Calvert Vaux's 1888 14th Ward Industrial School

John Jacob Astor III was interested in making money. His wife, Charlotte, was interested in spreading it around – much of it going to her favorite charities. As John Beck said in his 1898 The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, “He furnished the money; she distributed it.”

In mid-19th Century New York the squalid Five Points section of the city teemed with waifs known as “street arabs” – the orphaned or abandoned children of prostitutes, drug addicts and alcoholics -- who fended for themselves. In response, The Children’s Aid Society was formed in 1853 to “ensure the physical and emotional well being of children and families.” Charlotte Astor embraced the cause. John Beck wrote “She expended not only large sums, but personal energy and sympathy in behalf of the poor of New York, contributing thousands of dollars to the Children’s Aid Society.”

In its early days, the Society sponsored “The Orphan Train Movement;” whereby school-age boys were sent off to the American West to work for settlers on their farms. Townspeople would inspect the boys, choose the ones they wanted, and put them to work.  There was no adoption, no birth certificates and no pay other than room and board.  While abolitionists decried the practice as a form of slavery, others like Mrs. Astor insisted the boys were escaping a much worse fate on the streets of Manhattan.  Every Christmas she spent about $2000 to send one hundred orphans westward.

The Society also provided lodging houses for newsboys and bootblacks – charging 6 cents a night for a bed, a hot meal, a bath and a sermon.  Once a year the children were entertained with a “Summer Festival” complete with the crowning of the Queen of May and numerous “addresses;” proof, according to The New York Times, that the Children’s Aid Society “at least have not forgotten that ‘the poor we have always with us.’”

Charlotte Astor died of cancer in 1887 after decades of supporting the Society.  John Jacob Astor determined to memorialize her by building a new “Industrial School” in the impoverished Italian 14th Ward neighborhood.  Rather than simply ship the indigent children off to the West, the school would teach them the fundamental skills necessary to make a living.  Astor purchased the lot at 256-258 Mott Street for $21,000 and hired Calvert Vaux to design the school.

photo by Alice Lum

Vaux produced a visually-entertaining red Pennsylvania brick Victorian Gothic structure with terra cotta and brownstone trim.  Brick buttresses and a pointed Gothic entranceway draw attention upward to the stepped Dutch gable. Finished in 1888 it cost Astor $42,000.  Rising four stories above the street, it included a “roomy basement” with a kitchen and separate dining rooms for teachers and students. The first floor housed kindergarten and primary classrooms, the second and third floor contained classrooms for older children and the top floor housed rooms for primary and industrial school work. A playground was located in the rear.

In the main hallway a brass tablet read:

This building has been erected in affectionate

Remembrance of

Mrs. Charlotte Augusta Astor

By her husband.

John Jacob Astor

New-York 1888

Upon the school’s dedication The New York Times said “The memorial to Mrs. Astor will form an attractive centre of industry, thrift and cleanliness in a region which is noted for none of those characteristics.” The article described the neighborhood as “a district of wretchedness, poverty and squalor.”

Astor’s monument to his charitable wife served the underprivileged well into the 20th Century.  Today the neighborhood is more Chinese than Italian and the building has been converted to cooperative apartments. The ground floor façade is stained with the attempts to remove graffiti; however the integrity of Calvert Vaux’s 14th Ward Industrial School shines through.

The Lost Wm. A. Wheelock Mansion -- 661 West 158th Street

In 1937 a Victorian garden statue stands as a reminder of a graceful period in the mansions history photograph by Berenice Abbott from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1841 John James Audubon purchased a 14-acre tract of wooded land in upper Manhattan.  High above the Hudson River, it was a bucolic Eden of dogwoods, pines, tulip trees and ancient oaks.  A waterfall cascaded down the rocks to the river.

Ten years after purchasing what became known as Audubon Park, which he deeded to his wife, Lucy, the artist died.  His widow lived on, for a while, in the spacious home they had erected.  In 1851 her son Victor built another handsome residence on the land, while J. W. Audubon also erected a fine home.

In the meantime, just to the north, William Almy Wheelock owned a plot of land.  Born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1825, his family had relocated to New York City in 1837 when he was still a boy.  The prodigious Wheelock was graduated from New York University at the age of 18; supporting himself during his studies by teaching in the University’s grammar school.

The 18-year old went into the wholesale dry goods business as a partner in Bliss, Wheelock & Kelly.  In 1850 he married Harriet Efner.  The Wheelocks had two children, William Efner and Harriet Wheelock.

Following Audubon’s death, Wheelock helped Lucy (called Minnie by most) with her finances.  In the early 1860s both Minnie’s sons died and staying in Audubon Park may have become emotionally too difficult for her.  She moved not far away, just south of Trinity Cemetery.

