The 1903 Strasburger House -- No. 5 West 73rd Street.

By the turn of the last century sections of the Upper West Side vied with the fashionable neighborhoods on the other side of Central Park.   Hulking mansions lined the avenues and high-end apartment buildings were marketed to wealthy residents.  In 1902 real estate speculating brothers Thomas M. and William W. Hall had already been busy in the area, erecting rows of upper and upper-middle class homes.

Now they called on the architectural firm of Welch, Smith & Provot to design a string of five brick residences stretching west from No. 3 to 11 West 73^rd Street.   Completed a year later the upscale brick and limestone homes could easily hold their own with their across-the-park counterparts.   Among them was No. 5, just steps from Central Park; a five-story slice of France in Manhattan.

Among the houses in the row, No. 5 stood out.

The Beaux Arts-inspired house stood out from the others in the row with its bold red brick and contrasting white stone.  Above the limestone base, a central two-story bay grabbed attention.  Limestone quoins framed the brickwork, rising upward to the copper-sheathed mansard roof with its striking Palladian-inspired dormer.

The Hall brothers quickly sold No. 5 to Louis Strasburger who was defecting from his east side residence at No. 128 East 61^st Street for the West Side.    Now retired, the wealthy jeweler had founded the watch and diamond importing firm of Louis Strasburger & Co. in 1869 with his brother-in-law, Charles Adler.  In 1873 when the pair bought out their competitor Chas. Rubens & Co. they became the largest importing watch firm in New York.

Strasburger’s wealth had become such that in 1880 his family were the victims of a series of extortion plots.    Beginning with a letter demanding that Mrs. Strasburger leave an envelope with $60,000 at Broadway and Barclay Street “if you don’t wish to have a funeral in the house,” the threats became even more serious when daughter Rosalie was nearly abducted from school at Dr. Heubsch’s synagogue on Lexington Avenue.

The ongoing threats from German Nihilists, the intervention of detectives, and the near nervous-breakdown of Mrs. Strasburger ended on April 7, 1881 on 61^st Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues with detective and terrorist gunfire and, ultimately, dead Nihilists.

The Strausburgers now, no doubt, planned on a more sedate life on the opposite side of the Park.  Son Byron had taken over the family business, renaming it Byron L. Strausburger & Co. and little Rosa had grown up and married Solomon M. Bloch, a lace importer who conducted his business at Nos. 520-524 Broadway.

By now, however, Bloch’s 30-year old business, S. E. Bloch & Bro. was in trouble.     In September 1903 the debts of the firm had accumulated to $350,000, resulting in its being placed in receivership.  Rosa and Samuel moved into the house on West 73^rd Street with her parents.  Undeterred, Bloch founded the Nottingham Lace Works and started over.  It grew into a successful operation, with offices in New York and a factory in Nottingham, England.

After her parents’ deaths, Rosa inherited the house and the Blochs lived on here with their son, Monroe Percy.  As the country entered the world war, Monroe joined the Communication Service in 1918.

In 1923 Bryan Strausburger fell ill.  Rosa brought her brother to the house on West 73^rd Street to care for him.  But the wealthy diamond merchant, now 57 years old, died on May 13 in the house his father had purchased just two decades earlier.

After Monroe, now a lawyer, married Muriel Bamberger in 1925 Rosa and Solomon Bloch were left alone in the large home.   Following Rosalie’s death, the large house was perhaps too ungainly for Solomon, who moved into the Hotel Warick, ending the family’s tenure in the handsome residence.

In 1885, while Louis Strasburger was still in the diamond and watch business downtown, The American Society for Psychical Research was founded.  The mission of the organization was to explore “extraordinary” or “unexplained” phenomena; what today are commonly called psychic or paranormal experiences.

In 1969 the Society altered the Strasburger house to accommodate “research, offices and reading rooms.”    From its headquarters here, the group seeks to advance understanding of “the far reaching scientific and spiritual questions raised by the mysteries of consciousness.”

