H. Herbert Lilien's 1948 205 West 95th Street

 

The high-stooped brownstone house at 250 West 95th Street was, for a period, home to author Damon Runyon.  It and three of its neighbors were demolished in 1947 to be replaced by an up-to-date apartment building.  The 95th Street Construction Co., Inc. hired 49-year-old H. Herbert Lilien to design the structure.  Lilien had already established a reputation with his Art Deco style apartment buildings.

Cover of the 1948 real estate brochure. from the collection of the Avery Library of Columbia University.

Completed in 1948, the six-story building had one foot in the waning Art Moderne movement and the other in the dawning Midcentury Modern.  Faced in red brick, its several light courts afforded natural light and ventilation to interior apartments.  Sculptural Art Moderne fire escapes acted as part of the design.  Lilien's most striking details were the curved midcentury railing at sidewalk level, and the recessed entry within a rusticated, reentrant concrete corner supported by a single column.

 from the collection of the Avery Library of Columbia University.

The nine apartments per floor filled with a wide variety of tenants.  Among the first was a Jewish-Iranian family who crushed into a one-bedroom apartment.  In her 2020 Concealed, Esther Amini writes,

My parents slept in the congested living room while my brothers camped out in the coveted bedroom.  In this pinched space stuffed with Persian futons, borrowed folding tables and chairs, a floral slip-covered couch bursting with orange stargazers, sacks of clothing, colanders, Persian rugs, a dayereh and samovar, [the family] navigated tight aisles, tripping over one another.

Amini recalls that next door was the Jacobson family, "big-hearted Holocaust survivors."  Their son, Herman, was a teenaged musical prodigy "crippled by polio."

The reentrance corner and streamlined railings were the salient features of Lilien's design.

Two actresses were listed here in 1957.  Like most aspiring actresses, Gladys Austen's career had had a rocky start.  In 1953, she had fought the Unemployment Board for benefits.  In its defense, the board said, "between January, 1951, and June 23, 1953, claimant had sixty-six weeks employment as a typist-receptionist and only five days of paid employment as an actress."  Unemployment, argued the attorney, did not apply simply "because an applicant desires to exclusively pursue a career which is more attractive."

Gladys Austen, from the collection of the New York Public Library

Things improved for Gladys and by the time she moved into 205 West 95th Street, she had appeared in small parts in Broadway shows like Lunatics and Lovers, which ran from December 13, 1954 to October 1, 1955.   And on August 18, 1956, The Billboard noted, "Gladys Austen has been doing some of the Tide blurbs thru Benton & Bowles."  She would play the role of Vera Wallace in the 1968 production of The Jumping Frog at the Shubert Theatre.

Grace Wallace Huddle's husband had died in 1938, two years after their daughter was born.  To augment her acting career, Grace taught singing.  While her career on stage never really took off, her daughter's did.  Sue Ane Langdon began her career singing at Radio City Music Hall and landed a role in The Apple Tree on Broadway in 1967.  She became a familiar face on television and film.

A frightening incident took place here on May 31, 1976.  The building superintendent, Raul Ortiz, discovered two burglars in the basement.  In the subsequent confrontation, one pulled a screwdriver and attempted to stab Ortiz.  The 61-year-old superintendent fired a handgun, wounding Harold Norman in the cheek.  Norman and Gregory Smith were arrested for attempted assault and attempted burglary, while Ortiz was charged with illegal possession of a .38-caliber revolver.

Judith Scott lived here in the 1980s and '90s.  Born in 1937, she formed Dance Incorporated Chicago in 1963 with Gus Giordano.  From 1969 through 1975, she taught modern dance at Barnard College.  While teaching there, she formed the Judith Scott Dance Company.  By the time she moved into 205 West 95th Street, she had turned her attention from modern to aerobic dancing and fitness and wrote books and articles on the subject.

An enterprising resident at the time was Jim Sanford.  A classically trained chef, he began a clam bake business on Martha's Vineyard in 1970, and relocated it to Manhattan in 1980.  He told Claudia Rowe of The New York Times in May 2000, "When I started this, you'd think you could get anything in New York if you had the money.  You could get a pink elephant at 4 in the morning, but you couldn't get an authentic clambake."

Sanford's operation (which included three hours of prep) provided a real New England clambake--lobster, steamed corn, onions, potatoes, chicken, smoked sausage and watermelon--for as many as 1,000 guests.  Rowe explained, "Authentic is the operative word.  Mr. Sanford arrives with his goods packed in rockweed, and everything is steamed under canvas, which is the traditional way."  

Outwardly, little has changed to H. Herbert Lilien's transitional building in 76 years.

photographs by the author

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for suggesting this post

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William J. Merritt's 1889 119 West 95th Street

The dormer originally wore a triangular pediment, as seen in its neighbor to the left.

By the 1880's the former 18th century country estate of Charles Ward Apthorp was crisscrossed with newly-laid streets, and building plots were being rapidly filled with rowhouses.  Architect William J. Merritt, who sometimes acted as his own developer, was especially busy in the area at the time.  In 1888 he designed a row of six brick- and brownstone-clad homes at 111 through 121 West 95th Street for developer Charles Bouton.  Completed the following year, the four-story, American basement homes were patently William J. Merritt in design.

