The 1887 Dr. John J. McPhee House - 367 West 123rd Street

 

Architect Charles E. Baxter designed a row of brownstone-faced houses for developer and builder Samuel H. Bailey on "the lots on the northeast corner of Ninth avenue and One Hundred and Twenty-third street," as described by the Record & Guide.  Completed on April 30, 1887, they rose three stories above English basements.  Baxter blended touches of Queen Anne into his overall neo-Grec designs. The end homes featured full-height angled bays. 

The identical center homes, including 367 West 123rd Street, boasted striking, curved metal oriels capped with delicate iron cresting.  Their double-doored entrances within columned porticoes sat atop solid, stone stoops.  The windows of the parlor and top levels sat within architrave neo-Grec frames.  Complex multi-level pressed metal cornices crowned the design.

Dr. John J. McPhee lived here by the early 1890s.  The young physician had graduated from the Medical Department of the University of Vermont in 1890 and was now a visiting neurologist and professor with the Post Graduate Medical School and Hospital.

In 1895, Mylon H. Fox and his wife, the former Mary Jones, purchased the house.  The couple were born in 1840 and 1842 respectively, and living with them was Mary's mother, Irene N. Jones, the widow of Thaddeus S. Jones.  Irene died in the house on April 5, 1896 at the age of 89.

On July 19, 1898, the Foxes sold 367 West 123rd Street to Benjamin C. Bent and his wife, Louise Linden, for $16,000 (about $624,000 in 2025 terms).  The husband and wife were both musicians.

Born in England in 1847, Bent came to New York City around 1872.  In 1884, he became the cornet soloist in Gilmore's Band.  Louise was born Louise Pott on September 10, 1862 in New York City.  She began studying saxophone and made her first public performance in 1876.  The couple met in May 1878 and a romance quickly developed.  Bent, who was 30 years old, and Louise, who was not yet 16, eloped to Newport and were married on July 18.  

Benjamin C. Bent. (original source unknown)

Before long, the two performed and toured mostly independently.  Louise was known by audiences as Louise Linden--the surname of her brother-in-law and teacher Fred der Linden.  By the time they purchased 367 West 123rd Street, they were appearing together.  Three months earlier, on March 27, 1898, they appeared in a benefit performance at the American Theater.

Louise was featured on this poster around 1880. from the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania

The Bents' residency at 367 West 123rd Street was cut short five months after purchasing the house.  On December 30, 1898, Benjamin C. Bent died "from paralysis of the brain," as reported by the New York Herald.  He was 51 years old.  Recalling that he had been "for many years the principal cornet soloist of Gilmore's Band," the newspaper said he, "was considered one of the most finished artists on that instrument in his profession."

Less than two months later, on February 16, 1898, Louise Linden Bent advertised in the New York Herald, "At sacrifice, handsome 3 story and basement brown stone house; terms reasonable.  367 West 123d st."  She moved to the Bronx where she died in 1934.

The new owner leased the house to a succession of occupants for decades.  In the spring of 1910, policeman Walter F. Shea rented it.  Shortly after moving in, he was severely injured.  On May 22, The New York Times reported, "While traveling nearly a mile a minute to overtake a speeding automobile, Motorcycle Policeman Walter Shea was thrown violently to the road yesterday morning when his motorcycle broke in half."

The article explained that Shea was patrolling the Merrick Road in Queens when he noticed the speeder.  "His motorcycle could make fast time, and he opened it up, and started in pursuit."  It appeared that the frame broke when he drove over a rough spot in the highway.  The Brooklyn Eagle reported, "Shea is in now in St. Mary's Hospital, suffering from numerous injuries, both internal and external.  His condition is said to be precarious."

The stoop of 367 West 123rd street shares a railing with the house on the end of the row.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Around 1917, the house became home to the St. Joseph's Council, No. 443, Knights of Columbus.  In addition to the normal activities of fraternal organizations, the members of this one were avid runners.  On November 25, 1919, The Daily Item said the club was "one of the fastest teams in the metropolitan district."

Like many social organizations throughout the city, St. Joseph's Council entertained troops passing through New York City.  On May 3, 1919, for instance, the New-York Tribune announced that a dance would be held here "for men in uniform," and on April 16, The New York Times reported there would be "entertainment by the K. C. at 367 West 123d Street from 2 until 8 in the evening" for the troops.

At the end of the war, the club's focus returned to running.  On January 18, 1920, The Sun reported, "St. Joseph's Council, Knights of Columbus, of Harlem, was granted a sanction...to conduct an open handicap road run on Sunday afternoon, April 18."  The five-and-three-quarter-mile run began "in front of the clubhouse, 367 West 123d street," said the article.

By the beginning of the Great Depression, the house was operated as rented rooms.  An advertisement in The New York Age on May 11, 1940 offered, "Neatly furnished rooms, rent, all improvements, $4 up."  The base rent would translate to about $89 per month today.

A renovation completed in 1983 resulted in two duplex apartments--in the basement and parlor level, and in the second and third.  

photographs by the author

Boak & Paris's 1936 50 East 78th Street

 

Born in 1884 in Russia, Sam Minskoff came to America as a young man as a plumber.  In 1908 he erected his first apartment house and by 1935 was a force in New York City real estate development.  That year, as president of the Forty-Six East 78th St. Corp., he broke ground for an 11-story apartment building at 50 East 78th Street.  Boak & Paris, which had worked with Minskoff on several projects, was hired to design the structure.

Completed in 1936 and costing $150,000 according to The Bridgemen's Magazine, its Art Moderne design included a two-story cast stone base with reeded piers.  A recess above the entrance (typical of Boak & Paris designs) was flanked by corner-wrapping casements.  In its May 1937 issue, The Architectural Forum noted, "The setbacks on the street facade were made to give the rooms another exposure; by the use of corner windows on a narrow street, the view is considerably enlarged."

Architectural Forum, May 1937

The Architectural Forum noted, "This building is located in a residential neighborhood in New York where small apartments are in active demand" and mentioned, "The interiors show the continual trend toward greater simplicity in design."  Indeed, the typical apartments had either two or three rooms and a bath.  Their sunken living rooms had been a trend for several years.

