The Lost Charles T. Yerkes Mansion - No. 864 Fifth Avenue

photo from the Auction Catalogue of Collection of Charles T. Yerkes, New York, 1910 (copyright expired)

When Charles Tyson Yerkes decided to leave Chicago for New York City in 1895 he had everything he wanted—a staggering fortune and successful career as a financier and street railroad titan.  Three years earlier he had donated nearly $300,000 to the University of Chicago to build the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin which included the world’s largest telescope.  The only thing he could not achieve was acceptance into high society.

Charles Tyson Yerkes -- Catalogue of paintings and sculpture in the collection of Charles T. Yerkes, New York, 1904 (copyright expired)

Yerkes had started out in the brokerage business in Philadelphia, where he also began developing traction and street railways.  As his fortune increased, the married Yerkes noticed the 16-year old Mary Adelaide Moore.  Mary, called Mollie by her friends, was one of nine children of a chemist and before long was Yerkes’ mistress.

Charles Yerkes was more ambitious than scrupulous and in 1871 was sent to prison for embezzling $400,000 in city money.   His teen-aged mistress faithfully visited him there, earning her the nickname “prison angel” by the prison officials.  Yerkes discovered upon his release that both his and Mary’s reputations among society were irreparably ruined—he was seen as a scoundrel, she as a home wrecker.

He divorced his wife and in 1880 took Mary to Chicago where they married.   Mary failed utterly as a hostess, partly because of Yerkes’ merciless business tactics.  By 1896 when the Yerkes New York mansion was nearing completion at No. 864 Fifth Avenue the robber baron had taken a new teenaged sweetheart.  Emilie Grigsby was exactly the age that Mary had been when he met her—just sixteen.  When Yerkes and his wife moved to New York, Emilie would not be far behind.

The mansion on Fifth Avenue was called by a Chicago newspaper “a palace.”  Designed by R. H. Robertson, the brownstone pile rose five stories and stretched 100 feet along Fifth Avenue—four times the width of an average rowhouse—and 153 feet along 68^th Street.   The Yerkes mansion announced that he and Mary had arrived.   The house was called “not only one of the handsomest in New York, but it is one of the most extensive.”

The house next door and the lot behind the mansion would become art galleries--photograph by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York -- http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GG3PPFF&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=603

The outer entrance doors were framed in bronze and the inner doors were platinum-plated bronze.   Upon entering the vestibule, the visitor was surrounded in marble of various shades and colors.  The walls were clad in polished red marble.  Pilasters separated panels of different colored marble, the floor was inlaid black and sienna marble and even the ceiling was marble in “a richly coffered design.”

The two-story entrance hall, like the vestibule, was completely constructed of marble.  “Just beyond the door are two columns with pilasters of rich purple marble, with Ionic capitals of white marble and bases of Istrian marble,” as described by Barr Ferre later.   Yerkes apparently felt that marble was reflective of success and taste and even the Drawing Room was clad in the stone.  “The walls, from floor to ceiling, are wholly encased in Cipollino marble,” said Ferre.

The entrance hall.  Mary Yerkes would address reporters from the second floor here in 1905 --Auction Catalogue of Collection of Charles T. Yerkes, New York, 1910 (copyright expired)

The grand marble staircase rose to the second floor loggia and “serves as a monumental approach to the Italian Palm Garden,” wrote Ferre.  “It is a spacious and delightful place, having the true character of an indoor, or winter garden…All of this interior is of white marble, save the cornice, which is copper.”

As with most lavish homes of the 1890's the Yerkes mansion held period rooms.  The music room was Louis XV in style with frescos by Will H. Low.  The dining room was Elizabethan with highly-carved quartered oak walls and a vaulted ceiling.  There was an East Indian Room, an Empire Room, and a Japanese Room—a near requirement of the time.  The library was finished with antique 16^th century paneling.  

The main bedrooms, dressing rooms and bathrooms on the second floor were sumptuous.   The fireplace of the Charles’ bedroom was black onyx and the “adjoining Dressing-Room is trimmed with rosewood and has a gold-leaf frieze and ceiling.  His bed had once belonged to King Ludwig of Bavaria and sat upon a dais with two steps covered in green velvet.  The Bathroom has a polished marble floor and wainscot, above which is a gold frieze and ceiling with a silver cornice.  The bathtub and basin are of marble and a shower is enclosed within a marble screen.” 

Mary’s oval boudoir was pronounced “one of the most charming [rooms] in the Mansion.”   Her bed had belonged to King Leopold of Belgium.

Below ground were the billiard room, a bathroom for guests, and the wine cellar.  The walls of the billiard room were covered in leather with patterns formed by brass-headed nails.

