The Leo Koenig House -- No. 80 West 12th Street

Nos. 78 and 80 (right) were part of a long row of identical houses -- photo by Alice Lum

A successful attorney with offices at No. 74 Nassau Street, Daniel A. Baldwin put aside legal matters in 1843 to delve into speculative real estate.  He constructed a long row of 16 Greek Revival homes on West 12^th Street, stretching from No. 54 through No. 84.  Intended for merchant-class families, the brick-faced houses wore only the simple, dignified elements expected of the style.  Tall floor-to-ceiling windows at parlor level nearly matched the height of the sturdy stone entranceways.  The brownstone stoops with their simple ironwork gently expanded at sidewalk level to allow for the pretty cast newel posts capped by urns.

The handsome stoop railings curve down to meet urn-capped newels.  photo by Alice Lum

Identical to its neighbors was No. 80, which became home to the Samuel C. Clark family by the 1860s.  The atmosphere of the house was cheerless in the middle of the decade.  On March 16, 1865 the Clark’s son was drafted into service in the Civil War.  Almost as dangerous as the battlefields at the time was typhoid fever, called “camp fever”—a significant killer of Confederate and Union soldiers.

Ironically, however, it was not the younger Clark who was struck down by typhoid fever.  A year later, on Tuesday morning, May 14, 1866 45-year old Samuel C. Clark died of the disease.  His funeral was held in the parlor here two days later at 2:00 p.m.  It is doubtful that his soldier son was present.

In 1882 No. 80 West 12^th Street was purchased by Leo Koenig.  A Lutheran minister, he was born in 1844 in Frankfort-on-Oder, Germany.  He studied at Halle and Erlangen before arriving in America at the age of 22.  Since around 1879 he had been pastor of the nearby St. Paul’s German Lutheran Church on Sixth Avenue at 15^th Street.  With Rev. Koenig and his wife in the house were sons Leo and Nicholas, and daughter Adelaide.  It was most likely the Koenigs who slightly updated the house with handsome Italianate arched entrance doors and a neo-Grec cornice.

The house number was incorporated into the handsome Italianate doors.  A swinging brass plate kept drafts from entering through the keyhole -- photo by Alice Lum

Koenig was a force within the German church and St. Paul’s prospered.  As the turn of the century neared, the minister pushed for a new church building slightly to the north in Chelsea—a neighborhood of mixed cultures and nationalities.  On the afternoon of July 4, 1897 Rev. Koenig personally placed the mortar below the cornerstone of the new church at No. 226 West 22^nd Street.

Before long son Nicholas would be making a name for himself as well.  An expert in Oriental languages, in 1906 he began the arduous task of translating Al-Kindi’s 9^th century The History of the Governors of Egypt.  Nicholas August Koenig poured over the manuscript in the British Museum that had lain untouched for three centuries.  His highly-important book was published in 1908.

The following year Nicholas, who was also a lecturer in Oriental languages at Columbia University, left for Jerusalem as a Thayer Fellow in the American School of Oriental Research, and returned in 1910.  He was incensed the following year when word came of archeologists removing relics from the Mosque of Omar.  Among the reputed artifacts held there was said to be the Ark of the Covenant.

Nicholas Koenig recognized the affront to both the Jews and the Muslims. “The profanation of the Mosque of Omar, or the Mosque Al-Apea, its proper name, does not lie any more in the carrying away of relics than in the entering upon the digging in the sanctuary without permission from the authorities,” he complained.  

“The place is sacred to Mohammedans because it was here that Mohammed ascended to heaven after his night ride from Mecca, according to the teaching of their religion,” he told The Advocate: America’s Jewish Journal in May 1911.  He also addressed the issue of the Ark.  “This is a remarkable discovery if it has been made for the Jews upon their return from the Babylonian exile seem not to have know[n] the whereabouts of the Ark.”

While Nicholas was off in exotic places, the rest of the family was content with the seaside.  On August 8, 1909 The New York Times reported that the rest of the Koenig family had checked into one of the “leading hotels” in fashionable Cape May, New Jersey.

The outbreak of the First World War brought on troubling times for German Americans.  Tensions increased as German-speaking citizens were viewed with suspicion.  But like many other Americans with German names, in 1916 young Leo Keonig packed his things and left for the Federal Military Training Camp.

A year later he was back home and on October 20, 1917 his father assisted in his marriage ceremony to Dorothy Wilson Gaston in St. Agnes Chapel.  Adelaide Koenig served as the only attendant for the bride.

As he grew older, Rev. Leo Koenig was afflicted with arteriosclerosis.  Nevertheless, as The New York Times later noted, “he kept up his pastoral work.”  The end would come gently for the elderly pastor.  On October 13, 1919 he took a midday nap, during which he quietly passed away “presumably of heart disease,” according to The Times.

