Henry J. Hardenbergh's 1889 121 East 89th Street

 

The socially prominent Rhinelander family traced its American roots to Philip Jacob Rhinelander, who arrived in the New World in 1686.  In 1886, an offal dock sat on Rhinelander land at the northwest corner of 89th Street and Lexington Avenue.  (An offal dock was where the waste from slaughter houses and the carcasses of dead horses and other animals were brought to await removal by the city.)  Two years, later, the Estate of William C. Rhinelander replaced the odorous facility by hiring architect Henry Janeway Hardenberg to design six private homes on Lexington Avenue and a four-story flat building around the corner at 121 East 89th Street.

Hardenberg had designed the impressive Dakota apartment building at 1 West 72nd Street eight years earlier.  This flat building would be considerably less ambitious, but nonetheless architecturally striking.  Faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone and terra cotta, Hardenberg drew on Northern Renaissance prototypes for his design, while sprinkling it with Queen Anne elements.  The fourth floor sprouted phoenix-like from a swagged cornice and broken pediment above the two-story mid-section.  Its window was flanked by Doric pilasters and capped by a triangular pediment.  Two terra cotta rondels embellished the vertical parapet that took the place of a terminal cornice.

The 20-foot-wide structure was completed in 1889.  Its four apartments--one per floor--filled with financially comfortable families.  

Among the first were Samuel R. Ives and his wife, the former Frances Louisa Way.  Ives was born in Ohio in 1835 and married Frances in 1861.  Although he was just 54 years old when the couple moved into the new building, Ives was already retired.  Unfortunately, he would not enjoy his new apartment for long.  He and Frances went to Matamoras, Pennsylvania (just across the River from Port Jervis, New York) for the summer in July 1890.  Ives died there on August 1.

Francis Marion Tichenor and his wife, the former Elizabeth R. Cornell, were also original tenants.  Francis was born in 1840 and Elizabeth in 1846.  They were married on October 8, 1879.  Like the Rhinelanders, Francis Tichenor traced his American roots to the 17th century, his original ancestor, Martin Tichenor arriving in the New Haven Colony prior to 1644.  Francis was a respected attorney, having been admitted to the bar in Newark in 1866.

Elizabeth lost an interesting piece of Victorian jewelry in January 1891, most likely on a shopping trip.  Her advertisement in the New York Herald on January 10 was detailed:

Lost--In the vicinity of 14th St., a gold Bracelet, two animal heads, diamond eyes and small diamond in mouth of one animal; liberal reward.  Mrs. F. M. Tichenor, 121 East 89th st.

She advertised again later that year.  This time she was looking for domestic help.  Her ad in the New-York Tribune on September 26 read, "Housework--A young girl to do general housework in small family; one to sleep home preferred.  Tichenor."

While the Tichenors preferred that their maid did not live with the family (almost assuredly their cook did), the Reautchleck family's servant girl did.  The arranagement landed Andrew Reautchleck in jail on March 29, 1892.  The Evening World explained he, "was held in Harlem Court to-day charged with having last night forced an entrance to the bedroom of Mary McGinty, a servant in the same house."

Edward P. Phelps and his family lived here by 1893.  Phelps was the auditor for the Denver Iron and Coal Company at 51 Wall Street.  That summer, he hired Frank Guinevan to paint the apartment.  When Guinevan left on June 11, Phelps quickly noticed that his valise was missing.  Inside were valuable business papers, including four United Coal Company mortgage bonds and three shares of the company's stock--worth a total of $4,300 (about $150,000 in 2024).

Phelps reported the theft and Guinevan was arrested on June 15.  The Sun reported, "When searched at the Police Headquarters all the bonds and stocks were found in his possession."

The Bennetts lived at 121 East 89th Street by 1894.  On September 13 that year, The New York Press somewhat callously reported, "Twas a mosquito gave an estate of $6,500 to Mrs. Agnes R. Bennett of No. 121 East Eighty-ninth street.  Her husband, a traveling man, was bitten by one and died from it on August 13.  The will was probated yesterday."  Bennett's estate would translate to about a quarter of a million in today's dollars.

Timothy J. Bresnan, a retired fire chief, and his wife moved in around 1902.  Bresnan received a yearly pension of about $60,300 by today's terms.  

On June 6, 1909, the couple went on a day trip to Rockaway Beach.  Their excursion would end dramatically.  The next morning The New York Times reported that Bresnan "stood in the roadway with his wife, at Highland Avenue and the Boulevard...at 11:45 o'clock last night, waiting for a trolley car to take them home."

Just as the trolley approached, a speeding, chauffeur-driven automobile with four passengers "came whirling toward them."  Bresnan pushed his wife to the curb and jumped in the opposite direction onto the trolley car.  The Times said, "The automobile glided between Mr. Bresnan and his wife, both narrowly escaping being run down."  A short distance up the block, the chauffeur stopped the car.  When he saw the irate Bresnan running toward him, he tried to restart the automobile, but the former fire chief was too quick for him.  He "jumped to the running board, and, with a vigorous swing, hit him in the face."

"That's for trying to run us down," Bresnan said.

