The 1884 Gorham Manufacturing Building

The Gorham Building in 1895 -- King's Photographic Views of New York (author's collection)

Broadway around Union Square was an exclusive shopping area in the early 1880's.  Tiffany & Co., Lord and Taylor, A. T. Stewart and Arnold Constable had all moved their emporiums north from downtown in the 1870's. The exclusive silver merchants Gorham Manufacturing Company would follow suit.

Robert and Ogden Goelet had inherited large plots of land along Broadway.  Small commercial buildings filled the plots not yet taken over by the huge cast iron or marble-fronted dry goods stores.  Two such buildings–a hardware store and a marble dealer–sat at the northwest corner of Broadway and 19th Street.  The Goelets commissioned architect Edward Hale Kendall, who had recently designed their Fifth Avenue mansions, to build a mixed-use structure on the site.

Begun in 1883, his eight-story red brick Queen Anne style building was trimmed with terra cotta, white stone, and copper flashings.  Black slate shingles graced a modified mansard roof with cast iron cresting.

Kendall's choice of the Queen Anne style stood out on a thoroughfare lined with imposing French Second Empire retail stores.  The first two floors of the building were designed for commercial use, while the upper floors were laid out as bachelor apartments, which had no kitchens nor dining rooms.

By now, Tiffany & Co. had established itself as the hallmark of quality jewelry.  And while the firm did offer flatware, New York City’s carriage trade went to Gorham Manufacturing for its silverware.  When the Broadway building was completed in 1884, Gorham left its downtown location and took over the two lower floors.

The New York Times reported on May 28, 1884, “The first and second floors of the new structure are devoted to an exhibition of the silverware manufactured by the company, which is displayed in rich mahogany cases and illuminated at night by the Edison electric light with which the building is lighted, and the effect of this light on the heavy silver articles is remarkably brilliant...There is scarcely an article that can be manufactured of silver that is not to be found in this magnificent new store.”

A year later, the store had expanded to include the third floor. The New York Times reported that “...the glitter of silver on each floor is ruinous to weak eyes.  No greater collection of solid silverware is to be found in any one place on this or any other continent, the assortment ranging from scarfpins and sleeve buttons to huge punch bowls and dinner sets, so that the presence of brides, grooms, friends, and relatives is easily accounted for.”  The article listed dresser sets, tea and dinner services, trinket boxes, trays, and “so many unique and curious designs that it is a toil and trouble to select therefrom.”

The company used innovative designs in its flatware and hollowware–the Neo-Renaissance, Art-Nouveau and Aesthetic Movement trends, for example.  King’s Handbook said the store offered “silver fashioned for every conceivable use.” And in Victorian New York, there was no end to "conceivable uses" for silver.

A testament to the firm's quality, it was announced in 1889 that Gorham Manufacturing would be one of four American silversmiths to represent the United States at the Paris Exhibition.

Following the assassination of President William McKinley, The New York Times noted on September 15, 1901, “Gorham’s silver establishment, at Broadway and Eighteenth Street, had a peculiarly effective window decoration yesterday.  The background was in plain black.  In the foreground there was a fine engraving of Mr. McKinley, draped, with a small green palm under the picture.  Standing just to the right of the engraving was a bronze statuette of an angel, with her hands in a prayerful attitude, the face peering fixedly at that of McKinley.”

Joining in the migration of the exclusive shops to Fifth Avenue, Gorham left its Broadway corner on September 5, 1905.  After a few years of various tenants, Robert Reis & Co., the men’s underwear manufacturer best known for its BVD brand, took over the lease in 1912.  Architect John H. Duncan renovated the building, converting it into loft and office space.  Two decades latter Reiss & Co. again altered the building to accommodate manufacturing on the upper floors.

In 1977 the Gorham Building was extensively renovated for residential apartments on the upper floors and the street level was returned to commercial use, the familiar home to Fishs Eddy since then.

Photograph cityrealty.com

The building was given New York City landmark status in 1984.

The Mutilated Black, Starr & Frost Building - 594 Fifth Avenue

 

Architecture, December 1912 (copyright expired)

The jewelry firm of Black, Starr & Frost traced its origins to 1810 when the silversmith Isaac Marquand opened Marquand & Co.  By the first years of the 20th century, it was among the foremost silver and jewelry firms in the country, holding its own against jewelers like Tiffany & Co.  (Upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln owed the firm $64,000, more than one million in 2023 dollars.)

Charles T. Cook was president of Tiffany & Co. for many years and lived in a sumptuous mansion at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 48th Street.   When he died in 1902, commerce was inching into the Midtown mansion district.  On July 9, 1909, The New York Times reported that Black, Starr & Frost, "intends building quarters for itself on the site of the old Cook home and the adjoining property at 4 West Forty-eighth Street, belonging to Mrs. Landsale Boardman, which was included in the purchase recorded yesterday."

A year later--almost to the day--on July 10, 1910 the newspaper published a rendering of the proposed building, saying, "The new building has been designed by Carrere & Hastings.  In style it will be Italian renaissance, and will be an artistic addition along somewhat exceptional lines in the business development of the avenue."  The article noted, "The exterior will be entirely of white marble, and the interior handsomely finished and decorated."

The property had cost Black, Starr & Frost $700,000 and the building costs were projected at $250,000, bringing the total outlay in 2023 terms to $28 million.  

Carrere & Hastings released this rendering (that included both motorcars and carriages) to the press.  It would be doubled in width before construction began.  The New York Times, July 10, 1910 (copyright expired)

The double-height ground floor of Carrere & Hastings's white marble palazzo had two entrances.  Customers entering on Fifth Avenue passed through a bronze-framed doorway.  A glass-and-bronze marquee extended from the carriage entrance on 48th Street to the curb, protecting patrons from the weather as they alit from their vehicles.

