The Humphrey Bogart House -- No. 245 West 103rd Street

photo by Alice Lum

Adam Bogart had greater ambitions than continuing his family’s tradition.  The Bogarts were among the earliest of the Dutch settlers; one of Adam's ancestor being the first European infant born in New York State.  While Bogart’s family had been burghers, they more recently made their living as truck farmers.  Adam instead became an innkeeper and fiddled with printing on the side.    When he invented a process for transferring lithographs to easily-manipulated tin sheets--an innovation that transformed the printing industry--his fortunes soared nearly overnight.

With his new found wealth, Adam transplanted his wife and son, Belmont, to Manhattan.   Here the Bogarts would rub shoulders with other families with old names and relatively new money like the Astors and Rhinelanders.  Adam Bogart’s primary drive was the elevation of his son within society.

Belmont DeForest Bogart was outfitted in gentlemanly clothes, polished in his social demeanor, and sent to private schools.   He graduated from Columbia College medical school and, at the age of 30, met the striking and successful Maud Humphrey who was one year younger than he.

Unusual for a woman in the 1890s, Maud had already made a professional name for herself.  At the age of 16 the talented artist had already sold her drawings to publications.  Like most artists at the time, she studied in Paris.  Among her compatriots there was James McNeill Whistler.  She then returned home to ply her trade.  Maud Humphrey focused on commercial art rather than pretty landscapes and portraits.  She illustrated calendars, books and advertisements for highly-visible products like Ivory Soap.

Belmont and Maud’s courtship was strained from the beginning.  She was an early feminist with strong ideals.   His beliefs were rooted deeply in masculine Victorian values that clearly rejected women’s equal rights.  Belmont would go on to earn the handsome salary of $20,000 a year as a surgeon and heart and lung specialist—about $500,000.   But Maud was the highest-paid female illustrator in the nation, earning more than double his salary.  Her $50,000 income was well over a million dollars in today’s money.

The differences were too strong and amicable good-byes were said.   It would have been the end of the road for the couple had not a horrific accident occurred.    As Belmont was riding in an ambulance one of the horses pulling the vehicle became spooked.  It reared, causing the ambulance to topple, seriously fracturing the physician’s leg.  The leg was poorly set, then rebroken and set again to correct the botched procedure.  For the rest of his life Dr. Belmont Bogart would suffer pain and rely on medications like morphine.

Hearing of the accident, Maud Humphrey paid a visit to offer consolation.  One visit turned into another, then another, and before too long the unlikely couple was married.

While all this was happening the Upper West Side was developing at an astonishing rate.  Clusters of modern speculative rowhouses had cropped along the side streets and the avenues were lined with grand mansions.  On West 103^rd Street, between West End Avenue and Broadway, a row of brownstone houses had appeared.  Intended for well-to-do families, they sported up-to-date features to lure new homeowners—angular bays, decorative carved panels and handsome interiors.



Carved panels of faces among vines and fruity garlands decorate the facade -- photo by Alice Lum

The newlyweds purchased No. 245 and on Christmas Day 1899 their first child was born.  The boy took his mother’s name—Humphrey.  Along with the family in the house were four servants: a laundress, two maids and a cook.  Later two little girls would arrive—Frances (known at Pat) in 1901, and Katherine (known as Kay) two years later.

Marriage did not necessarily bring the end to the stark disparities between Belmont and Maud.  She headed the household and continued her career; a somewhat shocking choice for a turn-of-the-century woman.  The children were raised, for the most part, by nursemaids.  Nevertheless, Maud grasped the opportunity of readily-available models in the household.

The bowed, upper bays created a eye-pleasing undulation.  Originally tall brownstone stoops accessed the parlor levels -- photo by Alice Lum

Little Humphrey’s chubby angelic face began appearing on advertisements and jar labels of Mellin’s Baby Foods.  His early and unwilling celebrity would irk him throughout his life.  According to author George Perry in his “Bogie: A Celebration of the Life and Films of Humphrey Bogart,” the actor later said “There was a period in American history when you couldn’t pick up a goddamed magazine without seeing my kisser in it.”

Belmont was addressed by the children as “father,” and the feminist Maud instructed the children to call her by her first name.    Neither parent was emotionally demonstrative.  Reportedly the children were never hugged; instead they received the more properly-Victorian pat on the head or back.

Belmont was not totally without some input into the children’s lives.  While Humphrey was still a toddler his father made preparations for the boy’s entrance into Philips Academy Andover; a prestigious boarding school.  The school would be an effective stepping-stone for the boy to enter the medical profession his father envisioned for him.

The 103^rd Street house was modified to accommodate the Bogarts’ professions.  The English basement was modified into an office for Belmont’s medical practice; and an upper floor was converted to a studio for Maud.  On the roof Belmont kept coops of pigeons which he raised as a hobby.

