bavarian Court, the Austrian Court and the Court of St. James at the turn of the century, and in 1905 was given a private audience by Pope Pius X.

Admired by her beauty, she was a favorite model for prominent artists, and at one point a portrait of her by Stroese was placed on exhibition in the Crystal Palace.  Additionally, she was an accomplished singer and debuted in Paris with the Concerts Lamoureux and was later offered a contract with the Metropolitan Opera Company.

As a young woman, Mary Louise translated English works into German and French.  It was during that time that she met William Whitelock and they were married in London in 1901.

The Whitelocks' entertaining was widely followed by the society columns.  On December 31, 1937, for instance, The New York Sun reported that the couple "have returned to their residence at 1240 Park avenue, and will entertain at a reception on Sunday."  Among the guests that afternoon was Mary Dimmick Harrison, the former First Lady.  

Mary Harrison was a close friend of the Whitelocks.  The following year, on April 25, 1938, The Sun reported, "Dr. and Mrs. William Wallace Whitelock gave a dinner last night at their home, 1240 Park avenue, in honor of Mrs. Benjamin Harrison."

Also socially visible were Colonel George Chase Lewis and his wife, the former Louise Manning.  The couple had two daughters, Flora Louise and Virginia.  On December 29, 1938, The New York Times reported that the Lewises "gave a tea dance yesterday at the Officers Club on Governors Island.  The event served as a coming-out party for Miss Virginia J. Lewis."  The article mentioned, "Her sister, Miss Flora Louise Lewis, made her debut in the same setting several seasons ago."

At the time of her debut, Virginia Lewis was a freshman at Bryn Mawr College.  Possibly inspired by her father's military career, as war spread across Europe, she turned her attention to America's defense.  On June 27, 1940, The New York Times reported on the swearing in "of three volunteers into the first New York rifle squad of the America First Assembly of Women."  Among the volunteers was Virginia Lewis.  She and the other two girls had trained for six months.

A fascinating resident at the time was Caroline Sanders Truax, the widow of former New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles H. Truax, who died in 1910.  Caroline was one of the first women admitted to the New York State bar.  Born in Cincinnati, she was a graduate of the New York University Law School.  She practiced law briefly, turning her attention to conditions in what was then termed insane asylums.  The New York Times remarked that she "did much to better the conditions of inmates, making a study of American, English and Oriental asylums."

Like Mary Louise Whitelock, Caroline Sanders was a beauty in her youth.  She married Charles Truax in 1896 and on a tour of Europe (possibly their honeymoon), they visited the studio of French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme.  It resulted in Caroline's posing for the artist.  The portrait, with Caroline depicted as Sappho, a Grecian poet, was well received and when it arrived in America, was exhibited several times.

Gérôme's portrait of Caroline Sanders Traux hung in the Van Cordlandt apartment.  from the collection of Bowdoin University.

In the meantime, the Whitelocks continued to host glittering dinner parties and receptions.  On May 2, 1938, The New York Post reported on their dinner party in honor of composer Aurelio Giorni.  There were 22 "distinguished" guests, including pianist George Copeland.  This dinner party would stand out.

During a gathering in the apartment earlier that year, Copeland boasted that "his long residence in Spain and his experience with Spanish herbs and spices qualified him to rank among the best spaghetti cooks in New York."  The New York Post reported, "Mrs. Whitelock immediately challenged his contention on the ground that her many years of residence in Italy gave her a claim to the title."  

And so, this dinner party included a contest.  Copeland prepared his spaghetti and Mary Louise hers.  The article explained:

The spaghetti was brought in by two white-capped chefs, bearing two silver platters, one containing Mr. Copeland's effort, and the other Mrs. Whitelock's.  Each guest member of the jury received a portion from each salver, and was required to determine which he or she preferred.  They were given through the salad and desert courses to record their votes.

The article concluded, "needless to say the hostess saw to it that Mr. Copeland won."

In 1939, Dr. William Wallace Whitelock was struck "by a drunken vagrant on the street," according to The New York Times.  He never fully recovered from his injuries and the following year, on January 28, 1940, died in the couple's Van Corlandt apartment at the age of 70.  

The New York Times reported on June 26, 1949, "Mrs. William Wallace Whitelock, the former Baroness Mary Louise von Stockhausen, who was a prominent figure in early twentieth century literary, artistic and musical circles, died on Friday at Tre Terrazzi...after an illness of several months."

An intricate marble mosaic "carpet" floor, a stone fireplace, Caen stone walls, and a beamed ceiling gave the Van Cordlandt's lobby a refined air.  image via streeteasy.com

Living here in the early 1960s were William L. Brett and his wife.  Born in Przemysl, Poland in 1913, he was a naturalized American.  The European representative of the George E. Failing Company (a division of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company), he made routine business trips to Poland.

On February 9, 1962, he checked out of his Warsaw hotel to make a trip to Katowice, Poland.  After she heard nothing from him for a week, Mrs. Brett contacted the United States Embassy.  What they discovered was alarming.  The New York Times reported that he "has been held in [a] Warsaw jail for nearly three weeks on a charge of an illegal currency transaction."  It is unclear what the infraction was, but consul A. Gregory Nowakoski Jr., who visited him in the prison, said he "appeared to be in good health."