The 75-year old minister had been pastor of St. Paul’s German Lutheran Church for four decades.  His remarkable management sense left the church financially well-off.

Within the year the Koenig family was hoping for additional income.  On May 12, 1920 an advertisement appeared in the New-York Tribune offering “3 rooms and bath; 2 business people; private house; permanent.”

Fifteen years later, on January 7, 1935, Lillian Mendlowitz would knock on the door seeking a room.  The 27-year old student at the New School for Social Research had been living with her brother, Leonard, at No. 161 West 16^th Street.  Tragically, the troubled young woman was not looking for a place to live—rather she wanted a place to die.  That afternoon she ended her life by inhaling gas in the room she had just rented.

After owning the house for 68 years, the Koenigs sold it in October 1950 to Arthur Gardner Rankin.  The house was assessed at the time at $29,000—about $265,000 today.  Rankin was art director for the American Broadcasting Company.  In 1955 he and Jules Bass would form the production company Videocraft International, producing television commercials.  But it was their stop motion animated features, under the company name Rankin/Bass Productions, that would become household favorites.  The firm produced television classics like Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and The Year Without a Santa Claus.

The insertion of wooden panels omitted the need for custom replacement windows.  The iron shutter hinges still survive.  photo by Alice Lum

After more than 170 years, No. 80 West 12^th Street remains a single-family home.  The windows have been replaced and those on the parlor floor have been shortened by the insertion of wooden panels.  Someone thought it would be a good idea to paint the stone and brick.  It wasn’t.  But despite these changes, the house is admirably intact. 

C.P.H. Gilbert's Queen Anne Row at 122-140 Manhattan Ave

 

  photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

In 1886 the 25-year old architect Charles Pierrepont Henry Gilbert began his career in New York City.  Among his first commissions was a row of ten row houses in the developing area known as Manhattan Valley, on the northwestern edge of Central Park.

Following the extension of elevated railway service as far north as 104^th Street in 1879 speculative developers lured potential homeowners with comfortable, affordable homes in up-to-date styles.  Among them was John Brown of Hoboken, New Jersey who commissioned Gilbert to design the three-story homes stretching from No. 120 to 140 Manhattan Avenue (the street had been known as New Avenue until two years earlier), from 104^th to 105^th Streets. At some point the street numbers changed to 122 to 142.

Before the end of the century, C. P. H. Gilbert would be responsible for designing some of the most lavish mansions of New York.  But for this early project he turned to stone, terra cotta and pressed metal to produce a charming row of middle class Queen Anne homes.  Harmonious yet individual, the houses offered a variety of oriels, dog-leg and straight stoops, stained glass and a block-long serrated roofline of angles and points and pretend towers.

Behind the tree limbs, pressed metal parapets coexist with brick cornices.   photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

Construction began in April 1886 and was completed in August the following year.  Most of the homes cost $8,000 to build with the most expensive costing Brown $12,000 ($190,000 and $285,000 in today’s dollars).

The houses sold to working class families.  Albert H. Kohn purchased No. 132.  He ran a jewelry shop downtown.  Paris Fletcher, an electrician, moved into No. 138 and would stay well past the turn of the century.  In 1888 “John and James Brown” sold No. 136 to real estate man Grenville R. Benson

Five years later Benson had a house guest, Helen M. Walter, whom The Sun said “has been connected with the business department of the Century Magazine and was also a writer.”  On April 6, 1893 she died in the house “of grip.”  About 60 years old, she was well known and highly-involved with Mrs. Russell Sage in charities.

photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

John Brown died shortly after his Manhattan Avenue row was completed.  In June 1889 his estate sold two of the homes to real estate operator F. S. Ferguson—No. 120 at the southern corner went for $20,000 and No. 130 sold for $16,000.  Ferguson held No. 130 for nearly a year before selling it at a loss.  On March 8, 1890 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported that he sold “to Albert A. Wiegand, the three-story Queen Anne dwelling…No. 130 Manhattan avenue, for $15,500."

Four years later the Wiegand household would be tinged with scandal.  Nellie Fitzsimmons arrived in New York  in 1894 and was employed as a servant at No. 130.  The 22-year old woman quickly found herself in trouble—she was pregnant.  In August she paid Dr. Edward E. Conrad the hefty fee of $50 to perform an abortion.  The act landed both of them in jail.

On August 13, 1894 The Evening World reported that the physician was being held without bail for “having performed a criminal operation” on Nellie.  “The young woman, who has been in this country only a few months, is a prisoner in Bellevue Hospital, held as an accessory to the crime.”

Nellie Fitzsimmons refused to expose her lover.  “The Fitzsimmon woman, while giving the name of the doctor, declined to name the author of her trouble,” said The Evening World.

photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

The houses held their value and the same year that Nellie Fitzsimmons was in trouble, Mary Norton sold No. 134 to Charles Simpson and his wife, Julie, for $15,500 (The Simpsons would still be in the house well into the first decade of the new century).  A year later, in March 1895, John Yule sold No. 140 to “Mrs. Bartlett” for $16,000.