The striking exterior of No. 5 West 73^rd Street has been tenderly preserved (other than a rather obtrusive drain pipe that snakes down the façade).   There is no sign or placard to refute that this is not still the home of a successful diamond merchant.

photographs taken by the author

The 1921 Winthrop House -- No. 15 East 81st Street

photo by Alice Lum

Grenville Lindall Winthrop was rightfully proud of his ancestry.   Born in 1864, he was a direct descendant of two colonial governors, John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and John Winthrop, Jr. of Connecticut.  The aristocratic and wealthy Winthrop family was acutely aware of its roots and its place in society; but that pride did not reveal itself through ostentation.

Young Grenville was taught old New England values.   Overt display of affluence was unseemly and despite the Winthrop name and financial standing, the family lived reservedly.  New York’s society paper, Town Topics, slighted the Winthrop residence as an “old-fashioned brick house…probably the plainest residence today on Fifth Avenue.”

Shy and strait-laced, Grenville, like the other Winthrops, went off to Harvard where he lived in an exclusive, private dormitory.   He focused rather unexpectedly on geology and art history—areas which did not promise to provide a formidable career.   After graduation he stayed on in Cambridge to study law and returned to New York, setting up a partnership with James B. Ludlow and Frederick Philips.

In 1892 the 28-year old married Mary Tallmadge Trevor.  It was a June society wedding held at the Trevor country estate on the Hudson River.  Winthrop purchased a handsome house at No. 12 East 37^th Street in the fashionable Murray Hill neighborhood, near the homes of both mothers and other millionaires like J. Pierpont Morgan and Helen Louise Stokes.    Within nine months little Emily Winthrop was born and in 1899 another daughter, Kate, came along.

In the meantime Winthrop’s law practice, in which he had little interest, had failed.  He retired in 1896 leaving the management of his financial affairs to his brothers.   Disinterested in social functions and uncomfortable in public settings, he immersed himself in the study of art.    His marriage, at the same time, was suffering.    Mary Winthrop was an unhappy wife and shortly after the birth of Kate, in the spring of 1900, she left the city for her family home upstate.

Grenville spent the summer with his brother Frederic in Massachusetts.   When he returned at the end of the season, Mary remained at the Trevor estate in Yonkers.  Then in December she suddenly died.  Speculation pointed to suicide.

The traumatized father was terrified that his young daughters would fall victim to the same physiological and emotional problems as their mother.   The two little girls found themselves now in the hands of a rigid, socially-retiring father who intended to keep tight, protective reins on them.    He sought advice from professionals who counseled him to provide a balanced diet and to avoid overstimulation.  In response he hired a vegetarian chef and in-house tutors.   While other young girls of socially-prominent families were attending exclusive private girls’ schools, Kate and Emily were taught at home.

When he was not closely watching his daughters, Winthrop was collecting art.   Because he disliked travel, he stayed in the sanctuary of his home and hired buyers to search out his artworks.   Within the first few years of the 20^th century he had amassed an amazingly wide-flung collection.    By 1919 it had become obvious that his astounding collection had outgrown the Murray Hill mansion and was crowding out both the artwork and his daughters.

In 1902 Winthrop had commissioned architect Julius Gayler to design a sprawling mansion, Groton Place, in Lenox, Massachusetts, as his summer estate near that of his mother.  Now he turned to the architect to design a mansion for his art. 

The block along East 81^st Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues had been developed between 1878 and 1884 with near carbon-copy brownstone rowhouses.  As Manhattan’s millionaires crept up the Avenue around the turn of the century these were being razed or converted to lavish mansions.   The Costello family lived in No. 15 East 18^th Street and received the devastating news in 1918 that young Thomas Costello was killed in action in Europe.

The following year they sold their house to Winthrop, who purchased the houses at Nos. 17 and 19 as well.  Construction began on the exceptionally-wide home for the collector’s art.   Three years later, in 1921, the mansion was competed.   Like its owner, the structure was formal and reserved.    The red brick of the chaste neo-Federal façade was contrasted by the splayed white marble lintels and the handsome Ionic portico.  The refined entrance with its paneled door included sidelights and a large leaded fanlight.

