The Bowery Mission -- No. 227 Bowery

photo by Alice Lum

In 1865 the Bowery was rapidly changing from a once-fashionable residential street to a commercial neighborhood with German musical halls and beer gardens as well as banks and shops. Here Jones Stolts ran his undertaking business.

Three decades later, as the turn of the century approached, J. & J. W. Stolts at No. 227 Bowery was among the most respected undertaking establishments in the city. It was here that the autopsy of the murdered actress Laura Booth was conducted on March 29, 1898. By now the firm had branched out, manufacturing hearses, coffins and undertaking supplies from its three-story factory on East 104th Street.

In the meantime, the Bowery had continued to change. Gangs of youths roamed the streets at night and bawdy houses were crammed with “degraded women” and drunkards. In response, missions sprang up with the goal of saving these people from the evils around them.

One was the Bowery Mission.  Reverend Albert Gleason Ruliffson founded the Mission in 1879 in a rented room at No. 36 Bowery. After a while, Ruliffson moved the mission to No. 14 Bowery; but money was a constant problem and by 1895 the mission was dangerously close to shutting down.

Hearing of the mission’s plight, the owner of the Christian Herald, Dr. Louis Klopsch, purchased the institution that year to prevent its closing.  With the infusion of cash, things were going nicely for the mission, which moved again to the former Gombossy’s Music Hall at No. 55 Bowery in 1897.

Then plans were announced in 1904 for the erecting of the Manhattan Bridge. The proposed wide entrance would eliminate scores of buildings including No. 55 Bowery. The Bowery Mission needed to find a new home.

On the evening of March 22, 1905 the Stolts factory building uptown burned to the ground. The business was destroyed. Before long the Bowery Mission purchased the old J. & J. W. Stolts undertaking building at No. 227 Bowery and began renovations.

In January 1908, the year before the Mission moved into its new building, destitute men receive their bread and "bowl of coffee" -- photo Library of Congress

$20,000 later the attractive but utilitarian brick undertaker’s structure was transformed. Architects H. L. and M. G. Emery created a roomy chapel on the second floor inspired by medieval English architecture. Heavy wood trusses supported the ceiling and, outside, a neo-Tudor half-timbered window projected slightly from the façade. Here four large stained glass windows were installed. Reflecting the mission’s need to reach out to the unsaved souls outside the chapel, the stained glass inscriptions were designed to be read from the sidewalk rather than the inside, as would be expected in most churches.

The architects created a rather unexpected Tudor-inspired second story chapel on the Victorian building -- photo by Alice Lum

The new space was dedicated on November 7, 1909. The New York Times praised the renovations, saying “It is well ventilated on the suction-fan and purifying chamber system, and the latest improvements in sanitation have been installed throughout. The establishment contains a dining hall, kitchen, dormitories, and writing room.”

The Mission's 1909 fund raising ad included an etching of the new building -- NYPL Collection

The inspirational book “Wonders of Providence” remarked on the move. “After several changes and removal of the Mission to 55 Bowery, where is was located for a number of years, it has finally been established in a new and excellent location at 227 Bowery, near Rivington Street, where the magnificent new Mission Building, now occupied, is so constructed and equipped as to meet not only the needs of today, but to accommodate an even more extensive work for men in the future.”

In an attempt to reach out to those outside the Mission, the inscriptions on the stained glass were meant to be read from the sidewalk rather than from the chapel -- photo by Alice Lum

A month after opening, President William Howard Taft made a call at The Bowery Mission. Superintendant J. G. Hallimond told the assembled men, “It took a man with a great big athletic heart to make the long journey from the White House to the Bowery.”

As the President began speaking to the bedraggled group he announced “My friends, I am just as much surprised at being here as you are to see me here.” Speaking of the Mission he said “It is truly great work to help men over the hard places, to help them at a time when things seem desperate, to show men that there are people who feel with them in their misfortunes and anxious to assist them to get the opportunity which will enable you to achieve something for yourselves.”

A bread line snakes along the Bowery in 1910 -- photo Library of Congress

From here the Mission continued its work of distributing 2,000 breakfasts—a “large roll and a bowl of coffee"—every morning. A worship service was held once a day and five times on Sunday and, perhaps most important to the down-and-out Bowery residents, it conducted a “Free Labor Bureau” and Dr. Forbes of Columbia University provided one hour of free medical advice every day.

A 1910 ad in Christian Charities focused on the Free Labor Bureau.

When a blizzard hit the city that first winter, the Mission was able to convince the City to hire more than 150 out-of-luck workers to clear snow. It placed ads and sent letters nationwide to obtain jobs for unemployed men on farms, in factories or shops. In February 1911 Richmond, Virginia’s The Southern Planter said “there are now in the city more idle men than ever before, many able, honest men, qualified for any sort of farm work, laborers of every description, skilled workers, and others, all wanting work yet finding none to do.”

That year Henshaw Brothers Florists from Springfield, New Jersey wrote to the Mission praising “Thomas Campton has made good and lived up to your recommendation,” and John A. Roebling’s Sons of Trenton wrote “I have never had a dishonest man or boy from the Mission. The man sent last is exceptionally good. He can turn his hand to anything, is a willing worker, and is a pleasant person to have around.”

Despite its location on what was variously called “Skid Row” and the “Street of No Return,” The Bowery Mission did not escape the notice of even New York’s most privileged.

The wedding of Helen Miller Gould, the daughter of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gould, to Findley J. Shepard took place on January 22, 1913. As part of the celebration, she provided dinner for 1,000 hungry men at the Mission. Groups of 225 men at a time were fed roast beef, vegetables, pie, bread and coffee; a wedding reception they would long remember.

