The Seligman House -- No. 126 East 74th Street

Developer Warren Beeman’s ambitious project of 28 brownstone rowhouses on East 74^th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues would take four years to complete.  Begun in 1871, they were designed by architect John G. Prague in the ubiquitous Italianate style.  To fit so many homes onto the block, Beeman skimped on their width—they were 18.9 feet wide as compared to the more expected 20 feet.

Among the row was No. 126 East 74^th Street.  Home to well-to-do owners from its completion in 1875, it was owned by Davis Rosenberg in 1905.  The neighborhood to the west had become highly exclusive as the mansions of Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens lined Fifth Avenue.  By now the affluent residential character had spread east.  Rosenberg sold the house that year in June to Nathaniel A. Campbell and his wife, Elizabeth. 

Campbell was involved in real estate and more than once included Selena M. Campbell in the deals.  It is probable that the two were related.  Early in 1910 Selena (whose name was often spelled Selina in newspapers) sold her home at No. 56 East 69^th Street and purchased No. 126 East 74^th Street from Nathaniel and Elizabeth Campbell.  The New-York Tribune made note of her $10,000 mortgage—around $240,000 today.

Wealthy and unmarried, Selena M. Campbell devoted her time to charitable causes.  When she moved into No. 126 she had been Chairman of Industrial School No. 1 on East 109^th Street for several years.  The purpose of the school was the “Education of poor children not provided for by the public schools.”

She was also First Vice-President of the Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless.  When it hosted a fund-raising bazaar on November 21, 1913 The Sun reported that “The society takes care of about 208 derelict children and the bazaar was held to wipe out a debt of $74,000 incurred during the last year, which is the seventy-ninth of the society’s work.”

Before Selena moved into the house she renovated the outdated Victorian interiors.  On April 16, 1910 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported that she had give E. Van Houten the contract to make “interior changes” to the house.

Selena Campbell was tireless in her efforts to improve the lot of the poor.  On February 1, 1915 she spoke at a meeting of the Presbyterian union at the Hotel Savoy.  The issue at hand was the ineffective operation of the Almshouse.  Prior to the speeches, 70 children from the Woodycrest Home for the Friendless, of which she was an officer, “went through a military drill” for the assemblage.

By 1921 the 74^th Street house was owned by Theodore Stanfield and his wife, Cora Leopold Stanfield.  Cora had been a leader in the New York Kindergarten Association since graduating from Teachers College in 1902.  She was also highly active in the Children’s Charitable Union.

Now 40 years old, Cora became ill and after a brief illness died on January 22, 1921 in the Nursery and Children’s Hospital.  The New York Times mentioned that “She had herself taught for several years in the kindergartens of the city schools and had urged the founding of a children’s theatre where classics suitable for young audiences could be performed.”

Theodore was the Managing Director of the American Metal Company and he, too, was involved with notable causes.  That year he served as Chairman of the Library and Entertainment Committee of the New York Institution for Improved Instruction of Deaf Mutes.  He was a life member of the American Peace Society and a member of the Williamstown Institute of Politics.

Nineteen months after Cora’s death, on July 5, 1922, he married Suzette M. Stanfield.  Now retired, in 1923 The New York Times said “as a hobby [he] devotes a considerable portion of each year to analysis of world conditions.”

On July 9, 1917 the engagement of Eustace Seligman to Maud Jaretzki had been made public.  Seligman was the son of esteemed Professor Edwin R. A. Seligman of Columbia University.  Educated at Amherst College, Harvard Law School and Columbia, the young attorney practiced law with Sullivan and Cromwell.  During World War I he served as Judge Advocate, trying cases of conscientious objectors.

In 1925 the Seligmans purchased the house from the Stanfields.  (Theodore Stanfield, incidentally, would suffer a nervous breakdown two years later and spend the rest of his life institutionalized.)

Like Selena Campbell, the new owners set out to modernize their dated home.  But the Seligman renovations would go far behind “interior changes.”  Architect Edward I. Shire was hired to convert the old brownstone into a modern upscale dwelling.

A decade earlier Frederick Junius Sterner made his mark on New York architecture by transforming Victorian brownstones into Mediterranean and Tudor fantasies.  Now Shire followed his lead and presented the Seligmans with a stucco-covered Mediterranean villa.

With the stoop removed, the entrance was now at street level.  Between the service entrance and the main door a window was guarded by an ornate Spanish-style wrought iron grill.  The second floor featured a Doric loggia with iron railings and three sets of French doors.  The upper openings were ornamented with quaint wooden shutters, and two sloping Spanish-tiled roofs completed the charming charade.

The house was photographed on March 31, 1927.  Note the side window at the third floor.  photograph by Wruts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWWVPB30&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631

Inside Shire continued the motif with twisted wrought iron fixtures and balusters, stuccoed walls, heavy exposed beams and baronial fireplaces.

Although the Seligmans' rear garden was small, it was a source of pride to Maude.  Annually she opened it to the public for the Garden Tour for the benefit of the School Nature League.  Like Selena Campbell, Maude was less interested in glamorous dinners and dances than in social reform and charitable works.  Her teas and receptions most often were in support of a worthy cause.