Proud of his colonial pedigree, Winthrop added the family crest to the ironwork above the portico -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

But Grenville Winthrop never intended to live in the expansive mansion.  It was instead a private museum of his thousands of items.  There were just two bedrooms, one for himself and a single guestroom.   The other 36 rooms were reserved for the collection.   Display cases ran down the center of hallways and room after room was filled with Winthrop’s eclectic compilation of art and artifacts:  Pre-Raphaelite paintings, French drawings, clocks, Asian art, early Wedgwood and Mesoamerican masks.

photo by Alice Lum

In the meantime, his reclusively and control over his daughters intensified.   A cousin wrote that it was “pathetic, the way they were brought up.”    There were over 50 clocks in the Murray Hill house and the girls’ routines were strictly regimented.   At a precise hour they would dress for their formal vegetarian dinner with their father.   Although they might be tired, they were required to stay up until precisely the hour of bedtime.  When the girls visited relatives, Winthrop insisted on receiving a list of all the people they would be meeting.     The Times said of them “Their mother died when they were little girls and their father had brought them up in unusually strict seclusion, so much so that they mingled but little even in the fashionable society…

“Reared to serious cultural pursuits rather than to the lighter pleasures of young society women, both girls devoted themselves to music, and Miss Emily found a further outlet for her energies in devotion to sculpture.”  Winthrop built her a marble studio in Lenox and her sculptures received favorable mention in a few New York exhibitions.

Julius Gaylor used various-colored bricks, some charred, to give the impression of age and history -- photo by Alice Lum

Among the staff on the Lenox estate in 1924 were Darwin Spurr Morse and Corey Lucien Miles.  Miles was the Winthrop chauffeur.   He had married an actress after a brief courtship and moved into a cottage on the grounds of Groton Place.  The Times later reported that “The quiet village life of Lenox did not appeal to Mrs. Miles, and they soon parted company.”  Finally in 1924 the 34-year old Miles filed suit for divorce, but when the Sheriff attempted to file the papers, he discovered she had died.

Winthrop had given young Morse a job after school hours when he was still enrolled in the Lenox High School.   The boy was learning to be an electrician and following his graduation Winthrop hired him full time to do various jobs around the estate, including maintaining the chicken and pigeon coops. 

On September 6, 1924 Grenville Winthrop prepared to return to Lenox from an overnight trip to New York.  He sent a wire to the chauffeur Miles instructing him to pick him up at the train station.  When Winthrop got off the train, he was surprised to find a driver from a public garage waiting for him.  The driver told him that Miles had “been called out of town and had asked him to take his place.”

When the millionaire collector arrived at Groton Place, he was met at the front door by Miss Holmes.  The woman had been with the family for 20 years, first as the girls’ governess, then as their language teacher, and now as their private secretary.  She had the uncomfortable task of informing Winthrop that both his daughters had eloped.

In his absence, the girls had run off with the electrician and the chauffeur.    Emily, now 31-years old, had married Corey Lucien Miles and 24-year old Kate was now the bride of the electrician.   For the strict, conservative Winthrop whose decorous life was dictated by social proprieties, it was nearly more than he could bear.

The newspapers plastered the news across the headlines.    Page One of The New York Times read “Winthrop Sisters in Dual Elopement—Event Causes a Sensation in Social Circles—Father Reported Shocked and Grieved.”    The article began, “Two daughters of one of the wealthiest and most exclusive families in Lenox, with an undisputed social position in New York as well, made a joint runaway marriage this morning that is one of the most startling of its kind society here has known in many years.”

A subsequent article reported that a physician was called to attend to the millionaire.  “Mr. Winthrop is 65 years old and the shock he suffered was said to have been a severe one at first.” 

Emily Winthrop Miles with one of her sculptures in 1934.  Both girls inherited about $3 million from their grandmother.  photo NYPL Collection

Winthrop turned his back on his daughters and immersed himself in collecting.   The museum-house, which he referred to as “No. 15” continued to fill with priceless artwork.   One room was dedicated to painter-poet William Blake, containing over 50 of his works.  His collection of ancient Chinese jades and bronzes has never been equaled.  Because he never allowed any items to be taken on loan and because he was almost neurotically reclusive, it was one of the most important yet least known collections in the country.