The children enjoyed the fruits of privilege that came from two highly successful parents.  The family owned a sprawling 55-acre estate, Willow Brook, on the shore of Canandaigua Lake in Seneca Point in upstate New York.   Here Belmont taught his son to sail.

Life in the Bogart household was troubled, however.  Maud suffered migraines and bouts of mental instability.  Belmont more and more showed signs of morphine addiction.  The significant differences that had led them to part company years earlier were now magnified.  The children would later relate of frightening nights spent lying in the dark listening to their parents verbal fighting.

Young Humphrey was sent to the exclusive Trinity School where he spent eight years being prepared for the Ivy League.  He was, at best, a mediocre student; excelling in nothing.  Neither academics nor sports interested him; yet Maud held out hope that he would go on to Yale and Belmont held fast to the idea that he would go to Phillips.

The United States’ entry into World War I offered Humphrey Bogart an escape from the house on 103^rd Street.  In the spring of 1918 he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, officially reporting for duty on July 2 in the Bronx.  After weeks of instruction he boarded the U.S.S. Leviathan as a seaman.  Two days later the Armistice was signed, ending the conflict.   Rather than seeing fighting, the teenager became part of a crew transporting the war-weary soldiers back home from Europe.  He later remembered “At eighteen war was great stuff.  Paris! French girls! Hot damn!” 

When he returned to New York he got an office job at World Films.  He first appeared on stage in 1921 and within the next 16 years he would appear in 17 Broadway shows.

The Bogart family moved out of the 103^rd Street house in 1925, relocating to No. 79 East 56^th Street.  It would not be long before the homes of the once-fashionable block became boarding houses and apartments.  In the spring of 1938 the former Bogart house was listed as having 13 furnished rooms.   It would remain that way until 1962 when it was converted to apartments—one per floor.  It was most likely at this time that the brownstone stoop was removed that the entrance moved to the former English basement, a few steps below sidewalk level.

The stoop was removed to be replaced by a featureless doorway into the basement. -- photo by Alice Lum

Today the house is owned by the city as low-income housing.   The attractive but typical row house would draw no attention at all were it not for the baby born here in 1899—the boy whose face on a baby food jar would later become a silver screen icon.

The 1909 D. H. Morris House -- No. 19 East 70th Street

photo by Alice Lum

Young Alice Vanderbilt Shepard could claim one of the most enviable pedigrees of New York Society.  Her mother, Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt was the daughter of William Henry Vanderbilt and the brother of Cornelius Vanderbilt II.  Her father, ultra-conservative millionaire attorney Elliot Fitch Shepard, founded the New York State Bar Association and owned and edited the New York newspaper Mail and Express.

The girl had a sweet disposition and angelic face—yet she sometimes exhibited a spirit unbecoming to a well-bred society girl; especially a Vanderbilt.  While climbing a tree--the type of tom-boyish act strictly prohibited by her stern father--Alice fell and fractured her thoracic spine.  Reportedly Elliot F. Shepard refused to summon a doctor in order to punish the girl for her disobedience.

She would spend the rest of her life slightly deformed by scoliosis.  Her “delicate constitution” was forever after a consideration; she wore a brace for several hours a day; and spent hours reclining on a sofa.  As she entered her teen years, Alice’s beauty increased.   Having met the girl, Oscar Wilde supposedly asserted there were but three destinations worthy of a traveler’s attention in the United States:  Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, and Alice Shepard.

Sargent painted Margaret Shepard in 1888 -- San Antonio Museum of Art

 Near-life sized portraits of wealthy socialites were obligatory in the Victorian drawing rooms of Fifth Avenue.  In 1888 Shepard commissioned the famed John Singer Sargent to paint Margaret.  As the sittings progressed, Sargent was taken with the ethereal beauty of 14-year old Alice who sometimes appeared in the room.  He was met with resistance when he requested permission to paint her; and Margaret agreed only when she was assured that the sittings would be short and not taxing on Alice’s fragile condition.

Sargent's portrait of 14-year old Alice was completed the same year -- photo Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth Texas

The resulting portrait, also completed in 1888, is one of Sargent’s masterworks.

Society saw little of Alice after her debut.  The New York Times would latter mention that she had “not appeared much in society” and instead “devoted her attention, rather, to charitable and religious matters.”  That would change in the summer of 1894.

A year earlier, on March 24, 1893, Elliott F. Shepard was being prepared for a gall bladder operation.  As the doctors administered ether, the patient reacted badly.  “At the first inhalations dangerous symptoms were produced and the inhalations were immediately discontinued,” reported the Rock Island Daily Argus the following day.