The three-story mid-section included a rusticated second floor, girded by marble balustrades.  Double-height Corinthian pilasters separated the openings of the third and fourth floors.  The top story was intricately decorated with Renaissance carvings.

The several floors were necessary for the wide variety of goods sold.  As Black, Starr & Frost prepared to open in their new building in December 1912, it advertised "valuable bronzes" including "beautiful modelled figures, groups, electroliers, clocks, clock sets, mantel garnitures in porcelain," and "a collection of Louis XV and XVI, Adams, Renaissance, Empire, Hepplewhite, Sheraton, Colonial and Florentine furniture."  There were also "rare porcelains, miniature portraits, fine etchings," along with, of course, the expected jewelry and silver items.

The high-quality of Black, Starr & Frost's jewelry and silver was evidenced in 1917 when stage star Peggy Hopkins Joyce walked out with a 127-carat diamond necklace.  Joyce was well known for her flamboyant lifestyle and her collection of wealthy men and diamonds.  She would be the inspiration for the character Lorelie Lee in the 1925 novel Gentleman Prefer Blonds and the topic of Constance Rosenblum's book Gold Digger.  Mary Margaret Mcbride brought up Joyce's purchase in her 1931 book, New York Is Everybody's Town, saying she "paid $300,000 for the huge, square thing, hung on a flexible diamond neckline which fitted into the hollow of Peggy's white expensive throat."  The price would translate to more than $4 million today.

Less colorful but equally moneyed was Mrs. Clarence C. Chapman.  Thieves broke into the Chapmans' rooms at the Sleepy Hollow Country Club on October 13, 1920.  Among the items they made off with was Mrs. Chapman's $75,000 diamond necklace from Black, Starr & Frost.

Architecture, December 12, 1912 (copyright expired)

Two years before the heist, in June 1918, Black, Starr & Frost sold their building to the Oceanic Inventing Company.  But the firm was not going anywhere.  The Real Estate Record & Guide noted, "The new owners have leased the property back to the jewelers for a period of twenty-one years."  In reporting on the transaction, the journal said the building "is classed among the finest pieces of commercial architecture in the country," adding, "Black, Starr & Frost are probably the oldest jewelry concern in this country."

A trusted employee in the 1920s was W. Sherman Lees, Jr.  In 1928, according to The Daily Argus, "The man had been a salesman at the Fifth avenue store for years.  He received $125 week in salary and he earned it by showing the customers the gems that lay in glittering ranks on the black velvet of the shelves in the firm's safe."  Lees was an expert in his field.  The article said, "He knew [the gems'] histories, their merits, their secret faults...He could point out to customers just why one stone with a saucy ice-blue glint was better than another, twice as big, but not so exquisite in shade and cutting."

In the spring of 1928 Lees decided that his $6,500 a year salary (around $103,000 in 2023) was insufficient.  He spirited a ring from the safe, removed the diamond, and sold it.  The Daily Argus said, "Then he did it again."  And again.  On May 7 the 38-year-old was arrested in the store.  His downfall came when he took a $12,000 stone to a nearby jeweler.  Suspicious, the man "put him off and made inquiries." 

In May 1929 Black, Starr & Frost merged with silversmiths Gorham Corporation.  The consolidated companies were renamed Black, Starr, Frost-Gorham.  (Although customers, somewhat expectedly, continued using the old name.)

The firm encountered an especially clever thief on November 21, 1929.  Dick Richards, alias Cornelius J. Donovan, entered the store and identified himself as a personal representative of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt.  He told salesman James C. Patterson that the governor "wanted two diamond rings sent to his town house at 49 East Sixty-fifth street from which to select one," according to The New York Sun.  Before leaving,  Richards took Patterson's card.

Two rings valued at $1,500 were delivered to Edward Gibbons, Roosevelt's first butler.  Later that day, Richards arrived at the Roosevelt home, identified himself as James C. Patterson and presented his business card.  He apologized that the wrong rings had been delivered and took them back to be replaced.  He promptly pawned the jewelry for $475.  

Not everything at Black, Starr & Frost was prohibitively expensive.  Mary Margaret Mcbride wrote in 1931:

Here may be bought gifts as low as $1.35 for a silver teaspoon, and $2 for a silver pencil.  Possibilities on the $3 to $21 list include silver and stone ash trays, rose quartz push buttons (suitable for a big magnate's office desk); silver and enamel vanity cases, silver and enamel place card holders, stamp boxes, calendars, leather picture frames, novelty note books, cigarette lighters, gold key chains ($9); gold and enamel sport scarf pins ($8); folding backgammon sets for $25.

When the young Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip visited New York City in October 1957, New Yorkers crowded Fifth Avenue to catch a glimpse of the royals.  On October 26, the Record-Journal wrote, "The shops along the avenue were decorated with huge Stars and Stripes and the British Union Jack.  At Black, Starr and Frosts, one window exhibited a very beautiful oil portrait of the Queen.  This was draped in antique blue silk decorated with silver rose branches and leaves."

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

On March 23, 1962, The New York Times lamented, "the sale of Black, Starr & Gorham, Inc., will mark the end of an era for the Gorham Corporation in the retail end of the silver and jewelry business."  Two weeks later the newspaper reported that the firm was "expected to vacate the building about July."  Black, Starr & Gorham had sold the its marble retail palace to the Trade Bank and Trust Company.  "The bank will use the building for its office," said the article.  It promised, "The interior will be renovated, but the exterior will remain unchanged."