Bresnan returned to his wife and boarded the trolley.  As it passed the automobile, the chauffeur, "one of his eyes beginning to swell," jumped aboard.  He and Bresnan "engaged in a lively fight."  The article said, "The passengers, many of them women, were in a panic."  Eventually, the chauffeur said he had had enough excitement for the night and jumped off.  "Ex-Chief Bresnan says he got the number of the automobile," reported The New York Times.

Among the Bresnans' neighbors were the Leopold Birnbaums. Both were born in Hungary in 1844.  They were married in 1861 and immigrated to New York with their five children in 1882.  Leopold Birnbaum was an accomplished engraver when he arrived.  Rather than working for a larger firm, he opened his own practice.  His clients included some of the leading jewelers of the city before his retirement in 1896.

The Birnbaums.  New York Herald, April 28, 1911 (copyright expired)

The Birnbaum apartment was well-filled on the night of April 28, 1911 in celebration of the couple's 50th anniversary.  The New York Herald reported, "A family dinner will be held in the evening, at which their five children and twelve grandchildren will be present.  To-morrow a reception will be held for friends."

The following year resident Harry Stillings suffered public embarrassment.  Early in July, he dropped into Frank Abrahall's saloon at 545 Third Avenue.  He had been preceded by what The New York Times called, "two visits to Abrahall's saloon of a police 'stool pigeon.'"  Suddenly, Police Lieutenant Becker's "Strong Arm" squad burst into the saloon and arrested Abrahall; his bartender, William Sheridan; and Harry Stillings as "common gamblers."    

Happily for Stillings (but not before his reputation had been tarnished), two weeks later, on July 21, The New York Times reported that he had been released "for lack of evidence against him and because he did not fit the description" in the informant's affidavit.

The floor-engulfing apartments continued, for the most part, to be occupied by respectable families.  Joseph Root and his wife lived here in the 1920s.  Mrs. Root was corresponding secretary of the East Side Clinic for Women and Children.  

Before it was painted, the facade's mixture of brick, brownstone and terra cotta created a contrast in color.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In the 1940s, Gordon S. Ierardi and his wife, the former Jean Coburn, lived here.  Ierardi graduated from Harvard in 1939 and initially joined the McGraw-Hill Publishing Co.  In 1940 he moved to John Wiley & Sons, Inc. where he would become "one of the foremost psychology editors in the nation," according to The New York Times.  Eventually, he would rise to the position of assistant vice president of the firm.

The building was renovated in 1984, although the configuration of one apartment to a floor was preserved.  It was possibly at that time that the red brick façade was painted white.  Other than that and replacement windows, Hardenberg's delightful flat building is outwardly little changed.

photographs by the author

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The William Mills Ivins House - 123 West 86th Street

 

A stone stoop, at far left, originally rose to a parlor floor entrance.

The land around the corner of Columbus Avenue and 86^th Street was once the country estate of the wealthy Livingston family.   By the mid-1880s when streets and avenues crisscrossed the property, it was owned by T. E. D. Powers who partnered with developer and architect John G. Prague to develop the plots.  The pair would build more than 230 residences in rapid-fire succession.  The Real Estate Record and Guide said in 1890, “They have created a neighborhood.” 

Prague developed some of the plots on his own.  Such was the case in 1887 when he designed and built six rowhouses on West 86th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.  Their designs were trademark John G. Prague--Northern Renaissance Revival splashed with touches of Queen Anne.  Four stories tall above English basements and 20-feet-wide, the residences were intended for well-to-do families.

Among them was 123 West 86th Street.  Prague placed a full-width oriel at the second floor.  The fourth floor took the shape of a steep, fish-scale shingled mansard fronted by a Northern Renaissance inspired dormer.  It was decorated with a centered portrait rondel flanked by two carved faces that gazed east and west.

A carved panel of a potted plant decorates the third floor, while three masks stare in different directions from the dormer.

Prague sold the newly-completed house to Thorton N. Motley, who immediately leased it to attorney William Mills Ivins.  Born in 1851, he and his wife, the former Emma Laura Yard, had five children: Margaret, Eleanor Laura, William Jr., James Sterling Yard, and Katherine.

Shortly after the family moved in, on June 22, 1890 the New York Herald printed a sketch of the house and wrote:

Mr. Ivins house is a four story and basement brown stone, the upper portion being finished in brick.  A fanciful gable, with a sculptured head in the middle, juts into the high roof.  The entire second story front swings outward into one large bay window.

Wealth and good taste are apparent in all the interior furnishings and decorations.  The prevailing tone in the parlors is a dark red or purple.  By drawing back the wide doors or portieres all the rooms on the parlor floor can be thrown into one.

Ivins (who was known to friends as Will) was a member of the law firm Ivins, Kidder & Melcher, and was one of Manhattan's most visible reformers.  The New York Herald said his "greatest pleasure in life apparently is to twist the tail of the Tammany tiger or take the scalp of the Tammany brave."  He fought tirelessly against election fraud and became president of the Executive Committee of the Electoral Laws Improvement Association.  He was, as well, a member of the Ballot Reform Committee of Citizens Union, the Honest Ballot Association, and the City Reform Club.  The year he and his family moved into 123 West 86th Street, he published Machine Politics and Money in Elections in New York City.

