Two Abused Federal Survivors at Nos. 298-300 Grand Street

photo by Robert K. Chin, www.nychinatown.org

Not all of the Federal style homes built in Manhattan during the 1820s and 1830s were wide, elegant residences.  Along Grand Street two matching brick house were erected at Nos. 298 and 300, intended for working class families.

Each was two-and-a-half stories high with a prim dormer punching through the pitched roof.  The street would have been lined with similar houses and the children of craftsmen, bakers, carpenters and deliverymen would have played together here.

At the time the houses were constructed, Manhattan was rapidly growing.  In 1830 the population had grown to 202, 589.  A decade later it had risen fifty-percent to 312,710.   The downtown area necessarily spread northward, engulfing the residential neighborhoods.

Before long, the ground floors of the houses along Grand Street were converted to commercial spaces.  The neighborhood became filled with hatters and other merchants who lived in the second stories above their shops.  In 1848 Eber T. Peacock ran his bookbinding shop from No. 280 Broad Street.  Two years later, however, he had moved into No. 298 Grand Street, living upstairs.  Peacock would remain here until the years just prior to the Civil War.

After the war, the area continued to change.  In 1882 James D. McCabe , Jr. wrote “Grand street east of the Bowery is one of the busiest and liveliest in New York.  It is devoted to the cheap dry goods and millinery trades, and does a thriving business.  Some of the establishments are large and elegant, but the customers belong chiefly to the humbler walks of life.  Occasionally a west side lady in search of a bargain comes into the street, but such visitors are rare.  On Saturday night, the street is in its glory.  The stores are open until a late hour, and the colored lamps of the stores and blazing torches of the sidewalk hucksters’ stands give to it the effect of a partial illumination.  Shops and sidewalks are all thronged and the air is alive with the sound of voices.”

Waves of German immigrants flooded New York Harbor in the 1870s, settling on the Lower East Side.  Theodor and Frederick Lohr were among them.  Although they apparently never worked together, the Lohrs were accomplished makers of musical instruments.

Theodor moved his shop three times before settling at No. 298 Grand Street, listed here in the American Musical Directory of the United States and Provinces in 1885.  The Directory called him a “musical instrument importer,” however Lohr personally made most of his violins, banjos, harmonicas and guitars.

While Lohr employed only one “workman” and “two boys” he was able to maintain an inventory of “150 dozen banjos,” according to “Musical Instrument Makers of New York.”

The Grand Street neighborhood around Allen Street continued to attract Jewish German immigrants.  At the turn of the century Theodor Lohr was publishing Yiddish music in addition to his instrument manufacturing.  In 1901 his advertisement in the New York Tribune marketed “zithers, mandolins, and guitars; also music for the same.”  Apparently the market for banjos had fallen off. 

By now Grand Street was one of the major cross-town thoroughfares in Manhattan, connecting the East River ferries to Long Island with the Hudson Street ferries to New Jersey.   Double horsecar tracks ran down the street and businesses selling everything from soldering fluid to school supplies operated here.

In the meantime, before Theodor Lohr moved his business into No. 298, William H. Merrick was established next door at No. 300 Grand Street.  Problems occurred on Friday night, June 28, 1872.  Merrick let his guard down with Ellen Josephs, whom The New York Times called “a woman of abandoned character.”  Ellen ran off with Merrick’s gold watch and chain, valued at $185.

Merrick faced the difficult choice of reporting the theft to police or keeping quiet; thereby avoiding the embarrassing need to explain why the degraded woman was in his rooms.

In October 1894 25-year old Frederick Kall was living upstairs at No. 300.  The young German man was engaged to Hetty Sonberg, called “a pretty brunette” by The Evening World.  In 1892 Kall presented his sweetheart with a diamond engagement ring.  It would become the center of a police court case.

A year later, in September 1893, Kall was stricken with typhoid fever.  His finance nursed him through the illness.  When the man recovered, he asked for the ring back, telling Hetty he wanted to have it repaired.  On October 22, 1894 she asked for her ring back.  Kall refused. 

“It’s all over, Hetty.  Our engagement is broken off,” he told her according to the newspaper.  He gave back all her letters and presents she had given him.

When Judge Taintor asked Kall why he ended the relationship, he explained that while he was sick, Hetty had left him alone for two days “and went to a picnic.”

The distressed girl protested to the judge.  “That’s not so, Your Honor,” she cried.  “I love him still and shall never love another.  I should like to have the ring as a souvenir.”

The judge allowed Hetty to keep her souvenir.

Asphalt shingles slather the dormers, yet some Federal detailing still survives -- photo Ellen Brenna Dougherty

Before long Mrs. Louis Goldstein opened her millinery shop downstairs.  Her husband was an ice cream dealer and the pair was not getting along very well by the time Independence Day rolled around in 1900.  That afternoon Goldstein walked into his wife’s shop and began destroying her merchandise—by eating it.

The New York Times reported that he “lunched at her expense off a brace of stuffed birds, topping off with a liberal portion of a Spring bonnet.”  While he ate the millinery, he “found time to violently threaten his wife,” said The Times.

