The 1906 John Wanamaker Annex -- No. 770 Broadway

photo by Alice Lum

Having started business in 1823 as an Irish immigrant with a small lace and linens shop, Alexander Turney Stewart was among the wealthiest men in the United States by 1848.   That year he built a magnificent emporium dubbed the Marble Palace at the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street.  His was the largest such store in the world and he was not done yet.

In 1862 Stewart spent an astronomical $2.5 million dollars—about $45 million today—to erect an uptown branch on Broadway extending back to Fourth Avenue along 10^th Street.  His 6-story cast iron structure, designed by John Kellum, was built to be fireproof and the new technology allowed larger window area and, therefore, increased daylight inside.

The gargantuan store became known as the Iron Palace and The New York Tribune called the two buildings “the proudest monuments of commercial enterprise in the country.”  In 1870 the store was enlarged, now filling the entire block from 10^th to 9^thStreet.

The original, extended building covered the entire block in 1870 -- NYPL Collection

 Stewart died in 1876 but the A. T. Stewart & Co. store on Broadway and 10^th Street continued on for six years.   Hilton, Hughes & Co. took over the operation in 1882 but failed four years later.  In November 1896 Philadelphia retailer John Wanamaker opened his New York operation in the building.    And if Alexander Stewart thought big, John Wanamaker thought bigger.

Almost immediately Wanamaker began buying up lots on the block south of the store.  By the end of 1902 he had successfully obtained the entire block from 8^th to 9^thStreet, Broadway through 4^th Avenue.  The New York Times announced on December 21 “The entire site…is now in Mr. Wanamaker’s control and it is assumed that the erection of the new building will not be deferred for any length of time.”

The newspaper noted that the proposed, block-encompassing structure, would require the demolition of multiple buildings, including the Germania Theatre on 8^th Street.  “Some of these buildings are modern, substantially built structures, notably the one at the northeast corner of Broadway and Eighth Street.”

The Annex doubled the height of the original Stewart store in the foreground -- Wanamaker's The Store of New York, 1916 - copyright expired

A year later construction started on the immense 12-story emporium designed by the Chicago architectural firm D. H. Burnham & Co.  It would take three years for the structure to be completed.   The stately Italian Renaissance building clad in terra cotta cost $3.5 million. It was the product of three years of research into department store design throughout the United States and Europe.  The old Stewart building was connected to the “Annex” by an enclosed bridge, called The Bridge of Progress, and a tunnel under 9^th Street. 

The Bridge of Progress linked the two stores -- Wanamaker's The Store of New York, 1916 - copyright expired

The original building was now used for women’s merchandise only; the new building sold menswear, and furnishings and decorations for the home.  The New-York Tribune on April 22, 1906 called the new structure “one of the most elaborately fitted up and furnished department stores in the United States, if not in the world.”  It would be a store like no other.

An enormous rotunda rose through the height of the building with a grand “horseshoe stairway” leading up to the second floor.   On this floor pianos and organs were displayed in period-decorated rooms.  “For instance,” reported The Tribune, “the Emerson room is decorated in Louis XIV style, while the Knabe room is in the Flemish style.  All the decorations are in keeping in each room, even including the chandeliers and furniture.  There are rooms decorated in Louis XV, Louis XVI, Moorish, Renaissance and Empire, as well as Old Dutch.”

The sumptuous Rotunda rose through the center of the store.  The carpeted Horseshoe Stairway accessed the second floor.  Wanamaker's The Store of New York, 1916 - copyright expired

The combined old and new buildings now offered the shopper a full thirty-two acres of floor space.  The store required a staff of 5,000 to 8,000 employees depending on the season.  But the additional conveniences, not necessarily related to shopping, were even more impressive.   There was a Guides’ Office where confused shoppers could procure a personal guide to “conduct visitors about the store and to serve the shopper in every possible way,” as pointed out in Wanamaker's 1916 New York, Metropolis of the World, brochure.   The booklet added that “The entire Wanamaker store is dotted with quiet places for the comfort and convenience of guests.  Writing desks, rest rooms and retiring rooms are conveniently distributed, and are welcome place for rest when one slightly tires of shopping.”

The restaurant could feed 1,000 tired shoppers -- Wanamaker's The Store of New York, 1916 - copyright expired

For those “slightly tired of shopping,” there was also the auditorium.  With a seating capacity of 1,300 and rising three stories it was one of the largest theaters in New York.   Murals were painted by Frederick K.Frieseke, of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts of Paris.  Here the Austin organ not only had 64 stops, but two chimes of bells, a snare drum, kettle drums, cymbals and triangle.  Free, nearly daily concerts were offered for shoppers.

There were also a golf school, a restaurant capable of serving over 1,000, a telegraph service, a post office, theater ticket office, railroad ticket office, Red Cross Headquarters, and hair salon.  To give homeowners ideas on decorating, a two-story house was incorporated into the store.  The Wanamaker booklet described The House Palatial as “containing twenty-four rooms designed in correct period or modern style, and every room in the house obviously different in character, although all help to make up a harmonious whole.  It represents the best of the house designing, furnishing and decorative arts.”  More than a million people every year visited The House Palatial.

