The 1854 Marble Collegiate Church -- 5th Avenue and 29th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1621 when the Dutch East India Company was organized, the Protestant Reformation was only a century old.  The Dutch settlers who founded New Amsterdam two years later had left a homeland still embroiled in the Revolt of the Seven Provinces--the Protestant Dutch against the Roman Catholic King Philip II of Spain.  They brought with them their Reformed Dutch religion.  According to The New York Times over two centuries later, in 1626 “the first religious meetings of which any record is left, were held in the upper room of a mill erected by Francois Molemaker, near the Port of the Battery.”

It was the planting of the seed of the Reformed Dutch Church in New York City.  The Collegiate Church was founded in 1628.  Over two centuries later, in 1851 an additional structure (there were Reformed Dutch churches on Washington Square, one on Fifth Avenue and 21^st Street, and another on Lafayette Place and Fourth Street) was deemed necessary to accommodate to northward residential migration.

Church lore suggests that Fifth Avenue was at the time rural and that livestock roamed the chosen building site at the northwest corner of 29^th Street.  In fact, Fifth Avenue was paved as far uptown as 42^nd Street in the 1840s and the area was quickly developing with high-end rowhouses.  For the church fathers to erect a white marble edifice capable of seating 1,500 worshipers in a weed field would have been either exceptionally far-sighted or simply foolish.

The cornerstone was laid on November 26, 1851 with what The New York Times deemed “appropriate ceremonies.”  Architect Samuel A. Warner’s design had transformed a traditional New England wooden church design into a commanding white marble edifice.  The large blocks of marble were hand-chosen from quarries at Hastings, New York.

Construction would take three years at a cost of $200,000—a staggering $4 million in today’s dollars.  The Times called the completed structure “though-out one of the finest church buildings in the cities of New-York or Brooklyn.”  The dedication was held on October 11, 1854.  In addition to the ground floor seating, 400 worshipers could be accommodated in the gallery wrapping three sides of the sanctuary.

The Times praised the beautiful marble stone.  “Spires, finials, and other terminal points are all of the same material, strongly distinguished in color and consistency from the stone in common use for similar purposes.” 

photo by Alice Lum

While the architect called his design “Romanesque,” The Times was a bit more accurate in saying “The groundwork of the design is decorated Gothic.”  The newspaper described the structure in detail.  “The magnificent tower and spire, rising to a total height of 230 feet from the pavement, is flanked on the north and south corners, fronting on the avenue, by two pinnacles, each 135 feet high.  On each side wall are six main buttresses, inclosing five mullioned windows, twenty-five feet in height, and of proportionate breadth.”  Perched on the steeple’s pinnacle was a six-foot weather vane in the form of a rooster.

Inside, the vast auditorium space was a single cavernous space with no visible means of support of the arched ceiling.  Graceful groining sprouted from long, heavy carved brackets in the corners and between the windows.

Collegiate Church drew its name from its “colleagues;” ministers who served all the Reformed Dutch churches rather than having a dedicated pulpit.  That method of rotating ministers expanded into an early ecumenical idea in 1858 when other denominations joined in.  On March 23^rd of that year The Times reported that “Some weeks since several of the up-town pastors agreed to hold union meetings, worshiping one week in each of their churches.  The first was held at Dr. Gillette’s church in Twenty-third –street; the second at Dr. Parker’s, Fourth-avenue;  the third at Dr. Macauley’s, Fifth-avenue; the fourth at the Rev. F. G. Clarke’s Twenty-third-street; the fifth at the Collegiate church, on Fifth-avenue and Twenty-ninth-street.”

Further down on the page that day, the newspaper reported on a recent meeting of the New-York City Temperance Alliance.  Before very long the Collegiate Church, too, would be fully embroiled in the battle against alcohol.

But first there was a greater issue on the horizon—civil war.  On February 3, 1862, less than a year after the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter, a meeting was held in the church to discuss ways to minister to the soldiers in the field.  The Times reported that “A very large assemblage was gathered last evening in the Collegiate Church…the object being to hear addresses from eminent Divines, upon the necessity of providing for the religious necessities of the army, by furnishing the troops with tracts and reading generally of a religious character.”

Among those speaking that night was the Rev. Dr. Strong, Secretary of the Board of Publication of the Reformed Dutch Church.  Although already many publications had been forwarded to the troops in the battlefields, he urged those assembled that it was not enough.

“Still more was needed; and the Reverend Doctor proceeded eloquently and pathetically to urge upon his hearers the necessity of hearty and active cooperation in this good work, which was designed of God.”

In 1873 the total membership of the Collegiate Reformed Dutch Church throughout the city numbered 1,600.  Of those, 1,100 attended the church on Fifth Avenue at 29^th Street.

photo by Alice Lum

While times and traditions changed in some churches, the Dutch Reformed Church did not.  That was made clear on October 16, 1883 when the Rev. Dr. Terry delivered a preached here specifically denouncing reforms.

“The Rev. Dr. Terry delivered a sermon, in which he remarked that of all Protestant denominations the Dutch Reformed was the most conservative.  Others had made changes in their forms of services, and changes had even been suggested in doctrine to keep up with the age.  The Reformed Church was not strong numerically as compared with other denominations, but the preacher protested against any innovations in church doctrine,” reported The Times.

While the Collegiate Church remained steadfast in opposing change for the most part—at least in doctrine—it was quick to adapt new technology when appropriate.  By the end of the year in 1890 the church had installed the latest in technology.  Until now churches enlisted the aid of young boys to pump the bellows that provided wind through the organ pipes.

In December 1890 a newspaper noted that “The blowing of church organs by means of electric motors has now reached that point where the undertaking may be said to have passed the experimental stage and become a permanent and assured success.”  The article made note of the church’s innovative use of electric motors.   The “electric plant,” said the article “in the Collegiate Church at Twenty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue very nearly solves the problem of a compound organ.  This organ has two bellows—one supplies the entire organ, with the exception of one register, which is supplied by a high-pressure bellows.  The arrangement is to throw this bellows into automatic action when the stop is drawn, thus making the supply of wind available.  When the stop is put in, the automatic arrangement is checked and the supply is cut off.”

By now the surrounding neighborhood was one of brownstone mansions and high-end hotels.  The churches of the city’s wealthy closed their doors for three months every summer as the wealthy congregants abandoned the city for resorts like Newport and Bar Harbor.  The hiatus gave the churches the opportunity to repaint or make other necessary improvements without causing interruption to services.

On October 11, 1891 the church, now formally known as The Marble Collegiate Church, reopened with a change in its services.  The New York Times reported that “The interior of the church was repaired and changed during the Summer.  In accordance with the new plan—the cathedral plan—of carrying on the work of the church, there were three services yesterday.”

The following year the fiery and influential pastor Rev. Dr. David J. Burrell gave one of his first sermons on temperance.  Railing against what was termed by another minister “The Respectable Saloon,” Burrell charged “I should prefer that my boy learned to pollute his body and destroy his soul in the lowest ‘dive’ than in one of these ‘respectable saloons.’  His course toward hell would be quicker, and would cause him and those who cherish him less suffering.

