The Lost Mary Mason Jones Mansion -- 1 East 57th Street

By the time this photograph was taken, all of Marble Row, save the Jones mansion, had been razed -- photograph by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWRDGFBX&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

In her 1920 novel of New York society during the Gilded Age, The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton paints a written portrait of Mrs. Manson Mingott—the shrewd social leader who constructed her lavish mansion far north of the affluent residential district.

It was her habit to sit in a window of her sitting-room on the ground floor, as if watching calmly for life and fashion to flow northward to her solitary doors.  She seemed in no hurry to have them come, for her patience was equaled by her confidence.  She was sure that presently the hoardings, the quarries, the one-story saloons, the wooden green-houses in ragged gardens, and the rocks from which goats surveyed the scene, would vanish before the advance of residences as stately as her own—perhaps (for she was an impartial woman) even statelier.

The character of Mrs. Mingott was a slightly-veiled portrayal of the very real Mrs. Mary Mason Jones, Wharton’s aunt.  Like Mrs. Mingott, she erected a massive marble chateau on Fifth Avenue and East 57^th Street, more than 20 blocks above the northern fringe of fashionable society. 

Mary Mason Jones had inherited two blocks of land stretching from Fifth Avenue to Park Avenue, between 57^th and 58^th Streets, in 1854.  Her father, banker John Mason, had bought up several acres of undeveloped, rocky terrain in 1823 for approximately $10 a city lot.  The land would eventually be carved into sixteen city blocks in what would become known as Midtown.

Mason’s will was tied up in the courts for fifteen years.  (Apparently two daughters and their husbands were with him as he neared death.  In his semi-conscious condition, they propped him into a sitting position, tied him between a chair in back and a board in front to keep him from slumping over and forced his signature.  Court papers said “He wandered in his mind, talking and muttering to himself about horses and chemicals.  In this decayed state of body and mind he executed the famous Mason will.)  Once the property was hers outright, the widowed Mary Mason Jones set to work improving it.

In 1867 she sat down with architect Robert Mook and laid out her vision for the Fifth Avenue block.  There would be no grim brownstone and no high stoops.  Instead she pointed to the exuberant residential designs of Paris and the French country palaces.  A newspaper said the “buildings were built from plans of her own, made by an architect from ideas she derived from Fontainebleau.”

Two years later her series of isolated white marble mansions was completed.  They quickly earned the name Marble Row and were like nothing the city had seen before.

Decades later The New York Times would say “Mrs. Jones built the series of residences and introduced French tendencies in the architecture.  Her innovation has been credited by some as ending the fashion of ‘brown stone fronts’ as the home hallmark of ‘society.’” 

Mrs. Jones ensconced herself in 1 East 57^th Street and, as the fictional Mrs. Mingott had done, waited for society to come to her.  And it did. 

Within two decades Fifth Avenue was paved and the monumental mansions of Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens rose along the blocks around Mrs. Jones’s marble palace.  And her emulation of things French did not stop with her mansion.  She instituted the practice of Sunday evening “salons,” in which artists and writers would mingle with society figures.  Discussions centered around literature and other subjects more substantial than the superficial dribble heard at teas, dinner parties and receptions.

Mary Mason Jones was an undisputed leader of society, a position she refused to allow even her advancing years to impede.  On December 30, 1884, she hosted a debutante dance in the house for her great-granddaughter, Lena De Trobriand Post.  (The New York Times made note that the first ball Mrs. Jones had given was 63 years earlier.)  “It was an early ball, as Mrs. Jones, who is 83 years old, wished to be present and witness the social triumph of her great-granddaughter.  She had brought into society her sister, her daughter, and her granddaughter, and last night her happiness was complete at witnessing the first ball given in honor of a great-grandchild.”

The article noted the décor of the mansion:  

The halls of the large house last evening were filled with palms and rare exotic plants.  Broad steps ascend from the square hallway as one enters, and leading to the second floor terminate at the entrance to a large ball room…It is a large square room, with high ceiling and furnished with brightly colored upholstering.  It was ornamented last evening simply with holly and a few flowers.  On one side is a reception room, which was given up to the guests last evening, and was prettily decorated with flowers and greens.  On the first floor is the suite of parlors.

Earlier that year, in April, the house had seen the wedding of Mary Mason Jones’s granddaughter, also named Mary Mason Jones.  The guest list included the most elite of New York society—Astors, Goelets, Van Rensselaers, Iselins, Schieffelins, and Waldos among them.  Expectedly absent was the wealthy widow Mrs. Paran Stevens.

Like her counterpart, Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, Mary Mason Jones defined “society” by the age of one’s money.   Only members of New York’s Old Guard danced at a Mason ball or were invited to tea.  The socially ambitious Mrs. Stevens had millions; but her husband had made his money in hotels and rumor was that she had been a housekeeper when she met him.

