The Federal Survivor at No. 37 East 7th. Street

 

By the 1830s attorney and banker Thomas E. Davis had become perhaps more interested in real estate development than his primary professions.  He would become a major player in the East Side north of the exclusive Bond Street neighborhood; as it transformed from farmland to residences.  Beginning around 1831, he erected rows of speculative brick homes in the area.

Partnering with Louis Wilcox in 1832, he began construction of one such row on East 7^th Street, which included No. 37.  The handsome Federal style residence was completed the following year and was valued at $6,000—about $165,000 today.

Clad in warm orange brick laid in Flemish bond, it rose three stories high above an English basement.  Diminutive carved brackets supported the stone window sills and a prim denticulated cornice capped the facade.  The major hint that the home was intended for a financially-comfortable family lay in the intricate doorway.  Here the round arched door surround with its faceted keystone featured delicate carving and suggested upscale interiors behind its double doors.

The interior of the entrance was paneled and a delicate egg-and-dart molding runs below the fanlight.

As the decades passed, the neighborhood changed.  The Lower East Side saw the influx of immigrant families following the end of the Civil War and tenements soon outnumbered private homes.  Nevertheless No. 37 hung on and in the 1890s was the home of Dr. Milo M. Duncan (sometimes spelled Mylo) and his wife Rebecca.

While Dr. Duncan may have led the respectable life of a neighborhood physician, Rebecca was somewhat of a bad girl.  On February 13, 1896 she found herself on the wrong side of the law.

According to a nameless young man, he was leaving the Star Theatre when he saw Mrs. Duncan.  “She was there with a crowd around her when I came along and I asked her what was the matter.  Then she caught hold of me and accused me of stealing a diamond ring,”

The Sun reported on the incident the following day saying “A fashionable dressed woman, who appeared to be intoxicated, collected a crowd about her in Thirteenth street, near Broadway, a 11 o’clock last night.  She had caught hold of a good-looking young man and clung to his arm, shouting: ‘You stole my ring!’”

Rebecca’s version of events was quite different.  According to the newspaper, she told police “that she had visited friends up town, and had started to go home at 8 o’clock...she rode down on an elevated train to Ninth street.  Then she had met the young man, and had a few drinks with him.  He afterward took her ring and refused to give it up, she said.”

The policeman on duty outside the theater corroborated the young man's story.  He was released.  And when Rebecca was questioned at the police station, her story fell apart.  “She could not remember where she had been drinking, nor could she say how many drinks she had.  Her forehead was cut, and she did not know how she had been injured,” said The Sun.

Worse, when the station house matron searched Rebecca’s pockets, she found a $20 pawn ticket for her diamond ring.  "She was locked up."

A year later Dr. Duncan had apparently had enough.  In May 1897 he sued Rebecca for “absolute divorce,” claiming she was intimate with Henry White on April 15.  Rebecca Duncan vehemently denied the charge and blamed their differences on the doctor.

“She says her husband preferred the society of his servants to that of his wife, and played cards with them; furthermore, that he continued to be on friendly terms with a doctor who, as she had told her husband, had made improper proposals to her,” reported The Sun on May 22, 1897.

Justice Andrews of the Supreme Court put an end to the couple’s differences by granting the doctor his divorce.  He was directed to pay Rebecca $150 in legal fees and $20 a week alimony.

As the turn of the century came, most of the houses along the block had all been altered or demolished—but not No. 37.  By 1904 the Independent Order B’rith Abraham of the United States of America was using the basement and parlor floor as its headquarters.  Max Schwartz, First Deputy Grand Master of the Order, owned the building.  The upper floors were apparently leased to The Baker & Taylor Co., booksellers.

Baker & Taylor ran its wholesale book company here in 1906--The School Journal March 17, 1906 (copyright expired)

Organized in 1887, the “fraternal beneficiary order” was composed mainly of Russian, Polish and German Jewish members.  The group maintained a cemetery fund, administered donations for charitable causes, and provided relief to indigent families. 

While the Independent Order B’rith Abraham focused on Jewish tradition; it also stressed the importance of learning English and becoming Americanized.  Within a very few years this stance would be vital.

On March 7, 1912 the New-York Tribune noted that Max Schwartz had renewed the lease for the “parlor floor, etc.” to the Independent Order B’rith Abraham of the United States of America.  The lodge would pay Schwartz $2,600 for the 15-year lease.  Quickly, however, the Order rethought the arrangement.

A report dated March 24, 1913 said “Upon recommendation of the grand master, the last convention authorized the executive committee to purchase the property at 37 East 7^thstreet, New York City, for the sum of $19,000, plus the cost of alterations.  This building has been used by the Grand Lodge as its headquarters for a number of years.”

The total sum paid by the Order to Max Schwartz was $29,373.39.  The immediate alterations included returning the upper floors to a single residence for the Grand Secretary, and the replacement of the stoop which was described as “worn out.”

In 1916 additional interior changes were made when the Order commissioned architects Sommerfeld & Steckler & Samuel Cohen to “erect walls and rearrange rooms” according to the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide on March 11.

By the time the United States entered World War I, the German population of Manhattan had greatly abandoned the Lower East Side for the Yorkville area.  Nevertheless the neighborhood around the Order B’rith Abraham still had a noticeable German-born population.  Now with Germany the nation’s enemy, German-speaking New Yorkers were eyed with suspicion and fear.

In February 1918 every German in Manhattan was required to register as an “enemy alien.”  The New-York Tribune reported on February 6, “The Eighty-eighth Street station, in the most populous Teutonic district in the city, had registered exactly 501 out of its estimated total of 3,000 aliens by 5 o’clock last night.”  Each registrant was fingerprinted and his personal data recorded.

“Next Sunday, after the close of the registration period, each policeman will start out to investigate and verify the information given by the registrants on his beat.  If everything is found correct, registration cards will be issued within a fortnight,” said the Tribune.  “Wrong addresses or misinformation, will result in turning the case over to the Department of Justice.”