William Mills Ivins, Sr. The World's Work, 1907 (copyright expired)

On June 16, 1897, The Sun ran the shocking headline, "Wm. M. Ivins Arrested."  The evening before, at around 8:45, he had headed home.  At 40th Street and Broadway he let several street cars pass because they were overcrowded.  Finally, said the article, "Seeing that there was no hope of getting a seat, Mr. Ivins at last jumped on the front platform of a closed car...There were other persons on the platform, and the car was crowded with men and women, the back platform being so jammed that the people had difficulty getting off."

At 50th Street, "a crowd of men and women with transfers" made the packed conditions worse.  Then, recounted The Sun, "At the Fifty-ninth street transfer station a number of people left the car, and the inside became less like the interior of a sardine box."  The gripman (the worker who operated the "grip" that started and stopped the car) ordered Ivins to move inside the car.  A legal debate ensued.

Ivins refused to enter the packed car and the gripman refused to move it.  Ivins "told the gripman that the car was crowded when he got on; that it was crowded then, and that, as his fare had been accepted when he was standing on the platform, he intended to stay there, holding that the company had entered into a contract to take him uptown on that part of the car where his fare was collected."

The gripman summoned the conductor, named Riede, who explained that riding on the platform was a violation of company rules.  Ivins refused to budge.  Riede directed "that he must go inside the car or get off unless he wished to be arrested," said the article. 

"I shall be arrested then," said Ivins.

In the meantime, the incident had brought six other streetcars to a halt behind it.  Policeman Dobbins came to see what the problem was, and was told by Riede about Ivins's obstinacy.  Ivins was arrested.

It was now Riede who was in an uncomfortable position.  He was expected to follow Dobbins and his prisoner to the 86th Street station house to make a complaint.  But he had to run the streetcar.  He chose the latter.  The Sun reported, "Mr. Ivins was detained for a few minutes and, as Riede failed to appear, he was allowed to continue on his way home."

Emma Yard Ivins was an amateur photographer.  Her sympathies were with the suffragist movement, but peer pressure kept her from being an activist, at least for now.  That changed in January 1900.  In a letter to Susan B. Anthony, she explained in part:

For a long time I have had a great desire to enroll myself on the side of the suffragists.  My sympathies have always been with you, but the "drip," as the college boys calls it, of my dearest friends, who, alas, are among the anti-suffragists, has more and more convinced me that silent sympathy is neither sufficient nor decent.

Emma Ivins would become a lifetime member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the treasurer of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association, and a delegate to the International Congress of Women.

William Mills Ivins Jr. would go on to become the curator of the department of prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from its inception in 1916 until 1946.

The Ivins family left 123 West 86th Street in 1900, prompting the Real Estate Record & Guide to report its sale on March 10.  Thorton N. Motley fired off a heated letter that said in part, "There has been no sale of this property since it was purchased originally in 1888.  The house has never been for sale."

The Motley family had, indeed, not sold the property, but had moved into 123 West 86th Street.  Motley was the head of Thorton N. Motley & Co., sellers of "railway, steamship, machinists' and contractors' tools and supplies," and a director in the Manhattan Oil Co.  He and his wife, the former Kathryn Kennard, had three children.

Kathryn Motley was looking to replace a servant later that year.  An advertisement in The New York Times on November 11, 1900 read, "Wanted--Competent waitress and chambermaid; must be willing and obliging, and have best reference from last employer."

The family's residency would be short lived.  Motley sold the house in December 1904 to Samuel D. Styles, who resold it by 1908 to Henry Edward Oppenheimer and his wife, the former Mella Flesher.  The couple had four children, Julie Adelaide, Matilda, Henry Jr., and Edward Davidson.

Henry Edward Oppenheimer (original source unknown)

On January 26, 1913, The New York Times announced, "Mr. and Mrs. Henry E. Oppenheimer of 123 West Eighty-sixth Street will celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary on Saturday."  Sadly, it would be one of their last.  Mella died on January 10, 1916. 

By the time Henry Edward Oppenheimer, Jr. graduated from the Stevens Institute of Technology with an engineering degree in 1919, his father had married Lena Davidson.   

Lena Davidson Oppenheimer (original source unknown)

It appears that Lena's bachelor brother, Herman, moved into the house, as well.  The 54 year old died on March 1, 1921, and his funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

Shortly afterward, Oppenheimer sold 123 West 86th Street to Dr. Harry Finkelstein.  He hired architect M. Joseph Harrison to convert the basement level to his doctor's office.  Harrison removed the stoop and lowered the doorway to just below grade.  Harrison filled the tympana of the arched openings at this level with attractive carved fans.  The parlor windows and former entrance were replaced with a handsome grouping of small-paned windows.

Dr. Harry Finkelstein image via the Bulletin of the Hospital for Joint Diseases.

Born in New York City in 1883, Finkelstein was a specialist in orthopedic surgery.  One of 16 children of Jewish immigrants from Belarus, he had graduated from Columbia University's Medical School in 1904.   He was connected with the orthopedic departments of Mount Sinai and Beth Israel Hospitals.  In 1924 he became a chief of Orthopedic Services of the Hospital for Joint Diseases.

