Henry Fernbach's 1883 121-123 Greene Street

 

The Greene Street neighborhood developed a sordid reputation following the Civil War.  Brothels occupied many of the former homes and 121 Greene Street was not an exception.  At around midnight on January 17, 1862, for instance, a patron was removed after "during the act of coition, he was attacked with palsy," according to Dr. Edward C. Sequin.  (He most likely suffered a minor stroke.)   And the New York Dispatch reported on January 12, 1879, "When Justice Otterbourg ordered a complaint to be made against No. 121 Greene street, he no doubt hoped the police would get the evidence to convict.  Possibly the thing was impossible.  The surrounding neighbors could not very well go into court to complain, being in the same business."

At the time of Justice Otterbourg's frustration, things were changing in the Greene Street neighborhood.  Millinery and drygoods firms were inching northward and the old two- and three-story houses were being replaced by commercial structures.  

Julius and Adolph Lewisohn operated the millinery supply firm Lewisohn Bros., which imported and manufactured ostrich feathers, artificial flowers, "bristles, hair, vegetable fibre, &c."  In 1882 they purchased and demolished the buildings at 121 and 123 Greene Street and hired architect Henry Fernbach to design a replacement loft and store building.  Fernbach was busy in the Soho area at the time.  As a matter of fact, he was simultaneously designing the two abutting buildings as 125 and 127 Greene Street.

Construction began on June 28, 1882 and was completed nine months later--the use of a cast iron facade enabling the rapid rise of the six-story structure.  Ferbach's ornate design, a commercial blend of French Renaissance and Second Empire, featured columns with elaborate capitals (a close inspection reveals a melding of Corinthian and Ionic orders), and fluted pilasters at the ends with stylized acanthus motifs.  Each floor was defined by an intermediate cornice.  The entablature of the terminal cornice was distinguished by acanthus leaves alternating with brackets.  Prominent antefixes sprouted above the cornice.

Sharing the building with Lewisohn Bros. were the offices and showroom of the hat manufacturing firm Ferry & Napier.  It was founded by George J. Ferry in 1856 and became Ferry & Napier in 1879 when he partnered with Ernest Napier.  The factory in Newark, New Jersey employed 250 workers.  

In 1883, according to The Evening Post, Ferry became suspicious of the Newark bookkeeper James F. Bull, "because the profits of the factory fell behind what they would naturally be."  He sent Bull on vacation and then brought in the head bookkeeper, who worked in the Greene Street office, to examine the books.  He immediately discovered embezzlement.  The clever Bull had meticulously recorded the weekly payroll, and the individual figures were checked by the factory supervisor John W. Green.  What Green did not double-check, however, were the totals.  Each week Bull padded the total payroll amount by $10 to $50.  The Evening Post reported, "Ferry thinks the total sum taken will amount to between $3,000 and $4,000." (The higher amount would equal approximately $112,000 in 2023.)

Both men were fired, the supervisor "for negligence" for not discovering the scheme.   Somewhat surprisingly, after the 52-year-old Bull admitted his guilt and paid back what he could, Ferry did not press charges.

In the early 1890s Levi Bros. & Blum, which dealt in "notions and dressmaking supplies" was in the building.  For years it had been "the largest importers of high-class Notions in the country," according to The Evening World on January 19, 1894.

Also in the building at the time were two furriers, Albert Herzig, Sons & Co., and Isaac Levi.  The former employed 75 men, 60 women, and 22 girls under 21 years of age in their shop.  The staff worked 53 hours a week.

Fur Trade Review, August, 1893 (copyright expired)

In 1893 Isaac Levi took an extended buying trip to Europe, leaving brothers Adolph and Montague Berhard in charge of the New York operation.  He shipped $100,000 worth of furs from London, a significant three-and-a-quarter million in today's dollars.  A year later he told a reporter, "They did not remit any money last year, and explained that the crisis in America had prevented sales."  (That crisis was the Financial Panic of 1893.)  The excuse made sense, and Levi was unsuspecting.

He arrived back in New York at the beginning of 1894 to discover that Adolph had gone to Europe in December.  "Montague told me that my goods were all in bond, and a short time after my arrival he also left for Europe," said Levi.  "My suspicions were not even then aroused."

But in March, he visited the custom house brokers where he discovered that only half of the goods were in the warehouse.  An investigation showed that the brothers had sold much of the inventory before leaving the country.  But if the Berhards thought they could live the high life on their ill-gotten fortunes abroad, they underestimated their employer.  On May 1, 1894, The Press reported, "Isaac Levi of 123 Greene street, said yesterday: 'I caused the arrest of Adolph and Montague Bernhard in London."  The Evening World noted, "At the prisoners' lodgings a large quantity of valuable property, said to belong to Mr. Levi, was seized."  And Isaac Levi was much less forgiving than George J. Ferry had been.  "They were remanded for a week this morning in London, and will be brought back here for trial."

In 1905 Harry L. Block leased the building "for a long term of years."  His firm manufactured "ladies' and misses' skirts."  He subleased space to apparel maker Natkin & Laitin; cotton goods merchant Siegbert & Co.; and silk dealer Max Kempfer.

from Forest Leaves, 1910 (copyright expired)

Siegbert & Co. was headed by Samuel Siegbert who, according to The New York Press, "made a fortune in Prairie du Chien, Wis., and lived lavishly in a fourteen-room apartment."  That apartment, where Siegberg lived with his wife and daughter, was on the sixth floor of the Ardsley Court on Central Park West.  But his otherwise idyllic life was tortured by back pain.

On February 25, 1905, the family had breakfast together, after which Siegbert went into his study.  A few minutes later the telephone rang.  The New York Press reported, "Asked over the building telephone if any one had fallen from her apartment, Mrs. Siegbert ran to her husband's study and, finding the door locked, called for help.  The door was forced, a window was found open, and, looking down into the court behind the house, Mrs. Siegbert saw her husband's body and fell back unconscious."