By now Wheelock had amassed a sizeable fortune and in 1862, at the age of just 37, he retired.  The Audubon Park neighborhood was filling with mansions surrounded by park-like grounds and on November 1 that same year, Lucy Audubon conveyed a portion of her land to Wheelock for $13,000—around $300,000 today. 

Wheelock and Harriet had already been leasing the home that sat on the property, originally built for James Hall.  The plot measured approximately two city blocks—stretching from the cliffs (what would become Riverside Drive) to the carriage drive that would be 12^thAvenue.  According to his application for a water grant on May 13, 1869, his property ran “between One Hundred and Fifty-seventh and One Hundred and Fifty-ninth street.”

The Wheelocks replaced the Hall mansion with a more modern, fashionable dwelling.  The resulting brick-and brownstone residence had every bell and whistle a Victorian villa could ask for.  Multiple porches provided shade and caught the river breezes, and there were oriel windows, balconies, lacy iron cresting on the roof, and a tower.  But the visual cherry on top of the Gothic Eclectic style house was the wonderfully graceful ogee mansard that bowed and curved upward.

Its gardens and lawns overgrown and neglected during the Great Depression, the mansion retained its faded elegance -- photograph by Berenice Abbott from the collection of the New York Public Library

The entrance to the Wheelock mansion sat just back from the carriage drive; allowing for sumptuous gardens to the rear.  A surviving photograph from the turn of the century reveals Italian gardens with statuary and cast iron urns overflowing with vines and flowers.

Retired, wealthy and with a completed mansion; Wheelock found himself bored.  “But Mr. Wheelock was a man of affairs, and he could not stay idle long,” said The New York Times decades later.  Two years after starting construction on his home he became Director in the Central National Bank.  Two years after that, in June 1866, he became its president.

By 1881 when he resigned his bank position “to devote his time to philanthropic work” he was a director of several major corporations, an Elder in the Presbyterian Church and a director of the Union Theological Seminary.  The New-York Tribune said he felt “he needed recreation and a little more time for the management of his own property and other estates which had been intrusted to him.” 

William A. Wheelock -- The New-York Tribune November 27, 1898 (copyright expired)

But “recreation” was a relative term to Wheelock.  That year he returned to his alma mater, first sitting on the university’s Council and eventually becoming its President.  For 15 years he served as New York University’s Treasurer.

There were few grand entertainments in the Wheelock mansion; although William and Harriet were active in the wealthy Audubon Park community.  The New-York Tribune noted on November 27, 1898 “In his social life Mr. Wheelock’s high character and kindly, courteous disposition have won for him multitudes of friends.  He has no taste for club life in the usually accepted sense of that term, although he belongs to the Union League and Lawyers’ clubs and to the New-England Society.”

As the city reached, then engulfed the neighborhood, the mansions of Audubon Park remained.  All around, beginning in the 1870s, apartment and commercial buildings arose; but the fine homes of the Wheelocks and their neighbors held on.

On Thursday morning of July 6, 1905, the 81-year old William Almy Wheelock died in his summer home in Easthampton, Long Island. 

 Briefly Joseph Albert Wheelock lived in the house.  The editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Presslisted his address as “foot of West 158^th Street.”  The journalist died in 1908.

Dried weeds fill the ornamental urns on the balcony in 1937; yet the mansion was well-maintained and still being used -- photograph by Berenice Abbott from the collection of the New York Public Library

By the time of the Great Depression the Harlem neighborhood around the Wheelock mansion had drastically changed.  Where John James Audubon, who eschewed cities, had created a pastoral enclave of country homes; now rowhouses lined the streets like blockades.  On November 10, 1937 esteemed photographer Berenice Abbott, working for the Federal Art Project, was photographing the Riverside Drive Viaduct.  She paused to capture the Wheelock mansion. 

Abbot’s photographs show an overgrown garden and a once-gracious home; now fodder for Addams Family inspiration and children's Halloween terrors.  But still maintained, the mansion retained its faded elegance and Abbot’s photographs exude a sense of poignant nostalgia.

Berenice Abbot captured the images just in time.  Four years later the City purchased the property from the Wheelock Estate and demolished the mansion to build a low-income housing project. 

The Samuel J. Tilden House -- No. 15 Gramercy Park

photo by Alice Lum

While the young Samuel Jones Tilden was studying law at Yale University and then at New York University in the 1830s, Samuel Ruggles’ grand plan for Gramercy Square, later renamed Gramercy Park, was well underway.