Their rusticated, rough-cut brownstone first floors served as a base for two stories of red brick.   Brownstone quoins framed the paired, centered windows and each peaked, tiled roof was interrupted by a single dormer.  Merritt placed the dormer at 119 West 95th Street slightly to the side, in keeping with the Queen Anne style's affinity for asymmetry.  

119 West 95th Street is behind by the yellow traffic sign in this photo.

Edward R. and Louise M. Sweetser purchased the 16-foot wide house in 1890, "on private terms."  They bought the property as an investment, immediately renting the house to the Rev. Dr. Francis Brown and his wife, the former Louise Reiss.

Brown taught at the Union Theological Seminary, on Park Avenue between 69th and 70th Streets.  The erudite clergyman came from an academic family.  His grandfather, Francis Brown, had been the president of Dartmouth College, and his father, Samuel Gilman Brown had been president of Hamilton College from 1867 to 1881.   Brown graduated from Dartmouth College, then earned his Doctorate of Divinity at Union Theological Seminary.   The same year he moved into the West 95th Street house he was promoted to Davenport Professor of Hebrew and the Cognate Languages at his alma mater.

Brown's scholarly books include Assyriology: Its Use and Abuse in Old Testament Study, and a revision of Gesenius' Lexicon.  His publications would earn him an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from the University of Glasgow, and honorary doctorates from Dartmouth College and Yale University.

The Browns remained in the house until 1903, when the Sweetsers sold it to John L. and Eva B. Edwards.  They, too, purchased the property as an investment, operating it as a boarding house.

Among their first boarders was a struggling actor, 19-year-old Doug Elton Fairbanks.  Years later, on May 11, 1922, The Evening World would recall, "Doug had once signed his name to the payroll of a hardware firm, for which he was acting as a clerk.  That was back in 1903 and at the time Fairbanks was living modestly at No. 119 West 95th Street."  The young man had to live "modestly," since his weekly pay at the hardware store was $5--about $150 today.

Douglas Fairbanks, from the collection of the New York Public Library

Fairbanks worked at the hardware store between acting jobs.  He told a reporter from The Evening World in 1922, "I'm sure no one will remember me as a hardware salesman; that is, if said recollection was prompted by his ability to dispose of hardware."  Douglas Fairbanks, of course, would go on to fame as a swashbuckling silent film actor, screenwriter and director, and a founding member of United Artists.

Typical of the boarders living in the house with Fairbanks was Martha Sherman Taylor.  The young woman's home was in Spring Valley, New York, but she boarded here while studying at Columbia University.

Living here in 1923 was Max Littenberg.  On July 1 that year he went to Long Beach, New York with his well-to-do friend, Morris Goldfarb, a manufacturer of ladies' garments.  For Littenberg, who lived in a furnished room in the West 95th Street house, riding in a chauffeur driven Buick sedan must have seemed a luxury.

Late that night they had almost made it to 95th Street to drop Littenberg off, when tragedy occurred.  On Amsterdam Avenue at 81st Street, the automobile crashed violently into a taxicab driven by Martin P. Rowan.  The Sun and The Globe reported, "The taxicab was hurled against the curb, where it turned turtle."  Martin P. Rowan had been thrown from the cab and was crushed to death when it rolled onto him.

Goldfarb, his chauffeur, and Littenberg "crawled out through one of the smashed windows in the sedan," said the article.  "They were badly shaken up, but refused medical aid."  The chauffeur was arrested on a technical charge of homicide.

Charles Redmond was running the rooming house in 1925.  Among his tenants was 40-year-old Harry Gomprecht.  A few months after moving in, despite listing his occupation as a lawyer, Gomprecht had fallen behind in his room rent.  

On the night of August 23, 1925, Charles Redmond noticed the small of Lysol.  He was understandably concerned, because drinking Lysol was at the time one of the most common means of suicide in the New York City.  He traced the odor to Gomprechts room,  The New York Times reported, "Asked if he had been using it, Gomprecht replied, 'No.'  Redmond, however, summoned an ambulance from Knickerbocker Hospital.  Dr. J. C. Kenney was unable to save the man."  The newspaper said, "Ill health and money difficulties are thought to have been the cause."

Later that year, in November, 119 West 95th Street was offered for sale.  An advertisement succinctly read, "Clean furnished house, 14 rooms, good profit and home."

It continued to be operated as a furnished rooming house, home to working class tenants like Max Koller, a butler.  When his employer, Max Koller, closed his town house and opened his country place in Pelham Manor in April 1935, Koller, of course, went along with the family.  He had Saturdays off, and on April 19 he partied a little too hard.

The Argus reported, "Koller, who is employed as a butler by David Minton, Park Lane, became a bit confused in his directions Sunday morning and wound up beating at the door of E. O. Perrin's house in Manor Circle."  A member of the household called the police, "who found Koller wandering away from the scene.  They booked him on an intoxication charge."

