The Thomas Thompson Eckert Mansion - 38 West 86th Street

 

Real estate developer William H. Hall, Jr. sold the newly built mansion at 38 West 86th Street on February 25, 1908.  The New York Herald remarked, "The buyer is understood to be a resident of the Fifth avenue section, the in-roads of business having driven him to seek a home in the west side."  Hall's reluctant buyer was General Thomas Thompson Eckert, Sr.

As commerce invaded his formerly exclusive Fifth Avenue neighborhood, Eckert had resolutely refused to leave 545 Fifth Avenue, his home for decades.  But now the city was widening the thoroughfare and ordered that the front of the house had to be chopped off.  Eckert had no choice but to move.

No. 38 West 86th Street was one a row of eight 25-foot-wide homes designed by Welch, Smith & Provot.  Sitting upon a rusticated limestone base, its red brick midsection was trimmed in limestone, and its fifth floor took the form of a steep, slate shingled mansard with two brick dormers.  Eckert paid $80,000 for the residence, equal to nearly $2.75 million in 2024.

The general's sentimental ties to his former home resulted in his reworking Welch, Smith & Provot's interiors.  A massive redecorating took place to--as closely as possible--reproduce the interiors of the Fifth Avenue residence.  The New York Evening Telegram reported, 

Wall paper was imported from Europe to match the paper in the General's old library and bedroom.  Woodwork was repainted in exact imitation of that in the old home.  Shades, draperies and even pictures were duplicated or the originals placed in the new house and in the places where they had been.     

The interior decoration took over a year.  Eckert and his family moved into the house in November 1909.

General Thomas T. Eckert.  photograph by Mathew Brady, from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Born on April 23, 1825 in St. Clairesville, Ohio, Eckert became interested in the telegraph as a young man.  He came to New York in 1847 with the sole purpose of seeing the Morse telegraph in operation.  The trip resulted in his becoming an operator and returning to Ohio to work with the Wade Telegraph Company.

In 1861, Eckert was ordered to Washington D.C., assigned to General George B. McCellan's headquarters as aide-de-camp in charge of military telegraph operations.  He organized and oversaw the War Department's telegraph system.  Eckert was one of two confidential emissaries for Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

In 1866, Stanton appointed Eckert Assistant Secretary of War.  Through their close working relationship, Thomas Eckert became close friends with the President.  Edwin Stanton was protective of Lincoln, and when the President invited General Grant and his wife to attend Ford's Theatre with him and Mary Todd Lincoln, Stanton convinced Grant to decline, hoping to dissuade the President from a public appearance.  Lincoln then invited Eckert and his wife, Emeline.  Stanton forbade him from accepting.  The Secretary of War's fervent attempts were to no avail.  That night, Eckert rushed to the War Department and telegraphed General Ulysses S. Grant, "The President was assassinated at Ford's Theatre at 10:30 tonight & cannot live."

After the war, Eckert joined the Western Union Telegraph Company, eventually becoming president in 1893.  He retired in 1900, retaining his seat as chairman of the board of directors.

Eckert and his wife, the former Emeline Dore Whitney, who died on November 4, 1868, had two sons, Thomas, Jr. and James Clendenin.  Eckert's second wife, Joanna Rice, died in 1902.  Thomas Jr. lived in the West 86th Street house with his father.  (He took the position of president of the Western Union Telegraph Company following his father's retirement.)  The Eckert summer home, Heart's Content, was in West End, New Jersey.

In June 1910, six months after moving into the town house, the Eckerts went to Heart's Content.  They were still there on September 2 when, while preparing to go to bed, General Eckert, "in turning around suddenly fractured his right thigh," as reported by The New York Times.  He would never return to the Manhattan house he had so carefully and sentimentally decorated.  He died in the New Jersey house on October 20 at the age of 85.

Surprisingly, less than a month later, Thomas, Jr. announced his engagement.  Perhaps as shocking to society as the breach of mourning protocol was the bride-to-be.  Mary Eagan was hired as a maid in the Eckerts' Fifth Avenue home in 1901.  The Brooklyn Standard Union said, "Tom Eckert fell in love with her at once."  As it turned out, General Eckert was not only aware of the romance, but was involved in the wedding plans, theretofore unannounced.