Among the Bretts' neighbors in the building were George A. Rosette, a former journalist and advertising executive, and his composer wife, the former Marion Savage.  After becoming a reporter for The Baltimore Sun in 1912, George opened an advertising agency the following year.  In 1925 the couple moved to New York and he began writing a column in The New York Daily Mirror, "Muse in Manhattan."  In 1940 he established the Rosette Advertising Agency and in 1946 began producing phonograph records as president of Corona Records, Inc.  The New York Times noted that Marion's songs were recorded by Corona Records.

Unfortunately, the distinguished rooftop balustrade has been removed.  But other than zig-zagging fire escapes that detract from George F. Pelham's design and the need for a gentle cleaning, The Van Cortlandt looks very much as it did in 1904 when it opened.

Sylvan Bien's 1939 150 West 21st Street

 

Born in Austria, architect Sylvan Bien emigrated to San Francisco to work on the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition.  He relocated to New York City in 1919.  By the 1930s he was designing mostly apartment buildings and hotels.  As the Great Depression wound down, in 1938 Bien was hired by East Lane Inc. to design an apartment building at 150 through 158 West 21st Street, just east of Seventh Avenue.

Construction was completed the following year at a cost of $140,000 (about $3 million in 2026).  Bien executed his Art Moderne design almost entirely through contrasting brick and cast stone.  The centered entrance below a bronze grill was recessed within a dramatic polished black stone frame.  Matching bronze grills covered the windows on either side of the entrance.  Cast stone piers with reeded bands rose to create a frieze atop a reeded bandcourse.

The brickwork of the first floor was laid in a basketweave pattern.  Geometric bands of salmon-colored brick contrasted to a cream-colored brick background.  Multi-paned casement windows contributed to the Art Moderne geometry.  

Bien divided the upper five floors into three vertical sections by decorating the four-bay-wide central section with rows of salmon brick that vertically connected the windows with those above and below.  A parapet took the place of a cornice.  Two rows of brick bosses decorated the central section and Art Moderne railings provided interest above each of the two end bays.

Bronze grills at the entrance, multi-paned casements, and a bold parapet contributed to Bien's design.  from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

An advertisement in The New York Sun on June 10, 1939 touted, "Just Completed -- Latest home comforts."  Prospective tenants could choose apartments that ranged from one-and-a-half to three rooms.

Catherine Donohue was among the initial residents.  The 35-year-old was a close friend of the Croke family that included 35-year-old Catholic priest Rev. John Croke.  He lived at 201 West 95th Street and was attached to the Rosary Hill House in Hawthorne, New York.

Shortly after she moved into 150 West 21st Street, on October 3, 1939 Catherine was riding in Rev. Croke's automobile in New Jersey.  Croke was driving south along Route 9 West in Englewood when they were hit head-on by a car driven by 19-year-old Frank Grande.  The teen's 14-year-old brother, Joseph, was in that car.  It was a horrific crash.  Rev. Croke died in Englewood Hospital the following morning.  The New York Times reported that Catherine was "in the hospital with critical injuries."

Frank Grande, tragically, should not have been on the road at all.  He held a conditional driver's permit, which prohibited him to operate a vehicle without a licensed driver in the car.  He and his brother were only slightly injured.

Four days later, The New York Times updated readers, reporting that Catherine Donahue had succumbed to her injuries.  Frank Grande's joy riding with his brother resulted in his being arrested "on two charges of causing death by automobile and on a charge of driving without a license," said the article.

Bien used creative brickwork and color as part of his design.

Another initial tenant was Daniel B. Stampler.  The building was extremely convenient, since he was manager of the Empire Bar & Grill down the block at Sixth Avenue and 21st Street.  At the time, employees were paid in cash.  In most cases they received their pay envelopes on Friday evening or on Saturday.  Crooks, who were sharply aware of the practice, would stake out businesses and learn the schedules of bookkeepers or managers tasked with transporting the cash.

On the morning of July 5, 1940, Stampler drove to the National Safety Bank & Trust Company at 27th Street and Seventh Avenue and withdrew $5,206 in cash (about $116,000 today).  As he got back into his automobile, another pulled up beside it.  The New York Times reported, "At the point of pistols the thugs forced him to drive to Twenty-eighth Street and the North [i.e., Hudson] River.  Putting Mr. Stampler out of the car, the bandits drove off."  It is unclear whether the robbers were captured or if Stampler's automobile was recovered.

Vitter Cucio and his wife were also initial residents.  In the winter of 1939, they were the target of what The New York Times described as "two of the city's boldest robbers."  Salvatore Oddo, who was 33 years old, and his partner 25-year-old Dominick Mundo, were not only bold, they were dangerous.

The Cucio apartment was one of several the pair burglarized.  Fortunately for the couple, they were not at home at the time.  Mundo and Oddo made away with $500 in cash and jewels.  (The cash would translate to about $11,000 today.)  The criminals were captured and sentenced "to long prison terms," according to The New York Times on June 13, 1942.  Among Mundo's charges was the "shooting [of] a police lieutenant last February, after his arrest in the hold-up of a garage," said the article.

Sadly, Sylvan Bien's Art Moderne grills were removed in the late 20th century.