On Christmas Eve 1917, as the mansions of Fifth Avenue and the swank apartments of Park Avenue were bright with festivities, the men of the Bowery huddled in the cold. The New York Sun, however, reported that “Just as the derelicts of the Bowery began to assemble at the various ‘bread lines’ a little before midnight Christmas eve a big limousine car turned out of a fashionable thoroughfare and sped to the Bowery Mission at 227 Bowery. Inside were some 250 hungry, shabby men singing in quavering tones ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.”

The article told how “three young women and two men, attired in evening clothes with diamonds flashing from the fingers and garments of the women” waited for the men to begin filing out. As they did, the well-dressed Good Samaritans distributed cash to the needy men and gave another $450 to Reverend Hallimond.

“In the party,” said The Sun, “were Mrs. E. W. Kingdon of the Plaza Hotel, Miss Bettina LaFell of the Plaza, George Graham Rice, the meteoric broker of Emma Leasing fame, and Mrs. Oscar Daube. The women wore jewels valued at many thousands of dollars, and yet during the entire night while hundreds of men of all kinds crowded around the car eagerly reaching out for the money, not once did anything occur to frighten the women or cause the men to look around for a bluecoat.”

Before Christmas Eve was over, the group had given away $3,800.

Mrs. Kingdom told a reporter “Yes, we did visit the Bowery last night, and we had a real Christmas. Those are the kind of people who really need help, and the pleasure it gave us and the gratitude they showed was worth ever so much more than the money we gave away.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt stopped by on July 15, 1920. In an effort to encourage the broken men, he assured “I think things are going up, not down. I don’t believe in talk of the good old times. These times were never as good as the present. And by the same token, these good times are not as good as those of tomorrow.”

The good times of tomorrow that Roosevelt predicted would be a while in coming, for before the decade was out The Great Depression would make the Bowery even more desolate. Bread lines stretched around the block and the Mission faced its greatest challenge yet as once gainfully-employed men found themselves penniless.

Men in fedoras and overcoats join the bread line in 1932 during the Great Depression -- NYPL Collection

A century later the neighborhood continues to change. While remnants of the old Skid Row exist, clubs and sushi restaurants gradually replace grittier businesses or vacant storefronts. Yet the Mission continues its work with the homeless.  The former Salvation Army building next door at 225 was annexed and in 2002 around $1 million was spent on updating and renovating the Mission building.

At the time, Executive Director Brian Johansson explained, “We wanted to make a statement that we’re here to stay. We’re an accent—not an eyesore.” As it did in 1909, the mission, operating on charitable contributions, provides meals, beds and rehabilitation programs for the homeless.

The Victorian brick and limestone Bowery Mission building with its surprising Tudor second floor elicits double-takes from unwary passersby. But its eccentric façade only hints at its interesting history.

From Society Pages to Homeless Shelter-- The Beechwood 125 E. 24th Street

The Romanesque Revival features and dignified treatment of the structure were intended to lure fashionable tenants.

In 1888 the side streets around Madison Square were changing as upper-class citizens left their comfortable brownstone residences for neighborhoods further uptown. Here, on November 13, William Francis Oakey died in his home at 125 East 24th Street.

According to his obituary by the New Jersey Historical Society, he “entertained at his house many distinguished people, his and his wife’s friends.” Among those was the poet William Cullen Bryant. The article noted the “dancing was mixed with the excellent music that nightly sounded in his parlors. He lived luxuriously, but without display.”

With Oakey’s death, the nightly music in the parlors came to a halt and within the year the house was gone.

In its place came The Beechwood – a residential hotel designed to cater to the wants of well-heeled tenants who did not want to be bothered with the tedium of running a household. Residential hotels were just appearing and were, in effect, apartment houses by today’s definition.

The brick and brownstone building rose six stories over a roomy basement. The entrance was sheltered by a deep brownstone portico into which THE BEECHWOOD was carved. Rough-cut brownstone blocks and paired Romanesque Revival windows on the first floor created a visually-substantial base. Stone carvers embellished façade and cornices with birds, foliage and whimsical faces.

A whimsical, stylized "green man" hides in foliage above a much more traditional profile.

The new residents were lured with the latest in domestic technology, including an elevator.  Among the first to move in was Jacob Bebus in 1889. It was a time when medical conditions like dementia were not yet understood. His 80-year old mother, Mary Bebus Bogel, left her home at 214 E. 107th Street to see her son’s new home. When she was found wandering and confused, police took her to the station house.  Finding nothing criminal, they let her go. Mrs. Bogel never made it to The Beechwood.

A band of carved brownstone twists and twines in ornate foliate designs along the width of the Beechwood.

The early years saw a tenant list filled with respectable and highly-educated names. “Miss Manning,” a member of the Chancel Committee of St. George’s Church on Stuyvesant Square, lived here in 1896. It was the home of gynecologist Dr. Margaret E. Sullivan who studied in Dresden and Paris, and of Remington Squire and his wife Mary Louise Clary Squire. Squire was a member of the editorial staff of the New York Journal.

Neither face in these carved panels appears overly happy -- evidence of the secret fun stone carvers enjoyed in their factory-like workrooms.

As World War I approached, The Beechwood continued to attract the upper class. Duncan Gilbert Harris was here in 1907, a member of the real estate firm of Harris & Vaught and of the Racquet and Tennis Club and the Harvard Club. Banker and broker Daniel A. Lindley, a member of the firm Field, Lindley, Wiechers & Co., died here in 1915.

