The Martin M. Myers House - 59 Sullivan Street

 

The two-and-a-half story house at 59 Sullivan Street, erected around 1820, was faced in Flemish bond brick.  Like scores of Federal style residences constructed at the time, the 26-foot-wide dwelling had a peaked roof with two dormers.

Likely the original owner, Martin M. Myers and his family occupied the house as early as 1827.  A lamplighter, Myers's profession was a relatively new one.  The laying of pipes under New York City's sidewalks for gas streetlights had begun in 1823.  Myers and his wife had three children, John M., William H., and Susan A.

In the rear yard was a smaller house.  Henry R. Bush, a laborer, and his wife and son; and Jeremiah Sproull, a carpenter, and his wife Sarah, shared the address with the Myers in 1827.  Presumably, the Bushes or the Sproulls (or both families) occupied the rear dwelling.

While most boarders were transient, remaining for relatively short periods, the Bush and Sproull families would be here for years.  Richard J. Bush, a mason, was still here in 1836.  He had been, as well, a volunteer firefighter in Fire Engine Company No. 1 as early as 1829.  Jeremiah Sproull died around 1836 and Sarah Sproull remained here until 1845.

In 1840, John M. Myers was old enough to work.  A wheelwright, he repaired wooden wheels for wagons, carriages, carts and such.  John's sister was studying for a profession at the time.  Susan A. Myers began teaching in Ward School No. 29 on Greenwich Street around 1853.  Her salary that year was $100--about $4,070 in 2025 terms.

In the meantime, Martin M. Myers had been incensed by his real estate tax bill in 1845.  He protested the assessment, and on May 5, 1846, the Committee on Annual Taxes admitted "that they made an error in copying the book" concerning "the assessed value of house and lot, No. 59 Sullivan Street."  The committee approved the $8.88 refund owed to Martin M. Myers for his overpayment.

Isabella Jewesson, who taught in the primary department of School No. 44 on North Moore and Varick Streets, possibly knew Sarah Myers through their professions.  Jewesson boarded with the Myers family through 1855 to 1858.

Around 1860, William C. Hanna and his family moved into 59 Sullivan Street, almost assuredly in the rear house.  He operated a significant construction business with his office at 66 Thompson Street.  The family would rent from Myers through 1869, after which William C. Hanna moved to Brooklyn.

Trow's New York City Directory, 1865 (copyright expired)

Two years into the Civil War, on March 23, 1863 Congress passed the Enrollment Act.  Using a lottery system, the draft augmented the numbers of troops within the Union Army.  Among the names pulled in the drawing on August 25, 1863 was William H. Myers.

During the war, former slaves fled northward.  They established the first black enclave around Minetta Lane and Minetta Street, which earned the nickname Little Africa.  The racially varied demographics had spread south 59 Sullivan Street by 1874, when Theodore Martin rented space from Myers, almost assuredly in the rear house.

On October 15 that year, The New York Times reported that he had narrowly escaped a fatal accident.  "Theodore Martin, aged thirty-eight, a colored man, residing at No. 59 Sullivan street, was caught between two trucks at Pier No. 8 North River [i.e., Hudson River], and had several ribs fractured."

The title to 59 Sullivan Street passed to John M. Myers following his father's death.  On April 8, 1876, the Record & Guide reported he had filed plans to raise the attic to a full floor at a cost of $600, about $17,600 today.  (The upper addition is marked by the change from Flemish to running bond brickwork.)  The builder matched the fenestration of the second floor and installed a denticulated cornice.

With the added space, John M. Myers's home became essentially a boarding house.  The Byrne family moved in by 1878.  James Byrne was a laborer, and Patrick and Terrence Byrne listed their professions as "hair."  They were, most likely, dealers in human hair for wigs and what today would be called extensions.

Mary Seaman, the widow of Charles Seaman, had moved into the house with her teenaged son, also named Charles, around 1878.  On February 15, 1879, The New York Times reported that Charles had been the key in busting a jewel theft ring.  Four teens, Louis J. Piatti, Nathan Lederman, John E. Tischer, and John E. Topping, operated a scheme by which Topping, who was a clerk in the jewelry firm of Jacob Marx & Co., routinely stole valuable items from the safe.  They hired Charles Seaman for $4 a week to take the stolen jewels to pawnshops and return the money to the gang.  Detectives told reporters that Seaman, "was an innocent party, and he was used by them to find out the truth."

A Mrs. Pose, who boarded here by 1883, operated a business that would be shocking today.  The New York Times reported on March 23, 1883 that Mrs. Rose Pardo had charged a former servant, Sarah Wallace, of murdering her six-month-old baby, Stella Hayward Levy Pardo, by poison.  In court, Rose Pardo explained they she had purchased the baby from Mrs. Pose.  The article said, 

Mrs. Pardo met the mother of the child, who is a stranger to her, at Mrs. Pose's house, and on being told that the child would be well cared for the mother, relinquished all right to her offspring to Mrs. Pardo.  The latter paid $10 for the babe and took her to her home.

Two years later, on November 25, 1885, Mrs. Pose placed an advertisement in The Sun for "a very fine boy."  The next day, a man posing as a customer arrived.  The Sun explained, "A young man who didn't need any babies, but who desired to inform himself upon all subjects, read the notice and determined to go and see what the boy was like."  When the visitor, "asked what kind of baby it was," Mrs. Pose was indignant.  The article said, 

Ignorance, she declared, was evident in the young man's every remark--deep and wicked ignorance.  That boy was a fine boy; he was only 3 days old, and remarkably intelligent for that age.  The erratic growth of black hair was a sign of strength and the rich coloring of his face indicated that he would grow up to have a very fair and very beautiful complexion.

Mrs. Pose told the visitor "that if his wife really wanted a nice, young baby he might take that one away for $2, providing, of course, that he had a good home to take it to."  Instead, the young man promised to tell any people who "yearn for a boy baby where to find one" and left.

By the turn of the century, the neighborhood around 59 Sullivan Street was part of what newspapers called "the Italian colony."  In 1903, the Spina family, which now owned the building, renovated the ground floor for its saloon.  Converting the ground floor to a commercial space necessitated an industrial grade beam, visible from the exterior.  A large window was flanked by doorways--one to the tavern and the other to the upper floors.  The entrances were accessed by twin stoops.

The renovation resulted a commercial space, seen here in 1928.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

The tavern's excise (or liquor) license was originally held by Francesco Spina.  By 1912, Anthony Spina held the license.  Rather than participate in the family's business, in 1916 Vincenzo Spina took a civil servant job as a "keeper" with the New York County jail.  He earned $1,000 a year--about $28,600 today.  In 1920, he received a significant raise to $1,330.

In the meantime, the Spina's renters were Italian-born.  In 1905, Vincenzo Timpone worked as a Dock Laborer at $55 per month.  Also living here that year was Giorgana Lozzetto, an organ grinder.  He and his friend, Domenico Arvane, "who lives just a few doors above him," according to The New York Times, were in the center of a ruckus on the night of August 17, 1905.

The article said that around 10:00 the two were heading home from Harlem.  "Giorgana was pushing the hurdy-gurdy, and Domenico was waddling along as well as he could, seeing that there were 700 pennies in his pockets."  As they passed by the Imperial Hotel, three Irishmen asked them to play Tammany.  As Gioragana played the song, police officer Ben Smith interrupted, saying "such music" could be not played after 7:00, according to The New York Times.  Perhaps thinking that the policeman was anti-Irish, passersby demanded that Giorgana play it again.  "They played it and again till they had earned $4."

As Smith hauled Giorgana and Domenico to the stationhouse, protesters followed, "arguing that in this free country a man ought to be allowed to play anything he chose, especially 'Tammany' in New York," recounted the article.  They offered the two Italians $5 to continue to play the piece on the way to stationhouse.  "Giorgiana struggled through the tune," said the story, while, "A crowd trailed behind, yelling industriously."  Although the two were briefly detained, they returned home having had made a windfall through the impromptu protest.