Margaret and the two youngest Shepard girls had been nudged off to the summer estate at Scarboro-on-the-Hudson during the procedure.  They were now urgently called back home to the mansion at No. 2 West 52^nd Street.  Elliot Shepard died around 4:20 p.m., well before they made it home.

Now, in 1894, Margaret and the stunningly beautiful 20-year old Alice were aboard the Majestic, heading to Europe.   Also aboard was Dave Morris (The Times would clarify for readers later, “he was christened Dave, not David”); a 23-year old medical student who ran a horse racing stable with his brother.   Morris was struck by Alice and readily brushed off her slight disability.

Morris was, however, not a fitting suitor for a Vanderbilt girl.   Bumping into one another aboard ship was not a proper social introduction; and the bulk of his not-insignificant fortune came from gambling.   The Times said “Mrs. Shepard did not view [the relationship] kindly.  She thought that her daughter should not marry Mr. Morris because he owned raced horses, and because his father had owned them.”

Nevertheless, despite the unconcealed and vocal disapproval of Margaret Louise Vanderbilt Shepard, the romance flowered.  On June 21, 1895 The New York Times printed the socially-shocking story of the Morris-Shepard wedding.  The headline read “Mrs. Shepard Not There.  She Opposed the Marriage of Her Daughter to a Horse Man.  None of the Vanderbilts Present.”

Headstrong Alice had, for all intents and purposes, eloped.  Her marriage was not in one of the fashionable society churches; but in The Church of the Transfiguration—known popularly as the Little Church Around the Corner where marriages of theater types often were conducted.

The article said “Mrs. Shepard knew that the wedding was to take place, but she refused to give her consent to it or to be present.

“No member of Miss Shepard’s family was a witness of the ceremony.  The Vanderbilts were all absent, although they knew of the engagement of the young people and the time of the wedding.”  Only six guests were present; one of which, a witness, was Rosina Kelly, the maid to Dave Hennen Morris’s sister.

The rift between mother and daughter would soon heal and by 1909 there was no discord among the family.  That year Dave, by now a distinguished attorney, purchased the lot at No. 19 East 70^th Street; part of the newly-available land where the former Lenox Library had stood facing Fifth Avenue.   Dave and Alice once again tossed off social expectations.  Rather than hiring one of the prominent mansion architects, they went to the lesser-known Thornton Chard.

A captivating juliette balcony graces the understated facade -- photo by Alice Lum

Chard produced an elegant Italian Renaissance-style palazzo that was as charming as it was impressive.  A roomy 30-feet wide, it was distinguished by the deep, arcaded loggia at street level.  Above each arch was a sets of French doors, opening onto a wide stone balcony directly above.   Above the quietly simple façade a projecting roof cornice rested on foliate brackets.

Inside were 30 rooms, eight baths and two elevators.  Like the façade, the interior décor was understated and relatively simple.   The Times called it a “unique” residence.

The Morris dining room in 1915 was understated -- Architectural Record, January 1915 (copyright expired)

The Morrises’ disregard of the expectations of society would continue throughout their lives.  The couple would have five children—Dave, Lawrence, Noel, Emily and Alice—and would entrench themselves in pioneering works.   Alice had been for years interested in the concept of a neutral auxiliary language that could ease communication among diverse cultural groups.  In 1924 she and Dave would found the International Auxiliary Language Association.

Unlike the Victorian mansions in which she grew up, Alice Morris' reception room was cozy and welcoming -- Architectural Record, January 1915 (copyright expired)

But in the meantime, there were other less lofty issues to address.  In the spring of 1913 the high-toned neighbors on East 70^th Street were suspicious of a group of “boys who find a fascination at night in loitering near the Frick home, now under construction,” said The New York Times.  Suspicions grew to anger when severe vandalism to the mansions erupted.

One of neighbors, William Truslow Hyde, awoke to find disturbing damage.   On May 7 The Times said “Mr. Hyde’s steps were enriched by railings of finely wrought bronze until these were ripped away the other night and pieces of stone coping with them.  The thief can realize little compared with the damage done by his work.  Other houses have been similarly treated.”  Among the houses “wronged” was the Morris mansion.

The house would be the scene of the debutante dances and dinners for the Morris daughters through the years; however entertainments would more often involve the International Auxiliary Language Associate, and the World Service Council of the Young Women’s Christian Association, of which Alice was Vice President.

The Morris’s youngest son Noel was a quiet, studious boy who immersed himself in books on philosophy.   At 24 years old, he had graduated from Antioch College in Ohio and was studying at the Russell Sage School of Social Research in 1928.  He enjoyed a private apartment in the mansion which he filled with his philosophy books.

On the night of October 31 that year, he left the house, had dinner alone at the exclusive Union Club, then attended the Metropolitan Opera’s performance of “Tannhauser.”  The melancholy mood of the opera apparently affected the young man deeply.

