The Checkered Past of No. 6 West 28th Street

Even in its present state of abuse, the dignified beginnings of the old brownstone residence seep through.

As the high-end homes of Manhattan’s wealthy first spread northward up Fifth Avenue, William Thompson, who used the title “Corporal,” converted the farmhouse at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 23^rd Street into a roadhouse, naming it Madison Cottage.  The inn was the northern-most stop for travelers leaving the city, or the first for those coming south.

The hostelry gave its name to Madison Square Park which opened to the public on May 10, 1847.  Within the decade fashionable homes of New York’s wealthy would be constructed along with the elegant Fifth Avenue Hotel, opened in 1859.  John E. Kinnier joined the trend in 1855 when he erected two Italianate rowhouse at Nos. 6 and 8 West 28^th Street, just steps from Broadway and Fifth Avenue.

Kinnier, whose office was at No. 60 Bowery, produced two up-to-date brownstone rowhouses appropriate for upscale families.  Wide brownstone stoops would have accessed the parlor floors, and the windows were framed in elegantly-carved brownstone, including intricate foliate scrolled brackets.  A complex cornice crowned the façade.

The exquisite cornice, in pristine shape, along with the beautiful foliate lintel brackets survive above the exotic Edwardian store front.

By the early years of the 1880's, the residential nature of the neighborhood was giving way to commerce.  In December 1884, four years before No. 8 would be totally renovated for commercial purposes; Albert Kirby signed a lease on No. 6 West 28^th Street.   Kirby, known familiarly as “Budd,” found himself in a courtroom on June 26, 1885, defending himself against allegations of running a gambling house.

Kirby admitted that only the upper two floors were being used as “living apartments.”  But, according to The New York Times the following day, “No. 6 West Twenty-eighth-street, he insisted, however, was not a gambling house, but simply his own virtuous and humble home.”

The newspaper said “Upon being pressed for information concerning the uses to which the two lower floors were put, Kirby finally refused to answer upon the same grounds as before [i.e., self incrimination].”

Kirby had already been connected with gambling operations in Philadelphia, Chicago, and at No. 1 Ann Street.  When he was asked how he supported himself, he told the attorney “I haven’t had any business for 23 years.”

“Haven’t you been a gambler during all that period?”

“Gambling isn’t a legal business,” he frankly responded.

As the questions became more intense Kirby’s memory failed.  “Then the witness developed a remarkable amount of ignorance upon matters immediately concerning himself for the past few years and declined to answer a great many of Mr. Steinhardt’s questions on the ground that he was not obliged to criminate himself,” reported The New York Times.

Albert “Budd” Kirby skirted conviction, but within a year he was gone from No. 6 West 28^th Street.  In place of the gambling house Polifonte Morelli’s Restaurant moved in, opening in 1886.   The more respectable operation immediately became a favorite meeting place for local groups. 

On December 28, 1886 Company E. Seventh Regiment held its annual “Kneip Festival” at the restaurant.  It was an opportunity for the normally staid military men, many of them Civil War veterans, to have fun.  The highlight of the light-hearted event was the distribution of presents, which each member handed to “the Great Chief.”  The Times noted that year “The fun lies in the absurdity of the gifts, which are dolls, popguns, whistles, and other infants’ toys."

That same year the Thirteen Club chose Morelli’s as the venue for its annual dinners.  There were twenty-six members at the dinner in 1886—exactly “two companies of 13 each.”  The purpose of the club was to dispel superstitions regarding the number thirteen.   Its tongue-in-cheek efforts were reflected in the arrangements for its dinner here the following year.

“The occasion was entitled the Feast of Roses.  John W. Jacobus was Chairman of the Reception Committee,” reported The Times, “which consisted of 13 members.  The guests of the evening were 13 undertakers who occupied car number 13 in the accident at Spuyten Duyvil last week.”

Regarding the club’s dinner here two years later, the newspaper said “In spite of the club’s open and flagrant violation of every superstition in any way connected with the number 13 it seems to lead a prosperous existence judging from the reports of its officers.  At seven tables, 13 at each, the club regaled itself on funeral baked meats, assisted by 13 kinds of wine, the list of which was printed on a coffin lid with 13 nails.  The dinner began precisely at 8:13, and nobody thought of going home until 13 o’clock in the morning.”

Polifonte Morelli’s Restaurant was also a favorite meeting place of the Architectural League.   In 1887 the association dined here several times within a few months in anticipation of the upcoming annual exhibition.  The event was scheduled to open on December 17 with a reception for Richard M. Hunt.

Unfortunately, the respectable days of Morelli’s restaurant passed and by 1898 the former house was once again a gambling establishment.    On December 2 of that year police raided the gambling house which The New York Times said was run by “Eole” Pearsall.  Pearsall was not present when the raid took place, and fortunately for him the police did not find any money on the tables at which the men were playing.  Without that evidence, there could be no warrant convictions and everyone who had been arrested was let go.

Despite the disappointing turn of events, Police Commissioner York vowed “The department proposes to stop all gambling, and before it gets through there won’t be any of these places left.  The board is determined that all kinds of gambling shall be eradicated, and that the social evil shall be controlled as far as possible.”