Architectural Forum, May 1937

Residents enjoyed outdoor space on the roof.  Annice M. Alt, writes in Boak & Paris / Boak & Raad:

...there was a roof deck for all tenants.  Long-time tenants remember a roof garden, and, to rinse off after gardening or sun bathing, residents could shower on each landing of the internal fire stairs.

Alt points out another interesting innovation.  Decades before air conditioning, the "apartments had screen doors so that the main doors could be open, allowing cross breezes."

Architectural Forum, May 1937

Among the first tenants were young entertainers Ozzie and Harriet Nelson.  Nelson was the bandleader of Ozzie Nelson and His Orchestra, which recorded for Brunswick starting in 1930.  In 1935, he married the band's singer, Harriet Hilliard.

Ozzie and Harriet Nelson in 1936, the year they moved into the building.  Radio Mirror, October 1936

According to John R. Holmes in his The Adventures of Ozzie Nelson, the Life and Career of America's Favorite Pop, in 1936, pregnant with their first child, "Harriet spent her mornings in March apartment hunting, and by mid-month had found what she was looking for: a family-sized suite in a new building at 50 East 78th Street."  The couple's first son, David, would be born while they lived here.

Rents at the time ranged from $1,100 to $1,500 per year, or about $2,750 per month for the most expensive in 2025 terms.

Living here in 1940 were newlyweds John D. and Beatrice Coleman.  Beatrice was "known also as the Baroness and the Countess de Chaney," according to The New York Sun.  The couple was married in September that year.  Beatrice later told reporters she "left Germany after the rise of Hitler," saying, "she always had been anti-Nazi."

The Colemans separated in 1942.  In April 1945, Beatrice was invited to a cocktail party hosted by Albert E. Langford and his wife, Marion, in their Hotel Marguery apartment.  Two months later, on June 4, Langford was murdered in their suite.  In the meantime, Beatrice had relocated to California.

On June 13, 1945, The New York Sun reported that Beatrice Coleman, "will 'in all probability' be questioned in Hollywood by New York city detectives for any information she can supply."  Beatrice said, "I was invited, but I was ill and couldn't attend."  But detectives were especially interested in her because of her earlier illicit affair with the murdered millionaire.  The Sun recounted, "Mrs. Coleman said that Mrs. Langford was 'very jealous' of her and forced Langford to break off their relationship."  Asked her opinion on what had transpired, she said, "The only thing I can think of is that he was in some one's way.  You know there was much money involved, and money is a powerful force."  (The Langford murder was never solved.)

In the meantime, the residents of 50 East 78th Street were professionals.  M. M. Rosten lived here in November 1951 when his book, Power Alcohol in Canada, was released.  The following year, Dr. Bret Ratner's film Allergy was produced.  The cumbersomely-titled United States Educational Scientific and Cultural Motion Pictures and Filmstrips Suitable and Available for Use Abroad said Ratner's film was intended "to disseminate information concerning the phenomena of protein hypersensitivity."

Unflattering press coverage of residents of 50 East 78th Street was nearly non-existent.  An exception came early in 1960 when 31-year-old Abraham Korman was arrested.  The secretary-treasurer of the Nassau Management Corporation, he and the firm's president were convicted of the "theft of $200,000 in funds entrusted to them," according to the Long Island Star-Journal on February 10.

Around 1963, the E. V. Thaw & Co. art gallery opened in the building.  It was supplanted by the Ira Spanierman, Inc. Gallery, which specialized in 19th century American paintings.  Despite that, according to The New York Times, "Spanierman "has an eye for hidden or dubious Old Masters."  

In 1968, he purchased what he was told was a late 16th century painting.  Spanierman suspected that it was more than that.  On October 11, 1971, The Times reported, "A portrait bought here three years ago by [Spanierman] has been authenticated as a work painted by Raphael in 1518."  Asked what the long-lost portrait of Lorenzo de Medici, Duke of Urbino was worth, Spanierman said, "I don't know, millions probably, but how many I can't say."

Ira Spanierman was no doubt well acquainted with former artist Robert Dain.  A resident of the building, he was the proprietor of the Dain/Shiff Gallery at 1018 Madison Avenue.  After separating from his wife, in 1971 he moved into what The New York Times would later call a "tastefully decorated three-and-a-half-room apartment, whose walls, according to friends, are adorned with Toulouse-Lautrec prints."

Dain left the gallery at 5:30 on the evening of April 22, 1973.  When he failed to show up for the opening of an exhibition the following day, police gained entrance to his ninth-floor apartment.  His nude body was found on the bed with a sheet wrapped around his head.  He had been stabbed several times in the chest.  There was no sign of a struggle and it appeared to investigators that Dain had been drinking Scotch with a visitor.  The murderer was never discovered.

On January 22, 1999, The New York Times reported that Adam Williams, "who ran Newhouse Galleries for 15 years," would be opening his own gallery here.  "He will specialize in European Old Master paintings," said the article.  

Five years later, on November 30, 2004, the woman who was tending the Adam Williams Fine Art Ltd. gallery was expecting a telephone repair crew.  (Williams was abroad at the time.)  At around 11:15 a.m., she unlocked the security door and let two men in.  They were not telephone workers.  While one of the men distracted her, the other slipped a 19th century painting by French artist Théodore Chassériau into his overcoat.  Described as a painting of "a seminude woman with her maids," the insurance company offered a $50,000 reward for its return.  

More recently, the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) moved into the gallery space.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for suggesting this post

photographs by Lowell Cochrane

The Thomas Malloy Saloon - 138 First Avenue

Before 1840, a two-and-a-half story house and store was erected at 138 First Avenue.  Typical of its Federal style, it was faced in Flemish bond brick and its windows wore splayed lintels and keystones.  One or two dormers would have pierced its peaked roof.

As early as 1852, Thomas C. Devlin operated his painting business from the store.  A teenaged apprentice working for Devlin was looking for a new situation in September 1853, but the separation between the trainee and employer appears to have been amiable.  His ad read: 

To Painters--Wanted, by a young man, 18 years of age, a situation to learn the trade.  A note addressed to J. Pease, 138 First avenue, in the paint store, will meet with immediate attention.