The Spinas' saloon ended with Prohibition.  During the Depression and World War II years, the storefront was home to a restaurant.  

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The venerable structure underwent a third substantial renovation in 1991.  In remodeling it to a two-family home, the storefront was bricked up, pseudo-Colonial entrances were installed, and a center bay window was added.

photographs by the author

The Henry E. Price House - 138 Sullivan Street

Something happened to the house at No. 138 Sullivan Street around 1840.   Brick-faced residences had first begun appearing along the block between Prince and Houston Streets only around 14 years earlier; so it may have been fire that necessitated Charles Stewart to build a replacement.

The former house would have been Federal in style, with dormers piercing the peaked roof.  Stewart's, however, took on the newly emerging Greek Revival style.  The slightly pitched roof sat above a full-height third floor.  The openings were trimmed in understated brownstone lintels and sills.  The entrance, however, was transitional.  More in line with its Federal-style neighbors, there was no stone enframement around the entrance.  On the other hand, the simple, squared pilasters flanking the door reflected the more somber Greek Revival.

Despite serious abuse, the Greek Revival elements of the entrance can be seen.  A Federal-style doorway would have been flanked by more effusive fluted columns.

Most houses of the period had small buildings in the rear lot--either a stable for those who could afford a horse, or a small house or shop.  These were accessed by a horse walk--a narrow pathway between houses.  The oval window to the left of the entrance suggests a horse walk may have originally tunneled to the rear, beside the stoop.

No. 138 became home to Henry E. Price family by the 1850s.  It appears that one bedroom was leased.  In 1855 William P. Howe listed the house as his address.  A saddler by trade, he also volunteered with the Niagara Engine Company No. 4.  That fire house was a few blocks away on Mercer Street.

The young Price may have been a member of the Municipal police at the time.  In 1857 Republican reformers abolished the force, creating instead the Metropolitan Police force that covered Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island and Westchester County.  A sharp rift developed between the immigrant officers and those of Anglo-Dutch roots; the former refusing to give up their positions while the latter adapted to the transition.

The dispute led to two police forces which came together in violent riots.  Chaos resulted and while the police fought one another in at least two high profile skirmishes, criminals ran rampant.  The situation was finally put to rest on July 3, 1857 when the courts enforced the Metropolitan Police jurisdiction.  On November 24 Henry E. Price was "reported on favorably" by the Committee on Applications and Removals, which was charged with staffing the new department.

By the summer of 1859 J. Whitelaw was boarding with the Prices.  Out of a job, he placed an advertisement in The New York Herald on July 13.  "Wanted--by a young man, who has a thorough knowledge of the wholesale drug business, a situation in a wholesale house; is willing to make himself generally useful, and can give satisfactory reference as to capability and character."

Christmas Day that year was anything but jolly.  Price's mother-in-law, Mary Ann Short, had died on Friday, December 23 at just 43 years old.  Her funeral was held in the Sullivan Street house at 1:30 on Christmas afternoon.

Exactly two months later, on February 23, Price's father, Ellis, died.  His funeral, too, was held in the house the following Sunday afternoon.

The Prices left Sullivan Street in the early 1860s.  Their moving may have been the reason for the advertisement that appeared in The New York Herald on July 14, 1863.  "Wanted--By a respectable girl, a situation in a private family, as waitress or chambermaid and fine washer."

James Forrest Taylor was assistant engineer in Engine Company No. 13.  In 1869 he and his wife, Mary, had a son, James, Jr.  Taylor .  Like the Prices, they rented a room.  In 1864 and 1865 their tenant was Addie N. C. Gale.  She taught in Primary School No. 25 at No. 545 Greenwich Street.

On January 29, 1876 the Taylors' seven-year old son died.  His funeral was held the following Sunday.   It would not be the last tragedy that year.   Apparently renting from the Taylors was the Prendt family.  On June 20 The New York Times reported "An inquest was held yesterday by Coroner Croker in the case of Henry S. Prendt, a boy, of No. 138 Sullivan street, who, while playing on a float at the foot of Charlton street, fell overboard and was drowned."  The jury ruled the death an accidental drowning.

Their son's devastating death may have prompted the Taylors to leave the Sullivan Street house.  By 1878 it was owned by Daniel Coffey, another police officer.   The Coffey family would retain possession of No. 138 Sullivan Street for decades.

Coffey was also well-known in political circles and in 1871 served as president of the Seventh Ward Hickory Club.  In 1878 son Charles E. Coffey was enrolled in the "Mechanical Course" at New York City College.  As their predecessors had done, the Coffey family rented a furnished rooms.   In 1878 a boarder named Blohm was looking for a job as a grocery clerk.

In 1881 a German furrier named Willegas boarded with the Coffeys.  Before he left Heidelberg, he had promised an co-worker, Henrich Zapke, he would help find him work once he was established.  The 35-year old Zapke had understandable reasons to leave Germany.

He had owned his own fur business and things had initially gone well.  Then, six months after he was married his bride died.  According to Mrs. Coffey later, "After her death he was unfortunate in business, and came to this country almost penniless to work at his trade."

In October 1881 he arrived in New York and, he too, rented a furnished room in the Coffey house.  Just as he promised Willegas landed Zapke a position with the fur store of Duncan, Ashe & Jaekel on Broadway.  But business slowed in the middle of December and Zapke lost his job.

His streak of bad luck, possibly coupled with the holidays, was apparently too much to bear.  On Christmas Day Zapke visited Willegas in his room and appeared "to be in his usual health and spirits," according to a newspaper.  But the following day he did not come out of his room.

Willegas peered through the window into his room and saw him hanging from a clothes rack.  A policeman was summoned, who found that the door was locked on the inside and a towel had been placed over the doorknob so no one could peer inside.

The New York Times reported "The door was broken in and Zapke was found quite dead."  With unnecessary detail the article said "His body was stiff, and decomposition had already begun, indicating that he had committed suicide during the previous night."

The dejected man's suicide had was not entirely due to finances.  His life's savings of $90 in cash was in his room (more than $2,100 today) along with a silver watch and chain.

Daniel Coffey retired from the Police Department on March 4, 1886, receiving a pension of $600 a year.  He augmented that income, about $15,600 today, with real estate investments in the neighborhood.  By the time of his retirement he had moved his family down the street to one of his properties, No. 84 Sullivan Street.   He retained possession of No. 138, operating it as a rooming house.  And it was about this time that he converted the basement to a store.

The changing times were reflected in one tenant's want ad in April 1892.  William Brosher wrote "Experienced young man wishes a situation as elevator runner."  And at the time of Brosher's ad, the Sullivan Street neighborhood was seeing a different type of change as it filled more and more with Italian immigrants.

The little house in the rear yard was rented to fruit seller Gaestono Ricchi and his wife, Maria, in 1893.  Maria's brother, Giuseppi Lendini and his wife lived a block away at No. 117 South Fifth Avenue (later renamed West Broadway).   What started out as a Sunday family dinner on July 2 ended in bloodshed.

According to The Sun the following day, "After dinner the men got drunk.  Ricci [sic] slapped his wife's face.  Lendini, as her brother, objected, and was told to mind his own business."  With Italian honor at stake, the confrontation escalated.

Lendini asserted "that he would allow no one to abuse his sister, whereupon Ricci [sic] knocked her down.  Then he turned to her brother and said: 'What are you going to do about it?'"

Lendini knocked his brother-in-law to the floor.  But when Ricchi got to his feet, he had a stiletto in his hand, which he stabbed into Lendini's left hand and head.  The wounded man responded by pulling out a revolver.