Nevertheless, gambling went on at No. 6 West 28^th Street.  By the turn of the century the gambling house was run by an infamous criminal, Thomas “Shang” Draper.  The Times would later call him “a leading light of New York’s under world for a generation.”  He was already famous for robberies, most notably the famous Northampton and Manhattan Bank jobs.

Draper’s establishment was the site of one of five “sledge hammer raids” executed late at night on October 14, 1902.  Sergeant Cohen and seven armed officers headed to No. 6 West 28^th Street well-prepared for any resistance.  The Times reported “None of the raiders was in uniform, but each party was armed with heavy sledges, and the slightest hesitation in yielding entrance resulted in every door being shattered immediately.”

Although no business was being done in any of the gambling houses, including Draper’s, police were pleased with the results.  “Few prisoners were taken…but an enormous quantity of gambling paraphernalia, much of it of the most costly type, was seized and long after midnight was still being taken to the police station,” reported The Times.

Six months later, on March 23, 1903, an attempted raid by Inspector McClusky with approximately four officers resulted in humiliation for the respected law enforcer.   The door was opened by a lookout only as far as a heavy steel burglar chain would allow.

“When McClusky demanded admittance the doorkeeper asked if they had warrants.  On a negative reply, he told the inspector that he could go to certain sulfurous regions, and closed the door by means of a heavy steel arm concealed in the woodwork of the vestibule.  A moment later the electric bell upstairs was ringing furiously,” said the New-York Tribune.

Expecting the patrons to rush out the back door, the officers moved to the rear of the house.  “While they were vainly endeavoring to force an entrance there men poured out of the front door.  There were probably over one hundred and fifty men in the house, for 118 men were seen leaving it, with no apparent excitement in twenty minutes,” said the newspaper.

The Tribune noted “’Shang’ Draper was one of those who left the house, and as he strolled toward Broadway he replied to a question: ‘I have nothing to say.  No detectives got into the house, and I don’t see why they should want to get in.’”

Within the year the building was sold and Draper moved on.   On June 22, 1907 The New York Times reported that he was dying in a health resort near Hot Springs, Arkansas “where he has been treated for enough diseases to have killed three ordinary men.”  The newspaper recalled “He had a gambling place in West Twenty-eighth Street, New York, where he made a fortune, which he afterward dissipated, largely in helping broken gamblers and crooks in trouble.  Now it is doubtful whether Draper has enough money to pay for a decent funeral.”

In the meantime the new owner of No. 6 was Theodore E. Brown.  Brown intended to erase the reputation of his building by renovating it for use as small offices and artists’ studios.  The stoop was removed, as was the façade of the lower two floors.  A storefront was installed at street level and a show window at the second story.  At the same time a rear extension was added.

Among the first tenants was Renwick C. Harry who established his newly-organized firm, Renwick C. Harry & Co. here in September 1904, soon after the renovations were completed.  On December 6 of that year Ira M. Remsen took a studio in the building.  The up-and-coming artist was the son of John Hopkins University President Ira Remsen.  The Critic said of him “Mr. Remsen is at the beginning of his career, and a most promising beginning it is.”

Theatrical booking agent William Morris opened what Variety called “a spacious suite of offices” in the building.   His meeting with a potential client in 1905 sparked an often-repeated story that, while based in fact, apparently got embroidered in the retelling.

According to the tale, Will Rogers had been doing rope tricks with a Wild West Show in Brooklyn.  When the show failed, Rogers was out of work with no way to get home nor to make money.  He supposedly rode his horse into Morris’s office and lassoed the agent to his chair.   While horses on the streets of Manhattan were still common in 1905; riding one into the building at No. 6 West 28^th Street would have been nearly—if not totally—impossible.

Nonetheless, Morris got Will Rogers work doing his rope tricks and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.

By 1906 William Morris’s business was already crowding him out of the 28^th Street offices.  He told Variety “I have watched [vaudeville] come up, and the increase and power of vaudeville in the theatrical business is attested by my present offices, which, although recently moved into, are already inadequate, and I am thinking of seeking larger quarters.”

While Morris was contemplating a move out of No. 6, Belgian portrait and landscape painter Jef Leempoels was moving back in.  After spending a summer in Brussels, he reopened his studio where he painted society portraits in the fall on 1906.  The New York Times noted on November 25 “In his New York studio Mr. Leempoels has recently given the finishing touches to three portraits, sketches of which were made during his stay here last Spring.  One of these is a full-length standing portrait of Master Mortimer Lane, son of James Warren Lane of this city.  Master Lane is in an Eton suit.  His right hand is resting on an armchair, while in his left he holds a pair of white kid gloves.  The figure is painted against a gray white background.”

The newspaper also described the portrait of Mrs. A. W. Bliss “who is attired in a black velvet gown, with sleeves of white lace, seated in an armchair of the Louis XV period” and a self portrait.

