Thursday, March 28, 2024

The 1916 Charles Martin Clark House - 713 Park Avenue

 


When Raphael Lewisohn, the founder of the importing firm Lewisohn & Co., moved into the Queen Anne style house at 713 Park Avenue around 1886, the thoroughfare was just becoming an acceptable residential street.  But by January 1915, when Charles Martin Clark purchased the house, Park Avenue rivaled Fifth Avenue.  On January 16, the Record & Guide commented that Clark "will tear down the present structure and build a new one from plans by McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin."

The limestone-faced residence was completed in 1916.  The architects' chaste neo-French Classic design featured dramatic, fully-arched French doors that opened onto a bronze-railed balcony at the second floor.  The grouped openings of the third and fourth floors sat within a two-story frame.  Another full-width balcony fronted the fifth floor, and a parapet perched above the cornice.

Born in 1873, Clark came from an old American family and was a member of the Mayflower Descendants.  His father was Charles F. Clark, the president of the Bradstreet Company, which created the first book of credit ratings in 1851.  Charles Martin Clark graduated with an engineering degree from Columbia University in 1897, the same year he married Bessie Milligan.  The couple had two children, Charles Jr., and Katharine.

Despite his engineering background, in 1904 Clark became treasurer of Bradstreet Company.  He became increasingly interested in utility firms, and would sit on the boards of six such companies.  

The Clark house replaced a Queen Anne residence like those to the right.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

For weeks after the announcement of her engagement, society columns reported on Katharine's wedding plans.  Her marriage to John Starr Table of the Royal Air Force was scheduled for March 1, 1919 in the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church.  On February 9, for instance, The Sun reported on the arrangements so far, naming each of Katharine's ten attendants.

The emotional and logistical upheaval within the Park Avenue house can only be imagined when two days before the ceremony the New-York Tribune reported, "Owing to the illness of Miss Katharine C. Clark...the date of her marriage to Frances Starr Taber has been changed from March 1 to Saturday, March 8."  (The rush to get the word out may have been responsible for the article's getting John Taber's name wrong.)

Happily, the marriage took place on the rescheduled date, covered in detail in the society columns.  A reception was held in the Park Avenue residence.

Like many of his neighbors, Charles Clark was an avid yachtsman.  On July 12, 1922, the New York Herald reported on the activities at Newport, saying in part, "Mr. Charles Martin Clark was among those joining the yachting fleet to-day, arriving on board his steam yacht the Alfreda."

With the outbreak of the Great Depression, Bessie became involved with the New York Diet Kitchen Association.  The organization had been formed in 1873 to provide food to the poor during the previous depression, the Financial Panic of 1873.  She held meetings in the drawing room, and on January 15, 1930 the New York Sun reported, "Mrs. Charles M. Clark of 713 Park avenue gives a luncheon today at her residence for a group of debutantes who are to serve as ushers and program girls at the benefit concert of the New York Diet Kitchen Association at the Hotel Astor on the morning of January 28."

In 1930 Clark replaced the Alfreda with the 22-foot yacht Northwind.  He invited his nephew, Kenneth Wallace, and his wife aboard in the summer of 1935.  

The Northwind.  image via classicyachtinfo.org.

On the night of July 24, 1935, Wallace discovered his uncle's body in his stateroom.  Charles Martin Clark had died of an apparent heart attack at the age of 61.  His funeral was held in the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church two days later.

In June 1934, a year before her husband's shocking death, Bessie Clark had sold 713 Park Avenue to C. R. Love, Jr.  Love was with the stock exchange firm of Josephthal & Co.  The New York Sun reported that the house, for which he paid cash, "will be occupied by the new owner this fall."

By mid-century, business and apartment buildings had encroached into the formerly exclusive neighborhood.  In 1951, 731 Park Avenue was converted to offices for the Avalon Foundation.  Founded in 1940 by Ailsa Mellon Bruce, the group provided grants to a wide range of recipients including colleges and universities, arts and cultural organizations, and medical schools and hospitals.

Following Ailsa Mellon Bruce's death in 1969, the Avalon Group was merged with the Old Dominion Foundation, established by her brother Paul Mellon.  The joined philanthropies became the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, named for their father.  At the same time, Paul Mellon purchased 713 Park Avenue.

In June 2003, four years after Mellon's death, Santiago Calatrava purchased 713 Park Avenue.  The famed Spanish architect and his wife Robertina already owned the house next door at 711 Park Avenue, described by Observer at the time as "two of only a handful of townhouses on Park Avenue."  Calatrava had recently been called by The New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschap "the world's greatest living poet of transportation architecture."  A month after he purchased 713 Park Avenue, The Port Authority commissioned Calatrava to design the new transportation hub at Ground Zero.  In September 2003, the Observer said, "Mr. Calatrava will presumably be using his new combined perch at 711 and 713 Park Avenue to mastermind the planning of the new transportation complex."


Outwardly, the Charles M. Clark house survives astoundingly intact.

photographs by the author
no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

The Doubleday & Beak Building - 49 Murray Street

 



In 1813, Joseph Stringham lived and worked in the Federal style house at 49 Murray Street that he leased from Trinity Church.  On August 11 that year, he advertised:  "A good, fast-sailing vessel, with excellent accommodations, will shortly be dispatched as a cartel for the Leeward Carribee [i.e., Carribean] Islands.  For passage, apply to Joseph Stringham, No. 49 Murray-street."

