A Place with Northern Light -- The 1908 Gainsborough Studios 222 Central Park South

Painters and sculptors in Manhattan at the turn of the last century faced a problem. There was little residential space available that provided sufficient northern light for them to work, or with adequate facilities to exhibit their art. Artist V. V. Sewell complained in 1903 “People have no conception of how difficult it is for one to find a suitable studio in New York.”

In order to solve the problem, at least for themselves, a group of established artists formed the Gainsborough Corporation with portrait painter August Franzen as president.  Their purpose was to build an artist’s cooperative studio building. The name came, most likely, from Franzen himself who admitted that Gainsborough’s work was a model for his own.

Included in the group were Elliott Daingerfield, vice president, well known for his dream-like landscapes; Colin Campbell Cooper, treasurer, who did portraits and landscapes; and Barron Collier, secretary, who was the lone non-artistic member and who most likely provided the financial leadership.

Central Park South was a perfect location for the intended studio. Facing the park, the artists were guaranteed that their northerly light would never be blocked by construction. The posh Plaza Hotel was completed in 1907, giving the neighborhood added prestige; and the American Fine Arts Society Building was a mere two blocks to the south.

The cooperative purchased and demolished the home of millionaire Walter E Delabarre at 222 Central Park South in 1907. The group commissioned Charles W. Buckham to design their studios. Buckham was an astute choice, the architect having innovated the concept of duplex apartment buildings.

He was given the task of designing a building appropriate to the status of well-established, successful artists while providing them with substantial light and space. Because only the Central Park façade would receive the flooding northern sunlight; the rear of the building would be reserved for rental apartments.

The Gainsborough Studios in 1909, the year after completion

Completed in 1908, the result was two duplex cooperative studios on each floor facing Central Park, and four single rental apartments to each southern floor. Because apartment buildings were restricted by law to be no more than one and a half times as high as the width of the street, the plans were filed under “hotel” to circumvent the restriction. Therefore a common kitchen and dining room were included and kitchen facilities in the apartments kept at a minimum. The artists enjoyed 18-foot ceilings, mahogany and oak woodwork, built-in cabinets with leaded glass doors and art tiled fireplaces.

Residents had use of a “ladies’ reception, package and telephone room, as well as a restaurant on the ground floor.” A central vacuum cleaner system, laundry room and storage room added to the conveniences.

It is the lavish ornamentation of the Gainsborough, however, that stands out today. A remarkable transition from Victorian to Edwardian styles, the lower levels exhibit traditional sculptural decoration while the upper floors explode in Arts and Crafts-style tilework.

Photo by Enric Archivell

Separating the first and second floors was a superb terra cotta frieze executed by sculptor Isidore Konti, a friend of both Daingerfield and Franzen. Titled “A Festival Procession of the Arts,” it depicts in classical style people from children to the elderly offering gifts to the altar of the arts. Helen W. Henderson, in 1917, described it as the “great charm of the building.”

Photo hausfitzgerald.com

Centered above the entrance was a carved painter’s palette on which a large bust of Thomas Gainsborough sat in a classical niche.

photo hausfitzgerald.com

Each of the large, two-story studio windows surrounded a Roman-style pseudo doorway filled with stone quatrefoils and fronted by small ornate, wrought iron balconies.

From the sixth story upwards, the façade bursts in a kaleidoscope of geometric, colorful glazed tiles produced at the Moravian Tile Works in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Henry Mercer, the factory's owner, devoted much of his life to researching and rediscovering the process of 18th Century German pottery and tile-making. Above, rather than a cornice which would theoretically lessen light, the building is finished with a stone corbel of shells.

The Gainsborough attracted esteemed artists and in 1912, in addition to the founding group, residents included Montague Flagg, Edward Potthast, Robert MacCameron, Frederick Crane, Content Johnson, and Albert L. Groll. That year, on August 28, a fire broke out in the Colorado Boarding and Livery Stables on 58th Street, directly to the rear. Although there was a 12-foot alley separating the buildings, the “artist tenants of the studios were awaked by the crash of glass in their rear windows, due to the heat. Women hastily slipped on opera cloaks over their night dresses and hurried to the elevators” as reported in The New York Times the next morning.

Although the building was not seriously damaged, it “was scorched.”

Over the years the Gainsborough was home to other celebrated figures such as renowned photographer Erwin Blumenfeld; portrait painter and president of the National Academ of Design, Dewitt Lockman; author Thomas Alibone Janvier and Barbara Howard, daughter of Hollywood mogul Jack Warner.

A minor scandal ensued in 1924 when sculptor Helene M. R. White was padlocked inside the studios of Consignment Arts, Inc. on the first floor by interior decorator Paul C. Leatherman and kept prisoner there for a weekend.

By the 1950’s the building’s residents tired of the Arts and Crafts décor and hired interior designer Donald Deskey to remodel the lobby and entrance. Deskey removed the decorative iron entrance doors with aluminum ones and stripped out the period detailing.  Around that time the ornamental balconies were removed.

Thirty years later, however, the corporation reversed itself and in 1981 spent $100,000 to restore the lobby and reconstruct the iron doors based on early photographs.





In 1988 under the guidance of architect and resident Tod Williams, an exterior restoration was initiated at a cost of over $1 million. New tiles were made to replace those too damaged to salvage and the Konti’s ornate frieze and the bust of Gainsborough were removed and replicated.  The window balconies were not returned.

The Gainsborough Studios was landmarked in February 1988, The Landmarks Preservation Commission calling it “an unusual building, well-adapted and suitably decorated for its specific purpose.”

A Brutalized Marble Commercial Villa at No. 572 5th Ave.

In 1915 the Budd haberdashery was surrounded by equally high-end shops -- photo collection of the Museum of the City of New York

As the first years of the 20^th century unfolded, Fifth Avenue above 42^nd Street was changing.  While a few staunch millionaires remained in their brownstone mansions, most by now had moved north along Central Park, leaving their homes to be razed or remodeled beyond recognition into commercial structures.

Between 46^th and 47^th Streets on the east side of the avenue, the elaborate Beaux Arts style Windsor Arcade engulfed the block front.  On the west side the Chevalier mansion at No. 574 had been transformed in 1903 into a Northern Renaissance fantasy to house upscale retail shops.  Its next door neighbor at No. 572 had also become a commercial building.