But four years later, things had changed.  A scathing editorial in The New York Times on January 27, 1964 began, "It could never happen in Paris.  Remodeling of venerable buildings on a major Paris avenue must go on behind the facade, by law, to preserve the city's character and beauty.  And this is one of the things that make Paris Paris.  But it does happen in New York."  The irate editor went on to say:

One of the handsomest facades on Fifth Avenue, and in fact one of the most exquisite small business buildings in the city, is being given the standard New York 'improvement' treatment: its finely detailed, elegantly proportioned exterior is being destroyed and the building will be refaced with a nondescript, banal and ordinary new 'skin.'  In the name of progress!

The following day architects Alvin Hausman and Stanley Rosenberg wrote a rebuttal.  "Paris," they said, "is a nineteenth-century city while New York is of our time...The existing Black, Starr & Frost building is as outmoded and outdated in our society as a horse-drawn carriage."  The architects defended their renovation saying that they were replacing marble with marble and "have not chosen to put a 'sardine can' within the stone esthetic of Fifth Avenue."

image via Google maps.

The renovated structure left no hint of Carrere & Hastings's magnificent Renaissance commercial palazzo.  Ironically, it was remodeled and reclad again in 2018 by Yshihara Mckee Architects.

image via loopnet.com

many thanks to reader Doug Wheeler for suggesting this post

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The 1864 Isaac L. Devoe House - 134 East 36th Street

Developers George J. Hamilton and Thomas Kilpatrick began construction of a trio of stylish, brownstone fronted houses at 130-134 East 36th Street in 1863.  Just 17.2-feet wide, 134 East 36th Street had the advantage of a corner site, giving it three exposures of light and ventilation.  The home's cutting edge Second Empire style included the nearly obligatory slate-shingled mansard.  The molded, architrave surrounds of the windows sat on bracketed sills.

Completed in 1864, the house was purchased as an investment by wealthy merchant Robert W. Milbank.  He leased the house until 1867 when it was purchased by Isaac L. Devoe.   

Born in Westchester, New York in 1813, Devoe was the principal of the glass firm Isaac L. Devoe & Co. at White and Centre Streets.  He married Mary Ann Harsen in 1841.  The couple had three sons, born every two years like clockwork--Henry I., born in 1842; Theodore, born in 1844; and Frank who arrived in 1846.  

The Financial Panic of 1873 was a devastating economic catastrophe--called the Great Depression by some until 1929.  It would last until 1879 and may have been the reason that Devoe drastically changed his business--from glass to wool.  For whatever reason, the switch was unsuccessful.  On September 1, 1878, The New York Times reported that Devoe had filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy.  Reporting that his liabilities were $25,000 (about $788,000 in 2024), the article said, "He has no assets."

Isaac and Mary Devoe lost their home to foreclosure.  It was acquired by Dr. Edwin M. Kellogg and his second wife, the former Frances (known as Fanny) Anne Bowen.  

Dr. Kellogg was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on September 20, 1826.  He married Louise H. Chur on April 16, 1867.  His bride died 11 months later at the age of 27.  He and Fanny were married on October 11, 1869.  

Kellogg served on the staff of the New York Homoeopathic Medical College as Professor of the Diseases of Women.  He was also the treasurer of the American Institute of Homoeopathy.  Fanny kept busy with charitable organizations.  She was, for instance, secretary of the St. Barnabas Employment Society, which found work for destitute women.  

In 1886, Kellogg hired the esteemed mansion architect C. P. H. Gilbert to design a replacement townhouse on the site of 134 and 132 East 36th Street.  For whatever reason, the plans were scrapped and the Kelloggs, instead, moved out and leased the two houses to well-to-do tenants.  Occupying 134 East 36th Street were Henry D. Steers, president of the Eleventh Bank, and his family, here in the 1890s; and Francis G. Gorham, an agent of the Bethlehem Iron Co., who lived here in 1900.  Gorham's social position was evidenced in his memberships to the Union League and Harvard Clubs, the Down Town Association and the New England Society.

Frances Bowen Kellogg died at the age of 64 on June 5, 1900.  Her death greatly affected Dr. Kellogg and in June 1905 Dr. Thomas Franklin Smith remarked, "Since the death of his wife...he has kept very much to himself; for the last two or three years he has kept himself confined to the house to a considerable extent."  Smith's remarks were made at Kellogg's memorial service.  He died on June 29, 1905.

Two years earlier, in February 1903, Kellogg had sold 132 and 134 East 36th Street to attorney Arthur Hoffman Van Brunt and his wife, the former Ethel Townsend Edson.  The Record & Guide reported, "The properties will be remodelled  [sic] into American basement dwellings."  The term meant that the stoops would be removed and the entrances lowered to the former basement level.  In 1905, Van Bruner enlarged 134 East 36th Street with a two-story, three-sided bay at the rear.

Born in 1865, Van Brunt's choice of a law career came naturally.  His father, Charles H. Van Brunt, was presiding justice of the Appellate Division of the First Department.  Arthur graduated from Columbia in 1886 and became a partner in the law firm of Joline, Larkin & Rathbone.  

The year they purchased 134 East 36th Street, the Van Brunt's first child, Caroline, was born.  There would be three more: Edson, born in 1906; Arthur, Jr., in 1910; and David Chesterman, who arrived in 1917.

It may have been the growing population of the narrow house that prompted the Van Brunts to move out.  In March 1916, they leased 134 East 36th Street to the family of Willis and Caroline Charlotte Benner.