Explaining that Siegbert had been "crazed by lumbago pains," the article said his gruesome plunge from the sixth floor window landed him head first on an iron fence where "one of the sharp points pierced his skull, holding him transfixed.  His neck was broken and one of his legs was fractured in two places."

Max Kempfer was the victim of an all-too-familiar crime in the Greene Street building over the decades.  In January 1908 he had 16-year-old employee Moses Neufeld arrested on grand larceny charges for stealing a large quantity of silk.  The teen still had the goods when he was apprehended.  In court on January 7, the boy's attorney asked Magistrate Kernochan permission to request that Kempfer devalue the silk from $47 to $25, "and thus reduce the charge to petit larceny," according to The Sun.  The magistrate said he was willing to allow it, but Kempfer was less sympathetic.  The Sun reported, "Mr. Kemper said he couldn't conscientiously swear to a different valuation on the silk."  Neufelt was held on $1,000 bail awaiting trial.

A new type of tenant arrived following the end of World War I.  The Peerless Doll Company operated from the building in 1918, and the following year doll maker Reisman Barron & Co., Inc, took three floors.  A notice dated December 29, 1919 called the new location "one of the largest and most complete doll factories in the city."

An advertisement in Toys and Novelties in April 1920 noted, "One entire floor is used for our head factory, which has an output of over sixty thousand head[s] per week, another is used for the manufacture of the complete doll, our third floor is used for storing all raw materials."

Dry Goods Economist, August 5, 1922 (copyright expired)

Also in the building in 1921 were the Victory Box Company, Inc., makers of cardboard boxes; and Samuel Hymes & Sons, cotton converters.  The latter firm  however, was about to cease business.

On July 16, 1921 the New-York Tribune reported that brothers Philip and Irwin Hymes had been arrested on grand larceny charges.  In a desperate attempt to keep afloat the company which their father had founded, they had defrauded two banks by providing false financial statements.  They obtained large credit lines as well as $25,000 in cash.  The two institutions filed charges after Samuel Hymes & Sons filed bankruptcy on February 5, 1921.

The Soho neighborhood was industrial and gritty in the 1950s and '60s.  The I. H. Manufacturing Co. occupied space in 121 Green Street, where it made "TV picture tube boosters and accessories, sockets for tubes, transistors and crystals."  But change was on the horizon.  The third quarter of the century saw Soho discovered by artists, who used the vast industrial lofts for studio and living space.  The store fronts became galleries and cafes.

Two views of the building in the 1980s.  Despite the abuse, the historic elements of the architecture, including the original doors, survived.  images via josephpelllombardi.com

In March 1978 the Pincar Gallery opened in 121 Greene Street.  The upper floors were converted to cooperative housing in 1988 by the architectural restoration firm of Joseph Pell Lombardi.  On June 12 that year, The New York Times mentioned, "When a building at 123 Greene Street became a residential co-op recently, the unrenovated 4,000-square-foot floors sold briskly for about $800,000 apiece."

Galleries came and went.  In the early 1990s the Sperone Westwater Gallery was here and would remain at least through 2000.  Modern Age Gallery exhibited from 1992 to about 1995, and Douglas Blau had space in 1993.  By 2014 the ground floor was shared by the Proenza Schouler boutique and Warby Parker eyeglasses, the latter opening in April 2013.

Sadly, Greene Street is too narrow for the observer to get an optimum perspective of Henry Fernbach's striking cast iron building.  It is wonderfully intact, including the delicate capitals, often the first elements to rust and fall away.

photographs by the author

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The 1868 Marion Meredith House - 351 West 4th Street

 

Matthew Kane was a highly successful sash (or window frame) maker in the mid-1860's.  He invested in real estate in 1868, completing a row of four upscale homes on West Fourth Street between West 13th Street and Eighth Avenue.  Designed by the prolific team of brothers David and John Jardine, the homes along West 4th Street were three bays wide and faced in warm orange brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Jardine & Jardine had designed them in the newly popular Second Empire style, transforming this block of Greenwich Village into a little slice of Paris.

The corner house stood apart from the others in that it held a store space on the West 13th Street Side.  Although it had the same proportions as the others, its wall of windows on West 13th Street allowed the architects to place just two openings on West 4th Street, creating more usable wall space inside.  The residential entrance took the address of No. 351 West 4th Street, while the store was numbered 308 West 13th Street.  Matthew Kane retained possession of the row, leasing all except No. 345 on the opposite end, which became his family's residence.

He leased the corner house to ]Marion Meredith, a printer, who also moved his business into the shop space.  The Meredith family took in boarders, their first being policeman Benjamin Christopher and Jeremiah Yereance, a carpenter.

The Merediths never took in more than two boarders, and like Jeremiah Yereance, they often came from the building trade.  It is possible that they were referred by Marion Meredith's landlord, Matthew Kane.  In 1878 and '79, for instance, carpenter Philip F. Beam and sashmaker Jacob R. Riley, lived with the family.

By the early 1880's the Graham family was leasing the house.  James and Adelia Ann Graham had been living nearby at No. 174 West 13th Street.  James made his living as a clerk in the city's Bureau of Inspection of Buildings.  Adelia Ann died at the age of 50 on July 31, 1881.  Her funeral was held in the house three days later. 

James remained and in January 1885 was earning $1,200 per year in his city job--about $33,000 in today's money.  Another civil servant, M. Cassidy, lived in the house in 1895.  He was an "inspector of weights and measures."

In the meantime the former printing shop of Marion Meredith had become Hugh McCreedy's grocery store.  On the afternoon of August 26, 1897 John Martin, walked into the store.   The 44-year-old homeless man looked around, then when McCreedy's back was turned, darted out with six brooms.  He was arrested a short distance away, "making no effort to escape," according to The New York Press.

