The 1913 Educational Building - 70 Fifth Avenue

 

The commercial building which sat on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 13th Street in the early first years of the 20th century was known as the Educational Building.  The name reflected the businesses inside, like the publishing firm of George A. Plimpton Company, and Dixon's Pencils.  George A. Plimpton owned the property.  On April 5, 1913 the Record & Guide reported that his firm "is having plans prepared by Charles A. Rich...for a thirteen-story office building" to be replace the older structure.

The new building, which took the name of its predecessor, was completed by the end of the year.  Its 26-foot-wide Fifth Avenue frontage engulfed the footprint of the 19th century residence that had once stood there.  Its 125-foot length and 12 stories gave it the skinny appearance known today as a "sliver" building.

Rich designed the structure in a quiet take on the Beaux Arts style.  A two-story limestone base featured double-height paneled Corinthian pilasters.  The mid-section was clad in beige brick and trimmed in stone.  Each of the openings sat within an architrave broken by a layered keystone.  Rich gave the 13th Street elevation added interest with three grand, five-story arches.  The two-story upper section featured three sets of double-height Corinthian columns--one on Fifth Avenue and two on the side street.  Decorating the spandrel panels between the columns were open book motifs, reflecting George A. Plimpton Company's business.

Initially, the tenant list following the educational theme.  Among the first to take space were the publishing firm Ginn & Co. (of which Plimpton was a member), The Pratt Teachers' Agency, and The Permanent Educational Exhibit Co.  Veering slightly away from the academic was Rudolph Kohler, who ran a rare coin business here.

But very quickly the tenor of the building changed to political and social reform organizations.  In 1914 the 10th floor was leased to the People's Institute, and by July the National Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures had established its offices in the building.  

On July 17 The Evening World said of the latter, "The organization is credited with having accomplished much in the matter of purifying the movies."  The problem was that the board had jurisdiction only on American films.  Silent films from Europe caused the board's Commissioner of Licenses, George H. Bell, concern.  "I understand they are very questionable and objectionable," he said.

The trend continued as the Serbian Agricultural Relief Committee took space in 1915, joined the following year by related American Committee for American and Syrian Relief, The Fund for Starving Children, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  The NAACP, as it would be known, published the monthly magazine The Crisis, from 70 Fifth Avenue.

The polar political stances of the various tenants and the building's owner began to cause tension as war broke out in Europe.  Among the six organizations on the pacifist side were the Women's Peace Party and the Emergency Peace Foundation, both on the eighth floor.  Other tenants joined forces to pressure Plimpton to evict them.  Nearly 100 names were signed to a petition in April 1918 that said in part:

As tenants and employees of tenants of this building, 70 Fifth avenue, having a common and decent sense of patriotism and loyalty to our country, we, the undersigned, respectfully protest against the continued presence upon these premises of numerous so-called pacifist organizations whose activities and avowed purpose...to the interest of the enemy, have become a public scandal.

On April 18 The Sun reported that "the dove of peace" over the Educational Building "didn't have a feather ruffled yesterday."  The reason was, it said, because "George A. Plimpton, owner of the building, is friendly to the cause of peace."

Later that year Plimpton did find fault with a tenant.  The People's Council now occupied most of the seventh floor.  The pro-German organization published national propaganda from its offices, according to The New York Times, and was under investigation by Federal agents.  Plimpton "has ordered the organization to move on Oct 1., when the present lease expires," said the article.

Groups on both sides of the war issue continued to occupy the building.  On February 2, 1917 the American Neutral Conference Committee announced a mass meeting in Madison Square Garden at which William Jennings Bryan would speak on "A National Crisis--Shall we permit ourselves to be forced into war?"  The notice said, "This meeting is for those who favor peace at home and abroad, not by force but by negotiation."

On the opposite side of the fence was the American Committee on War Finance.  Just a month later it headlined a full-page advertisement "To All Loyal Americans--Will YOU Stand by YOUR Country if War Comes?"

As the war drew to a close the National Civil Liberties Bureau took space in the building.  In May 1918 it published a pamphlet, "The Truth About the I. W. W." in which it lent support to some of the members of the labor organization, the International Workers of the World.  It said in part, "Many I. W. W. unions have been loyally serving the country during the war, particularly in loading ammunition and war supplies on the docks."  The Socialist-based group was notorious for its use of violence in labor disputes, however the pamphlet assured, "Violence has been much more commonly used against the I. W. W. than by it."

The National Civil Liberties Bureau soon had to focus attention on its own defense.  On September 1 that year The Sun headlined an article, "U. S. Agents Digging In Pacifists' Lairs" and reported, "This organization, it developed, was one of several in the building at 70 Fifth avenue which has been giving active aid to young men who feel indisposed to do military service."  Federal agents had taken over three offices  within the building the day before--the National Civil Liberties Bureau, the New York Bureau of Legal Advice, and the law office of Walter Nelles.

The May 1919 issue of The Crisis included an article "related to prejudice alleged to have been shown toward American negro officers in France by white officers," according to its editor, W. E. Burchardt du Bois.  It included an order dated August 7, 1918 which said in part:

We must prevent the rise of any pronounced degree of intimacy between French officers and black officers.  We may be courteous and amiable with these last, but we cannot deal with the on the same plane as with the white American officers without deeply wounding the latter.  We must not eat with them, must not shake hands or seek to talk or meet with them outside of the requirements of military service.

The United States Government, it seems, felt that exposing the order might create international tensions.  On May 2 the New-York Tribune reported that The Crisis office had received notice from the Post Office Department "that their May issue of 100,000 copies was being held up in the mails pending a report from Washington."

