The 1891 Granville Moss White House - 272 West 77th Street

 

Working for developer Francis M. Jenks, in 1891 architect Clarence Fagan True designed a group of seven upscale homes that wrapped the southeast corner of West End Avenue and West 77th Street.  Comfortable with combining two or three historic styles to create residences that were at once fanciful and elegant, True designed this project in three groups, culminating in a striking, unified pair at 270 and 272 West 77th Street.

Looking at a glance like a single mansion, the houses were significantly different in size.  At 28 feet wide, 272 West 77th Street was 11 feet wider than its counterpart at 270.  The arched entrances sat within a Romanesque Revival base of undressed stone above short stoops.  Medieval turned to Elizabethan in the intricately carved stone railing of the full-width second floor balcony.  The smooth-faced limestone upper floors of 272 West 77th Street were divided into two sections--one bowed, the other flat-faced.  They rose to a dormered mansard.

The two houses were meant to appear as one.

No. 272 West 77th Street became home to Dr. Granville Moss White, his wife, the former Laura Dunham Tweedy, and their two sons, six-year-old Theodore Tweedy and two-year-old Nelson Lloyd.  

Born in Danbury, Connecticut on May 21, 1855, Granville M. White graduated from Yale Law School in 1877, then changed course.  He received his medical degree from Columbia University Medical School in 1884.  When he moved his family into the West 77th Street house, he was one of three examining physicians for the Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York.  (He would later become a vice-president of the firm.)

This photo of a confident-looking Granville Moss White was taken during his senior year at Yale Law School, in 1877.  (copyright expired)

Early in the morning of December 20, 1898, the White family and the other occupants of the block were roused from their sleep.  The family of Charles H. Raymond lived at 260 West 77th Street and Raymond's sister-in-law, Julia Underwood, was visiting for the holidays from Washington, D.C.  Fire was discovered by a maid and the cook around 6:30.  As the cook, Harriet Fee, rushed upstairs to awaken the residents, "there came a great volcanic burst of flame," as worded by The Sun.  In the end Harriet, Julia Underwood, and Mrs. Raymond were killed, and six people injured.

Charles Raymond had been rescued by firefighters just after his wife jumped to her death.  When he reached street level, he saw the body of his sister-in-law on the ground.  The Sun reported, "He covered his eyes with his arms, and would have fallen had not one of the firemen caught him.  He was taken to the house of a friend, Dr. G. W. [sic] White of 272 West Seventy-seventh street."

Like their neighbors, the Whites had a domestic staff.  Among them in 1894 was a "German nursery governess."  The family would have also employed a cook, and at least one chambermaid, a butler, and possibly a laundress.  On April 13, 1900, a new cook started work and it was not long before trouble ensued.

Two nights later, Dr. White was reading in his study when he heard someone "fumbling cautiously at the knob of the front door," as reported by the New York Sun.  He listened and the noise began again.  "Then he tiptoed to the front door and opened it suddenly," said the article.  A man entered the hall and White "pounced upon him and dragged him into the study, where there was a light on, and demanded to know what the fellow was doing at the front door."

"I am a cousin of your new cook and I have called to see her."

The cook was summoned to the study and she confirmed that the man was her cousin.  She explained that he probably did not know better than to try to enter the house uninvited.  Dr. White was unconvinced and took Samuel Farcusin, who was a Hungarian-born tailor, to the West 68th Street police station and had him arrested as a "suspicious person."  The Sun said, "He could speak little English and seemed badly frightened."

The following year, in August 1901, White hired architect Charles A. Rich (of the recently dissolved firm of Lamb & Rich) to make $500 in improvements to the house, including "new steel beams and girders."  The renovations seem to have been in anticipation of the White family's leaving West 77th Street and leasing the dwelling.  They moved to Morristown, New Jersey where, in 1910, they would acquire the striking Colonial Revival style mansion, Oak Dell.

In 1902, 272 West 77th Street was rented by William Alexander Burrows and his wife, the former Virginia Prickett.  The New York Times described Burrows as "a well-known broker in foreign exchange" who came from "an old English family."  William Burrows died "suddenly" in the house on June 4, 1903 (the term most often suggested a heart attack or stroke).  Virginia Burrows continued to lease the house for several years.