The Benners would have to find another home the following year.  In 1917, 134 East 36th Street was converted to offices of the Electro-Medical Scientists, headed by Dr. Francis R. Ward.  On May 20, 1917, the Brooklyn Standard Union reported the offices, "comprise the entire building at 134 East 36th street, corner of Lexington avenue."  As a sort of grand opening discount, the article said, "Consultation, advice and examination, including where required, the X-ray, chemical Analysis and Blood Pressure Test for one dollar."  The offer was good for ten days.

The facility offered what were deemed electric cures.  "Here the fact is proved that science has so modified and tamed electricity that the weakest child or invalid can stand its force without fear or pain," said the article.   "At the offices of the Electro-Medical Scientists the current that lights the homes and runs street cars is used and is harnessed to the wonderful machines by which every jar and jerk is removed and it is then sent through the body as softly, smoothly, and pleasantly as a ray of sunshine."

Ward had started his clinic in Chicago, but relocated to New York after "his advertised claims were attacked by the newspapers," according to the New York Evening World on April 20, 1919.  (In fact, newspapers there flatly called him "a quack.")  When asked by a New York Evening World reporter why he was not a member of the Academy of Medicine, Dr. Ward replied, "they won't let me."

Nevertheless, he and his clinic were doing quite well.  The article said, "He treated last year an average of 125 patients daily at $2.40 a treatment, giving him a gross income of $300 a day, or about $9,000 a month."  The gross monthly figure would translate to about $159,000 in 2024.  The Electro-Medical Scientists remained in the house until 1921.  That year Van Brunt leased it to Isabel Smith and Eldred Johnstone, who presumably rented rooms.

The stoop and entrance were originally identical to those at 132 East 36th Street, seen here in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Van Brunts sold 134 East 36th Street to architect William A. Delano of Delano & Aldrich in 1924.  He converted the house to studio apartments.  Among his tenants were Dr. St. Clair Smith, here around 1927, and operatic soprano Wilma Miller in the 1930s.  Miller played the role of Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto at the Hippodrome on October 26, 1934.

Delano lost the building in foreclosure in 1941.  It continued to house studio apartments until a renovation completed in 2018 returned it to a single family home.

photographs by the author

The 1826 Abraham B. Vanderpoel House - 38 Dominick Street

 

photo via New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission

In 1821 the by-then fetid canal, originally established to drain the swampy Lispenard Meadow, was covered over, creating Canal Street.  Quickly afterward, streets to the north opened and development began.  Among the first streets to open was Dominick Street, named in honor of George Dominick who fled France in the mid-18th century and became a vestryman of Trinity Church and a captain of the militia.

The new street sat upon land owned by Sarah Livingston, the wife of Robert Livingston.  She had inherited it from her grandfather, Anthony Lispenard.  On March 10, 1826, she sold 12 vacant lots along Dominick Street to Smith Bloomfield who filled them with prim, two-and-a-half story brick-faced homes.  

Among them was 39 Dominick Street.  (Confusingly and inexplicably, the odd and even street numbers were flipped in 1867, and No. 39 got the new address of 38.)  Like its neighbors, its Federal design included a doorway flanked by fluted wooden columns, narrow sidelights and a generous transom.  Two dormers pierced the peaked roof.

Abraham Barent Vanderpoel moved his family into the house in 1827, apparently renting from Bloomfield.  Born in 1788, he listed his profession as "custom house officer."  He and his wife, the former Harriet Goodwin, would have three children: Mary Vanburen, Sarah and Barent. 

The Vanderpoels left the house around 1835, initiating a series of occupants.  Dry goods merchant James L. Brinckerhoff was here in 1836, followed by Isaac N. Seymour and his family by 1840.  Seymour was the treasurer of the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company.  The family remained through 1858.

Abby J. Gorham, a widow, moved into the house in 1859 with her son Shabael C. Gorham.  The family had deep American roots, tracing their origins to John de Gorram who arrived on the Mayflower.  Never married, Shabael died at the age of 41 on November 23, 1861.  The New York Times noted, "Funeral services will be held at the house of his mother, No. 39 Dominick-st., on Monday."

The family of fish dealer Samuel H. Wood occupied the house from 1863 until 1867.  On February 23 that year an announcement in the New-York Tribune reported that the property "now known as No. 38 in Dominick street" would be auctioned.  It was purchased by Samuel Giveans Trusdell.

Trusdell was a partner in the coffee business Trusdell & Phelps.  He married Phebe Jane Edsall in 1863.  Born in 1835 and 1840, respectively, they would have one child, Samuel Edsall, who was born in the house in 1868.

The family would remain here for decades, taking in at least one boarder over the years.  Katie E. Moore lived with the Trusdells in 1884.  She was a teacher in the primary department of Grammar School No. 10 on Wooster Street.

In 1886, the home's Federal architecture was decidedly passé.  On April 3, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that Phebe (who was the owner of record) had hired architects and builders J. Hankinson's Son to raise the attic to a full story.  The renovations cost the Trusdells $1,100, or about $37,800 in 2026.  Interestingly, while the contractors gave the remodeled house a fashionable Italianate cornice, it did not touch the vintage doorway.

As late as 1940, the doorway, with its slender columns, was essentially unchanged since 1826.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Samuel Edsall Trusdell died at the age of 28 on April 29, 1896.  His father survived him by four years, dying in the Dominick Street house on December 27, 1900 at the age of 65.  

It is unclear how long Phebe, who died in 1926, remained here.  In 1929, George Tombini leased 38 Dominick Street, and by 1940 the Campone and De Sapio families shared the house.