“The ministerial voice that was recently raised up in behalf of the saloon uttered the words, ‘The saloon has come to stay.’  So have yellow fever and smallpox come to stay.  So have snakes and tigers come to stay.  So have theft, murder, and uncleanness come to stay. But has any minister of the Gospel ever yet dared to put the benediction of God upon these enemies of mankind?”

Reverend Burrell’s tirade against drink would be among the first stones thrown in a long-lasting battle.

Interestingly enough, Burrell was less intolerant when it came to sports.   A month later, on November 19, it was announced that “To accommodate those who may desire to attend church on Thanksgiving Day, and also to witness the Yale-Princeton football game, the hour of service has been changed to 10:30 A.M. for that day.”

In September 1899 Fifth Avenue is decorated in preparation for the welcoming of Admiral Dewey.  Coaches wait in front of the vine-covered church.  The original diamond-paneled windows are evident in the shot.  photograph by Robert Bracklow, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GIXGXGX&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Burrell was unimpressed with Warner’s mostly-clear, mullioned windows and envisioned the more up-to-date stained glass.  He initiated a thrust to replace the windows and on December 9, 1900 the first was unveiled.  Donated by Sarah A. Sandham, the Tiffany Studios window was dedicated to the memory of her son, George Augustus Sandham.  A year later another Tiffany window was installed; this one donated by Jennie Dayton. 

Dr. Burrell’s project ground to a halt and it would be nearly a century before another stained glass window replaced one of Warner’s originals.

In 1900, the year that the Tiffany Studios windows were installed, brownstone mansions were giving way to commercial buildings -- photograph Library of Congress

On January 26, 1915 the powerful evangelist Billy Sunday announced that he had been invited to conduct a revival meeting at the Marble Collegiate Church, mainly to attack alcohol.  He gladly accepted the challenge.

“Although I am pretty well dated up, I certainly can’t let the Modern Babylon slip by.  Three strikes ought to be called on booze in that city, and I’m going to help all I can.

“Wherever you find booze you’ll find the devil backing it up with all the canister hell can produce and I’m ready to fight it anywhere.  The Lord’s battles must be fought wherever booze is entrenched,” he was quoted in The Evening World.

Three years later the conflict was still raging.  On January 28, 1918 William Jennings Bryan appeared as a “surprise speaker” and he pulled no punches regarding his disdain of the press in its opposition to prohibition.

“The New York newspapers are the center of the opposition to prohibition in this country.  An editorial in one of them is like getting a whiff of a whiskey bottle.”

Saying he expected to see the country free of saloons before he died, he decried the alcohol industry.  “The liquor interests would tie every American down, bind him hand and foot, and pour liquor into him three times a day.  I thank God we have a War Department and government which made the cantonments safe for the soldier boys.”  Bryan was referring to the law that prohibited the sale of liquor to soldiers.

Reverend Burrell, William Cullen Bryan and the other prohibitionists eventually got their way.  In 1933, however, with the repeal of Prohibition, the cause for which the Marble Collegiate Church had so ardently supported for decades was lost.

The Austin organ dominates the entrance wall behind the worshipers in 1938--photograph by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GIXDY6P&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Even more memorable and influential than Burrell was the pastor who came to Marble Collegiate in 1932.  The charismatic Dr. Norman Vincent Peale served the church for more than half a century; during which he wrote 46 books including his best seller The Power of Positive Thinking.  He innovated ministry when he took to the airwaves in 1935 with his weekly "The Art of Living."

A mid-century postcard depicts the sanctuary decorated for Easter.

As the exclusive residential neighborhood continued to move northward along Fifth Avenue the mansions around Marble Collegiate were razed for business buildings.  Yet the congregation remained upscale throughout the decades of the 20^th century.  The eyes of the world watched on December 22, 1968 when President-Elect Richard Nixon escorted his daughter Julie into the church for her wedding.  Outside throngs of New Yorkers crushed the avenue to get a glimpse of the politician and the beautiful bride.

A statue of the charismatic and influential Dr. Norman Vincent Peale stands outside the church -- photo by Alice Lum

National attention of a more scandalous sort came when church member Donald Trump met 21-year old Marla Maples at a 1985 tennis tournament in Atlantic City.  The married Trump was smitten with the small-time actress and People Magazine later noted “By 1987, during services at the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, Trump was secretly romancing Maples as he found ways to temporarily ditch Ivana and their kids.”

In 1997 a committee was organized to address the windows.  Eight stained glass windows were commissioned to complete the sanctuary windows.  The following year a restoration project was initiated that would take a year and a half to complete.  The nearly 150-year old marble was cleaned and repaired along with other necessary restorations. 

photo by Alice Lum

In 2002 a spectacular wedding took place in the church that perhaps overshadowed even the Nixon wedding.  The sanctuary was banked with flowers and fifteen bridesmaids proceeded down the aisle in a lavish production of a ceremony for 56-year old Liza Minnelli and concert promoter David Gest.  The wedding party included Elizabeth Taylor and best man Michael Jackson.  In the pews were Jane Russell, Gina Lollobrigida and columnist Cindy Adams.

Little of Marble Collegiate Church has changed, both inside and out, since it opened its doors in 1854.  Not only a symbol of the oldest Protestant Church in the country, it is a rare and wonderful architectural survivor.

photo by Alice Lum

The Seemingly-Doomed Bancroft Bldg -- No. 7 West 29th St.

The pinnacles of Marble Collegiate Church (one seen at far right) were nearly duplicated on the roof of the Bancroft Building.

In February 1875 the Association of the Bar purchased the substantial brick home at No. 7 West 29^th Street.  Midway between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, the mansion sat in a most fashionable area for the club’s proposed headquarters.  The neighborhood and the exceptional size of the property—75 feet wide, or about three full building lots—were reflected in the price; $100,000 or about $2 million today.

The Association’s minutes noted “The situation is healthy and agreeable, central, and easily accessible from every direction, and it was believed the property was not likely for a long time to come to depreciate in value.”  Regarding the mansion, the notes called it “A brick building of substantial structure covered forty-five feet of the width of the lots, and was of convenient depth.  By property alterations, without undue expense, it could, in the opinion of the Committee, be made adequate for the purposes of the Association for several years to come.”

Indeed, the Association was in the mansion for several years—twenty, to be exact.  Then on October 1, 1895 it sold the property as it prepared to move to its new headquarters that extended from 43^rd to 44^th Streets between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.   The buyer, real estate developer Edward H. Van Ingen, paid $225,000 for the property, $25,000 below asking price.  The New York Times surmised “The purchasers…will probably erect a business structure on the site.”

The New York Times was right.  The 29^th Street neighborhood was no longer one of clubs and mansions.  Business buildings and hotels were now cropping up in the area.  Van Ingen commissioned esteemed architect Robert H. Robertson to design an eye-catching modern office building on the site of the venerable mansion.

