The Lost 71st Regiment Armory -- Park Avenue and 33rd Street

photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Following the April 1898 declaration of war against Spain, the 71st Regiment was sent to Cuba, where they would participate in the Battle of San Juan Hill.  On May 4 the regiment's veterans issued a call to "the young men of this city to fill the places of the men who have gone, thus reinforcing the regiment for the protection of the city and state."  Enlistees were told to "apply at the 71st Regiment Armory, 34th Street and Park Avenue."

The armory mentioned was a 6-year old imposing stone edifice of towers, turrets and gables sitting squarely within the Murray Hill mansion district.  Inside were historic items relating to the regiment--the muster rolls of the Civil War, the flag carried in the Battle of Bull Run, the banner presented by the City of New Orleans in 1881, an oil portrait of George Washington, and another of Hernan Cortes removed from Castle Chapultepec (the "Halls of Montezuma") during the Mexican War.

The original 71st Regiment Armory.  photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Then on the morning of February 22, 1902, newspapers ran the story of the destruction of the hulking armory.  Its origin was never discovered; however the high winds of the stormy winter night fed the flames.  Only one wall and the entrance on 34th Street stood after the inferno burned out.

A newspaper reported "The actual property of the Veteran Association was insured for $10,000, and that of the regiment for $20,000.  The only thing saved from both items is the tablet commemorative of the killed and wounded at the battle of Bull Run, presented by Col. Henry P. Martin."  Later one other artifact was found in the ruins, the cannon captured in the riot of 1857.  Although the wooden trunion was destroyed, of course, the cast iron cannon was saved.

The decision was made to rebuild on the site.  But the new armory would not come before scandal and embarrassment for the regiment.  Colonel William G. Bates and Major E. T. T. Marsh were brought up on charges by Major C. H. Smith, who accused them of fraud in reporting the losses.  On December 20, 1902 the Army and Navy Journal reported that the military court decided "That their conduct in filing improper claims for losses in the destruction of the 71st Regiment Armory was indiscreet and improper and lacking in frankness."  The officers narrowly escaped severe discipline when the court deemed that their action "shows no intent to defraud."

Among the members of the 71st Regiment was Lieutenant-Colonel J. Hollis Wells, an architect who worked with the firm of Clinton & Russell.  Understandably, that firm received the commission.  The History of the 71st Regiment, N. G. N. Y. explained that between Wells and Colonel Bates, "understanding all the requirements for a national guard armory, they carefully studied out and advised with the architects, thereby securing everything conceivable as necessary."

On April 29, 1904, the sixth anniversary of the 71st Regiment's departure for Cuba, the cornerstone was laid.  A crowd of 3,000 (there would have been more, thought the New York Times journalist reporting on the event, had it not been for "the very unfavorable weather") watched as Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr. tapped it in place with a silver trowel.

The box placed within the cornerstone had been rescued from the old armory ruins--placed there on December 17, 1892.  The original contents were left in place, joined by 1904 coins, a history of the regiment, a roster of current members and a roll of the members of the Veteran Association, and other pamphlets.

The Times announced "The new structure will be completed about the beginning of next year...It will be in the style of a mediaeval castle with turrets and a lofty tower, the latter to be occupied by the Signal Corps." 

photo from the collection of the New York State Military Museum

The completed armory cost $650,000 (nearly $18 million today) and engulfed the entire Park Avenue blockfront from 33rd to 34th Streets. The brick and stone fortress included the expected crenelated towers, romantic turrets, and a gaping maw of an entrance above a wide flight of stone stairs.  All of this was overshadowed by the 236-foot tall tower which seemed a bit out of place. The New York Times later mentioned that the tower was "modeled after the famous Town Hall tower of Siena, Italy."

A vintage postcard of the Siena tower shows the unmistakable similarities.

There was "not an inch of waste room," according to the 1919 History of the 71st Regiment.  The vast drill room, with a separate entrance on 34th Street, was on the first floor, along with the brigade headquarters and staff.   The History added, "Also provided was a large gymnasium, shower, baths, a lavatory large enough for a company at one time, library, officers' locker rooms, bowling alley, billiard room, an assembly room for entertainments, squad drill rooms; in fact, everything requisite."

As with other regiments, the 71st shared its armory in peace time for a dizzying variety of productions, events and conventions.  In November 1912, for instance, the "Land Show" opened.  The Times explained "The exhibits are divided into four classes, including live stock, products of the soil, farming machinery and equipment, and exhibits demonstrating modern scientific methods of farming."

Along with the "bottled fruits and vegetables," varieties of fresh produce, and farm machinery were live animals.  "Pedigreed cows are milked by electricity.  Across the aisle are numerous pigs and prize poultry of all kinds to be seen," reported the newspaper.  Rather out of place was the Women's Political Union which distributed suffragist literature.

The Suffragists were back two months later for the Suffrage Ball.  On January 12, 1913 the New-York Tribune reported "Well, the Women's Political Union did one big thing last night.  It made the 71st Regiment Armory look small.  And the 71st Regiment Armory holds a few people, too--about ten thousand."

The armory quickly became a favored venue for high school, intercollegiate and amateur athletics.  And in 1915 a tradition was begun when the Charity Dog Show opened here.  The Times said "Next to the Westminster Kennel Club's exhibition, the Charity Dog Show...will be the largest dog show ever held in the United States, and it is the greatest for charity ever held in the world."

Athletic competitions, dog shows and charity balls came to a halt on March 25, 1917 when 800 of the 1,200 enlisted men of the regiment received orders to mobilize.  In record time, the men were ready to leave the following morning.  The New-York Tribune reported "Wool uniforms, overcoats, and underclothes are held in plenty by the regimental quartermaster."

Canadian Highlander soldiers known as "kilties" march into the armory in July 1917 as part of "British Recruiting Week."  from the collection of the Library of Congress

The war was over in December 1918, making that Christmas especially joyful.  Nevertheless, thousands of soldiers arriving on ferries and at railroad stations were still being directed to War Camp Units and would not be home for the holiday.  Dinners, parties and other entertainments were hurriedly organized.  On December 8 The New York Times announced "there will be a great dance at the 71st Regiment Armory, Park Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street, to which 3,000 tickets will be issued."

With peace the exhibitions returned.  1919 saw the Own-Your-Home Exhibition, where according to organizers, the "housing problems of this city" could be tackled.  In April the National Milk and Dairy Farm Exposition was held here.

But world war was not easily forgotten.  On June 19, 1919 the New York City's military, police and fire forces were organized in a city-wide mock drill that simulated an attack.   Bugles were sounded from every armory at 7:30 a.m.--no doubt terrifying civilians.  "Soon afterward, motorcycle couriers, bearing secret orders for the commanders of eleven regiments sped away from the 71st Regiment armory," wrote the New-York Tribune.  "For the purposes of the military problem the city was under martial law.  The seat of government was in the 71st Regiment Armory."