Those Lower East Side residents with Germanic surnames lined up outside No. 37 East 7^thStreet.  Somewhat ironically the majority of the lodge members were of Germanic descent.  From its inception, however, the order had been outspokenly patriotic. 

Later that year, on October 1, The New York Times reported that “The New York branch of the Independent Order of B’rith Abraham subscribed $50,000 yesterday to the Fourth Liberty Loan, the announcement being made in connection with the raising of the order’s service flag, containing 8,460 stars, in front of its headquarters at 37 East Seventh Street.”  The generous subscription to the Liberty Loan would translate to about $725,000 today.  Before the war’s end the order would sell $5 million in Liberty Bonds.

It was around this time that the organization added a masonry parapet above the building's cornice.  But as other houses on the block continued to be drastically altered, little else was changed to the Federal style building.

Somewhat surprisingly, the end of the war did not bring an end to alien registration.  On December 19, 1922 the Executive Board of the Grand Lodge of the Independent Order, B’rith Abraham, held a meeting in the 7^th Street headquarters.  Wartime registration was one thing, felt the members; but registering aliens in peacetime was not what the United States was all about.  A resolution was passed ‘denouncing” the alien registry bill.

“The resolution declared that any law requiring aliens to be photographed and registered annually was un-American,” reported The New York Times.

Living in the house at the time was Max L. Hollander.  He had been Grand Secretary since 1909.  Born in Czechoslovakia in 1870, he arrived in New York as a child.  After a 23-year career as a tailor on the Lower East Side, he devoted himself to B’rith Abraham.

The socially and politically involved Hollander went to the White House to appeal to President Theodore Roosevelt for financial aid for survivors following the massacre of Jews during the Kishinev pogroms.  A founder of the American Jewish Congress he twice served as grand secretary at its World Conventions in Geneva and Washington, DC.

The 73-year old Max Hollander died in the house on the afternoon of February 20, 1943 after being ill about five months.  Three days later The New York Times said “The synagogues of Manhattan’s lower East Side went into a week’s period of mourning yesterday, and 1,500 persons attended a funeral service in the afternoon for Max L. Hollander.”  Following the service the cortege was escorted by 40 automobiles to the cemetery.

The Independent Order B’rith Abraham remained in the house for decades.  Sometime around mid-century the parapet was removed, making the building appear even more frozen in time. 

In 1981 Princeton architectural student Kevin Lippert and his classmates struggled with the large French drawing books from the turn of the century.  Lippert’s idea was to create more easily handled, reduced-format editions.  The Princeton Architectural Press was born of his idea.

Lippert was graduated in 1983 and two years later moved his publishing firm into the East 7^thStreet house where it remains today.  Because of its good fortune of being the home of a fraternal organization for many decades, then to an architectural publishing firm; No. 37 East 7^th Street has survived as a nearly-intact 1832 example of Federal domestic architecture. 

photographs by the author

The 1834 Thomas Cox House -- No. 17 Barrow Street

photo by Alice Lum

Greenwich Village with its winding streets and quaint buildings has long inspired romantic stories and interesting tales—whether or not they are true.

In 1834, as the village of Greenwich experienced a boom in development, a handsome Federal-style double house was built at Nos. 15 and 17 Barrow Street.   The two mirror-image homes, two and a half stories tall, featured Flemish bond brick and tall prim dormers.   A horse walk, or passageway to the rear yards, tunneled through the center of the homes accessing the two private stables.

The modest but attractive houses were constructed for Thomas and Henry Cox, presumably brothers.   Both men were carters—the equivalent of today’s local truck drivers or deliverymen.  Thomas Cox lived at No. 17.

photo by Alice Lum

The block along Barrow Street between West 4^thStreet and 7^th Avenue remained quietly residential for most of the century.  In 1875 Laura Trace, a teacher in the Girls’ Department of Grammar School No. 10 on Wooster Street, was living at No. 17.   But by 1894 when Edward Kelly lived in the house, changes were on the way.

Irish immigrant Michael Hallanan was a force in that change.  The blacksmith had arrived in New York from Galway, Ireland in 1861 and his fortunes took a turn when he invented a vulcanite rubber horseshoe pad.  The New York Times would remark “His inventions proved not only profitable to himself but a blessing to horses.”

In 1896 Conrad Schafer demolished No. 15 Barrow to construct an imposing private stable designed by H. Hasenstein.   The following year Michael Hallanan purchased No. 17 and renovated it as his horseshoeing operation.  An immense arched opening with double carriage doors was installed that engulfed the basement and parlor floors and the horsewalk became the entrance to the upstairs living quarters.

The demolition of half of the double house resulted in an odd window above the new entrance where the horsewalk had been -- photo by Alice Lum

Hallanan’s patented rubber horseshoe was not only earning him a sizable income, but he received awards at the Paris, Louisiana Purchase, Pan-American and St. Louis Expositions.   Fame and fortune, however relative, did not entice the blacksmith from his shoeing profession; however he began cementing his financial security by investing in Greenwich Village real estate.

By 1901 he had leased No. 17 Barrow Street to Abraham J. Norris while he moved his own operation to No. 186 West 4^th Street, just down the block.     An idea of Hallanan’s growing real estate holdings is evident in a petition signed by Norris and him that year.  The men joined other businessmen in the neighborhood seeking to have “the carriage way of West Fourth Street, from McDougal street to Barrow street…repaved with asphalt pavement on concrete foundation.”  Norris listed No. 17 Barrow as his address; Hallanan listed Nos. 186, 188 190, 194 and 196 West 4^thStreet.

Hallanan did not attempt to match the brickwork when he created the large arched entrance.  The origin of the coat-of-arms type decoration remains arcane. -- photo by Alice Lum

Abraham Norris was still leasing the building in 1917 and living upstairs when he served as agent for the State Fair Commission’s Division of Agriculture.

By the time Hallanan died in April 1926 he had earned the affectionate nicknames of the “Greenwich Village Blacksmith” and the “Father of Sheridan Square.”  The latter was due to his influence in the naming of that park.  The 79-year old was the largest property holder on Sheridan Square.