Although he had failed in Philadelphia and Chicago, Yerkes attempted to push his way into New York society.  He dressed Mary in the most expensive fashions and jewels.  But again she fell short.   Wealthy New Yorkers already knew of their reputations and Mary’s heavy drinking and clumsy manners added to the problem.   She made public scenes, once interrupting a play by loudly announcing that the “Lady Teazle” on stage was incorrect—the actress was wearing pink whereas a portrait in her husband’s collection proved that Lady Teazle wore yellow.

Mary’s fury over her husband’s flagrant affair with Emilie Grigsby intensified when he built her a magnificent Park Avenue mansion not far away.   The younger woman was banned from the Fifth Avenue house where Mary more-and-more lived in isolation.  According to The Evening World, “Mrs. Yerkes barred her doors to Miss Grigsby the moment she discovered the truth, and the estrangement of husband and wife dated from that moment, although to the outer world they continued to appear as before.”

While Mary drank and sulked, her husband collected.   The house filled with irreplaceable artwork and statuary as he spent freely at the auction houses of Europe.  The valuable items in the mansion were tempting targets for accomplished sneak thieves.   One of them was the cultured and educated Elijah C. Harvey.

The New York Times described Harvey on May 12, 1899 as “a mulatto, thirty years old, who is a graduate of an educational institute at Andover, Mass., and who afterward studied for the ministry.”    As spring weather that year induced housekeepers to open mansion windows, Harvey took advantage of the opportunity.  He would brazenly climb the brownstone stoops and enter the homes through the windows.  On the morning of May 3 it was the Yerkes parlor he entered.

For months the East 67^th Street Police Station had been receiving complaints from residents of “a burglar who was making extensive depredations,” said The Times.  Just two days before the Yerkes break-in, the night watchman at the George Crocker mansion at 64^th Street and 5^th Avenue had nearly captured the crook.

Now this morning housekeeper Mrs. Margaret Fitzpatrick walked into the Yerkes parlor just in time to see Harvey slipping out the window with a silver basket valued at $1,000.  The openwork basket was easily identifiable; on one side was Mary’s monogram and on the bottom her full name: Mary Adelaide Yerkes.

Two days later when Harvey was detained by Policeman Cornelius Glynn, the burglar put on his best cultured act.  “Is it not possible for you to be mistaken in your identification?  I never committed a felonious act in my life,” he said.  “I protest against this outrage.  You must have something more than mere surmise on which to take me into custody.”

When that tactic did not seem to be working, Harvey pulled a razor and lunged at the officer.  He was arrested and among the pawn tickets in his pockets was one for the silver basket which he pawned for $30.  “Nearly all the articles were pawned in the name of Yerkes,” reported The Times.

Even though Charles and Mary were essentially estranged—he spent most of his time in hotels—he kept her in high style.  When Emily Grigsby acquired a new Columbia Hanson automobile in 1903, Mary got a custom vehicle.  “One of the handsomest of the electrics ever built is the special Victoria, owned by Mrs. Charles T. Yerkes, of No. 864 Fifth Avenue,” said Automobile Topics.

By 1904 Yerkes’ art collection had become so great that it required a separate building.    The millionaire purchased the mansion next door at No. 860 Fifth Avenue and filed plans to convert it to a gallery.  On April 21 The New York Times reported that “The house will be converted into a one-story building, 40 feet front, 100 feet deep, and 41-1/2 feet high, with a façade of carved brownstone and brick.  The interior is to be finished in carved marble, decorated with ornamental columns to harmonize with the Winter garden which it will adjoin.  It is to have ornamental doorway opening into the present picture gallery.”

Two art gallery annexes, one to the rear on 68th Street, and one replacing the mansion next door at No. 860 held Yerkes' massive collection -- photo Library of Congress

Architect Henry Ives Cobb designed the annex which cost $20,000—or about $425,000.  Shortly thereafter a second gallery was added to the rear of the mansion on 68^th Street, also designed by Cobb.

The gallery was a virtual museum -- Auction Catalogue of Collection of Charles T. Yerkes, New York, 1910 (copyright expired)

Yerkes would not enjoy his new art galleries for long.   Before the 68-year old traveled to London in 1905 with Emilie Grigsby he discovered that Mary had found a paramour—a 29-year old fortune hunter named Wilson Mizner.  Prior to his voyage, Yerkes pressured Mary for a divorce and tried to get her to leave the mansion, threatening to leave her out of his will.  She refused but was left seriously concerned about her security.