On May 19, 1921 The New York Tribute reported on the wedding of Paula Augusta Matsner who lived here with her widowed mother, Mrs. Augusta O. Matsner and her sisters. She married Sydney S. Breese who was employed by Alexander Graham Bell doing “experimental work.” The newspaper noticed that “Announcement of the engagement came as a surprise to Mr. Breese’s circle of society friends day before yesterday.”

The newlyweds passed the summer aboard Breese’s yacht, the Filatonga.

Five years later Mrs. Charles R. Scarborough brought unwanted acclaim to The Beechwood. Mrs. Scarborough was the Chairman of the Women’s Auxiliary of the New York Port Society and was in charge of the Independence Day and “Uncle Sam Night” celebrations. She announced to the press that the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” would be barred.  Instead those attending would be asked to join in the singing of “Yankee Doodle,” “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and “God Save the King.”

Her reason was that “in her opinion the words and spirit of some of the stanzas in the song were not in accord with the friendly feeling now existing between the Unites States and Great Britain,” according to The New York Times on June 30, 1926.

The patriotic public was not pleased.  Mrs. Scarborough received letters threatening physical violence, some written by the Ku Klux Klan, and similar telephone calls. “One note suggested that she should be horsewhipped, and the writer said he would be pleased to apply the last 100 times,” reported The Times.

Mrs. Scarborough escaped without a horsewhipping.

Among Mrs. Scarborough’s well-respected neighbors at The Beechwood was Mrs. Abram S. Hewitt whose pedigree included names like Shepard, Schieffelin and Vanderbilt.  Louise Vanderbilt Schieffelin Hewitt was directly descended from Commodore Vanderbilt on her mother’s side and from first Chief Justice and one-time Governor of New York John Jay on her father’s. Her marriage in 1924 to Abram Hewitt, whose ancestors included Peter Cooper and former Mayor Abram S. Hewitt, was “one of the social events of the season,” according to newspaper accounts.

After the birth of her second child, however, Louise suffered a nervous breakdown and had been receiving treatment at the Riggs Sanitarium in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. As Christmas approached, she traveled home to The Beechwood with her nurse, Beatrice Gosling, to spend the holidays with the family. On Wednesday, December 8, 1926 the Hewitts attended the theater. The following day Louise told her husband she planned to do Christmas shopping.

Tragically, when her nurse was out of the room, she threw herself from a sixth-story window to her death in the courtyard below.

When operators George Zauderer & Sons leased The Beechwood in 1930 from the Bernard J. Ludwig estate, the structure was beginning to show its age. By 1937 it was taken over by the League of American Writers who established a literary school here.

“Courses will last for ten weeks and are open to young people between the ages of 18 and 25 who have not had poetry published except in school or college magazines,” said the press announcement.

In 1951 there was a Chinese Laundry in the basement and 34 single-room occupancy rooms above. The fashionable residential hotel where names from the society pages once lived was now a flop-house.

A decade later Arthur Frommer listed The Beechwood as “a real bargain that offers singles with adjoining bath for $2.63 per night, and double rooms for $3.70, with an added bonus of a shared kitchen on each floor so you can save even more money by making your own breakfast.”

Perhaps it was a “real bargain,” but not all those who roomed here were savory.  On May 18, 1961 police staked out the lobby for resident Lawrence (Lorengo) Catanzaro. When the 37-year old entered at 1:00 am on May 19, 1961 he was disarmed and arrested for the murder of a United Parcel Service driver in a “hold-up and slaying.”

Then, in October 1980, when the future for The Beechwood looked its darkest, a group of Franciscan friars headquartered at the St. Francis of Assisi Monastery on West 31st Street purchased the building for $550,000.  With no government aid, they transformed the hotel into the St. Francis Residence. The facility provided shelter to homeless New Yorkers; what New York Magazine on December 21 of that year called “a safe, dignified environment for scores of men and women who would otherwise be walking the streets.”

In 1985 Father Thomas J. Walters explained “This is not an institution, this is a home. We have only two rules: One is no drinking in the common area and the other is don’t fight with anyone and don’t hurt yourself.”

The Home provides activities such as workshops in art, music, dance and poetry and the tenants publish their own newspaper. Field trips to the movies, ballet, museums and the countryside are available. Residents make their own decisions through a tenant’s council.

Lost in restoration, THE BEECHWOOD once graced the panel over the portico in protruding, carved lettering.

In the renovation of the building, the wonderful carved panel, THE BEECHWOOD, was lost. But the handsome building remains remarkably preserved despite its sometimes sketchy past.

 photos by the author

The Gothic-Art Deco General Electric Building - 570 Lexington Avenue

Cross & Cross deliberately chose harmonious materials and colors to create unity with St. Bartholomew's Church -- photo by Fletcher6

The tracks of the cinder- and smoke-belching trains that ran up the center of Park Avenue from Grand Central Terminal were dropped below street level and covered over in 1913, creating a wide handsome boulevard.  The neighborhood changed from somewhat gritty to undeniably classy.

In 1914 Bertram Goodhue’s magnificent Byzantine-inspired St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church began rising.  The masterful building would pose a challenge to architects Cross & Cross thirteen years later.

The Jazz Age arrived in New York City in the 1920s and with it came the architectural style that would become synonymous with Manhattan at the time:  Art Deco.  It was also a dizzying time of new technology, including motion pictures and the radio.

The Bartholomew Building Corporation planned a soaring skyscraper on Lexington Avenue and 51^st Street, directly behind Goodhue’s church, still under construction.  In 1929 the firm commissioned Cross & Cross to design the building using the direction of the chief tenant, the Radio Victor Corporation of America—later known simply as RCA.  Because the influential radio company, which owned the R-K-O chain of motion picture theaters and the National Broadcasting Company, had already signed a lease for nine full floors, it was given a free hand at the design direction.