Josephine Adams, the widow of Oliver H. Adams, occupied the upper portion of the building by 1855.  Around 1859, Thomas Malloy purchased 138 First Avenue and converted the former paint store to a saloon.  Sharing the upper floors with him was the family of carpenter Daniel Stapleton.  On December 4, 1863, an advertisement appeared in The New York Sun offering, "For Sale--A carpenter's chest, with some tools, all in perfect order.  Inquire at 138 First ave."

Daniel Stapleton would not be needing his work tools for a while.  About a month earlier, he, his sons Michael and Edward J., and his landlord, Thomas Malloy, had all enrolled in the Union Army.  

Following the war, Malloy was back behind his bar.  In 1867, he had four roomers--Henry Bindewald, a cooper (or barrel maker); carver Lewis Leining; policeman John O'Connor; and Charles Turei, a shoemaker.  The number of residents was made possible by the raising of the attic to a full third floor.  Astoundingly, the builder continued the Flemish bond brick and nearly copied the splayed lintels of the lower floor.  A fashionable Italianate cornice was installed, and a brick intermediate cornice over the second floor marked the former roofline.

Malloy's tenants were experiencing a serious problem at the time.  On August 24, 1867, the New York Herald addressed the "group of slaughter houses" around three blocks to the south.  The newspaper said they had been, "described by the inhabitants of neighboring houses to be simply sinks of corruption and pesthouses of uncleanliness, bad smells and cholera."  Despite a prohibition against driving cattle through the city streets, the article said, "huge beasts and bullocks gambol through First avenue."  

More concerning for the occupants of 138 First Avenue, however, were "the dead offal and the bad sewerage of the place."  The New York Herald reported that at 138 First Avenue, "Many of the people have been seriously ill, and two or three deaths have occurred from the evil within the past three months, while to the neighboring streets the slaughter houses in question have been equally as noxious and pernicious."

The following year, Michael C. Cuddy and his wife, Bridget, purchased the building and he took over the saloon.  Cuddy was born in County Tipperary, Ireland in 1829.  His Irish roots were reflected in his membership in the Patrick Mutual Alliance Association.  He was, as well, a member of the 17th Ward Tammany Association.

Cuddy was the victim of a forgery in November 1869.  Every year, the day before an election, a parade and target shooting contest was held in the neighborhood.  Politicians donated prizes hoping to gain votes.  The New York Herald reported, "one prize at least was awarded which was valueless, inasmuch as it bore the forged signature of one Michael Cuddy, residing at 138 First avenue."

John Dalton had won an order (what today we could call a gift certificate) to the hat store of C. W. Burroughs at 49 Third Avenue.  Dalton picked out "an elegant hat of the latest style and the most approved shape."  When Burroughs attempted to collect the money from Cuddy, the forgery was discovered.  A month later, on December 17, the New York Herald reported, "Yesterday afternoon [Burroughs] recognized the hat carrying the wearer along First avenue and at once caused his arrest."

Cuddy died on February 28, 1871 at the age of 42.  His funeral was held above his "oyster saloon" two days later.  Bridget Cuddy leased the tavern to Francis (known as Frank) T. Cavanagh.

Like Michael Cuddy, Cavanagh was a Tammany supporter.  The Assembly District group continued to use the rear room of the saloon for its meetings, like the one on the evening of October 23, 1872 when they nominated William Gleason for alderman.

On April 23, 1882, the New York Dispatch published a long article about the alarming number of police officers caught drinking on duty.  Among the incidents was that of Officer Reilly on April 1.  The article said, "Reilly was found in the oyster saloon, No. 138 First avenue."  The cop quickly came up with an excuse.  He said that while patrolling, a citizen informed him that he was needed right away by Frank Cavanagh.  "He hurried to the saloon and without thought entered and asked the proprietor what he wanted."  Cavanagh laughed, according to Reilly, and said he must have been the target of an April Fool's joke.  "Turning to come out he met the roundsman [i.e., police officer]," Reilly explained.

The relationship between Cavanagh and his landlady became romantic.  In October 1888, Bridget sold the building to Charles Docen for $14,500 (about $479,000 in 2025).  In reporting the transaction, the Record & Guide described her as "Bridget, wife of Francis Cavanagh, formerly wife of Michael Cuddy."

Charles Docen was a baker, not a saloonkeeper.  (His bakery was close by at 142 First Avenue.)  He, therefore, rented the saloon space.  In April 1897, he leased it to George Sinram and Frederick Schmidt, of Sinram & Schmidt, which operated several saloons in the city.  Later that year, in October, he sold 138 First Avenue to Herman Kipp, who operated an undertaking business across the street at 135 First Avenue.

Among Kipp's tenants in the summer of 1908 was Irene Wilson.  She and the other occupants had to rely on public bathhouses to bathe, and on the evening of July 20 that year, she went to the bathhouse on Avenue A near 24th Street.  She and two other young women were in the showers when suddenly they were plunged into darkness.  They groped about until, luckily, they found a telephone and called police headquarters.

One of the women explained, "We were talking and didn't know it was closing time.  Please send a policeman to let us out."

Told that an officer would be there in a few minutes, the caller cautioned, "But please tell him to turn on the light and wait awhile before he comes in."

"Why?"

"Because it's dark and--well--we can't find our clothes."

Policeman Dunduro and the janitor entered the building, turned on the lights and, "sat down and waited," reported The New York Times.  "Presently one of the girls announced that they were prepared to depart and the big door was opened."

In August 1909, Herman Kipp hired architect Frederick Ebeling to remodel the interior walls.  The minor renovations cost Kipp about $10,000 in today's money.

Forty-year-old Michael Eagan was a bartender in the saloon in 1911 when he was arrested with two others in a swindling ring.  According to the Brooklyn Daily Star on June 12, they had been "going around selling advertisements for society programs or selling tickets for [an] outing for some charity organization."  The affair, however, "was never coming off."

On January 27, 1915, the furniture and fixtures of the saloon were auctioned.  Herman Kipp moved his funeral home into the space.  Known as Kipp's Parlor, it operated here for decades.