While in London Yerkes became seriously ill.  Emilie nursed him for five weeks until he was well enough to sail home.  In the meantime, Mary did some snooping.   Later, in 1909, The Federal Reporter would say “In October, 1905, when Mr. Yerkes was in London, Mrs. Yerkes had his safe in 864 Fifth avenue, the combination of which was known only to Mr. Yerkes…drilled open, and she found in it, among other things…a bill of sale dated Mary 24, 1896, assigning to her ‘her executors, administrators and assigns, all and singular the furniture and household goods together with each and every painting and picture now contained in the house, No. 864 Fifth avenue.”

As long as Charles Yerkes died before he had a chance to change the will, Mary was in good shape.

Yerkes arrived in New York in November and went directly from the steamer to the Waldorf-Astoria.   Had he gone home, he would have found that Wilson Mizner was living in his mansion.  Instead, doctors and nurses crowded into his suite in the hotel and tried to save him.  Rather than asking to see Mary, he repeatedly called for Emilie.  The beautiful young mistress stayed by his side, in obvious despair, while doctors advised “against the visit of Mrs. Yerkes,” according to newspapers.

He died on December 29, 1905 with Mary and her sister in an adjoining room.  Mary briefly considered going into the room to reconcile; then told her sister “It is too late now,” and after his death commented “I think I did right.  He treated me shamefully.”

Charles T. Yerkes’ body was removed from the Waldorf-Astoria in a wicker basket and taken to the mansion on Fifth Avenue where it was transferred into a rich wooden casket.  Mary had the house protected by a team of detectives to keep unwanted interlopers—presumably including Emilie Grigsby—away from the funeral.   Roundsman Sheehan told reporters “We have orders to shoot any one who tries to go up those steps.  And we’ll carry out orders.”

Yerkes's coffin, draped in black velvet and dripping with purple orchids, was carried down the brownstone steps to the hearse by six detectives.  The Evening World reported “Only six carriages followed the hearse, and neither Miss Emilie Grigsby nor any member of her family was in the cortege.”

New York society waited to hear if Emilie would be beneficiary to any of Yerkes’s millions.   But he had died before he had time to change his will and on January 3, 1906 the terms were publicized.  The will, according to The Ottowa Free Trader on January 5, “leaves practically all the vast estate, estimated at $15,000,000, to Mrs. Yerkes and the two children for their life use…After the death of Mrs. Yerkes the family home and its magnificent art collection, supported by an endowment of $750,000, becomes a public gallery.”

The newspaper added “Whatever provision was made for Miss Grigsby…if any, evidently was made by gift before the magnate’s death.  It is reported that Mr. Yerkes, only a few days before his death, gave Miss Grigsby a check for something like $250,000, which was dated ahead, and therefore is worthless, as the magnate died before the date of the check.”

Emilie Grigsby, however, had nothing to worry about financially.  Charles T. Yerkes had left her quite well taken care of.

If Mary Yerkes still had any aspirations of social climbing, they were dashed when the newspapers reported of her marriage to Wilson Mizner less than a month after her husband’s death.    On February 1, 1906 The New York Times said “Mrs. Mary Adelaide Yerkes, the widow of Charles T. Yerkes, and Wilson Mizner were married at the home of Mrs. Yerkes at 864 Fifth Avenue, at 8:30 o’clock on Tuesday evening.”  The newspaper added “Mrs. Mizner is 45 years old.  Mr. Mizner is not yet 30.”

The Times shocked proper readers by saying “Wilson Mizner has been in town for several weeks.  He has bene stopping at the Hotel Astor, and has received many telephone messages from Mrs. Yerkes.  Immediately after the receipt of every message Mr. Mizner went in a cab to the Yerkes residence.”

Mary quickly denied the story until it was no longer of any use.  On February 3 The Sun said “Mrs. Mary Adelaide Yerkes-Mizner owned up yesterday.  Yodled to on the white marble balcony of her house at 864 Fifth avenue by young Wilson Mizner of California, Alaska and elsewhere, she admitted she had fibbed from dread of premature and unpleasant publicity.”

Mizner had promised reporters that morning that his wife would see them.  “In front of the Yerkes mansion at 864 Fifth avenue there were more reporters,” said The Sun.  “The newcomers piled out of their rigs and banked up around the bridegroom, who towered above them.”

Mizner spoke in a street dialect normally unheard on refined Fifth Avenue.  “I am going in to see my wife.  You’ll hear something in fifteen minutes.  That’s on the square.  You can take it from me.”

When the butler begrudgingly admitted the horde of reporters into the Japanese Room, Wilson addressed them.  “Mrs. Mizner doesn’t exactly care to make a formal statement about our marriage, but she does want to let all her fiends know that the marriage took place just as I have said…Now, fellows, just step this way and Mrs. Yerkes herself will appear and confirm the marriage.”

Mary finally appeared on the marble balcony above the reporters.  She wore a silk kimono, apologized for the “miscommunication,” and said she was happy she had married.  “I hope you will all get married, too, if you are not already,” she said.  And then she excused herself.