"The secret was kept for several years," explained The Brooklyn Standard Union, "but Gen. Eckert learned of it.  He was greatly pleased and helped make plans for the wedding, which was to take place Oct. 13."  Now, the Irish-born servant girl known as Minnie, "will become the mistress of Heart's Content, the country place at West End, N. J., as well as the town house at 38 West Eighty-sixth street, Manhattan."

Thomas and Minnie Eckert would have a short time to enjoy their wedded bliss before problems arose for the family.  First, James Clendenin Eckert sued to have the will overturned.  Eckert had left Thomas the bulk of the estate, citing "my appreciation of his loving care and attention."  James (who was known by his middle name), on the other hand, had borrowed significant sums of money from his father over the years, and never repaid it.  Clendenin claimed "undue influence" on the part of his brother in the terms of the will.

As that drama played, out, on April 4, 1911, the Wisconsin newspaper The Kenosha Evening News reported, "A short, portly woman came into Surrogate Cohalan's office and announced that she was Mrs. E. L. Davis, the widow of Gen. Thomas T. Eckert, former head of the Western Union Telegraph company, whose two sons have been fighting for his millions since his death last October."  The woman claimed she was entitled to "at least one-third of the real estate of General Eckert as his widow."

Mrs. Davis, according to The Sun, was also known as Mrs. Dore.  She claimed that after taking a touring car with Eckert  to a minister's house in 1908 and being married, the general had given her the deed to 38 West 86th Street.  In court, Clendenin testified that his father refused to ride in motorcars.  "I have had cars since 1902.  He could never be induced to ride in any of them, nor would he ride in my brother's cars."

The woman was eventually identified as Louise Dore.  She was committed to the Middletown State Hospital as insane in October 1911, ending that portion of the estate litigation.

Two months later, on December 16, 1911, The New York Times ran the headline, "Eckert Will Upheld; Son Loses Suit / An Appeal Is Not Likely."  Indeed, an appeal was filed and the bitter fight between the brothers dragged on until December 1915.  On the 15th, The Sun titled an article, "Eckert Estate Row Ends" and reported that James Clendenin Eckert "won a court decision granting him a half interest in the many millions left by his father."  Included within the half of the estate that Thomas was granted was the 86th Street house, which he and Minnie had been occupying the entire time.

With the unpleasant litigation behind him, Thomas and Minnie purchased a summer home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1916.  He was still president of Western Union Telegraph Company when he died there on November 21, 1931 at the age of 76.  He was buried downtown in a vault at Old St. Patrick's Cathedral.

On June 4, 1958, The New York Times reported that the estate of Mary A. Eckert had sold 38 West 86th Street to the Cathedral College for $65,000 (about $685,000 in 2024).  The preparatory seminary of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York announced it would use the mansion, "as a residence hall for students of the college."  A renovation completed the following year resulted in a dining room and foyer on the first floor; the priests' dining room, chapel and parlor on the second; and bedrooms and dormitories on the upper floors.

Nearly half a century later, in 2000, the house was converted for use as the academic building and library of the Bard Graduate Center.  The institute offers two programs, one for Masters of Arts degree candidates, and the other for Ph.D. candidates.

photographs by the author

The 1907 John B. Haskin House - 34 West 86th Street

 

In 1906 developer William H. Hall, Jr. completed two handsome rowhouses at 32 and 34 West 86th Street.  Designed by Welch, Smith & Provot, they were the first in a row of homes built two at at time that would extend west towards Columbus Avenue.  (The architecturally harmonious group would be completed in 1908.)

Welch, Smith & Provot designed the row in the neo-Renaissance style.  Like its neighbors, 34 West 86th Street sat upon a rusticated limestone base, its upper floors clad in warm red brick.  The second through fourth floor windows were framed in limestone, while the top story took the form of a steep, slate-shingled mansard.  Here two brick dormers were capped with arched Renaissance style pediments.