Robertson had become known for his own take on Romanesque Revival in the previous decade.  But for what would become the Bancroft Building, he went in a completely different direction.  Completed in 1897, six stories of red brick and white stone were sandwiched between a limestone top floor and a three-story rusticated limestone base.   The stone bands and voussoirs created a vibrant contrast with the rich red brick—reminiscent of the popular Venetian Gothic and Ruskinian Gothic styles of a generation earlier.  Above it all, Robertson perhaps gave a friendly nod to the Marble Collegiate Church next door, facing Fifth Avenue, by adding near-matching pinnacles on the Bancroft roof.

Sturdy limestone piers and columns contrast with the light-hearted red and white treatment of the middle floors.

With the building completed, Van Ingen was ready to cash in.  On August 25, 1897 he traded the Bancroft Building for another plot ready for development.  The New-York Tribune reported “The valuable plot of land at Broadway and Thirty-ninth-st., on which it was intended to build the Herald Square Hotel, was traded by Julien T. Davies to Edward H. Van Ingen for the Bancroft Building and a sum of money.”  The New York Times estimated the value of the still-vacant Bancroft Building at “from $650,000 to $750,000."

Davies was quick to fill his new building.  Among the first tenants were a surprising number of architects.  Two months later, in January 1898, Architecture and Building commented “The Bancroft Building, 3, 5, and 7 West Twenty-ninth Street, New York, is about to become quite an architectural centre.  Mr. Henry Rutgers, Marshall Babb, Cook & Willard, Parish & Schroeder and John E. Howe occupying the entire ninth floor.”

J. B. Colt & Co., “prominent in the business of making and selling projection lanterns and the like apparatus,” according to Electrical Engineer, also moved in that year, and expanded into the “sale of acetylene gas generators for the lighting of all kinds of buildings, etc.  On account of this decision they are offering special opportunities in price to buyers of projection apparatus, arc focusing lamps, magic lanterns, stereopticons, slides and other accessories.”  The J. B. Colt firm would be the first, but not the last, tenant interested in the growing field of photography.

In March Knauth Brothers signed a five-year lease on the store, basement and second floor. Manufacturers of surgical instruments the 23-year old firm had become what the Journal of Surgical Technology called “among the foremost houses in the trade.”  The Journal commented on the new space in the Bancroft Building.  “This establishment on Twenty-ninth street embodies the latest sanitary and artistic construction, and the total amount of space at the disposal of the firm equals about 30,000 square feet.”

In 1898 The Journal of Surgical Technology published photographs of Knauth Brothers' new space (copyright expired)

Along with Knauth Brothers and the architectural firms came a number of publishers.  The Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions moved in in 1898, publishers of "The Student Missionary Appeal."  The 563-page volume reprinted addresses given at missionary conferences.

Publisher R. H. Russell was another new tenant.  He took the entire sixth floor in March (sharing it with the Cassler Magazine Company) and within the next few months published Thomas Nelson Page’s “Two Prisoners,” “Poems,” by Robert Burns Wilson, and “Shapes and Shadows,” a book of poems by Madison Cadwein among others.

In January 1898 the International Committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association leased the entire 10^th Floor.  By April the space was ready and the organization moved in.  The report of “The Jubilee of Work for Young Men in North America” reported “This floor is subdivided into a large number of offices occupied by secretaries of various departments such as Publication, Business, Field, Railroad, Army and Navy, Educational, Physical, Special Religious Work, and Boys’.  Here also is the editorial office of Association Men.”

A few days after the YMCA took the 10th floor, the Camera Club of New York leased the entire 8^th Floor; signing a lease of five years.   Two years earlier Alfred Stieglitz, one of the principals of the club, had helped negotiate the merger of the Camera Club with the Society of Amateur Photographers.  The group was now among the wealthiest and largest clubs in the nation.  As a result the space in the Bancroft Building not only included the expected darkrooms, labs and camera equipment; it reportedly had all the amenities of an upscale club, including a library.

From here Stieglitz published the quarterly Camera Notes that included photogravures and half-tones.  The man who almost single-handedly raised photography from a hobby to an art form was honored with an exhibition of his photography here from May 1 to May 15 in 1899.

The following year, on April 2, Frederick E. Partington delivered a lecture for the benefit of the library fund of Vassar College in the Camera Club rooms.  Partington’s subject was “Romantic France and the Pyrenees,” and was illustrated by “slides taken from original photographs,” said The New York Times.  The newspaper noted that “There is a long list of prominent New York women, most of them members of the alumnae association of the college, who are patronesses.”

Meanwhile the Young Men's Christian Association International Committee had its hands full as the Boxer Uprising threatened missionaries in China.  Erratic communication left the office unsure if some families of missionaries were safe and rescue parties were sent by steamer.

Reverand Horace Pitkin wrote to the office here on May 14, 1900 saying "Our guard of soldiers still come at night, but they will be of little service in case of actual outbreak.  The morale of their presence is the only justification for keeping them."   Miss Mary S. Morrill, writing from Pao-ting Foo, prompted other missionaries to keep their children in the safety of the schools "since their large feet would show forth the family connection with churches."

A variety of tenants, many of them architects and publishers, continued to come and go.  In 1900 the American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society was here, as was the architectural firm of Hardy & Short.  In 1903 the Moyea Automobile Company established its offices in the building and on May 1 of that year Frank Presbrey Company, “general advertising agents,” took over the entire 8^th floor.  The School Journal said at the time “This agency numbers among its patrons some of the most solid and representative advertisers in the world.”

In 1911 when Hints, an entertainment magazine, moved into its new quarters the Anthos Company was already doing business here.  That company, run by Mrs. Millicent Searle, sold patent remedies like Tonia, Ceratum, Baquilles, Elixir and Sal-Nutrient.  Anthos representatives went door-to-door, selling the tonics mostly to housewives.  The practice drew the suspicion of the County Medical Society.

Police matron Isabella Goodwin was sent undercover to work for the firm.  She later testified before Chief Magistrate McAdoo that she would earn 20 cents for every dollar’s worth of preparations she sold.  She was advised “to influence patients to take three to six months of treatment.”  When she asked her supervisor whether she should not merely suggest a month’s treatment, he responded “Are you a piker?”  

One day when Goodwin arrived at the Bancroft Building office feeling under the weather, she asked her supervisor if she should take one of the preparations. She testified that he replied “No.  Our medicines will do you no good.  I take some of them now and then, because I like the taste.”

Mrs. Searle was arraigned on the charge of illegally practicing medicine on May 30, 1911.

On December 12, 1914 Julien T. Davies traded the Bancroft Building for a new apartment building on Lexington Avenue and 72^nd Street.  The new owner was the E. A. L. Realty Company.  The firm would not hold the property long and on February 11, 1916 The Times reported that the building’s original owner, Edward H. Van Ingen “yesterday acquired the title in the Bancroft Building.”

By now the millinery and apparel district was moving northward from the Broadway district below 14^th Street.  In 1915 Eden Manufacturing Company was one of the first of the clothing firms to move in.  In 1919 another publisher took space in the building.  Gallon-Hall Corporation was the publisher of Automotive Engineering.