As the turn of the century arrived, the quaint residences remained home to comfortable, middle-class families.  In 1900 John T. Fisher lived next door to the Simpsons, at No. 136.  He was a member of the Robert C Fisher & Co. granite and marble firm; and held memberships in the Larchmont Yacht Club, the Mendelssohn Glee Club, the St. Anthony and New York Athletic Clubs.

Interestingly, Dr. James H. McInery was living in the corner house at No. 140 at the time; but a year later he sold it and purchased John Fisher’s house at No. 136.  The good doctor would find himself at odds with the law in 1905 when he was arrested for “speeding along Pelham Parkway at the rate of twenty-four miles an hour,” according to the New York Athletic Club Journal.  He admitted to the judge that it was true, he had been speeding, but said he was in a hurry to reach a patient in New Rochelle.

“Laudable risking your neck,” said the judge as he dismissed the charges.

Dr. McInery would still be living in the house over a decade later.

photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

The house next door to the doctor, No. 134, was vacant during the summer of 1905.  Its porch was an inviting place for neighborhood children to play.  However across the street at No. 139 lived John M. Dyer and according to The New York Times for ten years a war had been played out between the old man and the neighborhood children.

“There the children play, and there Mr. Dyer, a little old man, with fierce gray mustachios, sallies out to stop the noise, calling to his assistance the police, the Board of Health, and other representatives of the might and majesty of the law.”

“One night the stoop of 134 Manhattan Avenue, at that time unoccupied and therefore a favorite playground, was found thick with a coat of cayenne pepper,” reported The Times on September 1, 1905.  “And so the neighbors think that this contest must come to a head.  They summoned John M. Dyer before Magistrate Mayo in the West Side Court yesterday on a charge of assault in the second degree—the red pepper charge.”

Louise A. Hopf and her husband, Max, were living at No. 140 at the time.  Max was a banker with Speyer & Co. and was active in the management of the Provident Loan Society.  Louise showed her feisty personality on July 3, 1905 when her letter to editor John Ames Mitchell appeared in Life.  Louise complained that the S.P.C.A. was not vigilant in the Manhattan Valley area.  “Within two weeks I have seen, in the neighborhood of 96^th and 106^th Streets and Columbus Avenue, three cases of apparently much abused horses…I wondered whether the officers of the S.P.C.A. were busy in other parts of the town, as we never see any of them around here; but perhaps they were at headquarters writing reports of what they were not doing, and winding red tape generally.”

Just as Dr. McInery had done, the Hopfs left No. 140 for another house on the row.  They were living at No. 128 when Max died in the house on August 18, 1909 after a brief illness.  Louise would retain possession of the home until March 1920.

By the time Louise sold No. 128, Susie May was been living in No. 122; the house she and her stock broker husband, Lewis A. May, had purchased before the turn of the century.  In December 1900 May’s firm, Lewis A. May & Co. went bankrupt, and in 1912 Susie obtained a divorce.  Although she was granted $3,600 alimony, she agreed to $600 a year if Lewis would pay off the mortgage.

Susie and her son lived on at No. 122 while little by little the alimony payments dried up.  Finally in June 1921 Susie had her former husband jailed in a contempt action “saying he was in arrears of $27,655,” said the New-York Tribune.

The 1920s brought change including jazz music, bobbed hair and a startling dance called the Charleston.  Mildred Alonzo lived at No. 132 in 1926 when, on the night of June 12, she was involved in a “small riot.”

Mildred and a friend Jennie Cardona met outside a radio supply store on Rockaway Avenue.  Jennie had her 8-year old daughter, Denora, with her, and Anna Zalezo, whom The New York Times described as “12 years old, a gipsy girl.”

According to the newspaper, “It all started while Mrs. Cardona and the Alonzo woman were talking in front of the radio store. ‘A-r-kk,’ said the loud speaker, ‘Charleston, Charleston!’  Denora began to step.  Back and forth, she strutted, over the sidewalk.  Pedestrians stopped to watch her.  A crowd gathered, and each minute saw it swell in numbers.  Someone tossed a handful of coins.”

Before long the little girls were dancing away to “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby” and the crowd was loving it.  Coins were tossed and the crowd swelled for half an hour.  Then two policewomen came to break up the congregation.

The crowd revolted while the officers attempted to take the children into custody “for improper guardianship.”  “The two policewomen moved forward with the children in their grasp.  The crowd presented a solid wall.  Some one struck a policewoman.  Other women followed her example.  The dancers were in tears.  Mrs. Cardona was screaming: ‘Let go my child.’”

Before the night was over Mildred Alonzo would be under arrest “for interfering with an officer in the performance of her duty.”