The house became home to the family of John Bussing Haskin, Jr.  His father, who died in 1895, was an influential attorney and congressman.  Bussing and his wife, the former May Louise Quackenbush, had three daughters, Mabel, Edith Mae, and Edna.  (Their first daughter, Ethel Amelia, died in 1888 at the age of one.)  Haskin was a partner in Wyatt & Listman, makers of automobile parts, and president of the John B. Haskin's Estate, Inc.

The family brought their trusted domestic staff with them, including James B. Griffin, who had been their chef since 1891.  In the summer of 1907, the family notified police that pieces of silver and expensive cut glass were slowly disappearing.  Detective Kahn was put on the case.  

Kahn scoured the pawnshops and found some of the Haskins' items in several locations.  In each case, the description of the seller matched that of James B. Griffin.  The Haskin family was no doubt shocked when Kahn arrived at 34 West 86th Street on the night of October 4 and led their faithful chef away in handcuffs.  "Griffin had nothing to say," reported The New York Times.

Unlike many of their well-heeled neighbors, the Haskins did not own a country home, but summered at fashionable resort hotels, instead.  On November 8, 1908, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Mr. and Mrs. John P. Haskins [sic] and family, 34 West Eighty-sixth Street, have returned from the Berkshires and Adirondacks."  And the following year, on October 17, 1909, the New York Herald noted, "Mr. and Mrs. John Bussing Haskin and the Misses Haskin, of No. 34 West Eighty-sixth street, after a trip through the Berkshires, will go to Briarcliff Lodge, Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., for an indefinite stay."

On April 10, 1910, The New York Times reported that Mabel Louise would be married to William Arthur Flinn on April 27, noting, "It will be a home wedding."  One can imagine the panic Mabel experienced when she contracted measles a week later.

The New York Times reported on April 18, "It was said yesterday that Miss Haskins [sic] was confined to her room with measles, and that her wedding to a Pittsburgh young man, which was to have taken place on April 25, would have to be postponed."  While admitting that Mable was sick, the family denied that "her illness would interfere with the wedding plans."

And, indeed, on May 1, the newspaper reported that the wedding had taken place in the family's drawing room the previous evening.  Edith and Edna were two of their sister's five attendants.

On May 22, 1915, the New York Courier and International Topics reported that John and May had announced "the engagement of their second daughter, Miss Edith Mae Haskins [sic], to Mr. Hugh T. Porter."  The article said, "The announcement was made in interesting circumstances at the house of Mr. and Mrs. W. Arthur Flinn...Mrs. Flinn, the elder sister of Miss Haskin, gave a dinner, followed by dancing, to celebrate the fourth anniversary of her marriage, her mother's birthday and the engagement of her sister."

Not long after Edith's wedding, John Bussing and May Louise  Haskin moved to Glen Falls, New York.  The West 86th Street house became home to the Jorje (sometimes spelled Jorge) Ezekiel Zalles family.  Born in La Paz, Bolivia in 1872, he was married to Arcadia Calderon.  The couple had five children, George Jr., Maria, Leonora Eugenia, Robert H., and Reginald Hugh.

Zalles was the honorary financial attaché to the Bolivian legation.  Arcadia was the daughter of Don Ignacio Calderon, the Bolivian Minister to Washington.  The family's country home, Devon, was in Amagansett, Long Island.

While her husband was on a business trip to South America in the summer of 1919, Arcadia visited her parents in Washington, D.C.  On August 4, The Washington Times reported, "The Minister of Bolivia and Senora Ignacio Calderon have as their guest Senora Jorge E. Zalles, wife of the honorary financial attache of the legation, and daughter of the minister."

By 1930, when Leonora's engagement to Emile C. Freeland was announced, Jorje Zalle was a vice president of W. R. Grace & Co.  Leonora was married in Santiago, Chile in January 1931.  She may have met her husband through her father.  The New York Times mentioned, "Mr. Freeland is an industrial engineer with W. R. Grace & Co."

Reginald H. Zalle also became affiliated with W. R. Grace & Co. following his graduation from Columbia University.  He worked in the firm's office in La Paz, Bolivia.  Interestingly, when Reginald was married to Maria Esperanza Santivanez in La Paz on January 10, 1940, his father did not attend the wedding.  The East Hampton Star reported on January 25, "The bridegroom's mother flew to Le Paz for the wedding.  She will return next month to rejoin Mr. Zalles, who is vice president of W. R. Grace & Co."