That same year tenants Schwabach & Raphael, who were “engaged in the cotton goods business,” according to The New York Times, purchased the building from Van Ingren.  The sale was perhaps a reflection of the expanding garment district and other apparel firms quickly moved in.  Among them were C. Reis, manufacturers of “cloaks, suits, waists and furs;” P. S. Farmer, resident buyer of cloaks and suits; the Manhattan Petticoat Company; and Weisberg & Zimmern.

In the second half of the 20^th century Marble Collegiate Church acquired the Bancroft Building.  In 1961 a renovation was completed resulting in meeting, religious, chapel and social rooms on the first floor and offices and a Sunday school on the second.  In doing so a well-intentioned but ungainly and architecturally inappropriate addition was erected at street level.

Concern over the preservation of architecturally or historically significant structures has never been a hallmark of religious institutions and in the spring of 2013 Marble Collegiate Church began plans to demolish the Bancroft Building.  In its place the church envisioned an obtrusive glass slab with no context in the neighborhood.

The proposed new office tower -- NY.Curbed.com

In June 2013 neighbors petitioned Community Board 5 and the Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate the Bancroft Building a New York City landmark.  The battle over the Victorian structure, not only an anomaly among Robertson designs but an historic spot in the history of American photography—continues; although the outlook for the Bancroft Building looks gloomy.

 

UPDATE:  The Bancroft Building was demolished in 2015.

photographs taken by the author

many thanks to reader Ward Kelvin for requesting this post

The Lost Grace Reformed Church - 7th Avenue and 54th Street

Ivy clings to the brick facade below a  curious one-sided structure that suggested a bell tower, but had no real purpose.  photograph by Robert L. Bracklow, from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

Founded in 1628, the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church was the oldest religious sect in Manhattan.  As the city and its population grew, new congregations were organized and new church edifices erected each one inching further northward.

The Civil War interrupted development in New York City, but it returned with a flurry immediately afterward.  In 1869, the same year the cornerstone was laid for the impressive St. Nicholas Church on Fifth Avenue and 48th Street, the Collegiate Dutch Church purchased lots on Seventh Avenue and 54th Street for a "mission chapel" of the Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue and 29th Street.

The subsequent Seventh Avenue Chapel, as it was called, was later described by the Year Book of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, as a "commodious edifice."  Construction was apparently rapid, for on October 23, 1869 the Street Commissioner ordered "that two gas-lamps be placed in front of the chapel of the Dutch Reformed Church, situated on the corner of Fifty-fourth street, and Seventh avenue."

In 1880 the Collegiate Dutch Church commissioned architect W. Wheeler Smith to enlarge and remodel the building.  A one-story chapel and Sunday school was added, a new roof installed and the facade rebuilt.  The renovations came at a cost of $7,000, just under $175,000 in today's dollars.

Smith put his trademark touches on the building, giving it a blend of Victorian Gothic and Romanesque Revival.   Stone band courses contrasted with the red brick to produce a striped effect, much like those he created on St. Nicholas Church.  The asymmetrical facade, the tall hip roof pierced by tiny dormers, and the inexplicable wafer-thin corner tower  resulted in an architecturally eccentric house of worship.

In 1885 the expenses of maintaining the chapel were weighing heavily on its mother church.  The Executive Committee complained "the chapel at Seventh Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street took all our resources of time and money."  On October 21 that year The New York Times reported on the annual meeting of the Classis of the Dutch Reformed Church.   The first item on the agenda was the reading of "a communication from the Mission Chapel of the Collegiate Church, asking that it be organized as a regular church."

The group promptly agreed to the reorganization, "which will take place on Nov. 15."  The Classis met in the Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue and 29th Street the following month.  It was formally announced that the chapel was now an independent entity--Grace Reformed Church--and that the Rev. Joseph R. Rankin Duryee had been chosen as its pastor.   It was an expected and logical decision.  Since his ordination in 1879 Duryee had been the chapel's preacher.

The pastor's salary was placed at $2,500--about $65,800 a year today.   The Marble Collegiate Church was not totally off the hook financially, however.  It was pledged to contribute $2,000 a year for six years to the maintenance of the new church.

Rev. Joseph Rankin Duryee - The University Magazine, September 1890 (copyright expired) 

The 32-year old Duryee had graduated from Rutgers College in 1874 before his ordination from the Seminary of the Reformed Church at New Brunswick.  In 1882 had married Margaret E. Sloan in a fashionable ceremony attended by some of New York society's most recognized names, including Mr. and Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey M. Depew, the Cornelius Vanderbilts, and the Jay Goulds.

It was Margaret's personal fortune that allowed the family to enjoy an upscale lifestyle.  They lived in a comfortable Murray Hill home and maintained a summer estate, Wyndune, at Garrison-on-the-Hudson.

As the 19th century drew to a close changes in the general neighborhood caused alarm to many righteous residents.   In 1890 John Griffith operated the Sixth Avenue Hotel on Sixth Avenue at the corner of 44th Street.  When his liquor license came up for renewal, a flurry of protests were raised at the Board of Excise meeting on June 4.  The shocking testimonies prompted The New York Times to run the headline: "A BAD AND WICKED PLACE" the following day.

One week later more evidence was being heard and this time Rev. Duryee took the stand.  The Sun reported on June 13 "The Rev. Dr. Joseph R. Duryea [sic] of Grace Reformed Church...testified that his pastoral duties had brought him in contact with several young women who had been ruined in the hotel.  Some of them were dead."

That summer, while most congregants were away from the city, Grace Reformed Church underwent a "thorough renovation and much artistic decoration," as described by The Times on October 12.  The newspaper noted "this church has always been very cozy and, since the addition of the chapel, quite complete.  The recent decorations add to the brightness of the place, and the congregation enters upon the season with good reason for encouragement and the best of spirits."  The article noted that within the past five years the membership had quadrupled.

Churches often hosted educational lectures and Grace Reformed Church was no different.  On February 14, 1890, for instance, an "illustrated lecture on 'The Land of the Greeks'" was given by W. L. Cushing.  But perhaps no speaker garnered more attention that did Elizabeth Bacon Custer the following year.

On November 6 the widow of General George Custer gave her first public appearance, speaking on her latest book, Life on the Western Plains.  The New York Times reported "The applause and laughter of the audience showed the interest of her subject and the skill with which she handled it."

Among the items Mrs. Custer spoke about was the love of a cavalry soldier for his horse, the arrangement of buildings within military posts, and the dangers wives faced on the frontier.

"At our last post," she said, "none of the ladies went outside the post limits without an escort for three years.  It was hard to believe that the bluffs that looked so inviting were filled with Indians, lying behind sage and cactus, bent upon mischief.  When we all went out for a picnic one day an entire troop of cavalry, completely armed, accompanied us.  We were so accustomed to it then that we though nothing of it, and it is only since I have been living in the States that it has occurred to me that perhaps nobody but military women ever went on merrymaking excursions in such a manner."

from Nickerson's Illustrated Church, Musical and School Directory, (copyright expired)

Rev. Duryee officiated at many funerals, of course.  But it was an especially emotional service on April 21, 1906--that of his wife, Margaret.   By now the couple's four children--Marjorie, Maria La Grange, Elisabeth Sloan, and Samuel Sloan--were nearly grown.