In 1906 the area was called by The New York Times “the gilt-edged section of Fifth Avenue.”   Once the most exclusive residential neighborhood in Manhattan, it was now home to the most exclusive retail stores—jewelers, fine art dealers and high-end clothiers.  That year Henry A. Budd purchased the building at No. 572 for $350,000.

Budd was a partner in his father’s haberdashery, Samuel Budd—more familiarly known as “Budd.”  Samuel had come to New York City in 1861 at the age of 26 from New Paltz, New York, to start a men’s clothing business.    The store remained on Fifth Avenue at 24^thStreet for 45 years, earning a reputation as one of New York’s most respected men’s outfitters.  But now, with high-end retailers entrenching themselves further up Fifth Avenue, Henry Budd intended to establish a second store.

Budd patiently waited for the lease, held by confectioners Charles A. Dean, to expire in 1907.  In the meantime he commissioned architect Augustus N. Allen to draw up plans to renovate the structure.  The Timesreported that Budd intended to “remodel it and open it as a branch store.”

And remodel it he did.

Drawing inspiration from Southern Italian villas Allen created a white marble façade under a red-tiled Mediterranean sloped roof.  A three-story arcade rose gracefully to the fifth floor where three openings were separated by Corinthian pilasters, simulating a loggia.   A frieze of carved shields and the name “Budd” surmounted the impressive bronze store front fabricated by Estey Bros. Company.

The elegant men's store featured a bronze storefront -- Architectural Record June 1916 (copyright expired)

The new Budd store opened for business in 1907, catering to the same wealthy New Yorkers who had lived in the neighborhood a generation earlier.    The store was widely- known for its custom-made cravats which ranged in price from $1.00 to $6.00—upwards to $110 in today’s dollars.  An advertisement in the New-York Tribune touted “All the cravats sold by Samuel Budd are made in his own workrooms; the styles are original and the silks used in their manufacture are woven expressly in exceptional qualities under the supervision of his agents.  The patterns are the work of expert designers.”

Budd leased space above ground level to other high-end retailers.  K. E. Hanley Company was among the first tenants, sellers of women’s apparel.   On January 13, 1907 the store advertised a clearance sale of women’s suits “made up completed of foreign materials in fancy velveteens, in colors, and French Broadcloth.  The models are particularly exclusive and the workmanship throughout bears our well known stamp of superiority,” promised the ad.  The prices hinted at the wealth of the store’s clientele.  On sale some of the suits were priced at $62.50—about $1,100 today.

Shoppers on Fifth Avenue are dressed against the chill in 1915 -- photo collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Men’s tailors Schneider & Schmittlapp was leasing space on an upper floor by 1915.

Samuel Budd died in 1912 at the age of 77 after half a century of outfitting moneyed gentlemen.  Henry A. Budd continued the family business until 1933 when the Great Depression took its toll.   On June 7, 1933 the Mutual Life Insurance Company foreclosed on the building.  It would be the first of a rapid-fire string of turn overs of ownership.    In May 1943 Clarke G. Dailey purchased the property, selling it four months later to Frederick Brown.   Brown quickly turned a profit, selling the building a few weeks later, in November 1945.

The area remained the “Queen of Avenues” for several decades—the very term “Fifth Avenue” being synonymous world-wide with high-priced jewelry, clothing and artwork.   But by the end of the 20^th century more tawdry businesses elbowed their way onto the Avenue and several airlines headquarters took over former retail buildings—often brutalizing the architecture with their modernizations.  And such was the case with No. 572 Fifth Avenue.   In the 1960s Irish International Airlines moved in, to be replaced by a two-story bookstore in 1971.  The upper floors were renovated to offices at the time.

The delicate panel carvings, the rope-twist detailing and the slender white marble columns hint at the lost elegance--photo by Alice Lum

Allen’s graceful Mediterranean villa lost its red tiled roof and the fifth floor windows were elongated, thereby losing the carved panels in the process that had created the loggia-effect.

The surviving traces of the Budd Building could indignantly be called "ruins." -- photo by Alice Lum

But the greatest insult occurred in July 2010 when a two-story storefront of polished black stone and blue neon was installed.   Today only traces of the Budd Building remain.  What was once a graceful white marble villa with a bronze storefront is the victim of brutal architectural vandalism masquerading as “improvement.”

A Palace for Horses -- The Gould Carriage House 213 West 58th Street

Photo Unity Center New York

When Jay Gould died in 1892 he left his four children between $65 and $70 million.

The Gould heirs reacted to the sudden flood of cash differently. Anna spent lavishly and married, successively Count Boniface de Castellane and the Duc de Talleyrand. Frank Jay loved gambling and was twice divorced. George Jay had three children with Guinevere Sinclair before marrying her.

Helen Miller Gould, however, was different.

Trained in finance by her father, she attended the New York University School of Law. While her siblings frolicked the summers away in Newport, she was content to spend quiet time at Lyndhurst, Jay Gould’s magnificent Gothic Revival estate in Tarrytown-on-Hudson. Embarrassed by her father’s cut-throat reputation, Helen spent the rest of her life supporting various charities.

Helen remained in the Gould mansion on 5th Avenue at 47th Street while her siblings moved on. As time passed, though, there was the problem of adequate accommodations for her horses and carriages.

On November 13, 1901 Helen M. Gould purchased for $107,500 the four-story brownstone residence of Lambert Suydam at 212 West 59th Street. The property extended south to 58th Street where the Suydam’s private stable was located, in line with the stables of other neighboring millionaires. Curious about the sale, The New York Times sent a reporter to the Fifth Avenue house for more information.

The Gould mansion -- 5th Avenue at 47th Street

“When inquiry was made at Miss Gould’s residence last evening she sent word that she did not care to say anything in regard to the purchase,” reported the Times.

It would not be long before Helen Gould’s intentions were obvious. The Suydam stable was demolished to make way for her own private carriage house; one fit for royalty.

Designed by York & Sawyer the grand brick and limestone stable was based on King Henry IV’s 17th Century Place des Vosges in Paris. Completed in 1903, the four levels of the French Renaissance structure housed the Gould horses and carriages, hay and feed, as well as apartments for the coachman and groom.