With the end of Prohibition, liquor returned to the ground floor of 138 First Avenue.  In 1934, Max Winarsky received a liquor license and opened a retail liquor store in the space.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Five years later, a renovation resulted in one apartment each on the upper floors.  That configuration survives today.

The tradition of a liquor store on the ground floor continues with East Village Wines, which was here as early as the late 1990s.  The diminutive building is a rare survivor of the earliest stages of development in the neighborhood.

photographs by the author

The 1893 Michael Hughes House - 240 West 101st Street

 

By the last decade of the 19th century, development had extended to the upper reaches of the Upper West Side.  In 1892, the Wide Construction Company contracted architect Gilbert A. Schellenger to design a row of six upper-class townhouses on the south side of West 101st Street between Broadway and West End Avenue.  Completed in 1893, the high-stooped homes were three stories tall and faced in brownstone.  Five of them were nearly identical, with only subtle changes at the parlor floors.

No. 240 West 101st Street became home to the Michael Hughes family.  Hughes and his wife, Alice, were born in Ireland.  They had one son and four daughters:  George H., Anna E. (known as Annie), Mary C., Alice Loretta, and Lydia C.

On May 2, 1900, seven years after the family moved in, Alice Hughes died.  Her funeral was held in the parlor three days later followed by a solemn requiem mass at the Church of the Holy Name of Jesus at Amsterdam Avenue and 96th Street.  A month later, Michael Hughes transferred the deed to the house in equal shares to his children, none of whom was married.

Following their father's death, the five children--now adults--continued to occupy the house.  As early as 1903, Annie was teaching in Public School 184 on West 116th Street.  George, proud of his parent's heritage, was a member of the American-Irish Historical Society.

The family had at least one live-in servant.  On February 25, 1912, the siblings advertised for a "General houseworker in American family; must be good cook and laundress; good home for right party.  240 West 101st st."

Alice Loretta died here on August 25, 1912.  As had been the case with her parents, her funeral was held in the house followed by a solemn requiem mass at the Church of the Holy Name of Jesus.

The four siblings, still unmarried, continued to share the house.  (In 1920, they ranged in age from Marie, who was 32, to George, who was 48.)  But in 1927, they leased the house to William Dieckmann for five years.  The family would never return.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

By 1944 the house was occupied by three families, including the Martoccio family.  Domenico and Joan Martoccio's son, Anthony R., was serving in the U.S. Navy Construction Battalion.  They were still here the following year when John J. Cole's family moved in.  Cole was the general manager of the Ellwood Ordnance Plant of Sanderson & Porter.

No. 240 West 101st Street was returned a single-family home around 1955 when architect William Fontaine Jones and his family moved in.  A member of the American Institute of Architects, Jones had had "a distinguished career in the Army," according to The Villager, before opening his architectural practice in 1953.  Among his works are the striking 1964 blue brick-faced Cinema Village Theater and the West Thirteenth Street Theater.  Jones died in December 1969.

Although the building was never officially converted to apartments, realtors list three units in the building today.  Home to the Hughes family for decades, little has changed to the exterior.  The original interior shutters still hang in the second floor windows.

photographs by the author

The Lost Home for the Relief of the Destitute Blind - Amsterdam Av. and 104th Street

 

The building's large chapel occupied the second floor corner.  photograph from the New-York Historical's Robert Bracklow Collection.

The soldiers who returned to New York City from the Civil War were often maimed.  Institutions were established to help them reintegrate into society.  One organization, for instance, taught veterans who had lost their right arms to write with their left hands and to function despite their new disability.  In 1868, the Reverend Eastburn Benjamin founded the New York Home for the Relief of the Destitute Blind.

The institution was not relegated to men and, although Rev. Benjamin was Episcopalian, it was non-sectarian.  The blind were given lodging and trained in a trade like "mattrass-making [sic], re-seating chairs, and all kinds of knitting-work," according to King's Handbook of New York, and they were given "fair wages" for their work.  "Inmates," as they were called, who could not afford to pay the $10 per month fee were accepted at no charge.  The Home for the Destitute Blind received no city nor state support, and relied solely on private donations.  

On July 4, 1885, The Record & Guide reported, "The Home for the Relief of the Destitute Blind intends to erect a large building up town."  The 125-by-100 foot southwest corner of Tenth Avenue (shortly to be renamed Amsterdam Avenue) and 104th Street had been acquired and architect F. Carlos Merry hired.  The article said, "The material will be of native stone to the first story and brick and brown stone above."  The three-story-and-basement structure would cost $55,000 to erect, or about $2 million in 2025 terms.

Socialites flocked to support fundraising for the building.  On February 28, 1886, for instance, The Sun reported, 

There will be a brilliant and crowded audience at the Academy of Music to-morrow evening, when Delibe's opera, 'Lakemé,' will be produced for the first time in this city by the American Opera Company, in aid of the Home for the Relief of Destitute Blind...All the boxes and more than half of the seats have been sold, and the performance will be witnessed by one of the largest society gatherings that have ever assembled in the Academy of Music.

As the building neared completion, a two-day fundraising fair was "held in the most beautiful ballroom of New York," reported The Sun on December 12, without mentioning which ballroom it was.  The tables were manned by "rosebuds," said the article, a term referring to the season's debutantes, adding that "butterflies of fashion hovered in swarms."

Completed early in 1887, Merry had created a delightfully organized jumble of shapes and gables and roofs.  On February 19, 1887, The Record & Guide said, "It has architecturally two fronts...the principal one on the avenue and one on the side street."  Merry gave both elevations projecting sections, which were connected with iron balconies.  The center section of the avenue side rose to what The Record & Guide described as a "separate roof [with] an ogee curve."  The Hershey Kiss-shaped cap was in effect a stylized onion dome and gave the building a slightly Oriental flavor.

A terra cotta band on 104th Street read "Home for the Relief of the Destitute Blind."  The architect splashed the Renaissance Revival design with touches of Queen Anne.  The half-circle window in one of the 104th Street side gables, for instance, "radiates terra cotta flames over the panel above."  The critic praised Merry's treatment of the corner.  "One of the cleverest points in the design is the feature by which the awkwardness of the junction of these two gables at right angles is dissembled, a small half-round bay at the corner ending below the eaves."  The critic ended his critique saying that Merry "is much to be congratulated upon his work."