Dr. Harry Finkelstein died in 1939, the year after his daughter Rita was married to Dr. H. L. Jacobius.  It appears that Jacobius may have utilized his father-in-law's medical office for a while, for it was not until 1945 that an advertisement appeared in New York Medicine offering, "Beautifully furnished, complete laboratory, radiography and physiotherapy,  24-hour telephone.  Secretarial and nurse's service.  Any hours day or night to any specialist."

Rudolph Muller purchased 123 West 86th Street that year.  By now the other houses in the neighborhood had been converted to business and rooming houses, or demolished for commercial and apartment buildings.  And it did not take Muller long to join the trend.  A renovation completed in 1946 resulted in doctor's offices in the basement level, as had been the case since 1921, and two apartments each on the upper floors.

The configuration lasted until a slight remodeling in 1998 converted the second floor to a single apartment.  The former Ivins house is one of four of the John G. Prague's original six to survive.  Although they are all altered, they give us a glimpse into what West 86th Street looked like in its more genteel days of the 1880s.

photograph by the author

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The 1889 Church of the Ascension Parish House - 12 West 11th Street

 

photo by the author

In 1843, two years after construction of the Janes Renwick-designed Church of the Ascension was completed at Fifth Avenue and West 10th Street, trustees turned their attention to a school building.  A plot was acquired half a block away, at 12 West 11th Street, where refined homes of New York's upper class were being built.  Completed in 1844, the four-story school building included a chapel and an office for the assistant minister.  Over the next decades the school would count among its students some of the most recognizable surnames in Manhattan society--like Rhinelander, Astor and De Peyster.

The interior of the church was substantially redesigned in 1885 by Stanford White (including a pulpit designed by another McKim, Mead & White partner, Charles F. McKim).   Three years later, on June 16, 1888, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that McKim, Mead & White had filed plans to convert the school building into a "four-story brick and stone parish house."  The American Architect & Building News placed the cost at $27,000--about $758,000 today.

Completed in 1889, the Parish House was faced in yellow Roman brick and trimmed in limestone.  A three-story bay to the side of the entrance encased a staircase, its upward progression inside reflected in the stepped loophole windows on the outside.  McKim, Mead & White carried on the Northern Renaissance and ecclesiastical motif with intricate leaded windows throughout, including the transoms of the charming dormers of the slate-shingled roof.

The Parish House bustled with activity.  The Church Choral Society met and rehearsed here, The Churchman reporting on March 8, 1890 that J. Pierpont Morgan had been elected its president a week earlier.  At the same time The Association for the Relief of the Industrious Poor operated from the building.   The 1890 New York Charities Directory said it "furnishes sewing to poor women, and sells the garments made, at the Parish House.  And that year the registry office for the Girls' Friendly Society for America, organized in 1875, was here.  Its goal was to help "and to encourage purity of life, duty to parents, faithfulness to employers, and thrift."

In fact, on February 17, 1901, The New York Press said the Parish House "is the home of many interesting activities.  Here 135 volunteer workers have given their services in connection with the Parish House alone, where twenty different organizations have been accustomed to use its rooms."  The article mentioned, "The parish sewing room, the press room, where the Boys' Department turns out beautiful work, the Junior Brotherhood of St. Andrew, the Mother's meeting and many other items of work have their headquarters here."

At the turn of the last century, the rector of the Church of the Ascension was Reverend Percy Stickney Grant.  He accompanied Bishop Henry C. Potter on an extended trip abroad in 1899, and on April 19, 1900 The Hempstead Sentinel reported that they were welcomed home "from their trip around the world" with a lavish reception in the Parish House.   It was, no doubt, a bit awkward for at least three people in the room.

The newspaper said, "Mr. and Mrs. Perry Belmont are members of the church and Mr. Belmont was on the reception committee."  The wealthy couple had shocked high society in 1897 when it became known that Jessie Robbins Sloane, who was at the time the wife of Henry T. Sloane, was having an extra-marital affair with Belmont.  Six hours after the Sloanes divorced on April 28, 1899, Jessie and Perry were married in Connecticut.  Now, in reporting on the reception, The New York Sun wrote, "It will be remembered that at the time of the marriage of Mr. Belmont, whose wife was Mrs. Henry T. Sloane, Bishop Potter preached a sermon against the marriage of divorced persons."

In the spring of 1919 a modern art exhibition of "paintings by distinguished contemporary artists including John [Singer] Sargent," as described by the New-York Tribune, was held in the Parish House.  It was followed by a summer exhibition of  "work by the younger generation of painters."  The New-York Tribune said, "There is an even sprinkling of portraits, landscapes, marines and still life.

Rev. Percy S. Grant was progressive in his political and social views.  In fact, years later in reporting his death in February 1927, The New York Times would call him "a militant liberal in the Protestant Episcopal Church."  His socialistic viewpoints would sometimes clash with those of the wardens and vestrymen, as well as the Bishop, himself.

Grant's opinions came out in his sermons and in the discussion groups held in the Parish House assembly room.   On January 7, 1911, for instance, The New York Press reported that the topics of his sermons the following day would be "The Needs of the Coal Miner" and "Wanted, Social Shock-Absorbers."  The article noted, "The service will be followed by the People's Forum in the parish house," during which Benjamin C. Maran would speak on "The Real Rulers of New York."  (The Day Book explained that the People's Forum "is designed to be to the working class movement in all its branches what the Sunday school is to organized religion.")