By the outbreak of World War II, the once exclusive West 86th Street block had been taken over by commerce.  And yet the Zalles family continued on as they had for decades.  Arcadia, who had been highly involved with musical groups like the Beethoven Association, the Leschetizky Society and the Friends of Music, now threw herself into the war effort as well.  She became a member of the American Women's Volunteer Services.

In 1948, the Zalles moved into a large apartment at 322 East 57th Street where Arcadia died in March 1951.  Somewhat surprisingly, the following year on November 29, The Miami News reported, "An interesting wedding took place recently in New York when Miss Rose Willoughby Saul became the bride of Jorge E. Zalles of Paris, France, and New York...Mrs. Zalles is a retired executive of the W. R. Grace Co."  George died in the East 57th Street apartment at the age of 81 on March 27, 1954.

In the meantime, 34 West 86th Street was converted to apartments in 1949.  It was home to several musicians, including Harold "Sonny" Salad, who was here in 1952.  Salad was an alto saxophonist with Ray McKinley's big band.  Living here at the same time was alto saxophonist Larry Elgart, who played in the band of his brother Les Elgart.

Externally, 34 West 86th Street house looks much as it did when a family's trusted chef purloined expensive pieces of cut glass nearly 120 years ago.

photographs by the author

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

The John and Clara Stanchfield House - 36 West 86th Street

 

In 1886, the year he was elected mayor of Elmira, New York,  John Barry Stanchfield married Clara S. Spaulding.  Born on March 13, 1855, Stanchfield was educated as an attorney.  He had been District Attorney of Chemung County, would serve in the New York State Assembly from 1895 to 1896, and run for Governor in 1899.

Clara, who was born in Elmira in 1849, was a schoolmate and intimate friend of Olivia Clemens, wife of author Samuel Clemens.  According to Clemens's biographer, R. Kent Rasmussen, Clara had accompanied "Livy" to England in 1873 when Samuel Clemens was working on A Tramp Abroad.  The close relationship resulted in John Stanchfield's assisting Samuel Clements with legal entanglements following Olivia's death in 1904.

John Barry Stanchfield - from the collection of the Library of Congress

John and Clara brought their children, Alice and John Jr., to New York City around the turn of the century, where John became a partner in the law firm of Chadbourne, Stanchfield & Levy.

On July 4, 1908, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that developer William H. Hall, Jr. had sold the 25-foot wide house at 36 West 86th Street, saying, "This dwelling is the sixth one out of a row of 8 recently completed."  The neo-Renaissance style rowhouse had been designed by Welch, Smith & Provot.  Sitting upon a rusticated limestone base, its red brick midsection was trimmed in limestone, and its fifth floor took the form of a steep, slate shingled mansard with two brick dormers.  John and Clara Stanchfield paid $80,000 for the residence, equal to nearly $2.75 million in 2024.

The Stanchfields retained their large home in Elmira.  Because of their deep ties there, when Alice became engaged to Dr. Arthur Wright in 1912, a "large wedding at the Elmira home" was planned, according to The New York Times.  Those plans were upended when Clara fell ill.  On April 28, the newspaper reported, "it was decided to have a quiet wedding at the New York house.  Mrs. Stanchfield, who is convalescent, was present."

The article noted, "The house was beautifully decorated with flowers from the Elmira estate; lilacs, Japanese quince, and other Spring flowers were used in profusion."  Following the ceremony, 150 guests attended the reception.

In January 1915, the Stanchfields sold 36 West 86th Street to Horace A. Saks, of Saks & Co.  He and his wife, the former Dorothy Drey, had two children--John Andrew and Edna Jane.  The family's summer home was in Elberon, New Jersey.

Born on July 14, 1882 in Baltimore, Saks graduated from Princeton in 1903.  He founded the department store with his father, Andrew; his uncle, Isidore; his brother, William A.; and P. A. Conne.  Horace Saks was a leader in the store's expansion and was largely responsible for its move to Fifth Avenue and 49th Street.

Horace and Dorothy filled the 86th Street residence with art treasures.  The New York Times later remarked that Saks "was a collector of portraits and of Chinese porcelains, of which he had a large and valuable collection."