The second half of the 20th century was not kind to the West 95th Street block.  Once home to respectable, middle-class families, it had noticeably declined.  In 1965, the City of New York took over much of Merritt's row as part of an urban renewal scheme intended to clean up the now-derelict homes along the block.

Most of the row was boarded up in 1969 when this photograph was taken.  119 West 95th Street is directly behind the light pole.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

The conditions were reflected in a horrifying incident here in 1966.  On March 17, the Long Island Star-Journal reported, "An unidentified man was found beaten to death in an unoccupied Upper West Side apartment late last night.  Detectives said the man, in his late 50's, was found shortly after 11 P.M. in an unoccupied apartment on the second floor at 119 West 95th street."  It is unclear whether his identity was ever discerned.

Change along the block would come again.  A renovation completed in 2004 resulted in four "class A" apartments in 119 West 95th Street.  And while it seems that little remains of William J. Merritt's interiors, its 1889 outward appearance is greatly intact.

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W. J. Merritt's 1896 123 West 95th Street

 

In the summer of 1886, developer Charles A. Bouton embarked on a project of six rowhouses on West 95th Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.  His choice of architects was interesting.  William J. Merritt & Co. was a prolific developer on the Upper West Side, occasionally acting as its own architect.  When plans were filed on August 6 the architect of record was W. J. Merritt & Co.--normally considered a competitor of Bouton.

Each of the narrow houses--some were 16 feet and the others 17 feet wide--would cost $10,000 to construct, more than a quarter of a million dollars today.  The row was completed in 1887.  Among the 17-foot-wide homes was 123 West 95th Street, a blend of the Romanesque Revival and Renaissance Revival styles.  It shared a stoop (divided by a solid wall) with its neighbor at 125.  The basement and parlor floors of both houses were clad in rough-cut brownstone, their entrances topped with blocky voussoirs.   But there the similarities essentially stopped.

A dramatic, full-height rounded bay rose turret-like to a brick parapet above the dentiled cornice at 123 West 95th.  The windows of the interior hallways of the brick-faced upper floors were noticeably reduced--beginning at about chest height.

Boulton sold the house to Mary V. Terry on March 10, 1888 for $18,000--around $505,000 in today's money--initiating a game of real estate hot potato.  Mary lost it in foreclosure that December.  It was sold at auction to Walter Scott for $14,300, who sold it the following month to Albion L. Warner for $16,000.  

Warner owned four other West 95th Street houses, all of this he leased.  Living here in the 1890's was the family of I. L. Lersner.  A pharmacist, Lersner was prominent among the Jewish community.  He would sit on the sub-committee for the erection of The McKinley Memorial in 1902 to honor the assassinated President.  But he was perhaps best known outside of his druggist work, for translating and publishing the Rules and Regulation of the Paris Universal Exposition of 1878.  

The West 95th Street house was the scene of an important social function on February 12, 1900.  Hannah Leonore Lersner was married to Julius Siegel in the drawing room at noon that day.  "After the ceremony there was a breakfast, followed by a reception," reported the New-York Tribune.  The house was filled with some of the most socially important names in Jewish society, including Schwab, Bachman, and Flesichman.

Albion L. Warner sold 123 West 95th Street in May 1904 to Marcus F. Bender.  Interestingly, he, too, was a pharmacist, having started in the business in the 1860's.  His Chelsea drugstore was at 357 West 14th Street, at the corner of Ninth Avenue.

His purchase of the house may have been prompted by a recent windfall.  The American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record explained that he "inherited a modest fortune from his relatives in Syracuse."

Born in 1849 in Syracuse, New York, Bender had started out working the drugstore of Charles H. Bell, at Bleecker and Charles Street, as a boy.   He and his wife now had two grown children, Lucia H. and Dr. Leach H. Bender.

Bender suffered a fatal stroke in the house on January 28, 1907.  He was only 58 years old.  His will hinted at tensions between him and his son.  The American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record reported that his store, "will be conducted...in the interest of his widow and daughter, for whom he has otherwise provided comfortably."  Nothing concerning Leach was mentioned.

Once again the house saw a rapid turnover of owners.  Three months later it was sold to Charles F. Schorer, who quickly sold it to Josephing I. Harrington, who sold it in May 1908.

By 1913 it was the home of Dr. Alexander Andrade.  In June that year he and his wife looked to take in a roomer.  Their advertisement offered, "Beautifully decorated, three rooms, handsome marble bathroom, kitchen, private residence."

Andrade was born in Colombia, South America.  On Saturday night, January 10, 1914, he attended a meeting of Colombian businessman in the Earlington Hotel.  It resulted in the organization of the Colombian Commercial Club.  The New York Herald reported, "Francisco Escobar, Consul General of Colombia in New York, was urged to accept the presidency of the club, but he declined in favor of Dr. Alexander Andrade, of No. 123 West Ninety-fifth street, who was unanimously elected."

The newspaper added that "a committee was appointed to find a location for the club house."  They did not look far.  In its May 1914 issue, the Bulletin of the Pan American Union reported:

There is now established in New York, at 123 West Ninety-fifth Street, a Colombian Commercial Club, which has for its purpose the bringing about of cooperation and good feeling between the citizens of Colombia and the United States; the free promotion by free instruction of a knowledge of the history, language, and commercial possibilities of those countries; and the maintenance of a library of books, periodicals, newspapers, magazines and other publications relating to the soil, climate natural resources and commercial possibilities of both.