The NAACP faced a staunch opponent in the Nights of the Ku-Klux Klan.  On January 2, 1921 the New-York Tribune reported, "A reorganized Ku-Klux Klan, with branches already established throughout the South, has invaded the North with the avowed intention of becoming a national fraternal order.  A den has been projected for New York City."

Imperial wizard William Joseph Simmons refused to comment, but the NAACP was already on the case, using an undercover operative.  The New-York Tribune said, "Doubtless there will be some surprise for Colonel Simmons when it is brought to his attention that the first definite information concerning the proposed New York den came through confidential correspondence of the Klan with an official of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, whose headquarters are at 70 Fifth Avenue."  The article explained, "Posing as a white man interested in the formation of a local den an association official arranged to have his name submitted for membership in the Klan."

The NAACP was busy on several fronts at the time.  When 11 Blacks were slaughtered in Georgia by whites "practicing the peonage [i.e. involuntary service] system," according to the New York Herald on April 4, 1921, Governor Hugh M. Dorsey wrote the the NAACP.  He promised his support, but added, "The Governor, as you know, has no jurisdiction.  All he can do is to try to bolster up the officials elected by the people."

The atrocity in Georgia paled to the genocide committed in Tulsa, Oklahoma less than two months later.  Known at the time as the Tulsa Race Riots it was in reality a massacre.  An entire Black community was obliterated, as many as 800 people were hospitalized, and 6,000 interned in large facilities.  The Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statics placed the number of dead at 36, but the NAACP pushed back on the numbers.

In a statement on June 2 it said in part:  "White people often attempt to conceal the number."  It went on to say, "The first report from Tulsa indicates a terrible use of the modern instruments of war, airplanes, automobiles and guns used by white Americans upon their colored neighbors."

The National Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures, now known as the National Board of Review, was still in the building, although somewhat overshadowed by its the more visible tenants.  It published an annual catalog entitled, "The Best Motion Pictures for Church and Semi-Religious Entertainments."

Other tenants throughout the 1920's included the West Virginia Miners' Relief Committee, the Church Peace Union, the National Child Welfare Association, and the offices of at least three architects--Anthony F. Kimball, Roderick B. Barnes, and Frank Arnold Colby.

By the early 1930's the publishing firm of James T. White & Co. was in the building.  It was perhaps best known for its National Cyclopedia of American Biography.  It was joined in the Educational Building around 1938 by Prentice-Hall, Inc.  And in 1956 Forbes, Inc. took three floors.

The 63-year-old Mills College of Education owned 70 Fifth Avenue and 66 Fifth Avenue in 1972 when officials announced hopes "that Mills will ultimately become a subdivision of the New School," as reported by The New York Times on September 3.  The New School of Social Research had already agreed to take over the mortgage charges of the two Fifth Avenue buildings.  Within the year the New School had acquired the properties.

In 1998 the New School leased the 2,000-square-foot retail store to Posman Books.  It was a good fit, according to a spokesperson for the school.  "We have seven colleges now, in the Village and around Manhattan, and we didn't have our own bookstore."

A renovation completed in 2006 for The New School and the Shelia C. Johnson Design Center of the Parsons School of Design.  Although the building was not yet landmarked (that came in 2021), Charles A. Rich's striking exterior was left almost pristinely intact.

photographs by the author

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Louis A. Abramson's 1926 210 West 78th Street

British actor Maurice Barrymore was a major star on the American stage.  Each of his three children, Lionel, Ethel and John, would go on to stellar careers, as well.  (As would his granddaughter, Drew Barrymore.)  Barrymore and his second wife, Mamie Floyd, lived in a three-story brownstone-fronted house at 210 West 78th Street at the turn of the last century.  

On March 28, 1901 Barrymore broke down during a performance, raging with emotional rants until he was taken off stage as the shocked audience looked on.   He was committed to Bellevue Hospital.  Soon thereafter, Mamie held an auction of the 78th Street house and its contents.

The Barrymore house and the three identical 18-foot wide homes at 206, 208 and 212 survived until 1925 when they were purchased to make was for a modern apartment building.  At the time a fascination with the neo-Tudor style was sweeping the country.  Anne Hathaway-ready cottages, suburban mansions, and even entire planned communities were being designed in the storybook style.  

Architect Louis Allen Abramson joined the trend in designing 210 West 78th Street with a castellated entrance and parapet, rough-faced Flemish bond brickwork, and charming half-timbering.  Completed in 1926, the structure rose nine stories plus a single-apartment penthouse unseen from the street.

The building filled with professionals like Henry Mendelson, president of the William Murray Coat Company, and physician Lewis G. Griffin.  One resident, however, seems to have been a bit shadier.

Oscar Holub, his wife, Sophia, and their 16-year old daughter were among the initial occupants.  Holub listed his profession as an automobile salesman but, in fact, he was in the "wholesale liquor business," as diplomatically worded by the Beacon, New York Daily Herald.   More directly put, he was a bootlegger.

He also seems to have been a philanderer.  On the night of December 14, 1926, shortly after moving into 210 West 78th Street, he was riding on the Albany Post Road outside of Fishkill, New York with a 27-year-old woman named Margaret Jackson.  His driver, Abraham Lato crashed the car, which flipped over, killing Holub instantly.  Lato and Margaret Jackson were taken to police headquarters.

Police found $9,000 in cash in Holub's pocketbook--the equivalent of $130,000 today.  Margaret quickly changed her identity to the recently widowed Margaret Holub.  As Coroner George Logan was taking her statement, another woman walked in, claiming to be Lena Holub--the actual widow.  The Daily News reported, "She claimed the body and the $9,000.  No sooner did the coroner set about the task of untangling the problem which the appearance of two women created than a third entered his office.  This one was Sophie Holub."