Frances S. Barnes occupied 272 West 77th Street by 1909.  Described by The New York Sun as "a wealthy young woman and an exhibitor at horse shows," she was the unmarried daughter of Thomas R. Barnes and the granddaughter of millionaire publisher Alfred Smith Barnes.  Her affluence was reflected in an article in the New York Herald on July 23, 1909, which reported that she was offering a $200 reward for the return of a three-stone, diamond Tiffany ring which she lost while getting in or out of a taxicab at Broadway and 42nd Street.  The reward would equal nearly $7,000 in 2024.

Frances's luck with jewelry worsened three years later when, on December 27, 1912, The Sun reported she offered a $1,000 reward for "the return of more than $10,000 worth of jewelry" stolen from her.

The White family continued to lease 272 West 77th Street to well-heeled families--James K. Mason in 1913, Anatole Levy in 1915, and Axel Raun in 1919, for instance--until Granville Moss White's death in 1931.

The house was purchased by the Nordacs Club, a Jewish men's social and charitable club established in February 1919.  The club's name was the backwards spelling of its founder's surname--attorney Louis Scadron.  It had been operating from 220 Lenox Avenue.  The club published its monthly magazine The Nordacs News from here.  Among its charitable works was the distribution of baskets of food and toys to the poor during the Christmas and Passover holidays.

The Nordacs Club regularly hosted charity events that were supported by big names in entertainment and sports circles.  On December 18, 1935, for instance, it staged a charity boxing event to benefit the poor.  Guest referees included Jack Dempsey and Irving Jaffee and, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the event included a "comedy bout between A. Schact, the baseball clown and Milton Berle."  (It would be one of several appearances Berle made for Nordacs Club benefits.)

In his July 3, 1936 "Broadway" column in the Daily News, three years after the Nazi party came to power in Germany, Ed Sullivan wrote about "an outfit that is circularizing clubs and organizations, offering Aryan orchestras, entertainers and serenaders."  Saying that one of the first letters went to "the Nordacs Club, composed of Jewish members," Sullivan said flatly, "New York has no place for these cheap, poisonous Old World hatreds."

In 1941 a Nordacs Club banner hung from the second story balcony.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

It may have been that disturbing trend, both abroad and in America, that prompted a change within the Nordacs Club.  In his 1935 The Political Clubs of New York City, Roy V. Peel noted,

The Nordacs Club of 272 West 77th Street, heretofore known as strictly a social club, is now bent on taking an active part in politics.  The club has an active membership of more than 750 members [and] owns its own four-story building in West 77th Street, between West End avenue and Broadway, and is considered one of the best financed social clubs in the city.

Peel said, "Just what the politic of the club will be has not been revealed," but he had been told that "the club shall use its membership, consisting of young men over the age of 21 years, to good advantage and for the mutual benefit of the club and its members."

In 1940, the Nordacs Club shared its clubhouse with the Knickerbocker Post No. 111 of Jewish Veterans.

The club left 272 West 77th Street in the late 1950s.  A renovation completed in 1962 resulted in twelve apartments.  From the outside, the residence is little changed since its completion more than 130 years ago.

photographs by the author

many thanks to Ralph Stone for prompting this post and for his valuable input.

The 1897 William Stubner House - 311 West 91st Street

 

Clarence F. True was among the most prolific architects working on the Upper West in the late 19th century.  He was hired by developers Smith & Stewart in 1896 to design a row of seven upscale houses along the northern side of West 91st Street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive.  The neighborhood was already filling with substantial homes and True's Renaissance Revival residences would follow suit.

Completed in 1897, the 25-foot wide homes were four-and-a-half stories high and faced in limestone.  No. 311 featured a bowed front faced in rough-cut stone above the planar base.  The columned portico provided a stone railed balcony to the second floor.  Handsome carved shells filled the tympana above the second floor openings.  The dormers of the mansard level were capped with graceful swan's neck pediments.  Inside were eleven main rooms, three tiled bathrooms, and three servants' rooms.  

In June 1897, Smith & Stewart sold 311 West 91st Street to William F. Stubner.  He and his wife, the former Elizabeth Jane Ringland (known as Liza), had one son, Christian James.   

Stubner was an early enthusiast of motorized transportation and owned both an automobile and a motorcycle.  He entered his cycle in the five-mile national championship race on November 3, 1908 at Morris Park in the Bronx, coming in third.

In February 1911, William joined with Harold F. Bidwell and Kennedy Conklin to form the Bidwell-Conklin Corp., described by Motor Age magazine as a "motor car business."  But his passion got him and his next door neighbor, John W. Brewer, in trouble later that year, on September 22.  The Daily Star reported that the pair "were each fined $3 for speeding on their motor cycles."  The fine would equal just under $85 today.