The ice cream dealer was arrested, charged with threatening to kill his wife.  The destructive vandalism charges resulting from eating headwear were apparently ignored.

In 1929 a similar house at No. 294 down the block still survives -- photo NYPL Collection

By the early part of the 20^th century the two little houses at Nos. 298 and 300 Grand Street had been heavily altered.  Broad, glass store fronts had been installed long ago and the paired windows at the second floor of No. 298 had been replaced with a wide plate glass window to allow extra light into the loft space.

Three years later, in 1932, the cars look the same, but the Victorian building next to No. 298 has been replaced by a short Art Deco-inspired structure. -- photo Museum of the City of New York

Before long the expanding Chinatown neighborhood would overtake Grand Street.   Today the two houses look much as they did in 1939; however the German Jewish names on the businesses have been replaced with Chinese.   The two sad little houses are amazing—if derelict—survivors of nearly 200 years of Grand Street history.

Many thanks to reader Courtney Shapiro for requesting this post

Hunt & Hunt's 1906 Alvin Building -- 373 Fifth Avenue

Times were much different when Charles H. Russell lived in his impressive brownstone mansion at the corner of 5^th Avenue and West 35^th Street.  The avenue was the most fashionable address in the city and just two blocks south on the opposite side of the street were the mansions of brothers William B. Astor and John Jacob Astor III.

But times change.

The Astors razed their homes.  John Jacob Astor demolished his mansion and, to spite his sister-in-law Caroline Astor, built the hulking Waldorf Hotel on the site.  Caroline followed suit, erecting the Astoria Hotel and moving further up the avenue.  It was the beginning of the end of the neighborhood.

By 1902 Russell’s home at 373 Fifth Avenue was being converted to commercial use by Fishel, Adler & Schwartz.    The high-end art dealers renovated the old mansion beyond recognition.  “The entire building has been remade and a notable facade takes the place of the old brownstone front,” reported The New York Times on July 3, 1903. 

Some of the interior walls were faced with marble and skylights were installed in a few of the galleries “which flood the pictures with daylight in the murkiest weather and bring out the most delicate shades of the oil paintings,” the reporter noticed.

The expensive renovations would be short-lived, however.    As wealthy New Yorkers abandoned their high-stooped mansions and fled north, this stretch of Fifth Avenue filled with the marble and limestone palaces of the best-known merchants.  Tiffany & Company’s white marble palazzo designed by Stanford White was completed in 1905 as was the monumental B. Altman Department Store that took up the entire block from 34^th to 35^th Street.

The little art gallery building was doomed.   Architects Hunt & Hunt, the sons of esteemed architect Richard M. Hunt, designed an eight-story showroom and office building for Joseph Fahys & Co.  The main leasee would be the silversmiths Alvin Manufacturing Company.

As the building neared completion in 1906, it was the last straw for French jeweler, Boucheron.  The company had leased the building at 590 Fifth Avenue with intentions of opening a New York store.  But now the jeweler decided the avenue was becoming too crowded.

“The recent tendency of jewelers to move to Fifth Avenue, it is said, has convinced the French merchants that the field is well filled,” said The Times, specifically pointing out the Alvin Building.

Boucheron remained in Paris and Alvin Manufacturing had one less business rival.

The completed building was thoroughly modern.   The brick façade boasted little ornamentation other than terra cotta panels, a decorated cornice below the eighth floor, and restrained, dripping ornaments and wreaths inspired by the Beaux Arts movement.   The building’s architectural reserve marked a stark shift from the over-ornamented styles of the previous quarter century.



The Alvin Manufacturing showroom featured mahogany cases and heavy electrical lighting fixtures -- photo the New York Architect 1906 (copyright expired)

Alvin Manufacturing installed its showrooms in the long retail space.  Polished wooden cases glistened with silver flatware, vases and trinkets under the electric illumination of massive hanging fixtures.

In the offices above, a variety of tenants moved in, including at least two dentists, Dr. William C. Fischer and Dr. Alison Harlan.   The building had been opened only a year when Dr. Harlan did work on the teeth of the famed opera singer, Madame Calve.  The doctor would regret it.

Madame Calve had been referred by another patient, Joan Schon, who made a living as a masseuse.   When Ms. Schon mentioned that she knew the diva, the dentist offered to pay her one-third of his fee if she would arrange an introduction.  After Dr. Harlan billed the opera star $900 for work done, he forgot about the verbal agreement with Ms. Schon.

The upset masseuse sued the doctor for $333 and won the case after a publicized battle.

Awnings shade window shoppers at Alvin Manufacturing's store.  Some brownstone houses still remain on Fifth Avenue while commercial buildings, like the white Tiffany & Co. building in the background, have replaced others. - NYPL Collection

Along with the dentists a long-standing tenant was A. I. Reed Mfg. Company, makers of leather stationery products, hand-tooled purses and bags, and other leather items.   One of the first to sign a lease, A. I. Reed would be here for decades.