Horace A. Saks, The New York Times, November 28, 1925

On November 25, 1925, Saks was at work when he first complained of a carbuncle on his cheek.  He consulted Dr. A. A. Berg, who sent him "without delay" to Mt. Sinai Hospital for treatment.  The New York Times reported, "when the wound was examined, it was found that septic poisoning had already developed.  Measures were taken to combat the infection, which had spread through his system."  Despite the doctors' efforts, Saks died within forty-eight hours.

Horace A. Saks's funeral was held in the 86th Street house on November 29, 1925.  At the time of his death, he was also a director of Gimbel Brothers, Inc., and among the honorary pall bearers were five Gimbel brothers.

On August 5, 1927, when The American Hebrew announced that Dorothy Saks was "passing the summer in European centers," the West 86th Street neighborhood was drastically changing.  Businesses were encroaching onto the formerly exclusive residential block.  How long Dorothy remained is unclear, but in 1945 her former home was converted to apartments.

That changed in the late 20th century when 36 West 86th Street became the Bard Graduate Center's academic facility.  A restoration-renovation completed in 2000 resulted in two additional floors (unseen from the street) and an expansion at the rear.  The new spaces accommodated a 75-seat lecture hall, digital imaging center, library, classrooms and offices.  A second renovation combined 36 West 86th Street internally with 38.  The exteriors of both houses survived wonderfully intact.

photograph by the author 

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

The 1906 Charles Altschul House - 32 West 86th Street

 

The extended Hall family were builders and developers.  William Hall began the tradition that was continued by his sons William W. and Thomas M. Hall.  (They operated both as William Hall's Sons and W. W. & T. M. Hall).  Joining in the  familial trend were Arlington C. and Harvey M. Hall, who worked together; and William H. Hall Jr.  

In 1906, William H. Hall Jr. partnered with W. W. & T. M. Hall in erecting a row of handsome townhouses on the south side of West 86th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue.  Designed by Welch, Smith & Provot, certain pairs were built and owned by William H. Hall, Jr. and others by his relatives, yet they flowed together harmoniously.

Among those William H. Hall, Jr. erected was 32 West 86th Street.  Its neo-Renaissance design included a rusticated limestone base, stone architrave frames of the upper story windows, and a slate-shingled and dormered mansard.

The house became home to the Charles Altschul family.  Born in London on December 31, 1857, Altschul came to America in 1877 and settled in San Francisco where he joined the staff of the banking firm Lazard Freres.  In 1886, he married Camilla Mandelbaum.  The couple had three children, Frank, born in 1887; Edith Louise, who was born two years later; and Hilda who arrived in 1892.

Altschul thrived professionally in California.  In 1895, he was made manager of the London, Paris and American Bank and five years later was elected President of the California Bankers' Association.  Then, in 1901, he relocated his family to New York, where he remained a partner in Lazard Freres.

Charles Altschul (original source unknown)

Frank Altschul graduated from Yale University in 1908 and for the next two years worked in the Mexico City office of the banking firm Hugo Scherer, Jr. & Co.  On November 18, 1910, the Yale Alumni Weekly reported he "expects to return permanently to 32 West Eighty-sixth Street, New York City, about January 1, 1911."

He would find one more person living in the 86th Street house.  On April 30, 1910, "in a private suite at Sherry's," as reported by the New York Herald, Edith had married Herbert H. Lehman.  After the their honeymoon in the South, the couple moved into the Altschul house.

Lehman's father Mayer, like Charles Altschul, was a financier, one of the three brothers who co-founded Lehman Brothers.  Herbert had been a partner in that firm for two years when he married Edith.  

Frank was next to marry.  On November 3, 1912, The New York Times reported on his engagement to Helen Goodhart, a graduate of Barnard College.  The wedding took place on January 9, 1913 in the bride's home.

Herbert Lehman was drawn into the messy impeachment trial of Governor William Sulzer in 1913.  Among the charges was that he had accepted large, personal gifts, presumably in exchange for favors.  On October 8, 1913, Lehman was called to testify to explain his monetary gift to the governor.  The New York Sun printed his testimony in part.