The nation closely followed the progress of the Transcontinental Motorcycle Relay Dispatch in 1915.  With World War I raging in Europe, the Government hoped the potential importance of the motorcycle in wartime would be proven by a relay from Washington D.C. to San Francisco.  President Woodrow Wilson provided one team with a message and the Department of War gave another to the second team.  

Three of the drivers in the 1915 relay.  National Photo Company Collection

Stubner not only participated in the event, but stood out.  His team carried the message from the President.  On July 21, 1915, the Poughkeepsie Eagle-News reported on its progress from Washington to Albany.  After describing the problems of a severe thunderstorm the team had overcome, the article noted, "Their going, however, was not marked by the variety of speed that William F. Stubner, the Gotham lad, showed when he came through Market Street Monday evening at the rate of seventy-five miles an hour."

In the meantime, Christian was looking for work in 1914.  He advertised in the New York Herald in December seeking a position as a stenographer or "correspondent."  The ad read, "clean cut young man, thoroughly experienced in office detail, has decided to improve position and desires to connect with reliable concern."

The Stubners sold 311 West 91st Street to Dr. William A. Heckard and his wife, Emilie, in November 1921.  A dentist, Heckert had graduated from the Philadelphia Dental College in 1889.  

In 1897, Heckard patented a remarkable device that kept track of incoming phone calls.  He explained to The Indianapolis News on March 4 the following year:

The idea of my device is this: You are a physician, or lawyer, or business man.  You go away from your office or business place, and to make sure of telephone calls that may come in your absence, you turn a button.  My device is attached, and when you return you will find the number of your telephone caller, or callers, duly registered on a strip of paper attached to an apparatus like a "ticker."

Emilie was William's second wife.  Katherine R. Heckard had sued for divorce in May 1915 claiming "abandonment and nonsupport."  The "wealthy dentist" as he was described by The Cincinnati Enquirer, had moved to New York ten years earlier, leaving his wife and child in Indiana.  Katherine was granted $12,000 alimony (about $375,000 in 2024 terms) and, not surprisingly, custody of their 16-year-old daughter.

During the war Heckard had been commissioned a lieutenant in the Army and was the camp dental surgeon at Chillicothe, Ohio.  He never gave up his military affiliation and while living in the 91st Street house held the rank of colonel.  He served as the dental surgeon at the Medical Headquarters of the 12th Corps. in New York.

Following Heckard's retirement, he and Emilie moved to East Quogue, New York.  On April 14, 1934, The New York Sun reported that Heckard had leased the 91st Street house to Richard Shill.  The article noted "The house is to be occupied for club purposes."  If, indeed, the property was used as a clubhouse, it did not last long.  In 1935, the title was surrendered to the Bowery Savings Bank.  In January 1937, the bank sold it to Armand Gardos.

Gardos operated it as a rooming house.  Most of the elegant rooms in which the Stubners had entertained became bedrooms.  A tenant, Lynn Burgess, who had lived here as a child in the 1960's later described the former dining room, calling it a "great room."

The great room had very high ceilings, I think the first and second [floors] did have extremely high ceilings.  The great room, one side of the wall had an enormous mirror, covering almost the entire wall on the right-hand side.  It was laid into a very thick dark wood frame.  It was enormous.  To the right of that room was a bedroom.

 The bedroom she mentioned was the Stubner's former parlor.

A renovation completed in 1968 essentially gutted the Clarence True interiors.  It resulted in one apartment each on the three lower floors and a duplex above.

photographs by the author

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The William H. H. Moore House - 349 West 84th Street

 

Prolific Upper West Side architect Clarence F. True designed a row of five brick and stone rowhouses for developer Richard G. Platt in 1896.  Stretching from 349 to 357 West 84th Street, just steps from upscale Riverside Drive, they were designed in the Renaissance Revival style.  Completed the following year, the eastern-most house, 349 West 84th Street, was five stories tall, its American basement plan foregoing a high stoop in favor of a short flight of four steps.  True gave the first four floors a faceted front that provided additional light and ventilation to the front rooms.

The rusticated limestone base included a columned portico that provided a stone-railed balcony at the second floor.  Here French windows sat within a handsome Renaissance style frame of Scamozzi columns upholding a classical pediment.  An intermediate cornice introduced the fourth floor, where arched openings were crowned by scrolled keystones.  The fifth floor sat back from projecting facade, its rusticated stone face punctured by cruciform windows.