The property was acquired from Trinity Church by Hubert Van Wagenen, Jr. in 1844.  He and his family resided here until 1855, a time when the neighborhood was beginning to exhibit noticeable change.  Within a year or two, as loft buildings supplanted residences, Van Wagenen replaced the vintage house with a modern loft and store building.  

The five-story building was faced in stone above a cast iron storefront executed by Daniel Badger's Architectural Iron Works.  The segmentally arched openings of the upper floors sat on bracketed sills and wore molded hoods.  A stone cornice with a carved frieze capped the design.

It appears that Van Wagenen's first tenant was Doubleday & Beak, manufacturers of umbrellas and parasols.  A reorganization around 1866 resulted in the firm's name being changed to Doubleday & Dwight.  It shared the building that year with Joseph Walter's paper box company, which would remain for decades.

Doubleday & Dwight left in 1868.  In addition to Joseph Walter, the building's occupants were the saddlery firm of A. D. Dickinson & Co. (Asa Dickinson also ran a dry goods business at 8 Murray Street); importers James and William Conklin; and Bartlett Brothers & Smith, a glass business run by Homer N. and John B. Bartlett with David R. Smith.

The bookkeeper of A. D. Dickinson & Co. was Asa Dickinson's brother, Dewitt.  The New York Herald described his job as "a very responsible position."  The newspaper added that Dewitt Dickinson, who lived in a boarding house nearby at 1 College Place (today's Park Place), was "an educated and accomplished gentlemen and his relatives are of the highest respectability."

But the young man had a drinking problem.  The New York Herald explained he sometimes "drank to excess, so much so that he neglected his business."  Asa Dickinson tried to reason with his alcoholic brother, and "often expostulated with [him] and endeavored to dissuade him from pursuing such a ruinous course."

Around April 1, 1869, Dewitt Dickinson failed to show up at work and over a week later was still missing.  The New York Herald wrote, "the belief prevailed that shame and humiliation at his course of late had taken such deep hold upon him that he determined never again to see his brother."  At around 1:00 on the afternoon of April 12, Mary McMahon, Dickinson's landlady, heard a pistol shot, but could not discern where it came from.  Three hours later, suspicious that something was wrong, she tried Dickinson's door, which was locked.  Mary's husband found a police officer and they forced the door open.  They found the 26-year-old Dewitt Dickinson dead on the bed.  The New York Herald revealed, "the [pistol] ball had passed clear through the head, struck the partition wall, from which it rebounded, and lodged on the bed."

Asa Dickinson took on a partner, George H. Norton, around 1874, changing the name of the firm to Norton & Dickinson.  Norton appeared in court on September 26, 1874 to testify against Joseph Cowley and Philip Scherer.   The New York Herald reported that he accused Cowley of stealing and Scherer "with receiving five brushes and thirty-one horse blankets, worth $105."  (The amount would be closer to $2,780 in 2024.)  The stolen goods had been found in Scherer's possession.  

The following year another tenant was the victim of a burglar.  Barbey & Sons occupied the second floor where they manufactured fans--a must-have for Victorian ladies in the warm months.  On May 20, 1875, The New York Times reported that Barbey & Sons "was entered by thieves on Tuesday night and robbed of fans valued at $1,700."  It was a major haul, worth about $46,800 today.

Also in the building in the mid- to late-1870s were M. Reiman & Co., manufacturers of "absolutely pure French fruit syrup;" H. Siebold & Co., "importers of lithographic stones, &c."; and the New York office of German lamp and candle shade makers Hohenstein & Lange.

Hohenstein & Lange was described by New York's Leading Industries in 1885 as "one of the largest factories in Europe for the manufacture of every description of lamp and candle shades."  The New York office was run by Hugh Hohenstein.  New York's Leading Industries noted, "At his fine establishment in Murray street, can be seen a full line of these beautiful goods and which are universal favorites throughout the trade."  The firm also manufactured "fancy papers," "laces for paper boxes," and "the most elegant and artistic menu, Christmas and New Year's cards."


The Saddlery Hardware Manufacturing Co. operated from 49 Murray Street by 1890.  (It is unclear whether it was somehow connected with the earlier Norton & Dickinson firm.)  Among its executives in 1892 was a man named Dreher, whose 17-year-old son brought unwanted publicity to the firm that year.

On December 1, The New York Times sad flatly, "Young Dreher, whose father is employed in the office of a saddlery and hardware manufacturing company at 49 Murray Street, has been a disobedient and wayward son for over a year.  The great trouble with the boy, the father says, has been his disinclination to work."  

Three months earlier, the teen had found work at the farmhouse of Mrs. Charles Purdy in Red Bank, New Jersey.  The New York Times said, "He did not stay here long, as he was discharged for laziness."  Dreher came to New York City where he became acquainted with two "crooks," as described by the newspaper, one of whom, Charles Adams, was well-known to police.  Dreher came up with the plan to rob Mrs. Purdy's house.  He would show up, plead that he was starving and had no place to stay, and beg for a meal and a bed for the night.  He was sure Mrs. Purdy would not turn him down, and during the night he would open a window to allow his cohorts to enter and burglarize the house.