The sometimes overt social clashes between the two women reportedly resulted in Marietta Reed Stevens’ famous announcement that she would never set foot in Marble Row by invitation.  And she did not—possibly because that invitation never came.

On May 29, 1891 the 90-year-old Mrs. Mary Mason Jones died in the marble palace at 1 East 57^th Street.  The New York Times noted that she “was in comparatively good health up to a few weeks ago, and her death was the result of old age more than any specific disease.”  Mrs. Paran Stevens was about to get her revenge.

Within the year she moved into the former home of Mary Mason Jones.  But first she redid the Jones interiors.  On October 2, 1892 The New York Times mentioned that “Mrs. Paran Stevens is having her newly-leased marble residence…renovated.”  The lease would become a deed before long.

Mrs. Paran Stevens's somewhat fussy decorating, in keeping with the taste of the period, included hanging artwork on a mirror -- photograph by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWRDGFBX&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Paran Stevens had died in 1872, leaving the management of his extensive real estate holdings to his wife and a group of trustees.  Marietta Reed Stevens was vociferously opinionated, strong-minded, and obstinate.  “There seemed to be an entire lack of harmony between the widow and the trustees to whom Paran Stevens left the management of his property,” The New York Times would later say.  In her determination to get her own way, she spent approximately $250,000 in legal fees fighting her partners in managing the properties—over $6 million by today’s standards.

An ambitious portiere drapes the pocket doors of one of Mrs. Stevens' parlors-- photograph by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWRDGFBX&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Mrs. Paran Stevens strove onward in her quest to become a social leader, and she succeeded.  Her ballroom would see the city’s most prominent names, just as it had during Mary Mason Jones’s residency.  On March 17, 1893 it was the scene of a “salon concert” by the entire 60-member Boston Symphony Orchestra.  Among the guests there that night were Mr. and Mrs. Hermann Oelrichs.  Also there were Stanford White and his wife.  Theresa Oelrichs and the architect would meet again in the house years later under greatly changed circumstances.

A month later Marietta Reed Stevens scored a social coup.  In 1890’s New York nothing caught the attention of society like a royal title and the Duke and Duchess of Veragua with their retinue were in town.  She managed to entertain the royals with a glittering affair.

“The important function of the evening was the reception given to the members of the ducal party by Mrs. Paran Stevens at her handsome home at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street,” reported The Times on April 21, 1893.  “Mrs. Stevens invited a number of society people to meet the Duke and Duchess, and received her guests in the ballroom on the second floor…The reception was not held till 9 o’clock, and many of the guests were much later in arriving.  In all about 150 persons were present.”

The house as it looked when Mrs. Paran Stevens lived here.  -- photograph Library of Congress

Marietta Reed Stevens was well-known for her violent temper and outbursts—diplomatically described by the New-York Tribune as “Mrs. Paran Stevens’ intense nature.”  The New York Times would say of her “Probably no woman conspicuous in New-York society has been more talked about than Mrs. Stevens, and it was a favorite jest of hers that the public picked out nothing but her faults.  She was an ambitious woman, eager for social prestige, and she stamped out everything that stood in the pathway of her ambition.”

The same year that she entertained the Duke, she received troubling news about one of her premiere properties, the Victoria Hotel at Fifth Avenue and 27th Street.  Her lessees were falling behind and the hotel was not doing well.   The New York Times said that her “financial interests are so closely identified with the success of the hotel” and its prosperity was “a matter of serious consequence to her.”

The intense emotional character of Marietta Stevens would take its toll on her in March 1895 when she received the news that the Victoria Hotel had failed.  On April 2 The New York Times ran the headline “Mrs. Paran Stevens Prostrated” and wrote “Since the assignment last week Mrs. Stevens had been unable to leave her house, at Fifty-seventh Street and Fifth Avenue.  Acquaintances who called have been informed that she caught cold at a musicale, and that the probabilities of serious developments were so near at hand that she could not receive visitors.”

The doors to the Fifth Avenue mansion were closed and “The butler refused to take cards or to give any information, except that Mrs. Stevens was suffering from a very severe cold,” said the newspaper.  The truth was, with the news of the hotel’s collapse she had suffered a massive stroke.

A telegram was sent to Marietta’s daughter, Lady Paget, to board the first steamship to New York.  She would not arrive in time.  On April 4, 1895 The New York Times wrote “To persons familiar with the peculiarly nervous and excitable temperament of Mrs. Paran Stevens, and to all who knew of the shock that the failure of the Victoria Hotel was to her, the sudden announcement of her death yesterday afternoon was not a surprise.”  

Even in reporting her death, the newspaper did not hold back concerning her peculiarities.  “No woman in New-York society was better known than Mrs. Paran Stevens, and despite certain personal idiosyncrasies that all her friends thoroughly understood..She was an impulsive woman, never hesitating to give full expression of her opinions about everybody and everything uppermost in her mind for the moment.”