The new skyscraper rises high above the dome of St. Bartholomew's -- photo NYPL Collection

The architects were to erect a 50-story building that reflected the modernity and energy of Radio Victor.  Yet it was not to clash with the nearly-completed Byzantine church on Park Avenue for which it would form a backdrop.    It would be a rare and early example of architectural sensitivity and contextual design.

What resulted was a slender tower of nearly-matching brick and terra cotta, creating what writer Carter B. Horsley has called the “unofficial campanile to the church.”  But while the skyscraper honored Goodhue’s Byzantine design, it did not bow to it.  The façade, from sidewalk to crown, was frosted with spiky Art Deco ornamentation that symbolized the radio age. 

Only photographer Berenice Abbott could capture the two buildings so perfectly -- photo NYPL Collection

Electric charges, zig zags, stylized bolt-like figures with electric rays sparking from their heads grace the façade and unique crown.   There were symbols of radio dials and needles in the grooves of records, and musical instruments at the 12^th floor recall RCA’s recording business

Upon the completion of the building in 1931, the Real Estate Record and Guide interviewed John W. Cross who explained the challenge of representing radio in masonry.  “Romantic though radio may be,” he said, “it is at the same time intangible and elusive—a thing which can be captured visually only through symbolism.”

Cross pointed out the lobby, rendered in red marble and aluminum, was “free from any suggestion of past times or places.”  Instead, its Art Deco detailing and fixtures represented everything modern and current.

Without a doubt the most striking feature was the crown, 570-feet above the ground:  a jumble of spikes and intertwined bolts and figures symbolizing the force of radio.  Carter B. Horsley went so far as to say “this tower boasts a fantastic top that may well be the most original and attractive skyscraper roof in the world.”

The crown has been described as one of the most impressive in the world -- photo by MegaMatic

Despite the dark cloud of the Great Depression, other impressive construction projects were going on simultaneously, among them the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center.   Even before Radio Victor moved into the its new offices in what was now called the RCA Building, there was change in the works.   The company’s Annual Report for the Year 1930 disclosed that the firm “had intended to make its permanent home” in the “thoroughly modern office building at 570 Lexington Avenue.”

But the siren song of Rockefeller Center was too alluring.

“However, subsequent crystallization of plans for the construction of Radio City made it apparent that the opportunity for occupancy of this community should not be sacrificed,” the report said.   Even before the company moved in, it was preparing to move out.  “The building will be occupied by RCA pending the completion of Radio City about three years hence.”

When RCA moved out in 1933 it took the name of the RCA Building with it to Rockefeller Center.  Its offices were taken over by the parent company, General Electric which immediately rechristened 570 Lexington as the General Electric Building.

The artistic details Cross & Cross had lavished on the structure were perfectly applicable to General Electric—electric bolts and zig zags were as much about electricity as radio waves.  The company made only a few design changes—changing the RCA clock over the entrance to the GE logo, for instance.

General Electric added its own logo to the clock under two fists holding an electric bolt.  Behind, the astonishing brickwork can be seen. -- photo by Lockley

The headquarters of General Electric remained in the building for three decades until, in 1974, the firm relocated to Fairfield, Connecticut.   Difficult economic conditions and an aging, out-of-date skyscraper resulted in the firm's being unable to rent office space.  By 1993 the building had only a one-third occupancy and was not bringing in enough rent to cover expenses.

The company donated the building to Columbia University in 1993, earning itself a $40 million tax deduction.

Columbia, not wanting the burden of General Electric’s white elephant, partnered with Quantum Realty Partners and the Mendik Company to convert it into a money-making property.  The group commissioned architects WCA Design Group to update the building and restore the lobby and exterior lower three floors.

The $3.5 million project restored the exterior marble, cleaned out the accumulation of half-a-century of small modern additions like fire call boxes in the lobby and disguised the 10-year old subway entrance as an original Art Deco element.

The magnificent once-RCA Building, then General Electric Building, now 570 Lexington Avenue is one of the most remarkable structures in the city and too often left off the must-see list of tourists and New Yorkers alike.

The Lost Isaac Vail Brokaw Mansion -- No. 1 East 79th Street



An Edwardian mother walks her son, in knickers, across the street in front of the Brokaw mansion, while a driver steers from the right side of the car down Fifth Avenue.  Behind the mansion are the twin residences of Howard and Irving Brokaw -- photo Library of Congress

Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1835, Isaac Vail Brokaw was of “Huguenot descent,” according to the 1907 Who’s Who in New York City and State.  Brokaw went into business with the cloth importing firm of Wilson G. Hunt & Co and later organized a clothing firm with his brother which they called Brokaw Brothers. The Who’s Who in New York City and State entry noted that the firm “has long been a leading one in that business.”

Indeed, business was such that by 1887 Brokaw was among the wealthiest men in the city. That year he commissioned architects Rose & Stone to design a grand French chateau on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 79th Street, across from Central Park. Three years after construction began, the great home was completed.

The entrance was clad in Caen stone and embellished with mosaics -- photo

© Dec 2 2008 IEEE

  

The architects drew their inspiration from the 16th century Chateau de Chenonceau. Accessed by a heavy stone portico above a wide flight of steps, the limestone hulk had all the trappings necessary for a storybook fantasy: turrets, gables, balconies and finials. A three-foot stone wall guarded the light moat that surrounded the home.

Inside, the grand entrance hall boasted Caen stone walls, intricate mosaics and stained glass panels. In an early and inventive use of artificial lighting, the stained glass panels were back-lit by a suspended electric globe. Elegant bronze railings swept up the staircases. The library was Elizabethan in style with dark paneled walls, leaded windows, a delicate plasterwork ceiling and a seven-foot tall safe disguised within the woodwork.