Maude Seligman opened her pretty garden once a year for charity -- photograph by Wruts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWWVPB30&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631 

Such was the case in November 1936 when “a number of prominent women” met in the house to discuss slum clearance, according to The Times.  Maude was an avid supporter of public housing projects as a means of providing dignified homes for the poor and eliminating the crime and disease-ridden tenements.  Other meetings Maude hosted in the house in the 1940s concerned aid to China and to Poland. 

Well-chosen antiques complimented the Southern European-inspired interiors.   photograph by Wruts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWWVPB30&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631

On July 20, 1939 200 people filed into the house for the funeral of Professor Edwin R. A. Seligman.  The 78-year old economist was praised as a “counselor to cities, States and the United States” and was called “a leader in the field of economic relations.” 

In March 1953 Eustace Seligman’s mother suffered a fatal heart attack in Daytona Beach, Florida.  Her funeral, too, was held in the 74^th Street house.

The Seligmans remained in the home at least through the 1950s.  Today it is remarkably unchanged.  Even the original wooden shutters are intact as is the Spanish grill over the first floor window.  It remains a single family home.

non-historic photographs by the author

The Lost Randolph Guggenheimer Mansion - No. 923 5th Avenue

photograph - Architecture, January 15, 1900 (copyright expired)

A young Randolph Guggenheimer arrived in New York City to attend college; but financial problems got in the way.   Decades later the New-York Tribune would remember “Compelled by force of circumstances to give up his coveted college course, he did not abandon his ambition for a professional career.”  Once he obtained employment as a clerk in a woolen house, he enrolled in the New York University law school.

After graduating and starting with a $1 a week salary as a law clerk, Guggenheimer rose quickly.  He established his own practice, then in 1883 brought his two half-brothers, Isaac and Samuel Untermeyer, into the firm, now known as Guggenheimer & Untermyer.  The young man from Virginia had more than overcome his financial difficulties—he was quickly becoming one of Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens.

In 1876 Guggenheimer had married Eliza Katzenberg and the couple had two sons and a daughter.  The Guggenheimer family lived at No. 8 East 81^st Street and maintained a country estate, Drexel Cottage, in Elberon, New Jersey and a mansion in Newport. 

Randolph was highly involved in civic affairs, as well.  He was chairman of the committee on legislation of the School Board, was School Commissioner for three terms, and served as Acting Mayor during the absence of Mayor Robert Anderson Van Wyck.

By the last decade of the 19^th century Guggenheimer was engaged in real estate.  In 1896 he was responsible for the construction of two matching 12-story neoclassical buildings that engulfed the entire block bounded by Broadway, Mercer Street, Waverly Place and Washington Place.  To design the substantial structures, he turned to architect Robert Maynicke.

The millionaire lawyer was apparently pleased with the outcome.  A year later he purchased the building lot at No. 923 Fifth Avenue from Alfred Duane Pell and once again called on the services of Robert Maynicke.  Although Maynicke was best known for his designing of loft buildings, he would produce for Guggenheimer a mansion unlike any other on the avenue.

As the house rose, the wedding of daughter Adele to Philip Lewisohn took place in the 81^st Street house.  The groom was wealthy in his own right, a member of the Lewisohn Importing Trading Company.  Following the ceremony a wedding breakfast for 80 guests was served.  When the newlyweds returned from an extended European honeymoon, they moved in with the Guggenheimers.

Completed in 1899, the white marble Fifth Avenue mansion cost Guggenheimer more than $200,000; or over $5 million by today’s standards.  While other millionaires were erecting Beaux Arts or neo-Georgian mansions, Maynicke produced a stunning five-story neo-Classical house of exceptional refinement. 

Building Age described the entrance as “a fair sample of the modern school…This is a comparatively narrow house.  The decorations are very elaborate.  The whole of the ground floor is taken up by the entrance.  Six Doric columns support a cornice treated in the style of the Italian Renaissance.  The doors are of wrought iron, rather elaborate in design, and the windows on each side are treated in the same way.  An iron balustrade guards each side of the steps leading from the street and at the bottom step are two electroliers on which are opaque globes.”  (The two lamps referred to by the magazine reflected Guggenheimer’s service as Acting Mayor.  Every Mayor of New York City received the honor of having mayoral lamps placed outside his home for life.)

Mayoral lamps flank the entrance steps.  The elegance of the architecture is somewhat offset by the POST NO BILLS sign on the adjoining wall -- photograph from Architecture, January 15, 1900 (copyright expired)

While Building Age focused on the elaborate first floor, the true scene-stealer was the fifth floor loggia below the balustraded cornice.  Here two marble columns flanked two sets of exquisite paired caryatids—a cultured touch found nowhere else along the park.

Inside were 33 rooms.  The New York Times described “extensive use of rare marbles, both on its façade and its interior.  In the stair hall is a slab of rare violet-grained marble.  The house also contains an elevator, one of the first ever installed in a private house in this city.”

The location was perfect for Guggenheimer, who was a great lover of horses.  The New-York Tribune reported later “A daily early morning gallop in Central Park was his favorite exercise and almost the only relaxation in his busy life.” 

Guggenheimer’s busy life included not only his real estate dealings, civic functions, legal business and his several club memberships; he was actively involved in philanthropies.  “One of his keenest pleasures was derived from the annual dinner that he gave to the newsboys of the city, and he contributed on an equally generous scale to the support of many charitable institutions,” said the New-York Tribune on September 13, 1907.