Mariette Stevens’s body lay for days in a room with drawn curtains on the third floor of the mansion while her daughter traveled from Liverpool.

Later that year, in November, an auction was held of the Stevens artwork removed from the mansion.  Included were 97 oil paintings and several marble sculptures.  Although there were a few rather important pieces, including a life-size portrait of Daniel Webster by A. G. Hoit; The New York Times was blatantly catty in its critique of the collection.

Most of the works, however, are of a style popular many years ago with our fashionables…There are copies of old works, curious canvases, of such infinite variety of subject as certainly to stamp the collector’s taste as eclectic, to say the least.

The massive marble mansion became the property of Herman Oelrichs and his wife, the former Theresa Fair.  “Tessie” was one of two daughters of James Graham Fair—one of the four partners in the fabled Comstock Lode and a former Senator of California.  Theresa commissioned Stanford White to renovate the house.  (Two years later, just as the renovations were completed, he would design the Oelrichs’ grand Newport cottage, Rosecliff). 

On January 3 1897 The Times described the changes.  “Since Hermann Oelrichs and his wife came into possession of the white marble house at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street, which was occupied for many years by Mrs. Paran Stevens, some pronounced improvements have gone into effect.  Rich and artistic decorations, external as well as internal, have converted the old mansion into one of the most beautiful residences on the avenue.” 

The newspaper made note of the opulent homes now standing in what was barren terrain when Mary Mason Jones built the house.  “The junction of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street may now with truth be called ‘the palace corners.’  There is Cornelius Vanderbilt’s great mansion on one corner, Collis P. Huntington’s castle on another, the ivy-clad Whitney palace on a third, and now the luxurious home of the Oelrichses on the fourth.”

Living with the Oelrichses in the house was Tessie’s sister, Virginia Fair.  The New York Times said of her “She was popular from her first entrance into society, and while not exactly a great belle, has always been much liked, both in New York and Newport.”  Among those who “much liked” the girl known popularly as “Birdie” was a neighbor, William K. Vanderbilt, Jr.

Marble Row is seen looking south from Central Park in 1898.  The mammoth Cornelius Vanderbilt mansion is at the center of the photo, and the Oelrichses were living in No. 1 East 57th, to the right of the Row.  photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWRD20LI&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=608

Newport society took notice in 1897 when the 18-year-old Vanderbilt showed attention to the 21-year old Virginia Fair.  A year later their engagement was confirmed.  “The news of the engagement it is not expected will greatly surprise New York society,” said The New York Times.  “Mr. Vanderbilt has been assiduous in his attentions to Miss Fair,” said the newspaper.  “He was constantly with her at Newport last Summer, and since he returned from college for his Christmas holidays has been seen much with her in public.”

The Vanderbilt-Fair wedding would be the grandest event held in the Oelrichs mansion.  Preparations required an army of carpenters, decorators and florists.  The service would be held in the conservatory and to prevent gawking eyes, the glass walls were covered in yards of pink fabric.  An altar was constructed in the center of the room, and full-grown blossoming fruit trees were brought in.

The conservatory (right) where Virginia Fair married Wm. Vanderbilt is visible from the 57th Street view.  It was among Stanford White's renovations.--photograph by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWRDGFBX&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

The ballroom, which opened onto the conservatory, was “transformed into a rose garden.”  Tessie had rose trees, six-feet in diameter and 12-feet in height, placed throughout the room along with several sundials.  An organ was placed in the musicians’ balcony where the singers performed.

The pre-publicity of the wedding—the guest list, the decorations, gowns and other details—drew crowds on the street.  The wedding was scheduled to take place at 12:10 and “an enormous crowd, almost entirely composed of women, began to assemble in the vicinity of the Oelrichs house at an early hour,” reported The New York Times.

A squad of policemen were dispatched to keep “this feminine crowd, with some difficulty, on the south side of Fifty-seventh Street, and away from the doors of the Oelrichs residence.”

The women were shocked when the bridegroom was seen leaving the house.  “He had been paying an early morning visit to his fiancée, and left the house on foot, in order to go to his father’s house, at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-second Street, to dress for the ceremony.  This was evidently considered a very unconventional proceeding and led to much discussion.”

The Oelrichs’s butler, Johnson, kept vigil at the entrance, lest anyone uninvited should sneak in.  “The musicians, caterers’ assistants, and other attendants began to arrive at the house soon after 11 o’clock.  They were obliged to pass in each individual case the scrutiny of the argus-eyed Johnson, who had taken his stand at the entrance of the canopy, which had been erected over night.”

As the socially-prominent guests began arriving, the crowds got out of control.  “The police exerted themselves, but found the utmost difficulty in restraining the surging mass of women, who pressed forward with such eager curiosity that it was almost impossible for those of the arriving relatives and guests who were on foot to force their way through.”