A room in The House Palatial in 1916 -- Wanamaker's The Store of New York, 1916 - copyright expired

In the basement was a subway station—a supreme convenience for shoppers.  The Meridien Morning Record said “…the Subway train sets you down in Wanamaker’s.  You may come in a driving rainstorm and not get a drop of water at any point—no need to carry an umbrella or wear a raincoat…It has revolutionized the convenience of shopping.”

The up-to-date features of the building proved themselves when a small fire broke out near the pipe organ in the auditorium on March 16, 1918.  The automatic alarm and sprinkler system were set off and The Times reported that “the fire was out before fire apparatus arrived.”

Three stories high, the Auditorium was decorated with frescoes -- Wanamaker's The Store of New York, 1916 - copyright expired

On April 24, 1928 the section of 9^th Street between Broadway and 4^th Avenue that separated the old and new Wanamaker buildings was renamed by the Board of Aldermen to Wanamaker Place.   The gesture was in honor of the public services of the late Rodman Wanamaker; however it also paid tribute to the gargantuan retail establishment that straddled the street.

By the middle of the 20^th century the shopping district had moved northward.   Rather than move with it, Wanamaker decided in 1954 to simply close the business.  Although 1,500 unionized employees voted unanimously to try to purchase the business as a partnership with the help of investment bankers, the venture did not materialize.

photo by Alice Lum

On closing day, December 18, 1954, a writer for The New York Times reminisced.  “But to some of us at least it seemed more than a store.  It had an air of sober respectability, of gentility, of courtesy, of the leisure of time passed, of spaciousness appropriate to the carriage trade…One did not go down there, in later years, expecting to shop around in other stores also.  It was a trip to Wanamaker’s and nowhere else…The lady of the house never wondered whether anything wrong would be made right at Wanamaker’s…For the customers, for the employes—and today is, of course, a particularly sad day for them—a chapter closes, and with regret.”

The upper floors were lavished with elaborate terra cotta detailing -- photo by Alice Lum

Nine days later crowds of people lined the sidewalks along Union Square as S. Klein’s department store began selling off the Wanamaker goods.   The firm had purchased $2.5 million worth of stock and offered it to the public at discounted prices.  In the meantime, a real estate syndicate purchased the once-proud Wanamaker buildings.  No. 770 Broadway, the Annex, was converted to an office building and quickly filled with occupants.  In 1956 Chase Manhattan Bank leased three full floors and the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company took the 7^th and half of the 6^th Floor.

As for Alexander Stewarts magnificent Iron Palace of a century earlier, plans were set to demolish it.   But before the wreckers could start, a fire broke out.  John Kellum’s fireproof structure proved to be that.  The flames raged out of control for a full 24-hours before firefighters were able to extinguish it.   Afterwards, surrounding the gutted remains, the noble cast iron façade still stood. 

After the ruins were removed an uninspiring white-brick apartment building was constructed in its place in 1960.   The 21-story structure was named with a nod to the original store—the Stewart House.

The terra cotta-clad annex survives as an office building -- photo by Alice Lum

The Wanamaker “Annex” survives today as 770 Broadway.   The subway station that unloaded shoppers into one of the nation’s most renowned retail establishments now deposits them into a K-Mart.   Among its many tenants are the corporate headquarters of AOL, Vornado and J. Crew.

Today all the thoughts of organ concerts in a splendid auditorium, an Oriental Shop that sold “mandarin embroideries and fascinating bronzes,” and the Burlington Arcade that reproduced the arcade in Piccadilly, London are gone.  The lone reminder of the once-magnificent department store is the green-and-white street sign on the corner:  Wanamaker Place.

The 1867 No. 597 Broadway

photo by Alice Lum

By 1867 a revolutionary development in architectural design was appearing in the neighborhood that a century later would be called Soho:  cast iron facades.  The strong and relatively inexpensive material allowed for enlarged window openings and was considered fireproof. 

But when John Lawrence commissioned architect John Kellum to design a store and warehouse to replace the old Lafayette Hall at No. 597 Broadway that year, he opted for marble.   Kellum’s finished structure, however, featured tall, expansive windows that flooded sunlight into the upper floors.   The slender pilasters with their intricate carved capitals which separated the openings were unexpected in a stone structure—making it appear that Kellum was imitating the new cast iron buildings nearly as much as those were imitating marble and limestone.

Carved cornices, each supported by a single foliate bracket, separated the floors.  Above it all Kellum added an attractive overhanging cornice with French Renaissance entablature.   The building ran through the block with entrances on Mercer Street.

The scrolled white marble brackets are artistically carved -- photo by Alice Lum

The retail store was home to a dry goods establishment while among the tenants upstairs was Theodore Roberts, a liquor dealer.   When Roberts was discovered selling alcohol on election day in April 1867 he was arrested and held in the Jefferson Market Court by Justice Ledwith with a $300 bail.

The street level store soon became home to Mitchell Vance & Company, manufacturers and sellers of high-end lighting fixtures, bronzes, clocks and ornamental metal work.  Established in 1854, it catered to the carriage trade with expensive goods like gilt bronze chandeliers made in its 10^th Avenue foundry and factory.   

An advertisement in The New York Tribune in 1872 lists a variety of high-end products.

Mitchell Vance & Company moved on in 1877, having erected its own building at No. 836 Broadway.   The store was home to Henry Rogers by 1885 when a small fire broke out the evening of January 8.  As quickly as it appeared the fire was extinguished and the excitement was over.