The fish scale tiles of the dome and the terra cotta "waved surface" of the gable tiles can be seen in this photo.  King's Handbook of New York, 1893 (copyright expired)

In 1891, according to King's Handbook of New York, the Home took in 150 residents.  In reporting on an upcoming benefit performance held in the Waldorf-Astoria ballroom on April 3, 1901, the New-York Tribune explained, "The home is conducted in an economical manner, and the cost of maintaining it is only about $9 a month for each of the inmates."  The article noted, "The home has a workshop in which many of the inmates are employed, and a slight profit is derived from their work."  Nevertheless, said the article, "The income of the society is barely sufficient" and donations were always needed.

Presumably, it was a generous donor who made possible the purchase of two five-story apartment buildings at 208 and 210 West 104th Street by the Home.  In reporting the transaction on February 17, 1912, The New York Times explained, "The purchase was made to prevent the erection of any tall structure adjoining the home."

Nevertheless, nothing the Home did would stem the incursion of modern apartments in the neighborhood.  On October 14, 1916, The Record & Guide reported that the Society for the Relief of the Destitute Blind had hired M. L. & H. G. Emery to design a new facility in the Bronx.  Three years later, on June 20, 1919, the New-York Tribune reported that Harris and Albert Sokolski had purchased the Amsterdam Avenue corner as well as 208 and 210 West 104th Street.  The article said, "The purchasers plan to begin work immediately on an apartment house to cover the entire plot."

Architect George F. Pelham filed plans for "two six-story brick and limestone apartments, with stores," on the site.  The buildings survive.

image via brownstoner.com

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

Ludlow & Peabody's 1929 10 East 40th Street

photograph by Rishabh Tatiraju

 
The New York Evening Post titled an article on July 16, 1927, "Huge Midtown Building Project," and reported that Texas banker Jesse H. Jones had purchased the 12-story Hotel Touraine at 9-11 East 39th Street and the buildings at 10 through 14 East 40th Street as the site of a 35-story skyscraper.  "The operation will involve about $5,000,000," said the article.  (The massive outlay would translate to about $90.3 million in 2025.)

Importantly, the properties sat directly behind the Arnold, Constable & Co. Department Store building on the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 40th Street.  At the time of the article, Arnold, Constable & Co. had already leased the lower six floors of the projected structure.  "Arnold, Constable Company are to double the amount of their space," said the article.

Jesse Jones quickly enlarged his plans.  On January 1, 1928, The New York Times reported that the structure would be 45 stories tall.  "The building, when completed, will be one of the highest in the midtown Manhattan [district]."  Indeed, when completed in 1929, it was the fourth tallest building in the world, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in 2010.

Designed by Ludlow & Peabody, the soaring edifice was designed in the Renaissance Revival style--at a time when jazzy skyscrapers like the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building were giving Midtown a decidedly Art Deco personality.  Ludlow & Peabody decorated the shaft with carved Renaissance ornaments.  It rose to a romantic hip roof pierced with oculi.

Image dated October 12, 1929, by Samuel H. Gottscho, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

In January 1929, as construction neared completion, Jesse H. Jones sat with a journalist from The New York Times.  He defended the current trend of erecting skyscrapers, saying, "New York is rebuilding itself now."  One advantage to tenants, he said, was the remoteness of higher floors from the distractions of street noise.  "An executive or a clerk can...do much more work in a quiet, well lighted, well ventilated office, and that justifies the tall building even though the operating cost is higher."

The offices above the Arnold, Constable & Co. floors filled with a variety of tenants.  Perhaps not surprisingly, Jesse H. Jones's Houston Properties Corporation was among the first, taking most of the 16th Floor. Other initial tenants were Goeblin Fabrics Corp., which leased the eighth floor; Liberty Mutual Insurance Company of Boston, which took one-and-a-half floors; and the Arthur Hirshon Company, an advertising firm.  The National Carbon Company, Inc, makers of Eveready products, took the 12th floor; the National Chain Stores Association leased much of the 27th floor; and Abraham G. Meyer, a former city court judge and assistant district attorney took a "large part" of the 34th floor.

The lobby, with its magnificent ceiling and chandeliers, held a cigar stand--a ubiquitous element of offices buildings at the time.   photo by Samuel H. Gottscho, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

When the building opened on May 1, 1929, it was 80 percent rented.  By the end of the year, Airport Lighting, makers of airport signal and lighting equipment; and the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce had moved in.  (Incorporated in 1919, the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce was formed for "the support and advancement of aeronautics.")

Whether the ramifications of the Wall Street Crash in October 1929 pushed some tenants into illicit activities can not be certain, but several were soon in legal trouble.  The first was Hazel Christmas, the head of the Securities Service Company and the Securserv, Inc.  On February 25, 1930, Justice Harry E. Lewis signed an order restraining Hazel Christmas "from further dealings in the stock of the Universal Oil and Gas Company."  Among her clients were former Police Commissioner Richard E. Enright and Dr. Henry Knight Miller, publisher of Psychology magazine.  They were told that the Texas operation had "been successful...in the production of oil and gas."  The complaint said the information was "misleading."

The offices of Carl Byoir, publisher of the Havana Post and the Havana Telegram, were here at the time.  On August 16, 1930, he was appointed secretary and treasurer of the Cuba Good Will Committee.  Described by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency as an "American publicity man of some international fame," he had helped "swell the Florida real estate bubble," during World War I, according to the publication.  In addition to his position with the Cuban newspapers, he was closely allied with Cuban President Machado and promoted pro-Cuban propaganda, "glossing over reports of seething revolution in the island," according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Carl Byoir soon became affiliated with another foreign regime--the German Nazi Party.  When he was put in charge of arranging the January 30, 1934 nation-wide celebration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's birthday, Congressman Samuel Dickstein, "regretted" his appointment, saying "that such prominence might later be utilized in the dissemination of Nazi propaganda."

On June 3, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that Byoir "receives approximately $65,000 yearly from Germany, presumably from the Department of Railroads, for commercial propaganda performed in the United States."  