Later that year the armory was besieged not by a foreign enemy, but by children.  On December 5 The Evening World announced that the New York City Police Department intended to hold a "big entertainment" for children on December 23.  "The gifts will be presented by 100 soldiers who fought overseas, attired in Santa Claus costumes."  Every needy child would receive a package containing an article of clothing and other gifts.

The NYPD passed out 7,000 tickets to the event.  But the decision to announce the party in advance proved to be disastrous.  On December 24 The Times ran a headline reading "Children Run Riot In Christmas Fete--Armory Stormed by 14,000 Youngsters."  The article said "Police reserves from six precincts were called to restore order following a rush by the children upon the long tables...where thousands of their gifts were being distributed."  Women fainted, children were nearly crushed in the madness ("some on crutches," said The Times), and some were pushed "headlong down the Thirty-fourth Street entrance."

The armory continued to be the site of extraordinary events.   The Music Festival in April 1920 featured composer Serge Rachmanioff, conductor Walter Damrosch, and opera stars Sophie Braslau, Marie Sundelius, Orville Harrold, and Merle Alock, among others.  Also here that year was the Aviation Show, in which the "smallest dirigible in the world" was exhibited, along with Orville Wright's newest design, the Dayton-Wright aerial coupe.

Throughout the 1920s professional boxing and wrestling matches were presented in the armory.  One of the more bizarre events was the 1928 Talk Contest.  Organized by promoter Milton D. Crandall, well-known for his dance marathons, it pitted 36 persons (11 women and 25 men), "in a contest to determine which sex is the 'gabbier," according to The Times on December 25, 1928.

According to Crandall, the idea originated when he "read of a divorce case in which the husband applied for a decree on the grounds that his wife insisted on doing all of the talking."  The newspaper said the contestants "are poets, philosophers, social welfare worker, baritones and people 'just naturally like to hear their own voices.'"  The winner was "the one with the longest total of time spent in talking, singing, screaming, gargling, reciting and hooting."

On April 28, 1929 some New Yorkers may have been shocked to read that the City Controller had been authorized to sell the 25-year old building.  The Times reported "Actual demolition, in all probability, will not take place until a decision has been reached in regard to new quarters for the regiment."

It was most likely the onslaught of the Great Depression that halted those plans.  The armory continued on as the site for athletic tournaments, boxing and wrestling bouts, and military balls.  In 1938 the New York Police Department began using the drill room and other sections as its Recruit's Training School.

Another New York tradition, along with the dog show, was the New York Antiques Fair which opened on October 20, 1947 and became a much-anticipated annual event.

Despite its reprieve, the fate of the 71st Regiment Armory seemed bleak by the early 1960s.  Whitney North Seymour, Jr., writing in The New York Times on October 13, 1963 made a plea on its behalf; saying that the armory "is now in a sorry state of repair and may surrender its ground to new apartment dwellings.  But, properly cleaned up, this structure has excellent esthetic and commercial possibilities."

The case for preservation was not helped when built-up sewer gas exploded in the basement in June 1964, injuring 18 National Guardsmen.  A few days later the Fire Department returned to find that the gas had once again filled the space.


Despite this, the New York State Democratic Convention was held here in September that year.  On September 2 journalist Philip H. Doughtery made note that "Mrs. Ethel Skakel Kennedy, who is expecting her ninth child in December and is hoping her husband will be a Senator by then, acted the perfect wife, mother and lady in the noisy heat of the State Democratic Convention yesterday."

In what The New York Times described as "the sweltering 71st Regiment Armory," Robert F. Kennedy won the nomination that night.  It was a somewhat surprising turn of events, as the 38-year old Attorney General was neither a resident nor an enrolled member of the New York Democratic party.

The death knoll finally came on June 26, 1971 when the venerable 71st Regiment Armory was evacuated.  The Times remarked that after "the last military vehicle is driven down the steps from the drill floor to Park Avenue...the armory will be locked by the state to await demolition by the city."

In its place the city erected the Norman Thomas High School, topped by a 42-story orange brick skyscraper. designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates.

photograph by Buttonwood Tree

The Metropolitan Republican Club - 122 East 83rd St

The house at No. 122 East 83rd Street was considered on the "wrong side" of Park Avenue in the 1890s.   Built in 1859, the wooden dwelling now shared the block with the handsome private stables of Fifth Avenue millionaires.

At the time political clubs had gained importance throughout the city.  In 1902 the Republican Club of the 29th Assembly District opened at No. 627 Madison Avenue, at the corner of 59th Street.  Among its original members were the recently elected President Theodore Roosevelt and Mayor of New York Seth Low.  Member Charles Evan Hughes became Governor of New York in 1907 and was appointed United States Supreme Court Associate Justice by President William Taft in 1910.

In 1917 the club moved further uptown to No. 1041 Madison Avenue, between 79th and 80th Streets; prompting a name change to the 15th Assembly District Republican Club.  Its roster continued to impress with members Samuel H. Hofstadter being elected to State Senate and Ruth Baker Pratt elected to Congress in 1928--the first woman from New York so elected.

The following year, in reporting on the club's purchase of "the old frame house" at No. 122 East 83rd Street, The New York Times made reference to the club's wealthy constituents.  On May 29 it wrote that "The Fifteenth Assembly District Republican Club, the 'Silk Stocking District' organization'" had bought the house "where it plans to erect a new building...The house was sold by Judge William F. Moore, in whose family it had been held for seventy years."


The club commissioned architect Eugene J. Lang to design its new clubhouse.  Lang, who began his independent practice in 1908, had by now earned a reputation for producing grand residences in historic styles.  Among them were the neo-Tudor mansion of B. F. Hermann in Tarrytown, New York, built in 1919; and the sprawling Italian villa of Paolino Gerli in Bronxville, New York, completed a year earlier.

Despite the disastrous stock market crash on October 29 that year the project forged ahead.  Lang filed plans in December 1929, estimating the cost at $126,000 (in the neighborhood of $1.75 million today).  Only two months later the cost had risen to $130,000.

The club's annual ball was held at the Commodore Hotel on February 3, 1930; and this year The Times reported that the "proceeds form the ball will be used for the furnishing and decorating" of the clubhouse under construction.  The article noted "As has been the custom for several years, an all-star vaudeville entertainment will precede the dancing."

On May 26, 1930 Ruth Baker Pratt, "holding a brick in one hand and a trowel in the other," laid the cornerstone of the new clubhouse.  The steel box she sealed within the cornerstone contained copies of New York newspapers, a roster of the members, several coins dated 1930, and a program from the February ball.

The clubhouse formally opened on October 6, 1930.  Lang had produced a pristine neo-Georgian structure faced in red Flemish bond brick and trimmed in white marble.  An especially high stone water table rose half the height of the elegant arched entrance.  The paneled double doors sat below an elegant leaded fan light.  Paneled lintels, chunky slate shingles on the mansard and pedimented dormers lent to the 18th century motif.

Two shallow marble steps lead to the double doors, beneath a delicate leaded fanlight.