Only five years after building its New York headquarters, Alvin Manufacturing moved on.   Alvin sublet the retail space to Walpole Brothers  in 1911 for 15 years at a total rent of $350,000.  The new tenant was a London-based manufacturer of high-quality Irish linens.

As World War I raged in Europe, the Alvin Building saw various apparel companies move into the upper offices.  Goodwin Corsets were here, making not only women’s foundations but post-surgical abdominal support belts; Oregon City Mfg. Company produced woolen blankets, Navajo Indian robes, steamer and automobile robes, “mackinaw clothing, flannel and cassimere overshirts, overcoats, bath and lounging robes;” and Laura E. Post ran her “artistic knit goods” business from here.

The building was also the headquarters of the League of Women’s Voters in the last years before 19^th Amendment to the Constitution.   As the amendment became fairly assured, the league offered “all kinds of first aid to women voters in a strictly nonpartisan fashion, characteristic of the organization.”  In October 1919 this included free access to records of candidates running for office and answering questions about feminist issues.

A full year before the right to vote was guaranteed, the league was holding a “Registration Tea” at the Hartley House and a few months later, Mrs. Charles Tiffany was the main speaker at a political discussion in the headquarters; her topic being “Do Representatives Represent?”

She didn’t think so.

The Fifth Avenue neighborhood continued to change.  The massive Waldorf-Astoria hotel was razed in 1929 to make way for the iconic Empire State Building.  Walpole Brothers linens was replaced by jewelers Bowman, Foster, Wurzburger, Inc.; which was then replaced by Jackman’s Furriers.  Then in 1943 the retail space became home to Sidney Meyer home furnishings, draperies and upholstery fabrics.

The store was home in the 1950s and 60s to Pfaff Sewing Machine Company, a West German firm.  In August 1954, while other stores like Lord & Taylor up the avenue were displaying classic contemporary fashions – wide-skirted dresses with fitted bodices and up to four petticoats—Pfaff opted to display Christian Dior’s latest French line which the press was calling the “flat look.”

Dior had come up with a “controlled-bosom” design that removed the feminine curves so popular at the time.  A Times reporter called one dress “an unbelted tube of taffeta.”  Passers-by were as unimpressed.

“It looks like a hunk of clothesline.  Dior will never get away with it,” remarked one man.  And when a 10-year old girl asked her mother “What are those things, Mama?” the newspaper reported that her mother’s response was “They’re supposed to be Paris fashions,” and hustled the little girl away.

By the 1980s, when the National Catalog Network and the American Committee on Italian Migration had their offices here, the street level of No. 373 Fifth Avenue had been barbarously destroyed.  Any trace of Hunt & Hunt’s first floor retail space was obliterated.

New owners converted the building, in 2007, into a boutique hotel called Hotel 373 Fifth Avenue.  The ground floor where Edwardian women in plumed hats once shopped for silver tableware is now a Starbucks coffee shop.   But on the whole Hunt & Hunt’s modern office and store building survives with little change.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

A New York City Christmas in 1905

Christmas decorations entice crowds along 6th Avenue below 14th Street in 1905 -- photo The Ideal Educator (copyright expired)

In comparison to the heaps of gifts and splashy decorations of today, early 19th century Christmases were subdued holidays. Songs by the piano or parlor organ, a special dinner and religious services were the high points of the holiday.  By 1905 the reverent observance of Christmas would be a thing of the past.

In 1898 Ella M. Powers reminisced in Popular Educator magazine, "The week before Christmas in 1851, a woodman of the Catskill mountains in New York filled two ox-sleds with young, shapely evergreen trees, drove over the rough, snow-drifted roads to New York City.  He selected a corner upon the sidewalk and here he displayed his choice Christmas goods from the woodland.  The resinous, aromatic odor attracted the passing crowds and eagerly the people purchased his sylvan bargains.  He returned each year.  This was the beginning of the Christmas sale of evergreens in America."

Still, just prior to the turn of the century only one in five households had a Christmas tree and children’s gifts were few and, for the most part, practical. 

That too, was about to change.

In 1905 the demand for Christmas trees was such that early environmentalists were alarmed that the pine forests would be decimated.  The uproar was enough that Forestry & Irrigation magazine was induced to assure readers "Undoubtedly there are enough young evergreen trees in the north to furnish us indefinitely with Christmas trees if we use them wisely and eke out the supply."  The magazine called those concerned about the forests "sentimentalists."

Christmas trees, only recently a novelty in New York City homes, piled high at the Barclay Street freight yard in 1905 -- photo The Ideal Home Educator (copyright expired)

A writer for The Ideal Home Educator paused in 1905 to reflect on other drastic changes that were taking place: Christmas was becoming commercial.

“So great was the crowd of shoppers in one rush, last year, at a great New York department store that in one day 475,00 people crowded into its aisles and the doors had to be closed against thousands of others who tried to enter. For ten business days, buyers bore away 40,000 parcels a day and 20,000 more a day were delivered. ..The owners of that store spent $8,000 in decorations and music. To the 3,500 employees were added 1,700 temporary assistants. For several days the store was kept open until ten o’clock at night.”