Hugh McCreedy stood in the courtroom as Martin appeared before Magistrate Simms on the charge of stealing.  His explanation touched the storekeeper's sense of compassion.

"Your Honor," he said, "I was hungry, and that's why I stole.  I wanted a night's lodging, a bite to eat and rest."

The New York Press reported, "McCreedy refused to press the charge and Martin was discharged."

Matthew Kane died around 1898 and on May 4, 1899 his heirs sold the row of houses to Pincus Lowenfeld and William Prager.  It appears that all of the homes were operated as boarding houses.  The residents of No. 351 West 4th Street continued to be respectable and hard working.

Matilda W. White purchased No. 351 from Lowenfeld and Prager around the time of World War I.  She owned numerous properties in the neighborhood.  Among her tenants in 1922 was the Rice family, who suffered a horrifying tragedy on January 28.

Evelyn Rice was six years old and her mother took her to the nearby motion picture theater that afternoon.  The Evening Telegram reported that just after the movie ended 20-year-old delivery driver John Hayes lost control of his truck, which "swerved to one side and leaped the curb at Fourteenth street and Eighth avenue and ploughed through a crowd leaving a motion picture theater."

Hayes told police that as he neared the intersection "a man and woman stepped into his path.  To avoid an accident he swerved toward the sidewalk."  It ended horrifically.  "The Rice girl was shoved into the path of the runaway truck and killed," said The Evening Telegram.  Four others were injured.

The large store windows were boarded over on March 12, 1933, quite possibly a result of the Great Depression.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

At mid-century there were four three-room apartments per floor in the house.  Among the residents was Morris Kessler, a retired hardware merchant.  He contracted pleurisy and was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital on May 17, 1954.  In a shocking turn of events, four days later the 64-year old "climbed through the window and dropped to the Eleventh Street sidewalk," as reported by The New York Times.  The plunge was fatal.

The store space held a restaurant in the 1950's and early '60's.  A renovation completed in 2004 resulted in two apartments, one a triplex, on the upper floors.  The storefront was removed and bricked over.  That space became home to the Thomas Heinz Salon in 2004, described by The New York Times as a "tiny, superprivate" hair salon.

photographs by the author

The 1868 Hugh McCutcheon House - 349 West Fourth Street

 

Matthew Kane was a manufacturer of window sashes.  The explosion of construction in the years following the Civil War increased both his business and his fortune.  He invested in real estate in 1868, completing a row of four upscale Second Empire style homes on West Fourth Street between West Fourth Street and Eighth Avenue.  Designed by the prolific team of brothers David and John Jardine, the homes were faced in warm orange brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Three bays wide, their most eye-catching feature was the fashionable slate-shingled mansard level, each holding two dormers.

Among them was No. 349, which he leased to Hugh McCutcheon who had recently brought his family from Newburgh, New York.  McCutcheon had been born there in 1832 and was married to the former Catherine Hurd.  The couple had four children when they moved in, 14-year old Robert Homer, 10-year old Amahel, Maria, who was five, and one-year old Carrie.  Sharing the house with the family was another Newburgh couple, J. B. Lindsay and his wife, Jennie.

The McCutcheon house is the second from the left.

McCutcheon ran a "fixtures" store at No. 96 Bleecker Street.  Not long after the family settled into their new home Robert was enrolled in the collegiate course of the City University of New York.

Tragedy struck in October 1873 when Jennie Lindsay died at the age of 29.  Her body was taken from the house on the 13th to be sent to Newburgh for burial.  It appears J. B. Lindsay left the West Fourth Street house shortly after, possibly moving back to Newburgh.

The McCutcheon family were long-term tenants, leasing the house at least through 1880.  They then moved west, to Indianapolis, where Hugh McCutcheon died in August 1883.

Matthew Kane died around 1898 and on May 4, 1899 his heirs sold the row of houses to Pincus Lowenfeld and William Prager.  It appears that all of the homes became boarding houses, and while the tenants of No. 349 were middle class, holding white collar jobs, at least one of them was less than respectable.

Clarence Mallory had worked as a collector for the commission merchant firm of S. Fish & Co. before abruptly leaving his job in September 1902.  As a collector, he had received monies owed the firm by clients, sometimes visiting them in person to do so.  On the evening of September 15 he was on an Eighth Avenue streetcar far uptown when, as it approached the intersection of 104th Street, a man began running after it, yelling at the conductor.

The New York Press reported "When he swung aboard he was out of breath, but he immediately seized a young man, and as soon as his breath returned he began to shriek.  'Police! Police!' he cried with all his might."

The young man was Clarence Mallory and his captor was his former boss, David Temmer.  The New York Press said Mallory "seemed astonished and the passengers wondered if the man was crazy."  His continued shouts of "Police!" drew the attention of Patrolman Quinn.  Temmer told him "I want this man arrested.  He was our collector and kept all the money."

Indeed, after Mallory's hasty departure from the firm, it was discovered there was a shortage of $1,800 in cash--more in the neighborhood of $55,200 today.  The breathless Temmer said "I spotted him on that car and hopped on and grabbed him.  I wasn't going to lose such a change, even with the people around."  At the station house Mallory was searched.  He had a silver sugar bowl and half a dozen silver spoons on him, which he claimed he had purchased at an auction.  After that, according to the New York Herald, "Mallory had nothing further to say."

The period just before and after World War I saw several tenants holding Government jobs.  In 1912 Anna E. Pidgeon was hired by the State Civil Service Commission as an "attendant," possibly in a jail or prison.  And in 1915 Joseph P. Boyle landed a superintendent position in the State Civil Service's Bureau of Employment at a salary of $2,000 (about $52,500 today).  In 1919 he was still living in No. 349 and earning the same pay.