By 1909 the National Highways Protective Association took rooms in the building.   With the increased number of motorcars sharing the thoroughfares with pedestrians, carriages and other vehicles, the organization sought policies and regulations to ensure safety.   Presided over by Henry Clews, in 1909 it pushed for, among other things, driving tests before licenses were issued, revocation of license for driving under the influence of liquor, suspending the license of a driver arrested for reckless driving or convicted more than once, imprisonment for a year for leaving the scene of an accident, and outlawing of the racing of vehicles on public streets.

That year, on October 18, young George Washington Callaghan was awarded a gold medal for valor during a “prize party” in the offices here.  The boy, whom The New York Times called “a nice-looking, well-dressed boy” arrived at the Association rooms with his mother.  He was being honored for having been instrumental in capturing cab driver John O’Hanlon whose car had run over and killed 21-year old Elizabeth Botts.

Upon seeing the taxicab fleeing the scene, the boy jumped onto the wheel guard of the car, refusing to get off until the police were able to pull the driver over.   “Lieut. Quinn of the Sixty-eighth Street Police Station told George he had the making of a detective in him, and a policeman on his own block, when he returned, took him to a nearby drug store to have his wounds dressed, all of which was something of a compensation and pretty exciting, anyway,” said The Times.

Callaghan was presented with a gold medal in a handsome box and Henry Clews told him “You have mettle in you as pure as the gold metal of which it is made, and we are proud of you.”

The Association continued pushing for more stringent laws, including those for speeding.  W. B. Carrigan, President of the New York Taxicab Company protested at a meeting here on January 13, 1910, that it was not the cabbies who sped, but the chauffeurs. 

“Our millionaires, or some of them,” he said, “want their automobiles driven fast, and they are the ones who are largely to blame for the breaking of the speed laws.”

Two months later the Association displayed photographs of the air pollution caused by the unrestricted cars.  Association Secretary Colonel Edward S. Cornell told reporters “The smoke nuisance caused by automobiles in New York has grown to such an extent that the ordinary pedestrian or person who takes a drive in a horsed carriage feels as if he was continually circumnavigating a kerosene factory.”

The photographs taken on Fifth Avenue, Broadway and Madison Square showed “various automobiles smoking up like immature volcanoes,” according to The Times.  The newspaper said “In some of the pictures the smoke in the streets was so dense that it was almost impossible to discern the cars.”

Cornell was back in the news later that year, in September, when he reported on the number of deaths by automobiles.  Among the comments he gave reporters was that “I am inclined to attribute the increase in accidents and fatalities to the fact that owners of cars are not subject to the laws, but are permitted to act as chauffeurs without experience, license or examination.”

Most likely by order of the Department of Buildings, in 1913 the projecting second story show windows were removed and architect William C. Lauritzen was hired to create new windows flush with the building line.   The architect’s solution was a mesmerizing mixture of styles that included a line of small Moorish arches under a Greek-inspired cornice.

Lauritzen's highly-unusual second-story show window combined the exotic with the classical.

Shortly thereafter the retail space became home to E. J. La Place, dealers in antiques and art.  The 35-year old firm advertised “10,000 pieces to select from” on December 13, 1914.   Customers would shop for “high-class objects of art and period furniture” here for only two years, however.   On February 13, 1916 The Sun ran an advertisement that all items “Must be sold at a great reduction preparatory to removal.”

Artists continued to lease the studios and in 1922 Robert Philipp was here.  In March that year he won the $200 second prize at the Academy of Design for his painting Portrait of Himself.  He would not stay long, however; he soon left for Paris where he lived the artist's life selling his paintings.

Following the Great Depression the building drew less glamorous tenants.  In the late 1930's the District Republic Club was here as was the Local Union 1657 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.  In 1942 the lower floors were renovated to accommodate Albert Yohay’s new restaurant while the upper floors remained “offices and studios," as noted by the Department of Buildings.

Today at street level where “high-class objects of art” were displayed in 1914, a discount store sells body oils and knock-off perfumes.  Under its peeling paint, William C. Lauritzen’s eccentric store window at the second floor is largely intact.  And most amazing of all, other than over a century and a half of wear, the upper floors remain much as they appeared in 1855 when West 28^th Street was lined with the homes of New York’s most fashionable families.

photographs taken by the author

The 1902 McLean House -- No. 7 East 75th Street

photo by Alice Lum

At the turn of the last century the real estate firm William Hall’s Sons focused on erecting high-end homes in the city’s most fashionable neighborhoods.  In 1901 construction began on two five-story mansions at Nos. 5 and 7 East 75^th Street, steps, just steps from Fifth Avenue and Central Park.

The developers had commissioned the architectural firm of Welch, Smith & Provot to design the houses.  Completed a year later the houses gracefully complimented one another; each mimicking the general design of its neighbor, yet flexing their own architectural identities.

The two houses (No. 7 is to the right) were designed as a pair -- photograph by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWR8TIAQ&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

Like its sister, No. 7 was a French Beaux Arts town house worthy of Paris.  Clad in limestone it featured two stone balconies with heavy carved balustrades and oversized, stylized acorn finials.   The steep, copper mansard was punctured by elegant dormers with arched, carved pediments.  Inside were 26 rooms and ten baths.