Marjorie would be the first to wed.  She married Rev. Elmer Orlando Weld, assistant pastor of Brooklyn's Grace Church in November 1911.  They put off their wedding trip until May the following year.  Then devastating news arrived from London on June 17, 1912.

The Sloan family had been highly involved in the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company for decades.  Marjorie visited the firm's London office that morning, and waited for her husband there.  Weld was running late and at around 11:00 headed across busy Cockspur Street.  A telegraph explained that in dodging a taxicab, he did not see a motorbus coming around the corner.  "He was struck by the side of the omnibus and thrown on the asphalted street."  Weld was dead by the time he was taken to Charing Cross Hospital.

Happier times for the minister came eight months later when he announced that both Maria and Elisabeth were engaged.   The Times reported on July 6, 1913 that "The wedding of the two sisters will be celebrated at the same hour at the Summer home of their father in the early Autumn."

The idea of a double ceremony may have seemed a good idea for the sisters at the time, but as the date neared, they changed their minds.   Elisabeth was married in Wyndune on August 26 and her sister was married there about five weeks later, on October 2.  Their father, of course, officiated.

Samuel Sloan Duryee was a captain in the U.S. Army when the United States entered World War I in April 1917.  The conflict may have hastened his own wedding plans and he was married to Mary Ballard in Maine on August 20 that year.  Again, Rev. Duyree officiated.

One wedding he could not officiate was his own.  After being widowed for 14 years and with his children now gone, he married Mabel Dunham Thurber in 1920.  Concurrently, he resigned from the church he had served since 1879.

Whether Duryee's retirement was the catalyst is uncertain; but the same year that the only pastor the church had ever known stepped down, the Dutch Reformed Church closed its doors.  After it sat empty for nearly two years, The New York Herald reported on March 2, 1922 the Reformed Protestant Church had sold the property for $450,000.  The article noted "The Grace Reformed Church was abandoned as a place of worship in 1920."

Seven months later The New York Times offered more details.  Builder Marcus Brown, it said, had purchased the site "for a fourteen-story apartment house" and added "The undertaking, which will involve a total outlay of $1,500,000, will be started immediately."

The replacement building, known as The Congress today, survives.

Socialites, Teepees and Fashion Shows -- No. 25 East 22nd Street

photo wirednewyork.com

Although the majority of New York City’s wealthy gentry crowded into the grand Episcopal Churches in the 19th Century, the Reformed Church was the first organized church in Manhattan, in existence since 1628. While Vanderbilts and Astors worshipped at St. Thomas Church or Trinity Chapel, Van Rensselaers and Rollins attended Marble Collegiate Reformed Church on Fifth Avenue.

Among that congregation were Percy R. Pyne and his wife Albertina Shelton Pyne. The president of City Bank, Pyne amassed a fortune of over $10 million. Around the time of the Civil War he built a broad, 5-story townhouse with sweeping entrance stairs at No. 25 East 22nd Street off Fifth Avenue in the fashionable Murray Hill neighborhood. Here, in their home filled with their collection of paintings and the finest of furnishings, the Pyne's entertained the cream of society.

In the 1892 the Pynes moved north, having built a grand new home in Riverdale. At the same time the Reformed Church was seeking a consolidated headquarters for its administrative work. The Church purchased the mansion for $67,000 and immediately began renovations.

An large assembly room was added to the original structure, “furnished through the liberality of a few laymen.” One room was delegated to the Board of Foreign Missions, in which were displayed “many interesting objects collected by the Church’s missionaries in heathen lands.” Two rooms were used by the Board of Direction, and others were renovated for the Board of Publication, the Women’s Executive Committee, the Board of Domestic Missions, The Board of Education and the Women’s Board of Foreign Missions.

The atmosphere of the elegant home went from glittering dinner parties to sometimes surprising church functions.

In January of 1897 a Secretary of the Japanese Legation at St. Petersburg, Mr. Akiyama, paused at the Sturtevant House Hotel on his way back to Japan. In his room was a Bible. The Secretary read the text, and immediately decided to convert from Shintoism to Christianity.

He summoned the hotel manager who, in turn, sent for the Rev. Mr. Clark of Marble Collegiate Church. The Secretary, after discussing Christianity for some hours, demanded to be baptized at once, despite Clark’s urging for “deliberation.”

Within the day the Japanese diplomat was taken to No. 25 East 22nd Street where he attended a session of the Women’s Board of Foreign Missions and was baptized by Reverend Clark.

Later, on April 9 of that year, a teepee was erected inside the house as part of a fund-raising effort to build a parsonage for the Rev. Frank Hall Wright. Reverend Wright had been living in a teepee for two years while doing missionary work among the Cheyennes and Arapahoes in Oklahoma. An “Indian Tea” was sponsored by the Women’s Executive Committee and the rooms were decorated with Navajo blankets and “many Indian curiosities.”

The New York Times reported that “At the tea table ‘Falling Star,’ a full-blood Indian, proved even more attractive than the delicious tea and cakes which she dispensed.”

On July 8, 1939 the Reformed Church headquarters moved to 156 Fifth Avenue. Two years later fire tore through the former Pyne House, seriously damaging the interiors. In 1942 the Serbian Orthodox Church purchased the property with the intention of converting it into a church. Those plans were abandoned when the Church obtained the former Trinity Chapel and the house was sold again a few months after it was purchased.

As the East 22nd Street neighborhood changed, the house became home to fashion companies. For years in the late 20th Century No. 25 West 22nd housed the New York City headquarters of Nike, Inc. In 1997 it was sold for $1 million to Novello, Inc., a fashion company, that intended “to use the property as its New York headquarters” and showrooms.

By the time the house was put on the market again in 2004, Mrs. Pyne would not have recognized her once-ornate interiors; an exhibition space with 40-foot ceilings, for instance, replaced her grand formal parlor. The 13,000 square foot property was purchased by David Chu, founder of Nautica, for $100 million the following year, for use as “an atelier.”

One of the last surviving reminders of the elegant residential period of East 22nd Street, the exterior of the Pyne House is amazingly intact despite the substantial alterations inside.

The 1891 Holland House -- 5th Ave. at 30th Sreet

At the turn of the century, handsome carriages wait outside the fashionable Holland House Hotel -- NYPL Collection

Swiss-born restaurateur Gustav Baumann managed Kinsley’s Restaurant in Chicago, touted by The Evening World as “the best eating place in that city,” until 1890.  But, the newspaper noted, “Seeking a larger field, Mr. Baumann looked over New York.” 

Gustav Baumann indeed found a larger field.

By now most of the owners of the grand mansion on Fifth Avenue below 34^th Street had moved northward.  The thoroughfare remained exclusive, however, with the elegant Delmonico’s Restaurant at the corner of 26^th Street and the grand Fifth Avenue Hotel at 23^rd Street. 

Baumann partnered with another Chicago restaurateur, H. M. Kinsley to build the most majestic hotel in New York City.   Brownstone mansions were demolished at the southwest corner of 30^th Street, just south of the Astors’ twin mansions, where architects Harding & Gooch would design a stunning new structure. 