Sadly, the article noted, “For the protection of shoppers from pickpockets, a score or more of detectives had been hired to serve not only during Christmas week, but for a month before.”

Two women dressed in the height of fashion avoid a mistletoe seller on Christmas Eve -- photo The Ideal Educator (copyright expired)

Boys and girls of the 1870s could expect a stocking filled with paper toys, nuts and hard candies. Because every room in a Victorian house had a coal hod next to the fireplace, a lump of coal for naughty children was a convenient booby prize. It was also easily recycled back into household use.

But things had definitely changed by 1905. “The character of Christmas gifts is fast changing from the flimsy things that once filled the shops to things of permanent value. Even a toy-maker now says ‘My horses must be as nearly as possible, sure-enough horses—with real horsehair, etc.’ Twenty years ago there were four kinds of dolls on the market; now there are 400 kinds. Substantial or practical presents have in great measure taken the place of fragile gimcracks, even in toys.”

In the atrium of New York's most exclusive department store, Simpson-Crawford, a nearly two-story Santa is displayed among over-sized holly -- photo The Ideal Educator (copyright expired)

Over a million immigrants were crowded through Ellis Island that year, filling the tenement buildings of ethnic neighborhoods and bringing their own Yule-time customs.  Although the new-comers did absorb American influences, many in what the author referred to as the "foreign colonies" clung to their native traditions.

The Italians, he wrote, took off at least half a day from work on Christmas Eve. “No meat comes on his table that night, but his supper is a rich one. The two dishes of honor are snails and pickled eels, which are imported in great quantities for the holidays.”

Still, because the Italian children attended public schools, they learned many American customs. In classrooms they learned songs about Santa Clause, Christmas dinner and hanging up stockings. “As a result, Santa Claus and the tree are seen everywhere in the Italian colonies.”

The Germans were less changed, said the author, perhaps because many of the American customs originated in Germany. “The Catholic Santa Claus, with his servant Ruprecht, who punishes bad boys, comes to distribute nuts and candies on December 6th—St. Nicholas’s Day. Christmas is the festival of the Christ Child, and, days before, the house is made clean for His coming.”

In the German households on New York’s Lower East Side, known as Kleindeutschland, Christmas Day was subdued. “The day is, above all, a family one, and it is spent quietly at home. The presents to the children are distributed early in the morning, and usually are characterized by thrift and usefulness. The larger children often have to wait until Christmas to replace outgrown clothes, shoes, and mittens. A gift like a pair of skates is sometimes added, but practical utility is the end kept constantly in view.”

Christmas dinner for the Kleindeutschland residents was splendid. “A goose is likely to be the principal dish for dinner, with pickled white turnips and potato dumplings. A plain cinnamon cake, with ginger-spiced deer and lions, crusted with icing and blue and red sugar, and the little round pfeffernusse, are the festive additions to the board.”

The story was not so bright for the oppressively poor, however. For the low-paid factory workers and peddlers in 1905 there would be no holiday. “A very large number of them give presents to the children, and allow them to hang up their stockings on Christmas Eve,” said the article. “They will not, however, have a tree in their rooms. There are no Christmas dinners; the stores do not close, and the shops work on as usual. For their Santa Claus, the little ones must visit a settlement house or their more fortunate friends.” Yet, despite their poverty, “many poor families spend $8 or $10 for presents.”

Ten dollars in 1905 was just about a week’s wages for unskilled workers.

Two impoverished boys look longingly at the Christmas display windows -- photo The Ideal Educator (copyright expired) 

Christmas in 1905 had come a long way from the Victorian holidays of a a few generations earlier.  And the ambiguous conclusion of The Ideal Home Educator could have been written in 2011: “it has become a gift-giving, good-wish-bearing time of cheer, whose purely religious significance has almost been forgotten.”

Where Grand Buildings were Born -- 28 East 21st Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1871, architect Richard Morris Hunt purchased the Ango-Italianate-style, brownstone-clad house 28 East 21st Street. Built around 1846, the mansion rose four floors over an English basement.  The rusticated parlor-level base featured three arched openings and a broad set of entrance steps.  Classical pediments graced the second story windows and heavy brackets supported the no-nonsense cornice.

Here the architect established his studio and office.  Trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he had already received important commissions from wealthy New Yorkers and that year had completed his own Newport summer cottage.

Behind the quiet brownstone facade, some of the most impressive buildings in America were conceived -- photo by Alice Lum

Among the first of Hunt’s designs to come from the East 21st Street studio was the New-York Tribune Building, begun in 1873—one of the city’s first skyscrapers.  Hunt would go on toy design masterful mansions along Fifth Avenue and in Newport for families like the Vanderbilts, Astors, Belmonts and Goelets.  He would, additionally, be responsible for churches like the Cathedral of All Souls in Asheville, North Carolina; academic structures for Yale University and the United States Military Academy; and the base of the Statue of Liberty.

