A Civil War Period House with a Facelife -- No. 335 W. 20th Street

The small window to the right of the entrance sits above a "horse walk," or passage to the rear yard.

The Chelsea neighborhood, by the outbreak of the Civil War, was rapidly developing and already West 20^th Street between 8^thand 9^th Avenues was lined with respectable brick and brownstone residences.   On the south side of the street stood the two impressive buildings of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, making this block of West 20^th Street especially charming.

Among the houses was No. 335, a brick Greek Revival home four stories tall above a deep, rusticated brownstone English basement.    The house stood out slightly from its neighbors.  The basement was just a bit higher, resulting in the brownstone stoop being one step taller and just a bit more impressive.

Lottie L. Jones, a teacher in Primary School No. 27 on 37^thStreet near 10^th Avenue, lived here in 1868, just before Bowen G. Lord purchased the home.  Lord was the Captain of the Sanitary Company of Police.

The Sanitary Police had been formed in 1859 as an arm of the New York City Police Department.   The organization had “summary power to abate all nuisances on ferry-boats, tenement-houses, edifices suspected of being unsafe, manufactories and slaughter-houses,” according to The New York Times in April 1860.  The newspaper predicted that with the new Sanitary Police on duty “our City will present a novel spectacle of cleanliness during the coming warm season.”

Lord organized the Sanitary Squad of Police at its inception and took command of it.  The Times called him “An officer of excellent judgment, fully equal to the delicate and important duties devolving upon him in the enforcement of health laws.”  The newspaper also deemed him “in private life an estimable gentleman enjoying the confidence and respect of  a large circle of friends.”

In 1869 Captain Lord became ill.   The sickness progressed to the point that he was confined to the house on West 20^th Street for about six months until on Wednesday August 24, 1870 he died in an upstairs bedroom.

About three years later the Lord home was purchased by the 16^thStreet Baptist Church as the home for its popular and opinionated pastor Rev. David B. Jutten.     The minister called attention to himself with his views that sometimes bordered on Protestant heresy.  On January 20, 1878, for instance, he preached a sermon that maintained that the physical tortures of hell were symbolic rather than actual. 

“It can hardly be supposed that we are to take the Scriptural descriptions of future punishment in their literal sense,” he said.  “The physical suffering is to be recognized as symbolical of a spiritual agony.  But though the suffering may be only mental, it is none the less terrible, for there is no more acute suffering than agony of the mind.”

It was about this time that the outmoded exterior of the house on West 20^th Street was updated.  A pressed metal cornice replaced the original.  The windows were given modern lintels with incised decoration and attractive scrolled brackets, and the entrance was modernized with handsome fluted pilasters with foliate capitals and scrolled bases.  Above it a decorative pediment was added.  

Cast metal window lintels and updated door surround (today a bit rusty) brought to old house up to date.

Being pastor for a wealthy Baptist church with over 650 members had advantages beyond a capacious home.   On June 11, 1880 The New York Times reported that the minister would “with his wife, sail for Europe to-morrow morning at 8 o’clock in the Inman steamer City of Berlin, from the foot of Charlton-street, North River.  The reverend gentleman expects to be absent for three months." A grand “farewell meeting” took place that night in the lecture room of the church.  Already arrangements for guest ministers for the summer had been made.

With the congregation increasing, at least partly because of Jutten’s efforts and high regard, a female member offered $50,000 towards the construction of a new church, provided the name be changed to the Memorial Baptist Church.  Dr. Jutten liked the idea and focused on fund raising for the new structure and land.  Before long he had raised another $20,000 toward the project.

But not everyone agreed with the proposal.  The congregation was split and bitter debates resulted.  Finally, in a major blow to his authority and leadership, the decision was made to stay in the existing building.

Jutten made his feelings known.  On October 28, 1883, shortly after the decision, he preached his last sermon as pastor of the 16^th Street Baptist Church.   The Times reported that “His remarks on severing his connection with the church brought tears to the eyes of many of the ladies present, while there were some among the men who were visibly affected.”

In a slightly veiled reference to the decision that he no doubt considered a slap in the face, Jutten spoke of the new pastor, “whoever it might be.”  He warned the congregation “not to smother him with kindness at first and treat him with coldness and abuse after he had served them for a time.”

When the church sold the property on West 20^th Street it became home to Lieutenant-Colonel Albert N. Nicholson.  Nicholson, who had led the 47^thRegiment during the Civil War, lived here with his wife and three sons for only a year before he died in the house in February 1884.  The parlor was the scene of his funeral on February 11 where, after the religious ceremonies, the Meade Post No. 38 conducted the services of the Grand Army.

The house at No. 335 West 20^th Street seemed destined to be home to clerics and as the turn of the century approached it was owned by Trinity Church.  While many of the other homes on the street were now being used as boarding houses, it remained a single family home under the church’s ownership.
 

The Rev. J. Henry Watson lived here in the late 1890s.  Although Watson had two sons and a daughter, they were fully grown by the time he moved into the 20^th Street house with his wife.   

Watson, in his 50s, had been around.  Upon graduating from the Berkeley Divinity School in Middleton, Connecticut, he had immediately become assistant rector at the fashionable Trinity Chapel in Manhattan.  He then moved on to churches in Stamford, Philadelphia, Hartford and New Rochelle.  Returning to New York City, he gave up parish work and devoted himself to the missions in the impoverished areas.

Watson also provided his services as the chaplain of the Army and Navy Aid Association.  The group provided help to veterans, many of whom had served in the recent Spanish-American War.  In the minutes of a meeting opened by Watson on May 18, 1900, it was noted “Many pathetic letters have been received, the most of them containing requests for work.”

The house would continue, for a while, to be a single family residence.  In 1908 the Secretary of the United States Council, No. 639, of the Royal Arcanum lived here—a Mr. McGahan.  The Royal Arcanum was, above all, a life insurance company.  But it functioned as a social and fraternal organization which required membership.  By the time McGahan moved into No. 335 there were nearly 260,000 members.

Members were furnished life insurance at cost.  The group also provided “for sick and distressed members.”  The Royal Arcanum recommended itself as a “favorable consideration of every man whom a sense of uncertainly of all things but death prompts to make sure provision for the support of his dependents after his demise.”

Before the brick facade received an ill-advised coat of white paint, the new metal details would have stood in marked contrast.

But the single family status of the building would not last forever.  In 1973 it was converted to apartments-three each in the basement and parlor level, two each on the upper floors.  And although someone thought that painting the brick white would be a good idea, the façade of No. 335 is beautifully untouched.  

photographs taken by the author.