Within two decades, the former blacksmith shop was converted to a restaurant.  And with its new life another set of romantic Greenwich Village stories was born.

Popular lore suddenly made No. 17 Barrow Street the former carriage house of Aaron Burr.  And to spice up the story, the building was haunted by the spirit, not only of Burr, but of his daughter Theodosia.   The wonderful and spellbinding tale sidestepped the historic facts that Cox’s 1834 house was a residence, not a carriage house; and that it was built exactly three decades after Burr fled New York.  Additionally, the educated and privileged Theodosia Burr would never have visited a utilitarian structure filled with horses, hay and manure, let alone haunt it.

With or without ghosts the latest restaurant (established here in 1973), One if By Land, Two if By Sea, is a charming upscale restaurant that remains here four decades later.  Upstairs are two apartments.   The nearly 200-year old house is perhaps even more charming because of its Victorian alterations and the tall tales that it tells.

The Lost Thomas Paine House -- No. 309 Bleecker Street

In 1914 the Paine House still retained much of its integrity -- photo NYPL Collection

In the years following the Revolutionary War Greenwich Village was still an isolated, rural community surrounded by country estates and meadows.   Herring Street ran roughly east and west, dotted with mostly modest homes and small commercial buildings like groceries and dry goods shops.

While villagers carried on their quiet existence, Thomas Paine was enjoying the rewards of his work and writing.    The State of Pennsylvania gave him $2500 for “expenses,” New Jersey gave him a home in Bordentown and New York presented him with a farm at New Rochelle.  He lived most of the time in Philadelphia, enjoying the life of a refined gentleman.  But Paine’s own outspoken writings would change his life.

In 1787 he sailed for Havre to exhibit his model of an iron bridge to the French Academy of Science.  Paris was on the brink of revolution and Paine made his opinions known—most notably concerning the royal execution.

“My having voted and spoken extensively, more so than any other member, against the execution of the King, had already fixed a mark upon me,” wrote Paine later.   The inventor, rationalist and author realized he was in danger of arrest.  “Pen and ink were then of no use to me.  No good could be done by writing…My heart was in distress at the fate of my friends, and my harp was hung upon the weeping willows.”

While expecting to be taken away to the guillotine, Paine wrote the first part of “The Age of Reason,” a work that would prompt his anti-Christian reputation.  Six hours after he finished the book he was arrested.   When he was finally released from prison in 1802, he was sick and old.

Paine sailed to New York, moving into a wooden house on Herring Street owned by a couple known only as Mr. and Mrs. Ryder.    The modest two-and-a-half story home was one of only three on the block between Columbia Street (later named Grove Street) and Reason Street which was named in honor of Paine’s “The Age of Reason” (it would later be bastardized to Raisin Street in 1827 and subsequently renamed Barrow Street).

The Ryders had another boarder, a French woman named Madame Marguerite Bonneville and her two sons.    Paine, now feeble and confused, rarely left the modest frame house.   Samuel J. Willis remembered decades later “I almost daily passed the house on Herring street where Thomas Paine resided, and frequently, in fair weather, saw him sitting at the south window of the first story room of that house—the sash was raised, a small table or stand was placed before him, with an open book placed upon it which he appeared to be reading.   He had his spectacles on, his left elbow rested upon the table or stand, and his chin rested between the thumb and fingers of his hand; his right hand lay upon his book, and a decanter, containing liquor of the color of rum or brandy, was standing next to his book and beyond it.

I never saw Thomas Paine at any other place or in any other position.”

Paine’s residency in the Herring Street house was not serene.  He had become overly-sensitive to criticism and was alienated from most of his former friends.  Bouts of apoplexy had left him an invalid and members of the clergy constantly attempted to gain access to the author in order to persuade him to recant his writings in “The Age of Reason.”   

Cunningham Janvier later wrote “It was during Paine’s last days in the little house in Greenwich that two worthy divines, the Rev. Mr. Milledollar and the Rev. Mr. Cunningham, sought to bring him to a realising sense of the error of his ways.  Their visitation was not a success.  ‘Don’t let ‘em come here again,’ he said, curtly, to his housekeeper, Mrs. Hedden, when they had departed; and added: ‘They trouble me.’  Mrs. Hedden denied them admission—saying with a good deal of piety, and with even more common-sense: ‘If God does not change his mind, I’m sure no man can!’”

As Paine’s frailty increased, it became necessary to move him from the Ryder house.  In his 1847 biography “Thomas Paine,” G. Vale noted “That, when Thomas Paine’s sickness increased on him, and boarding house attention was scarcely sufficient, Madame Bonneville took a small house for him, May, 1809, in Columbia street, and here she attended on him till his death.”

Only a few weeks later, on June 8, 1809 at around 9:00 in the morning, Paine died.

Within the next two decades Greenwich Village experienced an explosion in population and development.  In 1829 Herring Street became part of Bleecker Street and the Ryder house was renumbered No. 293 Bleecker.  Around this time it was purchased by the wealthy Delaplaine family.

Around the time of the Civil War, when Isaac C. Delaplaine was elected to the 37^th Congress as a U.S. Representative from New York, Bleecker Street was renumbered again.  Now the old Ryder house was No. 309.

By 1844 Bleecker Street was bustling with commerce and the house had become the home of J. Tabor’s Confectionary store.   There would be many commercial incarnations.  In 1855 Lee & Co. did business from the ground floor.  That year the firm received two “diplomas” at the Crystal Palace exhibition—one for an “enameled wire sign” and the second for “gauze-wire stand screens.”

Valentine’s “Manual of the Corporation of the City of New-York” noted in 1864 that “Isaac C. Delaplaine, Esq. of No. 278 Fifth Avenue… has had its lower rooms altered into a meat and vegetable market.”

Valentine's Manual included a map showing the Ryder house "C" as well as the Grove Street house where Paine died, "E" -- copyright expired

The street-level where Thomas Paine had sat by the window reading nearly 70 years earlier was a “beer and billard saloon” in 1876, according to The New York Times.   But through its various uses, New Yorkers always remembered the clapboard building as the Thomas Paine House.