On Tuesday September 10, 1907 the Guggenheimer family returned from an extended European trip, going directly to Drexel Cottage.  Randolph seemed in good health, but three days later the New-York Tribune reported “While at the luncheon table, however, he was suddenly stricken with apoplexy.”  Doctors were summoned, but the massive stroke proved fatal.  “All efforts failed to restore him, and he died soon after midnight,” said the Tribune.

The Lewisohns lived on with Eliza Guggenheimer in the Fifth Avenue mansion.  Adele and Philip had two children, Virginia (who went by her middle name Fay) and Randolph.  Like his father-in-law, Philip Lewisohn became actively involved in real estate.  In addition to his importing business, he became president and treasurer of the New York Library Realty Company and the West Fortieth and Forty-first Street Realty Company.  One of his best-known structures was the 1913 Lewisohn Building.

In mid-November 1917 Lewisohn underwent a appendectomy at the German Hospital.  A week later, on November 20, he died in the Fifth Avenue mansion at the age of 56.  On November 29 The Sun noted “While the estimate of the estate is mentioned only as ‘above $10,000,’ in each real and personal property, it is believed that Mr. Lewisohn’s extensive real estate holdings will bring the actual value to a high figure.  Practically everything is left to the family.”

Eliza and son Charles don the best in Edwardian outfits -- photograph Library of Congress

Eliza, Adele and the two children lived on at No. 923 Fifth Avenue.  In 1919 Fay’s engagement to William Burton was announced.  Two years later one of the most peculiar occurrences at the Guggenheimer household came to pass.

In the spring of 1921 the Guggenheimer butler answered the door to find a young man on the stoop who identified himself as the song writer and publisher Irving Berlin.  He asked to use the telephone and the butler admitted him to the house.  Later, reported the New-York Tribune, he “returned and tried to borrow money from Mrs. Guggenheimer’s butler.”

On May 1 the Tribune reported “Irving Berlin…was in Yorkville Police Court yesterday to press a complaint against Max Greenberg, nineteen years old, who, it is alleged, has been using Berlin’s name.

“It was bad enough, Mr. Berlin said, to have his name used by a man who signed checks in restaurants and started flirtations with young women in distant states, but when it came to asking a butler, in the name of Irving Berlin, to lend him money, Mr. Berlin thought that some charge involving a cruel and unusual punishment ought to lie against the defendant.”

The aging Eliza Guggenheimer fell ill in November 1927.  After an illness of four weeks, she died in the house on December 9.  Her estate of over $1 million was divided equally among the three children.  “Seven servants are provided for in the testament,” reported The New York Times on December 14.

Adele would not remain much longer in the mansion.  On May 1, 1928 The New York Times reported that the furnishings were to be sold at auction later that week.  The following month the newspaper reported that Nicholas C. Partos, President of the Partos Realty Company and the Cornel Drug Stores Company had purchased the house, which was on the market for $450,000.

The entire first floor facade was treated as an entrance -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

While the Partos family did move in, it appears that the Guggenheimers rethought selling.  They retained possession of the home and instead leased it to Partos.  Born in Budapest, Partos had come to the United States in 1903.  He landed a job in a drug store earning $3 a week.  The ambitious chemist eventually borrowed money to purchase the shop and by 1912 was one of the leading manufacturers of pharmaceuticals in the country, with branches worldwide.

On the evening of January 10, 1930 Partos and his wife returned home from the theater shortly before midnight.  Their daughter and the servant staff were asleep.  Mrs. Partos removed her diamonds and laid them on a table upstairs, rather than secure them in the safe.

Around 3:30 a.m. Partos arose to open the bedroom window.  He then walked to the door leading to an adjoining room and opened it.  “Dr. Partos said he was confronted by ‘a man more than six feet tall, weighing about 200 pounds, who had a silk handkerchief over his features and a small crowbar in one hand,’” reported The New York Times the following day.

The shocked crook demanded “Throw up your hands!” but Partos, instead struck him in the chest.  The pair were quickly involved in a tussle, with several blows exchanged and Partos ripping the mask from the burglar’s face.  The 48-year old millionaire, who weighed just 135 pounds, held his own with the burly thief.

“The noise awakened Mrs. Partos, who was asleep, and her cries for help, as well as those of 13-year old Irene Partos on the floor overhead, and the servants, brought a squad of police from the East Sixty-seventh Street station,” said The Times.  They were too late, however.  The burglar escaped, rushing down the stairs and through the front door.  He bounded over the stone wall into Central Park and disappeared. 

“About the time the police arrived Dr. and Mrs. Partos made a quick inventory of the jewelry, of which Mrs. Partos has a fine collection,” said the newspaper.  The safe was locked and the diamonds on the table were still there.  Partos estimated that his scuffle with the intruder prevented the loss of $250,000 in jewelry.

Nicholas C. Partos’ world came crashing down in April 1932 when he was convicted of fraud.  The 51-year old “who at one time was credited with having amassed a fortune of several millions through real estate and other investments,” according to The Times, was charged with selling worthless stocks to investors.  The newspaper said that following the verdict “more than 100 men and women…began a demonstration in the corridor outside the courtroom, the men cheering and the women vigorously applauding.”