Except it wasn’t.

Around 2:00 in the morning the fire reignited and raged throughout the structure.  The New York Times reported that “at that time it seemed as if the building would be destroyed.”   But although Henry Rogers’ store was wiped out, the white marble building survived.

Kohn & Baer, wholesale furriers, moved in as early as 1899 and would stay for a number of years.  The firm not only imported furs, but manufactured fur neckwear and “a complete line of carriage and animal muffs” in the building.    An advertisement in the Fur Trade Review in 1899 listed no fewer than sixteen different furs—fox, lynx, sable, and marten among them—which the company transformed into “exclusive French designs.”

Kohn & Baer boasted of its seal jackets saying “There’s only one way of making a fur jacket right, there are a hundred ways of making it wrong.”

As the millinery district rapidly overtook the Broadway area, political organizations moved in as well.  In 1904 a Democratic organization, the Commercial Travelers’ League, was here.  Directly across the street was the Roosevelt and Fairbanks National Commercial League.

Here, on October 30, 1905, Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr., raged on about the Republicans.  “We have serious questions to deal with,” he said, “when we find that over $20,000,000 is  annually extracted from the people of this city so as to support the unbridled extravagance of a Republican administration.”  He pleaded with the members to reelect him with “such a plurality that it will stand as a rebuke to Republican extravagance and dishonesty and rank hysteria.”

As the Mayor entering his carriage, the Republican meeting in support of Hearst was ending across the street.  A Hearst supporter poked his head into McClellan’s carriage shouting “Three cheers for Hearst!”  By now the Democrats were filing out as well and the two groups faced off. 

“The two crowds, numbering fully five hundred each, met the carriage, and then, pushing, swearing and shouting, started an incipient general fight,” reported The New York Times.   In a show of late-Victorian law enforcement “Several policemen stationed near the carriage clubbed the men nearest them in an effort to clear the way.”

The Mayor, said the newspaper, “smiled broadly and took the whole affair as a joke.”

Three years later, on October 15, 1908, the Democratic candidate for Vice-President, John W. Kern, addressed the group.  Sounding much like a 2012 Occupy Wall Street protestor, he lamented the uneven distribution of wealth.   He blamed McKinley for undoing 75 years of the country’s history when “the wealth was distributed evenly among those who created it and there were few great fortunes.”

Kern accused that because of McKinley the distribution of wealth had been “taken from the hands of those who created it.”  These were, he said, “evil times.”

That same year the Underwriters’ Salvage Company rented the store and basement of the building.   It was a time when the area being called the “mid-Broadway section” was experiencing a downturn.  One broker, John Parish, partially blamed the reduction in property values on the buildings themselves; they were outdated and aging.  “I believe that one of the chief causes for the middle Broadway slump is due to the lethargy of the owners to make adequate improvements,” he told The New York Times on October 15, 1911. “The owners have waited too long and the sudden migration to the fine modern buildings above Fourteenth Street, especially in the Fourth Avenue section, has taken them by surprise.”

Almost as proof of Parish’s theory, No. 597 Broadway was sold at auction that year for $102,750.  It was assessed at $130,000.  

                                                                  

But the anticipated Broadway subway line revived the neighborhood and continued to draw millinery and apparel firms.   In November 1915 the Charles F. Noyes Company—a real estate firm established in 1898--renewed its lease on the entire building; extending it another five years at $55,000.  The New York Times explained why the hat industry seemed to be staying on in the neighborhood.  “One reason for the strength of Broadway in this vicinity is the fact that the Broadway subway, which is nearing completion, will have a station at Prince Street, which is in the same block as 597 Broadway.”

In 1922 the street level was home to the bakery and store of the Broadway Pastry Shop.  Davis Weiss was the “chauffeur” of the shop’s delivery truck and a routine delivery turned into anything but ordinary on April 14.  As Weiss drove towards the corner of 34^th Street and 2^ndAvenue, 58-year old Emma Webb was crossing the street with her granddaughter, little 8 year-old Madia Pechick.

Seeing the approaching truck, Emma Webb attempted to snatch the little girl from the path of the vehicle.  Although the girl was knocked to the pavement, she was not severely hurt.  Emma Webb, however, received internal injuries and a fractured skull and died later that night in Bellevue Hospital.  Weiss was arrested on a “technical charge of homicide.”

The middle years of the 20^th century were unkind to the Soho neighborhood.  Cast iron masterpieces sat rusting and grimy, their former high-end showrooms now home to factories and cheap outlet stores.   The store front of No. 597 was brutally altered and the façade was stained and covered in decades of soot and grunge. 

In the 1980s struggling artists discovered Soho where neglected sun-flooded lofts made for affordable housing and studio space.  Soon galleries and trendy restaurants and shops cropped up.  In June 1986 Welsh geologist Owain Hughes purchased No. 597 for $750,000 with the intention of converting it to six commercial and nine residential condominiums.  The trained geologist scanned the brown-stained façade and mentally labeled it “sandstone.”

During his $2.5 million renovation, he opened a 15x40-foot court through the middle of the structure, allowing light into the upper apartments.  A skylight admitted sunlight into the commercial spaces below.   Because by now the neighborhood had been landmarked, part of the Soho Cast Iron District, rehabilitation of the stone façade was difficult.  Landmark law prohibited the use of high-pressure hoses and chemicals, so cleaning was done by hand; what Hughes called “men up there with little brushes in their hands, like toothbrushes.”