When Dreher arrived at the Purdy house, she was not there, but the servants let him in.  As planned, he let the teens in during the night and they made off with $500 worth of silverware and other valuables.  In the morning, Dreher sauntered out, telling the servants he was going to look for a place to live and work.  "Several hours after his departure the robbery was discovered, but no one suspected Dreher," said the article.

To avoid the suspicious appearance of two teenaged boys carrying a bulky bag of silverware on the ferry, they shipped it via an express company to New York.  The clever plan fell through, however, when Adams was arrested on suspicion by a sharped eyed police officer after he picked up the bundle at the express office at 94 Broadway.  "When Dreher was brought to the station house he made a clean breast of the whole affair," reported The New York Times.  Adams confessed to the crime and fingered Dreher and the other accomplice.  

Bernard Meiners, dealers in lithographic supplies, was in the building at the time, and Joseph Walter's paper box factory, now run by Joseph Walter Jr., was still there.   At the turn of the century, the Walter firm employed eight men, 22 women, a one girl under 16.  They worked 54 hours per week.  By then the printing establishment of Joseph Carroll was also in the building.

At around noon on October 29, 1900 the Tribeca neighborhood was rocked by a massive explosion.  The New York Times ran the headline "RUIN, DEATH; MANY INJURIES. / Drug House of Tarrant & Co., And About Twenty Other Buildings Wrecked."   The explosion occurred at the northeast corner of Washington and Warren Streets.  

Henrietta Gorman worked in the paper box factory.  The 18-year-old was taken to Hudson Street Hospital where she was diagnosed with "hysteria."

New-York Tribune, October 30, 1900 (copyright expired)


A bizarre story was that of Edward Bradley, who worked for Joseph Carroll.  According to the New-York Tribune he and his wife, Mary, met for lunch and, "were in front of Tarrant's building when the explosions wrecked the place."  The newspaper continued, "There was a shower of stones and dust.  Mr. Bradley says he heard his wife shriek for help, and looking around found that the spot where she had stood was covered with wreckage.  He could not find her, and reported to the police that he feared she had been killed."

But the following day, The New York Times reported that Bradley's former housekeeper "saw him on the street yesterday morning, and she declared that he had referred to the matter as a joke played on him.  He is not married and has no sisters or relatives by the name given, according to the housekeeper."

The Joseph Walter box company would remain at 49 Murray Street through 1908, and Bernhard Meiners was still here in 1929.  Rand, McNally & Co. moved in by 1912, and the following year E. Steiger & Co., publishers and distributors of school supplies was in the building.  Like Bernhard Meiners, E. Steinger & Co. remained through 1929.

The Publishers' Weekly, July 19, 1924 (copyright expired)

Exactly one century after his family had purchased the property, in 1944 Edward Van Wagenen sold 49 Murray Street to the Selmer Loft company.  Its ownership would prove much shorter.  The building was purchased by the Seaboard Twin & Cordage Company in 1946.


As was the case in 1858 when Hubert Van Wagenen demolished his house, the Tribeca neighborhood again saw drastic change in the last quarter of the 20th century.  A renovation completed in 1998 resulted in four spacious loft dwellings on the upper floors.  

non-credited photographs by the author
LaptrinhX.com has no authorization to reuse the content of this blog

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

J. M. Felson's 1931 40 West 86th Street

 


Despite the pall of the Great Depression, on October 21, 1931, The New York Sun reported, "The new nineteen-story and penthouse apartment house...at 40 West Eighty-sixth street has been completely rented."  The article noted, "The building contains sixty-one suites of three to six rooms.  Most of the apartments were leased on the plans."  The term "on the plans" meant that the apartments were rented from floorplans while the building was under construction.

Designed by Jacob M. Felson for the 40 West 86th Street Realty Corp., the brick-clad building presented an exuberant array of Art Deco decoration.  The entrance, framed in ribbed cast stone, was flanked by geometric-patterned windows.  Glazed terra cotta spandrel panels above the second and third floors sprouted brilliantly colored Art Deco ferns and plants.  The upper-floor spandrels featured corrugated brickwork.


Felson gave the setback levels streamlined, ocean liner-like Art Deco railings and large panels of splashy stylized fountain designs.

Vast, grouped casements flooded the apartments with northern light.

Journalist Geraldine Prosnitz of The New York Sun visited the building as it neared completion.  She wrote on August 12, 1931, "Even the doorknobs have gone modernistic in the new apartment buildings now being completed along the West Side.  At 40 West Eighty-sixth street...the hardware on the apartment doors is slightly reminiscent of the Empire State Building.  The builders say it was designed especially for them."   She described the five- and six-room units as having "dropped living rooms, dressing rooms attached to master bathrooms and a layout which really isolates bedrooms from living quarters."  Prosnitz noted,

Colored tiling in the bath rooms and colored stoves in the kitchen are added inducements.  But the best trick of all, in the opinion of this observer, ministering with equal impartiality to male and female weakness, is the adjustable mirror on the bathroom cabinet and the special vanity ensemble placed on the inside of the foyer closet door, in each apartment.