The quiet and proper Grenville Lindall Winthrop died in 1943.  His collection of over 4,000 objects was left to Harvard University.  The now empty house on East 81^st Street was sold in a cash deal for about $270,000.  

The house was used as the scene of a party in the 1998 movie “The Object of My Affection”—the antithesis of anything that its original owner could have imagined  (Edith Wharton said of him, after all, “He had nice tastes, certainly…but he seems to me to want digging out and airing.”).   More recently owners Mr. and Mrs. Kotebar commissioned architectural firm Rothzeid, Kaiserman, Thomson & Bee, PC to restore the aging structure.

photo by Alice Lum

Like its builder, No. 15 East 81st Street is reserved, formal, and attempts to attract little attention.  A handsome example of early 20^th century Federal revival architecture, its history is unparalleled among New York houses.

The "Modern French" Nos. 49-51 West 23rd Street

The newly-constructed building was still vacant when this photograph was shot -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Of the mansions of the wealthy families who lived on the West 23^rd Street block between 5^th and 6^th Avenues in the late 19^th century—stockbroker Benjamin Nathan, the Joneses (whose daughter, Edith, would become famous as Edith Wharton), and Dr. John Gardner Ambler among them—perhaps none was so attention-grabbing as that of William C. Schermerhorn.

The Schermerhorns were one of the oldest and most respected of the old “patroon” families of Manhattan.  Jacob Janse Schermerhorn was among the first settlers of New Netherland, arriving in 1636.  Following the Revolutionary War, the family lived in a country home, north of the city, on an estate that stretched from what is now Third Avenue to the East River, from about 63^rd to 68^th Streets, which  was built by Peter Schermerhorn, better known in New York history as “Peter the Younger.”   

By 1860 William Colford Schermerhorn, an attorney, was patriarch of the family.  That year he erected a city mansion straddling two building lots on West 23^rd Street at Nos. 49 and 51.   As the century progressed and the city’s entertainment district established itself along 23^rd Street, many of the wealthy residents moved on.  But William Schermerhorn resiliently stayed put in his brick and stone mansion, even as the Eden Musee Theatre was built directly next door.

Then on New Year’s Day in 1903 Schermerhorn died in the mansion on 23^rd Street at the age of 82.   His estate, about $35 million today, included two summer mansions—one in Newport and another in Lenox, Massachusetts.   His widow, Anne E. H. Schermerhorn, his daughter Fannie Bridgham and her husband Samuel, lived on in the 23^rd Street house which The New York Times said, on February 10, “now stands as a relic of a past generation.”

The Schermerhorn mansion survived until 1911.  To the left a portion of the Eden Musee can be seen.  photo NYPL Collection

Annie Schermerhorn did not survive much longer than her husband, but despite the fact that there were no other homes left on West 23^rd Street, she made sure the family house would not be razed while a Schermerhorn was still breathing. “In her will she left the injunction that the old house be occupied as a residence until the last of the family died,” reported The Sun on June 2, 1907, “so Mrs. Samuel Bridgham, one of her daughters, resides there with her husband during the part of the year she does not spend at her farm in East Greenwich, R.I.”

A year later Fannie died, relieving Samuel Bridgham of Mrs. Schermerhorn’s injunction.  Now alone in the anachronistic mansion, he looked for a home in a more residential and fashionable neighborhood.  On March 19, 1908 The New York Times noted that “The old Schermerhorn residence, in Twenty-third Street…has long been one of the most conspicuous landmarks in the central park of the city.  Flanked on one side by the Eden Musee and on the other by an eight-story business building, its dignified brownstone front is a striking reminder of the days when business was all below Fourteenth Street and when the fashionable residential section was along Fifth Avenue south of Madison Square.

“For several years it has been the only remaining residence on either side of Twenty-third Street, in the busy block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.”

Within a few days of The Times article, Bridgman had purchased a new home at No. 954 Fifth Avenue and “the old Schermerhorn mansion at 49 West twenty-third Street will probably be abandoned and a new business structure erected on the site,” reported The New York Times.