In 1920 when Anna Alice Chapin wrote her book “Greenwich Village” the house had become decrepit.  “You may find the house if you care to look for it—the very same house kept by Mrs. Ryder, where Thomas paine lived more than a century ago.  So humble and shabby it is you might pass it by with no more notice than you would pass a humble and shabby wayfarer.  Its age and picturesqueness do not arrest the eye; for it isn’t the sort of old house which by quaint lines and old-world atmosphere tempt the average artist or lure the casual poet to its praise.  It is just a little old wooden building of another day, where people of modest means were wont to live.”

Five years after Anna Chapin called it "humble and shabby," No. 309 was photographed with its similar next door neighbor -- photo NYPL Collection

Chapin did notice that at least some of 18^th century architectural detailing was intact.  “Ugly, dingy rooms they are in that house, but glorified by association.  There is, incidentally, a mantelpiece which anyone might envy, though now buried in barbarian paint.  There are gable windows peering out from the shingled roof.”

The author was amazed that the two houses where Paine last resided still survived in 1920.  “A dozen times 309 Bleecker Street and 59 Grove Street have almost gone in the relentless constructive demolition of metropolitan growth and progress.  But—they have not gone yet!”

Anna Alice Chapin spoke too soon.

In the midst of the Great Depression the Delaphaine family still retained possession of No. 309 Bleecker Street.  After a century of ownership, in February 1930, they sold the property to Alfred Heyman. The New York Times reported “Mr. Heyman, the new owner, is having plans prepared for improving the site.”

photo NYPL Collection

In 1930 history and architecture still took second stage to “progress.”  The fact that an 18^th century wooden structure, once home to one of the country’s most brilliant thinkers, still survived was incidental to the property value.

About a week after the sale, on March 9, The Times reported “The old Greenwich Village home of Thomas Paine, the rationalist, is to be demolished to make way for a modern building.  Nearly a century and a quarter have elapsed since the author of ‘Common Sense’ and ‘The Age of Reason’ took up residence in the wooden house adjacent to Bleecker and Grove Streets that is now about to come down.”

The upper windows are gone and part of the clapboarding has fallen away as the house is prepared for demolition.  The reverse of the photo reads "the house where Thomas Paine lived shortly before his last illness is shown in its last stages of decay." -- photo NYPL Collection

Amazingly, by today’s perspective, there was no outcry, no attempt to save the miraculous survivor.    It was replaced by a one-story store “of tile and brick,” only to be demolished in 1957.  A utilitarian, architecturally bland one-story supermarket took its place.

The Thomas Paine House gave way to an unremarkable one-story supermarket-turned-clothing store.  -- photo by Alice Lum

The First House on the Square -- No. 20 Washington Square North

photo by Beyond My Ken

In 1790 the city of New York purchased seven acres of land from the Herring family well north of the established city. The property was used as an execution ground and potter’s field. Seven years later four more acres were purchased from Colonel William S. Smith and a few more added from Alfred Pell and the Warren estate, creating a 13-acre plot.

About the same time that the city was buying the portion of the Warren estate, so was John Rogers. In 1796 he bought four acres, just north of what would become the potter’s field. Upon his death the land was divided among his three children, George, John Jr., and Mary.

Bachelor George P. Rogers lived in a fine home at 18 Broadway, opposite Bowling Green, which he shared with his brother. The land he inherited to the north, unfortunately, abutted a burying ground where trenches were dug and wooden coffins were piled three or more deep. It was not the most fashionable of sites; although hangings had ceased on July 8, 1819.

The Evening Post reported that “Rose, a black girl who had been sentenced for setting fire to a dwelling…was executed yesterday at 2 o’clock near Potter’s Field.” It would be the last of the hangings.

Then in 1826 Mayor Philip Hone had the idea to renovate the potter’s field, turning it into a military parade ground. It would be named in honor of George Washington. Before long the interred bodies—many of the victims of the 1822 cholera epidemic and estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000—had been covered over and forgotten. George Rogers’ property was suddenly more respectable.

Rogers’ began construction of his country house in 1828. It was the first mansion on Washington Square North and was completed the following year. An elegant Federal-style structure it was three-and-a-half stories tall and 37 feet wide. In her “It Happened on Washington Square,” Emily Kies Folpe imagined the solitary, grand country house. “When it stood alone on the north side of the parade ground, it would have looked like a country mansion set in private grounds, with a carriage-way along its west side leading to a stable in the rear.”

photo by Alice Lum

It would not stand alone for long. Wealthy businessmen, bankers and real estate moguls were establishing tasteful residential neighborhoods in areas such as Bond Street and St. John’s Park. Washington Square would be included among them. A row of dignified Greek Revival mansions were constructed between 1832 and 1833.

Among those settling along Washington Square North were John Johnston; George Griswold, who owned a China-trade company with his brother; and several members of the Rhinelander family. George Rogers’ sister, Mary, would eventually marry William C. Rhinelander. He would build No. 14 Washington Square North, on the corner of Fifth Avenue in 1840 where they would live out their lives.

George Rogers built two additional mansions around the same time at Nos. 16 and 17. He lived in No. 17 until he died in 1870.

In 1859 alterations were made to No. 20, adding 13 feet to the first floor. By 1880 the Rhinelanders had acquired nearly all of the property along what was then called North Washington Square. That year architect Henry J. Hardenbergh was commissioned to renovate No. 20 from an extra-wide private mansion into four roomy and high-class apartments.

The scar in the facade between the windows to the left bears evidence to the addition -- photo by Alice Lum

The architect extended the entire building to the width of the first story and added a fourth floor. He deftly matched the original window lentils on the extension, then reflected the arched entrance opening in the fourth floor windows. The original Federal-style cast iron fencing was removed and updated.

Although apartment living was still viewed suspiciously by many, the elegant accommodations at No. 20 attracted the upper ranks of society. In 1887 Mrs. O. P. Hubbard was living here. She was at the time President of the Women’s Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church.