Rents for the three-room apartments started at $1,800 per year, the five-room apartments at $2,500, and the six-room units at $2,900.  Considering the height of the Depression, the rents were not cheap.  The beginning price for the six-room apartments would translate to about $4,650 per month in 2024.


Most of the residents were respectable professionals, like Bennett E. Siegelstein, an attorney and president of the Fenimore Country Club, who took "a large penthouse," according to The New York Sun as the building neared completion.  Others were less upstanding--like Irving Bitz.

Born in 1903, Bitz was the owner of a newspaper delivery firm.  But police were well aware he had ties to organized crime dating to the 1920s, including close relationships with Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky.  In 1931, the year Bitz moved into 40 West 86th Street, he was a prime suspect in the murder of bootlegger Jack "Legs" Diamond.

Charlotte Erlanger also moved into the building that year--or at least that is the name she used when signing her lease.  A former musical comedy actress, her stage name was Charlotte Leslie and her actual surname was Fixel.  She took the surname Erlanger because of her long-standing intimate relationship with theatrical producer Abraham L. Erlanger.

Charlotte had met Erlanger around 1907 when she was a chorus girl.  By the 1920s, she referred to him as her husband, although the formality of a marriage ceremony had never taken place.  Her use of his surname on the lease was no doubt a calculated move.  Abraham Erlanger had died a year earlier, on March 7, 1930.  His estate was "estimated as high as $75,000,000," according to The New York Times--as much as $1.3 billion today.  He left the bulk of his estate to his brother and two sisters.  Charlotte Fixel went to court "to establish herself as the theatrical producer's common law widow," explained The New York Times on October 22, 1931.  

Charlotte Fixel in court in 1932. photo by Acme Newspictures, Inc.

The case dragged out for months, with a procession of witnesses supporting Charlotte's claims and providing details of their relationship that must have been either shocking or thrilling to readers.  On October 22, 1931, for instance, The New York Times began an article saying, "Miss Charlotte Fixel, former actress...was on intimate terms with the late Abraham L. Erlanger as far back as 1907 or 1908, according to testimony heard yesterday."  Finally, on July 27, 1932, the Daily News reported the "court has recognized Charlotte Fixel, former show girl, as common law wife of the late A. L. Erlanger, theatre operator, and entitled to one-third of his estate."

Three months later, on October 4, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle announced from Atlantic City, "Mrs. Charlotte Fixel, former showgirl...is to be married here Friday to Benjamin D. Abrahams, cloak and suit manufacturer of New York."  With her windfall (equal to about $480 million today) and a new husband, Charlotte gave up her apartment at 40 West 86th Street.

In the meantime, Irving Bitz's name appeared in newspapers  again in 1932.  The country was rapt with the on-going investigation of the kidnapping of the Charles Lindbergh baby.  Micky Rosner, who was rumored to know mobsters, proposed that Salvatore "Salvy" Spitale and Irving Bitz act as intermediaries between the mob and Lindbergh.  The aviator and his wife Anne quickly approved the plan (which brought no clues).

Irving Bitz was on the lam a year later.  Arrested in January 1933 on a gun-carrying charge, he jumped bail while awaiting trial.  Harold Cronin, president of the Concord Casualty and Surety Company, which had provided the $25,000 bail, hired private detectives to track him down.  Bitz surrendered in December 1933.

Irving Bitz (to the rear) arrives in court with a detective.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

In court on March 12, 1934, Harold Cronin received a startling surprise.  The Rochester Times-Union reported that Assistant District Attorney Irving Mendelson asked him where he lived when Bitz jumped bail.  "At 40 West 86th Street," he replied.

Mendelson told him, "All the time you were looking for Bitz, he and his wife were living in the same apartment house."

(Bitz's attorney contended that his client "had no intention of fleeing justice, but was too ill to appear for trial on the day set.")

Sharing an apartment in the building at the time were Virgil Prentice Ettinger; his wife, the former Barbara Martin Butler; and Virgil's sister, Muriel.  The Ettingers were married on February 11, 1930.  Virgil had become a vice-president in his brother's publishing firm, Prentice-Hall after graduating from New York University in 1921.  He left two years later, however, to establish his own accounting firm.

On June 1, 1932, Virgil took Muriel and 25-year-old Dorothy Molloy, an artist's model, for a ride in his automobile.  The car was involved in a collision with a moving van owned by the Leo E. Flynn, Inc. storage warehouse.  Dorothy Molloy not only sued the warehouse, but both Virgil and Muriel Ettiger for $50,000--about $1 million today--for "facial disfigurement."  Happily for the Ettingers, the jury did not find them at fault.  It awarded Molloy $5,326.30 from the Flynn company.

It may have been the stress of the Depression that proved too much for David Perlew.  The 55-year-old, who worked at Goddess Dance Frocks, Inc., lived here in 1935.  On December 13 that year, he left for work as usual, but he would not return.  The New York Post reported that he "hanged himself early today by a rope from a steam pipe in the showroom" of the firm.

Henry Benjamin and his wife, the former Ethel Fox, lived here in the 1940s.  Born in 1892, Benjamin started out as a clerk with with Davega-City Radio, Inc. in 1915.  By the time the couple moved into 40 West 86th Street, he had risen to vice president and merchandise manager.