The great, soaring chimneys on either end, the attenuated, hipped slate roof and the ornate iron-railed balcony on over the arched entranceway joined to create a palatial structure for draft animals. Sawyer added a near-whimsical touch in the huge, carved limestone tethering rings on either side of the entrance.

Helen Gould finally married in 1913 at the age of 45. Time Magazine said of her “she was plain, plump, not much concerned with ‘Society’ – she dedicated herself to good works while her brothers and sister went out in the world.” She died in 1938, The New York Times calling her “the best loved woman in the country.”

Helen Miller Gould

The Gould carriage house is now the headquarters of The Unity Center New York, which describes itself as a “worldwide Spiritual Movement dedicated to helping people discover and express their divine potential.”

The regal Parisian-style stable was designated a New York City landmark on August 29, 1989.

The Lost 1856 House of Mansions - Nos. 487 to 491 Fifth Avenue

George Higgins advertised "moderate terms" for his eleven unified residences in 1856 -- NYPL Collection

The idea of a row of houses pretending to be one, unified structure was not new in 1856.  The British upper class had been living in such elegant homes like the Royal Crescent in Bath since the Regency Period.  In New York Seth Green had erected the elegant, marble LaGrange Terrace on Lafayette Place in 1833.

But carpet manufacturer George Higgins’ project would be somewhat different.

The highest point in Manhattan in 1855 was Murray Hill, named after the Murray family.  The Murrays were wealthy Quaker merchants and family head Robert Murray had erected a manor house in the area in the mid-18^th century.  The estate stretched approximately from what would become 33^rd to 39^th Street and from Lexington Avenue to nearly Fifth Avenue.

Although Fifth Avenue was already laid out by the time Higgins purchased the land between 41^st and 42^nd Streets and the hulking Murray Hill distributing reservoir had been erected directly across the street more than a decade earlier; the area was still mostly undeveloped and essentially rural.

But the speculative Higgins envisioned a group of eleven fashionable homes that would lure potential buyers to an area yet untested for residential use, yet abounding with clean air and delightful views.  He commissioned the well-known architect Andrew Jackson Davis to design the homes. 

Davis had made his mark designing structures in historic revival styles and just a decade earlier had produced a row of 36 gracious Greek Revival mansions on 23^rd Street for Clement Moore which, too, were disguised as a single edifice.    The eleven grand residences were completed in 1856.   Melding into a castle-like whole, they featured crenelated towers, lancet windows, and two-story oriel windows with Gothic tracery.

A corner of the massive Egyptian Revival Murray Hill Reservoir can be seen across Fifth avenue -- NYPL Collection

 "The pile is altogether unique in its character and plan," said Higgins' advertisement,  "the eleven dwellings being combined as in one palace, or massive edifice, thereby exhibiting a unity in mass not before attempted, though often desired by critics."

The homes sat back from the sidewalk allowing for ample lawns and the rooms were filled with an unusual amount of daylight for the time.    The views from the upper story windows looked across the reservoir "of Oriental magnificence" and the southerly views took in the whole of Manhattan.  Interior staircases were lit by skylights and a rear alley provided servants' access.

Higgins marketed his houses as “differing in size, price and amount of accommodation”  Jackson designed each with a unique exterior elevation and individual floor plans from twelve to eighteen rooms to ensure individuality for potential Victorian homeowners. 

He promoted the “durable fire-brick” and “cheerful tint of color and variegated architecture” and promised the most fastidious home-seeker would be satisfied.  The views from the windows, he insisted, were “unrivaled.”  He called his project “The House of Mansions.” 

Atop the massive Egyptian Revival Murray Hill Reservoir was a promenade which became etremely popular for Sunday strolls.  Directly behind the reservoir, since 1853, stood the Crystal Palace erected for the World’s Fair.  The Crystal Palace still attracted thousands of New Yorkers and tourists alike every day.  So despite its somewhat remote location, the House of Mansions seemed, at least to George Higgins, to be a profitable idea.

It wasn’t.

Higgins was just a few years too early in developing his block of Fifth Avenue.  Within twenty years the mansions of New York’s wealthiest citizens – the Vanderbilts and Astors among them—would be rising along this stretch of the avenue.  But for now it was too far north.

The House of Mansions, also referred to as The Spanish Row, was a failure.  Two years after its completion there was talk of converting it into a hotel; but the idea never came to fruition.  Instead it was purchased by the Rutgers Female Institute as its new campus in June of 1860.  The Institute was the first institution of higher learning for women in the city.

It was first opened in 1839 on Madison Street, on the former estate of Colonel Henry Rutgers, a Revolutionary War officer.   After two decades of instructing well-heeled young women in “the belles-lettres, history, mathematics and philosophy,” the institute needed larger accommodations.

The House of Mansions was purchased for $60,000—a little over $1.5 million by today’s standards.  The eleven houses were renovated for the institute’s needs  “They design,” reported The New York Times, “making extensive additions in the rear of the buildings fronting on the avenue, for the purposes of a chapel, laboratory, school-rooms, painting-gallery, and observatory.”  The newspaper mentioned that the observatory “will overlook the entire island” and “two thousand dollars have already been donated for the purchase of a telescope.”  Two thousand volumes were transported from the Madison Street facility to the new library.

photo NYPL Collection

Humphrey Phelps, in his “Phelps’ Strangers and Citizens’ Guide to New York City,” praised the school.  “It has a fine library, selected with great care and excellent philosophical apparatus for illustrating the subjects of astronomy, chemistry, and other branches of science.  Its course of instruction embraces history, general philosophy, mathematics, and belles letters, by which young ladies are thoroughly prepared for the pursuit of general knowledge, for the duties of teachers, and for that moral and intellectual power so necessary to be possessed by the mothers of our republic.”

There were those, whoever, who felt that the mothers of our republic had no place in school but should, instead, be home learning to sew, cook and clean.  President of the Institute, Heney M. Pierce, was often forced to defend the idea of a school for women.  “I am fully persuaded that the time is not far distant,” he said during commencement exercises in 1867, “when it will be thought almost incredible that the question of the inferiority of woman should ever had been seriously debated.”