Ricchi ran into the yard as Lendini followed, firing the gun.  "Lendini, dripping with blood from his wounds, kept firing at Ricci [sic] and succeeded in hitting him three times," reported The Sun.  Lendini's wife, in the meantime, had run to the Prince Street police station for help.  By the time Patrolmen Kelly and Baker arrived, according to the newspaper, 400 to 500 neighbors were milling around in front of the house.

The New York Times report on the incident was brazenly stereotypical.  "Calabrians recreated yesterday afternoon in Camorra fashion in the basement of the rear house at 138 Sullivan Street, and two men were wounded.  As usual they kept their own counsel.  A vendetta murder may be the outcome."

The Sun reported that Ricchi's wounds were comparatively slight.  But, it said, "Lendina was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital with a hole in his lung, and is likely to die."  The Times was more casual, callously reporting "Honors were about even."

Daniel Coffey owned No. 138 Sullivan Street as late as 1912 when he took out a $10,000 mortgage on the property.  The names of his tenants in the pre-World War I years reflected the neighborhood now known as Little Italy:  Capazeli, Dalto, Motta and Longobardi among them.

Throughout the remainder of the 20th century renters came and went with little attention.  When the house was sold at auction in January 1920 it was described as a "three-story brick tenement and store."

But as the century drew to a close, the Sullivan Street neighborhood saw change once again.  Bordering the trendy Soho district to the south, it was home to the Autism Women's Network in 2012.  Today Arthouse NYC, self-described as "NYC's favorite pop-up concierge for art galleries...and just about anything imaginable," calls No. 138 home; while the basement level until recently housed GLLAM (Gallery La La Artisan Market).

Through it all the house that Charles Stewart erected around 1841 retains its early residential appearance on a much-changed block of Sullivan Street.

photographs by the author

The Children's Aid Society School - 219 Sullivan Street

In the last decades of the 19th century the impoverished district just south of elegant Washington Square was dangerous and nearly lawless.  Seedy saloons which reformer Jacob Riis called "vile rookeries," brothels and crowded tenements made the neighborhoods one of Manhattan's most notorious.

The brick-faced, Federal style house at No. 219 Sullivan Street had been an upscale residence in the 1830s; but by 1887 its rooms were home to a number of blue-collar tenants.  Among them was tinsmith John Murray who was sitting on the stoop at 8:30 on the night of May 6 that year.  But just sitting outside could be a risk.

According to The New York Times the following day John Hays, "a young negro, living at 11 Carmine-street, came along."  He stopped in front of Murray, pulled out a revolver, and shot him apparently without any provocation or reason.  The bullet struck Murray in right eye, blinding him.

At St. Vincent Hospital Murray said he had never seen Hays before and had no idea why he shot him.  The New York Times had its own idea.  "He appeared stupid from liquor."

Reformers descended on the rough neighborhoods, opening missions where they sought to rehabilitate the drunkards and "debased women."   But one Protestant minister, Charles Loring Brace, was more concerned with educating the waifs and orphans.   He recognized early on a strong connection between illiteracy and crime.

The Children’s Aid Society was founded by Brace along with a few other concerned men in 1853.  Brace had been, according to King’s Handbook of New York City, “engaged in teaching some of the little arabs of the streets.”  The Society was incorporated in 1856 “for the education of the poor by gathering children who attend no schools into its industrial schools, caring and providing for children in lodging houses, and procuring houses for them in the rural districts and in the West.”

The industrial schools not only taught the children their A-B-C's, but skills they would need to survive as adults.  Boys learned woodworking and shoemaking, for instance; while girls learned to sew and cook--abilities they would need not only as homemakers, but as servants.

Most often the school buildings were donated by philanthropists or their wives who were involved in some way with the Children's Aid Society.  In 1891 Mrs. Joseph M. White and Matilda W. Bruce provided $90,000 (just under $2.5 million today) to erect a new building on the site of the old house where John Murray had been shot.
 
For nearly all its buildings the Society turned to the architectural firm of Vaux & Radford, which would eventually design 12 Children’s Aid Society projects.  Calvert Vaux, best remembered for his work in designing Central Park, had partnered with George Kent Radford in 1872.  The Sullivan Street School building would follow the same lines as their other Children’s Aid Society buildings—a blend of Victorian Gothic and Flemish Revival styles.

The newly-completed building replaced a Federal-style house, much like the one surviving at the far right, next to the entrance to the playground.  from the collection of the Children's Aid Society

The Sullivan Street School was completed in September 1892 and formally opened on December 21.  The delay may have been due to drilling the 420 children between 5 and 13 years of age for their parts in the event.  They were "marshaled" into the audience room dressed in new suits of clothing provided by Matilda Bruce--no doubt the first new clothes they had received in a very long time, if ever.

The Times reported "The programme by the children was opened by the 'salute to the flag,' with piano accompaniment, and was performed with admirable spirit and effect."  The older pupils then gave recitations and the entire group sang Christmas carols for the audience.

The room was decorated, Victorian-style, with bunting and flags.  A large Christmas tree was in a corner of the room, "which contained a gift for every member of the school."

One year later the Society's Annual Report made note of the new school's progress.  "This school was placed in one of the most depraved localities of the city and already an improvement in the neighborhood is visible.  The street is more respectable; the children of the quarter have better manners and are more neatly dressed, and through them the parents have been influenced to a more decent manner of life."

Boys learning woodworking in the Sullivan Street School.  Annual Report of the Children's Aid Society, November 1893 (copyright expired)

During the first year of its existence the Sullivan Street School had an enrollment of 449, with a daily average attendance of 365.  That year 50,293 meals were supplied.  The items made by the girls in the sewing classes were sold and the money given to their families.  Between November 1892 and November 1893 the total was $140 (about $3,850 today).  The seemingly modest amount, said principal Caroline A. Forman in her report, "has helped feed, clothe, pay rent and buy coal for a number of families during this severest of winters."

The items turned out by the boys were helpful at home as well.  On July 26, 1893 The Evening World pointed out "In [the] Sullivan street school, where manual training is taught on a small scale, the boys make kitchen and toilet brushes for use in their own homes.  One of the first pieces of work turned out of the class carpenter shop was a pair of crutches for a crippled child."

The Children's Aid Society had, by now, embarked on a program of sending orphaned boys to Midwestern farms.  Their work as unpaid, indentured farmhands was intended to provide them with a wholesome environment, clean air and a bright future.  The cruel fact was that, at least in some cases, it proved to be nothing more than veiled slave labor.

But one nine-year old boy named Jimmie was willing to take his chances in 1893.  Although he was not an orphan, he was deemed by Principal Forman "worse than motherless."  On a bitterly cold morning he came to her and pleaded, "Won't you send me away.  My mother sends me for whiskey all the time."  At this point he showered her a dime and pulled a bottle from his coat.  "She makes me go beg for the money and then buy whiskey."

The involvement of Mrs. White and Matilda Bruce did not stop with their funding the building.  They both were instructors in the kitchen-garden and cooking classes and Matilda paid for the manual training classes and the hot meals.  Mrs. White paid for two "visitors" who checked on students and families at home.  The visitors made 1,473 calls on the sick and poor in the 1897-98 school year.

An example of the piteous home conditions was evidenced when one of those visitors checked on why three children had been absent from classes for several days in 1898.  The family, consisting of the parents, a grandmother, and the three children, lived in two rooms.  The father, it was discovered, had been taken to a hospital.  Two of the children were bedridden on a cot in a near-staving state.

The visitor reported "There were a few cinders in the stove which the mother had taken from ash cans during the day.  Mother and children when able made flowers through the day and part of the night to help with the rent."  The school sent food to the family until the children were strong enough to return to class.

That year the school announced it had added "Venetian ironwork" to its manual training classes, noting the boys were "greatly interested" in learning the craft.   Other classes offered were "kitchen-gardening, cooking, darning, buttonholes, dressmaking and all kinds of plain sewing to the girls, and printing, modeling in clay, woodwork" to the boys.