The club was still holding its meetings and lectures in the house as late as 1919.

In the meantime, the Andrades continued leasing the three rooms.  Living with them in 1918 was R. E. Voss.  That year he started a new business, The Voss Alcohol Export Corporation, "to manufacture alcohol, etc."

The residence remained a single-family house until 1977 when it was converted to a total of seven apartments, including a duplex.  That configuration survived until 1996 when a renovation resulted in just four apartments.

photographs by the author

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The 1889 Wm. Henry Putnam House - 39 West 95th Street

 

Architect Walden Pell Anderson normally acted as his own real estate developer, designing and erecting rows of homes, often on the Upper West Side.  In at least one instance, however, he worked with a partner.  On December 22, 1888 the Real Estate Record & Guide noted that he was "preparing plans for four first-class three-story...private dwellings."  The journal said the fronts of the 16-foot-wide homes "will be of Lake Superior red sandstone and Ohio greystone, carved, with Philadelphia brick."  It noted, "They will be built by Henry J. Anderson."  The developer was, perhaps, a relative.

The houses were completed by the fall of 1889, each costing the equivalent of $305,000 today.  Anderson designed them in a quirky mix of Renaissance Revival and Queen Anne styles.  Like its neighbors, 39 West 95th Street featured elliptically arched openings.  The band of rough-cut stone below the second floor contrasted sharply with the formal, neo-classical swags of the cornice and with the tiled mansard attic.

39 West 95th Street is at the left end of the row.

The house was sold in October 1889 to stock broker William Henry Putnam and his wife, the former Elizabeth Ann Green.  Moving in with them was Katherine Sheridan Putnam, the young widow of their son, Dudley Herbert, and their seven-year-old granddaughter, Elizabeth.  

The Putnams and their neighbors had small domestic staffs.  Having a grade-school-aged child required a nurse and on April 20, 1893 the Putnams placed an advertisement in the New York Herald:  "A neat young girl as nurse and chambermaid; one who is willing to go to the seashore for the summer."  That servant would be accompanying the family to their summer residence in Woodland Beach, Staten Island.  

In the winter of 1895, Katherine caught a bad cold, which progressed to pneumonia.  She died at the age of 38 on January 28.  Her funeral was held in the parlor on the West 95th Street house the following evening.  Now orphaned, 14-year-old Elizabeth lived on in the house with her grandparents.

William H. Putnam's name was in the newspapers for a rather undignified reason as the summer season drew to a close in 1900.  The Woodland Beach community abutted Midland Beach.  The New-York Tribune explained that the Midland Beach wharf "is the dividing line between the two properties."

On September 3 the managers of Midland Beach began construction of a lattice fence that cut off access between the two communities.  The newspaper noted that Putnam "represents the owners of the property at Woodland Beach."  He stressed that "the Midland Beach people have no right to build a fence there."

Putnam and other Woodland Beach residents had the six workers arrested for working on Sunday.  "Then about fifteen of the Woodland Beach people, led by W. C. Wilson, C. A. Hoffmeister and W. H. Putnam, and armed with axes and heavy poles, made a sudden descent upon the fence and cut and battered it down."

A counterattack was launched by the Midland Beach forces.  "The warring parties were immediately surrounded by an immense throng of people, who cheered on the belligerents," said the article.  The conflict was not without bloodshed.  "The axes in the hands of the Woodland Beach forces were caught by the Midland Beach men, and in the struggle for their possession the hands of several were slightly cut, and blood was sprinkled about the battleground and upon the clothing of the contestants."

The battle lasted most of the day, with the fence being hastily put up two more times and just as quickly torn down.  The well-to-do brokers and businessmen were finally stopped by police, "who warned the belligerents that any breach of the peace would be followed by immediate arrest."

William died that year at the age of 81.  Two years later, on December 1, 1902, Elizabeth was married to Charles Addison O'Rourke.  

In March 1909 Elizabeth A. Putnam, now 81 years old, sold her home of two decades to real estate operator Emily L. Landon, who quickly resold it to Canadian-born mechanical engineer Richard Henry Thomas and his wife, the former Martha Richter.  The couple had a two-year-old son, Richard, Jr.

Thomas would not enjoy his new home for long.  He died from pneumonia on January 24, 1911 at the age of 43.  In reporting his death, the New-York Tribune called him "a prominent Mason," adding, "In 1902 he was district deputy grand master, and for the last two years had been a trustee of the Masonic Hall and Asylum fund."

Well-to-do Americans routinely traveled to Europe and Martha was no exception.  She and Richard Jr. left New York on June 9, 1914 for Germany, "to spend three months with relatives," according to the Poughkeepsie Eagle-News.  Like hundreds of other travelers, Martha did not anticipate war breaking out.  