Two years after construction was completed, the house was purchased by James McLean.   How long McLean, who was Vice President of Phelps, Dodge & Co., lived in the house is unclear; but in 1915 he was leasing it to Stephen Guion Williams.   Williams was a lawyer and partner in the Williams and Guion Black Star Line.  He had the distinction of having earned the first Ph.D. from Columbia University in political science in 1883.

A tall, heavy iron fence provided elegance and security -- photo by Alice Lum

Also in the house were Williams’ wife, the former Charlotte Grosvenor Wyeth, and her four daughters from a previous marriage.   Following Frances Hawthorne Wyeth’s wedding to E. Kenneth Hadden in the nearby St. James’s Church on Madison Avenue and 71^st Street (which was filled with “a large and fashionable assemblage,” according to newspapers), a reception was held in the mansion.

The New York Times reported that the newlyweds received in the drawing room “against a background of white lilies and roses and under a canopy of white and yellow Spring flowers.”  It mentioned, too, that following their honeymoon of “several weeks” in the South, the couple would be living just a block away, at No. 7 East 76^th Street.

In December 1916 James McLean announced that “negotiations are pending” for the sale of the house and told reporters that the unnamed buyer intended it to be a Christmas present.   At the time the building was assessed at $170,000—about $2.5 million today.

Before long the name of the person giving the extravagant Christmas gift became known.  The wealthy Dr. James Henry Lancashire and his family had been living at No. 1015 Fifth Avenue.  Daughter Helen had recently married Umberto M. Coletti, the Managing Director of the Italian Immigration Society and moved to Rome.   The couple’s only son, Ammi Wright Lancashire was in Europe at the time, accompanying war correspondence E. Alexander Powell on a tour of England and France; leaving only the Lancashire’s youngest daughter, Lila, in their new house with them.

The 29-year old Ammi had studied at the prestigious Phillips Academy in Andover, and then graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School in 1911.  Now, already in Europe, he was commissioned as Ensign on July 5, 1917, the day before the United States entered the conflict.  The Navy sent the privileged young man back to New York, assigned to desk duty in the Cable Censor Department.   

The handsome 31-year old Navy man fell victim to the Spanish influenza -- photograph "Phillips Academy, Ancover in the Great War" 1919, (copyright expired)

Later Claude Moore Fuess, writing in “Phillips Academy, Andover, in the Great War,” said “Desk work, however, was not what he desired; in the spring of 1918 he applied for sea duty, and was transferred to the U.S.S. ‘Kansas.’”  Ammi Lancaster left his parents’ home on East 75^th Street, never to return.

1918 was a dark year; not only because of the war, but because of the Spanish influenza pandemic that was taking hold.   Within a year more people would die from the flu than in the war—a death toll estimated at between 20 and 40 million people.  In that single year more people died of influenza than had succumbed in the four-year period of the Black Death Bubonic Plague during the Middle Ages.

While Lancashire’s ship was still in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, he contracted influenza.  His condition worsened into pneumonia.   He died on September 27, 1918 in the Philadelphia Naval Hospital.

Following their period of mourning the doctor and his wife continued their social lives.  They summered in Manchester-by-the-Sea where they maintained an estate, Graftonwood.  Sarah Hale Wright Lancashire was a member of the Dante League of America—a group whose purpose was “to promote the study and knowledge of Dante and to prepare for a suitable celebration of the 600^th anniversary of his death in 1921.”

Mrs. James Henry Lancashire -- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Even after that anniversary the League was going strong.  On the evening of February 26, 1922 at 8:30 Sara hosted “an authors’ reading by members of the Dante League of America.”    That summer daughter Helen and her husband spent the summer in Manchester with her parents; then the two couples sailed on the Majestic to Italy in October.

Offensive air conditioning units pierce the fanlights over the French doors.  The bulbous rustication of the first floor transforms into planar treatment on the upper floors. -- photo by Alice Lum

By 1933 the Lancashires were leasing the 75^th Street mansion to Frederick N. Watriss.  Society’s focus was not so much on Watriss and his wife, the former Brenda Frazier, but on his step-daughter Brenda Diana Duff Frazier, known most often as Diana.

Diana’s parents had divorced.  Her father, Frank Duff Frazier, died on June 21, 1923 and his will directed that she was “not to receive more than $1,800 while under her mother’s care and influence,” as reported in The New York Times.

By the time Diana reached 14 years of age, however, her necessary expenses were higher than that amount—at least by her mother’s estimations.   So in 1934 Brenda Watriss went to court to plead for additional funds from Frazier’s estate.

“In her petition to the court Mrs. Watriss said Brenda was being brought up in the style of living adopted by her father during his life time, that he had maintained homes at Palm Beach and other places and that his living expenses amounted to $150,000,” reported The Times.  “Mrs. Watriss said the child had an income of more than $100,000 a year from the estate of her father and her paternal grandmother, Clara Duff Frazier.

“She pointed out that the child traveled frequently abroad and required a governess or companion.   She said the girl lived with her at the home of her husband, Frederick Watriss, and his two sons.”   Because the boys were most often away at school, Brenda felt that Diana should be regarded as one of the four principal persons occupying the house “and that she be charged with one-fourth of the household expenses which amounted to $45,186.”