A former president of the Fenway Country Club, Benjamin was highly active in philanthropies and was the industry chairman for the Federation for Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, the United Jewish Appeal and the Red Cross.  

In 1943, the Northwest Realty Corporation, headed by Samuel Rudin, purchased 40 West 86th Street.  The Rudin organization continues to own and manage the property.

A disturbing incident occurred here on August 26, 1986.  Workmen who were removing scaffolding from the building had propped open the two metal sidewalk doors leading to the basement.  Danger signs were placed around the opening, but Marcel Friedmann, who lived at 241 Central Park West, could not see the signs.  Legally blind, he used a metal cane to navigate the streets and sidewalks.  Tragically, the 85-year-old fell into the opening and was killed.


Jacob M. Felson's striking structure survives intact--including its all-important many-paned casement windows.  It is an unusual and notable example of Art Deco architecture in Manhattan.

photographs by the author
no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

Monday, March 25, 2024

The Lost Italian University and Pius X Art Institute - 51 and 53 Charlton Street


 from the collection of the New York Public Design Commission

In 1828, John Jacob Astor I completed a row of seven brick-faced homes along the north side of Charlton Street, between Varick and Congress Streets.  (Congress Street was virtually erased by the extension of Sixth Avenue in 1925.)  The two-and-a-half-story Federal style houses were faced in red brick and trimmed in stone.  Openwork iron newels suggested that these houses were intended for financially secure residents, as did the ornate sidelights and transoms of the entrance ways.  The windows wore stepped lintels, and even the fascia boards--routinely plain in Federal homes--were given attractive detail.

The exquisite details can be seen in this photo of 53 Charlton Street taken on June 13, 1913.  from the collection of the New York Public Design Commission.

An advertisement on March 15, 1828 in The Evening Post read:

For Sale--The elegant two story brick house 51 Charlton st., situated on the north side 3d house from Varick street, in the range of 7 buildings opposite Richmond Hill.   The lot is 21 feet 5 inches in width and 100 feet, in depth, the house is 42 ft. deep, is well & faithfully built, and finished in the best modern style, with marble mantels, sliding doors, &c., has Pye's patent locks throughout.  The lot is on a lease of 38 years without ground rent.

The mention of "ground rent" referred to the houses sitting upon land owned by Trinity Church.  Astor had paid the land lease for years in advance.

No. 51 became home to the family of grocer Isaac Moser, whose business was at 30 Sullivan Street.  Their next-door neighbors were fascinating.  Rev. David Benjamin Mortimer (who used his middle name only) and his wife, the former Bethia Warner, were listed at 53 Charlton Street in 1829.  

Born in England in 1767, Mortimer came to America in 1791 as a Moravian minister.  The Evening Post recalled, "About five years afterwards he was sent on a mission to the Indians in Ohio, among whom he remained for fourteen years."  Mortimer and Bethia were married at the Moravian headquarters in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on February 4, 1799.  In Ohio, Mortimer oversaw a congregation of German-speaking Moravians in Tuscarawas, and a congregation of Native Americans in Goshen.

In 1813, Mortimer and his family (the couple had six children) were relocated to New York City where he was appointed pastor of the Fulton Street Moravian Church.

Charlotte Bethia (who never married) and David Benjamin moved into the Charlton Street house with their parents.  Astoundingly, given that he was a teenager, David ran a school on the corner of Nassau and Ann Streets, where "all branches of Elementary and Mathematical Science, together with Greek, Latin, German, Spanish, Italian and French Languages, with Music, Drawing and Painting, will be taught upon the most approved plans," according to his ad on May 6, 1828 in The Evening Post. 

On August 18, 1829, a representative of the congregation explained in The Evening Post that Rev. Mortimer "has been for sixteen years the pastor of the Moravian Church in this city, and now retires from his religious labors in a ripe and respected old age."

Daniel D. Mortimer died at the age of 22 on September 4, 1833.  His funeral was held in the Charlton Street house the following afternoon.

The following year, Rev. Benjamin Mortimer died 15 days before his 67th birthday.  Bethia and Charlotte took boarders to help with finances.  On May 9, 1840, Bethia advertised, "A gentleman and his lady, or two single gentlemen can obtain board where there are no other boarders, in a genteel private family."  Her boarder that year was Abraham Vanderpoel, a clerk.  In 1845, portrait painter Ira Chafee Goodell lived with the women.  Born in New York in 1800, Goodell was a prolific artist, eventually creating scores of portraits.

This portrait of a child with her dog is typical of Goodell's work.

Bethia Mortimer died in 1848.  By 1851, 53 Charlton Street was home to Jacob B. Crane and his wife, the former Hannah De Baun.  Crane listed his profession as "carver."  They inherited Ira C. Goodell as a boarder and he remained with the couple at least through 1854.

Also living with the Crane's were Hannah's brother Jacob, and her widowed mother Jane.  The population of 53 Charlton Street increased by one in 1853 when Sarah Ella Crane was born.

Sadly, the parlor would be the scene of three funerals in close succession.  Ten-year-old Sarah died on October 28, 1863; the following year, on November 16, Jacob De Baun died at the age of 48; and five months later, on April 17, 1865, Jane De Braun died at the age of 79.