In 1878, Hunt founded The Society of Decorative Arts to provide art classes for "respectable" women.  The society was operated from the East 21st Street mansion.  The 1887 guidebook How to Know New York City mentioned the Society’s “classes, library and sales-rooms,” and a few years later, in 1893, King’s Handbook of New York City said it, “has classes in fine needle-work, china-painting, fan-painting, water-colors, and other branches of art; and aims to thoroughly train women, each in one kind of decorative art.”

The heavy double entrance doors were, no doubt, part of the 1896 re-do -- photo by Alice Lum

The “sales-rooms” mentioned in the guidebook sold decorative objects created by the students.  But nothing amateurish was offered to the discriminating women who shopped here.  In order for a hand-painted chocolate set or Japanese fan to make it to the sales floor, it had to pass inspection by a “committee of admission.”

Annually, the Society would put on its highly-anticipated Easter Sale.  On April 11, 1886, The New York Times reported that among items offered would be “many charming specimens of needlework.  There will be also a variety of chairs, cushions, curtains, and bedspreads, and many other novelties for Easter gifts.”

The Easter Sale of 1892 reflected the Society’s increased selection of courses.  There were now “Hungarian embroidery work” and a “fine display of china painted by the students.”  A reporter noted, “The china display has attracted much attention, and the pieces are as a general thing remarkably well arranged.”

There were a “number of pieces of ribbon work set in Louis XVI screens,” deemed “particularly fine” by The New York Times critic, and a number of “handsome” hand-painted fans, as well as lamp shades, cushions, and sofa pillows.

The modern housewife could economically accessorize her home with the latest in domestic fashion by attending the Society sales.

Richard Morris Hunt died in 1895.  He had not only produced monumental structures like the façade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he had founded the American Institute of Architects and the Municipal Art Society.

photo by Alice Lum

Hunt’s son, Richard Howland Hunt, took over the business.  The year after her husband’s death, Catherine Clinton Howland Hunt filed for alterations to the East 21st Street house, at a cost of $5000.  It was probably during this renovation that the distinctive late 19th century entrance doors were installed.

Classic brownstone Italianate pediments cap the windows.  The diamond-panes were part of the 1896 update -- photo by Alice Lum

Joseph Howland Hunt joined his brother in the business in 1901, forming Hunt & Hunt architects.  From East 21st Street they would design structures such as the 69th Regiment Armory and George W. Vanderbilt’s twin marble mansions on Fifth Avenue at 51st Street.

Richard H. Hunt's studio in 1915 -- photo by The Architectural League (copyright expired)

After Joseph’s death in 1924, the office closed.  The house was briefly owned by Fred H. Albee and Frederick G. Elton before being purchased by the American Rehabilitation Committee, Inc.

Little has changed on East 21st Street since the 1950s -- photo NYPL Collection

Although in the mid-20th century the mansion was home to the bookbinder supplies firm, Griffin, Campbell, Hayes, Walsh, Inc., no major alterations were made to the façade.  Then in 1980 it was converted to apartments, two to a floor.  Ten years later it was again converted to eight cooperative apartments, retaining the surviving interior details like mantles and moldings.

The original iron railings have been lost and the brownstone stoop could use repair; but the house at No. 28 E 21st survives remarkably intact -- photo by Alice Lum

The unassuming brownstone is squashed between two late 19th century loft buildings but otherwise looks little changed.  Within its walls some of America's grandest structures were born.

The Art Nouveau New York Evening Post Building -- No. 20 Vesey Street

photo huffingtonpost.com

For their architecture, staid New Yorkers tended to avoid the avant garde style of Art Nouveau.  From the 1890s until just prior to World War I Paris filled its boulevards with buildings, even its Metro stations, designed in the sinuous, almost sensuous, curving naturalistic lines of Art Nouveau.

New Yorkers, however,  preferred more traditional styles like Beaux Arts.  Only a handful of Manhattan buildings such as the 1898 New Era Building at 495 Broadway or the 1903 New Amsterdam Theater on 42^nd Street would embrace the revolutionary style.

One of the most striking and unique of these would be the New York Evening Post building; a bold expression of the Vienna Secession offshoot of Art Nouveau.

In 1905 Vesey Street across from St. Paul’s Churchyard was lined with old store and loft buildings.   The Evening Post, under the ownership of Oswald Garrison Villard, purchased Nos. 20, 22, and 24 Vesey as a site for its newest home.   The property at No. 20 had been in the hands of the Greenwood family since 1790.

In announcing the new site, The Evening Post said on March 3, 1905, “The decision to remain downtown is of especial interest in view of the recent removal of The Times and other newspapers uptown.  The management believes that for a high-class evening newspaper a downtown location is still essential.”

Architect Robert D. Kohn was commissioned to design the new structure, which would house the offices and presses of The Post as well as leased offices.   On March 2, 1906 Kohn filed plans for the new building for Garrison Realty Company, a concern incorporated specially for this project.

photo by Cyann

The building was completed in April 1907 and it was like nothing seen in New York before.   Rising thirteen stories above the street, with two full floors below, its steel-framed structure was clad with limestone.  Kohn based his design on the Vienna Secession Movement; yet produced a building totally unique.  Half a century later the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission would note “The building is particularly interesting because, although Art Nouveau in inspiration, it is not copied from any particular building executed in that style.  It is primarily a free expression of the architect’s individuality.”