Residents of 150 West 21st Street continued to be victimized.  Dorothy Shugard was an athlete, described by The New York Times as "formerly a sprinter."  On Sunday night December 21, 1947, she was walking along Broadway near the Broadway Central Hotel when 27-year-old Arthur W. Seymour, who worked as a seaman, "seized her handbag, containing $50 in cash and a bracelet," according to The New York Times, and knocked her to the sidewalk.  Dorothy screamed out, "Stop, thief!"  (The article said she, "was hampered in the chase by her high heels.")

Happily for her, walking along the block was 27-year-old Emanuel Hauser and his bride.  Hauser, an Air Force veteran, had been sworn in as a police officer two days earlier and married the next day.  Hauser's wife exhorted, "Go get him, Mannie!"

The young police officer, who had not yet served a single day in uniform, chased Seymour, capturing him at Broadway and Waverly Place.  Dorothy Shugard was right behind.  At Police Headquarters, Seymour admitted stealing the handbag and told Officer Hauser, "Once more around the block and she'd have caught me."

At the time of the incident, America was seeing the rise of what would be called the Red Scare, or McCarthyism.  The Cold War prompted fears of Communism and they ballooned into hysteria.  It all resulted in Government investigations, blacklisting, and accusations.  

Minna Finkelstein lived here at midcentury.  The teacher had been with the New York Public Schools since 1932 and taught at Public School 11 in the Bronx.  In 1951, Superintendent of Schools Dr. William Jansen initiated a personal "investigation into Communist influence in the city school system," as reported by The New York Times, and Jansen told the newspaper, "quite a bit of work" had to be done "before the school system was completely free of possible subversive influence."

By October 1952, when Minna Finkelstein was summoned to be interrogated, 15 teachers had already been fired.  She and two other educators "balked at questions" put to them.  Three months later, on January 31, 1953, The Times reported that the three instructors had been suspected and "charged with insubordination and conduct unbecoming teachers."  The school system's assistant corporation counsel, Saul Moskoff, explained that Minna had "refused to answer all questions about alleged past or present party membership."  

In the second half of the 20th century, the building underwent an unfortunate modernization.  The bronze grills were removed from the entrance, the casement windows replaced, and the parapet stripped of its Art Moderne personality.

photographs by the author

An Astounding Survivor - The 1837 287 East 3rd Street

 

photograph by Carole Teller

In 1811, streets were laid out on paper that dissected land owned by Nicholas and Elizabeth Fish.  Within two decades those pencil lines became actual thoroughfares.  In 1837, ship carver Charles Dodge erected a row of brick-faced houses on the north side of East 3rd Street between Avenues C and D.  Each 22-feet-wide and three stories tall above English basements, they were early examples of the blossoming Greek Revival style.  Dodge's builder designed them as mirror-image pairs that shared a stoop divided by an iron railing.  The side-by-side entrances were framed by brownstone pilasters that upheld a single layered entablature and molded cornice.

Charles Dodge apparently negotiated a deal with Elizabeth Stuyvesant Fish (Nicholas died in 1833) regarding ownership of certain properties.  Upon her death in 1854, 287 East 3rd Street passed to her children: Susan Elizabeth, Margaret Ann, Hamilton and Elizabeth Sara.  There is no indication that any of the well-to-do and distinguished Fish siblings ever lived in the house.

At the time of Elizabeth Stuyvesant Fish's death, the neighborhood around 287 East 3rd Street was the center of New York's German community.  Only Berlin and Vienna had a larger German-speaking population.  No. 287 East 3rd Street would have been home to multiple families.  The Fish heirs retained ownership until October 1882, when they sold the house to Robert P. and Julia Kean Barry for $5,270 (about $167,000 in 2026 terms).

The sale did not end the Fish family's ties to the property.  Born in 1843, Julia K. Barry was the daughter of Margaret Ann Fish and John Neilson.  (Her great-grandfather, General John Neilson had served in the Revolutionary War with Nicholas Fish.)  Robert Peabody Barry also had a sterling pedigree, a member of the fourth generation of Barrys in New York.  The couple was married on April 19, 1866.  They would be long-distance landlords--they lived in Virginia.

While 287 East 3rd Street was owned by distinguished figures, its tenants were working class.  Living here in 1897, for instance, was mechanic E. Matthews.  He was at work in a Harlem theatre, the Metropolis, at 142nd Street and Third Avenue on August 29 that year.  High above the stage, he lost his grip and fell 60 feet.  The New York Herald reported that he "received injuries which proved fatal three hours later."

Matthews's English surname was an anomaly within the mostly German rooming house tenants.  More common were names like Lester W. Eisenberg (who was made a commissioner of deeds in 1901 and 1902), Max Schiller, and Dora Bruder.

On June 18, 1905, Max Schiller attended an outing of German families at a picnic grounds in Queens.  (It was most likely a church event.)   He boarded a trolly car of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit heading home that night.  It smashed into another trolly car at around 10:00.  "Both cars were crowded with men and women who were homeward bound from the picnic grounds," said The Sun.  Max Schiller and five others were "painfully injured," but he was able to go home after having his cuts and bruises dressed.

Living in the house at the same time, Dora Bruder held an interesting job.  She taught embroidery in the New York public vacation schools.

Around 1912, Jacob Beyerle acquired 287 East 3rd Street.  While continuing to rent rooms, he moved into the house with his widowed mother, Margeritte Geier Beyerle, and his unmarried sister, Philippine.  (Frustratingly, Philippine's name was alternately spelled Phillippina, Philippina, and Phillippine in documents.)