Diana’s mother projected the teenager’s personal expenses for the year ending June 21, 1935.  On the list were “clothing, $3,600; music, $600, school, $1,500; skating and dancing lessons, $100; doctors, medical supplies, $1,500; governess, $1,500; dentists, $2,400; secretarial and clerical services, insurance, attorneys’ fees and miscellaneous extras, $1,500; club dues, $400; charitable contributions, $250; gratuities, $200; Christmas gifts, $250; amusements, parties, etc., $1,200; travel and Summer vacation, $3,500; books, toys and school supplies, $600; and pocket money, $104.”

Also included in the tally of items the girl was expected to pay for were “Servants, including chauffeurs and extra help for parties, $10,180; maintenance of automobiles, $4,500; interest on mortgage, $6,600; taxes, $5,000; insurance, $500; gas and electricity $700” and a nearly-endless list that included elevator inspection.

In the end Surrogate James A. Foley granted her mother, as guardian, $30,000 a year for the Diana’s “maintenance and support.”  The sum would amount to about half a million dollars today.

In 1938 Brenda introduced her daughter to society in a debutante party in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel with more than 1,000 guests attending.  The astonishingly-beautiful girl was a favorite of society and the press alike.   When she appeared at a social function wearing a strapless evening gown, the reaction was not shock but emulation.  She sparked a new fashion trend that swept the nation.

The Lancashires owned the mansion until 1938.  On October 1, 1940 The New York Times reported that “A client of the Apartment Renting Company, Inc.” had leased the house from the Bank for Savings.  Before long the grand home would be converted to apartments.  In 1945 the Department of Buildings noted that there were four apartments each on most floors.

photo by Alice Lum

Despite the conversion the mansion is little changed on the outside--an elegant page from a polite period of debutante balls and dinner parties.

The 1903 1st Church of Christ, Scientists -- Central Park West and 96th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In the years following the Civil War Mary Baker Eddy conceived of a new theological approach—one which focused on the spiritual and deprecated the material.  Her new organization, the Church of Christ, Scientist, grew despite detractors who dubbed it a cult—mainly because of Eddy’s conviction that illness should be healed through faith rather than man-made medicine.

In 1886 she sent her close friend, Mrs. Augusta E. Stetson, to New York to organize the first Christian Science movement in the city.   Stetson was a tireless worker--authoritative, charismatic, and convincing.  The New-York Tribune later wrote “Mrs. Stetson, after a labor of two years, organized the First Church in this city in 1888.”

Augusta Stetson was the first minister of the church.  As her New York church grew, so did her power and influence.  Stetson found both to be addicting and exhilarating.   The congregation outgrew its first rented hall at the corner of 47^th Street and Fifth Avenue and moved to another hall at No. 138 Fifth Avenue.  Continued growth prompted its move to Hardman Hall at Fifth Avenue and 19^th Street; then to the old Rutger Presbyterian Church on Madison Avenue and 29^th Street.  Three years later the church moved again.  In January 1896 it acquired the All Souls’ Church on 48^th Street.

But under Augusta E. Stetson’s energetic ministry the congregation continued to swell.  In 1899 land was purchased on the corner of Central Park West and 96^th Street as the site of a new, permanent church structure.  Augusta Stetson eyed the top of the heap in choosing her architects.  All of New York City was watching Carrere and Hastings’ monumental white marble New York Public Library take shape on Fifth Avenue.   The firm was now contracted to design the new First Church of Christ, Scientist.

The cornerstone was laid on November 30, 1899.  In it was placed a letter from Mary Baker Eddy to Augusta Stetson that read “Beneath this cornerstone, in this silent sacred sanctuary of earth’s sweet songs, paeons of praise and records of omnipotence, I leave my name with thine in unity and love.”

Later the Architectural Record would note “The building finally produced has been to a remarkable degree a development rather than the fulfillment of a formulated plan.”  Indeed, the $300,000 budget initially laid out soon was left far in the dust.

“Not content with brick and Indiana stone, Concord granite was ordered, though the cost of this material in itself, when set and under roof would be $400,000,” said the Record.  The white stone, quarried in Concord, New Hampshire, was valued for its characteristic of not discoloring when exposed to air; but rather to grow whiter.  Because of its extreme hardness, it could not be cut by saw or machinery and hand labor for cutting was necessary—adding to the expense.

Then came the reading room, Sunday school rooms and offices that were not included in the initial plans.  The cost rose to $550,000.  But Christian Science ideals did not approve of these rooms being housed in the basement, so more changes were made and they were moved above the auditorium and three elevators were added.  The estimates now had risen to $750,000.

Despite Christian Science’s censure of the material, “It was then discovered that a tower of a more expensive design would add to the beauty of the structure and this was also ordered,” reported Architectural Record.  “Finally, all limitations were ignored, new features were added as they were required to make the church more perfect in beauty and utility.”



photo The Architectural Record January, 1904 (copyright expired)

When the church was dedicated in 1903, the cost had topped out at $1.185 million.  Through Augusta Stetson’s unstinting fund raising the church was entirely paid for when its doors were opened.  The congregation totaled 1,200 members; but it had no intentions of moving again soon.  Carrere and Hastings had designed an auditorium that would accommodate 2,200 worshipers.  