“If,” Pierce argued, “it is best for the young man that by a liberal education, his memory should be strengthened, his reasoning powers disciplined, his judgment matured, his mind enlarged—why is it not best for the young woman also?”

By October 24, 1860 the new space was ready and dedication ceremonies were held in the chapel.  “The chapel, together with the lobbies and adjacent rooms, was crowded to excess, the larger portion of the audience being ladies,” reported The Times.  The new facility opened with 200 registered students.

In 1861 DeBow’s Review listed the costs to the students.  For $300 per year they received “Board, including fuel, lights, and washing, and instruction in English branches.”  The tuition and board were payable quarterly in advance.   Extra courses were available for additional fees.  French, German, Italian or Latin would cost $5.00.  Oil Painting and Pastel lessons were $10.00.  For $15 to $35 a budding musician received piano lessons and an additional $15 to $20 would provide Guitar instruction.

Graduation exercises were always extravagant affairs and on June 8, 1866 The Times reported that “The young lady pupils of the Institute were dressed with uniform beauty and simplicity in dresses of snow white illusion, wreathed with emerald tulle, and wearing coronals of vernal leaves, intertwined with flowers.”   The reporter noted that the room was “crowded some time before the exercises …with the elite of Fifth-avenue and that august neighborhood.”

By the last quarter of the 19th century Fifth Avenue was no longer pastures and open fields -- New York Historical Society

A year later detractors of the institution and female education as a whole were shocked when the State Legislature conferred “the powers and privileges of a college” upon Rutgers.    The name was changed to Rutgers Female College and, immediately, plans were made to enhance and enlarge the programs.  Donations amounting to $50,000 poured in for the addition of, among other things, a full Art Department.

The new status resulted in a remarkably quick growth and the Fifth Avenue building was suddenly too small.   Only a year later the “Documents of the Senate of the State of New York” noted that “These accommodations, however, are too limited for the wants of the college under its new organization, and a new and more ample location is very desirable.

"In view of the constant upward growth of the city, also, and of the fact that the present patronage of the college is largely in the upper portion of the city, and even towards Harlem, etc., it has been deemed advisable to prepare decidedly for a removal, in the course of a few years, to some place where ample buildings may be erected, surrounded by a certain amount of grounds.”

The “course of a few years” came in June 1870 when Californian James P. Pierce, the brother of President Franklin Pierce, purchased the school property for $117,000.  Pierce held the property for only three years before turning it over to Jacob B. Tallman for $120,000.  Tallman was a trustee of the college and his involvement with the property would later result in the school suing him unsuccessfully.

By February, 1882 when Tallman sold the old House of Mansions to August Pottier for $180,000 Fifth Avenue had drastically changed.   The once-pastoral area George Higgins chose for his eleven unique homes had become the most fashionable residential neighborhood in the city and, now, was seeing the encroachment of commercial buildings. 

The French-born Pottier had established the Pottier & Stymus Manufacturing Company in 1855.  In August 1883 he obtained a $200,000 advance on the property which he used to demolish the buildings to erect what The Times would call “the present fine building thereupon” for his firm.

John Donoghue, in his 1977 “Alexander Jackson Davis, Romantic Architect, 1803-1893” was less congratulatory about the loss of the unique and charming House of Mansions, saying  “it was destroyed to make way for the ubiquitous, featureless office buildings and stores that line Fifth Avenue today.”

The Lost Windsor Hotel -- 5th Avenue and 46th Street

Baggage entered the 46th Street side (right) and guests entered on Fifth Avenue.  The arrangement avoided "cluttering."  -- photo Library of Congress

Fifth Avenue above 42^nd Street had just begun seeing the arrival of grand mansions in 1869.   The former mayor, George Opdyke completed his sumptuous brownstone residence on the corner of 47^th Street that year—later to be home to Jay Gould and his family.  The block to the south of the Opdyke mansion contained a small skating pond.  It would be another decade before the white marble St. Patrick’s Cathedral was completed at the corner of 50^thStreet and the great Egyptian Revival-style Croton Reservoir at 42^ndStreet was still a Sunday afternoon’s carriage drive uptown for most.

But the completion of the new Grand Central Depot that year, just two blocks from Fifth Avenue, meant that scores of travelers would be arriving on 42^nd Street with the need for accommodations.   In 1871 construction began on the Windsor Hotel on Fifth Avenue where the little skating pond had been.  Stretching the entire block from 46^th to 47^thStreet it opened its doors two years later.  Owner John T. Daly took advantage of the now-exclusive neighborhood to market his seven-story hotel to wealthy guests—both transient and permanent.   Nay-sayers warned Daly that his new hotel was too far uptown to succeed; not to mention that it sat squarely within a residential neighborhood making it inconvenient to traveling businessmen or female visitors with shopping on their agendas.

Daly needed a veteran hotelier to run his new endeavor and he found one in Gardner Wetherbee.  Wetherbee had helped manage the grand Fifth Avenue Hotel from 1859 to 1867, and had most recently run the Revere and Tremont Houses in Boston.   In accepting Daly’s offer to manage the Windsor Hotel, Wetherbee went into partnership with Samuel Hawk, creating the business of Hawk & Wetherbee.  Years later “America’s Successful Men of Affairs” would remember “This was a new and exceedingly handsome hotel, situated in the heart of the fashionable residence section of the city, requiring skillful management, but promising good returns to a firm, competent to conduct one of the finest public houses in the metropolis in a proper manner.”

Gardner Wetherbee, along with Samuel Hawk, would make The Windsor Hotel a smashing success -- "America's Successful Men of Affairs" 1895 (copyright expired)

The book added that the Windsor was “at that time, the most luxurious and aristocratic hostelry in New York.”   The New York Times remarked on the lavish appointments on opening day.  It found the main hall, 52 feet wide and 140 feet deep “with a high ceiling, tastefully decorated.”   Nothing was left out: “The barber’s shop, which is to be fitted up at a cost of some $10,000; the bathrooms attached, the grocery and general storerooms, the vegetable kitchen, and pantries innumerable with linenrooms and bootrooms, are also situated in the basement.”