In 1930 No. 349 was purchased by Sanford M. Treat.  He continued leasing rooms in the house, prompting the necessary installation of a fire escape.  At the time the molded lintels were intact.  Before long, however, they were shaved off.  Happily the other Victorian details--the understated entrance, the dormers and fish-scale shingles--were preserved.

A renovation completed in 1961 returned it to a single-family home.  The unsightly fire escape was removed, bringing the McCutcheon house back nearly to its 1868 appearance.

photographs by the author

The Lost William C. Schermerhorn House - 49 West 23rd Street

 

Family members assembled on the split staircase for a photograph.  Apparently no one thought to remove the carpet which was airing from a third floor window.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Jacob Janse Schermerhorn arrived in New Netherland in 1636.  His descendants would become among the oldest and wealthiest families in New York City.  William Colford Schermerhorn spent much of his life in the family mansion at No. 6 Great Jones Street which, following his parents' death, his wife, the former Ann Elliott Huger Cottonet, made a center of lavish entertaining.

Born on June 22, 1821, Schermerhorn received a private education before attending Columbia College.  Educated as an attorney and admitted to the bar in 1842, he really never practiced law.  He and Ann had five children--Fanny, Sarah, Franklin, Simon, and Annie.  In his office at No. 41 Liberty Street he devoted almost all of his time and energy to the management of the extensive Schermerhorn holdings.

William Colford Schermerhorn Courtesy of the Lenox Library Association

When his father erected the house on Great Jones Street that neighborhood was among the most fashionable in the city.  But not long after Henry Brevoort, Jr.'s construction of his lavish, free-standing house on Fifth Avenue at 9th Street in 1834, society began migrating west.   In 1858 William commissioned German-born architect Detlef Lienau to design a mansion on the exclusive block of 23rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

Nine years earlier Lienau had designed an architecturally groundbreaking mansion for millionaire Hart M. Shiff at No. 32 Fifth Avenue at the corner of 10th Street.  It is considered the first example of the French Second Empire style in New York City (described by the architect as "a la mansard").  Now Lienau produced a near match for the Schermerhorns.

Lienau's rendering for the Schermerhorn house (above) was extremely similar to that of the Schiff residence. collection of the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 

The mansion sat on two plots--Nos. 49 and 51 West 23rd Street.  Three bays wide, it was accessed by a split staircase.  Each story was defined by an intermediate cornice, and stone quoins lined the three vertical sections.   Directly above the entrance, a pair of French doors, crowned by a classical pediment, opened onto a stone balcony.  The New York Herald described the residence broadly, saying:

The house is a very large and handsome one, occupying three [sic] lots of ground.  It is red brick, four stories high, with attics and with brown stone trimmings; it has a high stoop and elegant stone balconies.

The family moved into the completed mansion in 1859.  Its sumptuous interiors were outfitted with imported French furniture.  Perhaps no space was more important than the large picture gallery which, like that of William's cousin Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, doubled as a ballroom for Ann's opulent entertainments.

Ann was described by Elizabeth Fries Ellet in her 1868 book The Queens of American Society as "remarkable for beauty and grace, and for the elegance of her reunions."  Attending those "reunions" were the most elevated names of Manhattan society.  On February 5, 1869, for instance, the Evening Telegram reported:

On Friday Mrs. William Schermerhorn, 49 West Twenty-third street, gave one of the largest and most recherche receptions of the season.  Among the ladies present, noticeable for their rich and stylish toilets, were Mrs. Gracie King, Mrs. [Mary] Mason Jones, Mrs. Hamilton Fish, Mrs. Coventry Waddell, Mrs. Samuel Failes, Mrs. Cutting and Miss King.

Ann's entertainments vied with any throughout society, including those of her husband's cousin.  On February 22, 1887 the New-York Daily Tribune reported on the "large reception and tea" she had given the previous afternoon.  "Over two hundred guests called," it said.

On the night of February 10, 1897 Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Martin gave a fancy dress ball at the Hotel Waldorf to which 1,200 invitations were issued ("but little more than half of those invited were in attendance," noted The New York Times).  It was a costume ball and, as was common, invited socialites gave pre-ball gatherings.  Because of the costumes and the decorations of the 23rd Street house, Ann Schermerhorn's reminded many of her earlier, famous Versailles ball.

The New York Times reminisced, "Forty-three years ago Mr. and Mrs. Schermerhorn gave a great ball...at which the guests appeared in costumes of the time of Louis XV, and the affair last night, though less pretentious in point of numbers and preparation, had many points of resemblance to it."  The article called it "the most elaborate of the several costume events preceding the ball."

Following an 8:30 dinner "to a few of the close friends of the host and hostess," said the article, "the large handsomely decorated parlors and ball room of the mansion were thrown open for the reception of about 100 guests."  As always, the guest list was impressive, with names like Suydam, Van Nest, Redmond and Iselin.  "An interesting feature of the reception was the exhibition of costumes worn at the famous Schermerhorn ball of 1854, and some of the silverware used at the banquet on that occasion."

Sharing the house with William and Ann were their unmarried daughter, Sarah; Fanny and her husband, Samuel W. Bridgman; and Annie and her husband, John Innes Kane.

Bridgman became the target of a highly-publicized blackmail scheme in 1897.  He had married Fanny in 1869 and was described by the Patterson Evening News as "a member of the Knickerbocker, Metropolitan, Tuxedo, Camera and Military clubs.  His life is that of a clubman, and is divided between his clubs and his home."  On the night of April 17 he and Fanny left for the theater.  On the street a man presented him with papers "in a suit for $100,000 brought against him by one James Ward for the alienation of his wife's affections," according to The Sun.