The finished church was imposing and dignified.  The granite steeple—which rose to a blunt rather than pointed end--rose 200 feet above the sidewalk.  The massive corner cornice stones were 12 feet long, 8 feet wide and 3 feet, 6 inches thick—each weighing 18 tons.  Architectural Record called it New York’s “most imposing church edifice;” a “beautiful picture in glistening silvery white granite; stone, so uniform in color and quality, as at once to give one the impression that the whole must have been cut from one huge perfect block.”

photo The Architectural Record January 1904 (copyright expired)

The interior was decorated by Charles H. Cottrell who, too, was unswayed by the church dogma regarding materialism.   The auditorium was clad in marble and six large chandeliers, each weighing over half a ton, illuminated the space with 78 electric bulbs each.  The Architectural Record said “These fixtures are probably the finest example of a public chandelier in America.”

photo The Architectural Record, January 1904 (copyright expired)

Even before construction started, the Boston Mother Church was having issues with Augusta Stetson.  The New-York Tribune reported later “Mrs. Stetson’s preaching in the New York church had naturally brought her reputation and power.  In ‘The Christian Science Journal’ of April, 1895, therefore, Mrs. Eddy announced that preachers would no longer constitute a part of the machinery of her Church, and that their place would be filled by a first and second reader.”  Augusta Stetson obliged and became first reader.

“Her power, instead of decreasing with her curtailed opportunities, increased in spite of the fact that she was bound to a rigidly prescribed reading of the printed words from Mrs. Eddy’s book, ‘Science and Health,’” noted the Tribune.

Then a bylaw was enacted, in 1902, limiting a reader’s term to one year.  Even now, with her post as first reader taken away, Augusta Stetson wielded great sway and by the eve of the church’s dedication, the tensions between her and Boston were being noticed.

On November 28, 1903, the day before the dedication The Evening World reported “Christian Scientists, not only of the First Church, but all over the city, are expressing indignation to-day over the anonymous and groundless attack printed in most of the morning papers on Mrs. Augusta E. Stetson…This attack said that there was great friction which threatened to disrupt the First Church; that Mrs. Stetson posed as a dictator and arrogant leader and condemned her policy in refusing to join with the other churches in a downtown reading room.”

The day before the dedication The Evening World printed a photograph of both the new structure and Mrs. Stetson -- November 28, 1903 (copyright expired)

A year after the dedication, Augusta Stetson purchased the land immediately behind the church and commissioned architects Hunt & Hunt to design a white marble mansion.  On December 22, 1904 The Evening World reported that “The plans show that the house, which will be of marble…will cost $35,000.  There will be a one-story portico entrance on the side which will be ornamented with marble columns.”  Mrs. Stetson’s new house would cost, in today’s dollars, about $700,000.  She signed a contract with the church giving it first opportunity to buy should the house come onto the market.

Despite her ability to draw members and increase the church’s coffers; Augusta Stetson was heavy-handed and nearly tyrannical.  While the Boston contingent tried to rein her in, “She still remained the actual leader,” recalled the New-York Tribune in 1910, “and in 1908 she demonstrated the strength of her leadership when it became known that she had formed elaborate plans for the erection of a church on Riverside Drive, near 86^th Street.”  This would be the Second Church of Christ, Scientist.

“The announcements of this undertaking disclosed that the new church would be the most magnificent church edifice in the world.”

Stetson had, perhaps, dropped the last straw on the camel’s back.  A bylaw of the Mother Church forbade a branch church, such as First Church, to establish its own branch, such as Second Church.  The Mother Church officials condemned the project and the plans were dropped.  The damage, however, had been done.

In September 1909 “Mrs. Stetson’s card as a healer, together with those of her students who are also healers, was removed from one of the official journals of the denomination,” reported the New-York Tribune. 

Handsome carved urns surround the snub-nosed granite steeple -- photo by Alice Lum

Then, on November 19, 1909 the New-York Tribune ran the headline “Mrs. Stetson Out.”   The Mother Church excommunicated her, barring her from the church she had built.  The Tribune said that “Excommunication is rarely resorted to in the Christian Science Church, and in view of Mrs. Stetson’s prominence today’s action was regarded in Church circles here as the most drastic in the history of the denomination.”  She was charged with “malpractice” and with having put “personality above principle.”

The Church of Christ, Scientist had not heard the last of Augusta E. Stetson.

She continued to preach from her parlor to adherents whom the newspapers deemed “Stetsonites.”  In July 1910 sixteen practitioners “who were identified with and supported Mrs. Augusta Stetson in her controversy with the First Church of Christ, Scientist” were also dropped from membership by the Boston directors.  A month earlier fifteen other members had already had been dropped from the church’s membership.

Later that year Augusta Stetson must have enjoyed smug vengeance upon the reading of Mary Baker Eddy’s will.    On December 19 The New York Times ran an article headlined “Mrs. Eddy’s Jewels Go To Mrs. Stetson.”  Eddy had left Augusta Stetson her “crown of diamonds” breastpin; a token of friendship even after all that had passed.

