The 1894 Scribner's Sons Building -- No. 155 Fifth Avenue

1846 was at a time when quiet evenings were spent with a bound book and one’s level of sophistication could be measured by his personal library.  That year Charles Scribner and Isaac D. Baker formed the publishing firm “Baker & Scribner” which, after Baker’s death, became Charles Scribner Company.

Having started out in part of a chapel of an old brick church at the corner of Nassau Street and Park Row, the growing company moved in 1856 to 377-379 Broadway; then to 124 Grand Street in 1858; and later to 654 Broadway. In 1875 it moved again to 743-745 Broadway.  But by 1892 the firm would need to expand yet again.

Charles Scribner, Sr., had died in 1871 but his firm, now known as Charles Scribner’s Sons, continued its distinguished reputation as a publisher of theological, historical and philosophical books.  Scribner’s published the first American edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, started a subscriptions department, and expanded into magazine publishing with highly popular periodicals like Scribner’s Monthly, Century Magazine, and the children’s St. Nicholas Magazine.

The firm purchased the Glenham Hotel on Fifth Avenue between 21^st and 22^nd Streets for about $250,000 (approximately $5.5 million today).  The New York Timesannounced on August 3, 1893 that “an office building will be erected on the site.”

The “office building” would be designed by the well-respected architect Ernest Flagg.  At the time social reform was gaining steam; and Flagg was already recognized for his concern with adequate light and ventilation, sanitary conditions and zoning laws regulating the height of buildings and setbacks.  The architect was a major proponent of the Beaux Arts style, and the new Scribner’s Sons Building would be a fine example.

Flanking the central dormer, the dates of the firm's founding and the construction of the new building were carved.

Flagg looked to France for inspiration, as evidenced in the similarities between Edmond Guillaume’s 1880 Maison Commerciale at 3 rue d’Uzes and Flagg's designs for Scribner’s.  His resultant limestone-clad structure, completed in 1894, rose six stories to a mansard roof.  An elegant glass marquee sheltered patrons arriving at the first floor retail space.  Below ground was the packing department, offices took up the second floor, and the upper floors housed the subscription-book, surplus stock, magazine and mailing departments.

Ernest Flagg’s minute attention to the functional aspects of his designs extended to the bookshelves in the new building.  The New York Times noted that “at the suggestion of Ernest Flagg, the architect, they had their entire store…refitted with glass shelves.  Mr. Flagg originated the idea, having observed that wood and iron shelving, whether smooth or covered with cloth, had the effect of wearing the bindings of books.”

The heavy, pricey shelves were custom-made in France in two sizes and thicknesses—the larger being three-quarters of an inch and the smaller half an inch thick with rounded edges.  “This glass for one thing is perfectly inflexible,” explained the newspaper, “which gives it an advantage over wood.  Its strength also has been abundantly proved.  It is not only more cleanly looking than anything else in the way of shelving, but it in fact easier to keep clean.”

The Times said “The Messrs. Scribner are enthusiastic in praise of glass shelving, and all who examine it are impressed with it value in the preservation of books.”

Exquisite carvings surround the plaque that originally announced Scribner's Sons.

By May 25, 1894 the move into the new building, deemed byThe Times as “built of white limestone and graceful with classic simplicity,” was nearly completed.  Over 300,000 volumes had been carefully packed and moved over a period of a month.  The newspaper was astounded that there had been no damage to the inventory.  “Of all the delicately beautiful volumes which were transferred from the old building to the new—missals, books of hours, incunabula, bindings of the old masters, and of Cobden-Sanderson, new editions in covers fresh as the lilacs o May—not one was even imperceptibly damaged.  Not one!”

Well-dressed women window shop in front of the bookstore in 1895 -- King's Photographic Views of New York (copyright expired)

The Times estimated the cost of the new building by using the taxes and interest on the property as a guide.  It arrived at a figure of “more than $500,000.”

A clever cover illustration depicts women gazing into the store window of the new Scribner bookstore in November 1894 -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

Scribner’s Sons was not the only large publishing house and bookstore to move that year.  Dodd, Mead & Co. established itself right next door at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 21^st Street, and D. Appleton & Co. moved into its new building at Fifth Avenue and 13^th Street.  A journalist noted in December 1894 that “The growing literary taste of the public is being shown by the publishers who are moving into enlarged quarters to meet the demands of their customers.”