The People's Forum continued to meet in the Parish House for years, a situation that boiled over in January 1920.  Bishop Charles Sumner Burch requested a report from the vestrymen of the Church of the Ascension regarding Grant's activities.  He had recently decried deportation from the pulpit, and on Christmas Day 1919 the People's Forum met in the Parish House before marching up Fifth Avenue in what was called The Amnesty Parade for political prisoners.

On January 23, 1920, Rev. Grant received a stern letter from Bishop Burch.   In it, reported the New York Herald, "he solemnly protest[ed] against the use of the consecrated building as a meeting place for a forum to which speakers who not infrequently are men 'who do not believe in God, who professedly are opposed to the government,' are invited."

Rev. Grant was equally stern in his response.  "What position would a church be put in that refused the request of highly intelligent young women and young men to come together on Christmas morning in one of its halls, in order that they might sing the gospel of Christmas Day--'Peace on earth, good will toward men'--not only to the ear, in the tunes of the actual Christmas carols, which they did, but to the eye, in specific appeal on behalf of given cases demanding pace and good will at present before the public."

Even after Rev. Grant's death in 1927, social awareness and concern continued to play out in the Parish House.  On June 27, 1942, The New York Age reported, "The first of a series of discussion meetings entitled 'Social Facts for Church People' will be held at the Parish Hall of the Church of the Ascension...under the sponsorship of the Provincial Committee of the Church League for Industrial Democracy."

The tradition of art exhibitions within the Parish House that had started in 1919 was continued in April 1956 with what The New York Times called an "exhibition of traditional and present-day religious art."  The critic was tepid in his review, saying "For example, an abstract painting here by Minna Citron, a perfectly good example of its kind, is given a semi-religious title when any other kind of title would have done as well.  It will stimulate neither those who come to scoff nor those who remain to pray."

Since it opened in 1889, the Parish House was a venue of lectures and a century later tradition continued.  On April 2, 1975, for instance, famed architectural preservationist, historian and author Margot Gayle lectured here on "Cast-Iron Architecture In and Around the Village."

photo by Beyond My Ken

After more than 130 years, the exterior of McKim, Mead & White's handsome Parish House is essentially unchanged.  It continues to serve the varied activities of the Church of the Ascension.

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Clarence True's 842 and 844 St. Nicholas Avenue

The contrast of materials and colors is hidden beneath a misguided coat of paint on No. 844.

The Aldhouse Taylor Building Company was formed in 1893 and its first project was the construction of a row of handsome, brownstone-faced rowhouses designed by John C. Burne on the east side of St. Nicholas Avenue between 152nd and 153rd Streets.  For some reason, possibly a financial issue with the start-up company, the project did not include all the plots.  In 1894 Aldhouse Taylor Building Company sold Nos. 842 and 844 to developer Charles G. Judson.

Judson had effectively kick-started the career of architect Clarence F. True in 1890.  In private practice for only five years after leaving the office of Richard M. Upjohn, True was receiving scattered commissions.  But Judson, whose office was in the same building with True's, contracted him to design a string of rowhouses that year and the two would work together on several similar projects going forward.  So Judson's choice of True for the pair of upscale residences in Sugar Hill was not surprising.

Clarence True worked in historic styles, often playing with period accuracy either to create a slightly lighthearted air or simply to conform the structure to modern tastes and needs.  His designs for the St. Nicholas Avenue dwellings would stand in stark contrast to the John C. Burne homes.

Completed in 1895 the pair were designed in the romantic Northern Renaissance Revival style, two fairy tale ready houses within a neighborhood of wealth.  Faced in beige brick, they were trimmed in limestone and brownstone.  Short, five-step stoops led to the entrances below elaborate carved panels--the address of No. 842 worked into the design.  The service entrance of No. 844 stood rather prominently to the right of the stoop; while that of No. 842 attempted to hide around the curve of the rounded, full-length bay next door.

No. 844 was the show-off of the pair.  Its own rounded bay stopped at three floors, where it provided a large balcony for the fourth floor behind a solid decorative wall.  The fifth floor took the form of a mansard broken by a prominent gable that engulfed a large, circular opening.

Just a bit more restrained, No. 842 shared identical carved tympana over the openings with its sister.   They included delicate wreaths, ribbons and festoons at the second floor, and shields and swags at the third.  The rounded bay culminated in a witch's hat cone, next to a reserved dormer that pierced the mansard.

A small section illustrates the contrast of limestone, brownstone and beige brick, along with the intricate carvings.

Charles G. Judson had erected scores of similar houses by now, many of them in the developing Upper West Side area.  And that may have been his downfall--he was building too fast.  He moved his family into No. 842 and rented No. 844 to widow Eilen H. Williams.  But John F. Comey was soon pressing for payment of his building loan.

On November 9, 1896 Judson appears to have begun to panic.  His advertisement in the New York Herald was entitled "Absolute Bargain--Investigate."  He touted the two American  basement dwellings as having "hard wood throughout, exposed plumbing" and stressed "must be sold; want offer."