The interiors were designed by Pauline Sabin.  Born into privilege, the daughter of Paul Morton and Charlotte Goodridge, she owned an interior decorating firm.  But she was best known for her political work.  A year earlier she had resigned from the Republican National Committee to form the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform.

Still called the Fifteenth Assembly District Republican Club when the new building opened, it was unusually accepting of both sexes (possibly through some influence of Ruth Baker Pratt).  The New York Times mentioned the clubhouse "contains a large auditorium, a lounge room for women, a grill room and kitchen."

Political prose at the time was no less acerbic than today.  When Edward C. Carington ran for Borough President in 1931, he compared his Tammany opponent  to a gangster during a reception in the clubhouse on September 27.

"Tammany Hall is New York's Public Enemy No. 1," he said.  "In Chicago that distinction was passed on to Al Capone.  There is no difference between Tammany and Public Enemy No. 1 in that great metropolis in the West."

Less controversial were the several annual events the club sponsored for district children.  On December 28 that year The New York Times reported on the Christmas party for 400 children held the day before.  Alderman Joseph Clark Baldwin dressed as Santa Claus.

"Bewhiskered, and attired in the conventional red suit, Alderman Baldwin stood beside a huge, brilliantly lighted Christmas tree and distributed gifts to every child."  The presents were considered gender-appropriate in 1931.  "Dolls and sets of dishes were given to the girls, while the boys received toy musical instruments, games, footballs, baseballs and basketballs."

Ruth Baker Pratt, as always, was present, as was Assembly man Abbott Low Moffat.  "Preceding the distribution of gifts, a two-hour entertainment was held, consisting of group singing, games, a Punch and Judy show, and performances by an accordion player, a clown and Sooky San, child dancer."

Even more impressive was the annual June outing in Central Park.  More than 5,000 youngsters were treated to an "athletic carnival" in 1932.  Traffic on the Upper East Side was temporarily disrupted as the thousands of children received their name tags at the clubhouse, then marched to the Park; many of them dressed "in the costumes of characters from Alice in Wonderland, in Colonial uniforms and in Indian garb."

The games were made even more special by treats rarely gotten in the Depression years. "Perhaps in view of the heat and the participation of the boys and girls in the roof races provided in the program, about 10,000 bricks of ice cream were eaten...Large quantities of milk, lemonade and cakes also were provided during the day," wrote The Times.

A month later the club members addressed a far more serious issue--Prohibition.  No doubt much to the satisfaction of Pauline Sabin, on July 14, 1932 the club unanimously adopted a resolution in favor of "immediate repeal" of the 18th Amendment.

On August 23, 1968 the club changed its name to the Metropolitan Republican Club.  It was here, on November 29, 1971 that Senator Jacob K. Javits warned his party against Conservatives who, he said, were "pursuing a divide-and-conquer strategy in an effort to take over the Republican party."

Ironically, when the very conservative former U. S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani announced his candidacy for Mayor in 1989, he did so from the same podium used by Javits.

The Metropolitan Republican Club continued its tradition of attending to the needs of youth when, in 1981, it initiated its After-School Workshop.  About 30 children aged 5 through 12 engaged in activities ranging from crafts, carpentry, cooking, computer lessons, to games like roller disco and dodge ball, as well as tutoring in math or reading.

The picturesque neo-Georgian clubhouse continues to be a vibrant force in New York City Republican politics.  When member Michael R. Bloomberg ran for Mayor in 2005, he made the ballroom his campaign headquarters.  Looking rather like a transplant from Philadelphia's Society Hill, Eugene J. Lang's Metropolitan Republican Club sits serenely amid an architectural hodgepodge on its East 83rd Street block.

photographs by the author

The J. Romaine Brown Mansion - No. 340 Convent Avenue

In 1886 William Mowbray was busy transforming the blocks around Convent Avenue and West 144th Street into a fashionable neighborhood.  The area, once part of Alexander Hamilton's estate The Grange, was quickly developing.  In December that year the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide noted "More than twenty elegant houses, of English Gothic, Flemish and other styles, as modified by the taste of the architect Mr. Wm. E. Mowbray, are already planned and will be built without delay."

Many of those homes were designed for developers William H. DeForest and his son, also named William.  Mowbray's builder father, Anthony, constructed the residences.  But for Nos. 340 through 346 Convent Avenue, at the corner of West 144th Street, Mowbray acted as both developer and architect.

Not completed until 1890, the row was anchored by the impressive corner mansion.  Although the entrance was unquestionably located at No. 451 West 144th Street, the house took the address of No. 340 Convent Avenue.  All Mowbry's houses along the street were modern takes on historic styles.  But the red brick mansion was less quaint and more imposing than its neighbors.  A Victorian adaptation of French Renaissance, it featured a large corner tower with a conical cap, a basement level of rough-cut granite, and pedimented dormers which cut through the steep slate-tiled roof.

The neighborhood at the turn of the last century was charming.  The tower of No. 340 Convent Avenue (right) still retained its conical cap.  photograph by Thaddeus Wilkerson, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In 1905 the mansion became home to Joseph Romaine Brown and his wife, the former Annie Elizabeth Lockwood.  The 72-year old was still highly active in the real estate business and headed the J. Romaine Brown Company at No. 10 East 43rd Street.  He was deemed the "Dean of Manhattan Brokers."

He and Annie had married in April 1865.  By then he had had a widely-varied career.  He had started business by learning the locksmith trade; then in 1854 purchased the 34th Street stage coach line (it ran from 34th Street, down Broadway to 26th Street, then to Third Avenue and back), and two years later started his real estate business.

By the time the Browns moved into the Convent Avenue mansion, their four children were grown and Joseph Brown had accumulated a significant fortune.   That was partly due to the street car line which was formed in the 1850s.  Its founders wanted to run it along the same route as Brown's coach line, so they bought him out for $150,000--in the neighborhood of $4.25 million today.

J. Romaine Brown -- photo via werelate.org

In 1913, when the country was still suffering through the crippling financial depression known as the Panic of 1907, a reporter from The Sun visited Brown to get a veteran's views on the economy.  The article, which appeared on Sunday, August 31, encompassed half of the front page.  Brown boosted optimism among the newspaper's readers by retelling stories of earlier depressions--like the paralyzing Panic of 1873 that lasted until 1880.  The article noted "Mr. Brown expects that the experiences of 1878 are soon to be duplicated here, that is, the real estate market will turn from a period of inactivity to one of splendid business."

Two months later, 345 lots on Jerome Avenue were sold at auction.  The New York Times noted on November 2, "J. Romaine Brown, whose knowledge of New York real estate extends over a longer period that the great majority of brokers, showed his faith in the future of the Jerome Avenue lots sold by purchasing nearly the entire block front on the east side of Jerome Avenue" at 174th Street."

Brown used his reputation to further bolster confidence in the economy.  He chided other real estate men for not bidding, saying "the lots sold for absurdly low prices" and adding "anyone who will look back at the growth of New York can readily see that Jerome Avenue, in a short time, will be far better than Eighth Avenue, and more like Sixth Avenue, below Fifty-ninth Street, with stores and substantial improvements."