The Newburgh News reported, "The problem was too great for Coroner George Logan, and he has turned the money over to Surrogate Southard of Putnam County.  The women will have to argue their claims to court."  A reporter from the Daily News went to 210 West 78th Street, where the doorman confirmed Sophia's claim.

The tenant list during the 1930's included some fascinating figures.  Retired New York police detective Stephen J. Reardon was among them.   Because he had worked in the Theater District throughout his career, he was close friends with celebrities, like George M. Cohan.  Reardon's portrait by the well-known illustrator Harrison Fisher hung in his apartment here.

At the same time Paul N. Lazarus, Jr., advertising manager of Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc., and Robert A Simons, music critic of The New Yorker lived in the building; as did Julius Rosenberg, one of the owners of the American Rug and Carpet Co., his wife, Anna, and their son Thomas.

Anna Rosenberg drew much more attention than did her businessman husband.   The Jewish Telegraphic Agency called her "one of those highly efficient modern women of today."  Born in Budapest as Anna Lederer, she had been involved in politics since 1922 when she managed the campaign of Walter Hagan for a seat on the Board of Alderman.  She also managed the campaigns of State Senator James J. Buckley and Congressman Theodor A. Peyser.  In November 1934 she was appointed to succeed Nathan Straus, Jr. as the State National Recovery Administration Compliance Director.  

Aside from the untidy issue of Oscar Holub's bootlegging, there was only one instance of scandalous behavior within the building.  In 1933 Flo Brown and her "sweetheart," Jimmy Fredericks, moved into an apartment here.  Flo was known in Chinatown as Cokey Flo because of her drug habit.   Fredericks was the reputed general manager of gangster Charles "Lucky" Luciano.  Flo retained her previous apartment on West End Avenue and operated her business from both locations.

On May 23, 1936 the Daily News reported, "A powerful chain of disorderly houses for the retailing of counterfeit love was the dream which Charles (Lucky) Luciano, Public Enemy No. 1, set out to make a reality here.  He outlined his ambition before a gathering of his lieutenants and their girl friends in a smoke-filled Chinatown restaurant, one of his feminine party companions testified dramatically yesterday."

That woman was Flo Brown.  The newspaper said, "Cokey Flo's nerves twitched for lack of the drugs she has used for five years, but she held the stand all day and proved by far the most important witness yet called."

Flo was asked about the West End Avenue and 210 West 78th Street apartments:

"They were both houses of prostitution, were they not?"

"Yes."

"And were they both five dollar places?"

"No, by that time I had lowered the price to three."

Understandably, Flo Brown and Jimmy Fredericks were no longer residents in 1937.

More upstanding tenants throughout the next decades were dentist Aaron Hirschenbaum; Edward A. Lipton and his wife, Blanche; and attorney-CPA Samuel Yamin.  The residents' comfortable lifestyles were reflected in Lipton's mentioning in 1956, "During the winter I live at 210 West 78th Street," suggesting a country home.

The building was converted to co-ops in 1981.  In 1990 architect Andrew Tesoro purchased the nondescript, 400-square-foot penthouse apartment which sat upon the roof almost like an afterthought.  He wisely negotiated the air rights into the purchase.  He enlarged the one-floor space to a two-story structure with a sloping A-frame style copper roof.  The triangular shape created a third-floor attic, what Tesoro described to The New York Times journalist Barbara Whitaker as a "kind of treehouse bedroom for my niece and godson."  The quirky and delightful structure can be spied from street level at the precise angle across Amsterdam Avenue.

Tesero was also responsible for the the sidewalk outside the building.  Rather than using imitation bluestone as was common, the co-op board chose a lighter, limestone color.  On October 5, 1997 The New York Times architectural columnist Christopher Gray reported that Tesero "also put in 11 decorative tiles--nine-inch terra cotta colored squares he salvaged from a remodeling job at the 1907 Hendrik Hudson apartment house, at 110th Street and Riverside Drive."

Externally, Louis A. Abramson's charming neo-Tudor fantasy is utterly unchanged since 1926 when the first well-to-do residents moved in.

photographs by the author

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The Lost Washington Life Building - Broadway and Liberty Streets

 

The impressive building was worthy of its own turn-of-the-century postcard.

On February 15, 1896 the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that the Washington Life Insurance Co. had paid $1.28 million for the southwest corner of Broadway and Liberty Street.   It added, "the sale must rank as the most important that has been made in the down-town business section since the purchase by the Singer Manufacturing Co. of the northwest corner of the same thoroughfare."  The cost of the land would be equivalent to just under $36 million today.

The firm hired architect Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz to design its new 19-story skyscraper.   Iron frame construction coupled with innovations like electricity and elevators had recently made tall buildings possible.  As excavation for the foundation was underway in July 1897 The New York Times explained the deep "hole" was "of the utmost importance" to support the 280-foot tall structure.  "This vast weight will be supported by seventeen caisson piers," said the article, upon bedrock 75 feet below the street.

Construction was not without its problems.  On November 25, 1897 The World reported, "A steel girder weighing 3,000 pounds fell fifteen stories yesterday from the Washington Life Building...It struck the pavement in Liberty street about twenty yards back from Broadway, grinding the paving-stones into small fragments and tearing up the earth for a depth of nearly thirty inches.  The shock of the impact was sufficient to manifest itself to pedestrians within a radius of a block."  Thankfully none of those pedestrians was near the impact site.

Four months later progress was ground to a halt by competing labor unions.  The Sun explained on March 25, 1898 "The grievance was that housesmiths were doing the work of metal lathers."  The latter, members of the Metal Lathers' Union, walked off the job, insisting that the workers of the Housesmiths and Bridgemen's Union got back to their own business.  The general contractor, Otto M. Eidlitz (Cyrus Eidlitz's uncle), assisted in negotiating a return to work.