In the meantime furniture manufacturers and dealers Geiger & Braverman were expanding into real estate.  In 1905 they opened a “general real estate and building business” office, according to the Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide, at 198 Broadway.   “These gentlemen are well known in the real estate field and furniture business,” said the Guide, and were already completing two apartment houses on 120^th Street near 7^th Avenue.

It was the Nameloc Company, however, that acquired the Schermerhorn mansion and in its place erected a 12-story store and loft building designed by Schwartz & Gross.   But it would be home to the Geiger & Braverman’s retail furniture business—a location that made perfect sense.  By now other furniture manufacturers had established themselves on the block—Robert J. Horner had erected his handsome limestone store next door at Nos. 61-65 and just to the west was the George C. Flint furniture store at No. 43.

Designed in what has been termed the “Modern French” style, the understated lower three floors were clad in limestone and featured a central section of expansive show windows.  The retail entrance was deeply recessed within arcade show windows—a recent innovation.   Above, nine floors of brick and terra cotta melded Art Nouveau and neo-Gothic in an unexpected, unabashedly 20^th century composition.   A marvelous parapet capped a gentle arch that harbored colorful terra cotta shields.

Up-to-the-minute Art Nouveau panels coexist with more traditional architectural details.

The upper lofts filled with various small manufacturers like S. Khoury & Co., Charles Iger, shirtwaist manufacturer, United Novelty Company, and Cohen & Feinberg while Geiger & Braverman sold furniture in the lower three floors.   A writer for the New-York Tribune was impressed with the modern furniture offered in June 1915.

“A nest of four tables for afternoon tea, fitting one beneath the other, is a good arrangement for the verandah,” the writer noted.  “Finished in mahogany these are priced at $10.  Another useful item for the summer cottage is the bookrack with extra shelf beneath for magazines of papers.”

A month later the writer was back and reported that “Here I saw a truly luxurious chaise longue upholstered in gay cretonne or pretty denim.  It may be had now at the special price of $22.50.  An upholstered davenport, with deep springs and loose cushions, is specially priced at $49.  Good looking lamps in either the ivory or mahogany finish, have pretty silk shades and cost $3.75.”

On the building's side wall, above the Eden Musee, ad painted signs advertise tenants in the upper lofts --NYPL Collection

L. Bernardaud, china and glass dealer, was here as was the Seymour Cravat Company, run by Hyman and Hertz, who were manufacturers of silk ties.   For a year, in 1918, the silk lofts of Manhattan had been plagued with “an abnormal number of burglaries,” according to the New-York Tribune and District Attorney Swann was convinced they “could not have been possible without the connivance of the police.”

On January 8, 1918 the robbers hit Seymour Cravat Company.  Unfortunately for the thieves and for Detective Edward C. Burgess, the D.A.’s office had the place staked out.  On the day prior to the robbery Burgess had entered the Seymour’s and purchased some times.   On the day of the robbery, according to the witness, Burgess “watched outside while the burglars operated and arranged to rap on the door twice if he saw a policeman or prying pedestrian approaching.”

Burgess was charged with accepting $184 as his share of the take.

The Bravermans continued to branch out and opened an upholstery firm in the building in 1919, Braverman & Weiss, Inc.   Brothers Charles and Solomon Braverman partnered with Joseph Weiss in the logical adjunct to their furniture business.

Other small firms like Rosenbaum & Lipner, makers of men’s neckwear; Michael Kolber; Bernard, Bernard & Co.; and Michael Addison, corset and underwear manufacturers, filled the building in the first decades of the century.  

Throughout the 20^th century the building saw various stores and offices come and go; however little changed outwardly.  Today a mattress store fills the street level retail space where Geiger & Braverman sold teacarts and wicker plant stands.  The out-of-the-ordinary early 20^th century structure is worth a pause and an upward glance.

non-historic photographs taken by the author

The 1852 Benjamin Swan House -- 5 West 20th Street

In the decade before the Civil War, opulent homes of New York’s wealthiest citizens were spreading northward along Fifth Avenue past 14^th Street.  The mansions spilled onto the side streets as the neighborhood competed with the earlier Bond Street and St. John’s Park areas as the city’s most fashionable.