The geologist was stunned when the cleaning revealed John Kellums gleaming white marble.

The marble, once so grime-covered that it appeared to be brownstone, gleams again -- photo by Alice Lum

On October 5, 1996 the 5,000 square foot commercial area became home to Kenneth Cole, whose opening party here had a political theme, “Get Out and Vote.”  Today Billabong, a trendy clothing store fills ground level.  Above, the white marble facade looks much as it did in 1867.  The building still has an identity problem, however; instead of being mistaken for sandstone, it is most often assumed to be white-painted cast iron.

many thanks to reader MjH for suggesting this post

The Tweed Courthouse -- City Hall Park

photo by Alice Lum

In the decade prior to the Civil War the County of New York made do with a small brownstone building erected in 1852.  Only six years later a movement was underway to erect a substantial courthouse.  Public stocks were sold to garner the funds.

The public was offered Court-House Stock to raise funds -- the New-York Daily Trubune, February 16, 1865 (copyright expired)

Commissioners quickly realized that the original 1858 estimate of $250,000 for the building was inadequate.  They raised the budget to $1 million the following year—more in the neighborhood of $27 million today.  In the meantime William M. Tweed was garnering increased political power. 

In 1857 Tweed became a member of the Board of Supervisors, the county’s chief legislative body.  By the time ground was broken for the County Court House the day after Christmas in 1861, Tweed and his “ring” would wield unfettered control. 

When the cornerstone was laid the names of two architects were placed inside.  Thomas Little, of Thomas Little & Son, apparently drew up the initial plans in 1859; but on August 30, 1861 the Board of Supervisors determined “to employ a suitable architect.”  John Kellum’s name would accompany Little’s in the small box within the cornerstone.

Kellum was reaching the apex of his career and the County Courthouse would be a monumental accomplishment.   Constructed of white marble, it took its inspiration greatly from the United States Capitol building as well at the 1735 Mansion House in England.  A sketch in 1868 shows the structure capped with an imposing dome; creating a striking similarity to the Capitol.  In 1869 New York Illustrated mentioned “when completed, the building will be surmounted by a large dome, giving a general resemblance to the main portico of the Capitol at Washington.”

In 1868 Valentine's Manual published a sketch of the proposed building with its never-executed dome -- copyright expired

The Civil War caused a temporary halt in construction, but by 1865 the exterior was essentially completed and work had begun on the interiors.  By the time the Court of Appeals moved into the unfinished structure in March 1867, the rampant graft and corruption of the Tweed Ring was already being noticed.

In 1866 Supervisor Smith Ely, Jr. raised a red flag, saying “grossly extravagant and improper expenditures have been made by the persons having charge of the building of the new courthouse, in reference to the purchase of iron, marble and brick, and in the payment of various persons for services.”  In fact, Tweed and his cronies were paying highly inflated prices and taking 20 percent of the billing costs for themselves.

On September 9, 1871 cranes are in place as the building continues to rise -- Harper's Weekly, (copyright expired)

On October 2, 1871 the New-York Tribune printed a scathing report that said in part “There certainly never were more barefaced or bolder robberies perpetrated under any government than have been committed under ‘Ring’ rule in this City…Over ten millions of dollars has been paid in two years and a half simply for decorating and furnishingthe County Court-House, Wm. M. Tweed’s new office on Broadway, and the Mayor’s Office.”

Just over three months earlier, John Kellum died, never to see his monumental civic building completed.  The task of completing the court house was passed to Leopold Eidlitz in 1875.  Eidlitz was not interested in sympathetically melding his designs with Kellum’s.   Instead his southern wing was a Victorian take on medieval styles.

 

A postcard captured Eidlitz's incongruous southern wing -- copyright expired

In the meantime, in what was a case of supreme irony, William M. Tweed appeared in what would soon be popularly termed the Tweed Court House on November 19, 1873.  He had been arrested on October 27, 1871 and within the year was convicted on 204 counts.

Eidlitz’s disregard for Kellum’s classic design raised the wrath of some architectural critics.  On April 29, 1877 The New York Times criticized “it is also charged that the new style of architecture is wholly out of keeping with the rest of the building and that while it might be well enough in a fashionable church on Fifth Avenue, or a highly decorated lager beer brewery at Yorkville, it is cheap and tawdry in comparison with the elaborate finishing and classic exterior of the present structure.”

Top:  The ornate, cast iron staircase reflected Kellum's Italianate design.
Bottom:  Eidlitz added his touch with medieval details.  photos from the Library of Congress

After two decades of construction the New York County Courthouse was finally—essentially, anyway—completed in 1881.  Despite the exorbitant costs New York had a sumptuous civic structure; but the stain of the Tweed scandal blinded the public to its beauty and would threaten its existence for over a century to come.

The new County Courthouse attracted a peculiar crowd of loiterers and eccentrics.  On June 20, 1886 the New-York Tribune noted “The queer people seen and the queer things they say in the new County Court House that Tweed built are worthy of being chronicled…There were broken-down politicians, old and used-up officials, persons willing to show strangers the Court House for a small consideration, others ready to assist those who wanted to become naturalized and others too lazy to do anything.”