A white marble staircase led to additional retail space.  Note the interesting gas lights encircling the columns -- King's Photographic Views of New York 1895 (copyright expired)

The writer made note of Scribner’s retail area.  “Inside the new building of Charles Scribner’s Sons there is the appearance of a large public library, with a wonderful collection of books, fresh and new, and in beautiful bindings of many kinds.  Book shelves run up into a second story, and in the rear there is a top light of glass so large that there is not a dim nook or corner to be found.”

Scribner’s was fortunate to have published The Sherman Letters that year—a 50-year compilation of correspondence between brothers General William Tecumseh Sherman and Senator John Sherman dating from 1837 to 1891.  The firm also published Frances Hodgson Burnett’s newest children’s book Piccino that year; the latest in a series that included the popular Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Meticulous in its choice of authors, Scribner would introduce and represent over the years Edith Wharton, Henry James, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling and George Santayana among many others.

In honor of Theodore Roosevelt's return from his African safari in 1910, Scribner's is framed in bunting and a two-story picture of Roosevelt is decorated with two large flags -- 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=24UAYWE01010&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=667

Scribner’s Sons tradition of uptown moves continued.  After just two decades in its handsome headquarters, the firm called back Ernest Flagg to design another, larger, office building and bookstore further uptown in 1913. 

The Scribner family retained ownership of the old property, however.  In January 1934 it leased the building to the 153 Fifth Avenue Corporation which announced plans to remodel “with stores on the first floor and lofts above, at a cost of about $40,000.”  Architect Arthur Weiser made the renovations and it was possibly at this time that the marvelous glass marquee was removed.

The store level was modernized again in 1969; yet the beautiful French detailing of Ernest Flagg was mostly preserved.  By now the Scribner family no longer owned the building, having sold it in 1951.

Lacy cast iron spandrels trace the shape of the original glass marquee. 

In 1973 the United Synagogue of America purchased the former bookstore/publishing building.  Organized the same year that Scribner left the building—in 1913—its goal was to establish a middle-ground between the Reform and Orthodox communities. The group dubbed the building "Rapaport House."

The organization of 700 affiliated congregations used the building until 2007 when it was sold to Philips International Holding Corp. for $26.5 million.  A year later the company resold it to the Eretz Group for $38 million.

Ernest Flagg’s handsome and restrained Beaux Arts building survives essentially intact—a reminder of a time when publishing houses populated Fifth Avenue south of 23^rd Street, and when families settled in at night with a book.

Snarling lions adorn the brackets upholding the carved balcony at the third floor.

photographs taken by the author

A 1904 Horse and Carriage Auction House -- Nos. 126-128 E. 13th Street

photo by Alice Lum

By 1903 the Van Tassell & Kearney Auction Mart had established itself as one of the premier houses in New York City for the sale of carriages as well as horses. That year an ad appearing in the New York Tribune boasted “Finest display in New York of Carriages of the highest grade and most fashionable designs. Broughams, omnibuses, victorias, station wagons, wagonetts, traps.”

To the 21st century mind, Victorian horse-drawn transportation were “carriages.” But just as we differentiate among SUV’s, sedans, convertibles, sports cards and minibuses, the turn of the century buyer purchased vehicles specific to his needs.

Van Tassell & Kearney sold various vehicles including "gooch wagons," tub carts," and "governess carts."

Van Tassell & Kearney operated from buildings at Nos. 130-132 East 13th Street and Nos. 125 to 129 East 12th Street. In February 1903 two four-story brick buildings at Nos. 126 and 128 East 13th Street became available at auction and were purchased by John J. Sullivan. The cleared lot would become an adjoining showroom and auction space for Van Tassell & Kearney’s Auction Mart.

Completed in 1904, the masculine, utilitarian structure was designed by the prominent architectural firm of Jardine, Kent, and Jardine. Constructed of red brick and contrasting limestone, it was a brawny mass with Beaux Arts splashes – the visual focus being a large central arched window embellished with a carved cartouche.

Carved, decorative stonework added interest to the utilitarian structure -- photo by Alice Lum

Van Tassell & Kearney’s not only sold to New York’s most elite – among them buyers with names like Belmont, Vanderbilt and Mackay – but they were trusted by the wealthy to sell their own stock.