The widow of Edward Renshaw Jones lived here with her son, Edward, and daughter, Mabel. On January 31, 1896, Mary E. Jones and Mabel hosted an afternoon reception in the parlor. Only 19 days later young Edward, who had graduated from Harvard three years earlier, died in his bedroom after a short illness.

Attorney Henry S. Hoyt, his wife, Geraldine Livingston Hoyt, and their son Henry Jr. had an apartment here at the same time. Thirty years later Francis Hoyt Griffin and his wife would still be in the apartment.

Perhaps none of the residents were more colorful than Julia Gardiner Gayley. Julia was the daughter of Colonel Curtis Crane Gardiner of Gardiner’s Island and a lineal descendant of Miles Standish. In 1884 she married James Gayley, a close personal friend of Andrew Carnegie who went on to become Vice President of the United States Steel Corporation.

A year after their daughter, Mary, married Count Giulio Senni of Rome, Julia walked out on Gayley. She took up residence at No. 20 North Washington Square, taking her remaining two daughters Agnes, and Florence, with her. In February 1910 Gayley finally sued for divorce, citing desertion.

The divorce did not put a damper on Julia’s social activities and she regularly sailed off to Europe with the girls. Then in August 1920, just six months after she announced the engagement of daughter Florence to Henry Eglinton Montgomery, Julia married club man Gano Dunn.

A room in Julia Gardiner Gayley's apartment in No. 20 Washington Square North -- photograph from the personal collection of Vittoria McIlhenny

The couple remained at No. 20 and Julia Gardiner Gayley Dunn continued to entertain. Guest lists at her teas and receptions were often peppered with the names of the social celebrities of the day. In 1923, for instance, the same year that Sir Herbert Morgan was here for tea, Princess Santa Borghese made an appearance in the parlor.

The extra width of No. 20 can be seen from across the Square in 1930 -- photo NYPL Collection

June 23, 1936 marked the end of the mansion’s residential use. New York University leased the building from the Rhinelander Estate to be renovated into the administrative center of the Division of General Education. The facility would provide space for the developing adult education program which was in its infancy.

Six years later the Rhinelander estate finally sold the property it had held for more than a century. It was purchased by the St. Joseph’s Academy, a venerable educational institution that had been operating from 154 Waverly Place. The house was assessed at the time at about $120,000.

The conversion of the mansion into a school took just over one year. Operated by the Sisters of Charity of Mount St. Vincent, the new facility was dedicated by Archbishop Francis J. Spellman on September 25, 1943. The renovated building had nine classrooms, music room, library, chapel and gymnasium. 120 students in grades kindergarten through eighth were enrolled that first year.

photo by Alice Lum

Today the house is home to the Intercommunity Center for Justice and Peace, an organization of 16 religious communities formed in 1991 to address issues of peace and justice.

George P. Rogers’ summer house has been drastically changed in its nearly 200 years existence, yet it remains handsome and dignified. As The New York Times noted in April of 1922, “the palatial house…with its red brick front and white trim, stands out conspicuously overlooking the Square.”

An 1826 Survivor in Chelsea -- No. 145 8th Avenue

No. 145 (left) was very similar to its next door neighbor at No. 147

In 1811 in an unbelievable act of forward thinking the City of New York enacted its Commissioners Plan.  The Plan, on paper, dissected the rolling farmlands, meadows and forests north of 14^th Street into the disciplined grid of streets and avenues that define Manhattan today.  It was a life-changing move for the farmers and country estate owners north of the established city.

George Rapelje was one such farmer.  The son of an early Dutch settler, Joris Rapelje, George’s small farm stretched roughly from what is now 18^thStreet south to 16^th Street, and from 7^th Avenue to 10^thAvenue.   As was not uncommon at the time, Rapelje worked his farm with the help of at least two slaves.  But the Commissioners Plan was about to change the pastoral lifestyle along what would become 8^th Avenue.

In 1818 Clement Clarke Moore began portioning off sections of his family estate, Chelsea, just to the north of Rapelje’s farm.   That year he donated 66 tracts of land for the establishment of the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church.  He would rapidly develop his property with the help of family friend and real estate developer James N. Wells.

There was no hope that the Rapelje farm could survive, and most likely the family was more than happy to receive the financial boon the development offered.  In May of 1825 Rapelje’s grandson, George, and his wife Susanna began selling off building sites.  Already modest brick Federal-style homes were filling the neighborhood around the growing Seminary.  Eighth Avenue had been gouged through the Rapelje farmland in 1816.

Two years after George and Susanna Rapelje began dividing up the farm, dry goods merchant Aaron Dexter purchased the two lots including No. 145 8^th Avenue.  Here Dexter constructed a three-and-a-half story Federal structure, a near copy of its neighbor at No. 147.    While elegant Federal residences were being built to the south in fashionable St. James Park and the Bond Street areas, Dexter’s building was intended for the middle class.

It coupled commercial space on the ground floor with living space above.  Flemish bond red brick was trimmed with simple brownstone lintels and window sills.  Perched on the plain wooden cornice were prim, pedimented dormers. 

Aaron Dexter operated a shoe business from No. 145 for nearly two decades.  In 1846 he sold the building to Elizabeth Montgomery.  Six years later it changed hands again when Dr. C. Dixon Varley purchased the structure.  Having graduated from the Medical Department of the University of the City of New York in 1844, Varley quickly established his practice and became what The New York Medical Journal called “a highly respected physician.”  The doctor would become a member of the Committee on Ethics of the Academy of Medicine and a co-founder of the Church of the Holy Apostles.

When Varley acquired the house in 1852 the street level space was already being leased by photographer Fernando Dessaur.   At mid-century portrait photography was coming into its own and No. 145 8^th Avenue became a popular destination.   The photographer had established his studio here in 1850 and would stay on until 1870 when he moved further north on 8^th Avenue to No. 551.

During the Civil War many young soldiers heading off to battle posed here in their uniforms.  The resulting images were lovingly treasured by their families and sweethearts who waited at home.