A problem was that families needed their boys to earn a living and, therefore, pulled them out of school after the age of about 11.  Some, however, realized that by suffering through a few years longer, the financial rewards would be far greater.  The 1898 report gave the example of one family of six "who are depending mostly on the support of one daughter, whose salary is only $12 per month," but refused to take the other daughter out of the school.

That girl, named Nettie, had graduated in June and was now attending the free Normal College to receive her teacher's certificate.  The base salary for New York City teachers was $600 per year at the time--$18,000 today--decidedly more than the family's current $144 income.

The work of the Sullivan Street School was ever-adapting.  Art classes and the "Christopher Columbus" history club (aimed, according to the New-York Tribune in September 1909 at the "Italian children attached to the industrial school") were examples of additional features aimed at attracting and enlightening neighborhood children.  Around the same time of the Tribune's comments a dental clinic was opened in the building.

In 1931 the Children's Aid Society gave up its role as educators, transferring its classes to the New York City Public School system.  The facilities now focused on recreation and health.  The Sullivan Street building was renamed the West Side Center.   Neighborhood boys during the Great Depression years signed up for the Center's Yankee Sandlot League.

In 1937 the team voted on its favorite member of their namesake team.  New York Yankee great Joe DiMaggio won the honor.  To the boys' surprise and glee, the star athlete visited the center on August 2.  Knowing that escaping from a score of hero-worshiping youths would be difficult, Joltin' Joe devised a clever scheme.  As the visit came to an end, he tossed out a dozen autographed baseballs and slipped out while the boys scrambled for them.

Eagerly anticipated events at the West Side Center beginning in the early 1940s were the annual Pet Show and the Pigtail Contest.  Although the families living in the neighborhood no longer suffered the brutal poverty of the 1890s, they were still low income.  So children competing in the pet contest had to be creative in finding pets.  In 1943 The New York Times noted that "Cats, insects and dogs of every description also competed."

That year a two-year old toddler, Alfred Pruzzin, was allowed to enter his turtle, Florence.  While 200 children watched, Florence was given her chance.  She pulled into her shell and refused to come out.  Alfred, said The Times, was "puzzled and unhappy."  The judges awarded Florence the award for "the most bashful turtle in the show."

A special attraction that year was the appearance of Saddler, a member of the War Dog Fund.  His purpose was to recruit "4-F" dogs for the Army and to raise money for military canine training.

The Pigtail Contest was an opportunity for little girls to show off their dexterity in braiding and in decorating their hair.  That event lasted until around 1960.

As the West Village changed, so did the West Side Center.  Still owned by the Children's Aid Society, it was home in part to the Visual Arts Center by 1972.  Alfred Alexander taught photography to small classes of students "all all levels of experience," according to New York Magazine on January 17 that year.  The article noted "The darkroom facilities are less than ideal, but Alexander hopes to expand them in future months."

The Center was the site of the New York International Children's Film Festival in December 1997.   No collection of cartoons and fairy tales, it was intended by Eric Beckman to "give kinds things to think about, and parents and children things to talk about."  To that end films like The Boy, the Slum and the Pan's Lid, about an impoverished Brazilian boy, and the Swedish film Lucky Girl, about a 7-year old Guatemalan girl who took care of her siblings while her mother gave birth, were screened.

In the fall of 2007 Notes in Motion, a dance troupe, established the Outreach Dance Theater in the building, now known as the Philip Coloff Center, where artists offered children workshops in writing, theater, visual arts, music and dance.  At the end of the courses, the original performances by the students were staged.

But the end of the line for the children's programs in the building was on the near horizon.  In December 2010, after more than 115 years serving the area, the Children's Aid Society announced it was selling the building.   The neighborhood, once described as among "the most depraved localities," was now middle class.  The Society pointed out that the median income was more than twice that of the Morissania section of the Bronx, where its help was more needed.

Preservationists and locals worried.  The building sat just outside of the Greenwich Village Historic District.  Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation pointed out that without that protection the building would likely be demolished.

The 1892 building is now part of the modern condo seen partially at the right.

Perhaps surprisingly, it was not destroyed.  Instead it was gutted and incorporated into the new residential building designed by Rawlings Architects, PC.  The facade has been a bit over-restored, muting the contrast of brick and stone into a nearly monochromatic palette.  Happily, nonetheless, the picturesque Flemish building where indigent children were offered hope survives.

photographs by the author

The 1886 "French Hotel" -- 235 Sullivan Street

In 1886 the neighborhood of Bleecker and Minetta Streets, just south of Washington Square, had a seedy reputation.  Minetta Street and Minetta Lane were known as "Little Africa," the center of Manhattan's black population.  Reformer Jacob Riis described it as the social "bottom" of the West Side, and rebuked the squalid housing he called "vile rookeries." 

Once a street of elegance and wealth, Bleecker Street was described by James D. McCabe in his 1883 New York by Sunlight and Gaslight.  "Until the march of trade drove the fashionable world into Washington Square and Fifth avenue, to be the owner of a Bleecker street mansion was to be at the height of fashionable felicity."   Now, he explained "all sorts of people who live by their wits find homes here, and it is a queer looking crowd one meets on the sidewalks."  McCabe warned "it is at the best a sort of doubtful neighborhood, which people with reputations to lose avoid."

Dr. John H. Dorn was employed by the New York City Police Department as a "police surgeon."  He was described by Police Inspector John A. Blair on October 1, 1886 as "of very high reputation and respectability."   And so it was surprising that he chose No. 235 Sullivan Street, between Bleecker and West 3rd Streets, as the site of a real estate investment.  The property sat squarely within the district Riis and McCabe decried. 

Dorn selected Richard S Rosenstock of R. Rosenstock & Co. as his architect.  He filed plans on March 12, 1886 for a "five-story brick, stone and terra cotta front tenement and store" to cost $10,000--in the neighborhood of $263,000 today.   The little-remembered architect had just completed the Queen Anne-style Fink house at No. 8 St. Nicholas Place and would turn to the same style for Dorn's project.

The completed 20-foot wide structure was embellished with popular Queen Anne elements like the deeply molded terra cotta fans with their brick eyebrows above the fourth floor openings, the delightful fish-scale bases to the two central piers, and the squashed-looking stone lintels of the second floor.  Rosenstock stepped away from the style when he added an elaborate, Baroque cast metal parapet that announced the construction date.

The building was acquired by August Guidon who operated the upper floors as the French Hotel and installed a saloon in the ground floor shop.   The barroom was called The Black and Tan because it served both white and black patrons.   This was no innocent hotel and no ordinary saloon.

Guidon took full advantage of the neighborhood's lax police enforcement.  McCabe had noted that "life here is free from most of the restraints imposed elsewhere."  The Black and Tan was the haunt of prostitutes and the French Hotel above was a four-story brothel and flop-house.

Although Guidon's operation was notorious, police turned a blind eye for years.  It was not until 1892 that increasing pressure from reformers and newspapers forced a change.  On January 12 police conducted a raid following a publicized report that "the place was a resort for the lowest class of men and women, at all hours of the day and night."

The New York Times reported that Guindon, "the proprietor of the infamous resort known as the 'French Hotel,' at 235 Sullivan Street" had been arrested along with 32 men and 13 women.   One of the prisoners, Leon Able, was caught "jumping out of a window at the time of the raid [with] a pair of brass knuckles in his pocket."

The judge was not lenient.  Guidon was held on $1,000 bail.  The others were fined $10--around $275 today.  In lieu of the fine, which few would have been able to afford, they were send to Blackwell's Island for six months.

New Yorkers were accustomed to owners of "disreputable resorts" receiving a slap on the hand and reopening their dives before long.  But the new reform movement changed that.  It was the end of the line for The Black and Tan and the French Hotel.  Three days after the raid The Evening World exclaimed "Last night saw no signs of returning life in the more than half-dead monster, Outlawry" and noted "five of New York's worst dives" were permanently closed down, including Guidon's operation.