By now many of the grand mansions of Fifth Avenue had been razed for modern apartment buildings.  The five residences between 73^rd and 74^th Streets, including No. 923 however, still survived.  But on November 30, 1937 The New York Times reported that the end of the line for the Guggenheimer house as a private home had come.  “The house, one of the dwindling number of private dwellings on the avenue, has been held by the Guggenheimer family for nearly forty years,” it said.  Now the Laval Realty Corporation, which was leasing the building, announced it would divide it into apartments of one to three rooms each.

The five mansions would survive until 1945.  Then, on September 2, 1945, The Times wrote “The wave of demolitions of old New York residences during boom days, which subsided during the depression but was spreading out again when the war intervened, appears about to sweep over many strongholds of private homes in the new era of construction activity now in prospect…Five private houses which escaped the northward march of builders previously, and which were linked with New York’s social history, will make way for the new building, which will be an eighteen-story edifice with apartments ranging in size from three to six rooms, with many terrace, balcony and penthouse suites.”

The five neighboring houses would survive until 1945.  No. 922 at the corner is already boarded up. -- photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library

Among the row was No. 923 Fifth Avenue, sold by Charles Gugenheimer to the Tischman Realty & Construction Company.   The two mayoral lampposts still stood on either side of the entrance steps.  It would take five years for the houses to be demolished and the new apartment building completed.  But by the end of 1950 Sylvan Bien’s mid-century modern apartment building was completed. 

photograph www.citirealty.com

The public spaces had been decorated by Dorothy Draper and the lobby was furnished in 18^th century antiques.  Still standing today, the white brick building took the address of the Guggenheimer mansion, No. 923 Fifth Avenue, where once marble goddesses stared across Central Park from the loggia.

The Josiah W. Wheeler House -- No. 25 West 19th Street

Commercial structures squeeze around the old brownstone with its 1903 storefront.

On April 29, 1856 82-year old Catharine Sice died.  Two days later at 2:00 in the afternoon, friends and relatives of the widow filed into the handsome brownstone home at No. 25 West 19^th Street.

The four-story Italianate residence was owned by Catharine’s daughter, Eleanor, and attorney husband Gilbert R. Terrett.  The family’s wealth was reflected not only in the home’s exclusive location, just steps from Fifth Avenue, but in the $1,500 taxes Terrett was assessed in 1843—a substantial $50,000 in today’s dollars.  Living with the couple was son, Charles William Terrett.  Another son, Gilbert R. Terrett, Jr., had died three years earlier.

By the second half of the century the house had become home to the family of prominent attorney Josiah William Wheeler who had married the former Mary Boorman Davenport on October 13, 1835.  The couple had five children, Mary Boorman Wheeler, James Boorman Wheeler, William Rupell Wheeler, Elizabeth Davenport Wheeler and Emily Matilda Wheeler.  

Tragically, the two boys died early—James Boorman Wheeler in infancy in 1842 and William Rupell Wheeler in 1852 at the age of five--and so the Wheeler household was one entirely of women, other than Josiah.

Wheeler was partnered in his law practice with his brother R. C. Wheeler, who had married Mary’s sister Theodosia.  Both families could boast an esteemed New England pedigree.

In 1862 25-year old Mary Boorman Wheeler married Dr. Giovanni Ceccarini, an Italian eye and ear specialist.  When the doctor’s health began to fail in 1878 the couple moved to Rome.  Neither Emily nor Elizabeth would marry, focusing their attention on charitable causes.

In 1879 Emily Matilda Wheeler established the first independent day nursery in the city, the Virginia Day Nursery.  The New York Times would later say of her “Throughout her life Miss Wheeler devoted herself to charities, especially to those designed to protect and help young girls.”  Elizabeth, like her sister, dedicated herself to the plight of impoverished children and was manager of the Society for the Relief of Half-Orphan and Destitute Children.

Josiah William Wheeler died of pneumonia in the 19^th Street house on March 1882 at the age of 77.  In 1898 Emily donated $5,000 to Williams College to establish a library book fund in his memory.  In Rome, in the meantime, Mary was busy with altruistic causes as well.  Dr. Giovanni Ceccarini died in 1888 and Mary, according to The Sun years later, “turned her attention to improving the condition of the poor in the villages near her summer home at Riccione, among other things building a hospital at an expense of $100,000.”

On the afternoon of Tuesday, May 6, 1890 the parlor of No. 25 West 19^th Street was the scene of yet another family funeral.  Elizabeth Davenport Wheeler who had worked so hard for the betterment of the poor, had died three days earlier.  Within the year Emily, Mary and their mother purchased the property at No. 307 East 12^th Street and donated it to the Children’s Aid Society.  On the site the Elizabeth Home for Girls was constructed in her memory.  The home opened in 1892 and offered dormitories and single rooms for wayward girls, sitting rooms, sewing rooms and typing rooms, a reading room and dining room and kitchen.

Around the time that the Elizabeth Home for Girls opened, the Wheeler house was updated with new stoop railings and exquisite Esthetic Movement etched glass windows in the entrance--which miraculously survive.

The Children’s Aid Society explained “We are impressed by the mournful experience of young girls suffering from the effects of willfulness and uselessness, who say their mothers never made them obedient.  This is a vital matter for the wise and good to grapple with.  Hundreds of the young of both sexes are growing up completely ungoverned except by the whim of the moment, and dangerous currents of influence are sweeping many to destruction.  The Elizabeth Home does all it can to counteract these evils, taking hold of young girls with steady helping hands, and training them to obedience, self-respect and usefulness; but the kindergarten seems to be the great hope of the future."