Mizner told reporters “I suppose some of Mrs. Mizner’s relatives are sore, but you can bet your last dollar Mrs. Mizner is happy.”

Before long it was Mary, more than her relatives, who was sore.  She realized that Mizner was only after her millions and shortly after the wedding she told a reporter “Just another idol shattered.  That’s what all this money has done for me.  Robbed me of all my real friends, made me doubt them all, suspect and fear them.”  She divorced Wilson Mizner in May 1907 and arranged to take back the name Yerkes.

Even with Wilson Mizner out of the house, Mary’s life did not get easier.    Days after the divorce, Joseph D. Redding appeared.  Redding was the lawyer Mary had hired in 1904 when her financial security seemed tenuous.  The lawyer was retained to “obtain for her a share of the property of Yerkes including a share of his bonds, stocks, and all securities.”  He claimed she agreed to give him twenty percent of whatever she received.  Then, the day following Charles Yerkes’ death, he received a letter from Mary dismissing him.   Redding now brought suit against her for his twenty per-cent commission.

Her troubles continued.  Within a month she was riding down Jerome Avenue in her automobile with two other women “when the party ran foul of Policeman Silverbaur,” reported The Sun on June 10.  Mary’s chauffeur, Edward Roshing, was arrested for speeding despite her protesting that they were indeed not going fast.  In order to get home Mary gave her house as security so her chauffeur could be released.

On June 25, 1908 Mary was once again riding in her car chauffeured by Roshing.  Also in the automobile were Catherine Manack and Mary A. Fitzpatrick and Mary’s footman.  As the car entered Washington Square Park from West 4^th Street, 11-year old Dominick Pasquale ran in front of it.

Little Dominick was struck and the footman, Edward Hurley, grabbed the boy in his arms.  “Mrs. Yerkes threw open the door of the tonneau, and, reaching her arms out to the lad, said to the foorman: ‘Give him to me and then drive to St. Vincent’s Hospital,’” reported The Times.  On the way to the hospital Mary comforted the boy “with promises of baseballs and bats and all sorts of other things if he would only be brave and try not to cry.”

At the hospital it was determined that the boy had severe internal injuries.   Mary asked the physician to “do everything in his power for the boy.”

Once again Edward Roshing found himself under arrest and, once again, Mary Yerkes was without a ride home.  She asked Lt. Noble to send a policeman with her chauffeur so he might drive her home before being arrested.  Despite her pleas, she was compelled to send to a nearby garage to hire a driver to take her home in her car.

Mary’s greatest problems were to come.   The will was contested.  Later The New York Times explained “When a division of the estate was attempted, the widow maintained that the Fifth Avenue house and the art collection was her property under deeds of assignment made by her husband.  This was not upheld by the probate courts of Cook County, Illinois, where Yerkes had his residence.”   Mary was forced to give up the Fifth Avenue mansion and the art collection, all of which was sold at auction.

An advertisement in the New-York Tribune on February 20, 1910 listed part of the “very important collection of exceedingly valuable ancient and modern paintings.”  Included were works of art by Rodin, Houdon, Falconet, Boucher and Van Loo.   Antiques included Renaissance and Flemish tapestries, Persian rugs of the 15^th and 16^th centuries and paintings of the great masters.  There were four Rembrandts, four works by Franz Hals, and paintings by Boucher, Breughel, Holbein, Raphael, Rubens Watteau and many others.

The auction lasted for days and newspapers reported the staggering amounts paid for rare items.   A sword owned by Oliver Cromwell and dated 1650 sold for $1,500.  A life-sized bronze sculpture of Diana by Houdon brought $51,000; two Carrara marble sculptures by Rodin were purchased by an anonymous donor as gifts to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

If Manhattan’s elite never passed through the Yerkes doorways for social functions, they did for the sale.  Among the buyers were Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Mrs. Cooper Hewitt, Seth Milliken, Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney, Mrs. Herman Oelrichs, and Mrs. Samuel Untermyer.

Charles T. Yerkes fabulous mansion became home to Louis Terah Haggin.  Haggin had started out life as a lawyer; but with the death of his father in 1914 he took over the presidency of the Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation.   Of his father’s $20 million estate, Haggin had inherited nearly $4 million, which was quickly increased with the directorships in other companies he took over from his father.

The widowed executive lived alone in the massive mansion with his staff of servants.  His daughter, Eila, who was married to Robert Tittle McKee, lived nearby at No. 136 East 79^th Street.   A tireless worker, he was still going routinely to his office in 1929 at the age of 81.

In the middle of March that year, however, Haggin contracted pneumonia.  He was confined to his bed in the mansion for ten days until he died there on March 26.