A headline in the New York Herald on August 8 read, "Anxiety Grows for Refugees held Within the War Lines."  The article began, "Efforts of relatives and friends on this side to learn the whereabouts of persons abroad increase as time goes on."  In listing dozens of trapped persons, the article noted, "Friends in the Scotch Presbyterian Church are anxious for news of Mrs. Martha H. Thomas, of No. 39 West Ninety-fifth street, and her son, Richard H. Thomas Jr., who are supposed to be in Germany."

Perhaps the most worried was Rev. Dr. David G. Wylie, who had been pastor of the Scotch Presbyterian Church for 24 years.  The Poughkeepsie Eagle-News reported that Martha and her son were "in the Hartz Mountains when the war started and was aided in getting back to this country through Dr. Wylie's appeal to the President and to the newspapers on behalf of stranded Americas.  After several calls on Ambassador [James] Gerard, Mrs. Wylie was able to leave the Continent by way of Rotterdam."

The scare may have accelerated the couple's wedding plans.  They were married in the Hotel Savoy on October 1, 1914.  The Poughkeepsie Eagle-News reported the wedding was "the result, it is said, of a romance, brought about by Mrs. Thomas' little boy.  Young Richard attended the Scotch Church school and Dr. Wylie had occasion to call on Mrs. Thomas in the course of his pastoral duties."

Following their "10,000 mile" wedding trip (all of it domestic, of course), the newlyweds moved into 830 West End Avenue.  The West 95th Street house next became home to George L. Amouroux and his wife, the former Lillian E. Lent.

Amouroux was an architect, engineer and photographer.  What initially seems to be an incongruous combination was, in fact, quite helpful to developers and civic engineers.  When a building or other structure would fail, Amouroux was called in to make drawings and take photographs, which aided in the investigation of the cause of the accident.

In his leisure time George enjoyed rifle shooting.  He was a member of the 7th Regiment Rifle Club and participated in sharp-shooting tournaments.  George died on December 27, 1937.  It is unclear how long Lillian remained on West 95th Street.  She died at the age of 95 in 1960 in Beacon, New York.

That same year 39 West 95th Street was converted to apartments, one per floor.  A subsequent remodeling completed in 1998 returned it to a single family home above a basement apartment.

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The Marion and Mary Verdery House - 131 West 95th Street

 

In the summer of 1886 developer Charles A. Bouton began construction on six rowhouses on West 95th Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.  Almost assuredly he was working together with another real estate development firm, William J. Merritt & Co., which was simultaneously erecting a row directly across the street.  Although Bouton and Merritt were normally considered competitors, Bouton's architect of record for his row was W. J. Merritt & Co.

Completed in the fall of 1887, Bouton's houses were 16- and 17-feet-wide.  Three stories tall with shallow attics and English basements, they were designed in a mirror-image A-B-C-C-B-A pattern.  The B models, which included 131 West 95th Street, were a mixture of Romanesque Revival and Renaissance Revival.  Above the rough cut brownstone basement and parlor levels, the red brick bowed façade was trimmed in dressed brownstone.  A shingled mansard sat above the dentiled cornice.

Marion J. Verdery and his wife, the former Mary Letitia Deems, purchased the house in June 1889 for $16,500--about $473,000 in today's money.  As was common, the title was placed in Mary's name.

Both Marion and his wife (who went by Minnie) were Southerners.  Minnie was the daughter of Rev. Edward M. Deems and Anna Disosway Deems.  The New York Times later explained, that Verdery, "succeeded in winning the heart" of Minnie, "and soon after Dr. Deems came to this city to live Mr. Verdery followed to claim his bride."  They were married in the Church of the Strangers, of which Deems was pastor, in 1872.

Verdery was a stock and bond broker with Latham, Alexander & Co.  He was, as well, the New York correspondent for several Southern newspapers.  The couple had a daughter, Katherine, and a one-year-old son, Marion, Jr.

The Verderys were widely known within society.  A month before moving into the 95th Street house, for instance, they attended the Presidential Ball at the Metropolitan Opera House.  The guests of honor were President Benjamin Harrison and the First Lady, and former President and First Lady Grover and Frances Cleveland.

Minnie's parents lived in the New York Hotel on Broadway.  In 1892 the 73-year-old clergyman was forced to retire because of failing health.  He and Anna were sitting in their rooms on December 28, when he suffered another stroke.  He lost all ability to speak and was paralyzed on his right side.  Rev. Edward M. Deems and Dr. Francis M. Deems, Minnie's brothers, explained in their father's biography in 1897:

After a hurried consultation it was decided to move the patient immediately to No. 131 West Ninety-fifth Street, where resided Mr. Marion J. Verdery, Dr. Deem's son-in-law.  It was a long drive from Waverly Place (Seventh Street) and Broadway to West Ninety-fifth Street, but the most smoothly paved streets and avenues were followed, and he stood the trip wonderfully well.

It may have been Deem's condition and the small staff of nurses and attendants necessary to look after him that prompted the Verderys to look for a larger home.  On February 17, 1893 the family moved "into a commodious home at No. 517 West End Avenue," according to the Deems brothers.  The esteemed clergyman died in the Verdery home on November 19 that year.