Brown sold No. 340 Convent Avenue in May 1916 to an investor.  Annie died in 1923 at the age of 87; and Brown died the following year at the age of 91.

The house was the scene of considerable excitement the year after the Browns moved out.  Burglars did not expect Thomas Stuart to be in his West 142nd Street apartment on the afternoon of July 18, 1917; but he worked nights and was sleeping.   He was wakened by the sound of men trying to jimmy his front door open.   He surprised the would-be crooks but, "by reason of his attire was unable to pursue the burglars, but gave the alarm to passersby in the street," reported The Sun.

The two men were chased down 142nd Street and onto Convent Avenue "by an ever increasing crowd."  The accomplice of Charles J. Miller (described by the newspaper as "a Swiss, 26 years old) ducked into a construction site, then managed to reappear and slip into the crowd unobserved.  To distract the pursuers, he pulled a fire alarm at 145th Street and Convent Avenue.  The Sun reported that the ploy worked for him, but not for Miller who began "a systematic series of fence vaulting from one yard to the next."

As Miller jumped over one back fence to another, Patrolman Whelan had joined the chase.  Unfortunately for the crook, the policeman had "won fame not long ago as a pole vaulter and gymnasium expert with the Irish American A. C."  The athletic cop "showed such superior technique in fence vaulting that he caught Miller in the yard of 340 Convent avenue."

Although Miller put up a fight, he was subdued and arrested.  At the police station, it was confirmed that he had been involved in several other burglaries in the neighborhood.

The following year, in June 1918, the mansion was purchased by the Little Sisters of the Assumption.  Their convent had been located since 1899 at Nos. 125-127 West 130th Street which a spokesperson said was, at the time, "a desirable residence locality."

Now, the President of the Little Sisters, Claire Daburon, explained the move in terms disturbing to 21st century readers.  She said a reporter from The Sun in late June that "within the last few years the character of the neighborhood had so changed because of an influx of colored residents that the site was no longer desirable for a residence and convent."

The Little Sisters of the Assumption was founded in 1864 in Paris.  The Catholic Encyclopedia described its work in 1922.  "The Little Sisters nurse the sick poor in their own homes, without regard to creed or nationality, accepting no remuneration of any kind.  In addition to caring for the patient, they keep the house clean and in order, prepare the meals for the family, dress the children and send them to school."

In 1922 the Little Sisters purchased and demolished the abutting house at No. 342 Convent Avenue.  Architect P. F. Brogan was commissioned to design a four-story addition to the mansion; a strikingly dissimilar red brick structure in a toned down version of the French Classical style which continued the original mansard.

A section of the 1922 addition can be seen above.

The convent remained in the mansion until about 1960, when it became home to the Greater Tabernacle Baptist Church, which describes itself as "a small church with a big heart."  Although the conical cap of the tower has been lost and the facade painted red, the house is as attention grabbing as it was in 1890.

photographs by the author

The 1868 Appleton & Co. Bldg -- Nos. 90-94 Grand Street

 

Daniel Appleton opened his bookstore on Exchange Place near the Bowery in 1825.  Selling mostly imported books, his business grew at a dizzying pace.  He soon outgrew the shop, moving to Clinton Hall at Beekman Street in what would be the first of many moves.

Shortly after taking son William into the business in 1838 Appleton moved to 200 Broadway.  A decade later he retired and William partnered with his brother, John Adams Appleton.  The firm moved once again, this time to Broadway and Leonard Street; and then to 443 and 445 Broadway.

By the end of the Civil War, D. Appleton & Company was more than a bookstore.  It was one of the most successful publishers in the nation, producing school books, religious tracts, encyclopedias, and a wealth of other texts; along with stereopticon slides, pamphlets and cabinet photographs.  Simultaneously the neighborhood around Greene and Grand Streets was rapidly transforming to one of commercial buildings.

Ann Howard had inherited a large amount of property in the area.  In 1867, she commissioned architect Griffith Thomas to design a store and factory building at 90 through 94 Grand Street, on the northeast corner of Greene Street, as the new home of D. Appleton & Company.  Thomas was already a well-known architect, having produced many significant structures.  But he was not without his critics.  Even in writing his obituary 22 years later--normally reserved for remembering only successes--The American Architect and Building News was surprisingly critical.

While the article admitted "he has done more to build up this city in the past forty years than any two men in the same line of effort," it flatly added, "Much may be said in his favor, very much indeed, but on the other hand it is not to be denied that much of his work was commonplace."

The writer could have been speaking specifically of the Appleton & Company building.  While the article conceded that Thomas carried out "magnificent architectural ideas," the completed Grand Street building was typical of his work.  While a handsome and refined structure, five-stories high and faced in stone, it was not out of the ordinary for commercial structures.  The design included an attractive cast iron base for the retail store, and while essentially Italianate in style--including the triangular pediment above the bracketed cornice--it revealed splashes of the newly-emerging French influence such as the segmental-arched openings of the upper floors.

An 1868 advertisement depicted the new headquarters (copyright expired)

D. Appleton & Company was in its new home in 1868.  Among its new publications that year was the three-volume History of the World.  The set was available in a choice of three bindings--cloth, "library leather," and "Half Morocco."  The least expensive retailed for $3.50, and the Half Morocco sold for $5.00--about $86 today.

Along with its many text books on languages, novels, and the American Annual Cyclopaedia (marketed as a "register of important events for the year") published that year, Appleton printed large publications like The History of the Navy During the Rebellion, a two-volume work which included full-page engravings "in chromo tints," woodcuts, and steel engravings.  An advertisement promised, "No purely fancy sketches find a place in the work, but all the engravings represent actual scenes and objects of interest." 

An interesting publication released in 1868 was the Dictionary of the Bible, by Dr. William Smith.  The 3,200-page work was intended, in part, "to guard against all influences hostile to Christian faith and love."  Appleton published it in semi-monthly installments of 48 pages, available for 30 cents each.

With the Civil War fresh in the minds of every American, D. Appleton & Company looked for traveling salesmen to peddle The Great Campaign Book to retailers.  On September 5, 1868, an advertisement appeared in The New York Herald.  

Agents wanted to sell the best Democratic Campaign Book in the field.  It is recommended by Mr. Pendleton, General Hancock, Governor English and others.  A great chance for active agents.  No better book in the market.

The broad variety of books printed and sold in the Grand Street building was evidenced by a list entitled, "Books Recently Published by D. Appleton and Company," in back the 1869 History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne.  Among the titles were Meteors, Aerolites, Storms, and Atmospheric Phenonena; Electricity in its Relations to Practical Medicine; New York Illustrated, containing Illustrations of Public Buildings, Street Scenes and Suburban Views; and Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen.

D. Appleton & Company's extraordinary success led to its establishing a separate printing and bindery factory in Brooklyn around this time.  The Grand Street store had around 100 full-time employees and the firm was printing several million volumes each year.  And so, keeping with its tradition, only three years after moving into the Grand Street building, D. Appleton & Company moved out, relocating to 549-551 Broadway between Prince and Spring Streets.  On March 8, 1871, The New York Times noted, "We believe this is the eighth removal by this eminent publish-house since it was founded, nearly half a century ago, by Mr. Daniel Appleton."