Throughout the elegant ceremony and wedding breakfast the impatient mob of women stayed their grounds; now lining the west side of Fifth Avenue and the south side of 57^th Street.  When the Vanderbilt carriage pulled up to the mansion with its driver and footman wearing claret-colored coats and white breeches; pandemonium broke out.  The curiosity seekers demanded a glimpse of the bride and groom.

“The crowd, which up to this time had been under half-way control, burst its bounds when the carriage drove up for the couple.  Clubs were used to keep them back, and many people were knocked down.  The bridegroom grew impatient and the bride declared she could never get to the carriage.  In a few moments, however, the way was cleared.”

Eventually Herman Oelrichs spent less and less time in the Fifth Avenue mansion.  He traveled often to San Francisco to administer Tessie’s and Virginia’s inherited properties and investments.  Never one to enjoy the pomp and pretensions of society, by 1906 he had purchased a farm outside San Francisco where he lived most of the time.  The New York Times said “He had virtually retired from the New York house…He rarely came to New York, but would make short visits here about twice a year.  Mrs. Oelrichs and their son visited yearly in California.”

On the morning of April 18, 1906 the 56-year-old Oelrichs was in San Francisco managing Tessie’s properties when the infamous earthquake hit.  Already in poor health, he worked tirelessly in relief efforts.  “In the horrors that followed the quake he took charge of the house of Mrs. Eleanor Martin, beyond Van Ness Avenue, which was converted into headquarter for army offices,” reported The Times.  “He also did much effective relief work, but the strain proved too great for him, and his doctor advised him to go to Carlsbad and try the waters there.”

On his way home from the German spa, on the steamship Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, Herman Oelrichs died.  Tessie was in Newport, visiting Virginia and William Vanderbilt, when the news came.  The three, along with Herman Oelrichs, Jr., arrived back at Grand Central Terminal on September 4 and went straight to the Fifth Avenue house.  Because it had been closed for the season, servants were set to work preparing it while the Vanderbilts, Tess and young Herman went to the Hotel Belmont.

The following day the family waited at the pier for the steamship to dock.  Dressed in mourning, Tessie was surrounded by the gleeful families of those returning on the ship; unaware of her grief.  “The friends of those on board knew nothing in their joy of the little mourning group, and swarmed around them, shouting greetings and calling their pleasure at seeing their friends return alive and well.  After a few minutes the ordeal was more than Mrs. Oelrichs could bear, and she left her chair and moved away a little from the crowd."

The coffin was eventually put in a hearse and taken to the Fifth Avenue mansion “where it was placed in a mortuary chamber, made beautiful with flowers and palms and ferns,” said a newspaper.  The funeral was held in the double drawing room that same afternoon.  Oelrichs’s esteemed place in society was reflected in his distinguished pallbearers:  Gustav H. Schwab, Stuyvesant Fish, De Lancey Nicoll, Pembroke Jones, Davis Barnes, Charles A. Childs, Oliver H. P. Belmont, and Frank Gray Griswold.

With Theresa Fair Oelrichs having a sizable fortune of her own, The San Francisco Call reported that Herman Oelrichs’s entire fortune of $52 million was bequeathed to his 15-year-old son Hermann, “without reservation—when the son should attain his majority.”

Tessie Oelrichs lived on in the house, summering in Newport at Rosecliff, and abiding a few notable bumps in the road.  The year following Herman’s death she had been riding in her $16,000 limousine with Virginia and several other women.  When she returned home around 5:00 she instructed her chauffeur Frank W. Shaw, to return the car to the private garage she shared with about a dozen other wealthy families.  About a half hour later one of her guests reported that she had lost her purse and possibly had left it in the automobile.

Tessie called the garage and was surprised to discover the car had not been returned yet.    By 9:00 that evening she reported the car and chauffeur as missing.  Police searched for the limousine and put an officer at the garage awaiting Shaw’s return.  “Reports came in occasionally of an automobile resembling the Oelrichs machine flying around the Tenderloin with a merry party.  It was exactly 4:30 A. M. when the car was run into the garage by Shaw,” reported The Times.  Shaw had been carousing in the car with two friends.

Theresa Fair Oelrichs was not pleased.  The New York Times said “the automobile looked like a mud cart, the policemen say.  Both lamps in front were smashed, windows were broken, and the rear of the machine was scratched, evidently where it had been backed into something.  All three men had been drinking, and were locked up.”  In court later, a stern Tessie told the judge “I wish to make an example of Shaw.”

In February 1908 as she was being driven home she was “grossly insulted” by two young boys.  As the limo neared the mansion, “two boys jumped on her carriage step and asked for money.  She refused and they spat upon her.”  The incident resulted in a mounted officer trailing the Oelrich limousine when it traveled Fifth Avenue, “keeping so close that his mission could not be mistaken.”