Real Estate Record & Guide, April 30, 1898 (copyright expired)

Construction was completed in the spring of 1898.  The Record & Guide commented that "one has to give up as irredeemably ugly" some of the recent skyscrapers.  However, it went on, the "Washington Life is one of the few that are positively attractive, and in which allowances do not have to be made."

Eidlitz had turned to the German Renaissance for inspiration in his design.  Above the three-story base faced in pink granite, the main shaft was clad in limestone.  It was the topmost section that set the building apart.  The Record & Guide called the roof "the architectural fortune of the building," adding that with out it, "it would be a sky-scraper rather better than the average.  With it, it becomes a distinguished and brilliant performance."  The steeply pitched bronze tiled roof detonated with spikey German Renaissance dormers.

The Washington Life Insurance Co. leased space to a variety of tenants.  Among the first was the real estate firm of E. A. Cruikshank & Co., which took a suite of ten rooms before construction was completed.   Another of the initial tenants was the American Commercial Corporation which sought to revolutionize the way trading was done on Wall Street.

On May 25, 1899 The Buffalo Review reported on the firm's "machine invented to solve the secrets of Wall Street," calling it an "extraordinary device."  The company had impressive credentials.  Its president was Deputy Assistant Treasurer of the United States, the treasurer was former Treasure of the United States under President Benjamin Harrison, and its secretary was Francis H. Baldwin who had recently graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School.

The article said, "The officers of the company whose machine is to turn paupers into millionaires are so confident that they have great fortunes in their grasp that they are sending circulars to all parts of the United States from their handsomely appointed offices in the Washington Life Building."  The gizmo was not taken seriously by brokerage firms.  "Wall Street was inclined to laugh," said the article.  "Hundreds of systems are tried in the stock market every year and never has one failed to work ruin to its promoters and those who had faith in it."

Several attorneys moved into the building, including Job E. Hedges.  He had previously been secretary to Mayor William L. Strong and was then appointed a judge in the City Court.  He resigned that position "because of the meagreness [sic] of the income," according to The Morning Telegraph, and returned to his private law practice.  "That, too, proved somewhat dull in the matter of income, and he whiled away the time by writing law books to sell to the young and aspiring," said the newspaper.

Hedges finished his Text Book on Taxation in October 1900 and sent it off to the printer.  After a few days the proofs arrived.  Hedges carefully marked his corrections and sent them back.  "Then came the trouble," said The Morning Telegraph.

Between Hedges' office and the printer the manuscript was lost.  And in the days before reproduction machines made multiple copies common, it was a calamity.  "Sounds of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth emanated from over the transom of room 716 of the Washington Life Building," said the article, "and the sometime secretary of Col. Strong was heard to indulge freely in the same language that was used by the 'Teapot Mayor' when visited by an extra vigorous twinge of the gout."

Hedges placed notices in various newspapers, offering a reward.  Seemingly against all odds, on October 23 a "long haired and whiskered" man appeared with a roll of manuscript tied with a blue ribbon.  The clerk in Hedges' office immediately recognized the bowknot "as a Hedges tie."  Hedges was overjoyed to see the rolled manuscript and shook the man's hand, slipping a silver dollar into it.  The bewhiskered man left as Hedges opened the package.  To his dismay, inside was a copy of the book The Single Tax by Henry George, along with a scrawled message, "This beats your rot all to death."

The Morning Telegraph called the scam "a cruel canard," and said "Job E. Hedges is slowly recovering from the greatest shock his literary aspirations ever received.  His shattered nerves are slowly assuming their normal form, and his physicians hope for his recovery."

King's New York City Handbook, 1903 (copyright expired)

Benedict Brothers leased one of the ground floor store spaces in December 1902.  The venerable jewelry firm had been established in 1819 by Samuel W. Benedict, the current owners' father.  The New York Press said, "For valuable and artistic jewelry no more extensive display can be found than in the large, new and beautiful store of Benedict Brothers...It is well worth a visit to see the store alone."

Among the employees of Washington Life Insurance was Robert Endicott.  His close friend, George H. Griffiths had been in the insurance business, too, but lost his job with the Greenwich Life Insurance Company in 1903.   Still unable to find new employment a year later, Griffiths' "health began to fail on account of a nervous affection," according to The Evening World.  "Latterly he suffered from nervous prostration and imagined that paresis was overtaking him."

In an effort to cheer his friend up, Endicott took him to lunch on May 27, 1904.  Afterward they returned to Endicott's office where they "had a long, animated conversation in which Mr. Endicott tried to lighten the spirits of Mr. Griffiths."  The ploy did not work.  Griffiths went to an adjoining room where, half an hour later, the janitor found his body.  He had swallowed carbolic acid.

The advent of skyscrapers brought a new terror--high rise fires.  On January 28, 1907 the New-York Tribune reported, "Flames burst out of the windows of the fifth floor of the Broadway side of the nineteen story Washington Life Building...shortly after 5 o'clock yesterday morning."

The fire had broken out in the law offices of Lee & Fleischman.  The New York Times said, "It was a blaze of dangerous possibilities until the four engine companies mastered it by quick action."  Fire fighters had to haul the heavy hoses up the four flights of stairs to battle the blaze from inside.  They were able to confine the fire to the Lee & Flesichman offices, which were "practically gutted."  

At the time, Andrew W. Smith worked as a "confidential man" for the Warren Chemical Company here.  The position gave him access to the firm's proprietary information, and to its funds.  He was fired in January 1909 when he was suspected of embezzlement.  Five days later detectives appeared at his home on West 112th Street with a warrant for his arrest.