Prior to July 1937 the Yerkes mansion and galleries had become a garden to Thomas Fortune Ryan's home -- photo NYPL Collection

On December 13, 1925 The New York Times reported that neighbor Thomas Fortune Ryan had purchased the house and galleries for $1.1 million.  The buildings, it reported, were "to be torn down to enlarge the flower garden of Thomas Fortune Ryan...which will probably be the most valuable garden site in the world."   In July 1937 a modern apartment building was erected on the site.

photo by Alice Lum

No. 3 Washington Square North

For nearly a century some of America's most famous artists passed through the doors of No. 3 -- photo by Alice Lum

In the mid-19^th century, the problem of unwanted babies born to unwed mothers was a serious problem.  The stigma surrounding a bastard birth often resulted in infants being abandoned on the steps of churches of orphanages, or worse, simply discarded.  Dr. Parry told the Social Science Association in 1871 “The mothers become outcasts from society if their indiscretion is made public, so that but one of two courses is left for them to pursue—to rid themselves of the burden by criminal means, or to abandon it.”

The death rate of the foundlings in New York at the time was around 78 percent.  However the New-York Tribune maintained on May 13 of that year “Death, however, is not the saddest fate awaiting these wretched ‘step-children of Nature.’  The hereditary taint touches soul as well as body.  A bastard child implies not only vice in the past, but hints too often at vice to come.”

To address the problem, at least in part, the Sisters of Charity established the New York Foundling Hospital on October 11, 1869.  On that same night a baby was left at the doorstep of their temporary home on East 12^th Street.   Within two months they had taken in 123 unwanted babies and on January 1, 1870 they took over the former mansion of J. Thorne at No. 3 Washington Square North.

The house was one of a row of elegant Federal style mansions that ringed the fashionable park.  The nuns’ tireless work was admired by most; however some Victorian matrons felt that harboring the spawn of illicit intercourse a bad idea.   Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose told a meeting of the Sorosis that she felt foundling hospitals “would tend to increase the crime.”

The Sun quoted her as saying “The evil would never be remedied until men were punished as well as women.  Women were ostracized, deprived of every hope for the future, while man, the enticer, seducer, the perpetrator of the crime, held up his head as high as ever, and was to be met the same as before in the church, the state, and worse yet, in the drawing rooms.”

Despite some backlash, the Foundling Hospital thrived and in 1873 moved to larger quarters on East 68^th Street.  The nuns’ departure was the first step in what would be the end of the aging mansion on the still-fashionable Washington Square.  Greenwich Village was quickly becoming the artist colony of New York.  The nearby 10^th Street Studios Building had been constructed in 1858 solely to provide housing and proper studio space for artists.

In 1884 the mansion and its stable directly behind were demolished and a studio building erected.   Completed the following year, the four-story, red brick building generally followed the contemporary apartment building plan.  A traditional stoop rose above a deep basement rose to the offset entrance that led to the stairway hall.  Floor-to- ceiling windows allowed ample natural light to flood the spaces.  Brownstone and terra cotta trim embellished the façade.  The extra height of the openings resulted in the studio building rising a bit higher than its venerable neighbors.

Large windows allowed ample natural light into the studios -- photo by Alice Lum

Rooms on a lower floor were taken as the clubhouse of the newly-formed Canadian Club.  In 1885 it advertised “The Canadian Club desires all Canadians in New-York to send their names and addresses to its rooms at No. 3 North Washington-square.”   The New York Times called the rooms “very pleasant quarters” and noted on June 28, 1885 they “are not being furnished by Herts Brothers.  The club has enrolled nearly all of the prominent Canadians residing in New-York.”   The opening dinner was held on July 1 of that year but, unfortunately, Herts Brothers was apparently late in delivery and there was no furniture.  “A few temporary decorations were put up in the large parlor last night, and two long tables were set for about 80 persons,” said The New York Times.

The studio building rose slightly above the old mansions -- photo Bryon Company from the Collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHBSDF7&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

In the meantime the building filled with some of the city’s most esteemed artists.  In 1886 Lyell Car, who studied in l’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris was here, along with Will H. Low, Walter Shirlaw and Abbott Handerson Thayer.  Shirlaw would remain in the building through the turn of the century.

Dennis Miller Bunker took the stop floor studio in 1889.  Among the works he painted here was his acclaimed “Jessica.”  He described his new living and working quarters as “a funny little hole” that was “perched way up like a pigeon-house.” Other artists in the building at the time included Thomas Dewing and Charles A. Platt.

By 1893 Mary E. Tillinghast lived and worked here.  The financially-comfortable stained glass artist and decorator hired Hugo Cedarberg in 1892 as her bookkeeper.  The 28-year old accountant, whom The New York Times described as “a Swede,” gained Tillinghast’s “most implicit confidence.”