Author Nathan Silver would later say of it, “There was a dignity and rugged solidity in the old castle.”

Brokaw and his wife, the former Elvira Gould, lived in the mansion with their daughter, Elvira, and three sons, George, Howard, and Irving. To help the family get along were a houseman and helper, a butler, two footmen, two cooks, a chamber maid and parlor maid.

The stained glass panels of the entrance hall were backlit by a hanging, electric globe -- photo

© Dec 2 2008 IEEE

Here, on June 10, 1896, “the most fashionable wedding of the season” took place when Elvira married Carl Aage Vilhelm Frederick von Fischer-Hansen. The entire choir from the Madison Avenue Reformed Church sang as the bridal party descended the broad staircase, through the music room and into the parlor.

The New York Times remarked that the groom, an attorney, “belongs to an ancient and noble Danish family,” and the couple left on the Normandie to honeymoon in Denmark at his family’s feudal castle. Unfortunately, his ancient and noble lineage could not keep him from a prison term in Blackwell’s Island some years later for complicity in bribing a witness.

Elvira obtained a Nevada divorce in June 1911. She married another lawyer, William McNair, in 1914. McNair managed to stay out of prison.

As the children grew up and married, Isaac began providing them homes as well. In 1905 Charles F. Rose designed matching French Gothic mansions for Howard and Irving. There was no need to build a home for George, the eldest, since it was understood he would inherit the family mansion at 1 East 79th Street.

One of the pair of French Gothic mansions on Fifth Avenue behind the Isaac Brokaw house -- photo

© Oct 4 2008 IEEE

The next year, on May 29, The New York Tribune reported on the rising mansions. “The two houses which Mr. and Mrs. Isaac V. Brokaw are having built in Fifth avenue between 79th and 80th Streets, adjoining their own home, will be occupied by their sons and daughters-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Howard C. Brokaw and Mr. and Mrs. Irving Brokaw. The houses are of gray granite, are of the French chateau style and six stories high. It will probably be a year before they are ready for occupancy.”

Upon their completion, the Brokaw compound would wrap around Fifth Avenue, halfway to 80th Street.

Two weeks prior to the Tribune article the family had a scare when a black horse pulling a coupe became spooked and uncontrollably galloped down Fifth Avenue. When the horse collided with a hansom, it swerved directly toward the Brokaw mansion while the driver pulled helplessly at the reins.

The New York Times reported that “The horse headed for the Brokaw house, jumped the granite area wall, almost pulling the coupe over with it. The driver was thrown from his seat and struck upon his head on the sidewalk.”

The horse hung, thrashing, from the vehicle’s shafts in the light moat. The entire Brokaw family rushed to the windows, hearing the pounding of the panicked animal’s hooves. When police arrived, they cut the animal free, allowing it to drop into the moat where it stayed. “It will require a block and tackle to remove the horse,” said The New York Times.

Unnerved, Brokaw had the moat covered over.

Isaac Vail Brokaw died in 1913, leaving an estate of nearly $12.5 million. Mrs. Brokaw remained in the house which, The Times said, son George “will enjoy for life after the death of his mother.” Brokaw’s daughter, Elvira Brokaw McNair inherited the lot next door at 7 East 79th Street and $250,000 to be used to erect her own residence.  In 1914 her restrained mansion, designed by architect H. Van Buren Magonigle, completed the Brokaw complex of real estate.

Elvira's new home stands in marked contrast to her parents' mansion -- photo

© Dec 2 2008 IEEE

After his mother’s death, George begrudgingly lived on in the house he intensely disliked—because of its size and cost of maintenance—through two marriages (the first to Clare Boothe who would later become Clare Boothe Luce). His life in the mansion was forced on him by his brother and the courts.

In 1925 George had moved out and petitioned the courts to allow him to mortgage the property for $800,000 and use the money to demolish the mansion and erect a modern apartment house. George called the house “old” and complained that it was heavily taxed and “non-remunerative.”

His brother, Howard stepped in to block the move. Three years later, after uncomfortable court battles, the Appellate Division ruled that the house could not be sold nor razed without the mutual agreement of all the Brokaw siblings.

George moved back in.

Seven years later, on May 29, 1935, George Tuthill Brokaw died of a heart attack. His wife, Frances Ford Seymour would marry Henry Fonda a year later and have two children, Jane and Peter.

In the meantime, the Institute of Radio Engineers had been formed in 1912 to not only address problems and needs of the wireless technology industry; but to create a system of standards and definitions, standardized methods of testing and rating radio equipment and industry symbols.

The Institute moved from space to space for three decades until it purchased the Isaac Brokaw mansion—vacant and unused since 1938--in December 1946. While the Institute paid $200,000 for the house, it took another $350,000 to renovate it as office space.

Where Elvira Gould Brokaw received guests, the IRE installed a reception desk.  Another desk found a home on the landing -- photo

© Dec 2 2008 IEEE

As the organization grew, it spread out into other Brokaw mansions, purchasing Elvira’s home at No. 7 East 79th Street in 1954 and No. 984 Fifth Avenue in 1961.

Two years later McKim, Mead & White’s glorious Pennsylvania Station was bulldozed to the ground, planting the seed of historic preservation. By 1964 the Landmarks Preservation Commission had been formed, but it carried no legal power.  Preservationist were frustrated by fighting battles essentially unarmed.  That frustration boiled over in September that year.

The announcement shocked New York:  The three houses owned by the Institute of Radio Engineers were to be demolished.  Newspapers and magazines cried out against the vandalism and groups urged Mayor Wagner to give the Commission legal powers.