Bridgman laughed it off as a joke--until a second letter arrived from a supposed attorney the next morning, threatening to involve the Sheriff.   The conman behind the scheme, William C. Woodward, known as "Big Hawley the confidence man," assumed that his wealthy patsy would pay to avoid unwanted scandal.  Instead Bridgman went to the authorities and a trap was laid.  Detective Sergeant McNaught masqueraded as a worker in the office of Bridgman's lawyer.   When the blackmailer arranged an in-person negotiation, the trap was sprung.

William and Ann maintained a summer estate in Lenox and one in Newport.  Their movements kept society columnists on their toes.  On September 8, 1901, for instance, the New-York Tribune reported "Mr. and Mrs. William C. Schermerhorn and Miss Schermerhorn, of New-York, who have been at Newport since July, have returned to Lenox and are at their Elm cottage."

By the time of that article, the West 23rd Street neighborhood was no longer residential.  The mansions of the Schermerhorn's' neighbors had either been converted for commercial purposes or demolished and replaced by emporiums.  But the Schermerhorns stubbornly refused to move north and abandon their home.  It was now a stark anachronism of a more refined era along the block.

The transformation of the once-elegant block is evidenced in this photograph.  The Schermerhorn house can be glimpsed at the right.  The Eden Musee next door was a wax museum and music hall.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

On January 2, 1903 The Evening Post reported, "William Colford Schermerhorn, the oldest of his family, who had kept his residence at No. 49 West Twenty-third Street while the shops moved up to him and around him and then beyond him, died there last night."  Schermerhorn was 82 years old had had been ill only two days.

Sarah, who had a kidney problem, had never married.  Ann was still deep in mourning when her daughter's condition worsened.  Fanny and John maintained a summer estate in Bar Harbor and all four went there "hoping the change of air would benefit Miss Schermerhorn," according to the New-York Daily Tribune.   On July 30, just six months after her father's death, Sarah died in the Bar Harbor residence.

In reporting in Sarah's funeral in the 23rd Street mansion, the New York Press focused mostly on the house, beginning the article saying "There is something lugubrious about the old Schermerhorn house, at No. 49 West Twenty-third street.  It is the only private dwelling on that busy shopping block."  

The article mentioned that Annie Kane and Caroline Astor "are the best of friends, yet Mrs. Kane is as quiet socially as Mrs. Astor is active.  Like most of the Schermerhorns, Mrs. Kane is passionately fond of music and her entertainments usually take the form of musicales."  

One sentence revealed that Ann had ceded her place in society to her daughters:  "Mrs. William C. Schermerhorn was a great patron of the arts in her day.  With wealth at her command, this matron's greatest pleasure was to send young women to study in Paris in the hope of producing a second Jenny Lind.  She never had that reward."

Despite her advancing age, however, Ann continued her routine of moving among her several homes.  On September 29, 1906, for instance, the New-York Tribune announced "Mrs. William C. Schermerhorn is to open her Main street cottage [in Lenox] for October.  Mr. and Mrs. John Innes Kane, who are at Bar Harbor, will return to Lenox with Mrs. Schermerhorn."

That would be Ann's last season in Lenox.  On February 15, 1907 The New York Times reported that she had died in the 23rd Street house the previous day.  "With her death New York has lost one of the few remaining women who had been really great leaders of society in this city."  The 83-year-old had outlived all but two of her children--Annie and Fanny.

Ann's beloved house was an architectural fly in amber.  Her deep affection for it went beyond her death.  A few days after her funeral the New York Press reported that she had "provided for its preservation by a clause in her will."  The article recalled "It was in the Schermerhorn mansion that the first foreign opera singers appeared at musicals.  On one occasion the Schermerhorns became the talk of the city by engaging the entire orchestra of the Academy of Music to play at a reception."

Despite Ann's posthumous efforts, life among retail stores was unattractive to her daughters and their husbands.  First the Kanes moved to Madison Avenue and then, on March 19, 1908, the New-York Tribune reported that Samuel and Fanny Bridgman had purchased the five-story house at No. 954 Fifth Avenue.  The article reminded readers "Mrs. Bridgham was Miss Fanny Schermerhorn.  She and her husband have occupied for some years the old Schermerhorn house, No. 49 West 23d street."

Three years later, on May 3, 1911, The New York Times entitled an article "Schermerhorn House To Go" and commented that since the Bridghams moved out the mansion had been unoccupied.  "On its site will rise a twelve-story loft building."

from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The mansion was replaced by the remarkable "Modern French" style structure designed by Schwartz & Gross which survives.

The Eleazar Parmly House - 137 East 27th Street

 

In the early 1850's attractive brick-faced residences rose along East 27th Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues.  The owner of No. 83 East 27th Street (renumbered 137 in 1868) was taking in boarders by 1853 when Peter Mead and Frederick Somers, both printers located in the Bible House, and policeman Daniel Vandewater listed their addresses here.

On August 22, 1855 an advertisement appeared in the New-York Daily Times offering:

Small Cottage House for Sale--In 27th-st, near Lexington av.  The house is three stories, basement and sub cellar, and built in the best masonry; has all the modern improvements, and is in every respect desirable for a small family.  Price $5,700, which includes gas fixtures and furnace.

At the time Dr. Eleazar Parmly and his family lived at No. 1 Bond Street.  His dental office was also in the house, which sat within what was known the Bond Street District.  It had been among the most exclusive residential neighborhoods in New York in the 1830's.  Now, however, it was the center of Manhattan's dental district.  While Parmly kept his office in the Bond Street house, he moved his family to East 27th Street.

In 1895 America's Successful Men of Affairs would remember Parmly as "the father of American dentistry."  Born on a farm in Braintree, Vermont on March 13, 1797, he had shown remarkable intelligence and capability early in his life.  At the age of 16 he passed the examination for the position of district school teacher so successfully that the School Board voted him extra pay.  After just one year of teaching he went to Montreal where he worked in a newspaper office.