The stark difference in Eidlitz's architectural style was harshly criticized -- photo by Alice Lum

On April 11, 1888 the building was used for the wedding of Julia Clarkson, “the pretty daughter of Edward Clarkson, janitor of the building, to Edward J. Reynolds, a well-known builder.”  The Sun reported that “Boss Tweed’s twenty-million-dollar Court House was the theatre of an unusual scene last evening.  Three of the solumn court rooms were converted into a spacious banquet hall and ball room to accommodate a wedding party.”

“An orchestra was stationed in front of the Judge’s bench in the equity division, and dainty feet marked time to its music on floors that had hitherto echoed only to the ponderous tread of men of affairs,” said the newspaper.

Before long, however, it would be talk of demolishing the building that took up newspaper space.  On September 13, 1893 The New York Times reported on the 130 architectural plans that had been received in a competition for a new City Hall.  Along with it came a movement to demolish the courthouse.

It seemed only Controller Myers saw the qualities of the building.  The newspaper said “He thought that the Court House had come in for more than its just share of abuse.  The building cost, with furniture, over $14,000,000, and despite the fact that much of this enormous outlay was squandered, it is nevertheless an imposing structure.”

The courthouse survived; but just seven years later it was in danger again.  Officials pressed to clear City Hall Park of all buildings other than the venerable City Hall.  The New York Times chimed in saying on March 13, 1901, “that especially the Tweed Court House, as an ugly monument of fraud and municipal disgrace, should be razed as soon as accommodation can be had elsewhere for the uses it now very imperfectly and inconveniently subserves.”

A reader wrote to the editor of the newspaper in response.  “No building in New York is so generally disliked as the Court House, and honest men long for the day when the space it has polluted shall be restored to the much-abused City Hall Park.”

The debate was still hot in July 1902 when it was suggested that $2 million could refurbish the old building.  “And as to spending two millions on the Tweed Court House, which is a stench in the moral olfactories of all New Yorkers, and which has nothing architecturally valuable, excepting the incongruous addition which puts it to an open shame, that was a very improvident judicial expression of dissatisfaction with quarters which are undoubtedly dissatisfying which led certain revered Justices of the Supreme Court to commit themselves to it,” railed The New York Times on July 19.

Two years later plans for the new courthouse had advanced no further; and the Tweed Courthouse was falling into disrepair.  On September 13, 1904 The Sun noted “the old Tweed court house [is] daily falling into a more dilapidated condition, despite constant patching and attempts at improved ventilation, with the rain pouring through its cracked walls and wornout roofs whenever there is a storm.”

More and more it became evident that the neglected building was no longer adequate for the growing county courts system.  Nevertheless the Board of Estimates continued to drag its feet regarding a new structure.  In July 1911 The Times was still supporting the idea of removing all buildings from City Hall Park other than the magnificent Federal style City Hall.  It bluntly wrote “The Tweed Court House must go.”

Astoundingly, despite what was nearly universal support to destroy the County Courthouse, it survived.  When, in 1915, a proposal was suggested to enlarge it, its fervent nemesis The New York Times reacted.  “It is proposed…to enlarge the Tweed Court House, which is unsightly and uncomfortable and a disgrace to the city.”

The new New York County Courthouse nearby on Centre Street was finally completed until 1927.  With the courts gone, the old Tweed building seemed destined for destruction.  Yet it survived, being used for the City Court until its next major threat—Mayor Fiorella La Guardia’s thrust to clean up the city for the 1939 World’s Fair.  Among his first priorities was the restoration of City Hall Park.

“Mayor La Guardia is eager to complete the work on the park in time for the World’s Fair, so that visitors may have a vista of City Hall from historic St. Paul’s Chapel at Vesey Street,” explained The Times on May 21, 1938.  “Mayor La Guardia is also eager to have the old Tweed court house in the park behind the City Hall razed and administration officials have been trying to find new quarters for the City Court now located there.”

But the old courthouse hung on.  A year later Parks Commissioner Robert Moses was still seeking appropriations to raze the building.  “The only blot on the landscape which will remain at the end of 1940 if these funds are appropriated will be the so-called ‘Tweed’ Court House,” he beamed on September 18, 1939.

Nearly half a century of attempts to destroy the monumental court house had proved fruitless when in the spring of 1942 Chambers and Lafayette Streets were widened as part of an improvement plan for City Hall Park.  In describing the necessary removal of the entrance stairs on April 9, 1942, The New York Times used what was perhaps its first positive adjective since the building had been completed.

“Workmen of the WPA were busy yesterday demolishing the imposing but long unused flight of steps leading from Chambers Street to the rotunda of the old County Court House…familiarly known as the Tweed Court House.”

The widening of Chambers Street resulting in the chopping off of the grand entrance stairs -- photo Library of Congress

But the threat to its survival was not over yet.  In 1948 the City Planning Board discussed the development of the Manhattan Civic Center.  The Times said on June 25 “it envisages also the demolition of the old Tweed Court House and consequent improvement of City Hall Park.”

Yet once again, the court house dodged the bullet.

One might have guessed that by the 1970s the Tweed Courthouse was finally safe.  But almost immediately upon taking office in 1974 Mayor Abraham Beame set out to demolish it.  The Times said on July 7 that year “Its demolition, never announced publicly, was an early, almost instant administrative decision.  It was simply the ultimate extension of the conventional wisdom that the building is nothing but a shoddy piece of graft.”

Architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable called it “a substantial and stylish building” with “impressive interiors.”  She flatly pointed out “In spite of its obvious qualifications, the Courthouse is not a designated landmark.  It has been so universally repudiated for its unsavory associations that it is probably too hot a political potato for the Landmarks Commission.”

Against all odds the imposing yet maligned structure survived its final threat.  In 1984 the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Tweed Courthouse a New York City Landmark.  In 1999 a full-scale, two-year restoration was initiated.  The $85 million project not only uncovered layers of paint inside, but recarved missing or damaged marble elements of the façade.  The entire marble cornice was reconstructed—requiring 120 blocks of stone, some weighing 9,600 pounds. 

photo by Alice Lum

In what was perhaps the most noticeable part of the restoration, the grand entrance steps were rebuilt.  Inside, an octagonal stained and etched glass skylight--52-foot wide—was refashioned to replace the original, lost decades earlier. 

Today the future of the monumental courthouse that brought down the infamous Boss Tweed is secure.  Its elegant design and historical value are finally appreciated after more than a century and a half.

The Lost 1878 "Working Women's Hotel" -- Park Avenue at 34th Street

On July 3 1869 the Art Journal published Kellum's proposed design -- NYPL Collection

Alexander Turney Stewart arrived in New York in 1823 from Lisburn, Ireland.  He established a small dry goods store with lace and linens he brought from Ireland, purchased with inherited money.  By 1848 his emporium was the largest in the world, with branches in other countries.  At mid-century he ranked among the richest men in the United States.

Although Stewart was generous with his fortune, he preferred not to simply donate funds, but to invest money into projects that would either earn profits for the charity or show tangible results.   In the first years after the end of the Civil War he came up with an ambitious scheme. 

New York City was teeming with struggling women, many of them war widows, who were desperately trying to survive.   Finding housing that was at the same time respectable and affordable was nearly impossible on the scant wages they earned.  Stewart proposed building a magnificent hotel solely for working women.

In 1869, the same year that his magnificent white marble mansion began rising on Fifth Avenue across from to Caroline Astor’s home, Stewart commissioned architect John Kellum to design the hotel.   The choice of architect was simple:  Kellum had not only designed Stewart’s impressive store on Broadway, but he was responsible for the French Second Empire mansion as well.

Spanning the entire block from 32^nd Street to 33^rdStreet along Fourth Avenue, the “Women’s Hotel” it was intended to house as many as 1,500 women working in “daily labor.”  Kellum turned again to the highly fashionable French Second Empire.   His drawings appeared in periodicals in 1869 that displayed a magnificent cast iron structure of arches and colunettes, an impressive two-story entrance portico that jutted out onto the Fourth Avenue sidewalk, and a mansard roof of various heights crested with lacy cast ironwork.

Despite Stewart's many charitable works, especially during the Civil War and the Irish Potato Famine, John Francis Richmond in his “New York and Its Institutions,” was a bit unkind in announcing his venture, saying Stewart “has hitherto done little toward placing his name among the benevolent of the metropolis.”   Richmond was wary that the man he considered less-than-charitable would actually come through.  “If the proprietor really deals as liberally with the inmates as some now suppose, this Institution, situated in an eligible portion of the city, will be a valuable acquisition to the toiling women of Manhattan.”

Stewart intended that his hotel be safe, morally upright, and clean.  The women should live in a comfortable and upscale environment, despite their personal conditions.   There should be a library, common areas for conversation and casual pastimes, a communal dining room and pleasant rooms.

Construction dragged on for nearly a decade, hampered in part by Stewart’s declining health and the 1873 Financial Panic.  As the hotel neared completion American Architect and Building News complained “It would require a middle-aged new Yorker to recall the date of the beginning of work on Stewart’s Working-Women’s Hotel.  Records show that it was started between ten and twenty-years ago, and has been crawling to completion ever since.”

Other than the street traffic, the sketch in Harper's Weekly on April 13, 1878 was nearly identical to the 1869 drawings -- NYPL Collection

Finally on November 12, 1877 The New York Times wrote of the impending opening.  The newspaper called it “the best constructed, the most elaborately furnished, the best appointed, and with the most perfect culinary department of any hotel in the world.  Besides all this the Women’s Hotel is by almost 200 rooms the largest in the Metropolis and it is intended to furnish women who earn their livelihood the best possible living for the least possible money.”

Unfortunately, neither Alexander T. Stewart or John Kellum survived to see the building’s completion.

Covering 16 building lots and costing upwards of $3.7 million, the hotel dazzled.   The ceilings were between 11 to over 19 feet high.  There was hot and cold running water in every room, speaking tubes to the office, “easily available” toilets and baths.   Stewart had personally selected the French plate glass for the windows, and the carpeting, fixtures and furniture were custom-made.  Over 15,000 yards of Axminster, Wilton and Brussels carpeting were used.

Acres of Brussels carpeting and custom-designed furniture filled the 40,000 square foot hotel -- Harper's Weekly 1878

Kellum designed the building as a hollow square, in the middle of which was a lush Victorian garden with a goldfish-filled fountain.  Retail stores fronted the sidewalks for additional income.  Along with the 502 sleeping rooms there was a 30-foot dining room (capable of serving 4,000 meals a day to 600 guests at a time), another room of the same size used for concerts and lectures and a library of 2,500 volumes.  For $6 a week a woman shared a room with another working girl.  For a dollar extra she could have a private room.  Breakfast cost 35 cents, lunch 25 cents and dinner 50 cents.  Any boarder could invite a lady friend to dine after procuring a ticket from the office. 