While its proprietor sat in jail, the former patrons of The Black and Tan loitered inside.  On January 19 The Evening World reported on the five operations that had been shut down.  "All these dives which were formerly the most notorious and malodorous of all New York's dens of vice, were still tightly closed last night.  There were no signs of life in any of them with the exception of Guidon's, where the shades were drawn and several men were sitting about the stove in the brightly lighted barroom.  One man was lounging on an old sofa, the head of which was up against the front doors, but so far as could be learned, no liquor was being sold nor was admittance granted to any of the former patrons of the place.  The loungers it was said, were Guidon's boarders, who now use the abandoned saloon as a lounging-room."

The Evening World depicted bowler-wearing men reading the accounts of the closing of the Black and Tan.  January 19, 1892 (copyright expired)

The following month the newspaper updated its readers, saying that the "den-keeper" Guidon was in the penitentiary, his license revoked, and the "dive closed for good."

The former Black and Tan continued life as a saloon, but its days of lawlessness were over.   The French Hotel was gone and the upper floors were operated as a tenement house, as originally intended.  By now the Sullivan Street block was on the upper edge of New York's Little Italy and the building filled with low-income Italian immigrant families.  The Pruzzo family lived here in 1898 when their their one-year old son, Joseph, died in their rooms on September 18.

The heavily-Italian population was evidenced in the names of owners and proprietors of No. 235.  In the first decades of the 20th century the saloon was run by Azzaretti & Michelino.   In 1925 Joseph D'Elio purchased the building, but quickly resold it to Mrs. Vincenza De Rosa who announced intentions to "hold it for investment."

In the 1930s, according to Eric Ferrara in his Manhattan Mafia Guide, No 235 was home to the young Carmine Galante.  Listed as a sorter at the Fulton Fish Market, he had already been arrested in connection with murder of Police Officer Walter De Castilla.  Galante, known as "The Cigar" and "Lilo," would become the boss of the Bonanno crime family.

In the last quarter of the 20th century the Italian population became diluted as younger generations moved on.  The change in the neighborhood was vividly evident when Second Coming moved into the former barroom space around 1981.  The second-hand vinyl record store was a destination for collectors for decades.

Today the block once avoided by "people with reputations to lose" is lined with sports bars, clothing shops and trendy restaurants.  The former Black and Tan saloon space, where "degraded women" worked their trade, is now a Thai restaurant behind a modern shop front.   And Richard Rosenstock's 1886 Queen Anne facade quietly hides its scandalous and colorful history.

non-credited photographs by the author
many thanks to reader Ted Leather for suggesting this post

The John C. Hashegan House - 186 Prince Street

In 1826 the newly-formed real estate development firm of Mills & Ryerson purchased the land at the corner of Prince and Sullivan Streets.  They erected four houses--two facing Prince and two on Sullivan Street--but oddly enough left the corner plot empty.

It was not until around 1830 that Henry Hopper began construction of a Federal-style house on the lot.  Two-and-a-half stories tall, it was faced in red Flemish bond brick and trimmed in brownstone.  The attic floor would have had tall dormers and a short stone stoop would have risen to the entrance.

If Henry Hopper, who made his living as a cartman, ever lived in the house it is unclear how long.  But by the first years of the 1840s it was home to the Hallenbeck family.

Hallenbeck was involved in a disturbing incident on June 26, 1841.  The New-York Tribune reported three days later "As Mr. Hallenbeck, who resides at 129 Sullivan street, was returning to the city on Saturday evening last, on the Bloomingdale road [known as Broadway today], about 5 miles from the city, he accidentally run over a child, which was lying in the road."

Hallenbeck stopped and "paid every attention to the little sufferer."   The little girl, Mary McGillen, belong to a local Irish immigrant family.  Rather surprisingly to modern readers, although Hallenbck supposed that the child "could not survive long," he left after deciding she was being well taken care of.

On Monday morning he went to the Coroner's office and told his story.  He was surprised to hear that the accident had not been reported to the Coroner, since he was certain the girl had to be dead by now.  An investigation showed that Alderman Bradhurst had already held an inquest, without the Coroner's presence.  The conclusion was that "The jury found that she came to her death by being run over by a carriage, unknown to this jury."

The reporter for the New-York Tribune was irate--apparently to the point of destroying his grammar skills.  "Had Ald. Bradhurst taken the trouble to make the necessary inquires who the gentleman was that run over the child, or had he even sent for the Coroner himself, the public would have had before them the whole of the particular in relation to this affair, as the Coroner or his deputy was at his office, and could have been found at any moment."

Before 1850 John Christopher Hashagen and his family moved into the house.  He transformed the parlor floor for his grocery store and extended the building to the rear.

Hashagen was born in Hanover, Germany on August 31, 1814 and was married to the former Friederike Charlotte Meredith.  The couple had five children, including Caroline who was born in the house in 1850.  The family lived above the store.

The extension was apparently used for the meetings of Hashagen's club.  On July 15, 1851 The New York Herald announced "The Old Tops of the Eighth ward will go on their next annual chowder excursion, to Sheep's Head Bay, on next Wednesday, the 16th of July.  They will start at 4  o'clock, A. M., from their headquarters, John C. Hashagen's, corner of Prince and Sullivan streets, with Kipp & Brown's splendid six horse stage."

The use of the stage made the chowder excursion doubly pleasurable for the men.  Coaching in the mid-19th century was a fashionable pastime for upscale groups.  The Herald added that "N. B. Reuben drives."

It would appear that a relative or friend of the Hashagen family from their homeland was staying here in the spring of 1854.  An advertisement in The New York Herald on March 10 read "A respectable young girl, lately arrived from Germany, wishes to obtain a situation in a genteel American or German family.  She would like to go as chambermaid of seamstress.  Has a good knowledge of the French language.  Satisfactory references as to respectability."

A similar advertisement appeared 11 years later.  On November 14, 1865 the same newspaper ran the ad "Wanted--By a respectable German girl, a situation as waitress or chambermaid in a private family."  The girl used the address of the side entrance leading upstairs, No. 186 Prince Street.


The following year Hashagen raised the attic level to a full third floor; and in 1869 added a fourth floor and an up-to-date Italianate cornice.  Interestingly, in both renovations the Federal-style paneled lentils were reproduced, providing an architectural cohesiveness.

In 1870 Caroline, who was known as Carrie, married John A. Meredith.   Carried was 19 years old and her groom was 28.  Tragedy visited the young couple on July, 18, 1873 when their one-year old son, Walter Hashagen Meredith, died "of cholera infantum."  The now-rare disease attacked young children, most often in congested neighborhoods and during periods of high heat and humidity.

The heart-breaking funeral of the toddler was held in the Hashagen's Prince Street house the following Sunday afternoon.

John Hashagen's business apparently flourished.  In 1876 he rented space in H. F. Kahrens's stable on No. 209 Sullivan Street for his horses.  The $1,019 lease would equate to more than $23,000 today.  The need for a team of horses, most likely for delivery purpose, might reflected Hashagen's change in businesses.   By 1882 he was listed as "furniture" rather than the grocery business.

On August 3, 1880 a society journalist for The New York Times gushed on about a new and fashionable resort, Richfield Springs, New York.  The writer insisted that there "shoddyism" was unknown.  "The 20 or more hotels and boarding-houses have accommodations for between 2,000 and 3,000 strangers, and they are all full to overflowing, mainly with New-Yorkers," she said.  "A striking feature of the attendance is the high social standing of the visitors."

John and Friederike Hashagen had come far from the day they stepped off the steamer from Germany.  Among the guests at the Park Place Hotel, where "the ladies dress richly but sensibly" were the Hashagens.