In 1904 the book “Prominent and Progressive Americans” spoke of retired Dr. W. E. Woodend. “Dr. Woodend and his wife are popular members of society, and have been prominent in many of the horse shows which have come to be leading social functions. They maintain a fine stable of horses…In the New York Horse Show of 1903 their horses were conspicuous prize-winners, and in the course of the show captured no fewer than twenty ribbons.”

On March 13, 1906 some of Dr. Woodend’s geldings were among the 24 horses auctioned at Van Tassell & Kearney’s; the total sale amounting to $11,250 – more than a quarter million dollars today.

The architects created sunburst effects with creative brickwork around the oval windows -- photo by Alice Lum

A year later The New York Tribune reported that “Mrs. John Gerken, always one of the most prominent figures at the Horse Show, has decided to give up nearly her entire stable. Her failure to carry off as many awards as usual at the last horse show, she says, has nothing to do with her determination. Her only object, she says, is to get rid of the trouble and annoyance of a big stable. She will maintain only eight show horses. The rest will be sold on May 20 by Van Tassell & Kearney.”

That year was a good one for the firm.  In October the New York Herald mentioned “At Van Tasell & Kearney’s regular semi-weekly auction sale on Tuesday a cabriolet brought $760 and a brougham brought $825. These are record prices for second-hand carriages sold this season and are almost up to the standard of values current when automobiles were unknown. Not less significant than the prices were the number and character of the bidders who came to buy these and other carriages in the last week’s sales.”

The reporter said that Mr. Kearney was very pleased and “it looked quite like old times.” It appeared to the auctioneer that the fad of the automobile was fading and “the carriage horse is coming back.”

Van Tassell & Kearney custom-built this trap for "Mr. LaSalla."  The 500-lb. vehicle could be drawn either by one or two horses -- The Rider and Driver 1911

Although the era of the carriage horse would not come back, it would be a while before it disappeared entirely. In 1911 The Rider and Driver magazine marveled at the Van Tassell & Kearney’s operations. “Few people are aware of the magnitude of their premises and the extent of business they are doing with our wealthiest and most critical class of carriage buyers in town and country. Their patrons include members of the Cabinet and foreign ministers, prominent citizens, city officials; and at all horse shows, floral parades and summer resorts are to be seen every description of traps from Van Tassell & Kearney’s.”

In 1911 Van Tassell & Kearney introduced the "Horse Show Dog Cart," a small trap-type carriage --The Rider and Driver 1911 

The magazine described in detail the assembly of buildings, with underground space that ran from 13th to 12th Streets. “The basement is fitted up for accommodating one hundred and fifty horses, where they are stabled in well-ventilated stalls.”

The firm steadfastly refused to accept the invasion of the automobile into the staid tradition of horse-drawn buggies and carriages. On July 28, 1918, as more and more motorcars chugged along the streets and avenues of New York, a Van Tassell & Kearney ad in the New York Tribune insisted “The report that horses and carriages are coming back to their own in Newport is positively founded on fact.”

The prediction, of course, was not to be and before long the venerable auction house that refused to adapt to change was no more.

The cavernous building was used a a machinery shop in the decades leading to World War II. Then on December 28, 1941 the Delehanty Institute announced it would be using the building as instructional space. With most of the able-bodied men off fighting in the Pacific and Europe, the institute opened “a branch in machine shop practice for women” here. The former auction space was used for teaching women “assembly and inspection work, the reading of blueprints, and various mechanical aspects needed in defense industries.”

In 1978 artist Frank Stella took over the building, using it as his studio for 27 years. It was from here that the influential artist added free-standing sculpture to his painting and print-making art. In 2005 the building was sold to Isaac Mishan for $10 million. Mishan planned to demolish the structure to replace it with a seven-story sleek condo building.

A proposed 7-story condo was slated to replace the old auction mart -- sketch Gothamist.com

Preservationists rushed in. By September 3, 2006 the developer had construction permits in hand, but demolition permits had not be issued. At an emergency meeting of the Landmarks Preservation Commission the next day, politicians including State Senator Tom Duane, Assemblywoman Deborah Glick and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer pleaded to save the building. Local residents joined representatives from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, the Municipal Arts Society, and the Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America in the appeal.

During the meeting Johnathon Hayes who lived in the neighborhood asserted “The space cries out for adaptive reuse…We cannot live by luxury condominiums alone.”