Dessaur photographed this hauntingly-beautiful young woman in his studio at No. 145 8th Avenue.

In the meantime, the upstairs quarters filled with the families of local laborers and tradesmen.

Dr. Varley retained possession of the house until his death on December 21, 1887, at which point his family took ownership until 1925.

At the time of Dr. Varley’s death, the building was the meeting place of the Food-Producers’ Section, an organization that oversaw the activities of unions related to food and drink.   On February 9, 1888 The Evening World noted that a committee of the Food Producers’ Section “will call on David Meyer, the Morrisania brewer, and inquire why he discharged a union man without good cause.”  The newspaper noted on the same day that “The Secretary of the Food Producers’ Section will ask the Central Labor Union why the grievance of the Elks Association of cattle butchers against Eastman, the butcher, has not been attended to as ordered by that body.”

The store was being used by a firm named Collins Brothers in 1893 when a small chimney fire started at 4:30 am on July 24.  It was quickly extinguished and The Sunreported “no damages.’

Shortly after the Varley family sold the building in 1925 the ground level returned to its original purpose as a shoe store.  Murray’s Shoes was here from 1929 to 1937, followed by Sundial Shoes from 1938 to 1949.

While Sundial Shoes was here, in 1940, lease-holder Harry ZaZula modernized the storefront with an up-to-date “arcade” shop front.  The deep entranceway allowed for extensive window displays—perfect for a shoe store.

Four years later ZaZula and his wife, Anna, purchased the property.  They renovated again in 1967 when the second floor was converted to an apartment and a “theatrical studio.”  Above were small apartments.  The ZaZulas sold the property in 1975.

In the meantime the Chelsea neighborhood along this stretch of 8^th Avenue had become one of tenement houses and small businesses.   Towards the end of the 20^thcentury, gentrification brought art galleries, trendy restaurants and clothing stores to the Avenue.  Yet the amazing survivors at Nos. 145 and 147 Eighth Avenue remained—unlikely remnants of the 1820s nearly unchanged above the ground floors.

non-historic photograph taken by the author

The 1799 Mount Vernon Hotel - 421 E. 61st Street

photo NYPL Collection

New York is a city of architectural surprises and treasures. On a small rise above a stone wall at No. 421 East 61st Street is a surprising treasure.

The large area of land along the East River where the building now sits was part of a 1676 land grant. In 1795, 23 acres of the property were deeded to Colonel William Stephens Smith, a veteran of the Revolution and the husband of Abigail Adams Smith, daughter of John Adams. The Smiths intended to build their extensive country estate here on what they named “Mount Vernon” in honor of George Washington’s home. Indeed, they began construction of the main house in 1798; but financial problems halted their plans and a year later Smith sold the unfinished building to prosperous merchant William T. Robinson.

Robinson completed the main house and constructed other fine outbuildings, including an impressive carriage house of Manhattan schist along what would become East 61st Street. Shortly, however, Robinson sold the estate which was converted into a country resort called The Mount Vernon Hotel.

The hotel marketed itself as a pleasant getaway from the stress and congestion of the city. It advertised “excellent facilities for fishing, shooting, and salt-water bathing” and its dining room was renowned for “every day in season soup made from the fine green turtles fattening in a crawl made for that purpose in the East River,” which was a mere 50 feet from the hotel.

The resort and grounds were converted, in 1823, to an academy for girls. Three years later the main building was destroyed by fire and the large property was divided into lots and sold. Joseph Coleman Hart purchased the plot on which the undamaged coach house stood. Hart did an extensive renovation of the building, creating a private residence and in 1833 sold it to Jeremiah Towle. The Towle family lived on in the gracious house for 70 years until, in 1905, his daughters sold it to the Standard Gas Light Company. By now the once-rural and verdant area was crowded with breweries, warehouses and enormous gas tanks; one directly behind the house.

The building at the time of its sale to the Colonial Dames of America - 1924, photo NYPL Collection

Luckily the old house caught the eye of Jane Teller, president of the Society of American Antiquarians, who opened an antiques shop here in 1919. Then, on September 7, 1924, The New York Times reported that “Manhattan’s oldest stone house, built in 1799 by Colonel William Stephens Smith, spared by the British Navy in the East River in the War of 1812, used intermittently as a roadhouse, residence, tenement and soup kitchen, but restored five years ago to provide a background for the sale of early American antiquities, has been sold to the Colonial Dames of America, of which Mrs. H. P. Loomis…is President.”

The group restored the building and grounds, planting an 18th Century-style garden around the house. Recognizing the vague connection to Abigail Adams, they outfitted the rooms with Federal furnishings and opened the building as a house museum, the Abigail Adams Smith Museum. In addition to its function as a museum, for decades the house was used for social teas and high-toned gatherings of Manhattan’s wealthy women.

The Abigail Adams Smith Museum 1932 with towering gas tank behind - photo NYPL Collection

When the American Association of Museums granted accreditation to the museum in 1983, the Colonial Dames of America reassessed its focus. After years of research and planning, the Board of Managers agreed to emphasize, rightfully, the history of the property as the Mount Vernon Hotel. Renamed the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden, it now interprets for the visitor the resort period of 1826 through 1833.

The museum houses an impressive array of American furniture and decorative arts, items of historical New York importance, period clothing and textiles. Concerts, lectures, and history camps are offered.

In September 2010 the museum initiated a four-year renovation of the historic gardens, including an “edible kitchen garden. The museum, one of only seven surviving 18th Century buildings in Manhattan, is open to the public from 11 am to 4 pm on Thuesdays through Sundays.



Photo Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Gardens

The 1831 De Forest House -- No. 26 Bond Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1831 James Roosevelt sold the property at No. 26 Bond Street to merchant Alfred De Forest.  Whether Roosevelt was responsible for the construction of the handsome red brick mansion on the lot; or if De Forest had it built is unclear.  Whichever the case, the new Federal-style residence was exquisite.