Four soaring ten-story piers rose from the sidewalk, accentuating the verticality of the structure.  Between, windows bowed outward giving undulating movement to the façade.  But Kohn’s visual emphasis was above.  Below a tall, shallow copper-sheathed mansard stood four gaunt over-sized limestone sculptures.  Representing the “Four Periods of Publicity,” two were sculpted by Kohn’s wife, Estelle Rumbold Kohn while the other pair was executed by Gutzon Borglum, who would later carve Mount Rushmore.

photo huffingtonpost.com

Despite The Post’s ungenerous comments a year earlier, The New York Times was complimentary of the building on its completion.  “The color scheme of the structure is gray and bronze, giving an impression similar to that obtained in some of the new business structures in Fifth Avenue,” it said.  And The New York Tribune called the $500,000 building “an imposing structure.”

On the evening of April 13, 1907 The Evening Post officially opened the No. 20 Vesey Street headquarters by hosting a grand dinner and play for all employees—from trustees and editors to office boys—and awarding fourteen employees with gold medals and gifts.

The New York Evening Post Building, or Garrison Building, is seen further down Vesey Street from St. Paul's.  Note the line of limousines lining the curb.  -- photo NYPL Collection

The Home Trust Company was located in the ground floor space while The Evening Post used the two basement floors and the four top floors.  From here The Post published not only the newspaper, but publications such as the highly popular The Nation.

Other publishing firms moved in, including Yachting Publishing Company, The Ronald Press Company that printed “books for better business,” The United States Army and Navy Journal published by W. C. & F. P. Church, and the Nautical Gazette.

Non-publishing firms here included the American Multigraph Company, a manufacturer of printing machinery and parts with a plant in Cleveland;  the Benvenue Granite Company; the New York Silicate Book Slate Company, manufacturers of school slates; and Ironmonger Advertising Agency who moved here in 1917.

But in 1910 an organization moved in that set a trend for the building throughout the century.

Oswald Garrison Villard’s grandfather was abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison.  From him the publisher had inherited strong commitments to human and equal rights.    Following a race riot in 1908 and persistent lynching throughout the country, Villard and other white liberals including Mary White Ovington, William English Walling and Dr. Henry Moscotwitz organized a public meeting to discuss means to combat racial injustice.   The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was soon born.



The forward-thinking Oswald Garrison Villard

 Villard subsidized the group’s national headquarters in the Post Building.  From here its publication The Crisis magazine was published and distributed.

Later other groups sensitive to equality and social betterment would find offices here.  With Adolph Hitler gaining power in Germany, the Committee on Fair Play was organized in 1935.  The Times reported that “The formation of a nation-wide committee on fair play in sports to oppose the participation of American athletes in the Olympic Games in Berlin next Spring was announced from its headquarters.”

Three years later the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom headquarters was here and the American Council on Public Affairs published a fifty-page pamphlet “Five Years of Hitler.”  That same year the International Relief Association, also with offices in the building, published its “Youth Betrayed,” which, on the fifth anniversary of Hitler’s rise to power, described the young people in Germany under the Reich.

The Catholic Interracial Council headquarters was here in the 1940s; although The New York Post had moved on.  The Mutual Life Insurance Company owned the building until October 30, 1944 when it was sold to an investing firm.

New York artist Sharon Florin captured No. 20 Vesey on canvas -- photo courtesy of the artist.

The building continued through the rest of the 20^th century to have a varied tenant list:  J. S. Frelinghuysen Corp., one of the oldest insurance brokerage firms in New York signed a lease on October 1949 after forty years at its former location.  In the 1960s it was home to the Practicing Law Institute and, among others, E. E. Pearce Company, a lumber firm.

Continuing the building’s history of involvement with social issues, No. 20 Vesey Street became the 9/11 Memorial Preview site as the permanent memorial to the victims of 9/11 was under construction.

Despite owner opposition, Robert D. Kohn’s magnificent and rare Art Nouveau building at No. 20 Vesey Street was designated a New York City landmark in 1965.

Many thanks to Sharon Florin for requesting this post.

Clarence True's 1893 Flemish Revival Oyster Market--426 Columbus Avenue

photo by Alice Lum

In the last decade of the 19^th century, buildings designed in the Flemish Revival style dotted the island of Manhattan.  An architectural reference to the city’s Dutch roots, it was most popular on the Upper West Side.   Here at No. 426 Columbus Avenue, across from the vast lawns of the brooding Natural History Museum, appeared a delightful little two-story commercial building.

Clarence Fagan True designed the building in 1893 as Joseph R. Hennessy’s oyster market and restaurant.  True used iron spot brick, brownstone and terra cotta to create the quaint store-and-meeting hall.   A central stepped gable was trimmed in terra cotta and brownstone quoins rose up the sides and framed the second-floor windows. 