The battle of words continued until February 1965 when demolition workers were paid overtime to begin destruction of the mansions on a Saturday—thereby precluding the possibility of a court order to stop work.

The New York Times was unforgiving. “In weekend stealth the vulture-like work of destroying another New York landmark has begun. Wrecking crews are busy tearing down the Brokaw Mansion…and lovers of beauty can indulge once again in the macabre pleasure of attending a demolition-watching. The despoilers were so eager to get this lovely building down that they were delighted to pay premium rates to the workmen for their weekend toil.”

What George Brokaw had tried to unsuccessfully for three years to accomplish came to be. Today a modern high-rise apartment building sits where the elegant mansions of the Brokaw family once stood.

Nathan Silver, in his Lost New York, said “The outcry was undoubtedly what at last induced the mayor to sign the law giving the Landmarks Commission legal powers, and that fact is the most distinguished landmark quality the Brokaw mansions ever had.”

The Silk Exchange Buildling -- No. 487 Broadway



The new Silk Exchange Building at 487 Broadway gleams amid its brooding neighbors-- photo NYPL Collection

During the last decade of the 19th century the blocks along Broadway north of Canal Street bustled with busy businessmen and shoppers. Once a thoroughfare of high-toned residences, it now was lined with cast iron or brick-and-stone commercial buildings.

Here, at the southeast corner of Broadway and Broome Street in the center of the silk district, wealthy developer John Townsend Williams began work on a loft and office building in 1894. While the Broadway exposure was an expected 28 feet wide, the plot stretched 200 feet back to Mercer Street along Broome. Williams understood that the long, narrow site would require careful designing.

The busy John T. Williams not only was a real estate developer, but he acted as his own architect and contractor. Collaborating with William Birkmire, he had already begun work on the Central Bank Building when he purchased this property, and would be simultaneously designing and constructing Lord’s Court, another early skyscraper.

While critics would later pooh-pooh the design of Lord’s Court as “rather plain,” they would have no such complaint regarding No. 487 Broadway.  Completed two years later, it was a “modern twelve-story structure,” according to The New York Times. Williams used limestone, buff-colored brick and terra cotta to create an airy and attractive sliver of a building that stood out in stark contrast to its neighbors.

Williams accentuated the tall, narrow Broadway façade by collecting the fourth through tenth floor window as a tall central arch. Massive brick corner pilasters rose six stories to support the base of the arched windows and decorative spandrels. In explosive contrast to the relatively undecorated limestone base, the upper floors were lavished with intricate terra cotta ornamentation.

Deeply cast terra cotta capitals and swirling sprandrel designs added to the riotous decoration -- photo by Alice Lum

Three entrances—on Broadway, Broome and Mercer—provided convenient access to tenants and clients alike.

The completed building quickly filled with tenants, many of them in the silk industry. Among these were the Phoenix Silk Manufacturing Company, Cheney Brothers, William Ryle & Co., Nonotuck Silk Company, Belding Brothers’ Company, Sauguoil Silk Manufacturing Company, William Schroeder & Co., Liberty Silk Company, W. Guerin et Fils, Pelgram & Meyer and E. Geili & Co.

Even the copper cornice brackets drip with ornament -- photo by Alice Lum

The high number of silk merchants resulted in the building earning the name The Silk Exchange Building.

In 1899 Williams offered the building for sale. Several potential buyers negotiated for the up-to-the-minute office building, but it was James B. Haggin who won out. Haggin, whom The Times referred to as “the Western millionaire,” paid Williams $850,000 for the building. The Evening Post called the sale “one of the best transactions effected in a long time.”

The exuberant ornamentation has caused the building to be called "wedding cake-like" -- photo by Alice Lum

As the 20th century began, not all the tenants in the building were involved in the silk trade. In 1900 the law office of David Asher Hamburger was here as well as Jose Rosemena’s advertising office.

Although on January 23, 1910 The New York Times remarked that the building was “in the heart of the silk trade; which shows no disposition to change;” that change was indeed coming.

The Broome Street facade -- photo by Alice Lum

A. C. Neidermeyer was already a tenant in 1907. The firm manufactured and sold “hand, toilet and triplicate mirrors, metal stand mirrors, shaving stands, leather novelties.” In 1912 Thomas P. Taylor was here, selling “notion specialties” that included “hair rolls, pompadours, ladies’ belts, bustles, collar foundations, hose supporters, sleeve protectors, and embroidery hoops.”

That same year, as the silk district inched further uptown, rumors began circulating that the Silk Association of America would abandon its headquarters in the building. Although the association secretary Ramsey Peugnet denied the stories, the group met on July 8 to “determine the feeling of the trade down town regarding the advisability of joining the uptown movement that has become so general within the last year or so,” according to reporters.

The Times noted that “For a considerable period the Silk Exchange Building has been the centre of the old silk market, and has also housed the Silk Association. It still contains the New York offices of several out-of-town concerns, but in view of the gradual uptown trend of the trade it is believe that a building more centrally located would offer these offices to better advantage.”

photo by Alice Lum

Before long, there were no silk merchants left at No. 487 Broadway.

Yet even without its namesake industry, the building continued to attract tenants. In the 1920 Henry S. Bragdon, formerly of 115 Worth Street, moved his offices here as did Roebuck Manufacturing, makers of wire screens. The next year Newman Clock Company, manufacturers of “portable recorders and keystations” – in short, time clocks.

Casket, an industry trade magazine was published here during the 1930s and by 1938 the Banco Di Sicilia Trust Company was here.