The Verderys had sold 131 West 95th Street to Asa Alling Alling and his wife, the former Louise Floyd-Smith, "for about $18,000," according to the Real Estate Record & Guide on January 28.  The price would amount to about $528,000 today.  Alling, a partner in Kennerson, Crain & Alling, was described by The New York Times as "a leading lawyer of New York."

Born in New York in 1862, the 1898 Representative Men of New York said Alling "comes from thorough American stock, his ancestors having been pioneers and founders of one of the oldest families in this country."  Among his first American ancestors was Roger Alling (Allen) who was Treasurer of the Colony of New Haven in 1637.  Louise, whom he married in June 1894, also came from an old American family.  A member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Prominent Families of New York described her as being "of distinguished Colonial and Revolutionary ancestry."

Asa Alling Alling, Representative Men of New York, 1898 (copyright expired)

The Allings' residency would be short lived.  They sold the house a year later, in November 1894, for $200 more than they had paid.  It became home to dry goods merchant Isadore Reinhardt and his wife, the former Mary Simon.

The couple had six grown children.  Matilda and Caroline moved in with their parents, along with Caroline's husband Herman Elsas.  Herman was president of the Continental Paper Bag Company.

A daughter, May Belle Elsas, was born to Caroline and Herman in the house on  June 15, 1897.  The infant would grow up to have a stellar stage career as Mary Ellis--described later by The New York Times as "the young opera singer for whom Rudolph Friml wrote 'Rose-Marie' in 1924 and who later became the queen of musicals in London."

The family bond between the Reinhardts and Elsases was strengthened three months later when Matilda married Herman's brother, Benjamin Elsas, at noon on September 23 in the Red Room of Delmonico's.  

Rather surprisingly, in August 1909 Asa Alling Alling's older brother, Robert Bertine Alling purchased the house.  He had married Annie Gordon Smith in 1900.  The couple would have four children, Jane, Bertine, Nancy and Robert, Jr.  They maintained a country home in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Educated at New York and Cornell Universities, Alling was a well-respected attorney.  The family's name appeared in society columns throughout the years.  On March 13, 1915, for instance, the New York Courier and International Topics reported, "Mrs. Robert B. Alling will entertain the members of the Light Horse Harry Lee Society, Children of the American Revolution, with a card party and dance in her house, 131 West Ninety-fifth street, on the night of April 7."

A rather bizarre episode took place in the parlor in the early 1920's.  The 1924 book My Proof of Immortality included "evidential proof" of the existence of spirits of the dead.  It documented, among others, a séance conducted in the Alling home.  During the ritual Annie Alling's mother and another spirit named "Josie" appeared.  According to the account, Annie's mother and the other spirit "gave the minute detailed descriptions of themselves, their former lives in the bodies, clothes, tastes, personalities, etc."

Robert B. Alling died in the Poughkeepsie home on July 22, 1926.  Annie and the unmarried children remained.  Two years later, in May 1928,  Jane Gordon Alling was married to Carleton D. Farrell  in St. Agnes's Chapel on West 92nd Street.  The New York Times reported, "A reception at the home of the bride's mother, 131 West Ninety-fifth Street, will follow the ceremony."

In 1937 the house was converted to apartments--a duplex in the basement and parlor floors, and two apartments each on the upper floors.  The configuration lasted until 2008 when it was reconverted to a single-family home.  The five-bedroom residence was offered for sale in 2013 for $5 million.

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The 1889 Amzi L. Camp House - 37 West 95th Street

 

photograph by the author

On December 22, 1888 the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that W. P. Anderson was preparing plans for "four first-class three-story" private residences to be built on the north side of 95th Street, just west of Central Park West.  "The fronts will be of Lake Superior red sandstone and Ohio greystone, carved, with Philadelphia, brick."  Three years later Walden Pell Anderson would both design and construct a row of 13 similar houses at block away, on West 94th Street.  In this case, however, the name of Henry J. Anderson, possibly a relative, was listed as developer.

The 16- and 17-foot-wide dwellings were completed within a year.  Anderson designed them in a quirky mix of Renaissance Revival and Queen Anne styles.  On September 27, 1889 the New York Herald announced that Walden P. Anderson had sold 37 West 95th Street to Amzi L. Camp "on private terms."

The parlor level of the Camps' new house was faced in planar stone with slightly projecting bands.  A single elliptically arched window sat above two ornately carved Renaissance Revival panels.  The entrance was topped with a similarly-decorated triangular pediment which overlapped an unexpected frieze of undressed stone.  Beige Roman brick faced the upper floors and the attic level took the form of a clay-tiled mansard.

A winged beast appears in the entranceway pediment and another fearsome creature lurked below the parlor window.

Camp was a partner in the provisions firm of F. Bechstein & Camp on West Street.  He and his wife, Antoinette, had three children, Antoinette L., Frederick A. and Kate Christine.

The family would not stay especially long.  In 1893 Camp purchased the three-story brick house at 556 West End Avenue and in March sold the 95th Street residence to Sarah E. Weight.

Sarah had been widowed for decades.  Her husband, Peter Dwight Weight, had died in 1847 at the age of just 23.   Moving in with her were her adult children, Robert, Christopher, Mary, Catherine, and Elizabeth.