In the meantime landscape artist Charles Gruppe had lived at No. 138 Manhattan Avenue since July 1912 when he bought it from the estate of Sarah A. Wilcox.  Gruppe had returned to New York from the Netherlands when the rumblings of war began.   Along with his wife, Gruppe’s equally-talented sons moved in—Paulo was a concert cellist who appeared with leading orchestra in Europe and America; Karl was an academic sculptor who worked in bronze and marble; and Emile Albert Gruppe was a painter.  Virginia Gruppe, Charles and Helen’s daughter, became a watercolorist.

The Gruppes would be the longest surviving owners along the Manhattan Avenue row—Charles sold it to Ella S. McDonald in 1972.  The Gruppe family had seen tremendous—and not always welcome—change over the decades.

In 1956 No. 134 was termed a “three-story rooming house.”  But the street was infested with drug dealers and crime.  It was a situation that would begin turning around in the 1970s when pioneers from other neighborhoods began purchasing the dilapidated homes and refurbishing them.  On November 29, 1986 Winston Williams of The New York Times reported on the new residents’ push to regain the houses from drug addicts.

“In an unusual ruling, a Manhattan Housing Court judge has ordered the eviction of tenants of a reputed West Side ‘crack house’ at the request of neighboring homeowners and tenants.”  The house was No. 124 Manhattan Avenue and Williams explained “The decision to dislodge the dozen or so residents was ‘based on the testimony of police officers and tenants and owners who live in the area,’ according to the judge.”

The result was remarkable.  When the house that Charles Gruppe lived in for six decades, still retaining its original details, sold in 2003 after five weeks on the market, it brought $950,000.  No. 134 was offered for sale in 2014 for $4.575 million—with no original details other than two stained glass panels.

No. 134 received what was most likely an unavoidable gut renovation -- photo http://ny.curbed.com/places/134-manhattan-avenue

Except for the corner house at 105th Street which was demolished and replaced by a brick box, C. P. H. Gilbert’s delightful string of Queen Anne homes survived mostly intact; an architectural treasure.

The 1887 Wanaque Apartments -- No. 359 West 47th Street

In 1885 the block of West 47^th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues was not an especially nice place to live.  Part of the notorious Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, it was home not only to hard-working immigrant laborers; but to gangs and cutthroats like the Tenth Avenue Gang and the Hell’s Kitchen Gang that had terrorized the area for decades.

Four years earlier The New York Times had described Hell’s Kitchen saying “the entire locality is probably the lowest and filthiest in the City, a locality where law and order are openly defied, where might makes right, and depravity revels riotously in squalor and reeking filth.  The whole neighborhood is an eyesore to the respectable people who live or are compelled to do business in the vicinity, a source of terror to the honest poor, and an unmitigated nuisance to the police of the Twentieth Precinct, whose record-books are filled to overflowing with he names of the residence of these tenement houses.”

In 1882 James D. McCabe wrote about those tenements in his New York by Gas-Light, explaining “The city contains two classes of tenement houses.  Those of the first class are occupied by well-to-do working people; those of the second by the very poor.  The first are large, neat-looking structures, and are kept as clean as the great number of people occupying them will permit; the second are wretched abodes of misery, and often of vice and crime.”

In October 1884 contractor James C. Miller was getting his feet wet as a developer and the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide noted his address as No. 359 West 47^th Street.  Within two years he would be involved in adding what could be argued as a third class of tenements to McCabe's list.

But before he demolished his building on West 47^th Street, Miller commissioned the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White to design what American Architect & Architecture called on August 8, 1885, "a three-story brick dwelling costing $10,000 on West 119^th Street."  He would hire the seven-year old firm again a year later.

Miller’s property at No. 359 West 47^th Street was razed and in its place McKim, Mead & White designed a modern apartment building, slightly upscale from the working class tenements that surrounded it.  When the plans were filed in April of 1886, The City Record was not impressed enough to term Plan 4008 anything other than “for one tenement house.”

Completed in 1887, the Wanaque stood out from its neighbors.  The somewhat austere brownstone base featured an admirable stone hood over the doorway.  Squiggly balustrades of the fencing protecting the deep basement moat drew from the popular Queen Anne style, as did the multi-paned windows and unaggressive terra cotta medallions.  Above it all was a brick-corbelled cornice.

The double entrance doors were framed by carved rope molding.  The stylized sunburst filling the arch perhaps harkens to the wooded and low-mountained area of the Wanaque River.

Miller’s middle-class apartment house stood in defiance to the gritty neighborhood.  There were just two rather spacious apartments per floor separated by the entrance hall.  Although each boasted three bedrooms, a dining room, parlor, bathroom and kitchen; they were designed in the awkward but space-saving “railroad flat” layout.  In order to move from the parlor in the front to the kitchen or bathroom in the rear, one had to pass through the bedrooms.  Should a family member be sleeping, the trip could be made down the public hallway.