The 11-story hotel maintained the reserved dignity of Fifth Avenue with restrained ornamentation.  A grand portico at street level would welcome the well-heeled guests.  Shallow bay windows at the third through fifth floors allowed increased airflow to otherwise stuffy rooms.  But the interiors of the new Holland House Hotel would steal the show.

Two years before the opening of John Astor’s magnificent Waldorf Hotel on the site of his father’s mansion, the Holland House was the last word in luxury and elegance.  When the 2,000 invited guests walked through the door for the grand opening on December 5, 1891 they were dazzled.  Baumann and Kinsley had based the décor on the original Holland House Hotel in the Kensington section of London.

The New York Tribune praised, “The magnificence of the hallway at the Fifth-ave. entrance is a good illustration of the furnishings in other parts of the building.  The walls are of Sienna marble.  The main staircase, which ascends from the centre of the main hallway to the parlors above, is also of richly carved Sienna marble.  The ceiling near the staircase is decorated in silver.”

A large tapestry provides the background for the marble Grand Staircase -- NYPL Collection

The café was decorated, according to The New York Times, “in Louis Quinze style.”  The salmon-and-gold painted ceiling was supported by a long row of columns and “In spite of its size--25 by 50 feet—the dining hall seems delightfully cozy.”  The Tribune noted that “Electric lights in crystal globes hang from oxidized silver chandeliers above every table in the room.”

On the same floor were drawing rooms in white and gold, and the “gilt room”—an Elizabethan-style banquet room--towards the rear which was an exact reproduction of the Gilt Room in the London hotel.  A buffet room on this level was done in Italian Renaissance style.

The Gilt Room was an exact copy of the room of the same name in London's Holland House hotel -- NYPL Collection

The main dining room was on the third floor, fitted with mirrors around the room.  Over each was a reproduction Wattean tapestry. 

W. & J. Sloane had provided the custom carpeting for the 350 guest rooms which The Times said “are all beautifully furnished and decorated.”    There was a staff of 180 “below stairs” where, among the marvels of the hotel, was a cellar stocked with $350,000 worth of wine.

The show-stopping hotel cost around $2.5 million and its furnishings another $450,000.  It was owned solely by Mrs. J. Van Doren, a wealthy widow who had inherited her fortune from her father.  She leased the operation to Kinsley and Baumann for a handsome $145,000 for the first five years of the 15-year lease.  “After that time the rental is to be increased,” noted The Tribune.

The ivy-covered Marble Collegiate Church shares the block with the Holland House -- postcard Library of Congress

Most of those employees who worked “above stairs” wore simple dark blue uniforms, while the footmen wore full livery and the hallboys and elevator operators wore bright blue with red and white cord.   For the privilege to work at the Holland House a new employee paid for his own uniform—just about three weeks worth of wages.

Baumann and Kinsley did not hold back when they published an advertisement in "King’s Photographic Views of New York City."  “A marvelously beautiful house in the swellest quarter of New York,” it gushed.  The ad noted “An exquisite Italian Renaissance building…Elaborate elevator service.  Every modern appliance in all the details of construction and equipment…The most perfect restaurant in the world.”

To enjoy the luxuries of the hotel, guests would pay $2.00 and up per night for a room—about $46.50 today.  The hotel would see the comings and goings of the most important guests in the world—presidents, politicians, and royalty.  One of the most celebrated visits was that of the Duchess of Devonshire on the night of March 29, 1901—at least her portrait visited.  

Years earlier—in 1876—the American thief Adam Worth had stolen Thomas Gainsborough’s masterpiece The Duchess of Devonshire—perhaps the most famous painting of its time--in London.  The criminal mastermind would become the inspiration for Professor Moriarty of the Sherlock Holmes novels.  Unfortunately for Worth, his ransom negotiations never went far and he retained the painting for a quarter of a century, often carrying it rolled up in an umbrella or in his suitcase.   When the priceless portrait was retrieved in 1901, it spent the night in the Holland House before starting its voyage back to England.

The hotel was the starting point for an eagerly-awaited annual event.  Each Spring, four-horse coaching outings, called Tally-ho parties, would leave the hotel and head northward up Fifth Avenue to Central Park in what The New York Tribune deemed “grand style.”    Wealthy New Yorkers, dressed in their finest, crowded into large coaches for the outings as less fortunate residents and tourists watched from the sidewalks.

Well-dressed participants in front of the Holland House prepare for a Tally-Ho party -- NYPL Collection

In February 1902 a famous French artist staying at the Holland House incited a stir.  Because of his high regard in the international art world The New York Tribune chose not to reveal his name.   After dining alone, the artist was “lingering over a cordial” and “decided to show his approval of the meal and service by drawing an elaborate sketch on the immaculate linen cloth which covered the table.”

In France, the artist was accustomed to having his sketches recognized as a valuable token of appreciation.   The drawings were cut from the table cloths, framed, and hung in a prominent place in the café.   And so, after the waiter asked him to please not mark up the table cloth, the artist continued sketching his Parisian scene.

The Tribune reported that the artist explained “I make you a very fine sketch, to which I attach presently my own name.”  The waiter was not moved.  As the famous artist continued his work, the waiter informed the head waiter who had the artist “deposited on the sidewalk.”

The enraged artist made his way across Fifth Avenue through the traffic.  The Tribune said “His rage hardly permitted him to speak, but at last he succeeded.  ‘Pigs!’ he cried, and he spat at the hotel through his teeth.”

The wealthy clientele of the Holland House attracted a less savory sort—thieves.   In the Spring of 1902 a brooch valued at $10,000 was stolen from the room of Mrs. R. H. McCormick, of Chicago, the wife of the United States Minister to Austria. 

Although the hotel had superb security personnel, sometimes the crooks appeared in Holland House uniforms.  Patrick Bolan was a porter here that same year and he supplemented his salary with jewelry taken from guest rooms.  His criminal career was cut short after Mr. and Mrs. Matheson of Huntington, Long Island, stayed overnight on April 4 after attending the theater.

The following morning Mrs. Matheson discovered that her pigskin jewelry case was missing, along with the $12,000 worth of jewels.   Later Patrick Bolan entered a Bowery pawnshop and asked for $35 for a necklace that the pawnbroker recognized as being worth about $2,500.    The broker called police and Bolan was taken to the Jefferson Market Court.    When he was searched police found two gold rings—one set with a large opal and surrounded by diamonds, the other set with three large rubies.  

Police then searched Bolan’s room on Houston Street.  The porter had been a busy boy.    Among the jewelry found there were four gold watches, rings, and jeweled chains.

Pliny Fisk, a wealthy banker, was not just a guest at the hotel, he lived here.  On New Year’s Day morning in 1903, around 6:40, Fisk was awakened by a noise in his parlor.  Because his valet customarily entered the suite around 7:00 each morning to prepare the banker’s clothes, he thought little of it.  But when he heard the rustling of papers around 15 minutes later, he grew suspicious.