In 1911 as New York’s wealthiest families moved farther up Fifth Avenue and business buildings overtook the former mansion district, Tessie had a large wrought-iron fence built around the south and west sides of the building.  But by the fall of 1918 she gave in to the advance of commerce and left her mansion, the last standing remnant of Mary Mason Jones’s Marble Row.

On November 24, 1918 The New York Times reported that "The New York Trust Company will open its new uptown branch tomorrow morning [in] the home of Mrs. Hermann Oelrichs, with practically no alteration to the building.  The atmosphere of the comfortable home will be retained by placing in it furniture which will harmonize with the old interior decorations.  The dining room, which will be used for the general banking business is finished in paneled oak, and oak counters will be put in.  The bookkeepers will have the ballroom, the library will be used as the ladies’ room, the parlor for the trust department, and the remaining rooms for consultations.”

Tess Oelrichs moved into a duplex apartment of eighteen rooms and seven baths on the first and second floor of the newly-completed No. 910 Fifth Avenue, at 72^nd Street.  In the meantime the well-intentioned preservation of the marble mansion by the bank lasted only about a decade before it was no longer feasible.

By 1929 the bank had removed the conservatory.  When this photograph was taken the days of the white marble mansion were numbered -- photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library

On September 22, 1929 it announced its intention to erect a new building on the site of the white marble house.  The Times said “Marble Row, a block of stately residences which once frowned disapprovingly upon the noisy jingle of equipages in Fifth Avenue from Fifty-seventh to Fifty-eighth Street, is to go…All the units of Marble Row have gone except 1 East Fifty-seventh Street.” 

Within the year a 15-story building designed by Cross & Cross replaced the venerable mansion. That, too, did not survive.
 

That three of New York society's most fabled grande dames held sway from this corner is largely forgotten -- photo by Alice Lum

Enrico & Paglieri's -- No. 64 West 11th Street

For seven decades Village patrons were greeted by Josephine Paglieri beyond much less brassy basement doors.

When Wall Street broker James N. Gifford inherited four wide plots of land from his brother, Andrew, the block of West 11^th Street from fashionable Fifth Avenue to Sixth Avenue was already a mix of architecture.  The modest two-and-a-half story Federal-style brick homes of the 1830s shared the block with handsome Greek Revival houses of the following decade.

Now Gifford would erect four identical speculative residences in the newest trend:  Italianate.  Construction began in 1853 and was completed the following year.   The impressive proportions and details of the homes reflected the upper class purchasers whom Gifford targeted.   Up-to-the-minute arched doorways harbored deeply recessed double doors.  The red brick facades gently contrasted with the brownstone trim.

The somewhat grand homes enjoyed their highly-respectable status for only a few decades before becoming boarding houses—as was the fate of No. 64.  In 1880 Edward J. Ring and his wife arrived in New York from London with a theatrical troupe.    Mrs. Ring was an actress, known on stage as Maud Summerville, and in 1891 the couple was living here.

Another theatrical boarder was musical composer and director Fred W. Zaulig.  His broad background began in France when, as a teen, he fought in the Crimean War.  In 1863 he saw battle in Mexico under Maximilian; then settled in New York where he took up composing.

He was responsible for much of the music for the then-famous Kiralfy Brothers’ epic productions; working with the pair for over a decade.  He died in the house on West 11^th Street on Saturday morning May 19, 1894.



Fred Zaulig composed music for the Kiralfy Brothers who were famous for their gala musicals -- image from the collection of the Library of Congress

In February 1895 Edward Holland sold the house to John McCabe for the considerable sum of $19,500—almost half a million dollars today.  Annie Chase ran the boarding house at the time and on October 21 she rented a room to “a refined-looking man,” as she described him.  He spent one night in the house and by the time the other boarders arose the next morning he had disappeared.  “So also had everything valuable that could be carried away—in all about $500 worth,” reported The New York Times.

Mrs. Chase was understandably upset—the items stolen would amount to nearly $12,000 in today’s money.  When she looked over the photographs in the Mercer Street Police Station’s rogue’s gallery, she focused on John Ford, alias Botts.  She pointed him out as her lodger turned thief.

Two days later Ford was arrested.  He vehemently denied that he was the culprit and offered to provide an alibi.  Annie Chase, however, “on seeing him, unhesitatingly identified him as the man to whom she had rented a room,” reported The Times.  He was indicted and held in The Tombs on $1000 bail awaiting trial for grand larceny in the first degree.

As Ford sulked behind bars for over a week, detectives Doran and Tinker noticed a man and woman frequenting the west side pawn shops.   Their behavior aroused the suspicions of the cops.  The female would take an item into a pawn shop; then deliver the money and pawn ticket to the man who waited in the shadows of doorways or in halls.