Although to this day the Landmarks Preservation Commission has not designated the structure, the owners were swayed. They voluntarily allowed it to be listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places, giving up the right to alter the exterior or build on it in anyway inconsistent with historic preservation guidelines. In exchange they received a substantial tax write-off.

In 2007 the Peridance Center leased the building and began a nearly three-year renovation. When opened in December 2009, it housed six roomy climate-controlled, soundproof dance studios, a 200-seat theater for the Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, a café and boutique.

The handsome old auction house where Belmonts and Vanderbilts shopped for show horses is a faultless example of creative recycling of historic properties.

Engine Company 33 -- Nos. 42-44 Great Jones Street

photo by Alice Lum

The collection of sometimes rag-tag volunteer fire companies was consolidated and organized into New York’s professional fire department in 1865.  The fire houses were utilitarian structures designed to accommodate vehicles and horses on the ground level and fire fighters on the upper stories.  There was little effort at grand design.

But that would all change within a few decades; mostly through the genius of architect Napoleon LeBrun who stepped into the position of the fire department’s main architect in 1879.  His sometimes lavish fire houses took the form of Italian palazzos and French chateaux.  Having designed over 40 such structures, LeBrun & Sons designed their last fire house in 1895. When the city decided to build a new station for Engine Company No. 33 three years later, architects Ernest Flagg and W. B. Chambers had big shoes to fill.  

Engine Company 33 was formed the same year that the Fire Department was organized, and it still operated from its original house on Mercer Street.  Now the city planned erect a new station for the Company on plots purchased at Nos. 42 and 44 Great Jones Street.  The plans were to incorporate the Fire Chief’s “night headquarters” within the building.

The neighborhood had been, half a century earlier, among the most exclusive residential areas of the city, known as the Bond Street area.  Here wealthy citizens with names like Astor and Delano lived in fine Federal-style mansions.  By now, however, the upper-class had moved on and the old homes that had not been converted for business purposes housed sometimes less-than-respectable boarders.

In 1897 Mary Norton had died in her home at No. 42 Great Jones Street at just 39 years old.  Early that same month, on March 5, May Franklyn who lived next door in No. 44 was shot twice by Philip Metz.  The New York Times said May was “described as an actress” and that she “told the police that Philip Metz shot her because he was jealous.”

The two old houses were demolished in 1898 and construction began on the new Engine Company 33 house.  By now public buildings were being designed with the City Beautiful Movement in mind—a philosophy that citizens who were surrounded by beautiful, monumental buildings would be prompted to lead lives of social harmony and order.  Flagg’s and Chambers’ design would follow the lead.

The building, completed in 1899, was nothing if not monumental.  Unlike its earliest predecessors the French Beaux-Arts structure nearly dismissed its utilitarian purpose in favor of flamboyant display.  Above the solid limestone base with two bay doors, a grand central arch propelled upward.  The concave arch was decorated with a bold, ornate cartouche, and within it three stories of windows were lavished with French-styled railings, a handsome pediment, and balcony.  Above it all the deeply-overhanging cornice was supported by wonderful over-sized, paired brackets.

Fantastic paired brackets uphold the overhanging cornice -- photo by Alice Lum

Along with Engine Company 33, Fire Chief Edward F. Crocker moved into the new building.  A newspaper reported that his office was decorated with “the usual paintings, statuary, and hunting accoutrements” expected of a high-level official. 

The Company received a new steam-powered engine built by the Clapp & Jones Manufacturing Company that could shoot a stream of water 215 feet.  The company's vehicles would be pulled by horses for years to come; seemingly fearless animals trained to pull the tenders and engines at break-neck speed through crowded city streets.

On September 28, 1901 the company was responding to a fire at West Broadway and Houston Street, going “at full speed,” according to The New York Times.  Workmen had piled stone and brick building materials in the street near the curb near No. 49 West 3^rdStreet.  The tender ran squarely into the pile.  “Every man on the tender was thrown to the street,” reported the newspaper.  “Fireman E. B. Murphy landed on his face and slid along in the mud, but was not badly hurt.”

When an ambulance arrived, Murphy refused to go to the hospital, preferring instead to join his company responding to the alarm.  Chief Croker was on the scene and, although the fire fighter did not go to the hospital, Croker took him back to No 42 Great Jones Street.