The couple's elevated status no doubt contributed to their leaving the Prince Street building they had called home for three decades.  In 1883 J. Kroeger paid $75 for his excise license, allowing him to transform John Hashagen's former grocery store into a saloon.

The building was owned by J. Rennan in 1886, when he constructed a "two-story brick storage" building a block away at the corner of Prince Street and South Fifth Avenue (later renamed West Broadway).

As the neighborhood filled with immigrants by the turn of the century, No. 186 Prince Street became a rooming house.  The tenant list was made up of mostly Italian surnames, like that of Paola Alfieri who died in her room on February 19, 1903 at the age of 64.

Unfortunately, while the majority of the new Italian-Americans were hard-working, blue collar citizens; their reputations were stained by the violence and criminal activities of others.  In the first years of the 20th century violent anarchist groups like La Mano Nera (or the Black Hand) and syndicates like the Mafia and Comorra wielded power and terror throughout most of the century.

On June 24, 1927 at around 4:00 in the afternoon, a five-alarm fire raged in the Bishop Warehouse Company Building on Greenwich Street.  The New York Times reported that it "tied up traffic and darkened the financial district with heavy clouds of black smoke, causing a million dollar loss."

Investigators soon determined that it was deliberately set "to conceal the theft of a huge quantities of drugs and liquors."  Federal agents tracked the gangsters to No. 186 Prince Street.  Twenty-eight year old Alexander Psaki and 30-year old John Courmalis were arrested and held on $50,000 bail each.

Assistant U. S. District Attorney Carl E. Newton maintained "the men had been members of a gang which had taken goods from the warehouse which would probably amount to a million dollars."  This, he said, was just the last in a long string of "systematic thefts."

The one constant in New York City neighborhoods is change.  In the second half of the century the Little Italy neighborhood took on the influence of the now-trendy Soho district.

Writing in The New York Times on February 11, 1965 Philip H. Dougherty reported on the city's discotheques, of which there were currently 15.  "A proper discotheque, as it was introduced in France," he explained, is a dark, intimate boite de nuit where the music is supplied by hi-fi stereophonic sound systems tended by a disk jockey.

And residents of No. 186 Prince Street had come up with a clever way to capitalize on the craze.  Dougherty described Killer Joe Piro as "by appointment, dancing master to the jet set."  He partnered with disk jockey, Slim Hyatt, "a tall, 35-year-old, thin-faced and soft-spoken Panamanian" and a group called the Porpoise--all living in the Prince Street building--to turn any "home club or hotel into a discotheque."

Dougherty referred to their partnership as "discotheque-to-take-out."  For $50 an hour they would supply the turntables, speakers, and records.  By the time of the article the Williams Club had used the group's services three times.  Its manager said "The people just didn't want to go home."

The Soho-like atmosphere seemed assured when the Prince Street Gallery opened in October 1974.  But it eventually moved on.  The ground floor space where John Hashagen sold groceries, J. Kroeger ran his saloon, and contemporary art was sold is now a corner newsstand where neighbor can purchase their Lotto tickets.

Hashagen's 1850s storefront was long ago obliterated; but the upper floors are little changed since his last alteration in 1869.

photographs by the author

Elegance Preserved - No. 116 Sullivan Street

In the first decades of the 19th century the sprawling farms and country estates in the proximity of Greenwich Village were seeing the first signs of development.  Aaron Burr had barely fled his elegant Richmond Hill estate in 1804 before John Jacob Astor acquired the land and laid out streets and building plots.  Even more far-sighted, the Bayard family had hired Theodore Goerck to create a plan of streets and plots in 1788.  Their East and West Farms, divided by the Great George Road (later part of Broadway), abutted the Richmond Hill property to the east.

Among the streets on the Bayard farm was Sullivan Street, named for Brigadier General John Sullivan whose acclaimed military abilities during the Revolution were still fresh in New Yorkers' minds.   The block between Prince and Spring Streets would not see serious development until the early 1830s.

In 1832 wealthy bookbinder Charles Starr joined the flurry of speculative development in the area when he erected a row of seven upscale homes on the west side of the block.  Starr's confidence that the neighborhood would become exclusive was reflected in his own home within the row at No. 110 Sullivan Street.  It's expansive 32-foot width equaled that of the homes of Manhattan's wealthiest citizens.

Like that residence, No. 116 exhibited expensive architectural details.  Faced in red Flemish bond brick, its openings were trimmed in brownstone.  Two and a half stories tall, its pitched roof was covered in slate shingled and pierced with dormers.  It was on the entrance, however, that Starr's architect lavished his attention.

Sitting above a four-step stone stoop, the doorway sat within an arched brownstone surround broken by two paneled blocks and a wedge-shaped keystone.  An overlight, no doubt once filled with a lacy leaded fan, was recessed within a fully-paneled soffit.  Below, separating the fluted Ionic columns flanking the door and the half-columns that disappeared into the stone frame, were exceptionally elegant sidelights.  Skillful wood carvers fashioned the frames of the three oval openings to simulate fabric curtains, pulled open and held with rings.

John Nerrick and his wife, Hannah, lived at No. 116 in 1843.  Apparently, despite his handsome home and lifestyle, Nerrick was in financial straits.  That year he borrowed $20 from his brother-in-law, David Devoe, a shady character described by The New York Herald as "so well known as an offender."  His troubles would soon be far more serious than financial problems.

On the night of May 24, 1843 the tailor store of William H. Lightbody, at the corner of Mercer and Houston Streets was broken into.  Clothing  (listed as "2 coats, 3 pairs of pantaloons, 3 vests, 1 boot, etc., worth upward of $45) was stolen.  The goods would be worth a little more than $1,500 today.

Most of the stolen property was later discovered in a trunk in Newark, New Jersey, where witnesses said it was left by Devoe.  When Devoe was arrested, he was wearing one pair of the stolen pantaloons, and the key to the trunk was found in his pocket.  Also in his pockets were pawn tickets for more of the clothing and counterfeit bills.  It seemed like an open-and-shut case.

But at Devoe's trial, on December 20, the finger of suspicion pointed to John Nerrick, instead.  The New-York Daily Tribune reported "For defence it was proved that the trunk containing the recovered clothing was brought to 116 Sullivan street and taken to Newark by John Nerrick, who put it into Devoe's possession for a loan of $20."

Called as a witness was Hannah Nerrick, whose uneasy testimony would decide the fates of her husband and her brother.   She told the jury that her husband had, indeed, given the trunk to Devoe as security for the loan.   Those in the courtroom were possibly shocked when she then declared that Devoe was sick at New Providence, New Jersey, at the time of the burglary.  He could not have committed the crime.

Although David Devoe was quickly determined not guilty; he was held prisoner on another indictment against him.   John Nerrick was sent to the Philadelphia State Prison.

Financial problems followed the next occupant of No. 116.  In January 1859 the unnamed owner had died and his wife was struggling financially.  She tried renting rooms, placing an advertisement that read "A suit of handsome furnished rooms to let--With or without board; also board for one or two persons, where all the comforts of a home will be found, with a widow lady, without children."

Renting out rooms was apparently not enough.  Four months later, on April 26, strangers filed through the house as A. J. Bleecker, Son & Co. sold all its furnishings at auction.

The owner in 1870 had purchased the house for investment purposes.  When he advertised it for lease in April that year, it was described as having "two basements, two parlors, extension and rooms up stairs; splendid yard."  The rent was "cheap to a responsible tenant."

Two years later the house was remodeled to a full four floors capped by a handsome bracketed cornice.  By now the neighborhood had noticeably changed.   Wealthy homeowners had moved away as the area filled with immigrants and blacks.  The boarders in the house next door, at No. 114, in the 1870s seem to have been all black, for example.

The working class boarders in No. 116 in 1876 included E. Sloat, who advertised in March "Wanted--A small second hand drilling machine."