Born in 1869, Jacob was the youngest of eight children of Johann and Margeritte, who were 48 and 41 years old, respectively, at the time.   He never married.

In 1913 Beyerle hired architect Louis E. Muller to update the house with plumbing and "new partitions."  (The new walls most likely referred to the installation of bathrooms or water closets.)  The renovations cost him the equivalent of about $32,700 today.

Jacob Beyerle died in the house on May 8, 1914 at the age of 45.  His funeral was held in the parlor three days later.  He left a $2,000 "personalty in trust" to his mother (about $65,000 today), and the remainder of his estate to his sisters Philippine, Maggie and Elizabeth.  

Philippine, who received the title to 287 East 3rd Street, continued to take in roomers.  The Schroeder family lived here in 1915 when 11-year-old George went to the Brighton Beach race track on April 18 to see the motorcycle races.  The New York Herald reported that Thomas Sylvester, "was racing his motorcycle about the track when he lost control of it, and it shot over the rim and into a crowd of several hundred persons."

At least one spectator, 19-year-old Charles Shay, was fatally injured.  George Schroeder was removed to Coney Island Hospital "with a broken leg, internal injuries and many cuts and bruises," said the article.  He happily recovered.

On January 5, 1917, Margeritte Beyerle died here at the age of 89.  Her funeral was held in the parlor two days later.  Philippine sold 287 East 3rd Street in June 1919 to Max Schechter for $10,000 (about $181,000 today).  His tenants continued to be mostly German, like A. Steinmetz and his wife, who announced the engagement of their daughter Bess to Harry Ornstein in March 1920; and apparel worker Joseph Rosenwasser.

In 1921, "a strike in the clothing trade" began in Port Chester, New York.  A non-union man, Alexander Mangurick, took a job in a factory there to replace the union foreman.  The Yonkers Statesman reported on June 11, that the Walking Delegate in New York City directed Joseph Rosenwasser, who was 34, and Nathan Popick to go to Port Chester "and at a convenient place give him a beating."  The two men were arrested and charged with feloniously assaulting Mangurick.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Patrolman Solomon Hollander lived here in 1930.  The 26-year-old bachelor was attached to the Arsenal Station in Central Park.  Because he was an epileptic and subject to random seizures, he was not permitted to patrol with a loaded pistol.  In March 1931, he was charged with "brutally striking a business woman last Columbus Day in Central Park for sitting on the grass with two friends," according to The New York Times.  Nettie S. Wheeler charged that when she did not move from the grass "quickly enough to satisfy him," he "dragged" her to the police booth on Fifth Avenue and "struck her in the face in the police station with his clenched fist."

Hollander denied that he had struck Wheeler and on the stand "insisted that he spoke courteously when he ordered Mr. Gibson and the two women off the grass."  Mrs. Wheeler, he said, refused, saying, "I am a friend of the Park Commissioner."

On the same day of the alleged attack, according to another officer, Harry Gray, "Hollander was seized with an epileptic attack in the station."  Hollander testified that he could not remember periods of that day.  On March 24, 1931, The New York Times reported that he was found guilty "of twisting the arm of Miss Nettie S. Wheeler."  He was suspended from the police force.  Then came a plot twist.  On May 9, The Times reported that a neurologist, Charles O. Fiertz, asserted that Hollander "was not responsible for his actions at the time of the attack."  The conviction was reversed and a new trial was scheduled.  That trial resulted in Hollander getting a ten-day sentence in the workhouse.

No. 287 East 3rd Street continued as a rooming house throughout the 20th century.  In 2011, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation began a push to have the house and its fraternal twin at 285 designated individual landmarks.  In addition to the historic importance of No. 285 in Black History (it was for decades home to Steven Cannon and his "Gathering of the Tribes"), both houses, stressed the petition, are "highly intact Greek Revival 'sister' row houses dating from 1837."

photograph by Carole Teller

And, indeed, while early 19th century buildings throughout the East Village were brutalized or razed throughout the 20th century, these two examples survive pristinely intact.  Neither has landmark protection at this writing.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post.

D. & J. Jardine's 1869 108 East 10th Street

 

image via realtor.com

In 1867, just two years after John and David Jardine formed their architectural office of D. & J. Jardine, builder James Mulry hired them to design three four-story rowhouses at 106 to 110 East 10th Street just east of Third Avenue.  The resultant brick-faced residences were three bays wide.  Trimmed in brownstone, they sat upon rusticated stone English basements.  Their identical, Italianate-style design included prominent molded cornices with foliate brackets over the openings and cast metal cornices with paneled friezes and leafy scrolled brackets.

The middle house at 108 East 10th Street was operated as a boarding house from the beginning.  Living here in 1868 were the families of Asa S. Blake, who ran an express business; and physician William S. Townsend.  

An advertisement in January 1870 offered, "2 beautifully furnished rooms, with board; also back Parlor to gentleman and wife or single gentlemen.  Terms very moderate."

There were far more boarders in 1871, including the Austin family.  James and William K. Austin were partners in the gas firm James Austin & Co. at 7 Bowling Green and 311 Avenue A.  George and William Lewis were both clerks; as were Lawrence Stein and Walter Wilson.  Also boarding here that year were reporter Theodore Schenck and broker Henry M. Stanton.