Respectable families moved in.  The Benjamin family was among the first tenants.  Daughter May Belle Benjamin was a teacher in the primary department of Grammar School No. 40 at No. 225 East 23^rd Street.  Also living here in the mid-1890s was Joseph M. McMillan, a member of the New York County Medical Association, and W. L. Bingham who was Sunday School Superintendent at Bloomingdale Church, on Broadway and West 68^th Street.

May Belle Benjamin’s sister, Libbie, was 25 years old on August 1, 1897 when she stepped into the street late at night at 124^th Street and Mount Morris Avenue.  A bicyclist struck her, fracturing her right leg.  The unknown rider sped off and Libbie was taken to the Harlem Hospital.

The intricate carving of the hood brackets is in start contrast to the relatively restrained ornamentation throughout the rest of the facade.

Policeman William Peabody was living here and making a name for himself at the turn of the century.  He joined the force on January 9, 1900 and rose to Detective Sergeant on July 11, 1901.  Now, in 1905, he arrested Dr. John A. Harris, a broker, at his high-class residence at No. 112 Riverside Drive on charges of extortion.  By 1907 he would rise to the rank of Lieutenant.

In the meantime, William Southard had telephone service installed in his apartment.  The problem for Southard was that he had to pay for it.  Evidence submitted in court on December 1, 1906 revealed that Southard’s total amount of “subscription phone” was $30.00.  He had managed to pay to date $18.00.  The judge gave him until November 28, 1907 to pay the balance—amounting to about $300 today.

Around this time millionaire Howard Gould and his wife, the former Katherine Clemens, began having marital problems.  On March 23, 1907 Detective Sergeant Peabody traveled to Baltimore “in an investigation of the so-called Gould case,” according to The New York Times.  It would not end happily for Peabody.

In June he found himself standing trial for “giving false testimony before the trial Commissioner on May 20, and with being absent from the Detective Bureau and disobeying orders two days later.”  Peabody insisted he had been sent to Baltimore by former Inspector McLaughlin.  The Deputy Police Commissioner said he had traveled without authorization.

On June 25, 1907 Commissioner Bingham dismissed William Peabody from the force and issued a scathing statement which read in part “It is to be noted that only after Peabody’s false statement was proved from outside sources did he finally admit his guilt.  This shows him a stubborn and insubordinate liar…I have personally talked with and studied Peabody, and have no hesitation in saying that he is utterly untrustworthy, and does not hesitate to lie.”

William F. Peabody did not take his removal from the police force lying down.  On May 3, 1908 the New-York Tribune reported that he “began a suit for $50,000 damages against Commissioner Bingham yesterday…Commissioner Bingham is charged with having brought Peabody into public scandal, infamy and disgrace by delivering or causing statements to be circulated that he was more loyal to outside influence than to the Police Department.”

Although Peabody’s position with the force was restored and he continued to rise in the ranks; he would get himself into hot water again.  A headline in The Evening World on October 16, 1914 read “Police Captain Peabody Up Again On Charges.”  When Commissioner Woods visited the police station on the afternoon of October 3, he discovered that Peabody was falsifying his sign-in time on the blotter.  The newspaper said he “has been brought up on charges again, this time of conduct unbecoming an officer neglect of duty and violation of the rules.”

Brick is used mainly for the decorative elements, such as the quoins and frames and the corbel table below the parapet.

That same year the Hatch family was living in the Wanaque.  On September 12 little 6-year old Frederick was playing in the street in front of the building when he was struck by the “pleasure car driven by Mrs. Margaret B. Chapman,” according to The New York Times the following day.  The newspaper said she lived at the Hotel Astor.  “Mrs. Chapman lifted the boy into her car and took him to the Polyclinic Hospital.  He was not seriously injured.”

In 1915 investors C. F. Pool, G. F. Anderson, and F. Gerbi gave the Wanaque as the address of their newly-incorporated Typhoon Ventilators Company.  The men were going into business manufacturing “heating, cooling and ventilating apparatus,” according to Steel and Iron on April 1.

The neighborhood around the Wanaque remained rough.  In 1939 the Works Progress Administration’s New York City Guide described the varied ethnic population—Irish, Italians, African Americans and, the newest group, Puerto Ricans.  By mid-century racially-based gangs staked out territories and fought one another; a tense situation made famous by Leonard Bernstein’s play West Side Story.

Conditions were such that in October 1957 when the Butnick Hotel Corporation leased the building, it was referred to as “The Wanaque Hotel.”  Little had improved by the 1980s.  On September 16,1984 The New York Times reported “Two men were shot to death in a midtown Manhattan hotel early yesterday, apparently in a dispute over money, the police said.”

At 3:25 in the morning shots rang out in the hallway of the Wanaque Hotel.  Police arrived to find George Gandia, 28 years old, and 30-year old George Morena dead.