The main dining room was on the second floor and deemed by the newspaper to be “splendid” with its frescoed ceiling.   So that guests would not be annoyed by interruptions to their meals, there were other, smaller, dining rooms “for the accommodation of late diners.”  Children, of course, dined separately in the children’s dining rooms—“one for those attended by white servants, and the other for such as have colored servants waiting on them.”

An early stereoscope view of the Main Dining Room shows the frescoed ceiling and sumptuous chandelier.

Servants’ accommodations and restrooms were in the basement.

The management was pleased with the precautions against fire.  Throughout the mile and a quarter of hallways there were seven miles of water pipes.  “On every floor are four water plugs in connection with the telegraph alarm, from which a floor could be flooded in case of fire in a few minutes.  There are fire-escapes in the rear at both ends of the building,” reported The Times.  The precautions, eventually, would not be enough.

The new Windsor Hotel was a marvel in modern conveniences.  There were 139 bathrooms and every suite had a private bath—a rare luxury in 1873.  The suites also boasted “clothes presses and closets, and every room has a fireplace in it,” according to The Times.

It was all reflected in the rent that Hawk & Wetherbee agreed to pay to Daly.  The lease for the first ten years demanded payment of $75,000 per year—around $1.3 million today.   Hawk & Wetherbee proved their expertise and the hotel that was too far uptown was a nearly-immediate success.

Three years later The New York Times still raved.  On December 12, 1876 it wrote  “This hotel is fortunate in having a very large patronage of ladies.  This is due to the elegance and refinement which pervade all the departments of this magnificent establishment.  The grand entrance and rotunda are of such magnitude as to afford abundance of room for many hundreds to assemble.  The same may be said of the large drawing-room, the two adjoining parlors, and the elegant octagon room.”

James D. McCabe in his “New York by Gaslight” called the appointments “palatial.”  The Times spoke of its 500 rooms and “the tallest and roomiest corridors and entrance hallways of any hotel in the city.”

A payment envelope reminded guests "All Bills Payable Weekly" -- NYPL Collection

That same year the Spanish pretender to the throne, Don Carlos, stayed at the Windsor for several weeks.  The New York Evening Mail reported on August 1, 1876 “He is so well pleased with all he sees, and particularly with the comforts of the Windsor, that he has prolonged his stay much beyond the time intended.  He expresses wonder that the cuisine and service of the Windsor should be even better than at any hotel in Europe, and often compliments the management upon the quiet and order of that large and magnificent establishment.”

Despite the financial success of the hotel, the original outlay was too much for John T. Daly.  The land was owned by Goelet estate and he owed the family a $200,000 mortgage.  By 1877 his debts, including numerous builders’ liens, amounted to about $400,000.  When he failed to make interest payments on the mortgage, the Goelet estate began foreclosure proceedings.  “His trouble unbalanced his mind,” reported The New York Times, “and he took his life by hanging himself in a barn on Long Island.”

A stereoscope view of the hotel shows the Gould Mansion on 47th Street (far left)

For years New York’s financial wheelers and dealers had made the Fifth Avenue Hotel their unofficial headquarters.   But little-by-little the Windsor became home to the late night meetings and plots.  In 1880 Jay Gould had moved into the Opdyke mansion across 47^th Street from the hotel and William H. Vanderbilt was living at the corner of 40^thStreet.

In 1881 Andrew Carnegie shared a plush suite with his mother here.  Carnegie was then around 35 years old and it was during a meeting in the hotel that year that he became partners with Henry Frick in the coke trade.  

There was another person haunting the public rooms of the Windsor Hotel that year.  For about six weeks in late Spring a man whom The Times described as “shabby in dress and erratic in manner” came and went.  Although he never took a room, he invariably asked the clerk “Any letters for me today?”  There were never any letters for the man whose calling card read “Charles Guiteau, Illinois.”

The Times reported later that “He became well known to the clerks, who came to look upon him as a sort of nuisance, and ridiculed him not a little.  They described him as a man of slight build, whose actions were of a most peculiar character and conveyed the impression that he was mentally unsound.”

On July 2, 1881 the man who skulked around in the hallways of the Windsor Hotel fired two bullets into the body of President James A. Garfield who died of his wounds eleven weeks later.

Windsor employees felt that the man haunting its hallways in 1881 was unsound.  Weeks later he would assassinate the President.

In 1884 a rumor was spread by Democrats that Jay Gould had used the Western Union telegraph to falsify the returns in the Cleveland-Blaine Presidential election.   Gould got word that an angry mob was on its way uptown singing “We’ll hang Jay Gould to a sour apple tree.”  He rushed across the street and hid out in rooms on the top floor of the Windsor for several days until things cooled down.

By now Samuel Hawk had died and his nephew, also named Samuel Hawk, had taken his place alongside Wetherbee in running the hotel.   It became the choice of the world’s most important and most celebrated names.  Opera diva Nelly Melba always stayed at the Windsor during her New York stays, as did soprano Adelina Patti.  The Times noted in 1899 that Patti “always stopped there when in this city and occupied the same suite of rooms on the third floor looking out upon Forty-seventh Street.  She had a private billiard table and was very fond of knocking the ivories about, as also was her second husband, Nicolini."

Heads of state stayed in the Windsor.  The Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro; President Diaz of Mexico; and Presidents McKinley and Arthur were guests here. 

On the afternoon of March 17, 1899 thousands of people crowded Fifth Avenue as the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade filed past the Windsor Hotel.  Around 3:00 a guest lit a cigar in an upstairs hallway and tossed the still-lit match which accidentally caught a curtain ablaze.  Panicking, the man rushed out of the hotel without summoning help.

The fire intensified with unbelievable speed, roaring up stairways and trapping guests in their rooms.  The New-York Tribune the following day said “But the fact remains that the fire could scarcely have burned with more rapidity had the building been constructed with an eye to making one grand bonfire out of it.”  The street below, moments before the scene of carefree celebration, was suddenly one of terror and horror.

In the first minutes of the fire a painting is handed down from the second floor.  Before long the pavement would be littered with bodies. -- photo Museum of the City of New York

Dora Gray Duncan was conducting her dance class of forty boys and girls, aged 5 to 7, including her daughter Isadora Duncan.  The maids of the children sat patiently by watching the class.  Just past 3:00 Mrs. Duncan went to a window to raise the shade.  According to The Sun “As she did so the body of a man flashed past the window.  Then the bodies of two women went dashing down.”