Builder Gustavus A. Conover was involved in the movement and in 1852 constructed the fine brownstone-clad residence at 5 West 20^th Street.  Conover, by now, had amassed a considerable fortune of his own and, aside from his construction business, was an officer of the Forty-Second Street and Grand Street Ferry Company.    

The four-story, Italianate-style dwelling sat above a high English basement.  An overhanging cornice was supported by paired, scrolled brackets.  The rows of arched openings grew shorter at each successive story.   And it was the window treatments that made Conover’s house stand out on the block, and compete with its Fifth Avenue neighbors.  Carved shells in full relief adorned the arches of the third floor, outdone by stone wreaths and festoons at the second.  The added architectural touches brought an unusually light, decorative air to what was most often a somber residential style.

With the clouds of potential war forming in the South, Conover joined a large group of New Yorkers who firmly felt that the slavery question threatened the survival of the unified nation.   Calling themselves “The Union” and headed by George Ward, the group included high-powered men like Schuyler Livingston, Abraham Van Nest, Isaac Townsend and Jacob Westervelt.  The Union termed the anti-slavery movement “agitation” and insisted, “The institution of Slavery has existed throughout the history of the world, and in all ages.  In the earliest periods of society, it has been a great instrument of Civilization, by the introduction of Property.”  The men worried that the anti-slavery movement “has grown to a magnitude which now provides ill-feeling, and may terminate in the dissolution of this Union and the destruction of that Republic which has been held forth as a bright example to the nations of the earth.”

Conover's residency in the West 20^th Street was relatively brief.  By 1861 he was living at 35 West 30^th Street.  No. 5 West 20th Street became the home of Benjamin Lincoln Swan, Jr. and his family.

The son of a wealthy merchant, Swan was born on July 7, 1818 to an important colonial family.  Richard Swan arrived in Massachusetts in 1634, becoming an original proprietor of the Narragansett land grant.  Benjamin Swan Jr.’s grandfather, Major Samuel Swan, was an eminent Revolutionary War figure and the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on his farm.

Swan had been educated at Amherst College and Columbia College and in 1840 had entered the ship chandlery business.  By 1850, however, the 32-year-old had retired to look “after the estates he had in charge,” according to the New-York Tribune.  Young and wealthy, he was a director in the Manhattan Savings Institution and the Citizens’ Fire Insurance Company.

On June 30, 1855, Swan invested in a partnership with his brothers, Frederick and Caleb, and George A. Bock--forming the dry goods firm of Frederick G. Swan.  Benjamin’s contribution of $30,000 to the endeavor would amount to about $589,000 today.

The Swan family included two children.   His wife, the former Caroline Post, had died in 1860.  In 1867, Swan married Mary Renwick.  The family divided its time between the West 20^th Street house and their Oyster Bay, Long Island country estate, The Terrace.  

The Swans' country home in Oyster Bay.  image via americanaristocracy.com

Mary Swan involved herself in the charities expected of a socially prominent woman, while her husband held memberships in exclusive clubs including the Century Club, Union Club, New York Yacht Club, Down Town Club, the St. Nicholas Society and the Sons of the Revolution.

In 1871, like his father, young William Lincoln Swan attended Columbia College.  That same year he founded the Seawanahaka Corinthian Yacht Club, becoming its first Commodore.  For yachting purposes, he used The Terrace as his address.

In the spring of 1892, Benjamin Lincoln Swan, Jr. became ill.  His condition worsened and on April 11 he died of pneumonia in his bed on West 20^th Street.  Mary Swan continued to live in the house as the neighborhood around her rapidly changed.  By 1899, when son William died, the most of the mansions of Fifth Avenue had been razed or converted to commercial uses.  William’s wife, the former Isabel Thurston, moved permanently into the Oyster Bay house.