Her confidence was shaken when she looked over her canceled checks in March 1893.  She did not remember signing a few and took a trip to her bank on Fifth Avenue and 44^th Street.   Mary Tillinghast and the bank president, A. D. Frizzel, examined over her account and found $1,200 worth of checks made out to Cedarberg and endorsed by him.  The forgery would amount to about $25,000 today.

The Swedish bookkeeper was arrested and he explained his crimes.  Some of the money had been used “for purchases made in fitting up a good style his bachelor quarters in West Fifty-seventh Street,” said The New York Times.  “A good part of the money had been absorbed by a young woman named Nellie Audley, the rent of whose flat at 101 West Thirty-eighth Street he had been paying for some months.  He had also presented this young woman with a diamond pin, for which he paid $150.”

Mary took greater care in watching her bank books and continued with her art.   That same year she received a gold medal at the Chicago Exposition, and two years later earned a bronze medal at the Cotton States Exposition.  By the time she died in her studio here in 1912 it was reported “there is hardly a large city in the United States which does not own some specimen of her craft.”

While architecturally up-to-date in most respects, the building was not heated.  The artists worked in spaces warmed only by cast iron stoves and they lugged hods of coal from the basement level up to their studios.  While Mary Tillinghast worked on stained glass windows, other artists products oils, water colors and sculptures.

In October 1899 Florian Peixxoto completed a large work depicting the landing of Christopher Columbus for the new Columbian Theatre in Cincinnati.  The artist completed the 30 by 10 foot canvas in less than a month, causing The New York Times to call it “a feat hardly less remarkable than that of Millais when he painted his first Pre-Raphaelite picture.”

Sculptor and painter Benjamin C. Porter moved in just after the turn of the century, as did Frank Wilbert Stokes.    By the time he moved in in 1902, Stokes was widely known for having accompanied Admiral Peary on his Arctic exploration expeditions in 1892 and 1893.  In 1901 through 1902 he joined the expedition of Dr. Otto Nordenskjold to the Antarctic.  While on these trips, he produced dozens of canvases of the aurora borealis, icebergs, arctic animals and Eskimo life with titles like Blueberg, Aurora Australis, The Great Inland Ice, and The Draed and Spiral Form of Aurora.

In 1909 Stokes would complete a series of murals of the Arctic in day and night and of the life of the Eskimos of Smith Sound for the American Museum of Natural History.

As World War I erupted in Europe, other artists established their studios here; among them were Mary Foote, Walter Ernest Tittle, and the new-comer Edward Hopper, who took the sky-lit top floor studio that Bunker had called his “funny little hole.”  In 1918 the virtually unknown Hopper entered The Sun’s “Ship Poster Competition” and won the $300 first prize by unanimous consent.  The anti-German poster titled “Smash the Hun” depicted an American factory worker welding a heavy sledge hammer against upturned bayonets.  The Sun called it “Strong, direct, easy to comprehend and easy to remember.  It gives its message in true poster style.”



Hopper's propaganda poster won first prize --photo http://www.museumsyndicate.com/images/1/9426.jpg

A student of Robert Henri of the Ashcan School, Hopper had sold only one other work to date.  It would be another five years before he sold his second painting when the Brooklyn Museum bought one in 1923.  This was the break that set Edward Hopper on the road to artistic fame.  Eventually fifty-five museums would own his paintings, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney, the Chicago Art Institute, the Boston, Philips Memorial Gallery, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Terra cotta and stone trim provide the facade's restrained ornamentation -- photo by Alice Lum

 

By now the Washington Square neighborhood had changed.  The wide mansions were broken up into apartments, or razed for modern buildings.  Frank Stokes complained to The Evening World on July 19, 1920, “The new art set of the Village, with their bizarre tea rooms, advanced art and letters, have seized upon the place.  As a result the would-be Bohemians have been attracted to the Quarter for ‘its atmosphere’ and real artists are being crowded out.”

Stokes and Hopper, however, had no intention of being crowded out and hung firmly on to their still-primitive studios.  Decades later, in 1955, The New York Times would say “In his top-floor studio, warmed by a pot-bellied stove for which Mr. Hopper lugs coal from the basement, he works long over each picture.  He rarely turns out more than three oils a year.”

But the artists’ studios were threatened earlier when in 1946 New York University purchased the building.   The school was flooded with former GI's home from the war and additional space was direly needed.  The university told reporters that when leases were up, “the space will help relieve congestion from the record enrollment of 38,500 students.”

Faced with eviction, the artists dug in.  On February 4, 1947 The New York Times defined the “battle lines” with New York University on the offensive “bursting with 12,000 GI students” against “the tenants at No. 3, whose lofty, chilly halls have long been cherished by artists, poets and others who don’t mind a bit of discomfort if the atmosphere is right.”