In July 1898 John F. Comey's patience was exhausted and he foreclosed.  Judson now became a tenant of Comey, like Eilen Williams next door.  The following year, in June, Charles G. Judson declared bankruptcy.

Judson lived in the house with his wife, two daughters and two Irish servants at least through 1904, proof that his financial problems did not impoverish the family.   And he managed to continue in the development field.  In February 1902, for instance, the New-York Daily Tribune reported that he was in the process of erecting a nine-story brick hotel on Broadway at 95th Street.

Things were not so comfortable, however, that the Judsons did not have to take in at least one boarder.  Another well-known real estate developer, James D. Matthews, was living with the family at the same time.  Conversations over the dinner table may have resulted in a boon for one architectural firm.  Matthews was also erecting a hotel in 1902, his on West 58th Street near Eighth Avenue.  Both his and Judson's hotels were designed by Ross & McNeil.


Comey traded No. 844 to Max Marx in October 1900, taking a vacant plot on Broadway at 186th Street in exchange.  But he retained possession of No. 842, and in 1905 it was being operated as a high-end boarding house.  Living here that year were Sarah Hyams, who taught cooking in the New York City Public School System's "Special Branches," Henry Hoag Tibbs, a young civil engineer, and James Pierpont Davenport and his wife.

Born in 1856 in Brooklyn, Davenport was a Yale educated attorney and a Justice of the Civil District Court in New York City.  But his passion seems not to have been law, but poetry.  His muse had made her appearance as early as June 1877.  On the Tuesday before his graduation, there was an ivy-planting ceremony at Yale.  His classmates all sang "Ivy Ode" the words and music to which he had composed.

Charles H. Crandall's 1891 Representative Sonnets by American Poets included two by Davenport, "To Julian M. Sturtevant, D. D." and "To A. Benedict Davenport."

An advertisement in The New York Times on November 29, 1906 hinted at the genial accommodations at No. 844.  "Fine warm, pleasant room; excellent board; table guests accommodated."  Table guests were invited guests of boarders, not residents.   That a landlady would not only accept additional mouths to feed, but advertise that they were welcomed, testified to the rents the boarders were charged and the services they received.

In the meantime, Max Marx had leased No. 844 to John T. Fisher and his wife.  The house was the scene of a funeral and a wedding in quick succession in 1901.  Fisher's wife was the daughter of wealthy real estate operator Grenville R. Benson and his wife, the former Irene Elliott.  Irene Elliott Benson was a well-known author and poet.

On March 7, 1901 the New York Herald reported that Grenville R. Benson had "died at St. Vincent's Hospital after an accident."  The funeral of the 61-year old was held in the Fisher house two days later.

Somewhat surprisingly soon, Mrs. Fisher's sister, also named Irene Elliott Benson, was married to Frederick W. Longfellow in the house on April 29.  Form: An Illustrated Weekly called her "talented and handsome" and said "besides being a perfect brunette, is a perfect whip [i.e. horsewoman], dancer and swimmer, and well as being the possessor of many other sterling qualities."  

Irene Elliott Benson was married in No. 844 St. Nicholas Avenue in March 1901. Form, magazine 1898 (copyright expired) 

The New York Press reported that the bride "was given away by her sister," and noted "The house was prettily trimmed with Southern smilax, bride roses and Easter lilies."

After leasing the house for several years, Fisher purchased No. 844 in September 1904.

In 1908 John F. Comey sold No. 842 to operators Lowenfeld & Prager.  It continued to be operated as a boarding house and Henry H. Tibbs was still living here that year when he took a new job with the engineering and contracting firm of J. G. White & Co.  His boarding house days would come to an end in 1913 when he married Lucina Maud Taylor.

The boarders in No. 842 continued to be well-to-do.  In 1911 Herbert I. Lindsley and his wife lived here, her name appearing in Club Women of New York.  She was a member of the Clio Club, founded in 1892; a literary group which admitted men only "to partial participation."

Michael Maloney and his wife, Anne, also boarded here at the time.  They were listed in the New York Blue Book, a social register.  Anne died in the house in October 1914, and Michael stayed on until his death on February 9, 1918.

Following the end of World War I the tenor of the St. Nicholas Avenue block was still upscale.  After the Fishers sold No. 844 in June 1913, it became one of Anna Corning's many homes around the country.  And No. 842 was still accommodating wealthy boarders.  An advertisement in The Evening Telegram on October 21, 1920 described an "Exceptionally large, sunny 3 room suite, exquisitely furnished in mahogany, exclusive neighborhood."

The death of Anna Corning at the age of 80 on December 18, 1927 came at a time when the exclusive Sugar Hill neighborhood was seeing the first signs of decline.  The crash of Harlem real estate values had begun in 1904, mostly due to the arrival of the subways.  But this immediate neighborhood had hung on, for now.

The wealthy spinster's will caused upheaval for months.  She had left to the city of New York all "objects and articles of art, painting and sculpture," in her Rochester, New York mansion, the St. Nicholas Avenue house, "and in her possession 'at any other place in the world,'" as reported by the Rochester Times-Union on April 27, 1928.  "Any other place in the world" meant her total of 13 homes.  Potential heirs were not pleased.