The Appleton Building became home to the dry goods and importing firm A. Rusch & Co., which had been in business since 1830.  The wealth of its principal, Adolph Rusch, was obvious when he prepared for a two-year trip to Europe in May 1874.  Seeking to lease his summer estate on the Hudson River palisades in his family's absence, he described it in an advertisement in The Sun.  "A beautiful Residence, with all modern improvements, 18 rooms, furnished, commanding views of the Hudson, New York and Long Island; large grounds, with abundance of all kinds of fruit."

When Henry Albegg was taken into partnership, the firm was renamed Albegg & Rusch.  In 1890, a new salesman was hired to sell woolen dress goods on commission.  Before long, he employed his son, Edwin K. Ross, to assist him.  As seems to be the case with many young men in the 1890s, the young man was lured by horse racing and fast living.

In September 1892, Henry Albegg returned from Europe and looked over the books.  He discovered that some expensive woolens had been delivered to Joseph Rothschilds on Church Street, but there were no entries for the transactions.  When Rothschilds was taken to Police Court, he insisted that he had paid for the goods--giving Edwin Ross $196.05 for $700 worth of stock.  In fact, according to Abegg, the total value of the missing stock "may be $9,000" (a considerable $245,000 today).

Ross was trapped and wrote a letter to his employers "admitting the thefts," according to Albegg, "and stating that he had squandered the money at the races and in other ways."  But Joseph Rothschilds was not off the hook, either.  The New York Times reported on September 27, "Justice Grady remarked that no honest man would have purchased the goods at such a sacrifice, and held Rothschilds for receiving stolen goods."

The scandal shamed the Ross family.  The New York Times noted, "Since the arrest of Edwin K. Ross, his father has not put in an appearance at the store nor made any comments on his son's behavior."

Henry Aubert subleased an office from Albegg & Rusch in 1897.  The 58-year-old ran the Jersey City Manufacturing Company, making "plain and embroidered flannel underwear for women, children, and infants."  He employed a number of girls in his New Jersey shop and used the Grand Street office for transacting business.

While Aubert and his wife Mina lived well, employing two servants in their two-story house (described by The Sun as "handsomely furnished"), business was exceptionally bad that year.  At around 9:00 on Sunday night of August 2, 1897, Mina said goodnight to a maid, Louisa Koch, then remarked, "You need not mind calling us in the morning."

Around 1:00 in the morning Louisa saw Aubert going downstairs to the kitchen in his nightclothes.  She thought nothing about it until she went down to prepare breakfast around 7:00.  A letter was propped against the milk pitcher "addressed to George Raven, 458 Central avenue, with instructions on the envelope to have it delivered immediately," according to The Sun.

Louisa hurried to Raven's home.  When he read the letter he asked if she had seen the couple that morning.  "I'm afraid something has happened," he said.  The letter, written in German, read:

Dear Friend Raven: 

Please do me the favor to call at once at 45 Lindon street and take charge of my house and business.  Inclosed [sic] key is for the office.  The middle drawer of my desk is open and you will find all keys, including a letter.

Raven and Louisa rushed back to the house and knocked on the bedroom door repeatedly.  Finally, Raven called for police who broke open the door.  Henry and Mina were lying on adjoining beds.  "Mrs. Aubert was on her back, her arms folded over her breast and her lips parted in a smile.  Aubert was on his side, with his face turned toward his wife," said The Sun.

The couple had opened the gas jets, causing their deaths.   Police theorized that Aubert's business troubles had driven him to suicide.  "It is supposed also that he confided his intention to his wife and that she decided to die with him."

Following Henry Abegg's death in 1904, Adolph Rusch and his brother Henry, renamed the firm Rusch & Co. 

In 1909, Ann Howard died.  The elderly woman had been well known for her generous charitable contributions.  The New York Times remarked on March 21, "A promise made in her girlhood, to give a part of her income each month to the needy of her neighborhood and to maintain intact the holdings willed to her, was strictly kept."  Her Soho properties, including the former Appleton Building, had continued to appreciate.  "Shortly after her death...it was found that, while her benefactions had been very large, her realty had increased in value to a considerable extent."

The Howard properties were sold at auction in March 1909.   In 1911, Rusch & Co. moved out and the building sat vacant until 1914 when its new owner, Charles Lane, leased it to leather goods manufacturers Weingarten & Gerberer.  The company made traveling bags, brief cases and other luggage-related products.

 

Luggage and Leather Goods, 1920 (copyright expired)

The Great Depression dealt a blow to the firm as customers cut back on luxury items.  Although Weingarten & Gerberer had three years left on its lease in 1931, Charles Lane released them from their obligations in April that year.  The new tenant, May Penn Stuffed Toy, Inc., did not fare any better.  Before the year was up it declared bankruptcy.

Despite the abuse and neglect to many of the Soho structures during the 20th century, the Appleton Building survived mostly unscathed.  A facade restoration around 1998 brought the handsome 1868 structure--including the cast iron retail space--back to its former elegance.

photographs by the author

The Arthur S. Lehman Mansion - 45 East 70th St

Arthur S. Lehman's father, Mayer, had arrived in Alabama in 1850 to join his brothers, Henry and Emanuel, who had already established a dry good business there.  The German Jewish 20-year old in no way fit the stereotype of the bedraggled immigrant.   With his arrival, the brothers renamed their company Lehman Brothers.

Possibly through Arthur's influence, the firm branched out into cotton factoring.  The Lehmans accepted bales of cotton in exchange for merchandise.  Eventually, cotton trading would be their main industry.  Mayer became a true Southerner, supporting the Confederate cause and even owning seven slaves according to the 1860 U.S. Census.

Two years after the end of war, he and his brother Emanuel (Henry died of yellow fever in 1855) moved the firm to New York City.   Mayer was a founder and director of the New York Cotton Exchange.

Mayer and his wife, the former Babetta Newgrass, had eight children.  Arthur was born on June 1, 1873.  By the time of his father's death in 1897 Lehman Brothers had become one of the most important investment banking firms in the country.   Unlike his brothers Arthur joined the firm, eventually becoming a senior member.

He married the 19-year old Adele Lewisohn, daughter of millionaire banker and mining magnate Adolph Lewisohn, in 1901.  Adele was cultured and educated, having attended the Anne Brown School and Barnard College.  Although characterized by The New York Times later as "a shy, reserved woman," she was progressive for an Edwardian socialite.  When her translation of Rudolph Herzog's The Story of Helga from German to English was published in 1913, she used her maiden name.  And unlike other moneyed wives, content with polite teas and drawing room visits, she played championship tennis and was an accomplished golfer.

Arthur and Adele had three daughters and lived in the Fifth Avenue mansion district at No. 31 West 56th Street.  But by the 1920s the neighborhood had become sorely commercialized. 