What would become known as the Bond Street District was just developing and within a decade would be among the most exclusive residential neighborhoods in New York.  The city’s most prominent and wealthiest citizens built lavish, if stylishly-restrained, homes here; red brick edifices trimmed in contrasting white marble.  In front of each house along Bond Street two trees were planted, creating a regimented and handsome row of foliage and elegant residences.

Guests crowd around a Bond Street home after a wedding in 1857 -- http://www.merchantshouse.org/

The De Forest house would set the bar for neighboring homes built shortly after.   The Flemish-bond red brick façade rose three stories to a dormered attic.   The builder spared no expense, executing the refined entranceway white marble.    Stone steps graced with elaborate cast iron railings led to the doorway with an arched Gibbs surround—an enframement interrupted by blocks of stone, in this case vermiculated (carved with wavy, wormlike lines), and named after the architect James Gibbs.

Despite the building's 20th century abuse, the exquisite marble Gibbs surround and the original stoop survive -- photo by Alice Lum

Inside intricate plasterwork adorned the ceilings and rich woodwork, marble mantels and a glass skylight above the graceful winding staircase added to the upscale tone of the home.

Alfred De Forest was the nephew of Benjamin De Forest, a wealthy merchant doing business at No. 185 South Street.  Benjamin had come to New York around 1804 and, although a shoemaker in Connecticut, he opened a shop in the harbor area at No. 31 Peck Slip know as Benjamin De Forest and Company

In 1811 he convinced his nephew to leave Connecticut as well and brought him into the business--which was now De Forest and Smith since Benjamin’s partnership with Gershom Smith in 1805.  The  uncle and nephew each had a sizable fortune.

Alfred had married the only daughter of Augustus Wright; and upon his death she had inherited a considerable fortune which, as well.   Alfred inherited her large estate when she died.

Benjamin was married to Mary Burlock, “the beautiful daughter of Thomas Burlock.”  Upon the death of Mary’s wealthy brother, Henry, she inherited a large portion of his estate.   Benjamin and Mary originally moved into Alfred’s house at No. 20 Beekman Street; but since 1826 they all had been living at No. 27 Bond Street, directly across the street from the new house.   Now, in 1831, the extended family moved into the elegant new home at No. 26 Bond Street.

photo by Alice Lum

Alfred De Forest had no children; and Benjamin and Mary had two daughters, but no sons to continue the business under the family name.   Concerned that there was no one to carry on the business under the family name, they brought distant relative George B. De Forest into the firm around 1842 or 1843. 

George had been in the dry goods business at No. 86 Cedar Street and lived at No. 30 Great Jones Street, close to the De Forest house.   In a confusing tangle of surnames, George B. De Forest married one of Benjamin’s daughters soon after joining the firm and moved into the Bond Street house with the rest of the family.

When Alfred De Forest died in 1847 he left his entire estate to Benjamin who died three years later.  Benjamin’s estate was estimated at approximately $1.5 million—about $31.5 million today.   Although George and his wife stayed on in the Bond Street house for a while, the migration of society would soon prod them northward to No. 66 East 21^st Street.

In 1853 the house was sold to John Haggerty.   Two years later the leading merchants of New York set out to compile a list of all citizens worth $100,000 or more.  The New York Times said that the purpose of the resulting pamphlet was “to ascertain the capital employed in trade and the wealth at the command of and ready for use in ‘backing up’ those engaged in it.”

High on the list was John Haggerty whose assets were listed as $1 million.  The Times called him “Of Irish parentage and formerly of the firm of Haggerty & Austin, auctioneers, and the richest man in that business.”

By the end of two decades the Bond Street neighborhood had severely changed.  No longer fashionable, its millionaire residents had forged northward.  Their fine homes with mahogany doors on silver hinges were now used as boarding houses and worse. 

In 1880 No. 26 Bond Street was a boarding house run by French-born Eugene Regard and his wife Mariette.   Along with the Regard family and the eleven Swiss boarders living in the house—most of them watch case makers—was Herman H. Wolff, a Prussian.  Unlike the hard-working watch case makers, Wolff turned out to be a scalawag.

During the first week of March that year Wolff presented himself at the home of Abiel B. Marks at No. 62 West 34^th Street.  Wolff was seeking a job on Marks’ household staff as a waiter.   Although Wolff presented a stack of references from the Reverend Dr. A. C. Morehouse and a number of respectable families he claimed to have worked for; Marks somewhat foolishly failed to check them out.

The New York Times later said that “from the man’s manner and personal appearance [Marks] became convinced that he had a jewel of a servant.”  Wolff was hired; much to his employer’s rapid regret.

On the night of March 26 while the household was asleep, Wolff filled a trunk with silverware, jewelry, wearing apparel, and books.  He lugged the trunk to Overin’s livery stable on West 39^th Street and, telling the proprietor he needed to hire a hack for Mr. Marks, had himself and the trunk taken to No. 57 Bleecker Street.  With astonishing gall, he told the stableman “to send the bill to his employer.”

Among the rare books Wolff had stolen were three volumes of Shakespeare, a volume of Milton and the Marks family Bible.  It was the last item that most distressed the millionaire, for, as was customary, it contained the Marks family genealogy. 

Wolff shaved off his whiskers to disguise himself and went into hiding.  Detectives found the Bible and the Shakespeare volumes in a Bowery pawnshop where the thief had pawned them for $5.  The Times noted that “Mr. Marks was delighted at this discovery, and, hastening over to the pawnshop, redeemed his books, and carried his much-prized Bible home in triumph.”

The shady Wolff would not remain a free man for long.  The newspaper reported that “A number of other articles were recovered by the detectives, but the dishonest waiter kept out of the way until Saturday, when he was seen in a Bowery beer saloon and arrested.”  Pawn tickets for the rest of the items were found on him.

As commerce crept into the Bond Street neighborhood, the house was converted in 1882 to include a “workshop.”   In addition to what was apparently a retail space in the basement level, rooms were leased upstairs.  On March 18, 1883 the house was the scene of the spring meeting of the National Association of General Passenger Agents of the Railways of the United States.   It was an important meeting, since negotiations were necessary to calm disputes between the various railroad lines.