I gave him $5,000 unconditionally.  I knew he was a man of straitened circumstances.  I did not care what he did with his money, whether he paid his rent or bought himself clothes or paid for his office or any other expenses which he might incur.

Lazard Freres placed a notice in the New York Press on July 3, 1916 that read, "We regret to announce that Mr. Charles Altschul has this day retired from our firm."  It added, "Mr. Fred H. Greenebaum and Mr. Frank Altschul have been admitted as partners in our firm."

Charles Altschul now turned his attention to historical research and writing.  His first project was his 1917 The American Revolution in Our School Text Books: An Attempt to Trace the Influence of Early School Education on the Feeling Toward England in the United States.  After pouring over 93 history textbooks used in schools nationwide, he revealed an inherent bias which The Sun on October 21, 1917 called "an American tradition of Anglophobia."  The New York Times would later say it "helped bring a revision in the teaching of the history of the Revolution in public schools."

Charles was involved in other scholarly interests, as well.  He was a member of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the American Historical Association, for instance.  

Early in April 1927, Charles Altschul suffered a heart attack.  He died three weeks later on April 28.

His son and son-in-law would go on to great success.  In their 2003 Wall Street People, Charles D. Ellis and James R. Vertin wrote, "Frank [Altschul] rose to be one of Wall Street's grand dukes, both in style and influence.  In the 1930s, he served on the governing board of the New York Stock Exchange and became a director of the Rockefeller family bank, the Chase National."  In 1929, Herbert Lehman became Lieutenant Governor of New York under Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, and in 1933 became the state's 45th governor, holding that office until March 1946.

In the meantime, the West 86th Street block had changed from upscale private homes to boarding houses, shops and apartment buildings by the time of Charles Altschul's death.  No. 32 was converted to the Ann Reno School--a dual purpose facility that taught deaf children and trained teachers.

The daughter of prominent musicians, Anna Reno Margulies was prompted by the deafness of her son to devote herself to teaching the deaf.  After studying with Maria Montessori in Italy, she opened her school in America using the Montessori methods.  The New York Times said here "students were taught to speak and understand conversation with a facility equal to that of persons with normal hearing."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Ann Reno School operated from the converted house into the 1950s.  By 1969, it was home to the Society for the Advancement of Judaism Nursery School, which accepted three- and four-year-old children at a yearly tuition of $675 (equal to about $4,880 in 2024).

A renovation completed in 1981 resulted in apartments.  There are three each on the first through fourth floors, and two duplex apartments on the fifth and new penthouse level, which is unseen from the street.

photographs by the author

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vast, grouped casements flooded the apartments with northern light.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

photographs by the author

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

Boak & Paris's 1937 5 West 86th Street

 

On October 1, 1937, two years before the official end of the Great Depression, the West 86th Street Corp. opened the doors to its 20-story apartment house at 5 West 86th Street.  Replacing five high-stooped rowhouses (including the former home of James Buchanan Brady--"Diamond Jim" Brady--at 11 West 86th Street), it was designed by the architectural firm of Boak & Paris.

A 1930s take on Imperial Roman architecture, the entrance featured engaged, fasces-like reeded columns that sprouted hefty anthemia.  Crossed Roman spears decorated the door.  Panels of burly reeding separated the openings of the second floor.  The upper floors were clad in variegated beige brick, divided into three vertical sections by full-height piers that flanked and separated the two central bays.

Horizontal relief was achieved with terra cotta wave crest bandcourses above the seventh floor that flowed in opposite directions, and incised bandcourses above the fifteenth.  Casement windows, so important in the style, provided the apartments with natural light and wrapped the corners above the seventh floor.

An advertisement listed "gracious urban apartments at Central Park" ranging from three to five rooms, and noted "some with terraces."  Rents ran from $1,250 to $1,900 per year (equal to about $2,150 to $2,600 per month in 2024).  The listing for the terraced penthouse with nine rooms and four baths touted "superb layout" and "unexcelled view, four exposures."  No rent was revealed for that unit.