Mrs. Smith told the detectives that her husband was out of town on business.  Armed with a warrant, they searched the apartment.  The New York Times reported, "They were just giving up, when one of the detectives noticed the mattress of the bed rising and falling as though imbued with life.  He looked beneath it and saw the figure of a man lying on his back, his bare toes and fingers twisted in the bed springs."

With Smith's digits firmly entwined in the springs, the officers could not extract him.  Then one of them grabbed a whisk broom and began tickling the captive.  He "brushed it delicately along the soles of the man's feet.  They writhed for a minute or two, then came to the floor with a bang."

But the struggle was not yet over.  "The detectives rolled the bed all over the room, but Smith kept close to its centre with his wriggling.  Finally, the sleuths stripped from the bed pillows, sheets, mattress, and springs; then they tumbled over on top of the man in pink pajamas."

Smith admitted to his identity.  He was asked why he was hiding under the bed.  "Well, I didn't go there to pay golf," he replied.  He was arrested and appeared before a judge charged with embezzling upwards of $25,000 over the course of nine years--around three quarters of a million in today's dollars.

In January 1915 the newly-formed Russian Chamber of Commerce moved its offices into the building.  The organization was not endorsed by the Russian Imperial Consulate General.  He placed a notice in The New York Times on May 7 that announced its managing director, Ivan Narodny, "is not registered as a Russian citizen and, moreover, has absolutely no connection with any departments of the Imperial Government."

Narodny had been in the United States for seven years.  According to him he was a political refugee, "but hoped some day to go back."  He told a reporter from The New York Times, "Our desire is to foster trade between Russia and the United States...The Consulate refused its support when we declined to bar Jews."

In 1922 the Washington Life Building was purchased by the Metropolitan Life Company.  Its tenants continued to be attorneys, accounting firms, and brokerage companies.  Among them during the early World War II years was the Hansa Securities Corporation.  The Pennsylvania Securities Commission issued a cease and deist order against the firm in May 1941 for sending hundreds of circulars through the mail "urging German Americans in Pennsylvania to turn their savings into German bonds."  The brochures said in part that converting dollars into marks "has never been so justified in the last twenty-six years as just in this time, in which the victorious conclusion of the war is near for Germany."

It appeared that the end of the line for the Washington Life Building was near in February 1951 when developer Sylvan Lawrence purchased the entire blockfront.  The New York Times reported, "Mr. Lawrence said he planned to modernize and improve the buildings and hold them for improvement."

That "improvement" would come in 1967 when the magnificent Singer Building across Liberty Street was demolished for the United States Steel headquarters.  As part of the deal the firm negotiated with city officials to create Liberty Plaza Park (now Zuccotti Park) on the Lawrence-owned block.  In a single stroke, New York City lost two of its most striking early skyscrapers.

photo by MusikAnimal

many thanks to reader Mark Rice for requesting this post

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The Ernest Greenfield House - 340 West 22nd Street

 

As Clement C. Moore initially sold off his family's estate, Chelsea, in the first decades of the 19th century, he wrote restrictive covenants into the deeds to ensure that only high-end residences would be erected.  In January 1835, Abisha Smith purchased the six plots on West 22nd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues under the stipulation that one 25-foot wide house would be erected before the end of the year.  A stone cutter and mason, he was almost undoubtedly the brother of stone dealer Bezaleel F. Smith who would erect a row of houses along the same block.

Abisha Smith erected a handsome residence for himself and his wife, Lydia Ann, in 1836 to comply with the deed requirements.  Five years later, 1841,  he began construction on the remaining houses--no doubt not coincidentally the same year that Bezaleel F. Smith began his row.  Among those erected by Abisha was No.  246 (renumbered 340 in 1868) which, like its neighbors, was designed in the Greek Revival style.  Three stories tall, it was faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.

The house was home to Adolphus M. Corn and his family at least through 1852.  Corn was a wealthy merchant with offices at No. 177 Water Street and a member of the New York Gold Exchange.

The next resident was banker George Haight, here by the mid-1850's.  Living with the family was Betsey Stout, the widow of William Stout and quite possibly Haight's mother-in-law.  

On Saturday afternoon, January 21, 1860, the family sat down to eat.  In the meantime, a brazen woman entered the house, most likely through the basement door.  The New-York Tribune reported, "Letitia Williams, a young colored woman, entered the house of George Haight, No. 246 West Twenty-second street, while the family were at dinner, and stole from there a silk dress, two pair of pantaloons, a coat and some other articles of clothing, in all valued at $55.50."  The amount would top $800 today.

As stealthy as she was, Letitia foolishly tried to leave by the main entrance.  The New York Times reported that she "was just passing out of the front door with her booty, when Mr. Haight observed her."  He detained the woman until a policeman was summoned to arrest her.

The Haights remained in the house until 1864 when it was sold to butcher Henry Keyser and his wife, Mary.  Keyser's business was located in the Clinton Market.  Following his death in 1869, Mary sold her home.  An auction of the furnishings was held on May 5 and the sale catalog hinted at the upscale interiors.  Among the items was a "rosewood 7 octave Piano," clocks, bronzes and "ornaments," and parlor and bedroom suites in rosewood and walnut.

The entrance was updated with these striking Italianate entrance doors sometime after the Civil War.

Ernest Greenfield and his wife, the former Margaret J. McClennan, purchased No. 340.  Greenfield had been a partner with George and Albert Young in the candy making firm of Greenfield & Young.  The same year he moved his family into the West 22nd Street house, that partnership was dissolved and Greenfield took over the business, renaming it Ernest Greenfield & Co.