The Engine Company's number is incorporated into the elaborate design of the ironwork -- photo by Alice Lum

It was the sort of valiant attitude the chief respected in his men and expected of them.  A few years later he would remark “Firemen are going to get killed. When they join the department they face that fact.  When a man becomes a fireman his greatest act of bravery has been accomplished.  What he does after that is all in the line of work.”

At the turn of the century, gas heating and lighting, poor electrical wiring, flimsy construction techniques and overcrowded tenements were all the ingredients necessary for devastating fires.  Alarms of fire sometimes sounded in quick succession.  Not all of them, however, were real—but each had to be taken seriously.

On the last day of May in 1902 the men from Engine Company 33 found themselves rushing from one location to another.  It started that morning when a man rushed into the fire house reporting a fire in the building at 23 West 4^thStreet—a six-story business structure.  The firemen arrived to find smoke pouring out of the windows.  After breaking down the door of the locked building, the men rushed throughout the smoke-filled building looking for the fire.

Finally one of the men went to the cellar where he found that a stove filled with soft coal, banked for the night, was sending out the smoke.  There was no fire.

As the firefighters were packing up, a bell began clanging on an upper floor “in a most alarming way,” said The Times.  “It sent the firemen scurrying up the stairs, and added to the excitement on the street.”  The men had triggered the automatic burglar alarm.   They turned on the dampers of the stove and headed back to the fire house.

But they had hardly made it back before another alarm was sounded.  They rushed to No. 201 Greene Street where the clothing shop of Silas Whitcup on the fifth floor of the building was in flames.  The men struggled with the stubborn fire before finally extinguishing it.   Whitcup suffered $2,000 in damages.

The neighborhood around the fire house was filled with garment and millinery factories around this time.  The cloth, straw, glues, machine oil and ribbons made good kindling if a fire was sparked.  Just five buildings away from Engine Company 33 was the hat-making operation of M. A. Schwartz at No. 30 Great Jones Street in 1906.  Next door to Schwartz’s establishment was the Mission House of Father Fitzpatrick where as many as 300 boys and men were fed and sheltered.

Around noon on May 29 there were only about ten girls working in the hat factory, along with Sammy, the son of the proprietor.  The Evening World reported that “In the rear of the place is a loft where the supplies are kept.  It is very dark and a gas jet is kept burning constantly.  Sammy entered the room and climbed up on a pile of big packing boxes to get some chiffon.  He was nicely balanced when the boxes caved in and he fell to the floor with a crash.  Most of the boxes fell on him.”

Some of the boxes and chiffon fell against the open gas flame and the fabric blazed instantly.  Little Sammy got himself out and ran for the door, followed by the ten girls.   The Evening World said that the girls “fled, screaming and some of them ran to Engine Company No. 33 a few doors away.  Number 33 was out in a second, and as there was a great yellow flame shooting from the windows an alarm was turned in that brought more engines.”

When the firefighters arrived, just minutes after the fire broke out, they were surprised to find a large stream of water “playing through the rear windows.  At times it broke through the front and into the street.”

Instead of panicking, the boys from the mission had rushed to the fire hose on the third floor of that building and shot its stream out the window onto the flames in the adjoining building.  “Great tongues of fire swept almost in their faces, but they stood their ground pluckily and poured the stream straight into the heart of the white-hot storage room,” said the newspaper.

The quick and brave action of the mission boys held the fire at bay until Engine Company 33 could extinguish it totally.

photo by Alice Lum

Fire stations often drew the admiration and of “buffs” who haunted the streets outside and formed friendships of a sort with the fire crew.  The number of “buffs” who gathered outside Engine Company 33 became a problem, since it was also the headquarters of Chief Croker.  On Independence Day 1907 the crowd of “buffs” was so great that the fire patrol was called out to disperse them.  A few ended up being arrested and some fined.

Insulted, they banded together to form a club.  “The ‘buffs’ of Engine Company 33, on Great Jones Street, whose trials and tribulations have recently been aired in the newspapers, are determined that their enemies, who say they have no business making the vicinity of Chief Croker’s night headquarters their congregating place, have determined to form a club, and with this object in view they are going to raffle off a five-dollar gold piece to-night,” reported The New York Times on August 31, 1908.  “The proceeds of the raffle will be donated to the renting and equipping of a room where the ‘buffs’ can assemble without fear of police or fire patrol interference.”