The large, airy courtyard centered around a goldfish-filled fountain -- Harper's Weekly 1878

The rules were strict, however.  No food was allowed in the rooms unless a boarder was ill, and then only with pre-approval of management.  No personal furniture—including a sewing machine—was allowed in the rooms.  The tenants could not hang their own pictures, visitors were not allowed in any section of the hotel other than the reception room.  The hotel closed at 11:30 pm and the gas in the rooms was turned off at that time.  There was an “extensive laundry” in the basement done at “moderate prices.”  However doing one’s own laundry in the room was prohibited and “washerwomen will not be allowed in the rooms.”

The private, or "small," bedroom cost $1 extra -- Harper's Weekly April 3, 1878

The list went on.  Boarders could have no “dogs, cats, birds or pet animals of any kind;” baths were conveniently located to the rooms, but tickets to take a bath cost a dime.    Applicants were required to supply written “satisfactory certificates or references as to character,” be employed and over 12 years of age.

The list of rules ended with “No restrictions are placed upon any boarder in the Women’s Hotel.”

Finally on April 2, 1878 Mrs. Stewart officially opened the Women’s Hotel with a grand reception.   She sent out 13,000 invitations, each admitting a guest.  At 8 pm there were 1,500 people crowding Fourth Avenue.  By 9:00 there were as many as 3,000 to 4,000 guests who “move steadily along from corridor to corridor up the broad stairways, and through the sumptuous apartments,” said The New York Times.  “As they passed along, and for the first time the rich appointments of the house became revealed, expressions of admiration were heard on every hand.  Every promise that had been made appeared to have been fulfilled.  Every apartment was found to be complete, comfortable, even luxurious.”

Visitors on opening night would have filed up the grand staircase - Harper's Weekly

To decorate the halls and parlors, Mrs. Stewart brought in $300,000 in sculptures and paintings from her personal collection.  Among them were Bouchard’s “The Milkmaid,” and F. S. Lachenwitz’s “Deer Pursued by Wolves.”   This would prompt American Architect to give the back-handed compliment “The bald look of the interior is relieved as far as possible by a judicious use of works of art, and the arrangements will compare more than favorably with the best hotel in the country.”

Before the night was over, The Times estimated that nearly 20,000 persons visited the hotel.  “The best people of the City were there in such numbers that is would be impossible to attempt to give a list of the prominent ones.” 

The writer for American Architect and Building News who attended the opening did not share the glowing opinion of The Times critic.  Although the magazine praised the construction and furnishing, it abhorred the architecture, numbering it among John Kellum’s “inflictions upon New York in the several Stewart piles and the County Court house [that] recall Shakespeare’s lines upon the evil which is not interred with men’s bones.”  Artistically, the article called it “a magnificent failure, a two-million-dollar example of what New York does not want if she is ever to show a decent architectural face along her principal thoroughfares.”

It did, however, give luke-warm praise to the hotel’s purpose.  “If the plan of gathering together a thousand irresponsible young women into a single home shall meet permanent success, the Stewart Home will be a blessing.”

The New York Times felt that "permanent success" was guaranteed, saying “If the opening of the hotel can be taken as an augury of the destiny of the Women’s Hotel, it has before it a brilliant and abundantly successful future.”

It would not be the case.

Fifty-four days after the brilliant opening, Mrs. Stewart declared the hotel “a complete failure.”   She pointed out that costs of labor (it cost $25 a month to feed and house the 40 waiters; the head cook earned several thousand dollars a year as did his four assistants; and the hotel was spending more than $500 a day in interest, taxes, water and gas than it was receiving in rents).

There was no end to the opinions of why the hotel fell flat on its face so quickly.  Some pointed out that the delays in opening meant that rooms were available in the Spring—but boarding houses demanded commitments from fall until summer so most “toiling women” were already obligated.   Others said the room rates were too high; some that the expensive furnishings and carpets made the common women feel shabby.  The list went on:  the rules were too strict; women could not even bring a house plant into their rooms; the beds were too small.  But Judge Hilton, who handled the failure, knew exactly what the problem was.

“It is very simple and very natural,” he explained to The New York Times.  “I believe that you cannot get women to accept any help based on the condition of separation from the other sex, you can’t run a hotel for women successfully; and keep away the men.  Women will not be kept from the other sex.  I am convinced that they cannot be tempted by any comforts and luxuries to stay or live away from the other sex.  You can run a hotel for men exclusively—but for women, you can’t.  I believe that the majority of women not over 50 years of age entertain some hopes of a union and a great many over that age do; and you cannot do anything for them if you make the condition impair their chances in the least.”

Whatever the cause, Mrs. Stewart closed the hotel to do renovations necessary to reopen as a commercial hotel.    The changes would include a smoking room, billiard room, and barber shop.  Several retail spaces along 32^ndstreet were closed off and converted into a barroom with a 38-foot bar backed by broad mirrors.   Intended for guests only, it could had no street entrance.   The other stores along 32^ndStreet were transformed into a series of dining rooms connected by arches capable of seating 324 persons.