In 1904, 5 West 20^th Street was purchased by H. Olin and C. W. Hand.  The men were members of the Presbyterian Boards of Home and Foreign Missions, whose headquarters were located around the corner at Nos. 154-158 Fifth Avenue.  The new owners commissioned architects Pickering & Walker to convert the former mansion to commercial use.

The architects removed the brownstone stoop and replaced the basement and parlor floors with a two-story wood-and-cast iron store front that projected to the property line.  The upper floors were gutted for loft space.

The 1904 storefront survives nearly unaltered, and astoundingly the upper floors are nearly intact.

The Federal Merchandise Corporation was in the building as the United States entered the World War in 1917.   Henry Nierman had founded the wholesale merchandising establishment in April of that year.  He brought his 19-year-old nephew, William Jacobson, into the business.  Young Jacobson was, apparently, more a patriot than a businessman.

In September of that year, the boy was sent out to buy cheesecloth for the firm.  He never returned.  It was not until several days later that the company received word that he had enlisted in the Army.  Nine months later, the War Department sent word that young Jacobson had been severely wounded in France.

In June 1918, the firm was under Federal investigation for cheating consumers.  The Federal Merchandise Corporation invited customers to make weekly deposits of $1.00.  When they had deposited $30, a certificate was promised that would entitle them to a 5 to 10 percent discount on merchandise, along with interest on the deposits.

The District Attorney’s office received numerous complaints from persons nationwide who had deposited their $30, but never received the certificate.  In addition, consumers who had ordered items never received them.  The public was even more outraged when The New York Sun reported that several of the swindled customers were “soldiers in camp.”

Within a year, the Federal Merchandise Corporation was gone and in its place was the Great Northern Furniture Company.  Like its predecessor, the firm soon found itself in hot water.

The trouble started when Mrs. Helen Becker purchased $18.10 worth of furniture for her home at 307 East 97^th Street.  Steadfastly adhering to the agreement with the dealer, she paid 10 cents a week until she had paid off the amount due.  When she ordered her delivery, no furniture arrived.  Finally losing patience, she filed a complaint and the sales manager, Louis Lax, was arrested for grand larceny under the commercial fraud statute.

Mrs. Becker had opened the floodgates and no fewer than twenty other women called the office of Assistant District Attorney H. C. Kastenbaum with similar complaints.

Throughout the 20^th century, Benjamin Swan’s former home served a wide variety of businesses.  But through it all the structure changed little from its 1904 appearance.  The two-story storefront remained with only minor modernization, and the upper three stories survive as they were when the Swans lived here.

In 1993, second through fourth floors were renovated into residential lofts; but in 2011 the building was reconverted to offices by architects Feingold & Gregory.  Since 2004 the structure has been home to Blue State Digital, a technologically-based organization that develops online fundraising, social networking and other endeavors for brands, individuals, and corporations.

Benjamin Lincoln Swan’s brownstone dwelling has, for some reason, been painted a gray-blue; yet by looking up at the upper floors the passerby can get a sense of the high-end neighborhood just off Fifth Avenue before the outbreak of the Civil War.

photographs taken by the author

The 1897 H. H. Vail House -- No. 322 W. 75th Street

As the 19^th century drew to a close work progressed on Riverside Park above the cliffs of the Hudson River.  Based on plans laid out by Fredrick Law Olmstead, the park offered breathtaking views of the river and the palisades on the opposite side.  Developers quickly recognized Riverside Drive as a viable rival to fashionable Fifth Avenue and mansions—both freestanding and rowhouses—began lining the thoroughfare.

In the 1880s and 1890s architect Charles P. H. Gilbert, most often referred to as C. P. H. Gilbert, had been busy in Brooklyn designing upper-class homes along Montgomery Place and Garfield Place among others.   But in 1895 he turned his attention to Riverside Drive.

Almost simultaneously he would design nine houses in close proximity—three at 72^nd Street (No. 311 West 72^nd and Nos. 1 and 3 Riverside Drive), and a group of six: three that stretched from 74^th to 75^th Streets, and three more that extended along 75^th.  The latter group, begun in 1895, included the corner house at No. 322 West 75^th Street (which also, no doubt to the dismay of postal carriers, claimed the address of No. 25 Riverside Drive).