The house was offered for sale in 1878 and the owner seems to have been eager to dispose of it.  His ad on February 11 offered "For sale at a bargain."

The last decade of the 19th century continued to see hard-working tenants; while the basement level was being used commercially.  Frederick Streicer, a porter, lived here; as did Henry C. Shaefer who ran a grocery store at No. 11 West Houston Street.  Joseph Riper listed the address for his gold leaf business in 1893.  He employed 3 men in his shop that year.  They worked 60 hours per week, plus 10 hours on Saturdays.

By the turn of the century the population in the neighborhood was almost entirely Italian.  Brothers John, Louis and David Cella began buying up Sullivan Street property in 1898.  That year they purchased No. 114; in 1907 Louis and John acquired No. 111; and John purchased No. 116 soon thereafter.

In 1910 John Cella made slight improvements for his tenants, adding sinks and new windows.  The renovations cost him $200, or around $5,200 in today's dollars.  His brothers had sold their shares of the house next door, where he and his family lived, by 1910.  In 1913 No. 114 was appraised at $16,000; and No. 116 was appraised at $17,000.  Despite the somewhat gritty personality of the neighborhood, the property value of No. 116 was equal to about $425,000 today.

The Cellas continued to update their rooming house in 1917 when "water closets" were added.  Until now tenants would have made do with a privy in the rear yard.

Throughout the subsequent decades Italian Americans continued to rent rooms here.  In the late 1930s and early 1940s, for instance, James V. Piselli lived in the house.  His name was annually included on the Government's list of Community Party members.

In 1963 renovations were completed that resulted in a duplex apartment in the basement and first floor, and two apartments on each of the upper stories.  Through some small miracle, as Sullivan Street filled with tenement buildings and apartment houses, No. 116 with its incredible entranceway survived mostly intact since its 1872 alteration to four floors.

photographs by the author

photographs by the author

Full Circle -- The James S. Rossant House, 114 Sullivan Street

The entrance to No. 114 originally mirrored the exquisite doorway to the right.

In 1832 wealthy bookbinder and real estate developer Charles Starr completed construction of a string of seven upscale homes on Sullivan Street, between Prince and Spring Streets.  Starr was obviously confident that the new neighborhood would flourish; for he moved into one of his new homes.

Like its neighbors, No. 114 was faced in Flemish-bond red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Its especially elegant Federal-style doorway reflected the financial status of the original family.   Three bays wide, it rose two stories to a peaked, slate-shingled roof with dormers.

It is unclear who the original family in No. 114 was; but by 1853 they were gone.  The house was being operated as an rather upscale boarding house.  An advertisement in December that year offered "Front parlor and bedroom; also bedrooms on third floor." The ad was quick to note "But few boarders in the house."

Among the boarders that year was Professor Marti, a Spanish instructor at Columbia College.  The enterprising educator teamed with an American-born teacher and opened a private academy.  In October 1853 he announced the new arrangement through an advertisement titled "Attention Spaniards."  The notice said in part, "As the true pronunciation of the English language can only be learned from a native teacher, this arrangement cannot fail to afford the very best opportunity for learning, not only to read and white, but also to speak the language with fluency."  Tuition was $4 per month "in advance."

By March 1854 the singer Mrs. Milner was boarding in No. 114.  The owner was apparently understanding, for she was allowed to receive pupils in the house.  Her advertisements throughout the spring that year described "Vocal and Instrumental Instruction--A lady of much experience in teaching, singing and music on the piano, is desirous of meeting with a few more pupils to take lessons in the above either at her own residence or otherwise."

Mrs. Milner's stay here was apparently not long before she went on tour.  In 1857 a newspaper noted that she was giving "successful concerts" at the Parodi Theatre in Baltimore.

But the Sullivan Street neighborhood was undergoing noticeable change by now.  Immigrants were pouring into the area and a few blocks to the north the Minetta Street section had become the center of the city's black population.

A shockingly brazen robbery took place in the house in October 1854 when a boarder, James Bertholf, lay down to grab a nap.  He was startled awake when an intruder snatched his $150 diamond breast pin and ran out.  The New York Times explained the robber took it "from his bosom while asleep."

Police stopped a suspicious man on the street and, according to The New York Herald, "The accused when asked about the property ran off, was pursued and arrested on suspicion of having stolen the valuable."  He was described by the newspaper as "a colored man, named John R. Freeman."  The reporter was astonished at the boldness of the crime, saying the theft happened while Bertolf "lay asleep on a sofa at his own house."

Despite the changing neighborhood, the house was still quite respectable.  An advertisement in 1855 read "To let, a large unfurnished room in a small genteel family, with board...Also accommodation for a young lady with board."

And when two of the servant girls looked for different employment in April that year, their joint ad reflected the character of those boarding in the house.  "Wanted--Situations, by two young American girls; one as lady's maid and seamtress, understands doing up muslins and French fluting, or as chambermaid and sewer; the other as waiter and to assist in chamberwork."

The family of John W. Sageman moved in about this time.  A retired merchant, Sageman was a director in the Pacific Fire Insurance Co.  In 1857 his son, William, was 14 years old and studying in PS No. 40.  The Sagemans were still here in 1862 when the boy enrolled in the Introductory Class of the New York Free Academy.

That year James H. Taylor sought a single family to rent the house.  He described it as a "modern built two story and attic house...with all improvements of gas, water, &c; reasonable to a good tenant."

Whether Henry Hughes rented the entire house or not is unclear.  But he was living here in the fall of 1865 when he supplied bail for Samuel Thompson.   Thompson was arrested between 3 and 4:00 on the morning of September 23 in the crib joint of a man named Allen at No. 638 Broadway.   Police described Allen's place as "a resort for tipplers, thieves, gamesters and pimps, and that it is frequently the scene of brawls and thefts."  

No. 114 was still outfitted with costly furnishings like the tall pier mirrors which adorned the spaces between the front and back parlor-floor windows.  But that was all coming to and end.   On March 2, 1868 an advertisement appeared in The New York Herald.  "For Sale--two parlor looking glasses, large size, with velvet carpets."

The elegant private home turned boarding house now declined to a rooming house.  Its tenants were for the most part black.  One of them, Joseph Dillon, made his living as a truck driver; but he supplemented his income with burglary.

On March 1, 1879 the janitor of the Adelphi flats on 53rd Street was sitting in his apartment when he noticed two men on the roof the private houses across the street. The Sun reported "They crept around cautiously, and hid behind chimneys as if fearful of being observed."  Liscomb watched as they tried one, then another, and then a third rooftop scuttle before finding one unlocked.  They lowered a ladder into the opening and disappeared into the house.

The janitor rushed to No. 158 West 53rd where Mary S. Weatherspoon and her mother lived.  He asked "Have you any men repairing the roof?"  When he was told "no," he replied "Then they must be thieves."

A chaotic scene followed.  The Sun reported "Amid a chorus of screams Liscomb dashed upstairs.  The burglars had broken open two trunks, and were ransacking a trunk containing silver."  When they heard Liscomb's footsteps, they dropped their booty and scrambled up the ladder.  "An exciting chase over the roofs to Seventh avenue followed."

Joseph Dillon was the last of the crooks up the ladder and Liscomb caught him.  But Dillon "fought desperately" and called for his cohort to help him.  The pair overwhelmed Liscomb and dragged him to the end of the roof where they struggled to toss him over.  At that moment the feisty Mary Weatherspoon appeared and attacked Dillon.

The distraction was all Liscomb needed and he planted a fierce blow on the unknown burglar's face.  He ran down the ladder and out of the house, leaving Dillon on his own.  The Sun reported "Liscomb and Dillon continued fighting, and fought all the way to the Forty-seventh street police station, where the officers identified Dillon as an old offender."  The heroic janitor had been lucky.  Following his arrest Dillon growled "If that other fellow hadn't skipped, I'd have fixed you.  If I'd had a revolver I wouldn't have been in here now."