In 1925 the Presbyterian Hospital which engulfed the block from Madison to Park Avenue, between 70th and 71st Street, prepared to relocate far uptown.  The valuable Lenox Hill property was put on the market. 

The Hospital left the block in 1928.  Developer Alfred Rheinstein had purchased several of the lots.  He built homes on seven, and sold one plot to Arthur S. Lewisohn.  Like the innovate Sutton Place arrangement conceived a few years earlier, the houses would share a common rear garden.

The Lewisohns commissioned Aymar Embury II to design their new mansion and construction began that same year.  Completed in 1929, the 43-foot wide stone-faced residence was at once severe and elegant.  Five stories tall, its neo-French Classic facade was sparsely decorated with delicate urns and similar neo-Classical elements.  The center opening at the second floor, above a graceful iron pseudo-balcony, was ornamented with exquisite, understated carved draping.  The rooftop parapet was broken by balustrades above each opening.

Neo-Classical details include miniature metal valances in the windows.  The surface of the stone has been sadly mutilated by sandblasting.

For decades the mansion would be the scene of charity affairs.  Both Arthur and Adele were active in philanthropies.  He was a founder and president of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies; and she was highly involved in the Service for the Orthopedically Handicapped.  Adele's entertainments most often had to do with that institution or the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies.

On November 19, 1934, for instance, she hosted an afternoon reception for the workers in a fund raising drive for the Federation.  The women heard Dr. Sigismund S. Goldwater, Commissioner of Hospitals, speak.  The "principal guest" was French stage star and singer Lucienne Boyer.

The couple maintained a summer estate, Ridgeleigh, in Purchase, New York.  Their daughter Frances and her husband, wealthy broker John Loeb, also had a home there. 

In April 1934 Frances stayed in her parents' 70th Street house for a few days while they were in California.  On April 2 she came home from a social engagement.  The Great Depression had little effect on the Loeb or Lehman families--a fact evidenced in the jewelry she removed and placed on the dressing table that night--"several diamond bracelets, a pearl necklace and a diamond bow-knot brooch."

The next morning a maid noticed the jewelry and placed it in a drawer in the dressing table.  The following evening Frances was nearly finished dressing for the theater when she opened the drawer.  The jewelry was gone.

Closer inspection revealed that other items were missing.  In all Frances reported that the thief had made off with a pearl and sapphire necklace, a diamond and platinum ring, an Oriental pearl necklace, a diamond wrist watch, two diamond and sapphire bracelets, a diamond and emerald bracelet and the diamond bow-knot brooch.   She estimated their value at between $20-35,000; more in the neighborhood of $600,000 today.

Police inspected the bedroom windows, which showed no indication of having been forced and there were no marks on the bedroom door which might show it had been jimmied.  The five servants were interrogated, but, according to The New York Times, "could not provide any clues."

As was common, the Lehmans and their millionaire neighbors had hired outside security to patrol the block.  Peter Baronossky was making his rounds a week later, on April 11, jiggling doorknobs to make sure they were locked.  When he tried the Lehman door, it opened.

He entered the vestibule to see if the inner door was locked and noticed a carefully-wrapped tissue paper package lying in a corner.  When he nudged it with the toe of his shoe, a diamond bracelet fell out.  The Lehmans were still out of town; but he woke the servants and notified the police.

All of Frances Loeb's missing jewelry was in the package.  Once again the servants were questioned.  Although it would seem that the theft was an inside job and a nervous servant had placed the package there, the culprit was never found.

Arthur Lehman developed a blood clot in his leg in May 1936.  It broke loose and traveled to his lungs, resulting in a fatal pulmonary embolism.  He died suddenly on May 16 in the 70th Street mansion at the age of 63.  His funeral was held at Temple Emanu-El the following day.  Lehman was at the time a trustee of the New School for Social Research, the Museum of the City of New York, the City Housing Corpration, and of the Andrew Feedman Home, a retirement home for wealthy New Yorkers who had lost their fortunes.

Adele continued with her intense charitable and social work.  On March 16, 1938 she entertained committee members of the Joint Home-Finding Committee for Jewish Foster Children.  In addressing the group, she said "The magnitude of the problem can perhaps best be understood if I mention that 2,900 children are living in foster homes today through the work of our agencies, but that almost twice as many applications of potential foster mothers were studied to find the happiest combinations of mother and children."

In the 1940s she was active in the League of Women Voters, serving as its vice president in 1945; she was elected to the board of the Philharmonic-Symphony Society in 1947, and founded the Arthur Lehman Counseling Service in 1954.  In 1957 she donated the funds to build Adele Lehman Hall at Barnard College.  She died in the Ridgeleigh estate of a cerebral hemorrhage on August 11, 1965 at the age of 83.

The Lehman mansion was put on the market for $600,000.  It was sold in an all-cash deal in February, 1966 for $500,00.  The new owners were cosmetics tycoon Joseph Lauder and his wife, Estee.

At some point the facade was sandblasted in an ill-advised effort to clean it.  The result was that the stone was severely pitted, sadly diminishing the original, refined appearance.  Otherwise, the Lehman mansion, still a private home, appears unchanged--a 2009 roof addition is invisible from the street.

photographs by the author

The 1905 Atelier Bldg - 33 West 67th Street

On December 5 1903 The New York Times announced "Plans have been filed at the Building Department for the new studio building to be known as The Atelier."  The article noted "It is to be a T-shaped structure of Holland brick, with limestone trimmings, with a frontage of 75 feet."  Estimated to cost $250,000 (nearly $8 million today), it was being designed by Simonson, Pollard & Steinham for builder-developer William J. Taylor

The concept of a "studio building" was in no way new.  In 1857 James Boorman Johnson had envisioned a building exclusively as living and working space for artists.  The resulting 10th Street Studio Building, designed by Richard Morris Hunt, initiated a movement.

By the turn of the century studio buildings, many of which were upscale, were cropping up throughout the city.  Vast widows--often two stories tall--were positioned to admit the much-needed northern light.

Nowhere, however, was the studio movement more evident that on West 67th Street.  A year earlier Taylor had already begun construction on the 67th Street Studios, abutting the Atelier site, for a group of artists headed by Frank V. D. Du Mond, Henry W. Ranger, and Louis Paul Dessar.  In 1905 work would commence on the Colonial Studios, at 39 West 67th Street, and before long the block between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West would be filled with similar structures, earning it the name "the Studio Block."

Construction on The Atelier began in 1904 and was completed the following year.  Simonson, Pollard & Steinam created a 14-story neo-Renaissance-style structure of ruddy brick and limestone.  Despite the elaborately-carved entrance, the variegated Flemish bond brickwork, and the stone quoins of the base and central section; it was the upper four floors--looking like a chunk of Renaissance palace--which most distinguished the structure.

The Atelier Building is unchanged since its 1905 completion.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The Atelier, as was the case with the other 67th Street studio buildings, was cooperative.  Its residents were not struggling artists, but well-established and financially comfortable.  