The Weights, who were all single, seem to have lived an unusually reclusive existence.  Only three years after they moved in the first funeral was held in the house.  Robert died in December 1896.   Oddly, the family did not announce his death until the day of his funeral, to which no one was invited.

Sarah died on February 6, 1900 and her funeral, too, was held in the parlor.  It would be only a matter of weeks before the family held another funeral.  

On March 18 Catherine was struck by an electric car.  The 60-year-old died in the J. Hood Wright Hospital the following day.  Astoundingly, The New York Press reported that "money and jewelry worth $15,000 were in a handbag" she carried.  That amount would equal about $471,000 in today's money.  A family member told a reporter, "she carried her money and jewelry with her for fear of thieves."

Following Elizabeth's death in August 1903, Christopher and Mary purchased the house from their mother's estate, splitting the $15,500 cost equally.  (Interestingly, the cost of the property was almost exactly what Catherine had carried in her handbag the night she was run over.)

After his last sibling's death Christopher sold 37 West 95th Street in 1908 to the A. B. C. Realty Company.  If the Weight family had been unusually private, the following occupants were no less so.  No weddings, funerals, engagements or dinner parties at the address appear in the newspapers throughout the subsequent decades.

The Travers family lived here in the World War II years.  They offered three furnished rooms to rent in December 1942, insisting that the tenants be a "Catholic family."  (The roomers were offered kitchen privileges.)

photograph via Landmarkwest.org

After more than 130 years the house is still a single-family home.

photographs by the author

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Horace Edgar Poe Hartwell's 1899 Twins - 6 and 8 West 95th Street

 

Luther Francis Hartwell began dealing in real estate in New York City in the early 1890's.  In 1893 he hired his brother, Horace Edgar Poe Hartwell, to design three 17-foot wide, stone-faced houses at Nos. 4 through 8 West 95th Street.  

Completed in April 1894, the houses were designed in the Renaissance Revival style and lavished with Churrigueresque elements--decorations inspired by Spanish baroque style.  Nos. 6 and 8 were mirror-image (No. 4 was demolished in 1928).  Their side-by-side stoops were flanked by solid wing walls, their cascading forms decorated with foliate carvings.  The entrances were crowned by elaborate baroque panels, pierced by stained glass oculi that announced the street number.  Simple stained glass panels were set into the walls above the parlor windows, which sat above half-round bowls.  Two wreath-framed oculi provided light and ventilation to the attic level.

The upscale amenities of the residences were reflected in Hartwell's advertisement on October 29, 1893 as construction continued.  It described them as "Artistic Boston Houses," and detailed "marble walls, mosaic floors, fine cabinet work, Louis XVI parlors, old English foyer halls, First Empire dining rooms, nothing like them in the market."  The completed houses were offered for sale in April 1894 at $29,000 each--just under $890,000 today.

No. 6 became home to the Homer Dwight Mix family.  Born in 1846 in New York, Mix was described by the New-York Tribune as a "well-known horseman."  He had married Ella A. Frear around 1866.  The couple had a daughter, Anna, who was attending the Normal College when the family moved in.  She graduated in 1896 and stayed on there as a tutor of Latin.

Mix had made a substantial fortune as a private banker upstate, but failing health forced him to retire in 1878.  He moved his family to New York where he became interested in horses and was a major proponent of the Harlem River Speedway.  He owned the valuable and well-known thoroughbreds Ando and Silk Lace, among others.

On the rainy night of May 15, 1900 a "gray haired, shabbily dressed woman," as described by the New-York Tribune, rang the bell.  She was shown into the parlor where she told Homer that she wanted to see Anna.  Mix went upstairs to get his daughter, but when Anna came down the old woman was gone.  "Miss Mix immediately discovered the loss of a silver bonbon dish and a silver spoon," said the article.  She called her father who ran into the street after the woman.

Mix overtook her on the stairs of the elevated train at 93rd Street.  As Policeman Phelan headed to the West 100th Street station with her, she tried to throw the bonbon dish into a sewer, but Phelan was too fast for her.  The New-York Tribune added, "The silver spoon was found in her possession also."  The woman, Helen Martin, who described herself as an authoress, was locked up on a charge of larceny.

On February 1, 1903 Mix died in the 95th Street house.  His funeral was held in Binghamton, New York three days later.  Ella received the bulk of his estate, including the house.

Anna's period of mourning was barely over when she married lawyer Clayton R. Lusk on June 23, 1904.  The groom was a partner in the law firm of David & Lusk.

In the meantime, the house next door was the home of former police inspector Alexander S. Williams--one of the most colorful figures in New York police history.  He would later be described by The New York Times as having "received more public attention than any other man on the force."

Born in Nova Scotia in 1839, he had come to New York as a boy and joined the police force in 1866.  Transferred to the gangster-ridden 21st Precinct in 1868, he quickly earned the nickname "Clubber" Williams.  According to station house lore, on this third day in the precinct and fed up with the openly criminal behavior of the Gas House Gang, he purposely picked a fight with two thugs and clubbed them mercilessly with his baton. When other hoodlums tried to rescue their comrades, he pummeled them, too.