A maid who had just arrived to pick up one of the children, quietly whispered to Mrs. Duncan that the hotel was on fire.  By maintaining calm, Mrs. Duncan managed to safely lead all of the children out onto the street.  Others were not so lucky.

The first of the firefighters arrived around 3:20 and by now guests were throwing themselves from their windows to their deaths on the concrete, amid the horrified St. Patrick’s Day revelers.   The firemen got as many guests and employees as possible out before the heat made it impossible to be inside.  The Times reported that “the heads of panic-stricken people protruded from the hotel windows, turning now toward the flames and now toward the sidewalk, and calling for help in tones that made the hearers sick.”

photo Museum of the City of New York

Two more alarms were sounded.  Firefighters, many of them still wearing their parade dress uniforms, hosed down the surrounding mansions to keep the fire from spreading.  Included was the house of Helen Gould, who opened her parlor as a triage center.  The Fellowes mansion at No. 570 Fifth Avenue had already begun burning.

Within an hour and a half, the grand hotel was gone -- photo Museum of the City of New York

Around 4:00, just one hour after the insignificant match was lighted, the central section of the hotel fell in and twenty minutes later the 46^th Street wall collapsed.   It would be days before the ruins were cool enough to dig for human remains.  In the end at least 90 people were dead and for over a year the block-long plot of scarred ground—called by The New York Times “the dreary void”—was a reminder to the surrounding wealthy residents of the horrific catastrophe of St. Patrick’s Day 1899.

Workmen sift through the smoking rubble on March 18, 1899 -- photo Museum of the City of New York

On the site in 1901 rose the ebullient Windsor Arcade—a high-class, early 20^th century version of the shopping mall named with respect to the grand and tragic hotel.

Many thanks to reader Allen Kaufman for suggesting this post

The 1913 Lewisohn Building -- 119 West 40th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1893 the Mendelssohn Glee Club, a group of all-male singers, moved into their grand new concert venue, Mendelssohn Hall at 119 West 40th Street. A gift of Alfred Corning Clark, the building was designed by Robert Henderson Robertson who would become known for his personalization of H. H. Richardson’s Romanesque Revival style.

Mendelssohn Hall drew crowds of up to 1,000 in the Empire-style auditorium and the upper floors were rented for social functions. The hall would not stand for long, however.

In 1911 Philip Lewisohn purchased the building for $310,000, announcing his intentions to build a 12-story loft “similar to the new Tilden Building” on the site. Before the year was up, his plans would have greatly expanded.

On April 3, 1912 The New York Times reported that Lewisohn had received a building loan of $1.1 million from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company to erect a skyscraper on the site of the Hall. By now the 12-story loft had changed to a 22-story structure that would stretch through the block from West 40th Street to 41st Street.

Lewisohn commissioned architects Manicke & Franke to design his new building as the area behind Bryant Park was rapidly transforming into an important manufacturing and commercial district.

On January 5, 1913 the New York American Annual Real Estate Review described the new Philip Lewisohn Building as “The largest commercial building north of 23d Street, being a whole block in depth.” The $1.2 million structure covered 28,000 square feet and dwarfed most of the surrounding buildings.

The American Annual Real Estate Review published its rendition of the new building on January 5, 1913 (copyright expired)

The Review said “Exceptional light from four sides; equipped with four high-speed elevators at each entrance. The only building in which wood is eliminated in every part.” While the building had just been opened that January, already tenants were signing leases; among them publisher F. W. Dodge Company and the United States Printing and Lithograph Company of Ohio. The United States Printing and Lithograph Company was, at the time, the largest Western printing house and leased ten full floors of the building.

photo by Alice Lum

By now architects and engineers had a relatively firm grasp on the problems related to the design and building of skyscrapers. Manicke & Franke accentuated the soaring verticality of the building by extending slim piers up the face. While the architects refrained from over-embellishing the bulk of the structure, they added Gothic touches to the upper-most and lower floors; most striking being the carved figures along the fourth story cornice.

The sculptures, dressed in medieval garb, all sit with their ankles crossed under Gothic terra cotta canopies. Each is a detailed allegory – Exploration holds a globe and compass, Industry has a large gear and Learning reads an open book, for instance.

Among the allegorical statues sits Thrift, holding a beehive, symbol of savings -- photo by Alice Lum

Despite the impressive sculptures, the June 1913 issue of The American Architect was tepid in its assessment of the architecture at best. Comparing it to the 23-story 110-112 West 40th Street Building completed the same year across the street, the journal said the “exterior masonry work…here is buff and, consequently, less striking and quiet in its decorative handling although not unattractive.”

Two years after completion, the Lewisohn Building dominates its neighbors -- The Edison Monthly, June 1915 (copyright expired)

The Edison Monthly was more positive in its assessment. The magazine praised the convenience of “two sets of lavatories on every floor,” the eight high-powered Otis traction elevators and the safety feature of every window being “supplied with wired glass.”



"A typical office" in the Lewisohn Building in 1915 -- The Edison Monthly (copyright expired)

The piano and organ manufacturer Rudolph Wurlitzer Company of Cincinnati signed a long-term $250,000 least on the ground floor store and basement area upon the building’s opening.   Upstairs, on the 20th and 21st floors, Manning, Maxwell & Moore moved in, taking 28,000 square feet of office space. The firm sold building machinery such as “electric traveling cranes, machine tools,” and supplies used by contractors, railway machinists and engineers.

Wurlitzer’s business was so successful here that a year later on July 12, 1914, Lewisohn announced he would erect a five-story annex at 120-122 West 41st Street for the tenant. The organ company signed a 21-year, $850,000 lease on the additional 20,000 square feet before ground was broken.

In 1915 the United Cigar Manufacturers Company took a full floor in the building, spending $150,000 per year in rent. It would be the first of several tobacco related firms to lease here. In 1929 the General Cigar Company was here and the P. Lorillard Tobacco Company would arrive later.

A repeating pattern of shields and open lilies separates the windows of the main shaft -- photo by Alice Lum

The building continued to attract printers and publishers, among them the International Magazine Company, owned by William Randolph Hearst. The publication was taken to court by the Ku Klux Klan in July 1923 when it published an unflattering article based on correspondence and other documents the Klan claimed were illegally obtained.