One of the “buffs” told the newspaper “we made up our minds to start our own club, with a piano, chairs, and a pinochle deck, and when we get it going the ‘cops’ won’t have a chance to say ‘Move on’ again, so far as we are concerned.”

The men of Engine Company 33, apparently tired of the nuisance, responded to the plans.  One of them told a reporter “That piano had better be a well-behaved, quiet instrument, for if it disturbs the sleep of No. 33’s fire-fighters something will be apt to drop.”  The journalist added “The fireman did not say whether the object that would get the fall was the piano of the ‘buff’ who is destined to play it.”

When the first alarm was sounded for the fire in the Asch Building on March 25, 1911 it was Engine Company 33 that responded.  Upstairs in the building was the Triangle Waist Factory where dozens of women, mostly in their 20s, were trapped by the flames.  When firefighters arrived they had difficulty getting near the building due to the number of bodies scattered on the sidewalk—women who had thrown themselves from the windows 9^th and 10^th floors.

Life nets broke apart with the force of falling bodies and when the fire ladders were extended, they were too short to reach the floors where the victims were trapped.  It was all over within thirty horrific minutes; but in the end 146 shirtwaist workers were dead.

Lieutenant George Dunn later testified as a witness in the investigation into the fire, as did Chief Croker. Five weeks after the fire, on May 1, 1911, Edward F. Croker resigned.  He was not forced out, nor did he resign out of public humiliation.  He explained that he was stepping down after 27 years with the FDNY to devote the rest of his life “to preventing, instead of fighting fires.”

A fire on December 11, 1922 resulted in a heart-warming story for New Yorkers.  The fire in the five-story building at No. 52 East 4^th Street started on the second floor in the loft occupied by Klein & Sons.  It had already established itself before a patrolman noticed the smoke and turned in the alarm.   By the time Engine Company 33 arrived shortly before midnight the floor was filled with dense smoke.

Fireman Frank Maixner made his way onto the second floor and groped through the space to get windows open to release the smoke.  In the murky darkness he heard the whining of a dog.   Feeling his way through the darkness, he located the animal, which was unable to walk, and carried it to safety.

The dog was a brown collie and the firemen immediately named it “Smoky Joe.”  The New York Times noted that “A few moments later, however, the name was lengthened to ‘Smoky Josephine.”  The female dog was in great distress from smoke inhalation and after the blaze was under control two firefighters “worked over her and revived her somewhat.”  Then the men noticed something else.

“Then it was seen that Josephine was worried over other things.  The arrival of junior ‘Smoky Joes’ and ‘Smoky Josephines’ was imminently expected."

Battalion Chief John J. P. Waldron took the pregnant animal to the Hospital of the New York Women’s League for Animals in his personal red automobile.  The Times reported that “Brown collie pup mascots are expected to be the style in firehouses in the neighborhood soon.”

In 1948 Ladder Company 9 moved from its old Elizabeth Street house to join Engine Company 33 in the Great Jones fire house.  Like Engine Company 33, it had been organized in 1865.  Firefighting was still a men-only profession and would stay that way for another thirty years.  But after the Fire Department was sued for discrimination in 1979, 41 women were hired in 1982.

The women soon found that being hired did not mean being accepted.  One of them was Cecelia O. Salters, the first woman to join Ladder Company 9.  She later reported that the men quickly let her know her presence was not appreciated.  Although, as she told reporter Evelyn Nieves later, “some shunned her, some made snide comments, others became overprotective.”

Salters toughed it out and when former transit police officer Andre W. Cox joined Engine Company 33 things got a little better for her.  Cox said he admired her “grace under pressure” and the two quietly began seeing one another.  For two years no one suspected their romance; but when they finally admitted their involvement, they were met mostly with acceptance.

On the evening of July 21, 1990 the couple married—the first New York City firefighters from the same firehouse to do so.  Half of the firehouse’s fifty members were present at the wedding.

The firehouse on Great Jones Street was devastated after 14 of its firefighters responded to the attacks on the World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001.  One of them was Lieutenant Kevin Pfeifer, whose brother Joseph was a battalion chief.  When Engine Company 33 arrived at the disaster the two brothers spotted one another and exchanged a quick word before going in separate directions.  It would be the last words they would share.