Artist Josephine Barry sketched the building, in 1947, when its fate was threatened by NYU -- from the Collection of the Museum of the City of New York, http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHBSDF7&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894&PN=5#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHBSDF7&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894&PN=5

The university stood its ground, intent on eviction.  But the artists were equally committed.  “But we’d always been led to believe we could stay here always,” portrait artist Jane Gray told reporters.  “Walter Pach, who once taught fine arts at N.Y.U., lives here, and Edward Hopper, and F. W. Stokes, who was the artist with Peary in the Arctic.

“We can’t just slink out—even if there were other places to be had with such good lighting.  We’re going to fight, and if we must go it’ll be with our heads high, knowing that we’ve tried to preserve the tradition.”

The conflict ended up in court.  New York University art instructor Joseph Pollet, a tenant, spoke of the building “where you have to carry your own coal up and your garbage and ashes down, but the north light is perfect and the rent is within an artist’s means.”  Frank Stokes said that his parents and his brother died in the building and he “had expected to remain there the rest of his life.”

In May 1947 New York University received the news that it had lost the law suit over tenant evictions.  The artists could stay.

One-by-one, over the next two decades, the artists would leave—the leases of some terminated only by death.  On February 14, 1955 the 96-year old Frank W. Stokes died.  He had been working on sketches up to the point that he contracted pneumonia only a few days earlier.  In 1967 Edward Hopper died in his top floor studio at the age of 84.  One of his oil paintings, “On My Roof,” had depicted the rusty angles of his skylight from the tar-papered roof.

photo by Alice Lum

The building at No. 3 Washington Square North that had sheltered some of America’s most brilliant artists for more than three quarters of a century became NYU’s Graduate School for Social Work.  And it gained central heating.

photo by Alice Lum

The 1902 W. C. Story Mansion -- No. 322 West 106th St

photo by Alice Lum

At the turn of the last century Riverside Drive tried hard to overtake Fifth Avenue as the thoroughfare  of mansions.  Lavish structures, many free-standing, went up in the space of only a few years.  In addition to those residences designed to the specifications of the owners, rows of speculative high-end dwellings were erected.  In 1900 developers Perez M. Stewart and H. Ives Smith hired respected architect Robert D. Kohn to design two harmonious, but individual, mansions at the corner of Riverside Drive and 106^th Street.

Kohn met the challenge, producing two upscale residences that coexisted agreeably next door to one another; but each exuded its own character.  One was clad in buff-colored brick, the other in red.  Although the larger, corner mansion would steal the spotlight, the grand home at No. 322 West 106^th Street held its own.

The two mansions complimented one another, yet retained their individual characters -- photo by Alice Lum

Construction on the mansions took two years to complete.  No. 322 was purchased by real estate operator Joseph Hamershlag whose office was far downtown at No. 35 Nassau Street.  On April 9, 1905 he sold it to Ward Brower, an attorney who was currently living nearby at Riverside Drive and 109^th Street.  Brower’s purchase may have been prompted by his recent marriage to Gladys Bacon.

Although Brower was highly involved with the neighborhood—he was a member of the Riverside & Morningside Heights Association—he would stay at No. 322 only seven years.  In 1912 he sold the house to Charles B. Barkley “For investment.”

Before long the mansion was home to William Cumming Story.  It was Mrs. Story who would bring attention to the family.  Opinionated and involved, Mrs. William Cumming Story was the President General of the Daughters of the American Revolution, President of the Republican Women’s Club and President of the City Federation of Women’s Clubs.  And she was not one to keep her opinions to herself.

The New-York Tribune described her on August 22, 1915 as “A small, cameo sort of person, she is distinctly what we call a ‘gentlewoman,’ and even in her strong opinions she is gentle, never condemning the other person, but always upholding her own beliefs.”  And Mrs. Story was ready to give her opinion of the Women’s Peace Party which was lobbying against the increase of military defense.

“You now,” she told Sarah Addington of the New-York Tribune, “women have had this sentimentality about preparedness too long, I believe.  They have mistaken sentimentality, for sentimentality about guns and soldiers is not practical…Disarmament presupposes universal peace, and universal peace is so far off that we don’t need to consider it at all.” 

She deftly called her opponents unpatriotic without saying so directly.  “Also, it seems to me the loyal thing, the patriotic thing, to stand by our government in its effort toward preparedness.  We have too long tied their hands, after giving them power; we have to long allowed the public sentimentality to stand in their way.  To me it is almost a crime to oppose our officers of government in this.”