The Klan’s defense “did not deny the authenticity of the articles,” reported The Times. It merely wanted compensation for the wrongful taking of them.

By 1938 the Lewisohn Building (right), once the largest edifice north of 23rd Street, was lost in the maze of skyscrapers -- photo NYPL Collection

Throughout the 20th century a variety of industries were represented on the tenant list: Z. Horiskoshi & Co., importers and exporters were on the 10th floor; Felix Lilienthal & Co., Inc., buying office, were on the 13th; and the advertising agency Rieser Company, Inc.; G. Hirst Sons, importers of dress materials, and renowned music publishers J. Fischer & Brothers were here for years.

By the 1960s the Garment District had become firmly rooted in the area. Textile companies like The Kendall Company, apparel buying offices such as Certified Buying Service, and garment manufacturers now filled the Lewisohn Building.

On August 19, 1962 The New York Times laid out the boundaries of the Garment District as “The bustling, pedestrian-and-traffic-clogged rectangle of blocks between Thirty-fourth and Forty-second Streets, from Sixth to Ninth Avenue.” The article added, “And it appears that the industry will stay where it is for some years to come.” That same year, as with several other buildings in the area, the Lewisohn Building updated its lobby and entrance.

photo by Alice Lum

Today the blocks surrounding the Lewisohn Building remain bustling and clogged with pedestrians and traffic. Regrettably, all that bustling prevents many passersby from looking up to notice the beautiful allegorical figures staring down at them from under their Gothic canopies.

Many thanks to reader Arlene Green for requesting this post.

The 1892 American Fine Arts Society Building -- The Art Students League

In 1889 the Art Students League joined forces with the Society of American Artists, the Society of Painters in Pastel, the New York Art Guild and the Architectural League to form the American Fine Arts Society. The concept of common interests among architects and artists was somewhat novel. “The societies that have now combined,” applauded The New York Times, “contain most of the younger and more energetic artists in architecture, painting and sculpture.”


Almost immediately the group began its search for a building for art education and annual exhibitions. Not wanting to step on any well-established toes, the group stressed that “it is not a rival of the Academy of Design;” yet The New York Times reported that “certain active spirits among the artists of New York have been hard at work on the promotion of a scheme which may bear important results to the fine arts in America. This is the establishment of a body to be called The Fine Arts Society, in a new building devoted to art purposes only.”

Wealthy benefactors like John Jacob Astor, Cornelius and George Vanderbilt, Edwin Booth, Levi Morton and Pierre Lorillard quickly purchased life memberships, creating a financial foundation. On October 3 the trustees met – including esteemed names such as Henry Hardenbergh, Louis Tiffany and Daniel French --to discuss interest in a site on 43rd Street for their new building, which they anticipated would cost about $210,000 including the land.

The plans for the 43rd Street site fell through, but by December of 1890 the Society had purchased for $154,000 the plot of land on 57th Street, running through to 58th Street, next to the new Osborne Apartments and diagonally across from Carnegie Hall, still being constructed. A competition among 38 architects resulted in the commission going to the Society’s Secretary, Henry Hardenberg and his partners, William C. Hunting and John C. Jacobsen.

The building was completed in 1892. Hardenbergh adapted its design from the 16th Century hunting lodge of King Francis I in the forest of Fontainebleau. The architect gave the impression of the 3-story structure by lighting the fourth floor with skylights and no windows. White marble, ornate terra cotta and buff brick combined to produce a rich and stately façade.

The Art Students League Buildling 1929

The interior was divided among exhibition spaces, administrative rooms and teaching space. The Art Students League alone was allocated about 10,000 square feet of floor space including the entire fourth floor which was devoted to “the chase-painting class, the still-life class, the woman’s life class, the men’s life class, and the antique contours class.”

The main hall was said to be the largest of its kind in the country, modeled after the salon of George Petit in Paris. A “supper room” was installed in the basement along with studios for the Department of Sculpture. To the rear, on 58th Street, was the large Vanderbilt Gallery, an exhibition gallery with a glass roof

The New York Times called it “an elaborate structure.”

On December 30th at the Architectural League’s dinner, George W. Vanderbilt presented the Society with a gift of $100,000 to pay off the outstanding debt on the building.

The concept of exhibition space solely for sculpture and not as “a tag-on” for paintings so impressed the art critic for The New York Times that he belittled European venues in comparison. “The great sculpture halls of the Louvre, the Vatican and the Munich Glyptothek, even the delightful little sculpture entrance to the Luxembourg, are not they cold, hard, severe, suggesting with their rows of chiseled marble the show rooms of the stone cutter at the cemetery’s entrance?”

On May 3, 1901, fire erupted on the fourth floor just as men and women in evening wear alighted from their carriages to attend the fancy dress ball of the Society of American Fakirs. Paints, oils, turpentine and students’ tools had all been heaped together in a corner, according to fire fighters. The conflagration bent iron beams and small explosions caused one wall to collapse.

In the meantime, those who arrived for the society ball were disappointed. They walked to the clubhouse of the American Society of Civil Engineers, hoping to be allowed to have their dance. “The superintendant politely told them they would have to go elsewhere for their dance,” reported The Times. “The young women importuned him to no purpose, and at last they all started for their various homes.”

When word of the fire reached the Salmagundi Club, panic set in. Many of the artists had valuable works of art on exhibition. Rumors raged that everything inside the building had been destroyed and club members rushed to the scene. In the Vanderbilt Gallery alone, paintings on exhibition were valued at $400,000.

Amazingly, the fire was extinguished and no artworks were damaged either by fire or water.

Over time the building became the sole property of The Art Students League. What had started out as a small group intent on teaching art was now one of the foremost fine art schools in the world. Early instructors included William Merritt Chase, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Daniel Chester French, Thomas Eakins, and Childe Hassam. Norman Rockwell fondly recalled his days as a student here in his autobiography.

Later in the century ground-breaking artists such as Louis Nevelson, Roy Lichtenstein and Mark Rothko either taught or lectured here.