The couple had two sons, Nelson and Ernest, Jr., and a daughter Caroline.  Nelson would join his father in the family business, while Ernest, Jr. became a stock broker.  

The business was renamed Ernest Greenfield & Son following Nelson's entering the firm.  Its confectionary store and factory, located on Barclay Street, was touted by The New York Times as the "largest manufactory of the kind in the country."  On the afternoon of December 20, 1877, according to the New York Herald, there were "about one hundred and ten persons" working in the factory, although other sources placed the number at more.  The store was filled with customers buying candy for the Christmas holiday.

At around 5:00 Ernest Greenfield was talking to a customer, Joseph Munyen, who later recalled he "felt a sudden trembling of the floor, and was instantly surprised to find that he could scarcely keep his feet."  Seconds later the building was rocked by a massive explosion.  The New-York Tribune wrote, "While horses, carts and men were passing to and fro a sudden explosion rent the air, stunned the pedestrians and frightened the horses; the startled people looked toward the spot at which it occurred and saw the front of Greenfield's confectionery rock and, splitting, pitch forward into the middle of the street."

A reporter to spoke to Joseph Munyen said, "A group of five or six girls were at the time standing between him and the door putting up candies, and he thinks they were all successful in making their exit.  He had no time to pay any attention to Mr. Greenfield, who, he was glad to find, arrived on the sidewalk at the same moment with himself."  Nelson Greenfield also escaped and soon found his father.  The New-York Tribune reported, "Mr. Greenfield recovered in a few minutes from the effects of the shock and went home with his son in a carriage.  His scalp is pretty badly burned and his hands are slightly blistered, but otherwise he has...received no injuries."

The rescue and recovery went far into the night after the fire--which spread to adjoining buildings--was finally extinguished.  It took weeks before all the bodies could be recovered from the debris.  The New York Times later wrote, "By that time the bodies were so badly decomposed that in some instances it was impossible to tell whether one or two had been brought to light."

The factory and store were rebuilt and Ernest Greenfield & Son continued as one of the country's leading candy makers.  

Following Ernest Greenfield's death in 1898, his sons sold 340 West 22nd Street.  What had been a sumptuous private home was described by the city's Committee on Fire Patrol in 1899 as a "lodging house." Lodging houses, which rented rooms with a cot by the night only, were the lowest level of rooming houses.

That arrangement was short-lived.  On June 19, 1899 Nelson Greenfield foreclosed on the property.  The family retained possession, leasing it again as a private home.  Although Nelson died in 1901, the estate continued to lease No. 340 until 1916 when it was sold.  It may be, however, that the house technically did not leave the family.  Title was put in the name of Jennie E. McClellan, quite possibly a relative of Margaret McClellan Greenfield.

The original Greek Revival entrance enframement can be seen in his photo taken around 1941.  The Italianate doors appear to be the same as those that grace the entrance today.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

No. 340 remained a private house until 1970 when it was converted to apartments.  It was possibly at this time that the stoop was removed and the entrance moved to the former basement level.

A remarkable restoration was initiated in 2001 to return the property to a single family home.  The stoop was refabricated and a period-appropriate Greek Revival enframement installed (although not identical to the original).  The years-long project brought the house back nearly to its 1841 appearance.

photographs by the author

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The M. B. McAvoy Drugstore Building - 163 Christopher Street

 

In 1877 Levi A. Lockwood acquired the three vintage structures at the northeast corner of Washington and Christopher Streets.  Two years later he hired architect John B. Snook to design a store and flat building on the site.  Completed in 1880, the five-story structure was faced in red brick and trimmed in limestone.  Snook chamfered the corner to give additional light and ventilation to the apartments.  The residential entrance was flanked by two commercial spaces.

A fire escape system in the form of iron-railed balconies was both handsome and ingenious.  An enclosed, fireproof stairway essentially bisected the structure into two buildings.  Hallway doors opened onto the balconies, allowing tenants exit the burning side, enter the stairwell, and descend safely to the street.

The smaller store became home to Gottfried I Hartung's "segar" store, while the larger corner space became home to William H. Lauer's saloon, no doubt a welcome sight for sailors and dock men along the nearby riverfront.  

Lauer's business had not operated long before he was convicted for manslaughter on May 24, 1880.   He had hit and killed a pedestrian on the evening of October 24, 1879, then "whipped his horse into a run," as reported in the Public Ledger.   A police officer tried to chase him down, but gave up.  He had seen, however, "that the name painted on the wagon was Lauer."

The building's residents were, expectedly, working class.  Among the initial tenants were the Stock family, which had significant domestic problems.  On January 31, 1880 The Evening Telegram reported, "Frederick Stock, a sallow-complexioned, broad-shouldered young man of twenty-two years...was this morning arraigned before Justice Duffy, in the Jefferson Market Police Court, by a policeman of the Charles street police station, and called upon to answer for an assault committed by him upon his mother, a lady of about fifty-five years of age."  Mrs. Stock appeared in court with a swollen and badly bruised face, "the result, she said, of her son's brutality."

Additionally, when Frederick's father had attempted to intervene, Frederick threatened to kill him with a "huge knife," according to the arresting officer.  The young man's sister was also in court, testifying that he had previously stolen various pieces of jewelry from her.  When Frederick was unable to post the $700 bail (more than $18,000 today), he was sent to the Workhouse on Blackwell's Island.

The socio-economic level of the residents in the mid-1880's was reflected in their various jobs.  Francis Albony, for instance, was a bootblack; William Coffey was a watchman (a security guard by today's terms); Jonathan L. Cole was a house painter while John W. Cole was a carpenter.  