It was well-filled.  Pasquale Campone and his wife, Antonette, had five children, Rose, Pasquaela, Doris, Betty and Anthony.  Gerard De Sapio was married to Antonette's sister, Marinetta.  An Italian immigrant, he owned a trucking business.  The couple had two sons.

Anthony Capone was born in 1914.  He worked as a shipping clerk for the Equitable Trading Corporation, a wholesale liquor distributor on Hudson Street.  In 1936 he and eight other employees devised a scheme to augment their salaries.  It worked for several years, but then on July 13, 1940, The New York Times reported that the group had been arrested for the theft of "about $50,000 of liquors from the concern in the last four years."

Anthony's cousin would make a name for himself in New York politics.  Born on December 10, 1908, Carmine Gerard De Sapio attended St. Alphonsus parochial school and briefly attended Fordham College.  He often loaded freight at his father's business.  While in his teens, he contracted iritis, an inflammation of the eyes.  It necessitated his wearing dark glasses for the rest of his life, and they became his trademark.

The teen became involved with the Daniel Finn's Huron Club in Greenwich Village.  It was a center of Tammany power within the district.  De Sapio became Finn's "lieutenant."   By 1937, he had amassed enough power within Tammany to organize the Tamawa Club, challenging Finn's leadership in the district.  

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Carmine De Sapio married Theresa Natale in 1937 and he moved out of 38 Dominick Street.  By 1949 he was the "boss" of Tammany Hall.  His downfall came in the 1960s when, according to The New York Times, "Denounced as corrupt and authoritarian, he was abandoned by onetime allies."  In 1969 he was sent to prison, convicted of bribery charges.

In 1954, the Capone and De Sapio families converted the ground floor to a restaurant.  When Marinetta De Sapio died at the age of 76 on October 25, 1965, The New York Times remarked that she had lived "for many years at 38 Dominick Street."

Around 1987, the restaurant space became Sagebrush Canyon, which featured live jazz music.  By then, the ground floor windows had been replaced by a single opening.  

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The restaurant Alison on Dominick Street opened in 1990, its atmosphere described by The New York Times as "harmonious and comfortable and the soft lighting very seductive."  It remained until 2002.

The four 1826 houses were considered for landmark designation in 2012.  No. 38 is at the right.  photograph by Jason Kessler

A renovation completed in 2010 returned 38 Dominick Street to a single family home.  As a nod to the now lost Federal-style doorway, two disproportionate Ionic columns were shoehorned into the entrance.  Today its entablature is inscribed "Post Modern" in Greek lettering.

photograph by Jason Kessler

It and the other three remaining houses of Smith Bloomfield's 1826 row were considered by the Landmark Preservation Commission for landmark designation in May 2012.  The owners of No. 38 strongly testified against its designation, citing the drastic alterations to the nearly 200-year-old building.  The LPC agreed and only 32 to 36 Dominick Street were given landmark status.

many thanks to reader Jason Kessler for suggesting this post

Emery Roth's 1927 65 Central Park West

 

image via compass.com

The 1920's saw Central Park West transformed as late Victorian residential hotels and at least one theater made way for the streamlined, Art Deco apartment buildings that would define the upscale thoroughfare.  But esteemed apartment building architect Emery Roth had a different style in mind when he received the commission to design a 15-story structure at the northwest corner of 66th Street for the estate of George B. Leonard.   Completed in 1927, Roth's tripartite, neo-Renaissance style building scoffed at Art Deco geometric motifs and ziggurat-like towers.  He embellished the entrance with complex Renaissance-inspired carvings; placed ornate, double-height pseudo balconies at the 12th and 13th floors; and interrupted the terra cotta cornice at intervals with stepped parapets and enormous crests.

image via newyorkitecture.com

The building ignored tradition in another way, as well.  Beginning with the 1884 Dakota, apartment buildings along Central Park West were given names.  This one, however, went by its address, 65 Central Park West, more in keeping with the buildings on the opposite side of Central Park.

Potential residents could choose from a variety of apartment sizes, from as small as three rooms to sprawling duplexes.  They filled with respectable, white collar residents, among the earliest of which was retired Supreme Court Justice Max Warley Platzek (who went by his first initial and middle name).

Judge M. Warley Platzek, from The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1904 (copyright expired)

The life-long bachelor (he was 73 years old in 1927) had been the legal consul to Tammany Hall in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  He was elected to the New York State Supreme Court bench in 1906, holding that position until forced by law to retire at the age of 70 in 1924.

It was not for a reception or dinner party that the names of one young couple, David and Virginia Schwartz, appeared in The New York Sun on March 21, 1933, but for a more cringeworthy reason.  Twenty-nine year old Virginia had taken their dog along with her on a Midtown shopping excursion.  As they passed the Hotel Gorham on West 55th Street, Frances Dunn exited the hotel with her dog.  Somehow the society women became engaged in a rancorous back-and-forth about which was the better dog.  The New York Sun reported, "A dispute between two young women as to the merits of their respective dogs ended in the West Forty-seventh street station early today after having been contested bitterly by the animals and their owners in the lobby of the Hotel Gorham."

As the argument became more heated, according to hotel employees, "Mrs. Schwartz urged her dog to attack Mrs. Dunn's dog."  Frances Dunn retreated with her pet into the lobby, closely followed by Virginia Schwartz and hers.  Witnesses told police, "once in the lobby the women and dogs became engaged in a general altercation."  Frances Dunn got the worst of it, ending up on the floor with a black eye.  Hotel employees called the police and both women were taken to the station house.  There Frances Dunn filed charges against Virginia Schwartz.  She was held until her husband arrived with the $500 cash to bail her out.