Among the first to move in was the family of Boudinot Keith.  Although Keith was not an artist--he was a well-known lawyer and reformer--both his wife and mother-in-law had already earned reputations in the art world.  Dora Wheeler Keith, his wife, was a muralist and painter who had already done portraits of figures like Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Dean Howells and Walt Whitman.  In 1893 she had painted the ceiling of the Women's Building at the Chicago Columbian Exposition.

In 1883 William Merritt Chase painted Dora Wheeler.  Cleveland Museum of Art

Her mother, Candace Wheeler, lived with the family in the Atelier.  In 1906 Louise Forselund, writing in Good Housekeeping, rather romantically said "In the Atelier building in Sixty-seventh street, New York, where artists, both men and women, seek to capture on canvas Beauty all the day through, there lives with her artist daughter, Dora Wheeler Keith, an old lady who has gone back to the home-keeping days of the ingle nook and who with her restful needle stitches few dreams for herself now save the dreams of the past."

Forselund was obscurely referring to Candace Wheeler's founding of the School of Decorative Art in the 1870s where women worked in embroidery and fabric design.   She also founded the Onteora Club, and wrote several books on home decoration.  For years she was the head of the Associated Artists, of which she was a founder.

Hidden among the intricately-carved foliage of the entrance are an owl, a beast, and a face.

The internationally-known brothers Francis Coates Jones and Hugh Bolton Jones moved into the Atelier Building in 1906.  Francis's paintings of women in lavishly-decorated interior settings had earned him a solid reputation and he taught at the National Academy of Design for three decades.  Hugh, on the other hand, was best known for his detailed and peaceful landscapes influenced by the Hudson River School.

The studios, often expensively decorated, were also the scenes of receptions and other entertainments.  On the evening of December 8, 1907 painter Alphonse Jongers and his wife gave a "soiree musicale" during which "Mme. Adelaide Norwood, who has recently returned from Europe, sang," according to The New York Times the following day.  Among the wealthy patrons in the room were Mr. and Mrs. George A. Hearn.   The owner of one of the largest dry goods stores in the city, James A. Hearn & Son, he was among the foremost art collectors in the nation.  

Also among the party that evening were portrait artist Ben Ali Haggin and his wife, Bonnie Glass, who also lived in the building.  Bonnie's claim to fame was that she had been Rudolph Valentine's former dancing partner.

Other prominent artists in the Atelier were James Montgomery Flagg, Charles Bittinger, painter Robert Vonnoh and his sculptor wife Bessie Potter Vonnoh, Williad L. Metcalf and Adolfo Muller-Ury.

At the time former opera singer Ethel S. Elliott was having financial problems.  She had married the millionaire President of the Consolidated Arizona Smelting Company, John Love Elliott, in 1900.  When she divorced him in 1907, he agreed to pay her $20,000 a year in alimony.  The carefree divorcée moved into the Atelier Building and began freely spending the money.

In fact, she spent more than her sizeable income (equal to more than half a million dollars today).  In September 1911 she filed for bankruptcy, explaining that she needed to "get rid of" her debts.  Her unhappy creditors included Tiffany & Co. and at least two Paris dress makers.  She owed $11,000 for "dresses, hats and furs," $1,391 for jewelry, and $222 in fur storage.  Other expenses she was unable to pay included the cost of  "saddle-horse hire," $200 for hair treatment, silverware, flowers and $310 in music lessons.

Ethel Elliott's financial embarrassment was unique among the residents at 33 West 67th Street.  That same year, for instance, sculptor Edward Edgar Walter (who had studied under Auguste Rodin) received the profitable commission from philanthropist Alfred Seligman for a Central Park fountain.  A newspaper described the work as "a large rock with a base hollowed out in a cave.  From the entrance of the cave a faun looks at a bear on top of it."  Sadly, Seligman was killed in an automobile accident before the completion of the Bear and Faun fountain in 1914.

In 1915 Walter and Louise Arensberg began hosting a nightly salon in their duplex studio.  They had already assembled what was considered a "daring" collection of avant-garde artwork, including African and pre-Columbian pieces intermixed with paintings by Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp. 

The Arensberg studio mixed colonial furniture, Oriental rugs, and modern artwork.   In this 1919 shot Constantin Brancusi's The Progical Son sculpture sits on the mantel at the left; juxaposed with an African Fang sculpture on the right.  photo in the collection f the Whitney Museum of Art

 

According to Carolyn Burke in her 1996 Becoming Modern, the Lift of Mina Loy, the Arensberg salons were the New York equivalent of Gertrude Stein's in Paris.  "Their nightly gatherings were known for scintillating talk and racy innuendo," she writes.  And the list of artists who came and went "reads like a Who's Who of modernism."

Among the Arensbergs' close friends was Marcel Duchamp who was a house guest for a few days.  Later Walter Arensberg provided Duchamp a studio in the Atelier, two floors above theirs.  In return Duchamp gave the Arensbergs his sculpture The Large Glass, (or The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors).

While the avant-garde gathered in the Arensberg studio, artist and illustrator James Montgomery Flagg was working on more conventional projects.  When the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, a patriotic fever swept the nation.  Flagg, inspired by Alfred Leete's 1914 British poster of Lord Kitchen announcing "Your Country Needs YOU," created what would become the United States' most iconic recruiting image.

Flagg used himself as the model for Uncle Sam, magnifying his angular features and adding a beard.  First published in Leslie's Weekly in July 1916 (hence Uncle Sam's Independence Day outfit), more than 4 million posters were published.  Flagg's image with its "I Want YOU for U.S. Army" is credited with significantly boosting recruitment.

collection of the Library of Congress

Francis C. Jones and Hugh Bolton Jones, too, turned their attention to the war effort.  On April 14 1918 The Sun said that they "are beyond the age at which men put on khaki and go to the front...But they have found a way to help."

The newspaper explained that in their Atelier Building studio they "are preparing many landscapes known as designation targets."  The five by nine-foot canvases depicted French scenes--villages and countrysides, for instance--to be used at targets in training army recruits.  "The Messrs Jones have dropped all their work in order to devote themselves to preparing landscapes for shooting."

"The average New York youth will go through the canyonlike streets something in the manner of a rabbit in a warren," said The Sun.  "He sees only a small distance ahead of him...The landscapes which the Academietans are now preparing take the place of the views of the country which a soldier would encounter if he were aiming field pieces or machines guns on the European battle front."

On August 5, 1923 the 97-year old Candace Thurber Wheeler died in the Keith home.  Two years later Boudinot Keith died in the studio, at the age of 66. Although somewhat overshadowed by his wife's and mother-in-law's artistic careers, he had earned a reputation as a leader in several reform movements.  Dora Wheeler Keith would remain here until her death in December 1940.  The 85-year old had painted the ceiling of the Capitol Building in Albany and her portraits hung in institutions like the Brooklyn Museum and the Boston Public Library.

The Jones brothers, too, stayed on in their studio until their deaths.  Hugh Bolton Jones died in September 1927; and Francis died in the studio on May 27, 1932 at the age of 74.