He returned home, went to bed, but arose sometime deep in the night.  Noel Morris inserted a sheet of paper into his typewriter and wrote a note which he slipped into the last page of his diary.  Dated Oct. 31 it read “Tannhauser wasn’t brave enough to stick it out, but I have the courage to do it.  This is the closing entry.”

Noel locked the door to his suite, then locked the bathroom door behind him.  Standing before the mirror he put a gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Two weeks later the troubled youth’s will was read.  He bequeathed his estate of $10,000 to his parents.

The following year happier press would come to the mansion on East 70^th Street when daughter Emily’s engagement to Hamilton Hadley was announced.  The restored social standing of Alice and Dave Morris was reflected in the society page.  While earlier the couple had been left off the lists of “prominent” guests to weddings and dinners; now The New York Times noted that Emily’s engagement “is of wide interesting owing to the prominence of both families.”

Dave was good friends with a local politician—Franklin Delano Roosevelt--and in 1931 was one of a small group who managed the campaign leading to his nomination for President.   The friendship resulted in Morris’s being named Ambassador to Belgium in May 1933.  A proficient violinist, Dave H. Morris stepped off the airplane in Belgium carrying his violin case—something that did not go unnoticed by the local press.

A Belgium newspaper wrote “We like diplomats who are artists, for we feel that artists will understand us better and act accordingly.”  Indeed Morris “understood” the Belgians and his four-year term was highly regarded.

After he stepped down from the post in 1937, he continued his interest in the country.  He was a director of the Belgium-American Educational Foundation, president of the Belgium War Relief Society and head of the Belgium American Associates.  It was a connection that would bring royalty to No. 19 East 70^th Street in 1940.

The Nazis had overrun Luxembourg and its royal family arrived in New York on October 4 after being separated for months.  The following day the Grand Duchess Charlotte held a news conference from the parlor of the Morris mansion.  In part she told reporters “Under these circumstances, you will understand that although it is for me a great joy to see, after a long separation, my husband and my children, there is no happiness in my heart, nor will there be any wherever I may be, until my beloved people are free again.”

On May 4, 1944, at the age of 72, Dave Hennen Morris died in the house on East 70^th Street after a long illness.  The man whom Margaret Vanderbilt Shepard had felt unsuited to marry her daughter had risen to political heights, held directorates in several corporations, and was a leader in educational organizations.  He had been president of the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women; Chairman of the executive committee of the New York Orthopedic Dispensary and Hospital; Vice President of New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital; Director of the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China; and a host of other positions and titles.

Four years later Alice Shepard Morris sold the mansion she and her husband had built four decades earlier.  The house was converted to offices in 1952 and one of them was leased by attorney Louis D. Frohlich.

Among Frohlich’s clients was underworld boss Thomas Luchese, known as Three Finger Brown.  On November 28 of that year Luchese sat in his lawyer’s office where he surrendered to F.B.I. agents.  In reporting the incident, The Times was not overly-sympathetic with the mobster.  “After the agents left, Mr. Frohlich issued over Luchese’s signature a lengthy legalistically worded statement that seemed quite out of character for the underworld boss who seldom tries more than one syllable at a time.”

The Morris music room in 1915 (top) and today. -- vintage photograph Architectural Record, January 1915 (copyright expired) contemporary view http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2013/08/23/old_upper_east_side_gallery_sells_to_major_london_developer.php#more

In 1973 the mansion was converted to a “commercial gallery,” and for decades would be the home of the well-known Knoedler Art Gallery.    Then, in 2013, developer Christian Candy purchased the home for $35 million, with plans to reconvert it to a single family home.

photo by Alice Lum

The St. John Baptist House -- Nos. 231-233 East 17th Street

photo by Alice Lum

By 1875 the lower east side teemed with tenements crowded with impoverished immigrants, mostly German.  A quarter of a century earlier, in Clewer, England, the Sisterhood of Saint John Baptist had been formed to alleviate the suffering of the poor.  Now, in May 1876, a New York branch was established to further the work.

The sisterhood was part of the Protestant Episcopal Church and fell under the direct charge of the influential Bishop Henry C. Potter and the Reverend G. H. Houghton.  In 1877 Helen Folsom purchased two plots of land at Nos. 233 and 235 East 17^th Street in the fashionable Stuyvesant Square neighborhood for the Sisterhood.

Helen came from the well-known Winthrop family of Massachusetts.  She purchased the land from Rutherford Stuyvesant, a family relative by marriage, and conveyed it to the Saint John the Baptist Foundation for $10.  Her magnanimous gesture was possibly prompted by a family interest—it is thought that Sister Helen Margaret was her niece.