Living at 65 Central Park West during the 1930's were the director of exhibits and concessions of the New York World's Fair, Maurice Mermey; and treasurer of the Port of New York Authority since its creation in 1921, William Leary.   Having started his career in advertising in 1887, Leary had been campaign manager for Theodore Roosevelt's unsuccessful run for New York City mayor.  He remained close friends with Roosevelt until the former President's death in 1919.  Before Leary's appointment to the Port Authority, he had been secretary of the Park Department.  

Former Municipal Court judge Leopold Prince took an apartment in February 1940.  He would remain until his death on August 17, 1951.  In 1941 playwright Elmer Rice and George Coulon signed leases.  Elmer Rice had just separated from his wife, Hazel Levy.  Following his divorce the following year, he married actress Betty Field.  The couple would have three children, John, Judy and Paul.

Born Elmer Lopold Reizenstein in 1892, Elmer Rice's career was lackluster until his 1923 The Adding Machine.  Described by critic Brooks Atkinson as "the most original and brilliant play any American had written up to that time," Rice had knocked the play out in just over two weeks.  By the time he moved into 65 Central Park West, he was a force in the theatrical community.  While living here his 1945 Dream Girl was produced, as well as his final play, the 1958 Cue for Passion.

Elmer Rice, from the collection of the Library of Congress

The Rice apartment was filled with an impressive artworks.  Despite his relatively humble beginnings, Rice's collection of modern paintings included works by Klee, Picasso, Modigliani, and Braque to name just a few.

Although the United States was not directly involved in World War II when George Coulton signed the lease on his six room apartment in October 1941, his home country of France most certainly was.  In reporting on his lease, The New York Times noted that he "is engaged in refugee work here."

Two months after Coulton moved in, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States was pulled into the conflict.  American socialites threw themselves into various war efforts.  Doing her part was Anne Weg, the wife of Dr. Nathaniel Weg, who became a member of the American Women's Voluntary Services salvage committee.  

Anne came from the old New York De Rham family, and had been head of the Abraham & Straus decorating department for 17 years before opening her own interior decorating shop on East 57th Street in 1939.  Now, although more accustomed to hosting card and dinner parties, she and other members spent one day a week riding on Department of Sanitation trucks to collect tin cans for recycling for the war effort.  The Sanitation Department employees did their best to make their unlikely co-workers comfortable.  On September 2, 1942, The New York Sun said the trucks had a "mirror-like sheen," the cabs "had been neatly re-upholstered in brown paper," and the driver and his helper of the truck in which Anne Weg rode "had even gone so far as to buy new work gloves."

Banker Lazar I. Estrin and his family lived at 65 Central Park West at the time.  A vice-president of the Irving Trust Co., he left his native Russian in 1916, fleeing the political upheaval there.  He and his wife, the former Helen Vishniac, had two daughters, Anne Eugenie and Lucy.  

The Estrin girls received the best of educations.  Anne graduated from the Berkeley Institute, and received a master's degree from Swarthmore College in 1943, and another in social work from Columbia University.  Lucy Estrin Kaveler graduated magna cum laude from Oberlin College in Ohio and did post-graduate work at Columbia University.  She would go on to an illustrious career as an editor and author, receiving numerous awards.

The spacious lobby is little changed since 1927.  image via corcoran.com

Among the most fascinating residents of 65 Central Park West was Eunice Roberta Hunton Carter.  She and her husband (one  of the first Black dentists in New York City) Lisle Carter Sr. had one son, Lisle, Jr.  Eunice was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1899.  She became the first Black woman to earn a law degree from Fordham University, and passed the New York bar examination in May 1933.  Only two years later, she became the first Black female assistant district attorney in the State of New York.

Convinced that mob boss Charles "Lucky" Luciano was involved in prostitution, she initiated a wide-spread prostitution racketeering investigation and successfully urged District Attorney Thomas Dewey to prosecute the case.  Up to this time, the state had been successful only in convicting organized crime leaders for tax evasion.  Because of Eunice Carter's groundwork, Luciano was sentenced to 10 years, and then was deported.

Her list of firsts continued.  Eunice Carter was the first observer from the National Council of Negro Women to attend the United Nations organizational conference in 1945.  She served as vice president of the National Council of Women of the United States from 1949 to 1967, and sat on the national board of the Young Women's Christian Association.  

Eunice Hunton Carter, original source unknown.

Lisle Carter, Jr. went on to a law career, as well.  He would serve in the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson administrations as Assistant Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and later as a vice president of the Urban Coalition.

While still living at 65 Central Park West, Eunice Hunton Carter contracted cancer.  She died in the Knickerbocker Hospital on January 25, 1970.

In 1995 the building achieved its own celebrity status, briefly anyway, when it was featured in the television series Central Park West.  An attempt to ride the coattails of primetime soap operas like Dallas and Knots Landing, it starred Mariel Hemingway, Mädchen Amick, and Kylie Travis.  The series was cancelled in 1996.

The well-heeled residents of the building could not have been more shocked when 76-year-old Dr. Irene Shapiro was arrested on the sidewalk in front of 65 Central Park West on January 14, 1998.  She and her late husband had moved into the building in 1970, and had a private practice in a ground floor office.  Following his death in the 1980's, she remained in their apartment and carried on the medical practice.

But Irene Shapiro, described by other residents as a "lovely old lady," was dealing drugs.  She was arrested when she sold four prescriptions to an undercover officer that afternoon.  One resident told The New York Times, "She was nothing but a solid citizen here.  It's a horror story if it's true."