The AIA Guide to New York City calls The Art Students League “A stately French Renaissance pile, grand without being grandiloquent…Now a venerable art school, it has the air of the old Parisian Ecole des Beaux Arts, but the spirit of New York now.”

Within the historic building, which was designated a New York City landmark in 1968 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, the League is run by artists for artists. The League offers no degrees nor diplomas. According to its official website, “One comes purely for the pursuit of art.”

Stanford White's 1901 Henry B. Hollins House -- 12-14 West 56th Street

photo by Alice Lum

The years following the Civil War saw New York’s wealthy citizens inching northward along Fifth Avenue.  As the turn of the century approached, the avenue below 59^th Street was lined with the mansions of the Vanderbilt family and their social equals.  Wide brownstone rowhouses on the side streets, originally built for middle-class families, were either razed and replaced with fashionable residences, or  remodeled and updated for their new, moneyed owners.

West 56^th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues would become known as Bankers’ Row as financiers like Henry Seligman, E. Hayward Ferry and Arthur Lehman of Lehman Brothers built elegant residences.   Here Harry Bowly Hollins would join the crowd.

Hollins was a close personal friend of J. P. Morgan.  A respected banker and broker, he founded the investment firm of H. B. Hollins & Co.  In 1899 he purchased the still-undeveloped lot at 12-14 West 56^th Street and his business partner and close friend Frederick Edey purchased the adjoining lot at No. 10; their planned homes would fill the last two empty lots on the block.

A snag due to an 1881 prohibition on construction as far as the lot line for twenty years forced Edey to wait two years to begin building.  In the meantime Hollins steamed ahead.   The foremost architectural firm in the country at the time was McKim, Mead & White and Hollins went right to the top.  Stanford White would take on the project, designing a cutting-edge neo-Georgian brick and limestone home.

The choice of the refined Georgian design was somewhat surprising.  While the Centennial had awakened interest in things colonial; New York’s upper class was still building Italian palazzi and French chateaux.  It would still be a few years before society embraced the style with such mansions as the Andrew Carnegie or Paul Tuckerman homes.  The Architectural Record recognized the trend and commented that “It is because McKim, Mead & White have been consciously seeking to naturalize certain European architectural forms in this country that they place their work in vital connection with the one living American architectural tradition.”

Completed in 1901, White’s structure was understated elegance.   The entrance was centered in the rusticated limestone first floor, above which three stories of brownish-red brick supported a stone cornice and balustrade.  White left a narrow courtyard between the Hollins house and the proposed Edey mansion.  



Miniature evergreens and vines grace the balconies five years after the house was completed -- Architectural Record July 1906

The Hollins property extended to West 55^th Street where an existing stable still stood—previously owned by Robert Bonner for his famous trotting horses.  Hollins and his wife, the former Evelina Knapp, moved in with their children, Marion, John, Harry and McKim.   Mrs. Hollins did not fit the mold of the socialite whose soul interests were gossip and teas; she was a member of the Archaeological Institute of America and a keen collector of fine art.

The 56^th Street mansion was used throughout the New York social season.  During the summer and early autumn months the Hollins lived and entertained in their Islip, Long Island estate Meadow Farm.

Things were going well for the family – or at least it seemed so to New York society and the banking industry—until October 1913 when the Hollins family quietly moved into the fashionable Hotel Gotham.   Hollins leased the mansion, fully furnished and including Mrs. Hollins’ valuable paintings and rare works of art, to Mrs. John Astor.  Mrs. Astor, the mother of Vincent Astor, agreed to pay $25,000 rent for the winter which included use of the adjoining 55^th Street stables.

The stables, in the meantime, were sold to a developer who intended to erect a “large apartment hotel” there; with the agreement that demolition would not start until Mrs. Astor’s lease expired.

A month later an attorney affixed a court order to the brass gates of Hollins’ grand Wall Street office.  The New York Times reported that “Then it was publicly known that one of the most highly regarded houses in Wall Street had collapsed.”

The scandal was no doubt crushing to the family which was referred to by The Times as “notable in New York’s society life.”    They left Manhattan and moved permanently into the Long Island home.   In January 1915 Mrs. Hollins’ collection of art and antiques from the 56^th Street house were auctioned off by the Anderson Galleries.  Included were paintings by Thomas Lawrence, Joshua Reynolds, Caravaggio and Romney.  The two-day auction netted $84,481.

Six months earlier the Calumet Club had met to vote on moving north from the clubhouse at Fifth Avenue and 29^th Street where they had been for a quarter of a century.   The Hollins house was suggested as a possibility; certainly taking over the mansion would preclude the expense of building.   Before 1915 the house was purchased for $400,000 and the club was opened in the new location.

The house was conveniently within what was becoming the new club district.   The Brickbuilder magazine noted in January 1916 that “The clubs in New York have been steadily moving farther and farther north, and while the University Club was for many years a solitary outpost at 54^th street and Fifth avenue, it is now no farther north than many of the others.  The pleasant new building of the Calumet Club is on 56^th street, just west of Fifth avenue.”

The club had been formed in 1879 by twenty young men from distinguished families.  They named it after the calumet, a tobacco pipe that the American Indians used in peace treaties.  Membership was limited to 300.

In 1924 architect J. E. R. Carpenter was commissioned to renovate the building.  He added a two-story extension in the courtyard, set back behind a one-story arched entrance.  The original centered entrance and portico were replaced by a window that deftly blended with the others.

Carpenter's addition included a new entrance, replacing the original centered doorway -- photo by Alice Lum

Despite being one of the oldest social organizations in the city, the Great Depression proved too much to withstand.  On May 31, 1935 the club was disbanded and the clubhouse closed.   In September the Hollins house was sold at foreclosure and became home to the antiques dealer Charles of London.

For the next decade commercial tenants would come and go, with the house sitting empty for periods.  The Salvation Army acquired it in 1943 to be used as a servicemen’s canteen during World War II.

Over the door a handsome cast iron ornament simulates a leaded fan light -- photo by Alice Lum

Finally in 1947 the government of Argentina purchased the mansion, renovating it as the Argentine Consulate.    The Hollins mansion remains astonishingly preserved; one of the few residences in the area to survive without significant commercial alteration.  The handsome Georgian house was designated a New York City landmark in 1984.