Anna M. L. Baron ran the boarding house as early as 1876 and it appears she scaled back her tenant list.  Only Robert Ellis, a mirror dealer; and Dr. Galen W. Lovatt were listed at the address.

In 1881 two boarders arrived who would shine the spotlight onto 108 East 10th Street.  Actress Marie Prescott was born in Kentucky in 1850.  She first appeared on stage in Cincinnati as Lady Macbeth.  Although married with two children, she and delicatessen store owner, William Perzel, became romantically involved.  She hired him as her manager.

According to Kevin Lane Dearinger, in his Marie Prescott: A Star of Some Brilliancy, in the beginning of 1881, Perzel "rented five rooms at 108 East Tenth Street, in New York City, and as his two children were away at school, he had proposed that Prescott 'take half the flat.'"  By now, the actress had obtained a divorce.  Dearinger writes, "They were already engaged at the time...and 'shared the same table at meals,' even if they had not yet 'shared the expenses of living.'"

Marie Prescott moved in upon returning from appearing in the West.  She later explained that she "took one-half of Mr. Perzel's flat on the express condition that she should pay half the expenses.  Her French maid was with her and occupied the apartments with her."  Despite the respectable arrangement, it infuriated her press agent, Ernest Harvier, who had become infatuated with her.

Harvier created "a scene" at 108 East 10th Street, according to Prescott, when he arrived and pressed her to become his lover.  She said "She ordered him out of the house, whereupon he became angry and said, "I have spent three years to put you where you are and I will spend twenty-three years to pull you down."

Ernest Harvier told the American News Company that the star was cohabitating with Perzel and that she was pregnant with his baby.  The newspaper ran the story and in October 1882, Marie Prescott sued for $20,000 damages.  The New York Times reported that the courtroom on October 17 was filled with about 300 men who "stood before her and gazed down upon her in rude curiosity."

Marie Prescott, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Testifying that day was her former landlord, Amelia C. Tate, who "testified that she knew of nothing against Miss Prescott's character," and Dr. Miles H. Nash, who swore that Marie was not pregnant and suffered only from "a not unusual female weakness."  On the stand, Marie was asked about Harvier's testimony.  Always the actress, The New York Times reported, "A convulsive shudder ran through Miss Prescott's slender fame.  She grasped the railing of the Judge's desk tightly, and in a voice broken with sobs she slowly said: 'It is an infamous lie from beginning to end.'"

Marie won her case and was awarded $12,500--about $396,000 in 2026 terms.

Thomas Jefferson Regan, an "inspector of electric lights and gas mains," boarded here in 1890 when he was the brunt of a political joke.  On August 7 that year, The Evening World began an article saying, "There is only one Thomas Jefferson Regan in this town and he is one of Tammany's shining lights in the Fourteenth Assembly District."  The article went on to say, "A great number of Mr. Regan's friends who saw the above advertisement this morning were very much worried about him."  The notice read:

$100 Reward for any information of Thomas Jefferson Regan; has not been seen since July 31, at Washington Park.  Arthur Donnelly, 110 Madison av.

On the afternoon of July 31, the employees of Percy Rockwell's bakery hosted a picnic in Washington Square and among the "honored guests" was Regan.  A friend explained to a reporter from The Evening World, "They opened 100 bottles of fizz in our honor, and the result was that we all got feeling pretty lively."  Nevertheless, he said, "The boys have been kidding Jeff again.  He hasn't been missing at all, and I was with him all last evening."

Regan did not necessarily think the prank was humorous.  The article said, "His friends think that he will try to find out who perpetrated the hoax upon him, and will make things warm for the practical joker if he discovers him."

By the turn of the century, the tenant list was peppered with a few less professional types.  Patrick Sarsfield worked as a laborer in 1899, when he was arrested for drunkenness.  On August 9, The Sun reported that he "died of acute alcoholism on Blackwell's Island on Sunday and his body was removed to the morgue on Monday."  His brother and sister viewed the body there the next day.  "The face was discolored and there was blood upon it," said the article.  The siblings accused guards on the island of beating their brother to death, as had recently been the case of inmate James McGuire.

A heart rending story played out here in the summer of 1907.  Rolford Miller and Eva Fisk came to New York City from Washington D.C. in June and took a room here.  Miller had been employed as a private detective, but became "sickly and unable to work," according to Eva.  On July 8, Eva was arrested on Third Avenue as "a street walker."

Eva appeared in the Yorkville police court the following morning.  As her case was called, Rolford Miller entered the courtroom.  The Sun reported, "He appealed to Magistrate Wahle to discharge his wife, saying that he did not know that she spoke to men on the streets and promising that she would never do it again."  He explained that they had recently been married in Washington.

When Wahle pressed Eva, she admitted that the two were not married, that her parents lived in Plattsburg, New York, and "she was deeply in love with the young man and had been supporting him for some time" since he could no longer work.

Hearing that, Magistrate Wahle sentenced Miller to six months in the workhouse "as a vagrant," and said he would hold Eva in jail "until he could communicate with her parents."  Eva refused to disclose her parents' names and pleaded with Wahle, "Send me to jail too.  I want to go with Rolf."  She cried, "You can send me to prison, but I will not tell.  Do please let me go with him."  The article concluded, "The Magistrate turned the girl over to Matron Lynch of the court prison until to-morrow to see if she will give the address of her parents in the meantime."