The building filled quickly with professional like Mrs. John Iraci, "officer of the International Broadcasting Company," as described by The Sun when she signed the lease.  Her husband, radio executive John Iraci, had died the previous November.  Two other of the initial residents were Rev. Judah Kahn, associate rabbi of the Free Synagogue; and illustrator Frederic Varady.  When Varady signed his lease in December 1938, The New York Sun mentioned that renting in the building was now "complete."

The 30-year-old Frederic Varady did illustrations for books,  magazines and advertisements.  His style showed influences of J. C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell.

Varady's July 1953 cover of Collier's magazine showed Rockwell-esque humor.  

On October 4, 1939, The New York Times reported Lawrence Germain and "Dr. Joseph Fried, eye specialist who recently arrived in this country from Budapest, Hungary," had taken apartments.  

Germain was a partner in Germain-Hegeman Company, Inc., co-founded in 1910 by his father Max Germain.  The development firm erected housing in New Jersey.  On July 21, 1951, The Record of Hackensack, New Jersey recalled that Max Germain and his partner Norbert T. Hegeman were pioneers in Bergen County residential development.  The newspaper said they erected "several hundred homes in the North Hackensack-River Edge area."

Dr. Fried quickly became active in matters outside his profession and would become a vice-president of the The United Hungarian Jews of America, Inc. by 1945.  Three years after moving into 5 West 86th Street, the family suffered tragedy.

Paul Fried was 14 years old when the family moved to America in 1939.  He was enrolled in Stuyvesant High School for academically advanced boys.  Its location on East 15th Street necessitated his taking the subway to school.  Fried was "subject to fainting spells," according to school officials.  It was a condition that ended in calamity.

Paul, now 17 years old, stood on the 91st Street platform of the I.R.T. subway on the morning of November 22, 1942.  Just as the train pulled into the station, the teen fainted and fell onto the tracks.  Although, according to The New York Sun, the train operator "tried vainly to stop the train before it struck the boy," Fried was killed instantly.

Another couple suffered a tragic loss four years later.  Lt. Melvin Cohen had been in the Army for several years, according to The Larchmont Times.  In November 1945, he and his wife had a baby boy.

On July 11, 1946, the newspaper said, "The Cohens, who make their home at 5 West 86th street, New York, arrived in Larchmont about a week ago to spend the Summer."  At around 9:00 on the morning of July 7, Mrs. Cohen placed the baby in his carriage for a nap outdoors.  Twenty minutes later she checked on him and found him "at the foot of the carriage under the covers."

She rushed the infant across the street to Dr. S. W. Pearlman, who called the inhalator squad of the fire department.  "In spite of the vigorous attempts of the town firemen to revive the child," said the article, "he was pronounced dead about 20 minutes after the squad's arrival."  

Dr. Joseph Fried was still living at 5 West 86th Street as late as 1960.  Among his neighbors were William Mason Lichtenstein and his wife Annette.  A consultant and former vice president of Wullscyhleger & Co., Inc. textile manufacturers, Lichtenstein was best known for his bridge playing expertise.  

He had won the Reisinger Knockout Team Championship, the top ranking New York bridge event, in 1945.  Three years later he won the Vanderbilt Knockout Team Championship, "one of the two most important national titles," according to The New York Times, and came in second in that event in 1956.

The Frieds and the Lichtensteins were well-acquainted with Alfred De Silva, not as a neighbor, but as their beloved doorman.  A native of Trinidad, "Freddy" was hired at 5 West 86th Street in 1940.  His service to the residents went beyond professional to personal.  One resident, Sabrina Weinberger said in May 1975, "If someone was sick, he would call them every day.  He would watch out for children, seeing that they got safely on their school buses or keep an eye on them while they played in front of the building."

After 35 years of service, the 72-year-old retired on May 18, 1975 with plans of a trip to Trinidad before moving with his wife to Philadelphia.  The next day, The Daily Press reported, "Alfred De Silva has whistled up his last cab and gotten his last tip--a hefty one of $1,000."  The residents of 5 West 86th Street gave him the going-away thank-you that would equal about $5,500 today.

Boak & Paris's Depression era building--including its all-important casement windows--survives virtually intact.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for suggesting this post

photographs by the author

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

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

LaptrinhX.com has no authorization to reuse the content of this blog