For her generous work in Italy King Humbert offered to make Mary a countess in 1894; but she refused “explaining that she was still a patriotic American," according to a newspaper.

By now Emily had moved to No. 25 East 30^th Street and the girl’s aging mother lived on alone in the 19^th Street house.  On Thursday, April 30, 1896 the 81-year old Mary Boorman Wheeler died there.  Her funeral, held at 2:00 on May 2, would be the last in the staid brownstone home.  Her sizable estate included bequests to the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church, the New-York Female Auxiliary Bible Society, the Society for the Relief of Half Orphan and Destitute Children, the New-York Mission and Tract Society among charitable organizations.  Mary and Elizabeth each received $250,000—about $6.7 million today.

In 1901 Mary Boorman Wheeler Cecccarini donated another $5,000 to the library fund begun by her sister, Emily in 1898.  Continuing her own charitable efforts, Elizabeth augmented her Day Nursery work by loaning her summer estate, Orchard Cottage, to church missionaries and their families “on furlough” in the States.

Mary sold the family house on May 13, 1903 to Andrew J. Larkin.  The sumptuous rooms were stripped of the artwork, fine furniture and carpets.  It was the end of the line for the Wheeler house as a private residence.  By now the block was already filling with commercial structures as business overtook the former residential neighborhood. 

Four months later, on September 2, Mary Boorman Wheeler Ceccarini died in Italy at the age of 60.  The sub-headline in The Sun remembered that “Since Her Husband’s Death She Had Done Much for the Poor of Italy.”  The article noted “Mrs. Ceccarini’s body will be interred in the costly marble tomb which she built in memory of her husband at Bologna, Italy, shortly after his death.”

Within a week of Mary’s death Andrew Larkin sold the 19^th Street house to Dr. John H. Woodbury, who sold it in December to Richard Bozine.  Bozine paid $75,000 for the property.  The wall at the parlor level was broken out and an expansive, slightly protruding wooden shop window was installed.  Unexpectedly, the English basement entrance and window were left essentially intact in that level’s conversion to a commercial space.

At the basement level, the original enframements survive with their foliate keystones.

One of the new tenants was James L. Solomon who set up his medical practice here.  In 1905 his  office closed when he was exposed as a fraud.  “James L. Solomon, who gives his residence as Brookline, Mass., but who has been practicing medicine at No. 25 West Nineteenth street for some time, was convicted of posing as a physician, when not registered,” reported The Evening World on March 13, 1905.

Salomon’s arrest was sparked by the suspicions of two women “who were treated for grip and paid fees of $5,” said the newspaper.

In 1952 the top two floors were each converted to a "studio and one apartment" while the lower floors were used for "light manufacturing." Another renovation in 2012 resulted in two apartments per floor above the retail space at basement level.  The quaint 1903 shop window was preserved.

Over a century after its conversion the Wheeler house is remarkably unchanged.  Although squeezed between commercial buildings and despite the fire escape, it takes little imagination to envision the socially-concerned Wheeler women in their plumed hats and parasols coming and going down on the brownstone stoop.

The handsome cornice, the entranceway and the carved window frames resting on tiny brackets survive intact.

photographs taken by the author

Tom Gould's San Souci No. 56 West 31st Street

Tom Gould's notorious Sans Souci was at No. 56 in the right side of the now-combined buildings.

On January 9, 1886 a hearing was held in the Gilsey House hotel on Broadway and 29^th Street.  The Gilsey House was just one of a string of respected hotels within a few blocks of one another in the area; but despite their presence, the neighborhood to the west was rife with prostitution, gambling and other vices.  Known as the Tenderloin, it was also termed “Satan’s Circus” by social reformers.

Police Commissioner John N. Beckley listened to witnesses who praised the moral character of saloon owners, including perhaps the most notorious of all, Thomas Edmond Gould.  The New York Times reported that listeners in the make-shift courtroom could not help being amused at the farce.

“Smiles flitted across their faces in spite of themselves when the witnesses spoke of the reputable and highly moral character of the women who frequented the Haymarket and Tom Gould’s.  Such listeners as hadn’t before learned of the high moral character sustained by various resorts on Sixth-avenue, between Twenty-sixth and Thirty-first streets, rubbed their eyes and wondered.”

Tom Gould’s saloon, the Cremorne, was at No. 52 West 31^st, just steps from the Grand Hotel on Broadway.  Gould’s brother-in-law, Thomas F. Parker, was his right-hand man and trusted accomplice and the pair had quickly gained an unsavory reputation with police and the press.  On July 26, 1885 The New York Times reported on Tom Gould’s expired liquor license.  The newspaper said it was “now running without licenses, and the police are called upon to take action in the matter.”

A hearing was held on September 7 regarding the issuing of a new license for Gould’s saloon.  “Commissioner Morris opposed the granting of the license strenuously, and stated that, according to Capt. Williams’s report on the place, it was a concert saloon and patronized by men and women of bad character,” said The Times the next day.  But Tom Gould knew people.