Five years after the shooting, in 1989, the building was converted by architects Farrell, Bell & Lennard into Fountain House, a not-for-profit residence for psychiatric patients.  (Coincidentally, the firm was the latest incarnation of the building’s original designers, McKim, Mead & White.)

McKim, Mead & White’s Wanaque Apartments stands out today as it did in 1897—a little known, relatively early work by the firm which would soon top the list of architects nationwide.

photographs by the author

The Lost Hahnemann Hospital -- Park Ave and 67th Street

A turn of the century postcard shows a tree-planted boulevard on Park Avenue.  The hospital's "outdoor cottage" can be seen at right.

In the 18^th century, nearly as many patients died of medical treatment or the infection resulting from operations as did from disease.  The situation prompted famed British surgeon Sir Astley Cooper to announce, “The science of medicine was founded on conjecture and improved by murder.”

Leipzig physician Samuel Hahnemann took a different path from established medical practices when he founded the system of homeopathy in 1796.  He stressed the importance of proper diet, exercise, improved hygiene and removing stress—ideals familiar in the 21^st century.

Hahnemann Homeopathic Hospitals would appear in many of America’s major cities—Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago among them.  New York City’s Hahnemann Hospital was incorporated early in the fall of 1869.  While it waited for a permanent structure, it used a rented house at 307 East 55^th Street as its hospital. 

The Hahenemann was a “free bed” hospital—meaning that those who could not afford care were treated as charity cases.  During its first year the hospital treated 40 patients, only one of which paid.

At the time Fourth Avenue above the Grand Central Depot was an edgy neighborhood of small butcher shops, groceries, unimpressive houses and train tracks that clattered down the center of the thoroughfare.  In 1870 the Hahnemann Hospital secured a lease from the city of twelve buildings lots for the term of 99 years stretching the entire block from 67^th to 68^th Street on the east side.  The Legislature granted the facility $20,000 toward construction of its buildings, on the condition that Hahnemann Hospital could raise an equal amount.

Like churches, privately-run hospitals used fairs and bazaars as a primary means of fund-raising.  The directors of the hospital went directly to the doors of the wealthy, as well, to secure donations.  By 1872, $15,000 had been raised and plans were in the works for the new structure.

John Francis Richmond, in his 1872 New York and its Institutions, described the projected hospital:  

The new structures will consist of a fine administration building, fronting on Fourth avenue, and of two fine pavilions extending one hundred and twenty-five feet along Sixty-seventh and Sixty-eighth streets.  The entire front on Fourth avenue will be two hundred feet ten inches.  The pavilions, besides high basement, will have two stories each, and a Mansard story, will accommodate one hundred and seventy-five patients, giving over 1,300 cubic feet of space to each.

The construction cost of the complex was estimated at about $200,000—around $3.7 million in 2014.  And the planned buildings were badly needed.  By the time of Richmond’s description, the Hahnemann Hospital had treated over 40,000 patients and another 2,000 calls had been made by visiting physicians.

As later explained by hospital president Hiram Calkins (who, in an interesting side note, was present at the death of President Lincoln), with “the liberal contributions of the patrons of Homeopathy and a large sum raised at a fair, the construction of the Hahnemann Hospital on its lots was commenced in 1876.”  The cornerstone laying ceremony, conducted on October 25, 1876 was, as The New York Times described it, “according to the elaborate and impressive forms of Masonry.”

The complex and mysterious Masonic rites were completed when the Grand Marshall declared the stone “had been found square, level and plumb, true and trusty, and laid according to the old customs of Masonry,” said The New York Times.  Grand Master Ellwood E. Thorne explained “that from time immemorial it had been the custom of the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons to lay, when requested, the cornerstones of buildings erected for the worship of God, for charitable objects, or for the administration of justice and free government, but of no other building.”

William Cullen Bryant spoke at the ceremony, saying that of all modes of charitable relief, the support of public hospitals was one of the worthiest and most necessary.

Even as the construction of the new structure neared completion, the ladies of the hospital kept up their fund-raising—now to procure the money to furnish it.  One event was held on April 26, 1877 when they hosted a “coffee party” in the 22^nd Regiment Armory on 14^th Street at Sixth Avenue.  In addition to two hours of special entertainment for children in the afternoon, “good music will be provided, and from 8 to 12 o’clock there will be dancing for those who desire to participate in it,” reported The New York Times.  The newspaper noted that the funds go “to furnish the new hospital building on Fourth-avenue…which is now nearly finished, and which is entirely free from debt in every other respect.”

The following year, in October 1878, the hospital opened its doors to patients.  The bulk of the brick cube was largely unornamented.  A stone portico with Doric columns opened onto Fourth avenue (later renamed Park Avenue) and stone accents highlighted the openings.  But above the third floor cornice an impressive mansard level rescued the structure from mediocrity.  Severely angular and notably tall, its corner towers tapered upward.  Handsome dormers lined up around the roofline and especially high iron cresting capped the corners.