The Soho neighborhood grew gritty and neglected. By the 1960s and ‘70s the intricate structures along Broadway were grime-covered and cast iron facades stood rusting away. But a Renaissance soon occurred that saw the restoration of the century-old buildings and their renovation into trendy new stores and residential spaces.

In 1985 No. 487 Broadway, now known as the Haggin Building, was converted into 25 residential units. Today residents of what the Department of Buildings called “joint living work quarters for artists” live where deals for “thrown silk” and exotic neckwear were once made.

The 1913 James Sheffield-Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper House - No. 45 E 67th Street

photo by Alice Lum

On the morning of Wednesday, November 12, 1902 the funeral of Thomas H. Lowerre, Jr. was held in the parlor of his fashionable townhouse at No. 45 East 67th Street. The impressive house was one of many similar brownstone homes built half a century before in the upper-middle class neighborhood.

That neighborhood was changing, however. As the turn of the century arrived, so did the wealthiest of New York society who were gradually inching up Fifth Avenue along Central Park, filling its side streets with chic, updated residences. On February 25, 1911 James R. Sheffield purchased the house from the Lowerre estate.

A prominent and wealthy attorney, Sheffield commissioned architect Walter B. Chambers to design a mansion to replace the Lowerre house – one that would reflect the family’s position and social status.

Five stories tall and completed in 1913, the 20-room mansion featured a white marble base with two deeply recessed arched openings. One sheltered the double-doored entrance, accessed by two extremely shallow marble steps; the other provided access to the American basement behind a handsome wrought iron fence.

Carved Beaux Arts details of oak leaves and ribbons embellished the first floor. Above, a three-sided oriel window rose through the second and third floors, creating a balcony to the fourth story. Above it two striking hooded dormers pierced the mansard roof.

photo by Alice Lum

Sheffield’s wife was the former Edith Tod, granddaughter of David Tod who was both the Governor of Ohio and United States Minister to Brazil. The couple was as active politically as they were socially; Mrs. Sheffield holding the posts of vice-president and governor of the Women’s National Republican Club, vice-president of the Union Settlement, and a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Colonial Dames of America and the Daughters of the Cincinnati.

Upon Calvin Coolidge’s election in 1924, Sheffield was appointed Ambassador to Mexico, a post he would hold for three years. Later President Herbert Hoover named him Special Ambassador to Venezuela to present a statue of Henry Clay to that country.

When in town, the Sheffield house was the scene of dinner parties, dances and teas until James R. Sheffield died in 1938. Edith Tod Sheffield remained on at No. 45 East 67th Street for nearly two decades. She died in June 1956.

The year that James Sheffield was appointed Ambassador to Mexico, Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt and his wife, Gloria, celebrated the birth of their only child, Gloria Vanderbilt. The little girl’s life would be a tumultuous one. Her father died when she was 18 months old and a scandalous custody battle later ensued between her mother and her aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who felt Gloria’s mother was unfit.

After three failed marriages, Gloria met and married screenwriter and author Wyatt Cooper in 1964. The newlyweds purchased No. 45 East 67th and moved in along with Gloria’s two sons by her former husband, conductor Leopold Stowkowski. Within the next two years two more sons would be born – Carter and Anderson.

The styles of the 1960s were avante garde and splashy designer Gloria Vanderbilt was right in the middle of it all. In addition to her fashion designing, she threw herself headlong into interior design. American quilts became her signature theme.

The designer lined entire rooms of the mansion with quilts – even the ceilings were fair game. Later a grown-up Anderson Cooper would recall the floors of his bedroom being covered with quilts, which were then shellacked. The interiors were striking, if perhaps not quite in the taste of Edith Tod Sheffield.

The master bedroom in 1970.  The walls, ceiling and floor were quilted by Gloria -- photo by Horst P. Horst from "Horst: Interiors"

Wyatt E. Cooper died unexpectedly of a heart ailment on January 5, 1978.  Years later Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper would reminisce “Always, when I go by there I look at the wisteria vine in front of that house because Carter and Anderson and I were there when their father, Wyatt, planted that vine. It was a little tiny foot-high wisteria. Now it’s grown up over the whole building.”

The wisteria vine planted by Wyatt Cooper still twines up the facade -- photo by Alice Lum

The imposing house at No. 45 East 67th Street remains a private home, its outward appearance unaltered during the past century. And the wisteria vine still twines up the façade.

The W. & J. Sloane Buildling -- 880-888 Broadway

photo by Alice Lum

The stretch of Broadway just above Union Square saw the rise of grand emporiums in the years after the Civil War. Arnold Constable & Company erected its Second Empire extravaganza in 1869, to be followed a year later by Lord & Taylor’s similar ornate structure.

Across Broadway, between 18th and 19th Street, W. & J. Sloane would build something entirely different.

By now the Sloane firm had come a long way from its founding in 1843. William Sloane had learned the craft of weaving in his native Scotland. Nine years after arriving in New York, he opened a store on Broadway across from City Hall where he sold oilcloth floor coverings and carpets. When his brother, John, joined him in 1852 the firm became W. & J. Sloane.

The store had gained a reputation for high-quality goods by the end of the Civil War and catered to New York’s carriage trade. With the death of their father and uncle, William’s three sons – John, William D. and Henry T.—carried on the business.

Like other businesses, the Sloane company followed the northward march of commerce; moving to 501 Broadway in 1855, to 591 Broadway six years later, then to 649-655 Broadway. In 1881 the Sloanes were ready to relocate again.

Property was purchased on the east side of Broadway, lots 800 through 880, in the city’s most fashionable shopping district. Architect William Wheeler Smith was put to work designing a store that would look nothing like any of the surrounding emporiums.