In 1881 New York City was struck with a terrifying epidemic of smallpox.  On January 20 The Sun reported "a month ago a ship load of Italians again brought the disease to us, and it is now more prevalent than we have known it for five years."

Within two months it arrived at No. 114 Sullivan Street. Then, on March 20 the patient's family reported on what the New-York Tribune called the "mysterious abduction of a smallpox patient from No. 114 Sullivan-st."  The patient had been bodily removed from the house.    Two days later the mystery was solved.  "It turned out that the Health Officers were the abductors," reported the newspaper.

In the meantime, the tenants continued to be on the wrong side of the law.  One was Edward Roberts, described by The Times on April 1, 1886 as "a young colored man" who worked as a janitor in the shoe store of John McGrandle at No. 463 Sixth Avenue.  Three years earlier McGrandle had been the victimized by a counterfeiter who passed him two fake $20 bills.  Perhaps as a reminder, he still carried the two phony bills in his wallet.  Or at least he thought he did.

On March 30 Roberts went into Mendelken & Buck's saloon on Sixth Avenue and 26th Street and had drinks amounting to 40 cents.  He paid the bartender, Henry Welsh, with a $20 bill and took his $19.60 change.  The Times reported "Soon after he left the place Welsh discovered that the bill was a counterfeit."

Following Roberts arrest, police visited McGrandle's shoe store and showed him the fake bill.  He recognized it as one of the two he carried in his coat, which was hanging in the rear of the store.  "When he went to look for it it was gone, and $55 in good money which he had in the same pocket."  In addition to the charge of passing counterfeit bill, Roberts now faced larceny charges preferred by his boss.

Moses J. Dillon may have been the father of Joseph Dillon.  But unlike Joseph, Moses made an honest living.  The New York Times described him as "a colored cook and caterer."  The 65-year old was still living here in the fall of 1888 when he was working at a barbecue at Morris Dock.  The Evening World reported on October 29 that while he was carving an ox "he was suddenly seen to fall to the ground.  He was dead when assistance reached him."  He had suffered a fatal heart attack and his body was brought back to the Sullivan Street house.  The New York Times was less sympathetic, running the rather unfeeling headline "His Last Barbecue."

The house was the scene of a political meeting on the night of August 1, 1892.  The Sun reported that "Delegates form the district organizations of the Afro-American Republican Association met last night at 114 Sullivan street to discuss ways and means for extending the association."  That newspaper reported only on the achievements of the group that night, saying "It was resolved to build up organizations in all the Assembly districts where the colored population is large enough."

The New York Times focused on another aspect, saying that only about 20 members were present.  "What they lacked in numbers they made up in wrangling, which lasted over four hours and ended in a row.  Two or three times fistic encounters were imminent and loud cried for 'Police' rang out."

Annie Runoss lived in the house on June 3, 1894 when she accused Maggie Murphy, "who said she had no permanent address," of stealing her diamond earrings.  According to Annie, Maggie had snatched the earrings from her on the street the previous Saturday night.  The alleged perpetrator was searched, but she did not have the earrings.

Annie's story was more than a bit suspicious.  The judge asked her what her diamonds were worth.  "Well, your Honor," she answered, "I don't know exactly what they would be worth these days, but they cost my husband $3.50 eight years ago."  Despite Annie's questionable story, Maggie Murphy was held on $1,000 bail.

By now the Sullivan Street neighborhood was filling with Italian immigrants who would soon displace its black residents.  On June 7, 1898 brothers David, John and Louis Cella purchased No. 114 from Mary A Goodspeed, who lived in Summit, New Jersey.  They paid $12,350--nearly $370,000 today.  It was described at the time of the sale as a "two-story brick dwelling."  It would not be for long.

The new owners raised the height to three full floors and remodeled the old lintels and sills to match the new ones.   The removal of the Federal entrance and its replacement with the brownstone surround we see today is included by some historians in the 1898 renovation.  But the Greek Revival style--out of fashion for nearly half a century--and the unnecessary expense to what was a rooming house suggests that updated doorway was more likely done when No. 114 was still an upscale private dwelling.

The Cello brothers purchased other houses along the street, including No. 116 and 111.   Jonathan and his family moved into No. 114 and it was here that one-year old Joseph, died on August 12, 1900.

Louis Cella sold his one-third part in 1902 and David sold his in 1910.  In the meantime,  Joseph and his wife Aurelia, had a serious problem with Lizzie Martin.  The 39-year old Irish women, who listed her occupation as "housekeeper," was either a roomer or employee in 1906.  Whichever, she was arrested "for setting fire to No. 114 Sullivan Street" that year.

The Cellas reared two sons in the house--Daniel and Louis--as they continued to rent rooms.  One of their tenants was Antonio Casini who had the dangerous job of extending the aqueduct shaft along Broadway in 1912. 

Antonio Casini was working at this construction site when disaster struck.  The General Worth monument, sitting in the small triangle between Broadway and Fifth Avenue, can be seen.  photograph from the collection of the Library of Congress.

On the afternoon of February 9 Casini and several other workers were 200 feet below the intersection of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street.  James Thomas had just drilled a hole in the bedrock and inserted a stick of dynamite when the charge prematurely exploded.

The Times reported that the blast "shook the earth so that tenants in near-by buildings ran into the street in terror.  James Thomas was was knocked unconscious and three other men were seriously hurt.  "Comrades carried them to the surface," reported the article, and then transported them to New York Hospital.  Casini was not expected to survive.

The post-World War I years saw the arrival in New York of Italian gangs like the Mafia and Costa Nostra.  Prohibition fueled their illegal activities and the lure of quick cash drew many young men from respectable families into lives of crime.

On May 20, 1922 a group of 11 officers intercepted two trucks in Jersey City.  Inside they found 6,750 bottles of whiskey worth $65,000.  The two drivers were arrested, one of them being Daniel Cella.  Both men protested their innocence, saying they believed they were hauling loads of meat.

Five years later both the Cella brothers were arrested and charged with "illegal handling of sacramental wine."    Daniel still listed his occupation as truckman, and Louis as a chauffeur.  They were both still living in the Sullivan Street house at the time.

How long the Cellas maintained ownership of No. 114 is unclear.   Nevertheless the tenant list continued to reflect the Little Italy neighborhood for decades.  In 1933, for instance, John J. Petrocelli called No. 114 home.  He was a voting inspector for the election district that year.

As gentrification swept over the neighborhood in the early 1970s esteemed architect and artist James Stephan Rossant and his wife, the former Collette Pallache, moved into the vintage house.  The upper floors were reconverted to a single family home and the basement level became a separate apartment. With them in the house were three daughter, Marinanne, Juliette, and Cecile, and a son, Thomas.

Among Rossant's work was the 1962 Butterfield House apartment building in Greenwich Village; and he developed the overall plan for Reston, Virginia.  Collette was a food critic and author.  Having an artist in the family was convenient and James illustrated several of Collette's cookbooks.

In 1972 Collette resigned her position as French instructor at Hofstra University and began teaching cooking to children in the Sullivan Street house.   The classes, called "Cooking with Collette," cost $60 for six biweekly classes.  Children between the ages of 9 and 15 learned to concoct French dishes like quiche Lorraine.

The couple's talents came together in two other projects.  In 1998 Collette consulted on the launch of Buddha Green, a Midtown restaurant featuring vegetarian "Buddhist" cuisine, and again for Dim Sum Go Go in 2000, a Chinatown eatery.  In both cases James helped design the restaurants.

With their children grown, the Rossants moved to France in 2002.  James died in 2009.  The house next became home to film star Sandra Bullock.

On a street lined mostly with late 19th century tenement houses, No. 114 Sullivan Street is a dignified reminder of a much different era.  Still a single family house, it has come full circle from the days of gilded pier mirrors and velvet carpeting.

photographs by the author