Fisk burst into the front room to find a well-dressed man rifling through his desk.  On the floor was a bundle containing jewelry and clothing.   Although Fisk sprang at the thief, he was overpowered.    The Evening World reported “Being a small man, Mr. Fisk was getting the worst of it when he broke loose from the thief and ran down the hall in his pajamas, shouting that there was a thief in the house.”

After much commotion and the somewhat shocking appearance of Pliny Fisk on the first floor of the Holland House in his torn pajamas, the thief was apprehended descending the grand staircase.   He was Charles Dean, otherwise known as Nick Moran, who had already served eight prison terms.  The World was astonished that the near-crime could have happened at all.  “The most interesting feature of Dean’s attempt to rob Mr. Fisk is that it was made in the Holland House.  If there is a well-guarded hotel in the city, it is the Holland House.”

The World provided a sketch of Fisk and the crook -- January 3, 1902 (copyright expired)

Thefts, however, were relatively rare.   But one somewhat sordid activity was not so rare; a hotel accommodation that was definitely not advertised.  Years later Howard Moore would recall his employment in the hotel as switchboard operator in 1905.  "My most frequent customer was  the house detective, a handsome man whose chief function, I soon learned, was that of pimp, providing high-class ladies of the evening for gentlemen who could afford to pay one hundred dollars a night.  This involved much telephoning.”

A postcard view up Fifth Avenue in 1905 shows the rival Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (with the conical tower).

In October 1912 the hotel was a hive of security as President Taft stayed here, shortly after the assassination attempt on Roosevelt in Milwaukee.   On the morning of October 16 the President’s party—his wife, brother Charles, his daughter and Mrs. Taft’s sister—had breakfast in the Holland House dining room then headed for Grand Central Terminal.

“The President and his wife, on their way from the door of the hotel to the automobile passed through a guard of half a dozen policemen.  Secret Service men and detectives watchfully weaved among the persons standing near.  Two Secret Service men got into the car with the President and his wife.  Seven other members of the Secret Service and Detective Bureau boarded another car.  Ten motorcycle policemen were on hand to act as an escort,” reported The Evening World.

In a scenario that foreshadowed today’s Presidential security, Fifth Avenue was shut down as the motorcade passed up Fifth Avenue.  The Evening World noted that “the police officials heaved sighs of relief when he was gone.”

In 1919 Congress passed the Volstead Act, prohibiting the sale of liquor.  The new law appeased the temperance movement, but had other unexpected ramifications.  Thousands lost their jobs in New York City alone—bartenders, tavern owners, brewery workers, and others.   Restaurants and hotels, unable to survive were forced to close.  And so it was with the Holland House.

The 30^th Street area was no longer the center of wealth and newer, more modern hotels in more convenient locations uptown lured well-to-do guests away from the aging hotel.  Prohibition was the last straw for the Holland House.

Other than a brutal roof addition and the loss of the portico, little has changed in the former hotel's outward appearance -- photo by Alice Lum

On July 4, 1920 The New York Tribune noted that three of New York’s resident hotels, including the Holland House, had given way to business.   The article remembered that “The Holland House claimed Marshall Field as one of its regular patrons.  Ambassador Jusserand was among the European notables who had a preference for this hotel.  Probably because of its name, visiting Dutchmen to this country patronized the Holland House more than any other hotel.”   The newspaper added “its last days brought forth much of sentimental reminiscence.”

Some of the hotel’s elaborate interior decorations were incorporated into a renovation of the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut that was taking place at the same time.   The magnificent Gilt Room, the café, the grand staircase, everything was gutted from the Holland House as the building was renovated into office space.

A close look reveals the intricate geometric carvings along the 9th floor -- photo by Alice Lum

The exterior was restored in 2003.  Yet with its grand portico shorn off and storefronts installed at street level, the once-splendid hotel is easy to pass by.   But astoundingly, very little has changed to the Harding & Gootch’s limestone façade—even the carved panel over the entranceway survives.    Once ranked among the most luxurious hotels in the world, the Holland House now serves a much humbler purpose.

The Lost New York Clearing House 77 Cedar Street

The pierced panels hid the windows of the third floor, but allowed light and ventilation in.  Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, September 29, 1894 (copyright expired)

By 1850 America had developed at a whirlwind rate.   A proposal to construct a railroad to the Pacific Ocean was being discussed in Washington, the gold rush of a year earlier had planted the seeds of development from coast to coast, and in New York the banking industry was exploding.

In the four years between 1849 and 1853 the number of banks in the city more than doubled—from 24 to 57.   Porters rushed along the streets with bags of coins, exchanged at other banks for checks.   A formalized procedure for settlements and accounting was non-existent.

Gibbons's 1858 Banks of New York depicted porters transferring bags of gold coins prior to 1853.  One has nearly lost his. (copyright expired)

In 1853 George D. Lyman set forth his suggestion that banks send and receive checks at a central location, and the idea took root.   On October 11 that year the New York Central Clearing House opened in the basement of No. 14 Wall Street with 52 of the 57 banks participating.  The tangled knot of exchanges among banks had been unraveled.   In 1858 it moved to the fourth floor, later adding he fifth as well.

In 1875 the Clearing House moved to the building at Nassau and Pine.  But as the century drew to a close, that too was universally recognized as inadequate. Banking historian James Smith McMaster, in 1902, said “In the latter part of the year 1892 a plan was set on foot for the erection of a new building for the New York Clearing House Association.  Increase in the volume of business transacted had made an enlargement of the accommodations quite necessary.”

From 1858 to 1875 the Clearing House rented rooms in the Bank of New York -- Clearing House of New York City, 1904 (copyright expired)

Not only was the Clearing Room now too small, there was a need for vaults to store the gold and, according to Clearing House Association records, “the light and ventilation were primitive and insufficient.”

At a meeting of the association on December 29, 1893 it was agreed to acquire the property at Nos. 77-83 Cedar Street, between the National Bank of Commerce and the American Exchange National Bank.  Just over two weeks later on January 17, 1894, the building committee released a hint of what was to come.

“Since the building will be used solely for Clearing House purposes, the opinion prevailed that interior arrangement, with ample vaults and storage room, should be suitably provided, rather than a pretentious exterior.” 

The idea of foregoing a “pretentious exterior” lasted approximately three months.  Seven architects submitted plans for the New York Clearing House building and after several weeks of discussion, the design of Robert W. Gibson was selected on April 21, 1894.  The English-born architect was already responsible for several notable Manhattan structures including St. Michael’s Episcopal Church and the striking West End Collegiate Church, both on the Upper West Side, the United States Trust Company, the Botanical Museum at the New York Botanical Garden, and the Fifth Avenue Bank.

In addition to the $575,000 price of the site, the estimated cost of Gibson’s building was $300,000—about $8.5 million today.    (The expense was heavily offset by the sale of the old structure on September 11, 1895 for $725,000.)

On the day following Gibson’s selection, The New York Times announced “There will be four stories and a basement in the structure, which will have a marble front.  One of the striking features of the front will be four Corinthian pillars of polished marble.  A dome will surmount the building.”