Supposedly over the next four years Williams engaged in at least one bloody confrontation per day in his efforts to clean up the neighborhood.  He was said to have tossed toughs through the window of the Florence Saloon and had the trademark philosophy that "there is more law in the end of a policeman's night stick than a Supreme Court decision."

By 1874 Williams had risen to captain.  Trouble had come that year when Police Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo convened the Lexow Committee in 1874 to investigate evidence of Williams accepting money and gifts from brothel owners and gamblers.  One madam testified that she paid $30,000 every year to the captain for protection.  Other women with lesser operations told of $500 fees to open a brothel and between $25 to $50 per house thereafter.  Pool rooms paid as much as $300 and high class gambling houses paid more.  Williams was partial owner in a brand of whiskey that saloons were forced to sell.

Harper's Monthly Magazine, March 1887 (copyright expired)

Amazingly, Williams had held onto his job until 1895 when Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt demanded his resignation.  He retired with $1 million in the bank, a yacht moored at his $39,000 private dock, a summer estate in Cos Cob, Connecticut and, now, a townhouse in a fashionable neighborhood.  (He explained that his fortune came from investing in Japanese real estate.)  

He and his wife had two grown sons, Alexander, Jr. who was in the United States Marine Corps., and William H., who worked in the Customs Service.

Williams took advantage of the family's being at Cos Cob in the summer of 1900 to have work done inside the 95th Street house.  The rooms were repainted and redecorated.  The New York Times mentioned on August 9, "When the house was boarded up for the Summer early in July no one thought of turning the water off."

Something seemed wrong to one of the Mix's female servants in the first week of August.  The New York Times reported she told Ella "I don't know what it is.  It ain't burglars nor anything like that, but somehow I feel as if the ceilings were caving in.  I can't explain it.  It's just a presentiment."

When police entered the Williams house, they found a leaking pipe had created severe damage.  "The ceiling of the dining room, which is situated below the bathroom, had fallen in and the floor was covered with laths, plaster, and water.  The tapestries on the walls were soaking wet and had fallen down in portions, while almost all the furniture in the room had been disfigured by the falling plaster."  Williams rushed back and estimated the damages at $471,000 by today's standards.

On March 10, 1903, a month after Homer Mix died next door, The Sun reported, "Mrs. Alexander S. Williams whose husband is the former police inspector, found a three-weeks-old girl baby in the vestibule of her house at 8 West Ninety-fifth street last night.  The baby was sent to Bellevue."  

Later that year the family received a scare.  On August 19 The Sun reported "Ex-Police Alexander S. Williams has been ill for several days with malaria."  He rallied and fully recovered.

That would not be the case in March 1917 when The Sun entitled an article "Former Tenderloin Czar Slowly Dying / Alexander S. Williams, Once Police Inspector, Has No Chance to Live."  The article said, "It was said...last night that he might live until morning, that he might live five hours or five days, but that his death plainly is in sight."

He died on March 25.  In reporting his death the newspapers, of course, recounted his colorful past.  The New York Times noted, "During his turbulent career he won the nickname of 'Clubber.'  He was also called 'the Czar of the Tenderloin."  His funeral was held in the 95th Street house on March 27.

Even in death Alexander Williams managed to beat the system.  On January 30, 1918 the New-York Tribune reported that he left a traceable net estate of $13.49.  "He was believed to have a comfortable fortune when he retired," it said.   

The Williams' next-door neighbors at the time were Dr. John Grant Coyle and his wife, the former Catherine Lennan.  They had purchased No. 6 from Ella Mix the previous year.  Born in Boston in 1868, Coyle had practiced medicine since 1891.  He was a historian, as well, and wrote The Irish in the United States; Captain John Barry, Father of the United States Navy; and General James Shields, Senator From Three States.

In 1899 he had become associated with Rose Hawthorne Lathrope, daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who had established a home for incurable cancer patients in Hawthorne, New York.  Despite its Westchester County location, he served as its physician until his death.

A year after moving into the 95th Street house the 50-year old doctor proved his spryness when Thomas Duffy picked his pocket on the Eighth Avenue streetcar.  On August 11 the New York Herald reported, "Through his prowess as a runner and his agility as an athlete...Dr. Coyle got back a purse containing $22 in cash and a certified cheque for $350."

In 1920 Coyle was made State Deputy of the Knights of Columbus.  Through that position he was largely responsible for founding 36 college scholarships for Catholic youths.

In the spring of 1931 Coyle underwent an appendicitis operation.  Afterward he contracted peritonitis and died in the Misericordia Hospital on April 22.  Following Catherine's sale of the house, it was converted to apartments--one in the basement and two each on the upper floors--in 1948.

Artists Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Weil took an apartment in 1950.  It doubled as their studio.

Rauschenberg and Weil in their apartment here in 1951.  from the LIFE Picture Collection

No. 8 survived as a private house until 1955 when it was converted to five apartments.  That configuration lasted until 1998 when it was returned to a single-family residence above a basement apartment.  No. 6 underwent a renovation completed in 1986 which resulted in a triplex in the basement through second floor, and two apartments on the third.

photographs by the author

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