In the meantime, the Mosher family left 51 Charlton Street in 1860.  It became the home of William W. and Mary J. Young.  They, too, suffered heartbreak when their only child, one-year-old Maria, died on July 21 that year.

In 1870, 51 Charlton Street was operated as a boarding house.  The Cranes, next door, would remain until Jacob's death at the age of 74 on April 30, 1885.

At the turn of the century, the neighborhood had become one of immigrants.  On Mary 31, 1905, the New-York Tribune reported that Annie Leary "yesterday bought the two story and basement dwelling house No. 53 Charlton-st...It will be used as a chapel and art class rooms by the Pope Pius X Art Class League."  The unmarried Annie Leary was a wealthy philanthropist, and an ardent Roman Catholic who had earned the title of Papal Countess.  Two months later, the newspaper reported she had added 49 and 51 Charlton Street to her project.  The article noted the houses "are in an Italian neighborhood," adding:

No. 53 is being remodelled [sic] extensively.  A half dozen stained glass windows have been placed and the lower floor is being equipped as a Roman Catholic chapel.  In one of the windows is a portrait of Pope Pius.  Another contains the papal coat of arms.  Those on the second floor are alike in design.

A tablet affixed to the exterior of 53 Charlton Street read,

The Italian University of New-York City 
And Its Auxiliary, Pius X Art Institute.  
Founded by Countess Annie Leary. 
1905

The New-York Tribune explained, "It is said that there are 400,000 Italians in this city.  The university, however, will not be confined to the Italians here, but will be open to those in any part of the country."  The article also noted that the misleading name Pius X Art Institute "does not mean that the university will pay especial attention to art."

On May 26, 1906, 51 and 53 Charlton Street were opened.  "The house at 53 is called the Pius X. Art Institute and the adjoining house is the Christopher Columbus Art Institute," said The Sun.  The article noted, "Greenwich Village, in which Miss Leary's two institutes stand, long ago lost its distinctive American aspect.  It is being Italianized."

The basement level of the Pius X Art Institute in 53 Charlton Street held a day nursery "for the reception of Italian children" so that mothers could work.  During pleasant weather, the children played in the rear yard.  "They will have sand piles, wheelbarrows, shovels and toys that may give them an impression of life on the seashore without the sea," said The Sun.

The main floors within the house held classrooms for cooking, dressmaking, laundering and embroidering--all tools for young women to make a living.

Annie Leary's laudable project was threatened in 1912 by the proposed widening of Varick Street.  On February 25, The Sun reported, "To carry out the proposed improvement the city will have to purchase all or parts of about 265 properties."  Among them was 53 Charlton Street.  Two years later, in its October 1914 issue, The Real Estate Magazine noted, "the modest little home at No. 53 Charlton Street, adjoining the corner of Varick Street, was recently demolished in the widening of the latter thoroughfare."

51 Charlton Street survived the widening of Varick Street by inches.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society.

Annie Leary died in 1919 and 51 Charlton Street was remodeled by architects Francis Y. Joannes and Maxwell Hyde.  It became home to Elizabeth Prall, and in 1922 playwright and novelist Stark Young moved into the basement level.  Young was a close friend of Elizabeth's brother, bookstore proprietor David Prall.  

Novelist and short story writer Sherwood Anderson was also a friend of Stark Young.  According to Walter B. Rideout in his 2005 Sherwood Anderson, A Writer in America, in 1923 he had Thanksgiving dinner "with Elizabeth [Prall] and Stark Young at 51 Charlton Street."  A month later, writes Rideout, Anderson returned to 51 Charlton Street and rang Young's bell.  

For the next seven hours Anderson wrote "in a heat," scattering the numbered sheets of manuscript about Stark's apartment in his haste and staving off his weariness by drink after drink from the bottle, which might have contained coffee for all he noticed.  By mid-afternoon "The Man's Story" and most of the whiskey were finished.

Writing was not the only thing Anderson accomplished at 51 Charlton Street.  He and Elizabeth Prall were married in 1924.

Sherwood Anderson and Elizabeth Prall in 1923.  image via imogenecunningham.com

On November 5, 1925, the New York Evening Post reported that real estate operator Samuel Brener had purchased the blockfront of Varick Street from Charlton to King Street, and 49 and 51 Charlton Street.  "It is understood the site will be improved at the expiration of leases," said the article.


image via showcase.com

The 17-floor 180 Varick Street was completed in 1930.


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Saturday, March 23, 2024

Isaac F. Duckworth's 1865 41 Worth Street

 



Around 1802, a three-story frame house was built at 41 Worth Street between West Broadway and Church Streets.  In the rear yard was a two-story house.  By around 1810, the main building was operated as a boarding house, and in 1821  it became the Eclipse House, a porterhouse (a tavern and restaurant where malt liquor, such as porter, was sold).  

Among the residents in 1857 was Rose Buchett.  On February 13, 1857, the New-York Tribune reported, "At a late hour on Wednesday night a fire broke out in the apartment of Rose Buchett, No. 41 Worth street, but it was extinguished before much damage occurred to the building. The police say that the occupant, while in a state of intoxication, set fire to her bed. The woman was badly burned."