The 17-foot-wide residence was purchased by William Henry Helme Moore and his wife, the former Adelaide Louisa Lewis. Moving in with the couple was their unmarried son William Clifford; and their daughter Julia Louise Moore, her husband LeRoy Cholwell Fairchild, and their three children.  Another son, Arthur Lewis, was married to Sarah Frelinghuysen Chambers and lived in London, while daughter Adelaide Irving was married to well-to-do broker Elias Hicks Herrick.

Born in Greenport, Long Island in 1824, Moore was educated as an attorney.  He entered his brother's law firm, Cutting & Moore, in 1847, but he later changed course dramatically, pursuing a career in insurance.  He rose to the presidency of the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company, retiring on April 7, 1897--the year the family moved into 349 West 84th Street.

The Moore house is at the far right of the row. 

Retirement did not mean inactivity.  Deeply concerned about charitable causes, he was president of the Haven's Relief Fund, manager of the Burke Foundation, and president of the Life Saving Benevolent Association.  In 1909 he was elected a director in the Society for Promoting the Gospel Among Seamen in the Port of New York.

The family's summer estate was in Greenport, Long Island.  The 1896 Portrait and Biographical Record of Suffolk County noted, "The Moore family has been represented on the island since 1630, and the old homestead on the North Road is now owned by William H. H. Moore."

On November 28, 1909, The New York Times reported that William and Adelaide Moore "have sent out invitations for the wedding of their granddaughter, Miss Adelaide Fairchild, to John Welles Arnold."  The article noted, "It will be a home wedding, followed by a small reception."

The following month, on December 28, William Henry Helme Moore caught cold, according to The Sun.  It developed into pneumonia and a week later, on January 4, 1910, the 86-year-old died.  The New York Times said that since his retirement he "had been in failing health."

The New York Herald reported on May 20, 1910 that the Henry H. H. Moore estate had sold 349 West 84th Street.  Nevertheless, the Handbook of the Municipal League listed Adelaide and William (who never married) still living here as late as 1914.

The family of insurance broker Harry H. Fuller lived here by 1920.  They were looking to replace a servant that year, advertising in the New York Herald on October 10, "Chambermaid-Waitress for family of 4; 3 maids kept."

Fuller was summoned for jury duty in high-profile bribery case of former State Banking Superintendent Frank H. Warder in 1920.  On October 21, attorney James I. Cuff asked Fuller "if the fact that Warder might not take the stand in his own defense would influence his judgment," reported The Standard Union.  

Fuller was frank.  "It certainly would influence my judgment.  I think he should take the stand."  The article said flatly, "Mr. Fuller was excused."

No. 349 West 84th Street remained a single-family residence until a renovation completed in 1966 resulted in a duplex apartment on the first and second floors, one apartment on the third, and two duplexes sharing the fourth and fifth floors.

photographs by the author

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The 1892 Clarence Fagan True House - 322 West 85th Street

 

Clarence Fagan True worked in the architectural office of Richard Mitchell Upjohn (son of eminent architect Richard Upjohn) from 1881 through 1887.  In 1892, three years after opening his own office, the 32-year-old True was commissioned by developer Charles G. Judson to design a row of six homes along the southern side of West 85th Street, between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue.  Years later, True would insist that he initiated the American basement plan, which did away with high stone stoops in favor of low porches or none at all.  These would be his first American basement designs.  (In fact, True was not the first to break the decades-old English basement trend, but he was definitely an early and strong promoter.)

Patently True, who worked in often playful variants of historic styles, the completed three-story dwelling were picturesque.  A blend of Italian Renaissance Revival and Romanesque, their rusticated red sandstone parlor floors were accessed by three-step porches flanked by heavy stone wing walls with muscular, nubby-topped newels.  A carved Romanesque stone course supported by beefy brackets introduced upper floors, faced in orange Roman brick. 

Each house in the A-B-A-A-B-A row had a projecting bay at the second floor, and arched openings on the third.  Most eye-catching, perhaps, were the hoods True placed over the second floor bays of the "A" houses, like 322 West 85th Street.  Their S-shaped tiles, or pantiles, evoked a Mediterranean feel and echoed the deeply overhanging roofs.

The architect was apparently pleased with his work.  The houses were completed in 1892 and True leased 322 West 85th Street from Judson.  After the developer sold three of the houses--316, 322 and 326--to real estate operator Francis S. Smith in 1893, Clarence F. True continued to rent No. 322 until the fall of 1895.  In November that year, Smith sold the house to John Rutherford Buchan and his wife, the former Nellie Woodward.  