A young French couple named Tillard arrived in New York in 1883 and moved into the building.  Tillard had been a lieutenant in the French Army and now went into the wine business.  On the afternoon of August 31 another tenant heard moaning coming from the Tillard apartment.  The Evening Post reported, "Madame Tillard...was found lying on the bed, and when questioned as to what was the matter, said she felt very badly."  The neighbor assumed she was suffering from a toothache and left. 

The situation was much worse than a toothache.  When her husband returned home at about 6:00 that evening he found her "in a serious way" and, when he looked closer, "discovered that she had been shot in the neck."  A French-speaking physician was called, who sent for an ambulance.  The 25-year-old woman was critically injured.  According to The Evening Post, "The bullet had entered close to the wind-pipe and lodged in the back of the neck.  The bullet was of a large calibre."

Police assumed that Madame Tillard "was cleaning out a bureau drawer, when she found a pistol which her husband had placed there.  She did not know it was loaded, and while carelessly handling it, it went off."

By 1896 Joseph Schenone ran his fruit store in the former cigar shop and lived with his mother upstairs.  On April 16 he placed an advertisement in the New York Herald that read, "LOST -- An old woman (Italian): strayed away from home; aged about 65 years; any information will be rewarded; $10 reward, dead or alive."

Teresa Schenone spoke no English.  She left the apartment on April 10 and walked to her daughter's home at 119 Baxter Street.  She arrived there, spent some time, and headed back at 5:00, but never arrived home.  Now, a week later, Joseph gave a detailed description:

She wore a black calico dress with white lace on it, a white shawl and a black wrap.  She was small and had gray hair.  She was very strong for her age, however, and could easily walk from Baxter street to this place.  She did this repeatedly.

Joseph's statements, however, were a bit concerning.  "It is my opinion that she came out of my sister's and started east instead of west for Hudson street.  She probably got lost, and has been staying with Italians on the east side," he told reporters.  The idea that the woman would not have tried to get home after week made no sense; nor did her making such a drastic mistake after having made the trip "repeatedly."  And the fact that her son waited nearly that long to look for her was even more suspicious.  Whether Teresa was ever found is unclear.

Irish-born Sullivan family lived here in 1905.  Tom Sullivan passed by the brother of Tony Salamone--a member of the Black Hand terrorist group--on Hudson Street that summer, ignoring him.  According to The Sun on July 25, "The latter walked up to Sullivan and asked why he didn't speak.  'I knew you all right,' replied Sullivan, 'but I don't have to speak to the likes of you.'"  Hearing of the affront on his brother, Tony Salamone set out to "fix things."

A few nights later, on July 24, Tony found Tom on the street and said something.  Tom responded and wisely hurried on.  When he reached the door to the Christopher Street building, Tony stopped him from entering, "and asked him to walk along the street a bit further."  When they got to the corner of Washington Street, Tony pulled out a razor.  Sullivan ran to the door of the parish house of St. Veronica's Church, where he had been an altar boy.

The Sun said, "He rang the bell, but his call was not answered, and almost at once the Italian was at him slashing with the razor until Sullivan sank in a pool of blood on the steps of the house."  Although none of the terrified bystanders came to Tom's aid, someone did run to the Sullivan apartment and notified his brother, James.  While James chased Salamone, "a large crowd had gathered and nearly 300 joined in the hunt."

James Sullivan overtook Salamone at the corner of Barrow and Hudson Streets, "and the crowd closed in."  Luckily for Salamone, Detective Carmody was quickly on the scene.   Otherwise, said The Sun, "Tony might never have needed the services of anything but a coroner's jury.  As it was, Carmody had a hard fight to land his prisoner in the station house."  In the meantime, Tom Sullivan was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital where he was given "a small chance to live."

At the time of that episode Minnie Belle McAvoy had just taken over the corner commercial space for her M. B. McAvoy Pharmacy.   William Lauer's saloon had survived through the 1880's, replaced by the McRae & Co. drugstore.  On July 27, 1905 The Pharmaceutical Era reported that Minnie McAvoy "succeeds McRay & Co."  She paid $3,500 for the business--a significant $105,000 in today's money.

Born in Rome, New York in 1876, she had graduated from the New York College of Pharmacy in 1902.  She had initially worked in a drugstore before deciding to strike out on her own.  

Minnie McAvoy's business drew its customers from three main sources--the blue collar neighborhood residents, the crowds of people who streamed past on their way to and from the ferry to New Jersey at the foot of Christopher Street, and the hoards of sailors whose ships docked along the waterfront.  The stout woman's personality--a mixture of no-nonsense business and maternal compassion--quickly made her a beloved figure.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle later described her saying she "runs a pharmacy, is guide and philosopher to sailors and marine workers...and trusted by everybody.  She'll pass the time of day, hold money and valuables for seafaring folk, talk shop about her medicines, run a little post office for seamen who even entrust her with personal matters."

Stockbroker Walter B. Boyle was passing by the pharmacy on July 18, 1908 after getting off the ferry from Hoboken.  At the corner of Washington Street he came across two men loudly arguing.  "Gentlemen, don't quarrel!" he said.

The San Francisco Call reported, "That mild remark cause two men...to stop their altercation, pick up the speaker and throw him through a big plate glass window into McAvoy's drug store, at 163 Christopher street.  They fled, but Policeman Beggs of the Charles street station arrested the peace maker as he lay amid broken glass and patent medicine bottles."

Boyle was charged with intoxication.  In the Jefferson Market Court an hour later he pleaded that he was a witness, not a culprit.  Magistrate Walsh seems to have believed him, but wondered aloud who was going to pay for Minnie McAvoy's window.  The would-be pacifist discovered that his good intentions would cost him.  He promised to replace the window.