Several of the tenants continued to be on the wrong side of law enforcement.  In 1909, John Mahoney was arrested for robbery, in March 1914, Meyer Lewis was convicted of pickpocketing, and three months later Joseph Gordon was arrested for armed robbery.

About 20 roomers lived at 108 East 10th Street in 1921, which was owned by Adolf Orgus and his wife.  The couple lived in the basement.  Among their roomers were 33-year-old Edith Medvin, who lived on the second floor; and 57-year-old Anna Hansel, who lived on the top floor.  Anna was "a crippled piano teacher," according to The New York Herald.

The building was quiet on Christmas night 1921.  The New-York Tribune said that only Edith Medvin and Anna Hansel "had no better place to spend Christmas than the rooms in which they lived."  At around 9:00, a passerby "noticed that a flickering glare framed the window shades on each floor and that smoke was seeping out of the door cracks," reported the New-York Tribune.  He turned in an alarm and when firefighters arrived, according to the New York Herald, "the hallway and stairs had become a furnace and it was half an hour before firemen were able to enter."

Someone in the crowd told Acting Battalion Chief Quinn that they had heard screaming coming from the blazing house before the engines arrived.  When firefighters finally could enter, they found Edith Medvin in her room, "burned about the head and upper part of her body," according to the New York Herald.  She was taken to Bellevue Hospital "so severely burned she probably will die," said the article.  

 

The New-York Tribune reported, "On the top floor in the hallway they found the body Mrs. Hansel."  Her clothing had been burned away.  Ironically, firefighters said that had she remained in her room, she probably would have survived, "as the house aside from the hallway was hardly touched by the fire."

The fire damage was repaired and 108 East 10th Street returned to a rooming house.  In 1922, Milton Pasky took a room here.  He lived in Baltimore where the 28-year-old worked as a baker's assistant.  He had arranged time off with his employer to come to New York City to find his missing sweetheart.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

A few months earlier, Milton's fiancée proposed that she would come to New York where she "could earn more money here as a stenographer" towards their wedding.  Once here, she wrote every day.  But little by little the letters came less frequently until they stopped and Milton's letters were returned stamped, "Not at this address."

The New York Herald reported on August 11, 1922 that Milton, "tucked his revolver into his hip pocket and came north to find the girl.  He and the revolver obtained a furnished room at 108 East Tenth street."  After a week of searching, on August 9, Milton ran into a female friend from Baltimore.  He asked about his missing girlfriend.

"Why, Milton," she replied, "didn't you hear?  Why, I thought everybody knew.  She's married.  The nicest fellow, too.  They got the prettiest flat.  I was up there last night.  Such a party, Milton.  Want her address?"

The crestfallen Milton did not want the address.  Now penniless and broken hearted, he walked into a pawnshop with the only thing he had of value, his revolver.

"Can you gimme enough on this to buy a ticket to Baltimore?" he asked the broker.

Unfortunately for Milton, Detective Casseti was in the shop at the time.  He arrested Milton Pasky as "a violator of the Sullivan Law."  (The 1911 Sullivan Law required a license to carry a concealed weapon.)  The "sad Baltimorean," as described by the New York Herald, was jailed in The Tombs downtown.

Sometimes tragic, sometimes criminal, and more often colorful roomers continued to live here.  Harry Bailey, who rented a room in 1931, was arrested for working in a speakeasy and selling drinks to a Prohibition agent.  Hyman Rosenberg was one of a dozen striking textile workers arrested on July 18, 1940 when a "mass picketing demonstration," as described by The New York Times, "culminated in a near-riot in front of City Hall."  And Aurelio Fazio was involved in a bizarre workplace incident on June 23, 1945.  Fazio worked in a barbershop at 671 Third Avenue.  For no apparent reason, while another barber was cutting a customer's hair that afternoon, Fazio went berserk and attacked his co-worker with his razor.  Leonardo Pascalicchio told investigators, "I was cutting hair this way for the customer, and the barber in the third chair, without warning, he tried to cut my head off."  Pascalicchio suffered a slash to his neck that ran nearly ear-to-ear.

A renovation completed in 1962 resulted in an apartment in the basement and a single-family home on the upper floors.

The 1890 Elmhurst Apartments - 212 West 105th Street

 

photo by Anthony Bellov

In 1889, Diedrich Tragman hired architect John C. Burne to design two identical apartment buildings at 210 and 212 West 105th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and The Boulevard (renamed Broadway in 1899).  

Each of the buildings cost Tragman $20,000 (or about $631,000 in 2026) to erect.  Unfortunately, he overextended himself and on May 10, 1890 he was forced to sell the "two five-story unfinished double flats in process of erection, requiring for the purpose of their completion an expenditure of about six thousand dollars," according to court papers later.  The buyer, Frederick M. Littlefield, completed the buildings.  (The term "double flat" referred to the configuration of two apartments per floor, east and west.)