Both of the Pfeifer brothers died that morning.  Of the 14 members of Engine Company 33, only four survived.  September 11, 2001 was the darkest day in the history of the Company’s 136-year history.

photo by Alice Lum

The exterior of Flagg’s and Chambers’ monumental fire house is little changed today.  It was designated a New York City landmark in 1968; at which time the Landmarks Preservation Commission called it “an exceptionally distinguished public building.”

The Afred Rossin House -- No. 15 East 62nd Street

In 1871 brothers David and John Jardine worked both as real estate developers and architects.  Before the century was up, they would line blocks of the newly-developing Upper East Side with long rows of brownstone homes.  But this year they worked on a project as architects only; designing six neo-Grec style homes for contractors William H. and Charles Gedney.

Like Charles T. Wills, W. H. Gedney & Son, would play a major part in building and construction in the second half of the 19^thcentury.  Their speculative homes at Nos. 11 through 21 East 62^nd Street would be completed in 1872—handsome Victorian residences with broad stoops and carved stone railings sure to lure merchant class homeowners.

By at least 1891 respected dermatologist Dr. Sigmund Lustgarten was living in No. 15.  That year he had written “The Primary Cause of Death Following Burns to the Skin, with Therapeutic Observations” published in the Medical Record.  Born in Vienna, he came to New York in 1889 and became the visiting dermatologist at Mount Sinai Hospital.  He instructed “many of the leading dermatologists of this city,” said The New York Times later; and was a consultant for the Montefiore Home and other institutions.

Dr. Lustgarten and his wife sold the 62^nd Street house in March 1899.  Shortly thereafter The New York Times revealed the buyer as Frank C. Hollins.  But as was often the case, Hollins was apparently acting as an agent to keep the actual purchaser’s name temporarily unknown.

A month later the same newspaper reported on the society wedding of Alfred Rossin and Clara Lewisohn.  The couple was married in the “the newly completed residence of the bride’s father, 9 West Fifty-seventh Street, one of the most beautiful of New York’s newer houses.”  Among the guests that day were some of Manhattan’s wealthiest and best known Jewish citizens, with names like Rothschild, Untermeyer, Stern and Guggenheimer.

The newlyweds would move into the former Lustgarten house—but not before updating the old Victorian.  Rossin commissioned C. P. H. Gilbert, who had recently completed massive mansions for Isaac D. Fletcher and Franklin Winfield Woolworth, to transform the old brownstone into an up-to-date mansion.

Gilbert stripped off the drab stone façade and replaced it with gleaming limestone.  The resulting Beaux Arts beauty bore no resemblance to its former self.  A rusticated basement and parlor floor base supported a bowed second story façade which, in turn, acted as a spacious balcony at the third floor. 

Prior to its remake, No. 15 matched its next door neighbor (right) -- photo by Wurts Bros, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYW1J2RFV&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=3#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYW1J2RFV&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=3

Rossin was President of the Public National Bank; and while he busied himself with things financial, his wife was involved with the Hebrew Technical School for Girls as its president.  Working along with her was her father, investment banker Adolph Lewisohn, who served as vice-president.  The school came under fire in January 1917 when Felix Warburg laid plans to update the curriculum.

Warburg was a banker and member of the conference board of the Rockefeller Foundation, which planned to revise primary and secondary education nationwide.  Shocking (and unacceptable) to traditional Edwardian minds was his announcement that Latin and Greek would be replaced by French and German in the “modern school.”  He fired back at criticism saying “It is questionable whether a child can be taught what he ought to know under our present system,” and Adolph Lewisohn back him up.  According to the New-York Tribune on January 22, 1917, he “said the community needed more schools like the Hebrew Technical School for Girls.”

Not far away, at No. 40 East 68^th Street, was the grand mansion of John Daniel Crimmins.  The wealthy contractor had created the lavish home by combining two older row houses.  On November 9, 1917 the aging widower died with seven of his ten children at his bedside.  Within three months of the funeral, the Crimmins family moved out of the family home.

On March 16, 1918 The Sun reported “The Crimmins family…will occupy the dwelling at 15 East Sixty-second street, a small house, in the future.”  Alfred and Clara Rossin used their house, valued at $97,000, as partial payment for the Crimmins mansion, which they purchased for $350,000.

Apparently the “small house” on 62^nd Street was not sufficient for the Crimmins siblings.  Just a year later, on May 5, 1919, The Sun reported that the house was sold to Howard Elliott for $110,000.  “The new owner plans to occupy the house after making extensive alterations,” said the newspaper.