The detectives followed the pair to their residence at No. 336 West 22^nd Street and questioned them.  They claimed they were John G. Smaling and his wife Lena.  Their explanation for the long list of pawned valuables was so fantastic that they were taken into custody and an inventory of the items in their rooms was taken.  Among the pricey goods was a silver hair brush, stolen from the boarding house of Mrs. R. J. Fagan on Seventh Avenue; a silver card case (with calling cards) of architect Stewart Barney which had been stolen along with $600 worth of jewelry; and a clock listed by Annie Chase as missing.

Annie was called back, and after seeing John Smaling, admitted “she had made a mistake in her previous identification, and had testified against the wrong man.”   A much-annoyed John Ford was released after a week behind bars.

After John McCabe’s death his estate sold the house to an investor on January 24, 1907.  Change was about to come to No. 64 West 11^th Street.

By now Greenwich Village had become New York’s own Bohemia—luring artists, musicians, poets and writers.  They brought with them an avante garde lifestyle alien to the staid brick and brownstone homes of a generation earlier.  In 1908 the English basement of No. 64 was converted to an Italian restaurant, Enrico & Paglieri.  Above the entrance a wrought iron balcony was installed with the restaurant’s entwined monogram.

A postcard captured the cozy Edwardian atmosphere of bentwood chairs and trailing vines.

Enrico & Paglieri quickly established itself as a Village favorite; and many of its uptown patrons perhaps did not notice that the quaint atmosphere also drew another clientele: homosexuals.   While Julius’ bar and restaurant not far away at No. 159 West 10^th Street would forever claim the distinction of New York City’s oldest gay meeting spot—gays began drifting in around the 1930s—writers took notice of Enrico & Paglieri as early as 1916.

The beautiful wrought iron balcony railing incorporates the restaurant's initials.

Djuna Barnes, in her “Greenwich Village As It Is,” published that year, frankly addressed the gay culture of the Village.  Saying that “The greater part of New York is soulless as a department store,” she denounced the uptown “slummers” who visited the Village where “women smoke and men make love.”  Nevertheless, she precisely noted the establishments where gays and lesbians gathered.  Without mentioning the restaurant’s name, she printed its address “64 West Eleventh Street.”

The gay patronage of the restaurant was mostly discreet; yet it drew the attention of the notorious “Committee of Fourteen” around the same time as Barnes’ article (and possibly because of it).    The group was formed in 1905 by the New York Anti-Saloon League and originally conducted inspections to distinguish legitimate hotels from saloons, and in the process, root out brothels.   By the end of World War I it was involved in a wider scope of “vices.”

Receiving word that Enrico & Paglieri had “a reputation of being a hangout for perverts,” the Committee sent a female agent under cover to the restaurant.    After one visit she reported on two men who were “extremely effeminate.”   Another trip resulted in her report of “several girls whom I suspected of being this type but they made no definite motions or signs that they were such.” 

The agent was in untested waters.   Covert investigation of this type--expressly conducted to ferret out homosexuality--was new ground and she was frustrated in her attempts.  Eventually she gave up, reporting that there was no conclusive evidence to brand patrons of Enrico & Paglieri “as perverts” and the investigation was discontinued.

Paulo Paglieri and his wife Josephine lived upstairs while running the restaurant.   As other residents came and went, they stayed on.   When Paulo died in 1950, Josephine remained, operating the restaurant for another quarter of a century.    In 1975 Enrico & Paglieri Restaurant finally closed its doors for good after nearly 70 years of business.  The following year Josephine Paglieri died upstairs at the age of 95. 

Her passing coincided with the imminent conversation of the house to apartments—one per floor.  Mrs. Paglieri’s things, accumulated in the apartment over three quarters of a century, were unceremoniously tossed onto the curb.  On February 7, 1976 The New York Times printed a heart-wrenching description of strangers pawing through her life.

“People picked over Josephine Oliengo Paglieri’s belongings Thursday night.  Her books, furniture and clothes were strewn about the sidewalk and street, lying in the snow.”  One man, described by the newspaper as “a young hippie,” stuffed her old books into one of her suitcases—he focused on the leather-bound ones.   A woman gathered some of Mrs. Paglieri’s dresses.  “These are great for old clothes,” she muttered.

When a sanitation truck arrived, the old couple’s furniture crackled loudly as it was crushed.  “The desk fell apart when the sanitationmen tried to pick it up.  A lifetime of personal papers, letters, souvenirs and stationery swirled all over the sidewalk outside the restaurant that Mrs. Paglieri used to own.

“The sanitationmen shoveled and swept, and threw them inside the truck.  But one photograph remained on the street behind the vehicle.  It was a picture of Mrs. Paglieri as a young girl, with her family.”

The journalist watched from a few steps away.  “The driver of the sanitation truck picked it up.  He glanced at it while the desk was splintering under the weight of the garbage machine, and then tossed it inside with the other garbage.  He hopped into the cab and roared off, leaving behind a few papers fluttering in the wind.”

Three quarters of a century of Paglieri history at No. 64 West 11^th Street was over.

The handsome paneled entrance doors, deeply recessed, survive after more than a century and a half.