Living in the house with John and Nellie were John's widowed mother, Rachel, and his unmarried sister, Sarah.  Born in 1862, Buchan, who was in the insurance business, had two great passions--sailing and French Bulldogs.  When he purchased 322 West 85th Street, he owned a schooner yacht the Christine, which boasted a stateroom, water closet, and six berths.  

Buchan's expertise in sailing was equaled by his knowledge of bulldogs.  The secretary of the French Bulldog Club of America, on February 21, 1897, he sent an exhaustive letter to the editors of Turf, Field, and Farm, which explained in excruciating detail the difference between the ears of the English and the French Bulldog.

Three years after the family moved in, John was called away.  With the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898, he was commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Navy.  Six months later he was promoted to executive officer of the United States Ship Kanawha.  The Seventh Regiment Gazette recalled in 1917, "Owing to his professional attainments he was entrusted with watch duties not often accorded to so young an officer."

He had barely returned home when the 85th Street house was the scene of sorrow.  Rachel Buchan died at the age of 82 on November 6, 1899.  Her funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

Buchan's maritime knowledge quickly drew him away again.  He was appointed "expert in charge of marine exhibitions" of the United States Commission to the 1900 Paris Exhibition.

Sarah Buchan died on November 10, 1915.  There would be another Buchan funeral in the house two years later, following John's death at the age of 54 on April 7, 1917.  The Seventh Regiment Gazette reported, "Mr. Buchan's funeral was attended by many prominent officers and citizens."

Now alone, Nellie sold 322 West 85th Street to widow Rosalia A. Becker in April 1919.  Sharing the house were her unmarried daughters Elsa G., Grace Heidt, and Loretta F. Becker.  

Grace Heidt Becker graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Barnard College in 1922.  Her sister Elsa had graduated from the same school in 1914 and quickly became known as a pioneer in the school counseling movement.  On November 21, 1924, for instance The Eagle reported that the previous day Elsa had visited the Santa Barbara State Teachers College "to interview Dean Pyle."  The article noted, "Miss Becker stopped in the city yesterday on her way North, where she goes to gives lectures in Education at various northern colleges and universities."

The house in 1941 when the Becker sisters were living here.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1936 Elsa published an article, "Guidance in Progress in a Large City High School," in The Journal of Educational Sociology.  She was by now the chairman of the Guidance Department of the Samuel J. Tilden High School in Manhattan.  The same year she published Guidance at Work.

The Becker women remained at 322 West 85th Street for decades.  Elsa died on December 27, 1967.  It is unclear how long Loretta or Grace remained; however, the house remained a single-family dwelling until 1988.  That year a renovation turned the basement into a separate apartment.

photographs by the author

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

The Charles F. Bauerdorf House - 625 West End Avenue

 

photograph by the author

Developers Terence Farley's Sons completed a row of seven high-end homes that wrapped the northeast corner of West End Avenue and 90th Street in 1899.   The firm was known for erecting upscale residences, and these would not disappoint.

Prolific architect Clarence True had designed them in a modern take on Elizabethan architecture, and the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide deemed them as "the best design that has ever left his board," adding, "They are as much distinguished by their architecture as by their detail of decoration and finish."

True gave each its own personality, while harmonizing them with Flemish gables and dormers, openings framed in Gibbs-style surrounds, and continuous bandcourses.  No. 625 West End Avenue was given a full-height bowed facade.  The main, arched entrance was centered, while a more discreet service entrance sat to the side.  French windows opened onto a faux balcony at the second floor, and two ornate dormers projected from the steep mansard.

625 West End Avenue is the third house from the corner (behind the white sign).  Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, October 7, 1899 (copyright expired)

The Record & Guide listed homes' amenities that met the "requirements of a first-class dwelling," such as separate servants' entrances, kitchens, laundries, parlors, drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, butlers' pantries, connected and separate bedrooms, dressing salons, bathrooms, secluded servants' quarters with bathrooms, rear stairs."

In October 1899 Terence Farley's Sons sold 625 West End Avenue to Charles Frederick Bauerdorf for $42,000 (about $1.42 million in 2023).   The wealthy attorney was born on West 14th Street on June 8, 1853, and in 1864 became a clerk in the law office of eminent lawyer David Dudley Field.  He was now a partner in the firm of Deyo & Bauerdorf.

Bauerdorf had married Annie Rohe in 1879.  When they moved into 625 West End Avenue, the couple had three teen-aged sons, Charles Rohe, George Frederick, and Walter Julius.