"That's the proper spirit," said the judge, "I'll fine you $2."

The opening of the Hudson River Tubes on Christopher Street in 1908 put an end to the ferry service.  Nevertheless, Minnie McAvoy's business prospered and the story of the plucky woman spread across the nation.  

On February 4, 1924 The Alaska Daily Empire said, "she is a manufacturing chemist, shipping her preparations to all parts of the world.  At the same time she is known as 'Doctor' all over her neighborhood, where people take their minor ills to her."  Among her self-made tonics was an herbal compound the sailors swore cured a hangover.  According to The New Yorker in 1938, "She has sold 50,000 bottles in the last 29 years."

Minnie McAvoy shakes a barrel of her remedy before bottling it.  She told a reporter "The agitation has to be kept up continuously for half an hour before it is ready to be drawn."  The Spatula, February 1924 (copyright expired)

In the early hours of August 22, 1925 two patrolmen, officers Joseph McAllister and Thomas Rooney, were passing the drugstore when they heard the sound of crashing glass.   Three burglars had gotten into the cellar by breaking a padlock and then cut a two-foot hole in the basement ceiling to gain entrance to the store.  Two of them,  James McArdle and Frank Brien, shimmied up, leaving the Joseph Kopp to stand guard.  But in the darkness they bumped into a pile of Minnie's glass chemical containers which crashed to the floor, alerting the police on the sidewalk.  At the same time the burglar alarm went off.

The New York Times reported, "The police were already at the door when the bell started clanging, and at this instant...Brien and McArdle, deciding it was time to leave, ducked through the hole in the floor and dashed out of the cellar exit, leaving Kopp behind."  The officers chased the two down Christopher Street until two pistol shots into the air convinced the crooks to stop.

Back at the drugstore Officer Rooney found Kopp hiding in the dark basement.  "Then were sounds of a scuffle, and the policeman appeared with his man," said the article.  A block away the police found the getaway car, stolen a week earlier.  The men were later identified as the trio that had held up a Chinese restaurant on West 42nd Street earlier that night.

Minnie Belle McAvoy's reputation continued to spread.  On May 3, 1939 the Danville, Kentucky newspaper the Kentucky Advocate reported, "Seafaring men from all over the world drop in at Miss Minnie Belle McAvoy's drug store in Greenwich Village, New York, to have her give them medicine and kind words.  To many of them she is 'Mother McAvoy,' and her acquaintance with truckmen, sailors and clerks from wholesale houses has grown considerably in the thirty-three years since she first opened up her shop."

Minnie McAvoy tends to a neighborhood boy's scalded arm.  The Alaska Daily Empire, February 4, 1924

The New York Times said, "Mother McAvoy learned phrases from half a dozen foreign languages, so that she could converse with sailors who knew only Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French and a few others.  From her old-fashioned desk in the store she also acted as a notary public and helped many sailors who turned to land-lubbing to become citizens."

Minnie McAvoy was so trusted that, according to The New Yorker in 1938, "Many sailors make straight for Mother McAvoy's when they get paid off and give her most of their money to put away in her safe to prevent wild spending."  The New York Times added, "Occasionally, when a sailor boisterously demanded all of his pay so he could 'see the town,' Mother McAvoy would look at him cautiously, hand him a dollar and tell him to come back for more when he felt better."  

The McAvoy Drug Store window noted that services like "citizen papers filled out here" and "notary public" were available.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Kentucky Advocate noted on May 3, 1939, "Sometimes [her customers] borrow money of her and she boasts that she has never lost a cent.  They are goodhearted and honest, she says, and adds that you get what you give in this world."

Then, on November 12, 1940, The New York Times reported, "Miss Minnie Belle McAvoy, known to sailors of the seven seas as 'Mother McAvoy,' and one of the few women proprietors of a drug store in this city, died yesterday at the age of 64.  For more than forty years she had spent her days from sunrise to sunset in a small old-time drug store at 163 Christopher Street...just a block from the teeming Chelsea waterfront."

The article recalled, "To sailors and truckmen of the neighborhood she was more than a druggist who had invented her own special vegetable tonic that was excellent for a hangover.  She was a friendly counsellor and a 'bank' and 'post office' for sailors on their brief stays ashore from far-away lands."  The newspaper quoted her as once stating, "Folks sometimes say this is a rough, tough neighborhood.  'Pshaw,' I tell them, it's the nicest, kindest place in the world."

Minnie Belle McAvoy's funeral was held in St. Veronica's Church just up the block on November 13.  It ended a remarkable chapter in Greenwich Village history.

The McAvoy pharmacy entrances were on either side of a show window, unlike the corner configuration today.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The second half of the 20th century saw tremendous change in the neighborhood.  By 1975 the smaller store was the home of Edward Gilly's custom made stained glass shop, and the former McAvoy pharmacy had become the Silver Dollar Restaurant.  

As had been with case with the drugstore, the restaurant was broken into in the early morning hours of May 13, 1977.  The burglars did not make off with cash and their loot was easily detected.  The Villager reported, "Two suspects were reportedly found walking along West 11th St., with cases of meat after a robbery at a restaurant at 163 Christopher St."  Anthony Bosco was charged with burglary, possession of stolen property, and resisting arrest, while the other culprit escaped.

Mother McAvoy's funeral was held in St. Veronica's Church, to the right.

Both commercial spaces house restaurants today, while the upper portion of John B. Snook's 1880 structure remains remarkably unaltered.  And Mother McAvoy, a significant figure in Greenwich Village history, has largely been forgotten.

photographs by the author

many thanks to reader Joseph McConnell for suggesting this post

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