Deeply-molded panels of garlands and foliage were just a hint at the intricate ornamentation -- photo by Alice Lum

Completed in 1882 it was six stories of brick, stone, cast iron and terra cotta that melded Renaissance, Baroque and Gothic elements into what has been called by some the “Commercial Palace Style.” Cornices above the first, third, fifth and sixth floors accentuated the horizontal, while shallow brick pilasters stretched upward. Smith playfully embellished the façade—particularly within the terra cotta capitals of the pilasters—with birds, monsters, angels and other fantastic figures.

Above the entrance is the year of the cornerstone laying -- photo by Alice Lum

The $400,000 building was termed by “King’s Handbook of New York City” as “a solid, graceful edifice” that was “scarcely vast enough for the display of the large stock dealt in by W. & J. Sloane.” The handbook went on to say “They control the product of a great number of domestic and foreign carpet-mills, and moreover import the best work of other mills of Germany, Switzerland, Scotland, England and France.” It was, said King’s, “indisputably at the head of the carpet and rug industry of this country.”

An angel is flanked by a serious owl and a crow on one capital, while a cherub is accompanied by scary monsters.  In the panel above, a lone squirrel enjoys the abundance of acorns among the oak leaves -- photo by Alice Lum

Not content with their tremendous success in the carpet and rug business, the Sloane brothers branched into related areas: interior design, upholstery, and antiques. Nearly every major hotel in New York—the Waldorf-Astoria, Plaza and Savoy among them—was decorated and carpeted by Sloane. When Czar Nicholas II of Russia was coronated, the rugs were supplied by W. & J. Sloane.

The six floors of showrooms were filled with acres of goods. On October 21, 1889 The New York Times remarked that “Ladies who visit the store go into ecstasies over the magnificent carpets, tapestries, portieres, and furnishings. They say they really never saw anything like it.”

The article listed items such as “attractive brocades for furniture coverings and hangings.  One piece has pink roses on a ground of reseda. They are so artistically wrought that they seem to be the actual flowers. A splendid assortment of skins is a feature also. The Mongolian leopard and tiger skins are very fine.”

photo King's Handbook of New York City, 1895

W. & J. Sloane’s impressive building was assessed by the deputy tax commissioner in 1892 at $3 million.

Not only did the business provide immense fortunes to the Sloane brothers, but the growth of the company necessitated the addition in 1898 of a nine-story warehouse on 19th Street adjoining the store. William Wheeler Smith was once again commissioned to design the harmonious structure.

Workers pose alongside the side delivery entrance while a horse-drawn dray awaits -- photo American Architect & Building News, November 28, 1885

On December 9, 1904 John Sloane, the president and head of the firm, died. He had been an employee of W. & J. Sloane since he was fifteen years old. By now the firm was much more than a carpeting store. In 1905 Sweet’s Indexed Catalogue of Building Construction said “W. & J. Sloane have their own corps of designers and decorators, skilled painters, plasterers, fresco workers, carvers, cabinet markets and other artisans to whom any undertaking, whether simple or elaborate, is capable of satisfactory execution. They have their own Wood Working Factory where they make to order Special Design Furniture, as well as Wood Trim of the highest class.” The firm employed a staff of over 500 at the time.

An advertisement pictured the "whole carpet" made to order for the new Sherry's -- The Architectural Record 1903

The company designed and wove custom-made Aubusson and Beauvais tapestries, curtains and fabrics. Sloane was essentially the sole source for “whole carpets,” which would be designed in-house and manufactured at Sloane mills. The company kept a staff in the Middle East to select Oriental rugs to be imported for sale in the Broadway showrooms.

And yet W. & J. Sloane continued to branch out. By 1909 its product line included linoleum for motorboats. On July 10 of that year The Motor Boat magazine deemed the company the “leading house which furnishes linoleum to the motorboat manufacturers and owners…They make a specialty of it, and are the largest firm, both wholesale and retail in the United States.”

As the high-end stores moved up Fifth Avenue, so did W. & J. Sloane, erecting its new headquarters at Fifth Avenue and 47th Street in 1912. The Dry Goods Reporter announced that “William Meyer & Company, importers of laces and embroideries, for many years at Broadway and Broome Street, celebrated the opening of their new saleroom, 880-888 Broadway, corner 19th Street, on August 1st.”

Sloane leased the building to William Meyer “for a long term of years,” and the article went on to say that “the beautiful sales room gave every evidence of the extensive alterations that have been going on for some months past.”

Two cherubs hold a wreathed "S" for Sloane -- photo by Alice Lum

William Meyer manufactured and imported embroideries, laces, handkerchiefs, white goods, nets and veilings. It owned mills in Switzerland and was the sole selling agents for certain Irish linens. The firm shared the building with other apparel companies, including Burton, Price & Co., sellers of ribbons, and the necktie firm of Excello Cravats.

By the 1950s, when the New York Pressing Iron Company had its headquarters here, the building was known as the Schwartz Building. That company would continue doing business in the building into the 1970s.

At the time that W. & J. Sloane was carpeting the coronation of the Csar and building a new warehouse behind its store, Austrian-born Sam Weinrib was selling used carpeting and linoleum from a pushcart. The immigrant’s tiny business was expanded by his son and by 1981, just as W. & J. Sloane had been, was the most prominent name in New York for carpeting and upholstery—ABC Carpet & Home.

One massive, embellished column supports the deeply-recessed entrance of the restored building -- photo by Alice Lum

That year ABC purchased the old Sloane building and renovated it, treating the historic façade with care. The firm is still there today, the largest importer and retailer of wool carpeting in the United States. It is an amazingly appropriate use for the former carpeting showroom; a stunning building which, after its construction, was nominated as one of the “best ten buildings” in America.