Architect E. T. Littell set to work designing the “Mother House and Novitiate” that would house up to 40 sisters.   The building, most often referred to as the St. John Baptist House, was completed within the year.  Littell produced an asymmetrical Victorian Gothic pile in keeping with the religious organization it housed.  Between the pointed arches of paired Gothic windows within single brownstone arches were carved quatrefoils.  The offset doorway was approached by a steep, wide brownstone stoop and bandcourses of the same stone ran between each floor, doubling as sills.   Especially picturesque was the jerkin-headed gable that interrupted the steep slate-tiled roof.

The sisters quickly took up their vocations of tending to the poor and sick.   Headed by Sister Frances Constance, the Lady Superior, they visited and ministered to the residents of the tenements.  The New York Times noted “Their dress is very similar to that of Roman Catholic nuns, and when walking the streets they are easily mistaken for nuns.”

They established a “work-room for ecclesiastical embroidery” in the house, where women learned needlework and a means of income.  The Times said “They act as teachers to the pupils, and also devote themselves to general missionary work for the Church.”

Among the missionary sisters was Sister Gertrude Verena; one of the original group.  By 1880 the Holy Cross Mission had been established by the sisterhood a few blocks away on East 17^th Street and Avenue C.   Early on the morning of November 7 Sister Gertrude Verena went to the mission, as she always did; then headed back sometime after 10:00.

A tall, thin stranger had been noticed in the neighborhood during the past few days loitering around Stuyvesant Square and sometimes blankly staring at the St. John the Baptist House.  Thomas Stanton lived in a rented room in the basement of No. 43 Grand Street and, according to The Sun on November 9, “For the last week he had been out of work, and to pass the time he strolled up to the park in Stuyvesant square, and sat on the benches.  He saw Sister Gertrude pass in and out of the house several times.”

Stanton was a Roman Catholic and assumed that the woman in the black habit was a Catholic nun.  That morning, as she approached the stairs of the St. John Baptist House, Stanton was abruptly standing there on the sidewalk.  The Times reported “When Sister Verena had approached to within 10 feet of the strange man, he suddenly drew from his pocket a six-shooter, and taking deliberate aim, without saying a word, began firing at her.  Two shots were discharged and entered the woman’s left thigh.”

Sister Gertrude Verena, despite her wounds, ran up the brownstone stoop.  Stanton pursued her, firing his weapon over and over until the rounds were spent.  One entered the sister’s right ankle, another went through her left thumb and the other two struck the stone steps.

At the time the other sisters were in the chapel at the rear of the house; but the gunfire was audible, followed by the frantic ringing of the doorbell by the wounded woman.  The sisters rushed to her aid, helping her into the hallway where she fell unconscious.

The National Police Gazette provided its vision of the attack on November 20, 1880 (copyright expired)

In the meantime, Stanton casually walked along East 17^th Street toward Third Avenue audaciously carrying the spent weapon in his hand.  The two men who had witnessed the shooting from across the street disappeared before they could be questioned.  It was a stalwart newsboy who seized Stanton and held him until Police Officer William B. Deems arrived to arrest him.

The National Police Gazette, under the headline “The Very Stones Cry Shame—A Little Sister of the Poor Shot While Returning From an Errand of Mercy,” opined “It was clear that he was insane, and he was locked up to await an examination.”

Indeed, Stanton appeared to be disturbed.  He told investigators he had been bewitched by the sister, who harbored a demon who spoke to him.  “I didn’t want to hurt her.  I only wanted to scare her and make the witch leave her,” The Sun quoted him as saying on November 9, 1880.  The witch, he said, was “always around me and talking to me.  No; I can’t see her, and never did see her.  I can’t repeat anything that she says, but I always hear her talking, day and night.”

For some reason the innocent Sister Gertrude Verena drew his attention.  “He saw Sister Gertrude pass in and out of the house several times, and on Sunday he made up his mind that she was the cause of all his trouble.”

Meanwhile, the sister was cared for by Dr. Stuyvesant F. Morris, the physician of the House, who pronounced the wounds “very serious, but not necessarily fatal,” according to The New York Times.  It was believed that the heavy fabric of her habit had helped break the force of the bullets.

Within two days The Sun reported that she was “in a fair way to recover” and Dr. Morris believed he would be able to extract “the bullet imbedded in the muscular tissues of her back” that day.

The wounded Sister Gertrude Verena desperately climbed the brownstone stoop seeking help.  At the time the school addition, at left, had not been constructed. -- photo by Alice Lum

The sisters’ work continued and in 1883 the plot at No. 331 abutting the House to the west was acquired for a school.   Architect Charles C. Haight received the commission to design the structure which sympathetically expanded on Littell’s original plan.   The St. John Baptist School doubled as a boarding and day school, and was described by “The Centennial History of the Protestant Episcopal Church” the following year “a new school-house for young ladies” which would accommodate about 30 pupils.  Haight’s building projected beyond the St. John the Baptist House nearly to the property line.  The addition resulted in the entrance of House becoming visually centered.