The 59-year old railroad executive and his wife had two married daughters and a son.  He was President of the New York, New Haven & Hartford and the Northern Pacific Railroads.  He was, as well, a director of 17 other railroads, director of the American Railway Association, and sat on the boards of numerous other concerns.

Elliott came from a distinguished family.  His father, Charles Wyllys Elliott was a historian and author of several books.  The Elliott family traced its American roots to John Eliot who settled in Natick, Massachusetts in 1631 and was known as “The Apostle to the Indians.”  On his mother’s side was Samuel Howard, a member of the Boston Tea Party of 1773.

The Elliotts moved into No. 15 in 1919 -- photographs from the Library of Congress

Following his wife’s death in 1925, the semi-retired Elliott lived on in the 62^nd Street house with his son, Howard Elliott, Jr.  Three years later he traveled to Cape Cod to spend the summer in the home of his daughter, Mrs. Frederick Wilson.  There, on July 8, 1928 he suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 67.

Elliott’s entire estate of about $2.25 million was divided among his family.  On October 29, 1929 the house was sold to real estate operator Charles Brown.   He held the property for only 48 hours.  The New York Times, on November 1, wrote “After an ownership of two days, the five-story limestone residence at 15 East Sixty-second Street was resold yesterday by Charles Brown.”  The newspaper added that the buyer “plans to rebuild the house and occupy it.  The alterations will include the installation of an electric elevator.”

Earlier that year Jennie, the wife of wealthy banker Henry White Cannon, died.  New Yorker socialites were no doubt shocked a year later on September 18 when the 80-year old married Miss Myrta L. Jones.  The Times reported that “After a wedding trip the couple will live at 15 East Sixty-second Street.”

Cannon was a member of the board and a former president of the Chase National Bank.  His illustrious financial career included having been appointed Controller of the Currency by President Chester A. Arthur in 1884 and serving as a delegate to the International Monetary Conference in Brussels in 1892.

Myrta’s family was well respected in Cleveland society; but Henry’s pedigree was impeccable.  On his mother side was Peregrine White, born aboard the Mayflower on November 20, 1620 while the ship was moored in Cape Cod Harbor.  His grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War and died a prisoner of the British in Manhattan.

The millionaire’s age did not prevent him from fathering a son, Harry.  Each winter the family would travel to Daytona Beach where Cannon had owned a house on South Beach Street.  Henry Cannon’s health was been failing for some time in 1934, and it was at the Florida home in April, that he died.

Myrtle and little Harry accompanied the body back to New York and Cannon’s funeral was held early in May in Delhi, New York, where he was born.

No. 15 East 62^nd Street became home to Dr. Johan H. W. van Ophuijsen, an eminent psychiatrist and director of the Creedmoor Institute for Psychobiologic Studies.  Born in Sumatra, he was associated early in his career with Dr. Sigmund Freud and Dr. Ivan Pavov—pioneers of psychoanalysis.

He came to New York by invitation of the Psychanalytic Institute to teach in 1935.  He would teach there from 1938 to 1948.  He served on the psychiatric staffs of Mount Sinai and Lenox Hill Hospitals, and beginning in 1946 was attending psychiatrist at the Veterans Administration.

The New York Times would write of him, “Dr. van Ophuijsen stressed the importance of the role of the father in the psychological rearing of children, taking sharp issue with experts who had ‘told but half the story,’ he said, in blaming psychoneurotic symptoms—which in this country made many young men unfit to bear arms during the recent war—on the mother.”

Ophuijsen renovated a lower floor in the house as an office where he personally saw patients.  As well as living in here, he founded the Van Ophuijsen Center in the house.  In May 1950 he was stricken with a heart problem, “but flew to Detroit to read a paper before the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting,” said The Times.

Four weeks later, on Wednesday May 31, the 68-year old psychiatrist said good-night to his last patient of the day.  A few minutes later he suffered a heart attack and died in the house on East 62^nd Street.

The Beaux Arts mansion continues to be home to the Center, a philanthropic, non-profit institution that carries on its founder’s work.  Outwardly, it remains relatively unchanged since mansion architect C. P. H. Gilbert transformed an outdated Victorian to an modern Edwardian for wealthy newlyweds.

non-credited photographs by the author