Balconies and additional stairs would give greater access to the courtyard which “will undoubtedly be the favorite lounging place of the new guests,” according to Judge Hilton.  A large iron balcony, 20 feet wide, encircled the courtyard at the second floor “for promenading and lounging.”  It was designed so that it could be protected by glass in the winter, making it useful year-round.

Neither the closing of the hotel nor Judge Hilton’s opinions were well-accepted by the women of New York.  On June 4 the Cooper Union was crowded to capacity with women demanding justice.  “Never before did the historic hall contain such a multitude,” wrote The Times.  One woman after another addressed the crowd, demeaning the judge (“Judge Hilton ought to know that he does not rule this county; that it is not a kingdom, and that if it was he would not be selected as King") and pressuring Mrs. Stewart “to see that what was intended for working women shall not be taken from them and that an equivalent charity under better advisers be provided for them as she may in her woman’s heart elect.”

It was not to be.

The alterations, costing $50,000, were completed in time for the opening on June 8 of what was now called the Park Avenue Hotel.   Guests paid $3 a night for board and lodging and the first dinner, prepared by chef Edwards Schelscher, included 98 varieties of wine.  The Times remarked on the dining room, “resplendent with unique spun and polished brass chandeliers, on a table covered with the choicest of linen, adorned with a profusion of delicate and fragrant flowers, set off with porcelain from Pilivuyt and glass-ware from Baccarat.”

When the hotel reopened as the Park Avenue Hotel, the only exterior changes were to the first floor shops -- photo Hotels of New York November 1899 (copyright expired)

The Women’s Hotel, now the Park Avenue Hotel, had always been touted as a fire-proof structure.  Its iron façade and brick-and-concrete structure gave every confidence that it was impervious to flame.   On October 10, 1881 it was put to the test when a stables directly in front of the hotel caught fire.   The employees soaked the front of the building with fire hoses to prevent windows from breaking in the heat and despite this many of the French plate glass windows cracked and some of the door casings were scorched.  But the building was overall unaffected.   Hilton, no longer a sitting judge, raised his head again to tell reporters “that even had the wind been blowing toward the hotel, the building would have been in no danger, as it was absolutely fire-proof.”

Twenty years later a stray ember would prove that wrong.

In February 1902 the 71^st Regiment Armory caught fire.   As the blaze intensified, witnesses later recalled that an ember or spark shot into an opening of the Park Avenue Hotel.   Before long a fire had started in the hotel as well.  Although the building had no sprinkler system as was becoming common at the turn of the century, the construction of the building and the forward thinking of Kellum in designing exit stairs should have prevented any safety concerns.   Investigators would later impress that “The staircase is of iron.  At no time during the fire…were these stairs other than a safe retreat to the street from all floors.”

The guests panicked as the hallways filled with smoke and “charged” through the hotel to the exit stairs.  They found them padlocked.    Fire investigators described the stairways as “fire-proof brick shafts” which would have provided safe egress to the guests.

Instead, twenty-one people burned to death in the corridors of the Park Avenue Hotel.

The hotel was repaired and continued as a first-class hotel as the 20^th century ground on.  The beautiful court yard, as Judge Hilton predicted, was one of the main features.  In 1907 What to Eat magazine said “The most pleasant feature of the Park Avenue Hotel…is the spacious open court, with its beautiful palms and excellent music, which make it exceedingly enchanting in the summer time.”

Motorcars, a carriage and a horse-drawn omnibus wait outside the hotel in 1906 -- Library of Congress.

In 1913 as the city toughened its stand against “encroachments” upon public property, the hotel was forced to remove the impressive two-story portico.  Architects Ford, Butler & Oliver designed a marquee and balcony over the main entrance to replace it.



An art exhibition in 1906 provides a rare interior view -- Library of Congress

Six years later the employees of the hotel walked out on November 12, 1919.  There was no general strike—they simply wanted to have fun.   Notice was given to all guests that if they wanted “any ice water, newspapers, magazines, stationery, stamps, mail or anything else generally asked for the request must be got in by 7. P. M. today.”  The bellboys and doormen, waiters and other staff were throwing their own ball.

“For a long time we have watched you enjoying yourselves at banquets, dinners, balls and dances,” the notice said, “We have tried to do our part in helping you to have a good time.  Now we want to have a good time ourselves.”  Guests were invited to join the ball at the Manhattan Casino.  “Tickets of admission are 50 cents.  Please wear evening dress.”

But New Yorkers were given a hint of what was to come on November 20, 1924 when The New York Times mentioned a rumor.  “A syndicate is reported to be purchasing the property as a site for a tall commercial structure.”  The newspaper reflected, as it often did when historic buildings were threatened, “Its spacious rooms and high ceilings and its large public halls still reflect the ambition of the builder to make it an outstanding structural achievement, an ambition which was also responsible for the huge court yard with its floral and garden treatment.”

Six months later the newspaper confirmed the rumor.  At the same time that it announced that William K. Vanderbilt’s mansion on Fifth Avenue and 52^ndStreet would be razed for a 20-story business building, it told of the 35-story office building that would replace the Park Avenue Hotel.  Henry Mandel had purchased the property from the A. T. Stewart estate as part of a $10 million project.

John Kellum’s colossal cast iron pile and Alexander Stewart’s lofty dream crashed to the ground before the end of the year.