The western building, 212 West 105th Street, was called the Elmhurst Apartments.  Like its architectural sibling, it was a happy marriage of Romanesque Revival and neo-Grec styles (the former appearing at the first and fifth floors). Paired windows on the first floor were engulfed by vast arches.  They flanked the brownstone-framed entrance above a short stoop.  Intricate swirling carvings filled its spandrels.

Faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone and terra cotta, the three-story midsection featured neo-Grec-style stone lintels, foliate terra cotta bandcourses and decorative panels.  The elements of the top floor included a dramatic brick arch above two fully arched openings.  It was supported by paired brick pilasters with terra cotta capitals.  A highly unusual pressed cornice with geometric horizontal and vertical lines completed the design.

photograph by Anthony Bellov

Each apartment held "six large, light rooms," according to an advertisement.  They rented for $25 a month, or about $1,000 today.  Among the initial tenants were builder and contractor Ernest Wetterer, and New York Life Insurance Company agent Silas E. Pearsall.

The middle-class residents were affluent enough to afford domestic help.  An advertisement in the New York Herald on January 18, 1893, read: "Housework--a girl, 16 to 17, to help with housework and washing; wages $5 or $6.  Mrs. Garrison, 212 West 105th st."  The higher figure would translate to about $215 today.  

Mary and H. D. Hubener purchased 212 West 105th Street in August 1906.  Two months later, "a heap of kerosene-soaked rags was found in the cellar," reported The New York Times, which said the "attempt to burn the building was reported to the police, but they were unable to get a clew to the firebug."  Mary Hubener had her suspicions, though.  She and her husband had previously owned an apartment house where they were harassed by a "woman firebug."  

The vengeful arsonist had only started, however.  A few months later, The Brooklyn Citizen reported, "The tenants of the house...had about forgotten this fire when on Dec. 1 another blaze was discovered among some furniture in the cellar.  Three days later this was discovered ablaze again, and the terror began to seize upon the tenants."

At 8:45 on the night of December 6, 1906, another rubbish fire was discovered in the cellar of the building and four nights later another was set in the hallway.  On January 7, 1907, the New York Herald reported on yet another fire, saying, "This was the fifth fire of undoubted incendiary origin that had been discovered in the house within two weeks."  On the same day, The Brooklyn Citizen reported that police "got information to-day that a woman firebug" was bent on destroying "the handsome ten-family apartment house."  Mary Hubener told the police the woman's name.  

The New York Herald added, "the place has a reputation of being a hoodoo house."  (The term meant it was cursed.)  Mary Hubener told a reporter from The Brooklyn Citizen, "These fires have about ruined me.  Nobody will live in the house."  The New York Herald reported that the repeated attempts to burn the building resulted in its being "almost deserted by its tenants.  Three of ten families were left and these had given notice of their intention to take an early departure."

The Hubeners apparently gave up.  On April 30, 1907, The New York Times reported that they had sold the building.  The fires ceased.

212 West 105th Street (right) is identical to its neighbor at 210.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Somewhat shockingly for the times, 26-year-old Florence Sohmer lived here on her own in 1911.  On the evening of August 6 that year, three teenaged males knocked on her door "with a letter purporting to come from a friend," as reported by The Evening World.  While she started reading the letter, one of them pulled out a revolver, "while another hit her over the head with a blackjack," said the article.  Florence Sohmer screamed, frightening her assailants and causing them to flee.  Florence's shrieks had alerted passersby.  The Evening World said the men "ran, with a crowd following into Morningside Park."  The trio, whose ages ranged from 17 to 19, were later captured.

Living here around the time was French-born Marie Escande and her daughter, Charlotte.  Marie worked as the companion of wealthy widow Dorcas Knox Braisted, who lived in the Hotel Gotham on Fifth Avenue.  Mrs. Braisted died at her summer home in White Plains on March 24, 1925.  The New York Times reported, "Mme. Marie Escande of 212 West 105th Street...will receive an annuity of $1,800."  The annual windfall would equal more than $32,000 today.

A tenant named Thylstrup also worked for himself.  Moving in around 1915, he remained here into the 1920s.  His advertisements over the years never changed: "Painter, paperhanger, kalsominer, first class; has tools; reasonable."  (A skilled craftsman, a kalsominer applied kalsomine to ceilings, resulting in a matte finish.)

A replacement door sits within the carved brownstone frame.  photo by Anthony Bellov

There are still just two apartments per floor in the building that lost its name decades ago.  Other than a shocking coat of bright turquoise paint on the cornice, little has changed externally to the 135 year old building.

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

The Lost James B. Finnen House - 147 East 126th Street

 

Charles Von Urban photographed the vintage structure in 1932.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

In the years just following the end of the Civil War, two-story frame houses began dotting East 126th Street.  Their addresses were listed in directories through 1869 simply as "East 126th Street" since actual numbers would not be assigned until the following year.

James B. Finnen, a builder, occupied 147 East 126th Street that year, and it is likely he constructed it.  The clapboard, vernacular style building sat upon a stone basement.  Its naive design was not the product of a professional architect, but was the work of the builder.  Three bays wide, its single-doored entrance harkened to Greek Revival prototypes of a generation earlier.  The projecting wooden cornice below the peaked roof was supported by three utilitarian brackets.

In the rear yard was a second, smaller house.  Both buildings would see a regular turnover of occupants.  In 1873, Walter L. Thompson and his wife, Maria, occupied one building and Alexander Rogers and his family lived in the other.  Thompson worked as a clerk and Rogers was in the stone business.