The entrance to Chase Bank was on the left, the door to the Clearing House was at right.  Clearing House of New York City, 1904 (copyright expired)

Things moved quickly.  By July 1894 the old building on the Cedar Street site had been demolished and Gibson revealed his sketches to the press.  The Times described it as “of white marble, in Italian Renaissance style [and] detached from adjacent structures, and preserves its own separate character.”

Gibson’s near-ecclesiastical design (The Times called it a “Temple to Finance”) had a regal bearing, reminiscent of the grand Renaissance structures of Rome.  The white marble two-story columns supported an entablature announcing the Association’s name.  Above an ornate cornice the windows of the third floor were masked by pierced marble panels, separated by statues on pedestals, carved with the coats of arms of the nation, the city and the state.  The New York Times said “The dome is principally an internal feature.  It will not be seen from the street, except at a few points, but the composition of the building is complete without it”

 On October 2 the cornerstone was laid “with appropriate ceremonies.” Only three months later, on January 15, 1896, the building was formally dedicated.  James Smith McMaster remarked “The dedication of the new Clearing House by the New York Associated Banks attracted wide attention.  The magnificent of the building and the costly appointments of the structure indicated the importance of the business which rendered them necessary and befitting.”

The splendor of the exterior was matched inside.  There were marble halls and grand staircases.  On the second floor were a library, board room and committee room.   The piece de resistance was the “great exchange or clearing room” on the third floor.  The central section of the room was 60 feet square, with two wings that brought the full length to 80 feet.  “The ceiling is a dome rising 25 feet above the walls.  It is paneled in fire-proof stuff in Renaissance style, and the walls have pilasters of a Corinthian order supporting the cornice and dome…The room is lighted by a great iron and glass skylight, which forms the upper part of the dome,” reported The New York Times.

The ornate Assembly Room (top) and Library were on the second floor -- Clearing House of New York City, 1904 (copyright expired)

On January 16, 1896 the New-York Tribune opined “The interior staircases are of marble and the interior decorations are unsurpassed in the richness of materials and the beauty of design.”  Following “an unusually sumptuous and elegant luncheon with all varieties and delicacies” served by Delmonico in the Board Room, the hundreds of men present for the dedication “spent the rest of the afternoon in looking through the new building and admiring it,” said the Tribune.  “All agreed that it was an ornament to the city and one of the most beautiful structures to be found anywhere.  Many compliments were bestowed upon R. W. Gibson, the architect of the new structure.”

The Chase National Bank had shared the old Pine Street building with the Clearing House and it moved into the Cedar Street headquarters, as well, as the only tenant.

The Administration Offices (above) were located on the second floor.  Below the dome on the top floor was the Clearing Hall --Clearing House of New York City, 1904 (copyright expired)

The New York Clearing House had dealt with financial panics and other emergencies throughout its existence.  On August 1, 1914 it faced another.  A headline blazed across the face of The Evening World that day which read “GERMANY DECLARES WAR; ALL EUROPE IS IN ARMS.”  The newspaper reported that bankers had gathered “to keep American gold at home” and ‘to discuss the financial situation and arrange for whatever precautionary steps might be considered necessary to protect the United States form the indirect effects of European war.”

That same day the New York Clearing House received a telegram from Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo which read in part “For the purposes of considering the general situation created by the European crisis and with a view to intelligent co-operation in protecting the interests of this country, I shall be pleased if you will send a committee of your Clearing House to confer with me in Washington.”

The staircase was constructed of white marble and white enameled iron, cast by the Hecla Iron Works of Brooklyn, trimmed in gold.  Photo by Hecla Iron Works, 1896 (copyright expired)

It would be just one of the major crises the New York Clearing House would address in the next decades.  Perhaps as a means to calm the panic of readers during the Great Depression, on March 12, 1933 The New York Times published an article entitled “Great Banking Crises That The Nation Has Weathered.”  It recalled the many near-calamities—bank holidays, gold embargoes and the need for Clearing Certificates, among them—and reminded readers that all the “expedients proposed in the past week have been tried during previous emergencies and have bridged the difficulties.”

That crisis was followed immediately by another—World War II.   Although the war precipitated what New York State Superintendant of banks called the need for “greater sacrifices by banks” and the necessity of issuing “ration coupon banking checks,” it also was seen as the way out of the Depression.

In 1913 the Clearing House had already been overwhelmed by surrounding skyscrapers -- photo by Irving Underhill from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/Collection/American Exchange National Bank-2F3408J8J8J.html   

At a meeting of 600 bankers presided over by New York Clearing House Association president Herbert P. Howell, Paul F. Cadman pointed out “banking is a war industry par excellence, serving the government as faithfully and effectively as any major branch of manufacture or agriculture.  The banks have sold 80 percent of the war bonds and stamps to date and have expanded their facilities in military and war manufacturing areas.  They have financed war industries, and are supplying credit direct to the government in steadily increasing accounts.”

Just after the end of the war the New York Clearing House faced yet another problem: counterfeiters.  Their greatest antagonist at this time was Alexander D. L. Thiel, described by the Clearing House as “one of the cleverest professional forgers of this generation.”    By the time Thiel was nabbed by two New York detectives Lieutenant Grover C. Brown and Detective Archibald J. Woods in 1946, he had cost banks “close to $500,000.”  In an unprecedented display of appreciation, the New York Clearing House Association presented “illuminated scrolls” to the two men in a ceremony on August 25 that year.

The financial recovery of the nation was evidenced that year when check clearings through the New York Clearing House Association amounted to nearly $365 billion—the highest level since 1930.

On January 16, 1896 the New-York Tribune published a sketch of some of the interior details -- copyright expired

In the spring of 1963 the Clearing House Association abandoned its Temple to Finance and moved to new headquarters at No. 100 Broad Street.  Two stories tall, the $1.5 million structure was designed by Rogers & Butler.  In reporting on the move The New York Times mentioned “Much of the original marble and intricately carved mahogany furniture were moved from Cedar Street to the new building.  A set of delicately balanced scales once used to weigh gold dust now is displayed in a glass case.”  The numerous oil paintings move to their new home included the portrait of Francis William Edmonds, chairman of the Association from 1853 to 1855.

Twenty-five days after that article, The Times followed up on May 28, 1963 with the announcement that “a 40-story office building is planned at 140 Broadway in the entire square block bounded by Broadway, Liberty, Nassau and Cedar Streets.”  A new skyscraper, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, was projected to cost $45 million.

Not everyone was pleased with the death sentence of the old Clearing House.  Fortune magazine featured it in an article entitled “Vanishing Glory in Business Buildings,” saying it had “a profuse façade.”  The Times’ Thomas W. Ennis responded with an article headlined “Architectural Treasures Give Way to Stark Boxes.”

Almost simultaneously, plans were laid for the demolition of McKim, Mead & White’s masterful Pennsylvania Station.   As Ennis pointed out, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission had mentioned the buildings “in its listing of notable buildings, and has recorded their history and photographed them.”   Before many months it would be only photographs that survived.

photo http://www.agorafy.com/listing/4708/140-Broadway-Office-for-Lease-Suite-3050

The plans for a 40-story building morphed into the 51-story Marine Midland Building, completed in 1967 and designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s Gordon Bunshaft.