At the time of Rose Buchett's horrific accident, change was again taking place in the Worth Street neighborhood.  Dry goods merchants were encroaching into what today is known as Tribeca, replacing domestic structures with modern loft and store buildings.  In 1862 Phil Laos Mills, a successful dry goods merchant, inherited 41 Worth Street.  Three years later, he partnered with John Gibb to established Mills & Gibb.  Around the same time, Mills demolished the old building at 41 Worth Street and hired architect Isaac F. Duckworth to design a replacement.

Duckworth had only been listed professionally in directories since 1858, and then as a carpenter.  But he would design several striking commercial buildings in the dry goods district, some of which--like 41 Worth Street--with facades cast by Daniel D. Badger's Architectural Iron Works.  For Mills, he designed a five-story store-and-loft building in the Venetian-inspired Italianate style.  

The use of cast iron streamlined the construction process, while allowing Duckworth to embellish the facade with elaborate details.  While the storefront has been brutally altered, it almost assuredly had fluted Corinthian columns.  Blind balustrades ran below the second floor openings, and  quoins with projecting panels ran up the sides.  Above each arcade of windows, the iron was cast to imitate stone blocks.  The intermediate cornices between floors were given rope molding, which was duplicated around the windows and lintels.  Fluted columns, complex keystones (each with a finial), and intricate corbels below each intermediate cornice added to Duckworth's splendid design.


Upon the building's completion, Mills sold it to brothers Samuel and Abraham Wood, whose family would retain ownership until 1954.  Among the first tenants of 41 Worth Street was Frothingham & Co., dry goods commission merchants.  Headed by William Frothingham, the size of Frothingham & Co.'s operation was evidenced on June 29, 1865, when The New York Times reported the firm's sales for the previous year at $1,224.926, or about $22.7 million in 2024.

Sharing the building with Frothingham & Co. in 1866 were Steinberg & Friedberg, importers of "hosiery, gloves, and gentlemen's furnishing goods;" and Thorn & De Camp, auctioneers.  Like other auctioneers in the district, Thorn & De Camp normally liquidated the stock of dry goods firms, like the auction on June 5, 1867 of straw goods "comprising full assortments, in the latest and most desirable shapes, for ladies', misses' and men's wear."  But that was not always the case.  A month earlier, on May 9, Thorn & De Camp had held a "special sale of cigars, wines and liquors."

Occupying space here in 1875 were Thomas P. Remington, Jr. and his partner Charles Westerman.  Remington had established his American Manufactured Goods dry goods business by 1856.  He would come to regret taking Westerman into his firm.  On September 16, 1876, the New York Herald reported that the latter had been arrested.  The article explained that on January 21 the previous year, Westerman had stolen "a $5,000 life assurance policy...valued at $1,300, from Thomas P. Remington, Jr."

Before Elisha Otis's elevators became commonplace, heavy crates of machinery, stock, and other items were hoisted up hatchways--open shafts outfitted with a block and tackle.  The hatchways were dangerous in themselves, often resulting in workers falling to injury or death.  But the hoisting process added to the danger by necessitating at least one employee to position himself below the item being raised.  One such operation ended tragically at 41 Worth Street on November 15, 1878.

With winter nearing, one of the tenants purchased a cast iron stove.  The New York Times reported, "While James Ekin, aged 50, was engaged in hoisting a stove up the hatchway of the premises No. 41 Worth-street, yesterday, the stove slipped from the rope and fell with terrible force on his head, crushing his skull in a frightful manner."  Ekin was taken to the Chambers Street Hospital where he died soon after being admitted.

Working in the building as a porter at the time was Emil J. Deckenbach.  Described by the New York Herald as "a young man of good character and steady habits," he went to Sea Cliff, Long Island, on October 14, 1879 to visit his mother and sister.  According to his sister, he left on the train for Hunter's Point at around 5:00 that afternoon, "taking with him two peach baskets which contained fruit, and about sixty-three cents besides his railroad fare."  Emil would not make it home alive.

The following day, Emil's sister received a note from an undertaker telling her that he was dead and that his body was awaiting burial at the morgue.  According to the New York Daily Graphic, he had been found in an unconscious condition at the 34th Street Ferry.  The New York Herald added, "He was placed in a hand cart and removed to the Twenty-first precinct station house, where it was supposed that he was suffering from the effects of alcoholism.  The odor of his breath, however, did not confirm the suspicion."  He died at the stationhouse.

Emil's sister did some investigating of her own.  When she retrieved the body, the "face was scratched and swollen, as if from a fall.  The nose was cut, and there was a contused wound on the side of the head, besides a discoloration beneath the left eye," she told a reporter.  With police attributing his death to alcoholism and knowing he left her home "in good health and spirts," she went to the 34th Street ferry where she found deckhand Thomas McFarland, who told of finding Emil on the Hunter's Point side of the ferry too feeble to board without assistance.  He was placed in a ladies' cabin, "where he vomited and became unconscious," reported the New York Herald.  