By 1892, in addition to the embroidery school in the House and the St. John Baptist School next door, the sisters had undertaken a staggering amount of work.  They were in charge of St. Hilda’s School, a boarding school “for young ladies,” in Morristown, New Jersey; the St. Andrew’s Hospital for Convalescent Women at 213 East 17^th Street; the Mission of the Holy Cross and a Girls Day School in connection with it; St. Anne’s Cottage, a summer home for the women and children of the Mission; the Midnight Mission on Greene Street in the desolate area of brothels and vice where the sisters created “a refuge for fallen women;” St. Michael’s Home on Long Island which Living Church Quarterly described as “an offshoot of the Midnight Mission, chiefly for young and hopeful cases, and partly prevential;” and the Christ Church Home, an institution for children in South Amboy, New Jersey.  In addition to this all, Living Church Quarterly reminded readers that the sisters carried on “mission work among the German population of the East Side of New York.”

In 1915 the church sold the East 17^th Street buildings to Evodkim Mescherky for $70,000—about $1 million today—who quickly established the Russian National St. Vladimir’s Home.    The buildings were little changed and Russian immigrants, some having fled the recent turmoil at home, were housed here. 

On March 24, 1918, with Russia caught up in World War I and revolution, Colonel Nicolay Nicolaywich Koch was living here.  Formerly a Colonel in the Russian Army, he issued a passionate plea to his countrymen to help fight Germany.

He said in part, “The world calls us an ignorant, unfortunate and poverty stricken people.  But this is only half of a misfortune.  It is not our fault; but, the most terrible thing of all, we are accused of treachery before our faithful allies in the fight for the world’s freedom.”  He said that because many called the Russians “contemptible,” that “many of us, because of lack of courage, begin to consider concealing our Russian nationality.”

His emotional plea continued “To you, sons of our downtrodden, beloved, and only recently great, free Russia, I appeal in this terrible hour of unheard-of trials and beg you from the depth of my tortured heart to firmly decide to stand up and defend our native land, threatened with long slavery and innumerable sufferings, to free her from the iron grasp of the tyrants.”

Among the Colonel’s co-residents here were some who openly supported the Bolshevik party.  When two of them joined like-minded protestors in a demonstration in Washington Square in October 1919, they found themselves behind bars.

The New-York Tribune reported on October 12 that “Six men and a woman who were arrested Wednesday, when several hundred aliens professing Bolshevik convictions tried to parade from Washington Square without a permit, were sentenced to six months in the workhouse yesterday.”   Among those arrested for disorderly conduct were 28-year old Karl Schula and 25-year old David Klipper of St. Vladimir’s Home.   

The judge was particularly mindful of the group’s banners; one in particular which read “Deport Us to Russia—We’ll Be Free There.”  The New-York Tribune noted “He agreed heartily with the suggestion of some one in the packed courtroom that Henry Ford or some other wealthy man would earn national gratitude by chartering a ship and giving free passage to those who approved of Lenin and Trotzky.”

On July 18, 1920 Eastern Orthodox history was made in the chapel of St. Vladimir’s Home.   The former chapel of the Sisterhood of St. John Baptist was now the Catholic Church of the Transfiguration, a branch of the Holy Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Nicholas.    The New York Times reported that “For the first time in the 1,894 years of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Litany of St. Chrysostom will be said tomorrow morning in the English language.”

It was an extraordinary break in tradition, possibly prompted by financial problems.  The New York Times noted that “As the Russian Church in America has been embarrassed financially ever since the revolution in Russia, the English branch will be maintained by voluntary contributions.  All pecuniary aid from Russia stopped after the Bolsheviki took $200,000,000 from the churches there.”

The Church of the Transfiguration would not be here long, however.  A month later the building was sold in a foreclosure sale and was acquired by the Russian Church Relief Corporation for $64,000.  Just four months later, on December 10, newspapers reported that the buildings had been sold.

Controversy in the brick and brownstone buildings came to an end as the newly-formed Smith College Club converted them to club rooms, dining rooms and twelve sleeping rooms per floor above the first floor.  Here alumnae of the prestigious women’s college found temporary housing; and fund raising and educational events were held.  For eight years the society pages would publicize the glamorous affairs.  One of the first was the benefit dance “and bridge” at the Plaza Hotel on the day after Easter that year, a month after the club moved into their new clubhouse.

Then, in June 1929, the Smith College Club sold the building to the Friendly League for Christian Service; an organization for business woman.  The New York Times reported that it “will be opened as a home for business woman on July 1.”