The publication was also concerned about another tenant in 10 East 40th Street.  Directly adjoining Byoir's offices were that of George Sylvester Viereck.  The article said that Viereck, "has long been recognized as one of the most ardent defenders of Hitler's Germany."

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

In the meantime, like Hazel Christmas, several tenants were having legal problems.  On April 7, 1931, Albert H. Carlisle, president of the Bondshares Fiscal Corporation, was indicted as a racketeer; and four months later attorney George L. Loft was taken from his office in handcuffs.

Born on July 1, 1895, George Leon Loft was the son of former U.S. Representative and candy manufacturer George W. Loft.  A former stockbroker, the younger Loft sold his seat in the Stock Exchange in 1923 and became vice president of George W. Loft Markets, Inc. and president of the Skourpak Steel Wool Corporation.

On the afternoon of August 10, 1931, Ruth Hiff entered Loft's 33rd-floor office to apply for a job.  A man who was present at the time left the office.  According to Hiff, "She gave her name and Loft poured out drinks from a bottle he took from a refrigerator."  (This, of course, happening despite the ongoing Prohibition.)  Hiff's interview turned to an attempted rape.  The New York Times reported, "Loft seized her, and in a struggle, dragged her about the floor."  Ruth Hiff managed to grasp the bottle and struck Loft over the head.  She fled the office and repeated her story to Police Officer Edward E. Alfonsin.  He accompanied her to Loft's office and arrested him.

The end of Prohibition brought a new tenant to 10 East 40th Street.  On March 6, 1933, The New York Times reported that The New Amsterdam Brewing Company had leased "executive offices" in the building.  The article noted that the firm "recently announced plans for the erection of a brewery...at Little Village in Queens."

The Renaissance motif carried on to the elevator doors and framework.   photo by Samuel H. Gottscho, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Other tenants at the time were the Municipal Housing Authority; the National Federation of Textiles, Inc.; the Counsel to the Joint Legislative Committee Investigating Public Utilities; Editorial Publications, Inc.; and New Republic Books.

As early as 1942, The Newspaper Guild Club was located in the building.  The club hosted entertainments for its members, as well as holding meetings and lectures.  On March 7, 1943, The Daily World reported, "State Senator Elmer J. Holland of Pennsylvania and Mark Duffield, news editor of the Herald Tribune, will participate in a forum on the press in wartime at the Newspaper Guild Club."  

The Daily Worker, November 6, 1943

A discussion forum group, the American Common, had space here at the time.  On July 1, The Daily Worker announced, "Dr. William W. Krauss, noted race biologist, will speak on 'The Contribution of the Indian and Mestizo to the Culture of the Americans in Colonial and Modern Times' at a tea at the American Common."  The group would remain at least through 1946.

In January 1944, the newly formed YMCA Vocational Service Center opened here, and by March 1946 the American Civil Liberties Union headquarters was in the building.  

Helen K. Jones was hired by the American Standard Association as a secretary in 1926.  For 37 years she commuted from her home in Westchester County.  Then, on the morning of November 26, 1963, she headed to Manhattan for her last day of work before her retirement.  Waiting for her on the platform of the Pleasantville station was William R. Main, assistant vice president of the New York Central Railroad.  He presented her with a scroll for her 550,000 miles of commuting "without complaining," as reported by The New York Times.

Hard to imagine today, in 1969 many companies still paid their employees in cash.  For decades the practice had put the workers who carried the payroll from the bank each week in danger of attack.  Phillip Coore worked in the accounting firm of David W. Katz & Co. on the 12th floor here.  At 11:45 on the morning of April 6 the 40-year-old withdrew the week's $7,000 payroll (about $60,000 today) and headed back to the office.  Two men entered the elevator with him.  When the doors closed, they shot him and took the cash.  Coore was taken to St. Clare's Hospital in serious condition.

At the time, the offices of the law firm of Carro, Spanbock & Londin was in the building.  Among its staff were attorneys Roswell Gilpatric and Theodore E. Donson.  Gilpatric was the former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense and a close friend to the Kennedy family.  In May 1970, Donson was convicted of attempting to sell a group of letters written by Jacqueline Kennedy to Gilpatric.  Donson insisted he "had received the letters in the mail from a man who could not be located," as reported by The New York Times.  Gilpatric said the letters had been stolen from a locked drawer in his office.  Donson pled guilty to a misdemeanor and was fined $100.

Two years later, Donson was in trouble again.  During the interim, dozens of prints were systematically stolen from the Museum of Modern Art and the New York Public Library.  The F.B.I. and Interpol began monitoring citizens who made repeated trips to European art centers.  Among those who caught their interest was Theodore E. Donson.

In 1972, the Metropolitan Museum of Art now, too, began missing prints.  An investigation of the appointment books for entrance to the closed prints room revealed that Donson had visited several times.  When he returned on September 6, undercover agents were on site.  Donson carried two portfolios "that were ingeniously rigged so that he could break their seals and slip prints belonging to the museum into them," explained The Times.  He was stopped by agents as he attempted to leave.  The three prints inside were valued at $74,000 in today's money.  This time the 34-year-old attorney got more than a misdemeanor charge.  He was charged with grand larceny in the Metropolitan Museum of Art thefts while investigation into his involvement in the earlier heists continued.

The lower floors of 10 East 40th Street were converted to an annex of the Mid-Manhattan Library (which occupied the former Arnold, Constable & Co. building).  A number of travel agencies and real estate offices began moving into the building at the time.  By then, Ludlow & Peabody's lobby had been "modernized" with a dropped ceiling.  It was renovated in the fall of 2002, once again revealing the intricate coffered ceiling.

image via tower40nyc.com

Currently, the skyscraper, now known at Tower 40, is being renovated.  A brochure touts "partial and full floor" suites ranging from 2,700 to 16,700 square feet.

many thanks to reader Andrew Porter for suggesting this post

Emery Roth's 1931 Southgate - 400 East 52nd Street

 

In 1920, a stalwart group of wealthy Manhattanites embarked on a risky and somewhat shocking real estate endeavor--transforming a block of decrepit brownstones along the East River into a fashionable enclave.  Originally called Sutton Square, its high-tone tenor spread outward, creating Sutton Place and Beekman Place, two of the most enviable residential districts in the city.