The sister's sleuthing reopened the case.  On October 23, the New York Daily Graphic reported, "Coroner Woltnian said to-day that he would make a thorough and searching investigation in the case of Emil J. Deckenbach.  It is now believed from the bruises found on his body that after alighting from the train at Hunter's Point he was either knocked down for the purpose of robbery or fell from the train."

The Waterloo Woolen Mfg. Co. moved into the building by 1881.  Organized in 1836,  the firm's mills, which were in Waterloo, New York, produced "woolen goods for men's wear; shawls; carriage cloths."

In 1894, Herbert Barton Stevens co-founded the dry goods commission firm of Stevens, Sanford & Hardy, which moved into 41 Worth Street.  Born in Newton, Massachusetts in 1855, Stevens had entered the woolen business at the age of 16.  Typical of the wealthy business owners in the dry goods district, he was a member of the exclusive Union League Club and owned a Newport, Rhode Island estate.

Herbert B. Stevens, Brooklyn Life, July 6, 1895 (copyright expired)

The dry goods commission firm of Schoff, Fairchild & Co., occupied space by 1888.  The New York Times said it "represents some of the largest manufacturers of woolen[s] in the country."  As the Presidential election neared, on August 22, 1888 the newspaper reported that George M. Fairchild, Jr. "is strongly in favor of the re-election of President Cleveland, as are the other members of his firm."

Among those partners was Frederick L. Holmquist, who had been made a member of the firm in 1883.  The Sun said of him, "Mr. Helmquist's reputation has always been excellent."  But he would be the undoing of Schoff, Fairchild & Co.

On April 3, 1891, The Sun reported "Frederick L. Holmquist is no longer a member of the firm of Schoff, Fairchild & Co...A small strip of brass has been tacked up over Holmquist's name on the sign in front of the door, and experts are at work on the books."

A month earlier, bills which the ledgers showed as having been paid were presented as being past due, "and notes given by Holmquist in the firm name were discovered," said the article.  Internal investigation revealed that Holmquist had been "speculating in Wall street."  He turned out to be a poor investor.  The Sun reported, "It was estimated yesterday that Holmquist's losses by speculation were over $50,000."  (The amount would translate to about $1.6 million today.)

Schoff, Fairchild & Co. quickly attempted damage control, saying "Holmquist's speculations would not in any way [financially] embarrass them, and that there would be no prosecution of their ex-partner."  Nevertheless, eleven days later the Evening Herald of Duluth, Minnesota reported that Schoff, Fairchild & Co. had gone under.

A significant tenant moved into 41 Worth Street on May 1, 1902.  The Travers Brothers Company started out as a twine store at 104 Duane Street.  Now, according to Hardware magazine on September 10, 1906, it was "a large distributing and manufacturing concern, with three large plants."

One of the Traverse Brother factories was at 542 West 52nd Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues.  King's Views of New York, 1906 (copyright expired)

In 1911 the H. W. Baker Linen Company took over the entire building.  Hiram Wilson Baker had co-founded the Boyce & Baker company in 1882, and in 1902 bought out his partner's share to establish the current firm.  It manufactured commercial grade linens for hospitals and hotels.

A problem with being affluent and well-known socially in the early years of the 20th century was that one's personal business was considered public.  And so when Baker and his wife Ella separated in 1912, the messy details became fodder for newspaper articles.  On June 15, the New-York Tribune reported that he had obtained a divorce in Reno, Nevada on the grounds of desertion.  The article said, "Owing to his wife's alleged persistent discontent, which, he testified, resulted in the breaking up of the home, they went to boarding.  Later she insisted on going to her mother's, in Brooklyn, and did so."  

Working for the H. W. Baker Linen Company in 1916 was 26-year-old bookkeeper Henry L. Steul, who was married that year.  The cheeriness of his new marriage turned to despair when, on the day he returned to work following his honeymoon, police walked up to his desk and arrested him.  The Bridgeport, Connecticut Evening Farmer reported on December 15, " He was charged with taking a $300 money order two days before his marriage.  According to the police, Steul said he spent the money in presents for his bride and for the honeymoon."

In December 1918, the National Hotel Men's Exposition took place in Madison Square Garden.  The Sun noted that H. W. Baker Linen Company "had one of the largest booths in the Garden."  At the exposition banquet at the Hotel Biltmore on December 20, Hiram Baker "was taken suddenly ill."  The Sun reported two days later, "He went at once to his home at 114th street and Riverside Drive, where he died yesterday morning."  Baker was 56 years old.

Association Men, June 1922 (copyright expired)

The firm continued to operate from 41 Worth Street for more than a decade.  Then, on October 20, 1939, The New York Sun reported, "Marcus Bros., cotton goods converters...have leased the five-story building at 41 Worth street...As soon as present alterations are completed, the lessees will take possession of the structure."

Marcus Bros. remained at 41 Worth Street through 1954, when, after owning the property for nearly nine decades, the Wood family sold it.  The building continued to be home to textile firms until the 1970s, when the Tribeca Renaissance saw artists, galleries and trendy restaurants taking over the former loft buildings.  


By 1975 the upper floors of 41 Worth Street were being used as residences, although the building was not officially converted to four cooperative residences until 1981.  In 2019 a rooftop addition, unseen from the street, added a fifth apartment to the structure.  The building was designated an individual New York City landmark in 2013.

photographs by the author
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