With Mary Baker Eddy gone, Stetson opened the debate as to who should take her place at the head of the church.  Stetson audaciously asserted that she was the spiritual successor of Mary Baker Eddy.  She put forth her opinion in 1913 in a 1,200 page book.

“Temporarily, at least,” reported The Times, “the Trustees of the local church and members of the Christian Science organization decided to ignore Mrs. Stetson.  Her opinion and assertions were put forward in a volume which she has been writing in the four years in which she has seen the throngs passing under her window to the Christian Science Church, next door to her home, while she was forced to sing her hymns and read her lessons to herself.”

photo by Alice Lum

Augusta continued to be a thorn in the side of the church.  In December 1920 the memberships of the “Stetsonites” who had been banished were ordered by the courts to be reinstated.  The judgment said in part that they “were dismissed on the flimsy pretext of non-attendance.”

In what could appear to be retaliation, the church laid plans to build a wall between its property and Mrs. Stetson’s.  Because her ornate cast iron fence technically straddled the property lines, it would have to go.  Augusta Stetson armed for war.

A series of heated letters were fired back and forth across the property line and somehow were leaked to the press.  Both parties cloaked their positions as supporting what Mary Baker Eddy would have wanted.   At least in the beginning.

Stetson wrote, for instance, “This proposed infringement concerns those who, in love for the Cause and for their Leader, Mrs. Eddy, sacrificed their money and their time, and united with Mrs. Eddy and with me, in erecting this Church.  Therefore I feel obliged scientifically to consider their protection, and shall appeal to my God, whom I serve continually, to defend them and me, through avenues whom He, God, may choose to execute his law of justice and equity.”

Finally, in September 1921, Augusta Stetson took the gloves off.  When workmen appeared on the grounds of the church, she went to court.  Her attorney called the proposed wall “a spite fence” and succeeded in obtaining a restraining order, stopping construction of the 15-foot high wall.

The judge said in part that the wall ”would be violative of the rights of Mrs. Stetson, that it would serve no useful purpose and would constitute an architectural monstrosity.”

As years passed, Augusta Stetson clung on to her aspirations of succeeding Mary Baker Eddy.  Unable to espouse her views within the church, she turned to a campaign of advertising.  According to The New York Times “Between 1920 and 1925 she is said on good authority to have spent more than $750,000 in newspaper advertising alone.  These announcements were in the form of sermons, comments on letters or articles in which she defended her teaching of Christian Science and sought to prove that she was following in Mrs. Eddy’s footsteps and had been delegated by the founder as the Church’s leader.”

In 1909 Augusta Stetson was barred from entering the heavy doors of the church she had led for years -- photo by Alice Lum

But in her later years her ideas grew strange.  In 1927 she announced the coming of the millennium and “likewise, that she herself was immortal.”

Her belief that “her body as well as her soul would never die” proved inaccurate on October 12, 1928 when she died after ten weeks of illness.  The Times said in her obituary “Around her centered a great internal quarrel which at one time threatened to disrupt the Church, although she always insisted she was merely preserving Mrs. Eddy’s teachings and had no intention of creating a schism.”

The First Church of Christ, Scientist wasted no time in taking advantage of its option to buy Stetson’s marble mansion.  It quickly resold the property to the Sprevbel Realty Corporation for $180,000.  All ties between the church and Augusta E. Stetson were finally severed.

The First Church of Christ, Scientist settled into decades, finally, of no undo publicity.  It appeared in the newspapers once again in 1989 when Larry Hogue, a homeless man of the neighborhood, descended into a drug-induced rage.     Residents had noticed his mental illness worsen over a period of years.   More than a dozen times police had taken him to psychiatric emergency rooms or to jail following violent outbursts; but he always returned to the neighborhood.

Delirious on alcohol, cocaine or some other drug, he began smashing rocks through the stained glass windows of First Church of Christ, Scientist.  Before he could be stopped he had caused between $10,000 and $20,000 in damages.

In 1993 the congregation was still in the process of repairing the windows as well as correcting problems with the granite steeple.  The problem was money.  The congregation that Augusta Stetson had grown to 1,200 now had about 30 or 40 people at Sunday services.  The New York Landmarks Conservancy awarded the church an $80,000 grant to determine the extent of damage and recommend repairs.

photo by Alice Lum

In May 2001 the First Church of Christ, Scientist building became home to the Crenshaw Christian Center East.   The Center is a branch of the ministry founded by Pastor Frederick K. C. Price in South Los Angeles on the site of the former Pepperdine University campus.  

UPDATE:   In 2014 the Crenshaw Christian Center sold the historic church for $26 million; a tidy $12 million more than the California-based center had paid for it.  Because the building is protected by landmark status, it could not be destroyed.  But its century-old interiors could be.

The purchasing developer announced plans to convert the historic structure into between 20 and 30 luxury residences.  The only restrictions, since the interiors are not landmarked, were that the facade must remain intact and intrinsic details like the stained glass windows be preserved.

In June 2014 salvage workers scurry to dismantle the pipe organ as demolition of the magnificent interiors looms -- photo courtesy of Jim Lewis

The massacre of this beautiful and important structure represents just the latest in a string of ungodly transformations of historic religious buildings into posh residential projects.