Tilden sprang from an old colonial family—Nathaniel Tilden had come to America from England in 1634.  Now, in the first half of the 19^th century Tilden’s family had grown financially comfortable as manufacturers and sellers of Tilden’s Extract, a popular patent medicine.  By the decade before the Civil War Tilden had a thriving legal practice and represented many railroad concerns.

His passion, however, was rooted as much in politics as in law.  In 1846 he was a member of the New York State Assembly and, by now, Gramercy Square was fully developed.  The landscaped park surrounded by a handsome iron fence was lined with brownstone mansions.   The semi-private enclave lured some of the city’s wealthiest and most influential citizens.  The bachelor politician-lawyer purchased No. 15 on the south side of the park from the Belden Family in 1863 for $37,500 (about $552,000 today).

Built in 1844 the brownstone-fronted residence, along with its neighbor next door at No. 16, was designed in the Gothic Revival style.  Square-headed eyebrows capped the windows and Gothic-style tracery edged the cornice.  Over the entrance way the Belden coat of arms was carved into the keystone. 

Tilden added a dining room to the rear and, below ground, “a wine cellar of suitable size, to serve a well-to-do man of conservative tastes,” according to a close friend years later.

Tilden’s rear gardens were notable.   Helen W. Henderson, in her 1917 “A Loiterer in New York,” remembered “The gardens in the rear of the Tilden house were the largest in the row, extending through the block to Nineteenth Street, and were charmingly laid out with box-bordered walks and flower-beds, and shaded by large trees.”

Following the war he became chairman of the Democratic State Committee.  Although he had enjoyed a friendly working relationship with William M. Tweed, it all came to an ugly end with Tilden heading a reform movement in the Democratic Party and making himself an enemy of what became known as the “Tweed Ring.”

In 1874 Tilden purchased the Hall mansion next door at No. 14 for $50,000.  His friend, George Smith later recalled that “Mr. Tilden, although a bachelor, found in the course of time that he required more space than his house afforded him.”

Tilden’s intentions of creating one large mansion from the two would have to wait.  In the autumn of that year he was elected Governor of New York.  He rented the houses for two years while he held office.

His term as governor would be short-lived.  He stepped down to run for President in 1876 to succeed Grant.  There was little doubt that Tilden won the election.  In 1907 Brentano’s “Old Buildings of New York City” remarked “…he received a majority of the popular vote, but owing to the fact that the votes of several States were disputed, the celebrated Electoral Commission was appointed, consisting of senators, judges, and representatives.  The commission divided on party lines and gave the disputed votes to Mr. Hayes.”

campaign poster from the collection of the Library of Congress

Helen Henderson explained “There seems to be but little doubt that Tilden was elected, but party feeling was so strong it was feared that, had he been sustained, another civil war would have resulted.”

So, to maintain civil harmony, the clear loser in the presidential election, Rutherford B. Hayes, was inaugurated.  And Tilden returned to his home on Gramercy  Park.  On June 12, 1877 he gave what was considered his concession speech at the Manhattan Club; however the feisty politician pulled no punches in regard to his feelings.

In part he said “I disclaim any thought of the personal wrong involved in this transaction.  Not by any act of word of mine shall that be dwarfed or degraded into a personal grievance, which is, in truth, the greatest wrong that has stained our national annals.  To every man of the four and a quarter millions who were defrauded of the fruits of their elective franchise it is as great a wrong as it is to me.  And no less to every man of the minority will the ultimate consequences extend.”

On October 27, 1877 New Yorkers serenaded Tilden in front of his residence.  The house to the left, No. 16 which would later become the Players club, was owned by Clarkson N. Potter at the time.  The following year Tilden would join Nos. 14 and 15 as one mansion -- sketch from the NYPL collection

Tilden returned to New York, but according to George Smith, “another year elapsed before the remodeling and connecting of the buildings began.“  He commissioned Calvert Vaux to renovate the two residences into a single 40-room mansion—ample living space for an unmarried man. 

Perhaps unfortunately the genius of Vaux will forever be remembered almost solely for his work on Central Park.  But his far-sighted designs stepped away from the comfortable traditions and provided refreshing and exciting results.  For the Tilden mansion he turned to Victorian Gothic, a slight variation of the style popularized by John Ruskin.   Three years later Vaux would bring the style to culmination with his extraordinary Jefferson Market Courthouse.