The application was in Tom Parker’s name.  “Among those who spoke a good work for Mr. Parker were Senator Gibbs and residents of the vicinity.  Excise Commissioners Mitchell and Haughton voted in favor of the place and it was licensed,” said The Times. 

Only a month later the commissioners who had approved Parker’s license were on the hot seat themselves for graft and corruption.  A committee of Senators, called the Gibbs Committee, investigated what The New York Times called “the lurid light of the facts.”  Of particular interest to the senators was the issue of Tom Gould.

“Speaking about the Excise Board’s dealings with Tom Gould and his dummy, Thomas F. Parker, Commissioner Morris said that though he had never been inside of Gould’s place he had frequently remained in the neighborhood outside of it until after midnight, observing the people, particularly the women, who passed in and out.  The witness saw among them women of the most dissolute character.  No respectable women ever went in there.”

Before long Tom Gould moved his business a few doors west, opening the San Souci Gardens at No. 56 West 31^st Street in a converted three-story brick house.  Once the home of Sarah Marsh in more respectable days, it now had a spacious barroom with the handsome carved hardwood bar expected in Victorian watering holes.  Here, in addition to drinking and enjoying the attentions of “dissolute” women, patrons were treated to entertainments.  The problem for Gould, once again, is that he had no license for that sort of operation.

On November 9, 1886 he was charged with contempt of court “having violated an injunction obtained by the city to restrain [him] from giving theatrical or minstrelsy entertainments in the Sans Souci without first obtaining a theatrical license from the Mayor.”

But rather than obtain a license, Tom Gould simply continued to run his business as usual.  Each time he was ordered to appear before a justice on contempt charges, he pleaded that he was “dying of consumption.”  The New York Times later remarked that Gould’s constitution always improved “as soon as an adjournment of his case was secured.”  After five such instances, Recorder Smyth issued a bench warrant and declared his bail forfeited. 

So Thomas Gould crossed the river to Hoboken where he assumed he was safe from arrest by New York officials.  But in February 1887 he was arrested in Busch’s Hotel and “was much distressed when he found himself in custody,” according to The Times.  But it was midnight, the recorder had gone home, and a Justice of the Peace named Gustav Streng was roused from his bed to hear arguments against the prisoner.  He thought the entire affair a lot of “fuss” and accepted bail.

“After a little, Gould remembered an engagement of importance and left the company,” said the newspaper on February 18, 1887.  “Some said that he had gone to Philadelphia, others named Canada.”

Although his lawyer insisted he did not own the West 31^st Street saloon, the six indictments against him could earn him four or five years in prison plus a fine.  “Consequently he is not expected again hereabout for some time,” opined The Times.  “The place on Thirty-first street was running as usual last night.”

When Gould failed to appear before the court on February 18 police shut down the Sans Souci.  Captain Williams told reporters on February 18, 1887 “The place has been shut up, and I propose to see that it is kept shut.  If anybody tries to open it I will put a uniformed barkeeper in there who will make things lively.”

Gould’s attorneys promised that he would appear “without fail” on Friday March 4.  But the hearing came and went without an appearance.  “Tom Gould, the indicted dive keeper, whom the New-York police are very anxious to get hold of, disappointed Justice Strong, of Hoboken, again yesterday,” reported a newspaper.  Gould’s Hoboken bondsman, Thomas Miller, suggested that the fugitive was in Canada and newspapers predicted “is not likely to return until the storm blows over.”

By fleeing to Canada Tom Gould forfeited $2,000 in bail—over $47,000 today.  Then he surprised everyone involved when he reappeared in the Hoboken courthouse with his attorney, Mr. Hummel, on April 29.  He pleaded guilty to four indictments and Hummel “made an appeal for mercy.”

After all, said the attorney, “He was without occupation and his place of business had been closed up.”  Fortunate that the case was heard in New Jersey rather than New York, Tom Gould had a sympathetic ear in Judge Gildersleeve.  He received no jail time and was fined $500 for violating the amusement law and $500 for violating the excise law.  “The fine was immediately paid and Gould left the court room with his friends,” reported a disappointed reporter for The New York Times.

The close call did not teach Tom Gould any lessons in law abiding.  On February 15, 1888 The Times ran the headline “After ‘Tom’ Gould Again.”  Despite the injunction that forbade him to give theatrical entertainments at San Souci without a license, nothing changed.  Officers John F. Tappan and John F. Flood visited the saloon on February 1, 2, 4 and 5 and “heard music and songs, saw men and women drinking and smoking, and that ‘Tom’ Gould was the ‘boss’ and gave the orders.”

The New York Times reminded readers that he had been judged guilty of contempt a year earlier “whence he was released on account of the affidavit of the jail physician that he was dying of bleeding of the lungs.  Gould at once regained his health after release.  Should he get in again he will have to stay for a long while.”  The charges against Gould and his saloon did not touch upon the true nature of the place.  The Times described the San Souci as “as vile a den as there has ever been in this city.”

On December 26, 1891 Tom Gould was arrested in connection with the murder of John J. Wogan.  “There is no question that Gould is one of the most dangerous and disreputable characters in the city,” said The Times.  “Crime has for years been his daily routine.  Anybody who was liable to meet Gould is safer to-day from the fact that the man is under lock and key.”