Henry Ford quickly moved to obtain some of the eccentric woman's possessions for his Dearborn, Michigan museum.  The New York Times reported on November 19, 1928 that a sale of her vehicles included "A Russian sleigh more than 100 years old; a coach, cab, brougham and other smart equipages, as fashionable in the halcyon days of the pioneer aristocracy as the smartest limousine today."  The largest vehicle sold was the Corning family coach, designed to carry six passengers and "elaborately finished inside and out."

The glory days of the St. Nicholas Avenue block had set by now.  When No. 842 was offered for sale in 1924 it was described as a "furnished room[ing] house."

The stone base is actually limestone, its chocolate brown paint looking today like brownstone.

Forty-seven year old Otto Glick rented one of those rooms during the Great Depression.  The president of the Expert Bindery Company on West 29th Street, he was unable to deal with business troubles anymore on July 30, 1935.  He was found hanging in his office that day.

Once home to an heiress with 13 residences, No. 844 received a multiple dwelling violation in 1934, for illegally renting rooms.   Ernest Johnson was renting a room in the house in 1945 when he and two others, Charles Carlos and Oliver Bernard, were "arrested for vagrancy when they could give no explanation for lurking in doorways along Eighth Av.," according to the New York Evening Post.

But the 21st century saw a turn-around in the Sugar Hill neighborhood.  In 2006 the Department of Buildings recorded the "change in use from SRO to Four Family dwelling" at No. 844; and a renovation completed in 2015 resulted in a day care center on the first and second floors of No. 842, with one apartment on the third and two on the fourth floors.

While both have admittedly suffered abuse, overall their fanciful appearance--patently Clarence True--survives after a century and a quarter.

photographs by the author

The 1883 James B. Randol House - 17 West 73rd Street

Somewhat beleaguered today, the house was once upscale.  A brownstone stoop originally led to the arched doorway, now a window.

In 1882, two years after sewing machine mogul Edward C. Clark started construction on his Dakota Apartment on Central Park West between 72nd and 73rd Streets, he brought back architect Henry Janeway Hardenberg for another ambitious project.   Hardenberg designed 28 townhouses, stretching from No. 15 to 67 West 73rd Street, between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue.  Their German Renaissance detailing was no doubt purposely intended to meld with the hulking Dakota.

Construction was done in two phases.  No. 17 was within the first group, finished in 1883.  (Nos. 29-67 were completed a year later).   Its high English basement and parlor level were clad in light-colored sandstone; while the upper floors were faced in red brick.  Stone quoins ran up the sides to the mansard attic and brick gable.  The somewhat somber personality of the design was accentuated by the grim bas relief portrait between the second floor openings.

In contrast to the ominous hooded face in the spandrel panel, pretty Esthetic Movement brackets in the form of leaves uphold the molded sills.

Clark did not sell the townhouses; but leased them to upscale families.  No. 17 became home to the James Butterworth Randol family.   A mining engineer, Randol was born in Newburgh, New York in 1836.  He married Christiana Terhune on June 1, 1865 and whisked his bride to the far West.

Randol's uncle, Samuel Butterworth was the general manager of the Quicksilver Mining Company near San Jose and hired him as its secretary.  Upon Butterworth's retirement in 1870, Randol moved into his post with an annual salary of $12,000--a little over a quarter of a million dollars today.  He held the position for 25 years, in the meantime purchasing the Mirabel silver mine.

James Randol was astonishingly progressive regarding worker welfare.  He established company health benefits at $1 per month cost to the workers, and included staff doctors on the payroll.  He built three "Helping Hand Clubs" for employee entertainment, including a 450-volume library.
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At the time when the population of California was booming, the couple wisely invested in real estate in San Jose.  James was, as well, a director of the Bank of California and several other San Francisco firms.

Upon his retirement the Randols moved back east and into No. 17.   The couple's three children, William Merwin, Mary and Elizabeth were still unmarried.  William, who graduated from Harvard in 1891, was vice-president and manager of the Standard Quicksilver Company.  Now he was president of the New York and Philadelphia Coal and Coke Company.

Christiana had been known as a hostess in California and slipped into that role, on a smaller scale, in New York.   The house was in the center of a social spotlight on November 20, 1900 when Mary's wedding to Charles Carroll, of the historically illustrious Baltimore family, was held here.  Immediately after the reception, the newlyweds left for California where, among their activities, Mary showed off the family's former home, Casa Grande, to her husband on December 8.

In January 1903 William's engagement to Mary Digges Lee of Baltimore was announced.  Mary's family was no less historically important than the Carrolls' and, in fact, the two families had been connected when her ancestor, John Lee, married Harriet Carroll in 1832.  On February 7, 1903 Christiana and Elizabeth hosted a tea for Mary in the 73rd Street house.

The socially notable wedding was planned for November, but as the date neared, James Randol became disturbingly ill.   And then, on November 7, the Washington DC Evening Star reported "On account of illness in the family of Mr. Randal [sic] the invitations of the marriage of Miss Mary Digges Lee and Mr. William Merwin Randal [sic] have been recalled.  The ceremony will take place very quietly on November 11 at 'Needwood Forest.'"  (Needwood Forest was the ancestral Lee plantation, originally around 1,500 acres.)