A month later the newspaper would write about some of the organization's unusual features.  “The new Friendly Centre which has been opened by the Friendly League for Christian Service…has removed any age limit on employed women, and it is for business women that the residence will be operated.  Most homes of this kind do not permit women to stay after they are 35 years of age.  Nor will the centre refuse admission to a business woman who receives a generous salary.”

The article did point out that the cheapest rooms would be held for financially struggling girls.  “The reasonable rooms, however, will be reserved for employed girls and women with small incomes.”  The women living here enjoyed a library, lounge and auditorium.

The Friendly Centre would stay on in the building for decades; finally selling it in 1996 to the Salvation Army.   A minor conversion updated the facility, with laundries and offices on each of the floors, along with the bedrooms, and a chapel on the first floor.

The 2080 square foot apartment above was listed in 2013 for $2.3 million http://www.corcoran.com/nyc/Listings/Display/2578861 

Then in 2008 the venerable structure was converted to luxury condominiums.    No trace of the interiors remains where sisters in black habits once shuffled dutifully about.  But while the windows have been replaced; the exteriors are remarkable intact and still delightfully picturesque.

photo by Alice Lum

Sweeney's Courts -- No. 159 East 35th Street

photo by Alice Lum

As the Upper East Side developed in the last decades of the 19^th century, certain blocks were designated “stable blocks.”  Here two- and three-story carriage houses and livery stables lined the street.  They were close enough to the homes along the avenues to be convenient; yet far enough away that the smells and noises did not offend the well-to-do residents.

One such block was East 35^th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues.  Among the utilitarian structures here was No. 159, a handsome orange brick Romanesque Revival carriage house trimmed in deep red terra cotta.  Horses and vehicles were housed in the street level while upstairs were living quarters for one or two groomsmen or stable boys.  Engaged brick columns on either side of the second story, creative brickwork over the arched windows, and an exuberant cornice of terra cotta garlands and ribbon caused the building to stand out among its peers.

Creative brickwork created engaged columns and the zipper-like eyebrows -- photo by Alice Lum

The little building would not remain a carriage house for long, however.  By the spring of 1884 E. Sweeney had converted it to a place of entertainment.  Known officially as Sweeney’s Hand-Ball and Racquet Courts, or simply Sweeney’s Courts; the fire department preferred to call it a “saloon.”

Sweeney’s Court was well-known, drawing handball contestants from far away.  On March 13, 1884 The Sun reported on the games held here the previous day “between Philip Casey, of Brooklyn, and P. H. Smith, of St. Louis, and James Dunne and William Courtney, both of Brooklyn.”  Most likely Sweeney’s patrons not only drank "intoxicants," but gambled on the matches.

Both Casey and Dunne were former Aldermen of Brooklyn.   Casey held the title of Champion of the World and Smith claimed the title of Champion of St. Louis.  The New York Times called William Courtney “an expert” and when the four men were back at Sweeney’s on October 15 of that year the two champions partnered up against Dunne and Courtney.  The result was an upset with Dunne and Courtney playing “in brilliant style,” according to The Times, and winning three out of five games.

Sweeny’s Court was the center of handball action in New York.  When Casey and Dunne played again in January 1885 The New York Times reported that “There was a large crowd of spectators at Sweeney’s hand ball and racquet court…to see the game.”  The newspaper added that “There were a number of sporting men present, among them ‘Paddy’ Ryan, the pugilist, and Michael Cleary.”

Sweeney added to the excitement of the game by importing a Spanish handball player.  Known only as Sweeney’s Spaniard, he challenged Philip Casey in February 1885 of that year and lost, most likely to the delight of locals. 

If there was gambling going on in Sweeney’s Courts, the police turned a blind eye.  On August 18, 1885 champion Michael Hickey of the Police Department, and Sweeney’s Spaniard” played.  The policeman won two out of the three games.

The beautiful floral cornice was in stark contrast to the sports and pugilism going on inside--photo by Alice Lum

Sweeney offered more than just handball and racquet ball to his patrons.  On August 2, 1885 The Sun reported that “A number of sporting men gathered in Sweeney’s hand ball court in Thirty-fifth street last night to witness a four-round glove fight between Al Marx, better known as the cowboy, from Galveston, Texas, who was once knocked out by John L. Sullivan, and Jim Connors of this city, who lately defeated George Young of England.”

The boxers were fighting for a $100 purse—about $2,000 today—and Sweeney insisted that the Marquis of Queensberry rules were followed.  The Sun noted that “They were both in full ring costume, and were in fine trim.”

The newspaper recounted round-by-round the mutual pummeling of the two contestants.  The account said of the final round “Connors got in a neat upper-cut, which sent Marx reeling against the wall and shook him up.  He faced about again, however, and continued to land some heavy blows.  Connors now had things almost all his own way and countered very heavily on Marx’s much-battered nose and eye until time was called.”