Emery Roth's 1927 building that refused to fit the mold continues its low profile existence.   Unlike other Central Park West apartment buildings, no flashy movie stars have made headlines from here.  Other than one elderly woman selling drugs, 65 Central Park West draws no negative press, its upscale residents quietly coming and going.

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The Lost Union League Clubhouse -- 5th Ave and 39th St

When this photograph was taken in 1898 traffic was non-existent on Fifth Avenue -- photograph by Arthur Vitols, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York 

In 1876, only a few blocks north of the Astor mansions, Dickel’s Riding Academy sat at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 39^th Street.  When James Gordon Bennett, Jr. returned from England that year he brought back a newly-found affection for polo.  He soon organized indoor polo games in the Academy.  But the riding academy would not last many years longer on the site.  

Over a decade earlier, the Union Club was the most exclusive men’s club in Manhattan, if not the nation.  But trouble arose over a single member, Judah P. Benjamin.  When the War of Rebellion broke out, Benjamin accepted the post of Confederate Attorney General, and later became Secretary of War of the Southern Confederacy.  The New-York Tribune later explained “He was in the Southern States with which we had no communication; to prevent his name from being stricken from the roll of members for non-payment of dues three members, Augustus Schell, Samuel Barlow and William Travers, paid the amount due the club and retained Benjamin’s name on the list of members in good standing.”

The newspaper said, “This act of friendship for a rebel in arms produced great indignation, and the contributors to the Benjamin dues fund were severely and unsparingly criticised.”  In fact, the heated differences between the pro- and anti-Benjamin factions were such that repeated threats of duels arose—although none came to pass.  The great irony, of course, was the name of the club itself—The Union.

The rift was resolved when 70 members resigned and formed a new club, The Union League Club.  “The only requisite for membership, besides unblemished reputation, should be an uncompromising and unconditional loyalty to Nation and a complete subordination thereto of all other political ideas,” said the New-York Tribune.

Perhaps to make its disdain of the Union Club clear, within 15 days of its organization on February 6 1863 the Union League Club raised a regiment of black troops.  “After the presentation of the colors the troops started for the wharf where they were to embark for Florida, and 350 members of the Union League marched at the head of the column,” reported the Tribune.

The club’s ardent patriotism would remain a vital element throughout the decades.  Starting out in rented rooms, it moved to the former Leonard Jerome mansion on Madison Square in 1868.  Within a decade the club was looking for a new headquarters.  It would be the end of the line for Dickel’s Riding Academy.

In 1879, the Union League Club held a competition for the design of a clubhouse appropriate for one of the wealthiest and most exclusive clubs in the city.  The commission went to Peabody & Stearns.  By February 1881, the building that replaced the old riding academy was nearly completed and no detail had been overlooked.  On February 3, the Gorham Manufacturing Company announced that the silver service for the club was on exhibition in its rooms.  A day later the New-York Tribune commented on it.

Nearly 700 pieces of silver plate have been completed recently by the Gorham Manufacturing Company for the new house of the Union League Club…The material is a heavy silver plating upon hard metal.  The same design, which is remarkable for its simplicity, is followed throughout.  

The newspaper noted that instead of the shiny, polished finish expected on most tables, the Union League Club silver had “what is called a satin finish, giving a richer appearance than the ordinary polished shining silverware.”  The article listed “soup tureen; large plates with covers, for fish, game and roasts; tea, coffee and chocolate pots, and receptacles for butter, sugar and condiments.”

The expected date for the clubhouse opening was February 22, but a day after that the New-York Tribune noted that work was not yet completed.  Although the construction was done, 

...the building is overrun with joiners, finishers and varnishers, who are putting on the last touches.  The furnishers and upholsterers are already in the building, and a large part of the furniture of the club has been placed in the rooms.  Yesterday the heavy curtains were being hung in the library.  The shelves were ready for the books, and much of the furniture was in the room.  The billiard tables were in the billiard room, but were unpacked.  

Most of the rooms were in the same condition—just needing unpacking and decorating.  “The stained glass has not yet been placed in the sashes of the window at the head of the first landing of the main stairway, but it is in readiness.”  The newspaper now said that “unless something unforeseen happens,” the clubhouse would be ready in a few days.

Harper's Weekly published sketches of the Library and Dining Room in February 1881 (copyright expired)

Finally, on March 5, 1881 the club opened its doors.  The New-York Tribune reported, “The general room and private rooms were taxed to their utmost capacity, and the servants were continually running to and fro to supply the wants of the guests.”

There was no formal reception, but the open house lasted well into the night.  The young bachelor members found the view onto Fifth Avenue stimulating—due to the parade of feminine beauty.  “The windows fronting Fifth-ave. were occupied during the afternoon by the younger members, who received many bows and smiles of recognition from ladies on the sidewalks.”

Guests assemble in the lavish entrance hall during the reception for the Pan-American Delegates in 1889 -- Harper's Weekly, December 1889 (copyright expired)

The newspaper commented on the interior spaces, designed by Louis Tiffany, John LaFarge and Franklin Smith.  “The interior presented a gorgeous spectacle in the evening.  All the lights were burning.  The library, billiard hall and numerous reading and sitting-rooms were much admired and closely inspected.”  On the walls hung about 100 portraits of “men of eminence” painted by well-known artists.  The art collection included bronze and marble busts and statues, engravings and oil paintings. 

Peabody & Stearns had created a $400,000 hulking pile of brick and brownstone born of the unexpected marriage of Italian Renaissance and Queen Anne.  Variously shaped gables and chimneys poked through the high hipped roof, while balconies, pilasters, columns and carved panels created a visual overload.