Mrs. William Cumming Story --photo Library of Congress

While Mrs. Story was opining on preparedness for war, Florence G. Finch was living at No. 36 Gramercy Park.   Pittsburgh’s The Gazette Times referred to the extremely wealthy young woman as “an orphan” who “holds the controlling interest in the Finch Iron Works in Scranton, Pa., which is an old concern…and which was first owned by Miss Finch’s grandfather, and handed down from her father to her.”

The unmarried Florence was also active in the Daughters of the American Revolution, holding the position of Corresponding Secretary of the Manhattan chapter in 1911.  It was no doubt this connection which resulted in her moving into the house at No. 322 West 106^th Street with the Storys in 1916.  Financially, the 38-year old Florence Finch did not need to lease rooms in someone else’s home; but in the first years of the 20^th century an unmarried woman’s reputation was more easily preserved in a house with other respectable people.

The swirling carved decorations hinted at the new Art Nouveau movement -- photo by Alice Lum

Mrs. Story was back in the newspapers on August 30, 1917.  With the United States now engaged in World War I, she was irritated by the large women’s pacifist movement spreading across the nation.  She told Marguerite Mooers Marshall of The Evening World “The pacifists of America are a terrible menance.  Whether she knows it or not, the woman who preaches pacifism while her country is at war is a coward and a traitor.  She is playing into the hands of our worst enemies.  Other women should be quick to repudiate and disown her.  She is lost to all decency.”

By now Mrs. Story was on the Executive Board of the National Committee of Patriotic and Defense Societies—its only female—and she personally operated a free club for soldiers and sailors at No. 248 East 34^th Street on behalf of the Mayor’s Committee of Women on National Defense. 

Calling the Women’s Peace Party propagandists, she said “How can these women walk about the streets and hold up their heads when all around them are our splendid boys pledged to go out and fight for justice, freedom and our safety?”  She turned her disdain to socialites, too, who supported the cause.  “It seems to me especially deplorable that women of wealth and culture, women who have all the advantages of environment and tradition, should lend their names and their pocketbooks to the pacifist movement, should finance ignorant hotheads without the restraint of inherited devotion and service to country.”

The reporter paused to describe Mrs. Story’s “charming reception room at No. 322 West One Hundred and Sixth Street.”  She said it “is itself like an early page of American history, with its inlaid Chippendale, Revolutionary portraits and Colonial china and fans.”

The Storys were followed in the house by Frank Hammond Hardin and his wife, the former Jessie Frances Mason.  The couple had been married on September 14, 1915.  Hardin had been with the New York Central Railroad since 1909 and was by now the Chief Engineer of Motive Power and Rolling Stock. 

Like Mrs. Story, Jessie Hardin was unafraid to express herself.  When The Evening World asked women readers to answer the question “Will New York women follow the French styles and wear dresses to the knees?” she was prompt to respond.  “Not until men wear blinders will New York women adopt the French short skirt styles,” she wrote.

A month after Mrs. Hardin’s opinion was printed, Agnes DeBelaine purchased the house on June 27, 1920.  She held it only a year, selling it on May 7, 1921 to William K. Tubman.    Tubman’s wife carried on the tradition of women in the mansion by supporting soldiers.  On February 1, 1940 The New York Times noted that “Yesterday members of America’s Good Will Union gathered in the home of Mrs. William K. Tubman and sewed chamois windbreaker shirts for Finnish soldiers and volunteers.”  The newspaper would later remind readers that “During World War II she made hundreds of chamois cloth coats for Army and Navy personnel serving in cold climates.”

The mansard and dormers were clad in copper. -- photo by Alice Lum

Like Mrs. Story and Florence Finch, Roberta Tubman was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.  She was also a member of the United States Daughters of 1812, the Colonial Dames of the Seventeenth Century, and the National Society of Magna Charta Dames.

Following her husband’s death Roberta Keene Tubman married Reverend Edward Lawrence Hunt.   The Presbyterian minister had founded America’s Good Will Union in 1920 and was renowned for his stance against racism and for understanding among all people.  The Times would later say “He was a foe of bigotry and had denounced anti-Semitic excesses in Rumania in the Nineteen Twenties, and the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany.  He helped to organize the National Conference of Christians and Jews.”

The newlyweds stayed on in the 106^th Street house.  On October 9, 1952 the 92-year old minister died following a three-week illness.  “Hattie” Roberta Keene Tubman Hunt, remained in the house for one more year, until her death on March 23, 1953.  She was 77 years old.

Roberta’s death signaled the end of the line for the mansion as a private home.  In 1955 it was converted to apartments, one spacious residence each on the first four floors, two on the fifth.  Like its contemporary next door, the mansion at No. 322 West 106^th Street is little changed.  Inside its walls some of New York City’s strongest-minded women lived their lives and left their marks.