Built for Henry Hobart Vail, editor-in-chief and chairman of the board of the American Book Company, the house was completed two years later in 1897.  Gilbert used the commanding corner site to make the Renaissance Revival Vail house the most impressive of the harmonious group.   Five stories tall, it sat on a limestone base above which three stories of beige Roman brick rose, capped by another in limestone.  A three-story rounded pavilion at the corner commanded attention.

An important symbol of status and financial standing of the millionaires of the gilded age was the inclusion of a pipe organ in their grand homes.  Henry Vail would not be left out and for his instrument he sought the talents of one of the foremost organ builders, George F. Hutchings.  While building Vail’s instrument, the Boston-based Hutchings was also at work on the organ for The Basilica and Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Boston that would bring him national acclaim, and one for the church of First Parish in Lexington (Massachusetts).

Despite its sumptuous views, impressive architecture and grand pipe organ, Henry H. Vail did not stay long in the house.  By 1900 the Biographical Directory of the State of New York listed his residence as No. 322 West 75^th Street.  But he would not sell the house until April of 1907.

The house became home to engineer Charles Sooysmith and his wife Virginia.  The son of General William Sooysmith who served under General Ulysses S. Grant in the Civil War, his name was “linked with a score of important engineering achievements throughout the United States,” according to the New-York Tribune.    At one point Charles Sooysmith was one of the foremost railroad engineers in the West—constructing railroad bridges in Iowa, Maryland, Kentucky and Nebraska.  He was the first American engineer to successfully use the pneumatic caisson; a construction method that made skyscrapers feasible. 

Sooysmith first used the innovative pneumatic caisson in the construction of the Manhattan Life Building, followed by major structures like the American Surety Building and Washington Life Building.  While living in the Riverside Drive house he was instrumental in the construction of the August Belmont-funded subway tunnels.

A member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Consulting Engineers and the Western Society of Civil Engineers, Sooysmith was not just about work.  He was also a member of the exclusive University, Century and New York Yacht clubs.

On the evening of June 1, 1916 the 60-year old engineer died in the house on Riverside Drive.  Within the year banker Robert R. Moore and his family moved in.   Moore was president and director of both the Commercial Trust Company and the Commercial Safe Deposit Company.  Previously he held the position of president of the New Amsterdam National Bank.  The mansion quickly became the scene of joy when, on the afternoon of March 7, 1917, daughter Anna was married to Howard C. Davis here.

Like the former residents, however, the Moore family would not stay in the house for an extended period.  On March 2, 1921 the New-York Tribune reported on the sale of the mansion, noting “The house was built to order form plans by C. P. H. Gilbert.”  

Mrs. Henry Stanford Brooks, the daughter of Henry Hobart Vail, purchased the magnificent pipe organ for $25,000 in 1928 and donated it in memory of her father to Bryn Mawr College where it was installed in the music wing of the new Goodhart Hall.  Updated by Thomas Cole, including a new electric action, new console, two manuals, twenty-four speaking stops and eight couplers, it was dedicated on February 21 of that year.

In December 1938 the house was sold again, this time to Jessie Denton who leased it three months later.

In the early 1980s Henry Hobart Vail’s luxurious corner home was converted to a residence community for the mentally ill.  The home was operated by The Richmond Fellowship of America, whose goal was to assist emotionally or mentally disturbed adolescents and adults who no longer required inpatient hospital care.  The house provided shelter for 23 long-term clients.

The mansion was converted once again in 2007—this time to luxurious apartments, one per floor.  In 2013 owner Dina Wein Reis was sentenced to 19 months in prison for convincing Fortune 500 companies to give her tens of millions of dollars in merchandise.  Since we would not be using the mansion, she put it on the market as a furnished rental at $75,000 per month.
 

http://www.elliman.com/new-york-city/322-west-75-street-manhattan-ztrovba

With only minimal alterations, the Henry Hobart Vail house looks much as it did when C. P. H. Gilbert, himself, lived just steps away at No. 33 Riverside Drive.

photographs taken by the author
many thanks to  Mary Lehman for requesting this post