Empire State Notables, 1914 (copyright expired)

Charles F. Bauerdorf handled the legal affairs of many well-known and moneyed New Yorkers, but none, perhaps, was more colorful than "Al" Adams, known as the "Policy King."  The New York Herald called him "the millionaire policy shark, the released convict [and] more recently backer of bucket shops."  In 1906 Adams, "convinced himself that the future which he had dedicated to his family would be best conserved if he dropped out of it," according to the New York Herald.  He moved his family into a home near the Bauerdorfs at 471 West End Avenue, took a suite for himself at the Ansonia Hotel, and two weeks later shot himself there.  Bauerdorf was tasked with handling his complicated estate.

Early in January 1915, Charles Bauerdorf fell ill.  The 62-year-old never recovered and died a few weeks later on January 19.  His funeral was held in the drawing room of the West End Avenue house two days later.  

Charles Rohe Bauerdorf, the eldest son, followed in his father's professional footsteps, graduating from the Columbia University Law School and becoming a partner in the law firm of Bauerdorf & Taylor.  George became a "Wall St. financier and independent oil operator," according to the Daily News; and the youngest brother, Walter, went on to be a vice-president of the Central Trust Company.  

The cause of Walter's death on June 9, 1925 at just 37 years of age was bizarre.  The New York Times said it was "the result of a skin infection thought to have been contracted while in swimming at a beach resort."  That same year Annie Bauerdorf leased the West End Avenue residence that had been her home for a quarter of a century.  It became a rooming house.

A tragic sidenote to the Bauerdorf family occurred on October 12, 1944.  George's 20 year old daughter, Georgette, was living on her own in Hollywood in what the Daily News called a "luxurious apartment."  

She left work at the Hollywood Canteen at around 11:15 p.m. on October 11.  The next morning Mr. and Mrs. Fred C. Atwood arrived at the apartment to clean it, as they did every day, and found the door half open.  Georgette's body, clad only in her pajama top, was in the bedroom.  The Daily News reported, "The bedclothes were pulled back.  The girl's clothing was scattered over the bed and chairs, and the contents of her purse were strewn over the floor."  A washcloth had been stuffed into Georgette's mouth and "bloodstains were found on the girl's bed and on the floor of the apartment."  Police "pointed to the possibility the girl had been slain."

Daily News, October 13, 1944

Oddly enough, George Bauerdorf was not so sure.  "She may have died accidentally," he said.  "We do know that she suffered from cramps and heart pains, and refused to see a doctor, and we think perhaps they might have caused it."  A medical examination disproved that.  On November 12, the Daily News reported, "the authorities announced that the young woman had been, as they described it, 'raped,' and the accident theory necessarily had to be abandoned."  Her murderer was never found.

In the meantime, Helen Connelley ran 625 West End Avenue as a boarding house during the Depression years.  She lived steps away at 621 West End Avenue.  In 1937 she was cited for violations of the Multiple Dwellings Law because the house had no fire escapes.  

Living in the building at the time was a young German couple, Herman Hahn and his 17-year-old wife, Aimee.  They arrived in New York in the summer of 1936.  Other tenants were 30-year-old Samuel Goldberg; a man known only as Kenny; Joseph Freeman and his wife Mildren; Doran and Angelina Shaw, who were 24 and 20 years old respectively; and Dorothy Connell and Jennie Franklin.

Helen Connelley's failure to install fire escapes proved deadly on August 13, 1937.  Early that morning fire broke out in the rear second floor apartment of the man known as Kenny.  It was discovered around 6 a.m. by the Freemans, who lived on the same floor.  The New York Times reported, "Aroused by smoke, they sought in vain to open the door of Kenny's room, burning themselves in the effort, and then they fled."

The inferno would destroy True's charismatic upper floors.  Daily News, August 14, 1937

The Hahns smelled the smoke and fled downstairs, leaving a valuable cello in their room.  "They reached the ground floor as Freeman broke open the front door," said The New York Times.  "This created a draft which sent the fire roaring up the stairwell."  The roomers on the upper floors were now trapped, and hung out the windows screaming for help.  Living on the top floor was Samuel Goldberg.  The article said, "He apparently was not awakened by either the smoke or noise."  Both Goldberg and Kenny perished in the inferno.  Additionally, eleven people including two fire fighters were injured.