Tilden’s finished residence stood out among the prim and proper brownstones along the park.   Vaux used brownstone and “red-stone” for the façade, trimmed with red and gray granite that created contrasting belt courses and panels.  The façade was encrusted with carved portraits—Shakespeare, Dante, Benjamin Franklin, Milton and Goethe among them—and  floral and geometric designs.

photo by Alice Lum

The New-York Tribune called the house “magnificent” and reported on its hardwood trim, carved ceilings, parquet flooring, carved mantels, tapestry walls, five bathrooms, laundry and “drying-room.”   The New York Times said it was “most lavishly decorated."

photo http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20110130/murray-hill-gramercy/clampdown-at-national-arts-club-board-meeting-after-scandal/slideshow/popup/57629

An enclosed tank on the roof provided running water.  Tilden had the convenience of an elevator and his cook enjoyed a “French range.”  Tilden’s renovations cost him about $500,000.  The dining room alone, which was “finished in gilt,” according to the Tribune, cost $40,000.  John LaFarge and Donald MacDonald created stunning stained glass ceilings.

MacDonald's stained glass dome remains an architectural highlight today -- http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/warm-decor-in-the-national-art-107845

Interestingly, Tilden retained the two entrances—not, as might be expected, as a main entrance and a service entrance—but, as pointed out by the New-York Tribune, “with an eye to political contingencies.”

“One,” said the newspaper “was for everyday use; the other was occasionally found serviceable at political gatherings.”

The elaborate entrance above the stoop was, assumedly, the one used for "political gatherings." -- photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Six years after the house was completed, there was apparently water seepage in the basement.  Tilden hired Edward Van Orden to install water-tight flooring in the cellar.  It was an expensive proposition, amounting to nearly $25,000.   The contractor would discover that Samuel J. Tilden accepted nothing short of what he paid for.

While the work was being done, Tilden made payments to Van Orden amounting to $13,079.  And then the flow of cash stopped.  Van Orden took his employer to court in June 1885, suing him for $10,261.  He may have forgotten that Tilden was one of the country’s most respected and successful lawyers.

Tilden turned the tables. The Sun reported on June 9 that his defense was that “the work was badly done, so that he had to employ other persons, at an expenditure of $12,147 to make a good job of it.”  Tilden countersued Van Orden for that amount, plus $1,000 in damages from the work Van Order did in the cellar.

Samuel J. Tilden died the following year.  From his massive estate he left $2 million to the New York Public Library and 20,000 volumes from his own library.  The house remained in the Tilden estate, becoming home to the Tilden Trust for several years,

The mansion as it appeared in 1907 with the elaborate stoop and entrance at the left removed -- Brentano's "Old Buildings of New York City" (copyright expired)

Litigation of the Tilden will resulted in the mansion on Gramercy Park being liquidated.  On May 10, 1899 it was sold at auction for $180,000 to Charles D. Sabin, the husband of Tilden’s niece, the former Susie Tilden.  The New York Times reported “Mr. Sabin declined to say what he would do with the house, his answer to inquiries being ‘I do not know.’”

Sabin’s plans for the house did not include moving in, however.  The grand home became “The Tilden,” an upscale rooming house.

On November 11, 1900 an advertisement in the New-York Tribune offered a “beautiful suite facing park; private table; exceptional table,” in “Governor Tilden’s Mansion."  A year later the same newspaper would advertise rooms for $7, “special rates for families.”

The tenants were upscale, like Dr. and Mrs. J. Whitney Barstow whose daughter Margaret Macdonald Barstow married Leonard Stuart Robinson Hopkins in February 1900.  The society wedding took place in St. Thomas’s Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue and the reception followed in the Tilden mansion.  

Naval Commander Charles Herbert Stockton lived here in 1903 when, on April 3, Washington announced his appointment as naval attaché at the United States Embassy in London.  The New-York Tribune called him “one of the best known officers of the service.”  He wrote the “Manual of International Law” used by the military.

Vaux's use of materials resulted in a vibrantly colorful facade -- photo by Alice Lum

By now Calvert Vaux’s outstanding façade was less than remarkable as trends changed.  The New York Times surprisingly opined on May 11, 1899 “The Tilden house does not differ particularly in its exterior from the other fine dwellings on Garmercy Park."

Helen Henderson said “It is readily distinguished for its curious façade…It is a refined example of what was considered the quintessence of elegance in those days, and was much admired for its sculptured front; everything about it—the style of its iron work, the rosettes in the ornament, the variations in colour, the bay windows, and the pointed doorway and windows—suggests the Centennial period of domestic architecture, considered a vast improvement over the Georgian, which it succeeded, and in this case replaced.”  (Ms. Henderson was obviously unaware of what it replaced.)

By 1905 the National Arts Club had outgrown its headquarters at No. 37 West 34^th Street.  On Friday March 24 the Tribune reported that the club had purchased the former Tilden residence.  “The buyer will convert the premises into a club and studio building by erecting a studio annex to the present structure.”