Sweeney’s Spaniard was still here in 1888.  Although he seemed to be more hot air than talent; he was a profitable draw for his patron.  By now he apparently had learned to no longer challenge the world champion.   On August 14 of that year The Evening World announced “Sweeney’s Spaniard, the famous hand-ball player, arrived from Spain on Thursday last, and says he will play any hand-ball player in America, barring Phil Casey, for $1,000 a side.”

Phil Casey retained his championship status for more than a decade -- Spalding's Illustrated Catalog Spring Summer Sports October 1893 (copyright expired)

Irish champion John Lawler took him up on that challenge.  The St. Paul Daily Globe reported on November 30 that “An interesting game of hand-ball was played at Sweeney’s court to-day.  John Lawler, the Irish champion, and Frank Reynolds, defeating Sweeney’s Spaniard and John Bergen by four out of six games.”  Nevertheless Sweeney put a positive spin on the outcome.  “The Spaniard played well, and his backers in the match which is being arranged between him and Lawler expressed themselves satisfied with his chances.”

Although Sweeney’s survived into the 1890s, it was eventually overshadowed, then replaced in popular favor by more commodious and modern facilities.  The decline started when Phil Casey erected his own handball court in 1887 which stole away the international games that had already been planned for Sweeney’s.

The little building changed hands a few times within the next decades.  When, in March 1909, Mrs. F. C. Rainey sold the three abutting stables—Nos. 155 through 159—the possibility arose a modern apartment building would replace them.  Instead they survived by being converted to garages.

In 1929 the former carriage houses were being used as garages.  No. 159 is third from left -- photo NYPL Collection

In 1933 Margaret Zimbalist envisioned a gallery that would not only give struggling artists an outlet; but would present the working class with the ability to purchase art.  She opened the Upstairs Gallery in her own apartment at No. 28 East 56^th Street.  On February 3, 1934 it was announced that “The lively little art shop opened recently at 28 East Fifty-sixth street by Margaret Zimbalist as the Upstairs Gallery has undergone a change of name.  It is now the Ten Dollar Gallery and continues in business at the same address.”

Its success (or possibly the awkward situation of having customers plod through her apartment) prompted her to lease the space at No. 159 East 35^th Street.  Zimbalist staged exhibitions for artists like Esther Estelle Pressoir, Miyamoto and Werner Drews, with prices ranging from $10 to $100.  A New York newspaper remarked on the exposure to working types that the gallery offered.  “People come in to buy who have never been in an art gallery.  She has sold to a carpenter, a soda clerk, a manicurist.”

Rough-cut stone contrasts with the formal cornice -- photo by Alice Lum

In 1938 architects Delano & Aldrich designed a formal conversion of the space to a first floor art studio with residential space on the upper floor.  The following year sculptor Malvina Hoffman purchased the building. 

Despite the conversion, The New York Times called the property a “two-story private garage” and noted that Hoffman already owned the neighboring building at No. 157.  The artist paid cash for the $36,500 property. 

Hoffman, perhaps best remembered for her sculptures of the Races of Man commissioned by Chicago’s Field Museum, opened the Murray Hill Studio of Sculpture here.  She used the space as her working studio; and opened it to the public three days a week in the afternoons.  The Times reported that she would “exhibit various technical processes of sculpture.  The models by Malvina Hoffman for her sculpture in the Hall of Man at the Field Museum, the International Dance Fountain for the World’s Fair and other work will be shown.”  Admission cost five cents.

By mid-century the studio was home to sculptor Donald DeLue.  In 1950 he received perhaps his most notable commission from the United States Battle Monuments Commission.  DeLue was given the honor of sculpting the monument for the American Cemetery in Normandy.  The artist worked on the monument in the studio on East 35^th Street for three years.  On August 6, 1953 it was nearing completion and a reporter from The New York Times visited the studio, commenting on the 22-foot tall plaster model.

Donald DeLue created the memorial in the studio at No. 159 West 35th Street -- photo by Viault

“His design, after much thought, took the form of a single male figure which, he said, symbolizes the spirit of American youth rising from the pain and death of the battlefield.

“The figure stands in an aspiring attitude with arms upraised, its held tilted and mouth open as though speaking.  Its support indicates by its design the watery route of the beachhead assault troops.”

In 1976 the little building with such a varied past was converted once again—this time to a church on the ground floor and a “caretaker’s apartment and coat room” on the second.  The building remains the I Am Sanctuary of New York.  The little-known religious group seeks a “higher self” within the individual; “the focus of the Light and Power of God within the self.”

Today the ground floor of the former carriage house has been successfully obliterated and replaced with a non-matching red brick wall with a centered doorway.  But above the enthusiastic façade survives.

The little building nestles up against another surviving carriage house; giving no hint of its colorful past -- photo by Alice Lum