The day after the wedding, the newspaper followed up, saying that "Owing to the grave illness of the bridegroom's father the wedding was a very quiet one."  That concern had been well founded.   Just over a month later, on December 23, 1903, James Butterworth Randol died at No. 17 at the age of 67.

Christiana and Elizabeth remained in the house, alone with their servants.  It was a target of burglars in the summer of 1914, a period when, according to insurance firms, 52 Upper West Side homes had been broken into between May and July.  Frustrated by the inability of police to stop the thefts, The Sun, on July 31, said the burglars used the neighborhood "as playgrounds" and that insurance adjusters declared "that housebreakers were having a picnic in that part of town."

On January 29, 1919 the 74-year old Christiana Terhune Randol died "suddenly" in the house.  Her funeral was held in the parlor two days later.  Elizabeth, still unmarried, left soon afterward.

The Clark family leased the house next to George A. and Dagmar Bolle Weinmann.  They were here less than a year when George died on March 11, 1920.  The house was once again the scene of funeral, this one on March 14.

Like Elizabeth Randol, Dagmar Weinmann left the house.  It became the home of the family of Dr. Alexander Nicoll by May.

A native New Yorker, Nicoll graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in 1903.  During World War I he served in the United States Medical Corps as a lieutenant colonel.  When the family moved into No. 17 he had been director of the first surgical division of Fordham Hospital for three years.  His wife was the former Adeline Burdett Bliss.

The surgeon's cases sometimes made news, but none was more publicized than that of John H. Reid on whom Nicoll operated on May 25, 1921.   Reid had crossed paths with one of the Roaring '20's most notorious figures, Robert Arthur Tourbilon.  The gangster was sometimes called "Ratsy" for his initials, but best known by his alias "Dapper" Don Collins.  Collins was infamous nationwide for his involvement in con games, white slavery, and liquor smuggling.

On the morning of May 15 Reid was a guest at a "breakfast party" in the home of Mrs. Helen Warner in the Bronx.  Things came to a quick end when Collins shot Reid in the face.   Ten days later Nicoll operated to remove bullet fragments from his spine.  The Evening World reported "It was found that one of the bullets fire by Collins penetrated Reid's mouth, passed downward and shattered the fifth cervical vertebrae."   The slippery Dapper Don was still on the loose.

After owning them for four decades, in 1922 the Clark family began selling the 73rd Street houses.  On August 14 Nicoll purchased No. 17.

An operation performed by Alexander Nicoll on April 11, 1923 drew press attention because of his innovative approach to pain relief.  Edward Higgins was awake during his hernia operation and it seems Nicoll was concerned that the local anesthesia would not be effective enough.  He placed headphones on his patient which were connected to a radio.  As he operated, Higgins listened to a comedy show broadcast from Newark, New Jersey.

Because his patient used headphones, Nicoll and his assistants were not distracted.  Higgins, on the other hand, was.  The New York Times reported that he "laughed at one time during the tedious operation at jokes by a comedian."

The debutante events for Margaret Emma Nicoll took place during the 1928-29 social season.  Equally impressive were the events surrounding her wedding to John E. Gerli on April 24, 1932.  Her future in-laws hosted a dinner dance in the Central Park Casino the night before.  The ceremony was held in St. Bartholomew's Church, followed by a reception in the Louis XVI Ballroom of the Park Lane Hotel.

The family remained at No. 17 through the early years of the Great Depression.  It was purchased on April 6, 1936 by Edmund M. Vansleben, "for occupancy."  But like many investors at the time, his assertion that he would maintain it as his own single-family home was not true.

Within the year it had been converted to apartments.  The stoop was removed and the entrance moved to the former basement level.

Christine Zam lived with her husband in one of the apartments in 1964.  The couple decided to take an evening stroll around the neighborhood on Halloween night that year.  As they walked along 82nd Street, a terrifying incident was taking place further uptown.

Monroe Schall and his wife Doris, were parked in front of the apartment house at No. 123 West 93rd Street.  In the car was June Baron.  The three were waiting for June's husband, Leon, to come down.  Suddenly, at around 7:30, an armed man forced his way into the car and ordered Schall to drive.  Within a few blocks, he ordered Schall to stop, took June's purse, pushed her out of the car, then told Schall to drive to 84th Street and Riverside Drive.  There he took Schall's wallet, forced the couple out and drove off with their car.

Speeding through the Upper West Side, he sideswiped a taxi at the intersection of 82nd Street and Broadway.  He lost control and crashed into the window of a store.  In doing so, he hit Christine Zam.  She died on the scene.

The injured culprit ran from the scene, and then tried to hijack another motorist who grappled with the gun.  Before David Barnes was able to wrest control of the weapon away it went off once, missing both men.  The New York Times reported "the thug then leaped out of the car and fled east down 79th Street."

Unexpectedly, the stained glass parlor floor transom survives.

In 1986 No. 17 underwent another renovation, resulting in two apartments per floor.  Despite the abuse, the 135-year old home still has hints of its former glory, when a silver magnate and a radio-playing surgeon lived here.

photographs by the author