The New York Times reported that Commissioner Fink “may possibly be able to satisfy the Western grumblers and prevent the rate war which some railroad men think inevitable.”

But the once-lavish rooms were the wealthy De Forest family had lived were now not simply being used as meeting rooms.  On the night of July 25, 1888 the house was raided by detectives headed by Anthony Comstock.  On the second floor a gambling house was operating.   The New York Times reported that “Theodore Brown, the reputed proprietor; William Bascome, the dealer; and James Kelly, the lookout, were captured.  They were locked up at Police Headquarters.  Six other persons found in the room were allowed to depart.  All the gaming articles found were seized.”

The neighborhood was soon the center of the fur trade and in 1888 Herman Coney ran house furrier shop in the building.    Another furrier, Edward Metcalf of No. 18 West 4^th Street, convinced an employee, William Woolsey, to rob Coney’s establishment.  Woolsey, an immigrant, had been in the country only a few weeks when he was enticed into the evil deed.   On November 6, 1888 Woolsey broke into Coney’s shop and made off with $1,000 worth of “sealskin sacques.”

Other businesses moved in to the old house within the next two years.  In 1890 another furrier, M. J. Klein & Co. was here, as well as Columbia Neckwear Co. and trimmings firm Max Blau.  Upstairs boarders still took rooms, including the widow Frances Levine.  Yet the boarders still shared the upper floors with illegal gambling houses.

In the 19^th century the term “poolroom” referred to illegal gambling parlors where horse betting was held.  Telegraphed race results were received and bets won and lost in the murky rooms.   On March 25, 1890 The Times reported that George & Co.’s poolroom on the second floor here was doubly-dishonest.

When detectives arrested William J. Williams, “a telegraph operator and ‘horse fiend,’” on the technical charge of tampering with Western Union telegraph wires, the police said “The real charge, however, is tapping the wires of George & Co.’s poolroom, 26 Bond-street, so as to manipulate race-track reports, and the Central office detectives and Capt Brogan believe that an extensive conspiracy back by plenty of brains and money has been nipped in the bud.”

A year later the poolroom was still in operation; now run by William Smith, who also found himself in front of a judge on September 10.

Meanwhile, downstairs the legitimate fur dealers continued their trade.  In 1894 C. H. Lehman manufactured and sold furs here; and by 1910 fur merchant Drucker & Holmstock Co. was doing business from the address.

At the turn of the last century, No. 23 Bond Street, across the street, still retained its residential appearance -- photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library

By 1920 there were no longer boarders in the house.  Business now operated from all floors and both the basement and parlor levels had been heavily altered for commercial purposes.  The block, once tree-lined and quiet, now bustled with delivery trucks and workers.  

At some point in the 20th century the elegant parlor windows were obliterated for an industrial-looking store window -- photo by Alice Lum

Demand for small business space was such that on November 17, 1920 the agents for the property, Charles F. Noyes Company, announced that it was raising the lease amount on the building from $10,000 a year to $15,000.  The Times remarked that “This increase indicates the scarcity of space in the Lafayette Street district just south of Astor Place.”

As the garment and millinery districts overtook what had been the furrier district, the house at No. 26 Bond Street attracted small businesses like the hat shop of Paul Hendler.  The 65-year old got himself into hot water in November 1936 when he was caught selling “ash-can hats.”

Later period Greek Revival-style houses across the street were home to hat shops in the 1930s -- photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library

A two-year old law prevented “the sale of second-hand and made-over hats as new.”  A printed linen tag was required to be sewn into the hat telling the consumer that it was a refurbished hat.  Unscrupulous wholesalers, however, paid “scavengers” to search trash cans to find discarded women’s hats.  The scavengers were paid one to five cents for each hat.

Hendler pleaded not guilty, insisting he had no idea that the hats he was selling were second-hand, refurbished goods.  To his possible defense, an investigator said “It developed that many retailers had been selling ‘ashcan’ hats without knowing they had been retrieved from ashheaps and garbage cans.”

By the time Paul Hendler was dealing with accusations of cheating his customers, the once-refined homes of Bond Street that still stood were in a miserable state of abuse.  No. 26, however, retained its glorious entrance, its Federal dormers and, amazingly, much of its interior detailing.

During the second half of the 20^th century the house once again saw residential tenants.  Twenty-three-year old James N. Fouratt lived here in 1967.  It was the Age of Aquarius and the idealistic Fouratt joined a group of similar-thinking youths on July 22 headed out to make a positive difference.

photo by Alice Lum

A Special to The New York Times from Newark, New Jersey reported that “About a dozen New York hippies dressed in jump suits, mini-skirts, safari hats, buttons and painted faces carried Negro children on piggy-back rides and gave out flowers and groceries today at a Negro housing project here.”

The Douglas Apartments housing project had been the site of tumult during the six days of rioting that resulted in no fewer than 21 deaths.  Now the flower children intended to spread love.  They staged a “be-in” which Newark police, already stressed, did not welcome.

James Fouratt was charged with “creating a disturbance and failing to obey a policeman while handing out leaflets.”   The New York Times reported that, like that police, not all the residents of the housing project welcomed the unrequested show of support.

“’I don’t know if its going to do us any good to have people like you on our side,’ a Negro woman told one of the hippies,” reported the newspaper.

Mailboxes and wiring insult the amazingly surviving interior details of the entrance hallway --http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/795910-townhouse-26-bond-st-noho-new-york

As the 21^st century dawned, the old Bond Street neighborhood experienced a renaissance of a type.  The house at No. 26 was converted to a multiple-family dwelling and sold in 2013 for $10 million.  A rare surviving relic of a refined and elegant residential period; it still retains some of the interior details that hint at its former glory when its owners landed on the list of New York’s wealthiest citizens.

A "coffin niche" where the De Forest family once placed flowers or statuary survives on the gracefully-winding staircase -- http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/795910-townhouse-26-bond-st-noho-new-york