Real estate developer Bing & Bing would continue the transformation.  The firm frequently worked with renowned architect Emery Roth, producing numerous Manhattan apartment buildings.  In 1928, Bing & Bing hired him for what would be their most ambitious project--five apartment buildings that would be called Southgate.  One would face East 51st Street and the others, separated by a verdant garden, lined east 52nd Street.

The massive enterprise would take three years to construct.  On April 12, 1931, The New York Times noted that the completed project would have "a total of nearly 500 housekeeping apartments ranging from one to six rooms."  The article explained that all five buildings, "similar in design," would be "identified with the name Southgate."

Each of the buildings was slightly different.  400 East 52nd Street is as the far right.  image by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

No. 400 East 52nd Street opened in October 1931.  Faced in brown brick above a stone base, its entrance sat within a dramatic, three-story frame of Art Deco stylized fountains.  The relatively unadorned midsection rose to two sleek, tiled-faced balconies.  Above the 14th floor, Roth ignored the setbacks at the ends and center of the building with single-bay-wide sections that rose two more floors.  Another ocean liner-ready balcony clung to the 15th floor.  An advertisement offered, "Two to five rooms, some with river view," and boasted, "dropped living rooms, log burning fireplaces.  Dining galleries or alcoves, casement windows, tile bath with every chamber, full size kitchens."

Among the early, professional residents of 400 East 52nd Street were John Anderson, drama critic for The New York  Evening Journal and former assistant critic of the New York Evening Post; and Arthur Samuels, editor of Harper's Bazaar.  In 1932, the year he moved in, he became associate editor of Arts Weekly and an instructor of drama at New York University.

Perhaps an unexpected tenant was 26-year-old aspiring actress Elizabeth Bates Volck, who moved into a ninth-floor apartment on November 7, 1931.  Born in England, she was the granddaughter of Domício da Gama, the former Brazilian ambassador to the United States.  Her engagement to Prince Johannes of Liechtenstein was announced in 1926, but the marriage never came to pass.

Just before moving into 400 East 52nd Street, Elizabeth suffered another failed romance.  According to her best friend, Diana Durant, Elizabeth had been experiencing "emotional strain" since "the disruption of her love affair with Gerald D. Tiffany."  The day after moving in, Elizabeth telephoned Durant "and said she had been thinking of taking her life," according to the North Shore Daily Journal.

Several hours later, at about 15 minutes after midnight, Frank McLoughlin, who lived nearby, heard an explosion.  The New York Times reported, "Looking up, he beheld a flash of fire and smoke bursting through the shattered windows of the ninth-floor apartment."  Elizabeth's apartment had been devastated by the violent gas explosion.  The Times said it "shattered walls and furniture on three floors and aroused residents within several blocks."

Elizabeth Volck's body was found in the apartment.  She had left a note saying: "I leave all my furniture to Diana Durant to keep or sell according to what she sees fit."  She then opened the gas jets of the stove.  Presumably, she knew that the explosion set off by the pilot light would kill her in case her suicide attempt was unsuccessful.  (Diana Durant would not receive any of the apartment's furniture, all of which was wrecked by the blast.)

A similar tragedy occurred the following year.  Edward R. Seen was a successful architect.  Born in Basel, Switzerland, he had been associated with Delano & Aldrich for more than two decades.  He and his second wife were married in November 1932.

Less than a month later, on December 11, Seen left the office, saying he would have lunch at home.  He telephoned later saying he had been detained by business.  Instead, he drove to Patchogue, Long Island.  At 11:00 p.m., he registered at Roe's Hotel there.  The next morning a maid found his body "with a bullet hole in his right temple," as reported by The New York Times.

More uplifting press coverage was routinely found in the society columns.  On September 1, 1932, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. James E. Hollingsworth of 400 East Fifty-second Street left yesterday for a visit with Mrs. Herbert Hoover at the White House.  Mrs. Hollingsworth will go later to California, where she will be joined by her husband."

Other initial residents were Henry R. Duflon, John P. Hogan, and John Perry Mitchell, Jr. and his wife, the former Lucy G. Clark.  Born in 1890, Duflon was superintendent of agencies for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in Illinois and Indiana.  He had an office here and in Chicago.  John P. Hogan was vice chairman of the Construction Code Authority and general chairman of the Construction League of the United States, which sponsored the codes for the construction industry.

John Perry Mitchell, Jr. was born in Sterling, Massachusetts on March 30, 1899.  He received his B.A. degree at Dartmouth and his Masters from Harvard.  He remained at Harvard as a instructor of economics until 1924.  He and Lucy Clark were married in 1930.  On July 1, 1934, Mitchell became assistant director of education at the Rockefeller Foundation.  In September 1935, he and Lucy adopted an infant boy whom they named Jonathan.  Tragically, five months later, on February 24, 1936, John Mitchell, Jr. died at Roosevelt Hospital at the age of 36.

Living here that year were singer Paul Davin and his wife, Winifred.  Davin had appeared on Broadway in Sweethearts and Knights of Song.  Winifred was described by The New York Times as "a former countess."  

On May 8, 1936, Winifred hired a maid, 22-year-old Jennie Stanley.  Ten days later, Jennie disappeared along with $685 in cash (equal to about $15,500 in 2025), jewelry and a gold cigarette case.  

The savvy Winifred "suggested to the police that the servant probably would buy expensive clothes and display them among friends in Harlem," reported The Times.  And so, Winifred and two detectives staked out Seventh Avenue and 139th Street.  Sure enough, just after midnight, Jennie Stanley passed by "stylishly gowned."  The article said, "In her apartment, the police said, they recovered all the jewelry, except a gold cigarette case, and the money."

A charming garden separates the 51st and 52nd Street buildings.

Federal employee Ed Weltman occupied a ninth-floor apartment here as early as 1939.  On the afternoon of September 21 that year, his sister and her daughters, Jessie and Alice Wells, visited him.  The sisters, described by The Billboard in 1926 as "exceptionally pretty blondes," comprised the song-and-dance team of the Wells Sisters.  Starting out as teenagers in vaudeville theaters, the duo now sang on radio and had just returned from a road tour the previous week.