The long sill at the second floor windows terminated in carved ornaments repeated above the broad entrance -- photo by Alice Lum

The little building mimicked a Flemish stable with a large, offset archway—like the double doors of a carriage house—framing the commercial entrance.  To the side, a narrow entrance let upstairs to meeting rooms.

Hennessy lived on the ground floor, behind the commercial space.  Two bedrooms, a parlor, kitchen and bathroom served the family and the upstairs meeting hall was rented out for additional income. 

Hennessy ran into problems with the construction on the elevated train on August 25, 1894--quite literally.  The New York Herald reported "Joseph R. Hennessy, proprietor of the restaurant at No. 426 Columbus avenue, was knocked out of his buggy yesterday afternoon by workmen with an 'L' road pillar at Eighty-sixth street and Columbus avenue and slightly injured."

It was another piece of bad luck for Hennessy who was in serious financial trouble.  He sold the oyster market and restaurant to Irish immigrants Terrance and Michael McManus.  

They quickly ran into problems when an undercover officer walked in on Sunday September 8, 1895.  According to the New York Herald, "Terence McManus, proprietor of an oyster saloon at No. 426 Columbus avenue, who sold liquor to Policeman Walters on Sunday, September 8, was fined $500."  It was a hefty penalty, around $15,700 today.

One of the early organizations to use the hall was the newly-formed Lutheran Church of the Advent which held its first services here on December 19, 1896.  The roomy space became popular with neighborhood groups.

With the arrival of the third owner, it seemed that the little building was cursed with bad luck.

While Joseph Hennessy was still struggling with his oyster business, John Herman Matthews ran his sheep ranch in New Mexico.  Then in 1896 he sold the ranch and moved his family to New York.   Using the money from the sale, he opened several businesses, one after another, and in May of 1897 tried his hand at selling men’s furnishings.  His shop on Broadway survived only four months before it too failed.

The dejected Matthews stumbled across the former oyster market on Columbus Avenue.    He leased the space and started yet another business – a grocery.    John Matthews tried hard to eke out a living for himself and his wife, Minnie, and their two children Hattie, who was twelve, and Schyler, ten.

Above Matthews's grocery in 1898 was the Select School of Dancing.  New York Herald, January 18, 1898 (copyright expired)

This little grocery seemed, finally, to be working. Neighbors and relatives reported that the family was financially stable and, apparently, happy.  But no one seemed aware that Matthews had been ill for a few years with no hope of a cure and his wife was suffering from consumption.  The pair decided the best way out was death.

On a busy Saturday night in the store, January 18, 1898, only three months after opening, Matthews left his clerks in charge.   To put his children into a deep sleep, he gave them champagne, put them to bed, then he and Minnie began writing letters to loved ones.

One of Mrs. Matthews’ read in part, “We are both tired of life as we can’t get well.  Mr. M. as well as myself is not, nor has been, well for years though he looks healthy…Oh my darlings I hate to take them, but I can never go and leave them to suffer and fight life alone.”  She asked the acquaintance to dress her children for their funerals.  “I want Hattie in white and flowers, my dear little man in a new suit if necessary.”

Matthews then opened the gas jets so the family would die of asphyxiation.   But he could not wait.  When the gas had no rapid effect on him, he killed his unconscious family with a hatchet, then shot a bullet into his brain.

A sketch artist depicted the scene for eager readers.   New York Herald, January 18, 1898 (copyright expired)

It was an unspeakable misfortune that unnerved the Columbus Avenue neighborhood for months.  However the meeting hall continued to be leased.  At the time of the heartbreaking tragedy, the hall was being used by two dance academies, the Lutheran Church, a kindergarten and the West Side Protective League.

The popular meetings rooms sat behind the expansive second story windows -- photo by Alice Lum

Organized in March of 1891, the West Side Protective League had one goal:  “to restrict as much as possible the liquor traffic on the West side above Fifty-ninth Street.”   By 1896 it had added to its cause the suppression  of “gambling houses, houses of prostitution, and all persons and places of immoral character; and to observe and report to the proper authorities any failures of the police to properly enforce the laws” in the neighborhood.

The League was discontinued in 1900 and, in an ironic twist, that same year a Special Committee to the New York State Legislature reported hard “evidence against a poolroom at 426 Columbus Avenue.”  Indeed, Costello’s billiard rooms had renovated the commercial space directly beneath the meeting rooms where the League had rallied against such evils.

Four purely decorative flower-shaped masonry supports line up below the stepped gable.  The two small brownstone half-columns on either side that matched the one in the center have been lost. -- photo by Alice Lum

The billiard parlor became a Western Union Telegraph Company branch office by 1903.  The quaint little building survived throughout the 20^th century with little change.  In the late 1970's it was home to Central Carpet and today the entire building is used as a clothing store.    