The top two floors were destroyed by the fire.  Charles and George Bauerdorf sold the property to the Hanover Construction Corporation (their mother had died in 1930).  On May 22, 1939, The New York Times reported that the new owners planned "extensive alterations" to the structure.  "When altered the house will have ten apartments of two and one-half rooms each," said the article.  Where Clarence True's mansard and dormers had been, the architect placed an rather uninspired brick wall, the bowed facade of which matched the lower floors.

The house as it appeared two years after the renovations.  Note that the entrance has been moved to the former service door.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The apartments, two per floor, became home to financially comfortable tenants.  In the 1950s, for instance, Joseph F. Keller and his family lived here.  He was the president of Equi-Flow, Inc., a manufacturer of gear pumps and gas compressors.

Living here in 1960 was Phillis Hoffman and her four-year-old daughter, Andrea.  Her husband, Herbert, was the former curator of Greek and Roman art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Phillis Hoffman went to court in May that year to get permanent custody of Andrea.  She told the judge that her husband "has no present interest" in her or her daughter.  The Daily News explained, "As proof, Mrs. Phyllis Hoffman noted that since January, when her husband, Herbert, went to work for a museum in Hamburg, Germany, he has not written or communicated with either of them."

There are still just two apartments per floor in the converted mansion.

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The 1899 Thomas P. Hughes Mansion - 621 West End Avenue

 

Upon the death of Terence Farley, described by the Real Estate Record & Guide as "one of the most active builders in this city," his sons, John T. and James A. Farley, took over the business.  Operating as Terence Farley's Sons, they continued to make a significant impact on the development of the Upper West Side.

Typical of their high-end work was the row of seven upscale homes that wrapped the northwest corner of West End Avenue and 90th Street, completed in 1899.  They sat within a neighborhood that was filling with opulent residences.  Designed by prolific architect Clarence F. True in the Elizabethan Renaissance Revival style, the homes drew praise from the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, which said, "The architect, Clarence True, has had a large experience in domestic architecture, but nevertheless, this is the best design that has ever left his boards."

The group wrapped the corner, with 621 West End Avenue stealing the spotlight.  Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, October 7, 1899 (copyright expired)

The corner house, 621 West End Avenue, was the showpiece of the group.  At 32-feet-wide on the avenue and 40 feet long on West 90th Street, the five-story structure was intended for a wealthy buyer.  The entrance sat within an ornate stone frame decorated with Renaissance style carvings.  Its cornice supported a pedimented window flanked by serpentine volutes.  True took advantage of the corner site by tucking the service entrance to the back of the house, on West 90th Street.

While the expertly-crafted stonework survives, the door and window above it are unsympathetic replacements.

The four upper floors of red brick were trimmed in limestone.  Below the fifth floor window on the 90th Street side was a large, carved stone cartouche and above it a was a dramatic Flemish gable.  Two large dormers pierced the peaked roof on the avenue side.

The Record & Guide supplied a hint of the interiors of the row, listing "separate servants' entrances, kitchens, laundries, parlors, drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, butlers' pantries, connected and separate bedrooms, dressing salons, bathrooms, secluded servants' quarters with bathrooms, rear stairs and all other requirements of a first-class dwelling."  The journal added, "A lavish use of beautiful woods, marbles, tiles, plate and colored glass, under artistic guidance, evidence the expenditure of the greatest care and generous use of money to produce the best possible results from both the aesthetic and practical points of view."

Thomas P. Hughes purchased 621 West End Avenue.  A stockbroker, his residency would be comparatively short-lived.  In 1904 he sold it to Harry Wiggin Bennett and his wife, the former Agnes Pattie Smith.  Born in Alton Bay, New Hampshire on February 6, 1866, Smith and Agnes had married in 1891.  When they moved in they had two sons, 12-year-old Tom Wiggin, and 9-year-old Dick Woolson.  Another son, Harry, Jr. would come along in 1907.

Bennett had recently arrived in New York City.  For six years he and the family lived in Mexico where he was the manager of the Woolson Spice Co.  Now in New York, he established the banking firm of H. W. Bennett & Co.  He was, as well, the president and a director of the Cuba Eastern Railroad, the Northeastern Cuba Railroad, the North River Improvement Co., and a director in several other corporations.

Annually included in Dau's New York Blue Book of society, the Bennetts maintained a country home, Great Hill, on Buzzard's Bay in Marion, Massachusetts.  The family summered there until 1909, when they sold it to millionaire Galen Stone, who erected an even more lavish mansion, also named Great Hill, on the estate.  Four years later they also gave up their West End Avenue mansion, moving into a nine-room apartment on West 106th Street.  