Shortly afterward, he moved to Boston where his brother, Levi S. Parmly, was a dentist and through him "acquired a thorough knowledge of the professional."  The brothers went into partnership as itinerate dentists, traveling from city to city in the South.  

America's Successful Men of Affairs recounted a story from that period to illustrate Parmly's "character and determination."  He was escorting a lady to her home after attending a ball and was jostled by a young man "prominent in local society."  The article said "Dr. Parmly did not submit tamely to this insult.  He was tall, athletic, and finely proportioned, and the aggressor received a severe blow in punishment."

He was handed a written challenge the next day by a friend of the young man.  Parmly said "You are as well aware as I am that your friend's conduct was unwarranted and unjustifiable.  By bringing me this note, you have made yourself a participator in his insolence.  I propose to thrash you with your own cane, and if your friend will call I'll thrash him also, after which I am entirely willing to fight a duel with him."

Parmly then grabbed the man's cane, "administered a sound drubbing, and put him out of the house."  Justice and chivalry were far different in the 1810's and he after his arrest on charges of assault, the judge "looked admiringly at him, patted him on the shoulder and said, 'Young man, you did right.  You are perfectly safe in this city from this time.'"

In 1821 Parmly and his brother went to Europe where they studied under the most famous dental surgeons of Paris and London.  Parmly arrived in New York in 1823 and "for a half a century stood at the head of his profession in the metropolis," according to America's Successful Men of Affairs.

He married Ann Maria V. Smith on August 22, 1827, and they had five children who survived to adulthood--Anna, Alexander Ehrick (who went by his middle name), Mary, Julia and Louisa.  Ehrick followed in his father's footsteps, graduating with high honors from the New York College of Dental Surgery in Syracuse in March 1851.  And like his father, he then spent about a year in Paris "industriously pursuing a course of medical and surgical studies," according to the American Journal of Dental Science in 1853.

Dr. Eleazar Parmly around 1850.  via thefamilyparmelee.com

Around the time his father purchased the 27th Street house, Ehrick married Lucy Dubois, of Montbeliard, France.  Both he and his father were artistically as well as medically inclined.  A talented poet, Eleazar wrote his autobiography in verse.  Ehrick was a musician who offered his services to the Oceanic Presbyterian Church, of which he was the treasurer and a trustee.

Despite what America's Successful Men of Affairs called Eleazar's "large income," he and Ann Maria took in boarders.  Martin Wilbur, a streetcar conductor, remained through 1859.  Their other boarder in 1856 was Joseph Wordsdell, a cabinetmaker.

Although he retained possession of the house, Parmly was no longer listed at the address in 1861.  Surprisingly, Frederick Somers, who had lived here as early as 1853, was back with his family.  His son, Frederick D. Somers, was earning a living as a clerk.  Also renting rooms were artist Theodore L. Angerstein and William Foster, a mason.

In 1864 Parmly leased the house to Aaron Rutherford and his wife, Margaret.  Rutherford ran a provisions business on East 27th Street.  The couple apparently considered moving out in the spring of 1869, when an advertisement in the New York Herald offered "To Let--Completely furnished, the three story high stoop brick House, 137 East Twenty-seventh street, with all modern improvements."  The asking rent was $1,800 a year, or about $3,000 per month today.

But instead a deal was worked out and in March 1870 Eleazar Parmly transferred title to the house to Margaret Rutherford.  (Deeds were commonly placed in the wife's name in the 19th century, assuring her of financial stability in the case of her husband's death.)

The Rutherfords housed boarders, as well.  In the spring of 1880 they took in a young father, 27-year old R. S. Checkley, and his three year old daughter, Lilly.  Checkley's story was striking.

Four years earlier, just as he was about to graduate from medical school, he took on the case of 41 year old Adelaide E. Swett.  He explained later that she "was a lady of some means, but a confirmed invalid, having been given up by several physicians."  He was convinced he could help her, or at least prolong her life for several years.

The Sun reported on June 15, "To begin with, he married her."  But four years later he was informed that she was already married, and so he left her and came to New York.  He explained, according to The Sun, "The reason why he took the child with him was that its mother persisted in feeding it on medicated food when the child stood in no need of it.  Besides, he was very much attached to it, and could not bear to part with it."

Adelaide had no intention of parting with the child, either.  She arrived in New York in May with a warrant for her husband's arrest on a charge of abandonment.  She searched for three weeks before spotting him on the street.  She grabbed a policeman, saying "I want you to arrest that man.  He is my husband, and he has run away from me for another woman."

R. B. Checkley was taken in.  At the stationhouse he was forced to reveal Lilly's location.  Adelaide rushed to No. 137 East 27th Street and came back with her daughter.  The following day in court she said she would not press charges.  "She had secured the child, and that, it seems, was all she wanted."

On the evening of June 11 Adelaide and the toddler boarded the steamboat Narragansett headed back to Boston.  The vessel was on the Long Island Sound when it collided with the steamer Stonington.  The following day the Memphis Daily Appeal reported "the present report is that the Narragansett took fire and sunk."   At least 83 fatalities had been confirmed at the time.

On June 20 The Sun reported "Among the victims of the disaster was Mrs. R. S. Checkley, of Boston."  As the Narragansett burned, "a lifeboat manned by men who in the excitement had forgotten to take any oars aboard, floated under the stern of the sinking vessel.  There, by the light of the fire, a woman was discovered on her back upon the surface of the water, with a little child riding upon her breast."