Newspapers called the new building “impressive” and “greatly admired.”  The Sun said, “The building itself is  in every way worthy of so costly a site.  There are few more luxurious clubhouses in the world.”  Century Magazine was a bit slower to applaud.  In March 1882 it wrote, “The Union League Club House (Fifth Avenue, New York) has, it is hardly fanciful to say, the qualities of its defects.  The latter have been frequently pointed out in detail since the completion of the building, but so far as they strike the ordinary eye, they may be pretty sufficiently summed up in saying that the edifice seems an architectural negation of repose.”

A turn-of-the-century postcard provides a glimpse at the contrast in materials.

The magazine stressed that “repose” was an important quality of monumental architecture.  And despite that fact that the critic felt that the Union League Club had an “absence of architectural dignity as a prominent element;” it found Peabody & Stearns’ fanciful approach a bit refreshing.  He admitted that there was “a certain animation and sprightliness, which in themselves are by no means displeasing.”

Nevertheless, he summed up his evaluation sarcastically.  Any one “who has reached it after a walk of five miles up Broadway from the Battery… may be able cordially to admire only its large red mass and the unusual circumstance that it has a visible, instead of merely an inferable, roof.”

Not forgetting its roots, on April 17, 1890 the Union League Club gave a glittering reception for General William Tecumseh Sherman.  The Union general had just turned 70 years old.

Fifth Avenue Events, published in 1916, remembered the event.  

The club-house was beautifully decorated.  American flags bedecked the entrance lobby and main stairway; everywhere were streamers, banners and festoons of bunting; before the library windows were banks of flowers, and ferns and geraniums covered the mantel.  Red, white, and blue flowers were banked before the stage, which was draped with the Stars and Stripes.  A portrait of General Sherman in uniform, painted by Daniel Huntington in 1875, occupied a place of honor, draped with flags and a victor’s wreath.

The importance of the event was evidenced by some of the guests: Secretary of the Interior John W. Nobel, Vice President Levi P. Morton, senators, generals and foreign diplomats from Russia, Chili, Brazil and Peru.

The Sherman reception was but one of many held for men of importance.  On February 10, 1913, The Sun said, “Its receptions and banquets have been famous for half a century, and among its guests of honor have been some of the most prominent men in the history of their day.  Beginning with the name of Abraham Lincoln, the list embraces hundreds.”  The newspaper listed names like General U. S. Grant, Major-General Philip H. Sheridan, Edward M. Stanton, Rutherford B. Hayes, James G. Blaine, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Prince Henry of Prussia and many others.

On June 21, 1900, Governor Theodore Roosevelt arrived in New York City from Philadelphia where his name was presented as running mate for William McKinley.  Reporters thronged around him as he stepped off the train.

“Please don’t ask me any questions.  I have nothing to say, absolutely nothing upon any subject,” he announced.  When asked about his plans, he replied “My plans as yet are not fixed very far ahead.  Tonight I shall stay at the Union League Club and tomorrow I intend to go to Oyster Bay, where I will rest for a few days.”

No reporters would get through the Union League Club doors to accost the esteemed politician.

Ever-patriotic, the Union League Club is decked out for McKinley and Hobard in 1896 photograph by Robt. L. Bracklow from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York 

The tradition of supporting black soldiers continued into the 20^th century.  When the United States entered World War I, the Buffaloes—a regiment composed entirely of black soldiers—prepared to fight.  On March 24, 1918, the New-York Tribune reported that the regiment, “marched up Fifth Avenue yesterday afternoon to the stirring strains of ‘Dixie’ and received its colors, the gift of the Union League Club, from the hand of Governor Whitman.  Since ‘Dixie’ first was a tune to live or die by the Union League Club has presented the stands of colors to negro regiments, and in times less stressful than these those regiments have made enviable records.”

A decade later, as the Great Depression cast a pall over the country, the Fifth Avenue neighborhood around the Union League Club had been engulfed by business buildings.  On August 28, 1929 the club announced its plans to erect a $1 million clubhouse on Park Avenue at 37^th Street.

Two years later, on January 24, 1931, the clubhouse closed its doors.  The New York Times remarked the following day on the changes along the avenue.  

The empty windows now look down on an avenue completely changed during the fifty years the club has maintained its position as one of the city’s landmarks.  Quiet homes and the horse-drawn, rubber-tired traffic are gone…Traffic snarls stayed downtown on Fulton and neighboring streets.  Shrill whistles of the ‘police control’ did not pierce the ears of club members.  Bearded young men with stove pipe hats and congress gaiters escorted young ladies with enormous bustles and trailing skirts on strolls down Fifth Avenue.  That era of club life and observation has become history.

In 1931 the club was vacant.  Traffic has increased.  photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York 

Plans were filed soon after for the erection of a 47-story office building on the site.  The grand clubhouse sat empty and silent for a year—until 1:00 in the morning on January 26, 1932.  Somehow a fire started in the basement.  Within an hour and a half, “the entire structure was a raging furnace that seemingly defied the efforts of a small army of firemen to put it out,” reported The New York Times.

The newspaper said, “Among the 300 spectators who gathered to watch the destruction of the historic old Fifth Avenue building were a handful of elderly gentlemen who are members of the club that was founded Feb 6, 1863.”

By morning the Union League Clubhouse was a gutted shell.  On its site today stands a soaring black glass office tower.  That the monumental and quirky clubhouse stood here for half a century is generally forgotten.

photograph by the author