"Cast Iron Grandeur" -- Nos. 47-49 Worth Street

photo by Alice Lum

By 1860 builders had recognized that cast iron facades were practical and economical.    As structures using the revolutionary process were appearing throughout the downtown area, cast iron was being praised for its fire-proof qualities and versatility.  Construction time was greatly reduced, as well.

It was around this time that the loft and commercial building at Nos. 47-49 Worth Street was erected. Five stories tall, its handsome Anglo-Italian façade became slightly less ornamented with each successive floor.  The commercial space at street level was marked by six deep arches supported by fluted Corinthian columns.    At the second floor, above a bracketed cornice, smaller versions mimicked the openings below with less elaborate columns and a balustrade at the center windows pretending to be a balcony. 

The overall result was a stately and exceptionally handsome building for the bustling neighborhood of dry goods merchants and small manufacturers.    By the time William Watson purchased the building in June of 1871 the area was filling with dry goods manufacturers and sellers.

The cast iron facade was carefully designed to mimic its masonry neighbors with rusticated side piers, "carved" bases to the columns and an attractive balustrade beneath the center windows. -- photo Alice Lum

Robert C. Watson was the son of William Watson.  By 1873 he and his partner J. M. C. Batholow moved their business into the building.  Watson & Bartholow were dry goods commission merchants.  Wool merchants Stevens, Sandford & Handy would lease space before the decade was up.

The importance of the address in the dry goods industry was evident when, on April 23, 1881, the National Knit Goods Association held a general meeting in the private offices of Lawrence & Co. here.  The group met to incite “prompt and concerted action” in regard to the threat of a new revenue law that the association deemed a “peril to the knit goods trade.”

Throughout the 1880s and 1890 the tenant list included dry goods firms:  John C. Firman; Case, Leland & Co.; S. Slater & Sons and James W. Good, Jr., “salesman of cloths,” among them.  In 1898 woolen merchant Jacob J. Wallenstein whose offices were here caught the attention of the press when he appeared in the Yorkville Civil Court.

According to the New York Sun, Wallenstein’s wife had a gown made by Blum & Rubenoff, a tailor shop on Lexington Avenue near 58^th Street.   The dress did not fit.   Mrs. Wallenstein took it back for alterations.

It still did not fit.

After his wife’s sixth trip to the tailors still resulted in an ill-fitting gown, Wallenstein refused to pay the $55 charge for making the dress and was sued.

Justice McKeen deemed the best way to judge the case was to see the garment on the defendant’s wife.  “I’ve had a little experience myself with female wearing apparel,” he said.  Mrs. Wallenstein changed into the gown in the judge’s private chambers while an officer stood guard.

When she reappeared, the judge agreed that “It is a poor fit.  The cloak is drawn too tightly on one side and bag.”   Mrs. Wallenstein interrupted.  “But it isn’t a cloak, your Honor.  It is a jacket.” 

 The case was decided in favor of Wallenstein.

S. Slater & Sons, who were listed in the building by 1897 were still here in 1906.  The firm that earlier advertised “broadcloths, kerseys, tricots, cheviots, diagonals, thibets, crepes, doeskins and flannels” now adapted to modern times.  With the arrival of automobiles, Slater & Sons was manufacturing “motor car tops.”

Stevens, Sanford & Handy, who were in the building in 1880 were still here in 1909, now known as Stevens, Sanford, Cushman & Jordan, and still selling “worsteds, woolens, dress goods and cottons.”   The well-known textile converting firm of Leo H. Oppenheimer Company ran its business from here in the 1930s.

A major change came when, in 1945, Chicopee Mills took over the top three floors, making significant alterations for its headquarters.  The company was highly successful and its forward-thinking management kept the firm in pace with the changing times.  In 1948 Chicopee branched out from fabrics to introduce window and door screens of “woven saran” which it called “Lumite.”

The Lumite division was directly across the street in No. 40 Worth Street; but in August 1952 Chicopee Mills purchased No. 47-49 and began alterations so the textile offices and Lumite division could be consolidated.

Two years later, always adapting, the company was producing Chux Disposable Diapers.    Disposable diapers at the time were a revolutionary concept and it would be decades before fabric diapers and offensive smelling diaper bins would be considered relics.

The fabric industry, along with the apparel district, had moved northward by the second half of the century, leaving Chicopee Mills behind.   On July 5, 1965 The New York Times reported that “Chicopee is the last major textile concern to leave Worth Street, which had been the industry’s headquarters for nearly 100 years until the nineteen-fifties.”

Chicopee leased three full floors of 1450 Broadway, at 41^st Street, around 40,000 square feet.

A year later the New York Law School purchased Nos. 47-49 Worth Street.   The school used the building for various purposes, renovating the former loft and offices spaces.  In 1969 the AIA Guide to New York City lamented that 47 Worth Street stood as a “victim of ‘colonializing’ by an innocent admirer of history who, unfortunately, misunderstands architecture.”

In 2009, however, the building was extensively renovated and restored.    Although wide plate glass windows replace the mullioned originals, the AIA Guide was pleased, saying in 2010 that the restoration brought it back “to its Corinthian columned cast-iron grandeur.”