The two were Adelaide and Lilly.  They were both alive and pulled into the lifeboat.  The article said "Mrs. Checkley was exhausted and almost unconscious.  When she found herself aboard the boat she thought she had been rescued without her child, and after moaning some tender words about her 'lost baby' she died."  Checkley received a telegram at the 27th Street house on Sunday, informing him of the tragedy.  "He took the next train for Boston, and by this time he is on his way back in the undisputed possession of his child," said the article.

The following year the Rutherfords moved to Irvington, Iowa and sold the house to De L'Orme Knowlton for $5,000--just under $130,000 today.  He resold it in 1886 to Cacielle Stein for twice the amount he had paid.   She hired architect H. Simberlund to enlarge the house to the rear in May 1887 with a two-story addition.  

Cacielle Stein retained possession of the house into the 20th century, renting rooms to blue collar tenants like Joseph Pierro who endured the embarrassment in 1902 of having his name published for owing "noncollectable" property taxes dating back to 1899.

In 1920 the owners called themselves a "Christian business couple" in their advertisement to rent three rooms at $25 rent (about $320 per month today).

The house was converted to one apartment per floor above a store in the former basement in 1941.  The stoop was removed and all traces of Victorian detailing were removed.  The building was used by a variety of businesses throughout the 20^th century—in the 1950's the Helen Goodman Gallery was here, as well as the Davenport Theatre.  In 1956 the first and second story apartments were combined into one duplex.

Seth Ryan lived in the building in 1960.   On January 26 the 21-year old and two friends, Hugh Bruce and Gilbert Demillo went to a rally of 8,000 persons in Union Square who were protesting Nazism and anti-Semitism.  But they were not there to lend support.  At around 7:30, as Rabbi Harold Maraleck was speaking to survivors of Nazi concentration camps, the young men shouted "Heil Hitler" and gave the Nazi salute.  They were arrested and held in $15,000 bail each, charged with disorderly conduct.

Today the masonry of the venerable Parmly house is painted and the former English basement could best be described as an eyesore.  But the stories that have played out within its walls are fascinating.

photographs by the author

The Michael Magrath House - 74 Irving Place

As early as 1846 Benjamin L. Blonk lived in the 26-foot wide house at No. 74 Irving Place between 18th and 19th Street.  City directories annually placed his business and residential address here, listing his occupation as "painter."  Blonk operated a substantial house painting business, advertising on May 3, 1854, "Wanted, at 74 Irving Place, six or eight good house painters; also a boy to learn the trade."

Around 1859 builder Michael McGrath purchased the Blonk home.  The wealthy contractor routinely worked with esteemed architects and it was almost doubtlessly he who updated No. 74 with an up-to-date French Second Empire style remodeling in keeping with the elegant tone being set by Gramercy Park a block to the north.

A high stone stoop led to the parlor floor where a cast iron balcony fronted the floor-to-ceiling windows.  The high mansard roof, punctured by full-height dormers with broken pediments, was clad in bands of rectangular and hexagonal slate shingles.

The shortest building on the block in this 1909 photograph, No. 74 still retained its 1860's appearance. At the near corner is Tom and John Healy's saloon, later named Pete's Tavern. from the collection of the New York Public Library

Magrath and his wife, the former Catherine Wall, had three sons, John A., Thomas and Cornelius.  The family's wealth was reflected in Magrath's purchase of a pair of mares and a "four-seat wagon" shortly after moving in.  He mentioned the price in 1862 as $1,175, about $30,800 in today's money.  

The Magraths parted ways with their laundress that year, but it seems to have been an amicable decision.  Her advertisement on September 30 read "Wanted--By a respectable girl, a situation as laundress; lived two years in her last place.  Call at 74 Irving place."

Griffith Thomas was among the most sought-after architects of the period.  In 1908 the American Institute of Architects would call him "the most fashionable architect of his generation."  And so one can only imagine the panic Michael Magrath experienced when he realized he had lost a set of Thomas's plans.  His announcement in The New York Herald on February 17, 1872 read:

$25 Reward--Lost, at corner of William and Cedar streets, a set of Plans and Specifications, drawn by Mssrs. Griffith Thomas & Son, architects, Broadway; return to M. Magrath, 74 Irving place.  No questions asked.

The following year Magrath weighed in on the most talked-about court case of the period, known popularly as The Car-Hook Tragedy.  Living about two blocks away from the Magrath home at the time was John Foster family.  His son, William, killed a man on a street car in May 1871 using an iron bar called a car hook.  Foster lamented from his jail cell "Drink had crazed my brain, and to the cursed demon, which steals into society of all kinds, and works its damning deeds, may I render thanks for the position I now occupy.”

William Foster receives word that the Governor had upheld his death sentence. The Car-Hook Tragedy, 1873 (copyright expired)

Foster was sentenced to death, but appeals dragged the case on for two years.  John Magrath joined with 27 other businessmen, most of them involved in the construction industry, in a written plea to Governor John A. Dix seeking clemency.  They said, in part, "Foster is naturally of an amiable and inoffensive temper; has never been in the habit of intoxication, has never been the associate of idle, disorderly or disreputable persons...We solemnly declare our belief that he never intended or contemplated the death of the stranger."  Next to their name each of the men wrote his suggested sentence.  Magrath wrote "12 years."  Their efforts were for naught.  Foster was hanged on March 21, 1873.

In an ironic side note, the State was nearly unable to carry out the sentence.  When the matron brought Foster a cup of coffee at 3:00 that morning, she found that he had swallowed poison.  She forced him to vomit and he was walked up and down the corridors until 10:00, the hour of his execution.  He was carried to the gallows and as the preacher performed his religious service, the prison physician warned the Sheriff that if Dr. Tyng did not speed things up, Foster would die from the poison before he could be executed.

That fall the Magrath family leased a full floor of their home.  Their advertisement on September 30 described "To Let--For One Year, in a private house, a third story Flat; parlor, dining room, three bedrooms, kitchen, water closet and hot and cold water; rent $800."  (The monthly rent would equal just under $1,500 today.)