Jessie Wells said she did not feel well and asked her uncle if she could go into a bedroom to rest.  Later, her mother checked on her and found her missing.  "The bathroom window was flung up," reported The New York Times.  The 25-year-old had jumped to her death.

Two fascinating residents were Sara J. Woodward and her daughter, Mary Woodward Reinhardt.  Born in 1863 in Portadown, Ireland, Sara was the eleventh of the seventeen children of Alexander Johnson.  In 1880 she arrived in Chicago at the age of 17, eventually becoming a fashion expert for the department store Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co.  According to The New York Times later, she was the first to bring Paris creations to the Middle West and "staged what was said to have been Chicago's first fashion show."

Sara married Frank E. Woodward, the president of the Bank of Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1897.  The couple had two daughters, Alice and Mary.  Sara founded the Public Library of Watertown and during World War I was chairman of the city's American Red Cross unit.  She also organized a movement to establish two parks there.

In the meantime, Mary Woodward graduated from Milwaukee Downer Seminary, attended the University of Wisconsin and received her Bachelors degree from Radcliffe College in 1923.  After doing graduate work at Oxford University in England, she married Paul Reinhardt, owner of the Reinhardt Galleries in New York City in 1924.  Mary became associated with the gallery.  

Frank Woodward died in 1933 and the following year Mary and Paul Reinhardt divorced.  Sara Woodward relocated to New York and she and Mary moved into an apartment here.  

It may have been the urban Manhattan environment that prompted Sarah to become an early activist against second-hand smoke, campaigning for the reduction or elimination of "the smoke nuisance."  Related to that cause, she joined the board of directors of the Outdoor Cleanliness Association.

Now single, Mary Woodard Reinhardt reinvented herself.  She founded the Hollywood Patterns, a subsidiary of Condé Nast.  She was, as well, secretary of the Birth Control Federation of America.

In 1939, Sara Johnson Woodward's health began to fail.  She died in her apartment at the age of 77 on January 9, 1940.  Just five months later, on June 21, Mary Woodward Reinhardt married Albert D. Lasker, former chairman of the United States Shipping Board.

John Anderson and his wife, the former Margaret Breuning  (an art critic), were still living here at the time.  Now the drama critic of the New York Journal American, he was also an author and playwright, and president of the New York Drama Critics Circle.  Among his books were the 1929 Box Office, Book of the White Mountains, released in 1930, and the 1938 The American Theatre.   His plays included The Inspector General and The Fatal Alibi.

On February 9, 1942, The New York Times reported that Efrem Zimbalist Jr. had leased an apartment here.  The son of the famous violinist and symphony conductor and the operatic star Alma Gluck, he was born on November 30, 1918.  While his parents were major figures in classical music, Zimbalist Jr. was drawn to the theater.  He took a job as a page for NBC radio in 1936 where he got small roles on air.  Zimbalist would go on to a highly successful career in television and film.

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (publicity photo for the U.S. Steel Hour, 1956)

Italian-born John Perona, who owned the El Morocco nightclub, had lived here as early as 1935.  That year, the 38-year-old bachelor had a live-in servant, 20-year-old Grey Clements, a Filipino immigrant.  Clements lived with and worked for him for at least five years.  By 1946, Perona had acquired a country home at Newton, New Jersey and now had two male servants in the East 52nd Street apartment.

John Perona (original source unknown)

Perona fired both servants in the fall of 1946.  Shortly afterward, on the evening of October 9, he returned to the city from Newton to find that "seven sets of cuff links and fifteen or sixteen cigarette lighters, gifts and valued by him at $20,000 were missing from his penthouse apartment at 400 East Fifty-second Street.," as reported by The New York Times.  The figure Perona gave to the police would translate to about $321,000 today.  It is unclear if he ever recovered his items.  Perona would remain here at least through the 1950s.

Among Perona's neighbors in the building was theater producer and director Cheryl Crawford.  Born in Akron, Ohio in 1902, she studied drama at Smith College and came to New York City in 1925.  In 1931 she, Harold Clurman, and Lee Strausberg formed The Group Theatre, a 12-week-long training and rehearsal course at Brookfield Center, Connecticut.  Among the fledgling actors whose careers were highly influenced by Crawford were Bojangles Robinson, Mary Martin, Helen Hayes, Ingrid Bergman, Ethel Barrymore, Tallulah Bankhead and Paul Robeson.  

Cheryl Crawford from the Class of 1925 Smith College yearbook.

She co-founded the Actors Studio in 1947.  There major stars like Marlon Brando, James Dean, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson and a nearly endless list of others began their careers.

Attorney Ethelbert Warfield and his wife, the former Alice Blum had moved in in 1936.  Born in 1898, he graduated from the Dickinson Law School and was now a member of Satterlee, Warfield & Stephens.  He and Alice maintained a summer home in Oyster Bay, Long Island.  In 1955, the couple had two domestic servants here, a live-in maid and a "housemaid," Sigrid Tovia, who had worked every Thursday since 1948.  (Sigrid Tovia was the Anglicized version of her birth name, Sirri Toivanen.)

Sigrid was described by her co-worker as always wearing "inexpensive, old clothes and welcomed gifts of leftover bread and meats, which she carefully put away into her paper shopping bag."  The Warfields were out of town on March 22, 1955.  That evening Sigrid left the apartment and headed home.  At 6:00, while crossing East 60th Street near Second Avenue, the 80-year-old was struck and run over by a crosstown bus.  She died under the bus.  The New York Times reported, "The police at the scene paid scant notice at first to the brown bag in the victim's hands."  In it was $21,617 in cash (more than a quarter of a million dollars today).  She had also been carrying a straw-handled purse in which were two deposit books showing $14,575 in savings.

After owning 400 East 52nd Street for half a century, on June 30, 1985, The New York Times reported that Bing & Bing had sold 29 apartment buildings, including this one.  The newspaper commented, "The Bing & Bing buildings are regarded as among the city's finest prewar properties."  Two years later, the building was converted to a cooperative.

Other than the loss of the casement windows, Emery Roth's Depression Era structure and its architectural siblings are, happily, little changed.  

many thanks to Rene Tatnall for suggesting this post and for showing me around the building.

photographs by the author