The days of the San Souci Gardens finally came to a close.  The saloon was converted to the pawn shop of Hyman Stern.  Stern was probably pleased when a young Englishman, Arthur Edward Matthews walked in on January 26, 1893 with 36 silver forks and 5 spoons to pawn.  The 25-year old Matthews left with $35 cash (nearly $900 in today's money).  It was not until detectives arrived a few days later that Stern discovered that Matthews, the butler of millionaire Henry Villard, had stolen the silverware.

Over a period of two months, the butler had taken silverware to a number of pawn shops.  “But for his arrest he would doubtless have left his employer without silver enough to set the table,” said a newspaper account.  Unfortunately for Stern, the stolen flatware was confiscated by police.

The silverware was not the only stolen item that passed through Hyman Stern’s hands and when the Lexow Committee—a Senate committee formed to investigate corruption within the police department—began its hearings in 1894, it turned its attention to the pawnbroker. 

On September 10 Hyman Stern took the stand and was questioned about a gold pocket watch.  The stolen Tiffany & Co. timepiece had been brought in by Detective Sergeant Charles A. Hanly on October 25, 1893.  Stern told the committee that when new the watch probably cost about $150, but now its value was about $75.

Senator Goff sensed that Stern and the policeman worked together to fence confiscated evidence.  He asked “It is customary for you to advance $60 on an article valued at $75?” and Stern replied that he tried to advance as much as possible so as to get as much interest as possible.

“And you have made money,” asked the dubious senator.

“Yes, I have.”

“Then you’re an extraordinary pawnbroker,” scoffed Goff.

Stern remained in business for years at No. 56 West 31^st Street.  Whether he had poor judgment or poor ethics is unclear; but his operation still bore the taint of suspicion at the turn of the century.  In December 1901 Nina Von Erlanger entered the shop with an extraordinary collection of diamond jewelry.  The European opera singer went by the stage name Nina Diva; however she gave her name as Roeder to Hyman Stern.

The seven pieces of jewelry had belonged to the opera singer; but when she needed cash she received a loan from Louis Reinhardt, giving it to him as collateral.  Then, as her New York tour was coming to a close, she borrowed the jewelry.

With the diamonds back in her possession, she rushed to Hyman Stern who gave her $6,000.  Stern now had the jewels, Nina Diva boarded a steamer to Europe, and Louis Reinhardt had been swindled out of thousands.  When police showed up at Stern’s pawnshop on February 20, 1902 to retrieve the seven pieces of jewelry only five were still there.

As the century wore on the neighborhood, once the most notorious and crime-ridden in the city, was engulfed by the garment and novelty district.  Somewhat amazingly, the converted brick house where Tom Gould operated his saloon survived--albeit much altered.  Today, appropriately, it is home to a bar—one that is operated in a much more respectable fashion than Tom Gould's Sans Souci.

photographs taken by the author

The Victor Hugo Jackson House -- No. 240 Lenox Avenue

photograph by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

Since the land was acquired by New York City in 1839 until the 1870s, Mount Morris Square was a destination spot for New Yorkers.  Weekend excursions to the park far to the north were spent in picnicking and strolling in the country air.  The remoteness of the park changed in 1872 when the elevated train service was extended into Harlem.

Now, in addition to the developing Upper East and West Sides, there was another potential suburb.  Wealthy speculators rushed to grab up blocks of property and erect rows of handsome dwellings.  Among them was the row of five homes stretching from No. 240 Lenox Avenue, at the corner of 122^nd street to No. 248. 

By the time the row was constructed, a fashionable neighborhood had already begun sprouting along the broad avenue.  Holy Trinity Church, later renamed St. Martin’s, sat on the opposite corner of 122^nd Street; a magnificent Romanesque Revival structure designed by William A. Potter and completed in 1888.  Across Lenox Avenue was a row of identical brownstone-clad neo-Grec homes with handsome porticos.

But this new row would draw from a grab bag of styles, resulting in especially eye-catching and up-to-date residences.  Four stories tall including a high mansard roof, they sat on limestone English basements.  No. 240 anchored the row and was the most desirable because of its windows on three sides.  The Second Empire-style mansard was covered in fish scale tiles and pierced by cast metal dormers.  The cornice, too, with its twining vines and applied rosettes, was of pressed metal.  The three floors of red brick borrowed elements of Queen Anne in its bands of terra cotta tiles and multi-paned windows.  Paneled Queen Anne-style chimneys were topped by clustered terra cotta chimney pots.  Wonderfully quirky ironwork down the stoop and around the areaway featured twisted, wrought iron posts, wavy balusters, and decorative curlicues. 

The elegant row combined a variety of architectural styles -- photograph by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

An unusual touch was the hefty, carved limestone entrance way.  A lion’s head peers out from floral decoration within the classical pediment and elaborate Corinthian capitals sit on scrolled pilasters.  Totally out of place, it would be more expected in a late 19^th century apartment building.

When William S. Hollingsworth purchased the house from Harriet H. Holder on October 27, 1890, his mortgage was $28,000 (almost $700,000 today).  Hollingsworth would not hold on to the property for long and by the turn of the century it was owned by Dr. Victor Hugo Jackson.