The Hecksher family moved in.  Six months later a maid walked out never to return, taking with her a trove of valuables.  On April 30, 1874 the New-York Daily Tribune reported "Louisa Winters, a servant, employed in the family of R. Hecksher at No. 74 Irving-place, recently disappeared, taking with her six diamond rings, two gold watches, a seal-skin jacket, a black cashmere polonaise, and other articles, in all valued at $4,000."  Louisa's haul would be in the neighborhood of $92,600 today.

Michael Magrath received a handsome commission from the Department of Public Parts in November 1884.  The Record & Guide announced he "has been awarded the contract for the erection of a skate building in the Central Park."

Following Michael Magrath's death around 1891 Catherine leased a few rooms in the house.   Her three sons still lived in the house with her in 1893 when the City Directory also listed Thomas O'Brien, a carpenter; Agnes Savage, the widow of John A. Savage; and bartender Eugene Spear.

In 1898 the wife of Martin Mahon, rented rooms here.  Her husband, Martin Mahon, was the proprietor of the New-Amsterdam Hotel.  The couple had been married for 19 years and had three children.   But Mahon was embroiled in a scandalous court case that prompted their living apart.

In court on December 15, 1898 he "denied that he had separated from his wife, but admitted that he had not conversed with her since the incidents in connection with the present case became public property.  He said that prior to the last two weeks had had been home to see his wife, at No. 74 Irving Place, two or three times each day."

The "incidents" that had become public property were the details of his dalliance with Fayne Moore, wife of William A. E. Moore.  The Moores had set a trap for the wealthy hotelier and when Fayne lured him to a room in the Grenoble Hotel on November 4, 1893, William stole a diamond pin.  No doubt much to Mrs. Mahon's mortification, the much publicized case dragged on for months.

The last Magrath listed at the address was John, a member of the Real Estate Exchange, who was still here in 1899.  The family, however, would retain ownership for decades.  That same year the house received a major alteration when a commercial space was carved into the former basement level.  C. & J. Bloomingdale, cabinet makers, moved in.

Dr. Daniel Di Bol was a tenant in the Irving Place house in 1905 when he ran up against a powerful adversary, Anthony Comstock, the founder and head of the Society for the Suppression of Vice.  Comstock, who once deemed himself "the weeder of God's garden," considered himself the arbiter of what was and was not moral.  And he considered Dr. Di Boi's Museum of Anatomy on 14th Street immoral.

On February 8 The Sun described the 35-year old Dr. Di Boi as "the scholarly gentleman with the cane and vocabulary, who stands outside and invites a wondering world to enter."  He hawked the exhibitions inside as "scientific, instructive and interesting, teaching you the wonders of life and the terrors of disease."  But his life-like wax figures of unclothed humans were so anatomically accurate as to raise Puritanical eyebrows.

Months earlier Police Captain Steve McDermott had investigated and warned Di Boi that it could be seen as offensive.  Di Boi dismissed him, saying the exhibition was "strictly scientific."  "So the Captain left after warning the managers not to admit boys under 18," said The Sun.  That was not sufficient for Anthony Comstock.  At 4:00 on February 7, 1905 he "took a running glance" at the figures "and ordered the whole lot to the station house."  Not only were Di Boi and his staff arrested, but the figures were carted off.   The warmth of the station house disfigured the models.  "Tears were running down the leper's nose.  Then it occurred to [Sergeant Carson] that waxen things would melt, and they were carted down cellar to harden in strange poses."

In spite of the assault to the lower floors, the mansard level, minus its iron cresting, is remarkably intact.

At the same time architect D. W. Davis lived in the house and would remain into the 1920's.  By 1908 china painter Anna B. Leonard lived and operated her studio here.  An ad in Pallette and Bench that year offered classes in "Porcelain Decoration and Design for all Handicrafts.  Gold in Power Form excelled for the decoration of Tableware."

On September 29, 1912 The Sun commented "That the manners and customs generally of the ateliers of the Quartier Latin should have taken such a hold in New York, where the Beaux Arts men are most numerous, is not surprising."  Among the "more important of the New York ateliers," it said, was Atelier Wynkoop at No. 74 Irving Place.

Under the directorship of artist J. Wynkoop, the studio produced artists like A. C. Webb, F. A. Elsasser, and J. Regan.  Wynkoop remained at the address until around 1918.

In September 1920 the Magrath family hired the architectural firm Philip Bardes Co. to convert the old house to bachelor apartments.  Included in the project were new walls and staircase, a bathroom, and the removal of the show window.  The renovations to what was now officially described as an apartment house cost the equivalent of $115,000 today.

The renovation lowered the columned entrance to street level.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

There were now fifteen "sleeping rooms" in the house.  Bachelor apartments did not have kitchens and the Department of Buildings warned that "cooking in more than two apartments" would render the building "liable to immediate vacation."

The New York Herald, February 4, 1921 (copyright expired)

Catherine Wall Magrath died on May 17, 1922 at the age of 89.  After having been in the family for more than 60 years, the house was sold to George Glandening.  Glendening was the principal in the real estate firm Geo. Glendening & Co.

The building continued to house middle-class renters, like Hollis Mitchell, a copy editor and proofreader who lived here in the 1950's.  Then in 1973 a renovation resulted in two apartments per floor.  Among the first of the new tenants was artist and photographer A. Burton Carnes.  He had started his career with Esquire Publishing as a sales promotional director where he also created advertisements for Gentleman's Quarterly.  He left Esquire in 1952 to work on his own, focusing much of his time on the development of animated films.

Sadly denuded of its early Victorian decoration, the Magrath house nevertheless manages to hint at its former beauty--mostly because of the incredibly intact mansard level.

photographs by the author