Additions to the main building quickly followed—first by an annex to the east, then by the construction in the side yard of a “cottage for a special class of surgical cases,” as described by Calkins later.  By the 1890s the cottage was being used for the Out-Door Department, “where a large number of the sick poor daily receive treatment and obtain relief,” reported The Medical Times in 1895.

Construction required more fund-raising and on April 21, 1880 the Hospital leased the old Madison Square Garden for a charity ball and art auction.  The cream of New York society was there and the following day The New York Times reported that “A pianoforte was playing a lively waltz, and among the dancers were persons well known in New-York society…In the Garden proper about 2,000 persons were about the various stalls of the Hanemann Fair, and numerous detectives from the Central Office and the Twenty-ninth Precinct kept watch.”  Children were enjoying a Punch and Judy show in one room.  And then the unthinkable happened.

Around 9:00 Mr. Story, who was in charge of the Art Gallery, noticed that pieces of plaster were frequently falling from the ceiling, accompanied by cracking noises.  He mentioned this to Detective Tilley and the pair decided it would be prudent to evacuate the gallery.  To avoid panic, the guests viewing the artwork were told that the heat in the room could be injurious to the paintings, so the gas was being turned off and the gallery closed.

The viewers left slowly as Story turned down the gaslights.  Just as the last one left a huge chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling—about 18 inches wide and several feet long.  Detective Tilley “saw what had fallen, and at that moment heard a frightful crackling noise all around him.  The ceiling appeared to open and then to slide toward the avenue, while the west wall tottered, gaped, and fell outward,” reported The New York Times the following morning.

Unaware, well-dressed couples continued to waltz in the dancing hall “until a few seconds before the second floor and the peaked roof with the tower fell into Madison-avenue.”  Two guests told a reporter “there was a puff, as of smoke, and a dull sound, as if an explosion had occurred, then crackling and groaning of wood and brick work.  Then the ceiling split, large pieces of plaster began to fall, and everything inclined toward the street; then came a terrible crash and the wall of the dancing-hall fell outward, and the sky and stars appeared.”

The New York Times reported, “The immense throng on the main floor surged toward the Madison-avenue exit, over which bricks, plaster, and timbers were still falling.  A terrible crush occurred in the vestibule, and it seemed likely that a terrible panic was going to take place, and that many persons would be crushed to death.”

One young man clambered over the rubble and picked up a pair of cymbals, crashing them together to get the crowd’s attention.  He hollered for order.  “In the meantime the fear of the musicians had been allayed, and they were induced to play ‘Yankee Doodle,’” said The Times.  “The music stilled the crowd, and they left the building in comparatively good order.”

When the collapse seemed to have halted, “dozens of young men, fashionably dressed, began to explore the ruins up stairs a few seconds after the accident, in a stifling dust.  At least half a dozen persons were helped out of the wreck within a minute after the time of the falling of the walls.”  Tragically, not everyone emerged alive.  When it was all over the northwestern tower, the art gallery, the dancing hall and part of the restaurant lay in a pile on the street and three women were dead.  An injured man died later.

On May 3 the “grand fair” was reopened at the 22^nd Regiment Armory.  Amazingly, some of the paintings on sale at the Madison Square Garden fair had been recovered, restored, and now hung here.  The high-tone nature of the fair was evident in the articles offered to donors.  “There are 80 valuable articles yet to be disposed of by subscription votes,” said The Times the day after the reopening, “including diamonds, pianos, a magnificent doll, with diamond jewelry, and a tiny wardrobe of 12 handsome dresses; an elegant satin quilt, an artistic screen, a very fine bicycle, oil-paintings, and a large quantity of silverware, besides many other articles of value.”  The newspaper noted that General Grant had outbid all competitors for a gold-headed cane.

Meanwhile, treatment of patients went on in the Hahnemann Hospital.  A peculiar set of circumstances surrounded the case of Mrs. Arthur Bloodgood in 1884.  The woman’s condition had deteriorated to the point that she was unable to move from a chair and her niece sat with her day and night.  Her physician informed her “that the only possible chance of her recovery would be a trip to California,” according to a newspaper.

The problem for the woman who now had her hopes for survival hinging on a West Coast trip, was that she was embattled in a divorce proceeding and had no money.  Her alimony case was tied up in litigation and “In the meantime she remains in a helpless condition at the Hahnemann Hospital.  She recently applied to her brother for assistance, and that gentleman sent her money enough to pay her car fare to California.  It is stated that each day renders her chance of recovery less possible,” said The New York Times on April 15 1884.

The newspaper explained part of the problem.  “Arthur Bloodgood, the husband,…is also a helpless invalid in Hahnemann Hospital.”