Another renovation to the house came in 1990 when the second and third floors were divided into two apartments each; and the former restaurant was converted to the foyer and lounge for The New School’s student center.  The walls to the basements of the flanking houses – Nos. 62 and 66—were broken through to create an expansive space for the student body.

The exterior appearance of No. 64, along with its three 1854 sisters, is nearly unaltered above the basement level.  And the ornate iron balcony with the initials E and P survives—a relic of a long-lived restaurant now mostly forgotten.

photographs taken by the author

The 1893 G. Gennert Bldg -- Nos. 24-26 East 13th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1889 East 13^th Street just off Fifth Avenue was changing.  The block had shared the fashionable reputation of not only the elegant avenue, but of Union Square, just a block to the north.   Since the time of the Civil War refined homes had lined the East 13^th Street between Fifth Avenue and University Place; but by now commerce was quickly overtaking the neighborhood.

The house at No. 24 East 13^th Street still clung on in 1889 and was home to Francis Doyle.  The 22-year old man stopped into a nearby saloon at No. 58 University Place before 9:00 a.m. on August 26 that year.   He would regret his early morning drinking.

Ernest Schultz was the bartender that morning and he toyed with a 38-calibre revolver behind the bar.  The New York Times reported the following day that “Schultz was snapping the hammer of the revolver and at the third snap the revolver went off, the bullet striking Doyle in the heart.”  The bartender was arrested and Doyle was removed to the New-York Hospital. Francis Doyle recovered, but he would not remain much longer at No. 24 East 13^th Street.   

Thirty-three years earlier Gottlieb Gennert and his brother arrived in America from Braunschweig, Germany.   In 1854 they established a photographic supply house on Maiden Lane--one of the first  in America.  The Gennert brothers quickly became well known for daguerreotype mats and cases and other photographic supplies.

Around 1860, as the daguerreotype lessened in popularity, the brothers made a dramatic career change.  They took their knowledge of sugar beet refining to Chatsworth, Illinois, where they founded the Germania Sugar Refining Company.   Then, following the Civil War, Gottlieb returned with his wife and four sons to pursue his true passion—photography.

Living in Jersey City, in 1869 he opened a photography shop in Manhattan.  G. Gennert became one of the foremost experts in photography in the country.  The Photographic Journal of America said of him “Mr. Gennert needs no introduction to our readers.  He has been established since 1854 as an importer and manufacturer of photographic materials and apparatus, and is one of the acknowledged leaders in that line of business.”

G. Gennert was doing business at No. 54 East 10^th Street; however by 1892 the firm, now run by his sons Maurice G. and Gustav C., had severely outgrown the space.  They purchased Doyle’s house on East 13th Street and the property next door at No. 26 as the site of their own building.  Completed a year later the Beaux Arts structure exuded Belle Époque opulence in a store-and-loft building.

Balconies, polished granite columns, arched French windows and elaborate spandrel decorations created an especially attractive 1890s commercial facade -- photo by Alice Lum

The G. Gennert business was established in the street level, second floor, and basement and leased out the upper floors.  The Photographic Journal of America praised the “handsome business structure” saying “As to the building itself, it can honestly be said that it is a model one in every sense of the words.”

The periodical said of the six-story structure, “It is of handsome and artistic exterior, the materials used being light buff brick and terra cotta trimmings.  Polished granite pillars lend dignity and impressiveness to the first floor.  In solidity of construction and in perfection of lighting, this building surpasses any other of its class yet erected in New York.”

photo by Alice Lum

Gennert had two electric elevators installed in the building.  Girders were carried on cast iron columns footed in concrete 12 feet below street level.  The substantial construction did not escape the note of The Photographic Journal which mentioned “To those who are familiar with the flimsy construction and gloomy darkness of the older business structures of New York, the Gennert Building will come as a revelation, with its solid iron pillars, massive beams, and floods of light.”

The solid construction would prove essential a few years later.  In the spring of 1905 vibrations on the sixth floor of the building became so strong and worrisome that tenants threatened to leave.  Ongoing investigations finally pinpointed the source—the Carey Printing Company building 190 feet west of the Gennert Building.  The massive printing presses on the upper floors of that building were sending vibrations through the intervening three- and four-story houses and into the Gennert Building.  A court order resulted in the Carey Company adjusting their presses to eliminate the vibrations.  In the meantime an engineer’s inspection of the Gennert Building showed “that the building was in excellent condition without evidences of undue settlement or cracks.”  The Engineering Record, Building Record and Sanitary Engineer attributed the structure’s resistance to the vibrations to its being “considered to be a well constructed, mill type, loft building.”

In 1893 while Gennert’s building was being constructed the City assessed the property at $25,000.  His fine-looking edifice greatly enhanced the value.  A year later when the structure was completed and filled with tenants, that tax valuation had doubled to $50,000. 