Walter and Maria Thompson's baby girl, Loretta, was born on August 18, 1872.  Sadly, she died one month after her first birthday, on September 24, 1873.  Her funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

As early as 1876, William Ellis, a laborer, and his family occupied the rear house.  He and his wife had four children, Nellie, Mamie, Harry, and Edward (known as Eddie).  At the time, the Pabor family lived in the rear house next door at 145 East 126th Street.  

Around 1881, Pabors moved into the front house at No. 147.  Born in 1848, David Simon Pabor was a clerk.  He and his wife, Eliza Boazman, who was born in 1855, had four children, Catherine (known as Katie), Harry Munson, Lucy E., and David Jr.  

David Pabor died here on October 18, 1883 at the age of 36.  His funeral was held in the house on October 20.

Eliza Pabor and her children remained here.  The Ellis and Pabor children had been playmates for years.  In 1889, The Evening World initiated its "Sick Babies Fund" that solicited donations of clothing and money for "the babes of the poor."  The Ellis and Pabor children were moved and they organized an "entertainment" with several of the neighborhood children.

On August 19, 1889, the newspaper reprinted their letter: 

Please find inclosed [sic] $8.50, the proceeds of our second entertainment, held at 147 East One Hundred and Twenty-sixth street, on Thursday evening, Aug. 15, 1889, for the benefit of your Sick Babies' Fund held by the undersigned.

The children, the oldest of whom was Catherine at age 15, had raised the equivalent of $300 in 2026.  Their efforts did not stop with that event.  

The following year, on August 12, 1890, The Evening World reported, "Among the many Harlemites who became interested in The Evening World's efforts to raise a fund to send doctors among the sick babies was Miss Mamie Ellis, a pretty dark-eyed girl, of 147 East One Hundred and Twenty-sixth street."  The article explained that Mamie had "enlisted a corps of playmates and made arrangements for a rousing benefit."

The Harlem Democratic Club donated the use of its hall.  This year, Mamie Ellis convinced her teacher, Miss McKee, to help.  The children practiced for weeks before the event, which was held on August 8, 1890.  The article said, "the hall was crowded."  Among the extensive list of participants were familiar names.  Mamie Ellis recited "Asleep at the Switch" and sang, "Anchored."  Nellie Ellis recited "Singen on the Rhine," and Eddie Ellis recited "Pat and the Pig."  Harry Pabor was involved as well, reciting "Barbara Frietchie."  The benefit garnered $59.45--equal to more than $2,000 today.

Around this time, Captain Harry Munson Sr. and Jr., moved in with the Pabors.  The elder man appears to have been Eliza's maternal uncle.  Born in South Amboy, New Jersey in 1808, The Daily Argus described him as, "one of the oldest and best known oysterman of Long Island Sound."  Munson started in the oyster business in 1821.  According to the New York Herald, "He was among the first to learn the secret of replanting oyster beds with the small oysters which before this had been thrown overboard as worthless."

After his retirement in 1861, Munson opened a saloon on Park Row called "The Old Reliable."  Before moving into the East 126th Street house, he lived on City Island.  Remarkably fit for his age, in 1890, "he rowed from Harlem Bridge to City Island in a substantial rowboat, in which he spent many days at fishing and rowing about the Harlem River and the Sound," said the New York Herald.

Harry Munson Sr. died here on January 4, 1893 at the age of 85.  The Daily Argus attributed his death to "a stroke of paralysis."

Now grown, on August 5, 1895 Harry Munson Pabor signed a petition requesting the Board of Aldermen to consider "the necessity for the bicycle path between the upper and lower parts of the city."  By now, Catherine was listed as a dressmaker, running her business from the house.

Harry Munson by no means followed his father's career in oysters.  He founded the New York Bill Posting Company and in 1897 described himself in the Trow's Directory as a "bill poster and display advertising contractor."  

Trow's City Directory, 1897 (copyright expired)

Following his marriage, Harry Munson and his wife appeared in the society pages.  The couple maintained a country home in Munson, New York.  (The town was named for his father.)  On December 2, 1897, for instance, The Queens County Sentinel reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Harry Munson have returned to New York, at 147 East 126th Street.  Mr. Munson expects to spend a portion of the Winter in the South."

At the time of the article, Eliza Pabor and her unmarried children had left East 126th Street.  (Eliza would live until 1939, dying at the age of 84.)  The Munsons lived on the upper floor of 147 East 126th Street and Harry installed a "branch office" of the New York Bill Posting Company in the parlor floor.  In doing so, he made no alterations to the exterior of the house.

One original two-over-two window survived on the first floor in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By 1912, Munson had divested himself from the New York Billposting Company.  C. H. Taylor now managed the firm, a branch of which still occupied the first floor.  When Vincenzo Celenza purchased the property in May 1920, it was still described as a "dwelling."

By the late Depression years, the Bronx Pattern & Model Works occupied the basement and first floor.  It advertised, "wood and metal patterns, machinery, automobile ornamental work."

The second floor continued to be residential.  An advertisement in the New York Amsterdam News on May 23, 1964 offered, "Large and small front room."  Against all odds, the wooden relic survived unaltered until its demolition in 1990, replaced by a six-floor apartment building.