In 1929 insurance broker Duncan MacD. Little and his wife held their first "movie party" in their studio.  Little had taken up amateur motion picture production as a hobby and a small group of friends were invited over for a showing.  A tradition was started which continued to grow.

On April 5, 1936 The New York Times reported that "Amateur movie-goers enjoyed a brief hour of glory last night at the seventh annual 'movie party' held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Duncan MacD. Little...Before an audience of fellow producer and innocent spectators, they unreeled the best specimens of their camera work and beamed like budding Sam Goldwyns when the guests applauded."

The following year what was now known as The Amateur Cinema had grown too large for the  Littles' apartment and was held at the Salle des Artistes.  A predecessor of the many amateur film festivals to come, in 1938 it included motion pictures from other countries.

The Atelier Building continued to be home to well-known artists for decades.  Samuel Johnson Woolf painted Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia here in 1941; Betsy Potter Vonnoh was still here when she died in 1955; and sculptor George Lober and landscape artist Roy Brown were both living in the building at the time.

Little has changed outwardly to the Atelier Building.  It sits quietly, as it has since 1905, along the Studio Block; its remarkable carved entrance prompting more attention than its remarkable contributions to the art history.

photographs by the author

The Lost Samuel Ward Mansion - Broadway at Bond Street

To the rear of the mansion was a columned art gallery--the first in America--with neither doors nor windows.  watercolor by Abraham Hosier, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Samuel Ward II was the head of the banking firm Prime, Ward and King.  As such, according to historian Sturges S. Dunham in 1918, he "was the most influential financier in America, enjoying a position of power and influence equal to that of the late J. Pierpont Morgan seventy years later."

Ward was married to the former Julia Rush Cutler.  The couple had six children, one of which died in infancy.  The family lived in a fine home at No. 5 Bowling Green.  Following Julia's untimely death at the age of 27 in 1824, Ward found it impossible to remain in the downtown house.  Two years later he moved his family to No. 16 Bond Street, far north at the time and only just emerging as a fashionable neighborhood.

While Ward rented No. 16, he commissioned the well-known firm of Town & Davis to design a permanent home at the northeast corner of Bond Street and Broadway.  Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis had formed what is considered to be the first professional architectural firm in New York in 1829.  They would be responsible for many classical-inspired structures.

Construction on the Ward mansion began in 1831 and continued for three years.  Henry Collins Brown described it as "a plain but dignified structure of brick with white marble trimmings, not unlike the houses now standing on the north side of Washington Square."  On the roof was a high cupola from which the entire neighborhood could be viewed.

Samuel Ward effectively withdrew from society following Julia's death.  A patron of the arts, he had a white marble picture gallery added to the rear of the mansion, along Broadway.   It was reportedly the first private art gallery in the nation.  Designed specifically for his private, personal use, it had no windows and no outside door.

The mansion, gardens and stables engulfed three building plots on Broadway, from No. 670 through 674.  But the house was never referred to by a street number, technically No. 2 Bond Street, but as "The Corner House."  Inside, the mantelpieces on the parlor level were carved by Thomas Crawford, best known for his sculptures in the U.S. Capitol.

The first floor contained the library and three other large rooms, each referred to not by its function--as the dining room, for instance--but by the color of the silk curtains.  According to historian Eric Homberger in his 2002 Mrs. Astor's New York, "Dinner was taken in the Red Room, looking out upon the rear garden.  The Blue Room was an everyday drawing room for visits.  The Yellow Room was reserved strictly for public occasions, however infrequently these occurred."  Family bedrooms were on the second floor, while servants lived in the attic level.

Samuel Ward grew increasingly religious and austere following his wife's death.  He abstained from alcohol, gave up cigars, and carefully guarded his children against the evils outside the mansion's walls.  His daughter Julia (who would become best known for writing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic") later revealed in her 1905 book Reminiscences, "I seemed to myself like a young damsel of olden time, shut up within an enchanted castle.  And I must say that my dear father, with all his noble generosity and overweening affection, sometimes appeared to me as my jailer."

The children were educated within the house.  Decades later The New York Times noted that Julia received "the best education from private masters in French, German, Italian and Latin, and in music, also both vocal and instrumental."

As the children reached adulthood and moved out, they did not go far.  Bond Street became  lined with Ward mansions.  Samuel Ward remained in The Corner House, where he died in 1839--"his death being hastened by the overwork and strain incident to the financial depression of the time," according to Sturges S. Dunham, writing for Valentine's Manual of the City of New York in 1918.

Dunham mentioned the art gallery, saying the later passersby called it the "windowless house" which "in the sixties excited so much curiosity among persons who were ignorant of its history." 

Following the death of his wife, the former Adele Livingston, in 1841, Joseph Sampson moved into the former Ward mansion with his daughter, Adele, and his mother-in-law, Julia Broome Livingston.  The fabulously wealthy Sampson was  a partner in the auction firm of Boggs, Thompson & Co. a director in the New York Gas Company, and a founder of the Chemical Bank.

Not long after the family moved in, Julia Livingston died in 1844.  Two years later, on January 2, 1846, Sampson married Emily S. Apthorp, of the old New York family whose 18th century mansion on its 114-acre estate north of the city was a familiar landmark.

Unlike Samuel Ward, who shuttered himself away from society, the Sampsons threw open the mansion's doors.  In his 1864 book Old Merchants of New York Walter Barrett recalled that "the famous house built by Samuel Ward in the days of his banking glory...was the rendezvous of the wealthy set in the fifties."

On October 8, 1862 Adele Sampson was married to Frederick W. Stevens in a fashionable ceremony in St. Bartholomew's Church.  The New York Times said the marriage "stirred" Manhattan society.  Although Stevens came from an old New York and Long Island family; it bluntly reported he was “not well off in this world’s goods.”  The newlyweds remained in Bond Street mansion.

The extent of Sampson's wealth was evidenced in his various donations during the Civil War.  In April 1861 he contributed $1,000 to the New York regiments heading south--nearly $30,000 today.  He donated $250 for "the relief of colored people" in July 1863, and $100 that year for those wounded in the Battle of Vicksburg.  Although he was retired by now, The New York Times listed his annual income in 1863 at $152,848; or about $3 million today.

Emily Apthorp Sampson became ill in the spring of 1870.  She died in the house on Saturday, May 21 and her funeral was held in the mansion the following Tuesday morning.  Two years later Joseph Sampson died.  Essentially his entire fortune went to Adele, prompting The Times to later say she “was thus made one of the richest women in America”

By now the Broadway and Bond Street neighborhood had become commercialized.   Adele sold the house in the following year, in 1873 and laid plans for a grand Fifth Avenue mansion at the corner of West 57th Street.  The Corner House was quickly demolished and replaced with the Brooks Brothers building designed by the firm of J. W. and Geo. E. Harney, which survives.

With the construction of the Brooks Brothers building in 1874, all memory of the Ward mansion was eradicated.  photograph from the collection of the Library of Congress.