Moses Charles Migel and his wife, the former Elisa Parada, purchased 621 West End Avenue.  Elisa was born in Santiago, Chile in 1877 and she married Moses in 1906.  The couple had three children, Parmenia, John Charles and Richard Howell.  Their summer home, Greenbraes, was in Ramapo Hills in the mountains of New Jersey.  

Migel was a fascinating figure.  A retired silk dealer, his parents had been married during the Civil War and initially lived on Canal Street.  But Solomon Migel's asthma forced him to relocate his family to Texas, where Moses was born on November 3, 1866.  Following Solomon's death, Moses's mother brought the children to Brooklyn, and by the time he was a teenager, he and his siblings were orphaned.

Moses and his brother somehow managed to get into the silk business, and by the turn of the century had a Greene Street office and a warehouse in Long Island City.  Moses Migel's fortune grew when, during World War I, he formed an import firm, the Allied Silk Trading Corporation, to bring silk fiber from China and Japan for the manufacture of cartridge cloth needed by the War Department.  

It was that work that began Moses's involvement with the blind.  After the Armistice, he accepted the position of overseeing services for American servicemen blinded in battle who were still in French hospitals.  Upon his return to the United States, he served on the Committee of Direction of the Red Cross Institute for the Blind.

Moses Charles Migel (original source unknown)

Moses became highly involved with the American Association of Workers for the Blind, and in 1914 was treasurer of the Uniform Type Commission, formed to perfect an American system of braille.  He was reportedly the sole source of funds for that commission.

In 1923 Moses and Elisa purchased a five-acre parcel adjoining their summer home.  There they developed Rest Haven, a free vacation home for blind women.  Transportation to-and-from New York City was also gratis.  By now Moses was the chairman of the New York State Commission for the Blind.

Elisa Parada de Migel (original source unknown)

In 1924 Elisa traveled to Chile and visited the Santiago College, a Methodist boarding school for girls where she had spent her formative years.  She and Moses donated $150,000 to the school for the construction of new structures and Elisa became president of its Board of Trustees.

By then, the Migels had been gone from West End Avenue for four years.  They sold the house in April 1920 to Juan Cortada.  In reporting the sale, the Record & Guide noted, "The house was free and clear and was sold for all cash."

In 1941 the house was virtually unchanged.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Juan and Rita Cortada had two daughters, Josephine and Rita, and a son, George.  As some point following Juan's death in 1929, Rita moved to their summer home in Deal, New Jersey.

In 1950 a renovation was begun to convert the mansion into apartments.  Completed the following year, the building's fifth floor had been replaced with a crisp brick box.  Clarence True's gable window on 90th Street was the sole survivor of his dramatic top floor design.  A pair of windows were punched into the third and fourth floors on this side, as well.  There were now two apartments per floor.  A subsequent renovation in 1955 provided two doctors' office spaces on the ground floor.

John Miller lived in an apartment here in the 1960's.  The military veteran was described by The New York Times on October 13, 1964, as "a tall, burly man of 58 and is a father."  John was walking near 91st Street and West End Avenue on the afternoon of March 24 that year when he was arrested on a vagrancy charge by Detective Daniel Koegh.  The problem was not that Miller was a vagrant--it was his outfit that bothered the detective.  According to Koegh in court a week later, "his prisoner had been wearing a brown, two-piece woman's suit, high heels and a fur cape.  He was carrying a purse.  On his head was a gray wig, and on his face, lipstick and powder."

In arresting Miller, who sometimes went by Joan, Koegh had relied on an 1845 vagrancy statute that made it illegal for a person to appear in public with "a face painted, discolored or covered or concealed or being otherwise disguised, in a manner calculated to prevent his being identified."  

The American Civil Liberties Union struck back, calling the arrest of someone who "has done nothing more than wear the clothing of the opposite sex" unconstitutional.  Entering the case as a Friend of the Court, the ACLU purported that Koegh had not arrested Miller for vagrancy, but "because of distaste for his behavior."

Given Moses C. Migel's work, it is appropriate that around 1969 the office of the Elbee Audio Players opened in 621 West End Avenue.  Headed by David Swerdlow, one publication said it performed "contemporary plays like Marty and A Majority of One, dramatically read by blind actors."  It was still operating from the address in 1988, when Resources in Theatre and Disability wrote, "Blind and sighted performers make up this repertory troupe that [performs] in the greater New York area."

Once an architectural grand dame in the neighborhood, the 1950 butchering of 621 West End Avenue makes it easily passed by, unnoticed, today.  

photographs by the author

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