UPDATE: A preservation movement spearheaded by LandmarkWest! blocked the conversion to apartments.  In 2018 the building was purchased by the Children's Museum of Manhattan as its new home.

The 1854 Robert Bayard House -- No. 83 Jane Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1804 much of the rural countryside north of New York City was taken up by sprawling country estates of British officers and wealthy townspeople.   Two such properties, the Bayard and Ludlow estates, abutted one another near Greenwich Village.    Jane Street, a country lane running essentially east-west which lead to the Jayne Farm, separated the two estates—Bayard’s being to the north and Ludlow’s on the south.

The sumptuous nature of Bayard’s home was hinted at when newspapers reported on a lightning strike to the residence on June 10, 1775.  “Last Sunday week the House of William Bayard, Esq., at Greenwick [sic], was struck by Lightning, which occasioned considerable damage.  In several apartments large Pier glasses were broken, and a quantity of silver plate contained in a chest was pierced and otherwise affected without doing the least injury to the chest.”

While engaged in a particularly fierce political debate that year, Aaron Burr challenged Alexander Hamilton to a duel.  Hamilton accepted.   The duel was fought in Weekawken, New Jersey and Hamilton was fatally wounded.  He was ferried across the Hudson River to the nearest house—that of his close friend William Bayard, where he died.

By the 1820s both the Bayard and Ludlow families were dissecting their estates into building plots as the development of Greenwich Village flourished.   Little Jane Street, a country road two decades earlier, was soon lined with brick-faced homes.  And by the middle of the Civil War, popular lore would insist that Alexander Hamilton died in William Bayard’s home at No. 82 Jane Street—an address that did not exist in 1804.

William Cullen Bryant later wrote “there is a prevalent error in regard to the house in which Hamilton died, which is worth correcting, if only to show how little tradition is to be trusted.”

The Bayard Farm had been established by Nicholas Bayard, a relative of Peter Stuyvesant, in the 17^th century.   He owned thousands of acres of land outside of Manhattan; but his estate here encompassed 200 acres.  By the time of Hamilton’s death, the country house was owned by William Bayard, Jr. and change was on the way.

In 1833 William Bayard’s heirs sold the family house and much of the land to Francis B. Cutting for about $50,000.  In April, two years later, Cutting divided his property into 175 lots which he sold at auction for $225,000.  The Bayard mansion was demolished.

In 1853 William’s youngest son, Robert, began construction of a fine four-story brick home at No. 83 Jane Street for himself and his wife, the former Elizabeth McEvers.  The house would sit opposite the fabled No. 22 (and on the Bayard side of the street).  The Bayards’ two daughters, Ruth Hunter and Elsie Justine, were both grown and married by now.  Son William had died a decade earlier at the age of 21.

photo by Alice Lum

Completed a year later, the Bayard house distinguished itself from the other homes on the street with a full-width cast iron balcony at the second floor and the noticeable absence of a steep stoop.   Designed in the up-to-the-minute Anglo-Italianate style, the entrance was essentially at sidewalk level.

Robert Bayard owned other lots on Jane Street, closer to the Hudson River (then called the North River) and in the decade prior to the Civil War leased three lots to the City of New York as a “corporation yard.”

Unlike its neighbors with raised parlor levels, No. 83 was accessed at street level -- photo by Alice Lum

Despite its relative proximity to the waterfront, the Jane Street block maintained its respectable status throughout the 19^th century.    In 1884 Jennie M. Campbell lived at No. 83.  She was a teacher in Primary School No. 9 across town at No. 42 First Street.

Five years later the house was home to Terrance Shields.  Shields was a “parkkeeper” who earned $2.75 per day from the City.   His salary today would translate to approximately $17,500 per year.

During the Great Depression the luxury of spacious private homes was unaffordable to nearly all but the wealthy.  In 1937 the house was converted to apartments—one per floor.   Later, in the mid-1950s into the 1960s, F. Thomas Heller lived here.  Heller was a nationally-known seller of rare and vintage books.

In the 1970s the house was converted to a duplex on the first two floors and two full-floor apartments above.  In 1998 the owners put it on the market for $2.6 million and sold it a year later for $2.45 million. 

In reporting the sale The New York Observer ran the headline “Alexander Hamilton’s Deathbed.”  Having caught the readers’ eye, however, the Observer clarified that “Alexander Hamilton was brought to this neck of the woods to die in 1804…”

The new buyers reconverted the handsome house to a single-family home. 

In the meantime, in 1936, across the street at No. 82 a plaque was affixed to the 1886 apartment building that replaced the former house there.  The bronze tablet—still there today--reads “82 Jane St.  Site of the William Bayard House where Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary of the Treasury, died after his duel with Aaron burr, July 12, 1804.”

Although the Bayard mansion sat far back from the little country lane that divided his estate from Ludlow's, popular lore is cast in bronze on the Victorian building at No. 82 Jane Street -- photo by Alice Lum

In William Cullen Bryant’s words, the plaque is a wonderful example of “how little tradition is to be trusted.”