In 1889 plans were being discussed for a new, state of the art maternity building.  On March 21 that year The Evening World reported on the upcoming Centennial Festival for the benefit of the new facility.  “The affair promises to be one of unusual excellence, and a variety of attractions will be offered, including entertainments and performances during the afternoons and evenings.  A notable feature will be a ‘Martha Washington Drawing-Room,’ which will contain a collection of Revolutionary relics.”

The festival opened in May and featured a Russian tearoom where tea was served by girls wearing quaint Russian costumes, and the Martha Washington room furnished in 18^th century antiques, including the chair Washington used at his inauguration.  A $4,000 punch bowl had been donated to be awarded to the most popular club in the city, as voted on by festival patrons.

By the time of this turn of the century postcard, additions to the north had been completed.  The cottage is now-vine covered.

The Egbert Guernsey Maternity and Children’s Ward was opened on December 18, 1894.  The $68,000 building (exclusive of land and furnishings) was the last word in modern facilities.  There were comfortable private rooms, bathrooms, and windows on four sides.  “Four private rooms have been daintily and completely furnished by Mrs. Guernsey, Mrs. G. W. Powers, Mrs. J. Neilson Stout, and Mrs. Ralph Trautman, with pretty rugs, draperies, pictures and bed furnishings,” said The New York Times.  “The color tones…are pink, white, yellow, and blue.  The rooms called forth many expressions of admiration from the visitors.”

The obstetric ward and a private room of the new 1894 Maternity Ward are surprisingly modern-looking.  photos from The New York Medical Times, January 1895 (copyright expired)

In 1905, The New York Charities Directory pointed out that the hospital accepted no contagious cases.  For those patients “in moderate circumstances” $7 per week was charged.  Private rooms for paying patients ranged from $12 to $50 per week—the latter amount translating to about $1200 today.  As always, those who were indigent were admitted and treated for free.  The figures put forth by the directory showed a marked change in charity-versus-paying patients over the years.  In 1901-1902, 997 patients were treated of which 683 paid in full and 29 made “small payments.” 

Some of the staff pose for a Byron Co. photographer in 1905.  Presumably the kitten was not on payroll -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York 

The hospital was pulled into a sordid public scandal in September 1913 when Dr. John Husson and his wife appeared in court regarding custody of their 4-year old son.  The boy had survived with two broken vertebrae in his neck since a fall at the age of 18 months.  Dr. Husson pleaded that “only delicate and interested treatment will preserve his life.”

But the case earned lurid press coverage because Jennie Husson had earlier sued socialite Mrs. Louise Riddell Park for $5,000 damages for alienating the affections of her husband.  In addition to charging infidelity Jennie declared, according to The Evening World, “that her husband assaulted and struck her on Aug. 24 and told her that it ‘was only a light sample of what he proposed to give to her if she did not leave his household.’”

Husson, who was 20 years older than his wife, said he was merely trying to subdue his jealous wife during a fit of rage.  He explained that her out-of-control jealousy had damaged his practice.  Patients stayed away because “his wife was in the habit of calling at his office while he was treating patients and looking through the key hole.”

The hospital's kitchen as photographed by Wurts Bros. on February 1, 1917 -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

On June 13, 1917 the Medical Record announced that the City of New York had sold the land occupied by Park Avenue land to the hospital for $100,000.  By now the Park Avenue train tracks had been lowered and covered over by a landscaped boulevard.  Mansions—like the grand Percy Rivington Pyne residence directly across the avenue—were rapidly replacing the older structures.  The value of the Hahnemann Hospital land had risen to $775,000.

In 1905 surgeons operate on a patient.  Rubber gloves, masks and hairnets are already in practice -- photo by Byron Co., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York 

Now that it owned the land, the Hospital directors knew exactly what to do—sell it.  On July 27, 1919 The New York Times reported, “In a transaction involving about $2,000,000 the Hahnemann Hospital completed the sale of its property yesterday on the east side of Park Avenue, between Sixty-seventh and Sixty-eighth Streets, and purchased as a site for a new group of buildings the block front on Fifth Avenue between 105th and 106^th Streets.”

The newspaper noted that the Park Avenue site, “one of the finest of the new large plots left on Park Avenue for residential development…is surrounded by some of the finest mansions in the city.”  The land had been purchased by a syndicate and “it will be developed in the near future with residences in keeping with the new house planned by Harold I. Pratt for the opposite corner of Sixty-eight Street, and the residences of Percy R. Pyne, H. R. Davidson, William Sloane, Arthur Curtiss James, the twin houses of the Redmonds, George Blumenthal, and the two Brewsters.”

Although the syndicate, headed by Douglas L. Elliman originally intended that the private homes of millionaires would rise on the site; the idea was scrapped in favor of a 10-story apartment building with a garden courtyard.  Designed by James E. R. Carpenter and Mott B. Schmidt, the handsome structure was completed in 1924.

 

Carpenter's and Schmidt's 1924 block-engulfing building still stands.  photo by cityrealty.com