G. Gennert managed to keep itself on the cutting edge of photographic technology.  In January 1894 Wilson’s Photographic Magazine noted “metol is rapidly making its way to the front rank among developers…Mr. G. Gennert, 24 East Thirteenth Street, New York City, the importer of metol, has therefore arranged to send all who apply for it, and enclose ten cents for postage, a free sample.”  The magazine added “It is well worth a trial.”

An advertisement featured a sketch of the new building  (copyright expired)

Gennert not only imported and sold photographic equipment and materials, he invented some of them.   In May 1896 The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration made note of the Architectural Montauk Photographic Camera made by G. Gennert which was given as third prize in the “Brochure Series Competition.”  The model was for serious photographers, selling for $65—about $1,500 today.

Gennert devised and sold an entire line of "Montauk" cameras like this one.  photo from The Brochure Series of Architectural Competition, May 1896 (copyright expired)

Gennert published a general catalogue of the photographic apparatus and supplies offered at his 13^th Street store.  In 1900 The New Photo-Miniature advised “Readers who would be well informed of what is new and desirable will do well to send five cents for copies of these attractive lists.”

The catalog included a depiction of the new building -- copyright expired

Gottlieb Gennert died in 1901; but the firm continued to offer revolutionary products under his sons’ supervision.  The following year The American Amateur Photographer noted that Gennert had introduced a “sensitized collodion emulsion for three-color and general reproduction work.”  The magazine said that “Up to the present time negatives for these processes have been made by the old wet collodion method.  The new emulsion does away with the troublesome silver bath, is six times more rapid than wet collodion, and is orthochromatic.  The introduction of this specialty has long been desired, and it will undoubtedly meet with general appreciation among those for whom it is intended.”

The oval widows above the side entrance doors epitomize Belle Epoque taste -- photo by Alice Lum

Upstairs, tenant Otto Heinigke of Heinigke and Bowen was as well-known as his landlord.   The firm produced high-end stained glass and mosaic works for commercial, religious and residential buildings.  Otto Heinigke had studied art at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, originally intending that easel painting would be his life’s work.  But after working with the stained glass firm of Roger Riordan, he decided on stained glass and mosaics.  In 1890 he partnered with Owen J. Bowen who had worked with both Louis Tiffany and John La Farge.

Heinigke and Bowen's advertisement appeared in the Catalogue of Architectural Exhibitions in 1901 (copyright expired)

Within only a short time the firm was doing work for the preeminent architects of the day, including McKim, Mead & White; James Renwick; John Russell Pope; Cass Gilbert; Adams Cram; York and Sawyer and others.   The firm would be responsible for all the stained glass in the Library of Congress and the Woolworth Building, as examples.

In July 1905 The Architectural Record commented on the leaded glass windows Heinigke and Bowen executed for George Gould’s summer house in Lakewood, New Jersey.  “Perhaps no one has ever given more thought and attention to the leading of white glass than Mr. Otto Heinigke, of Heinigke and Bowen…He shows that charming and interesting effects can be obtained without color, or by an exceedingly spare use of it, and great refinement and style gained by a careful study of lead lines alone.”

One of the magnificent windows produced for George Gould's summer estate -- photo The Architectural Record, July 1905 (copyright expired)

By now photography was a major industry and G. Gennert and other independent firms were fighting the mammoth Eastman Kodak Company for a slice of the business.  When Kodak was charged with controlling the industry, Gustave Gennert appeared as a government witness on June 25, 1914.

He testified that “The Eastman Kodak Company controls 80 per cent of the country’s photographic business and the independents have the rest.”  The New York Times reported that “Mr. Gennert also raised a storm of protest from the Eastman attorneys when he testified that in 1911 he went to Europe to procure raw materials for making a collodion printing paper, only to find that none of the large firms would sell to him."

“The whole reason for the refusal of this European paper trust was that I was not concerned with the Eastman Company,” he said.

The bitter battle between Gennert and Eastman Kodak would rage on for years.  On August 14, 1921 The New York Times reported that “G. Gennert, manufacturer and importer of photographic apparatus brought a ‘treble damage’ suit for $6,000,000 in the United States District Court yesterday against the Eastman Company.”  The suit accused Kodak of a “scheme and design to injure and ruin the business of plaintiff by illegal and monopolistic methods.”

G. Gennert moved on to West 22^nd Street by 1931.  Throughout the next few decades its handsome building would see the comings and goings of several small offices and manufacturers; yet apart from a necessary but unsightly fire escape, little of the outward appearance of the building was changed.

Close inspection reveals handsome spandrel ornamentation and fluted columns beneath an unfortunate paint job -- photo by Alice Lum

In 1974 a renovation created eight apartments per floor above second floor with a sports club in the basement, first and second floors.   The Beaux Arts façade of balconies, blind balustrades and polished granite columns still commands a second glance from passersby on East 13^th Street.