The bachelor dentist was a pioneer in the field of orthodontics.  In 1893 he attended the World’s Columbia Dental Congress where much attention was given to his advances in straightening teeth. Dr. Jackson was blunt in his opinion on the subject of what materials were best suited for constructing the appliances.  As reported by The Dental Cosmos, “He had found nothing so good as piano-wire, having tried gold wire and iridium and gold.  These are good, but as soon as you apply heat to hard solder then you destroy all the spring and spoil the virtue of the wire.”

Perhaps No. 240 was too much house for the dentist, for it appears he took in boarders.  In 1903 sisters Anna and Elizabeth B. Craig lived here.  Both taught at Public School No. 7.  And in 1907 the 69-year old George B. Brown and his wife were living here.  George died in the house on Thursday, October 1 that year.

None of Jackson’s boarders would be as colorful as the local politician William B. Stambaugh.  In 1913 when John Purroy Mitchel received the backing of the Fusion committees (a cooperation of the Republican and Independent parties) in his run for mayor, Stambaugh launched into action.

Mitchel had already made a name for himself as a reformer and was popular among the anti-Tammany groups.  In an effort to get Charles S. Whitman elected over Mitchel, Stambaugh called a meeting in the Lenox Avenue house on August 2, 1913.  The following day The New York Times reported “The Whitman Independence League was organized at 240 Lenox Avenue yesterday afternoon.  William B. Stambaugh is the moving spirit of the new organization, which has for its purpose not only to obtain the nomination of District Attorney Whitman for Mayor, but also to put a full ticket in the field.”

The problem for Stambaugh and his followers was that Whitman was not eager to run.  He told reporters at a conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire on August 4 that he was “unalterably opposed” to the use of his name as a third candidate.

“I have fought Tammany Hall all my life and shall continue to do so.  You can be sure that no amount of pressure or argument will induce me to do anything that will give aid or succor to Tammany Hall,” he said.

Stambaugh was unmoved.  The New York Times reported the following day “The Whitman Independence League, at a meeting at 240 Lenox Avenue last night, passed resolutions empowering a committee of five to meet Mr. Whitman to-day to urge him to agree to have his name submitted to the people on the primary ballot…William B. Stambaugh, Chairman of the league, said he thought the plan was a solution of the present difficulty in that the voters themselves could determine just whom they wanted for Mayor.”

Despite Stambaugh's efforts, Michel was elected Mayor of New York the following year.  But, undeterred by the setback, William B. Stambaugh threw his hat into the Congressional race that year.  On June 29, 1914 the New-York Tribune reported that he “announced his candidacy for Congress on the Republican ticket in the 19^th district.”  In reporting his run, the newspaper noted he was a member “of several clubs and fraternal orders, including the Harlem Republican Club, Citizens Union, Collegiate Club of New York, and Bunting Lodge 665, F. and A. M.”

Queen Anne chimneys coexist with a French Second Empire roof.  The cast metal of the dormers and cornice is evident in the current rusting condition -- photograph by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

In the meantime, Dr. Jackson quietly went ahead with his dentistry in his office at No. 57 West 57^th Street, and worked on perfecting the science of braces.  The same year that Stambaugh ran for Congress, Jackson introduced the Jackson System of Orthodontia for straightening teeth.  He also founded the Victor Hugo Jackson Clinic of Oral Surgery and amassed a collection of dental models and library of manuscripts.

On March 1, 1924 the wealthy dentist sat down to write his will.  Although he named eight relatives, giving them a total of $52,000 from his extensive fortune, he wrote flatly that “no other relative has taken any interest in my lifework and I am not including them.”

Instead, he lavished large amounts on charities.  To the University of Michigan he bequeathed more than $150,000; $94,000 to the Dental School of the University of Buffalo; and $10,000 each to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.  Jackson was adamant regarding the use of his money going to the Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.  Rather than for the care of animals, it was to “be used for the prosecution of all persons in any way connected with taking away the eyesight of animals, such as is practiced on some of our noble-spirited horses.”

Jackson’s careful and detailed will was, as it turned out, all for nothing.  He died on January 26, 1929 leaving an estate of what would amount to about $4.5 million today.  A week later his relatives filed an application to have the will pronounced void.  Jackson had inadvertently failed to have his will witnessed.

Surrogate O’Brien, on February 9, 1929, invalidated the will.  The more than $270,000 in charitable bequests were lost and Jackson’s family, whom he had purposely left out of the will, divided his fortune.

The house at No. 240 Lenox Avenue was assessed at $20,000—a fraction of its value at the turn of the century.  The Harlem neighborhood had suffered and things only got worse when later that year the country was crippled by the Great Depression.

In June 1938 the Jacob Goodman Company sold the house “to a buyer for altering,” according to The New York Times.  The “altering,” completed on December 8 that year, resulted 25 “furnished rooms” in Dr. Jackson’s cultured home.  It was now what was brutally termed a flop house.

But change came to the Mount Morris Park area towards the end of the century.  Residents realized the historic and architectural value of the century-old buildings.  A movement was initiated to preserve the heritage of the neighborhood.

The scar between the second and third floor as well as the gruesome platform below the oriel are no doubt the result of a former fire escape -- photograph by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

In 2013 another conversion was completed on No. 240 Lenox Avenue—resulting in one spacious apartment per floor.  Dr. Victor Hugo Jackson’s handsome home still shows the scars of abuse; yet it radiates the essence of an elegant turn-of-the-century Harlem.