The mission of the National Arts Club was to “stimulate and promote public interest in the arts and educate the American people in the fine arts.”  Member and first President of the club, George B. Post, set to work designing the addition, which would replace Tilden’s extensive gardens.  The 12-story building would provide studios with northern light across the park to artists.

The New York Times reported that “The Tilden mansion will be altered somewhat to fit the requirements of the Arts Club.  The main entrance will be into the basement, like that of the adjoining Players Club; the smaller entrance with its outer stair leading to the first floor, will remain.  This is to be a special entrance for the ladies of the club, taking them directly by a second flight to their own little suite of apartments on the second floor.

“The dining room in the rear will have a skylight over it and form part of the picture galleries, which will extend quite through to Nineteenth Street, when the large studio-apartment annex is built.”

photo by Alice Lum

Interior work on the Tilden residence revealed passages and stairways that led to romantic stories of the politician having escape routes built into the mansion in case of assassination attempts by the Tweed Ring.  On August 26, 1905 George W. Smith, for close friend of Tilden, sent an exasperated letter to the Editor of the New York Times dispelling the rumors.

Regarding the “secret staircase” he explained “To avoid the noise of the street, he planned his sleeping quarters in the rear of the new building, and for the sake of convenience he had an inside stairway with a door and plainly visible knob, built from his bathroom to that of his valet, immediately overhead.”

The underground tunnel was also explained away.  “To provide accommodations for a yearly supply of fuel and a wine cellar of suitable size…a vault connected with the main cellar was constructed under the garden.  To supply the furnace arrangement with fresh air, a tunnel four feet in diameter was built along the easterly wall of the house.  This was all done seven years before the “ring” troubles appeared.”

In 1925 The Players (foreground) and the National Arts Club dominated Gramercy Park South -- NYPL Collection

Throughout the century the National Arts Club welcomed a wide range of members, including three United States Presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Dwight D. Eisenhower—as well as noted architects, painters, sculptors and performing artists.

By the 1970’s the building was showing its age.  A restoration of the MacDonald domed glass ceiling was executed by Albinius Elskus, a stained glass artist and club member. 

But serious deterioration continued.  In 1999 Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn conducted architectural studies, in concert with engineering studies by Robert Silman Associates.  Their findings recommended a $2 million stabilization of the façade.

Five years later nothing had been done.  In  2004 concerned Arts Club members complained that “pieces of the clubhouse are now literally falling to the street.”  Citing a lack of interest by the club’s management, they reached out to city agencies, newspapers and preservation groups for help.  In a letter to city governmental agencies the members complained “Additionally, the elegant interiors have also been deteriorating.  In one example, a front parlor wall charred black in a fire five years ago was never restored.”

Calvert Vaux's stunning facade was suffering alarming deterioration in 2004 -- http://concernednac.homestead.com/

Then-president of the club, O. Aldon James received the brunt of the blame for the sorry state of affairs.  Of the 35 apartments in the annex, he, his brother John and their lawyer friend Steen Leitner used many for storage space.  Ceilings collapsed from water damage and studios were piled high in trash.  In the meantime, Aldon was under investigation for “alleged financial irregularities at the club."

Aldon finally stepped down in June 2011, after a quarter of a century in office, and renovations began on the apartments.  A spokesman for the club said that “Everyone will want to look at them, but the people who will really want to rent them will be those with a true appreciation for the history of New York.”

Samuel J. Tilden’s remarkable double mansion survives.  It is a rare example of Victorian Gothic residential design in the city and the scene of an amazing page of New York and American history.

photo by Alice Lum

The Arnold, Constable Dry Goods Store

Arnold, Constable & Co in 1894 -- King's Photographic Views of New York (author's collection)

Some years ago I guided a well-traveled friend to the corner of 19th Street and Fifth Avenue to show him the former Arnold, Constable Dry Goods building.  He gasped when he first saw the Fifth Avenue facade.

"Just wait," I said.  And we moved closer to the corner until the entire 19th Street side was visible.   "Have you ever seen anything like this?" I asked.

"Not outside of Paris," he answered.

Actually, the original entrance to the old Arnold, Constable Dry Goods store was on Broadway.  As the firm grew, so did the store; additions being added until at last the monster emporium spanned the entire length of 19th Street, taking out the former home of actor Edwin Booth with it.

Aaron Arnold, a British emigrant had opened a small dry goods business in 1825 on Pine Street in lower Manhattan, planting the seed of what would become the oldest department store in America.  In 1842 he took on James Mansell Constable as his partner, preferring to separate their names by a comma rather than an ampersand like his rival Lord & Taylor.

By 1857 the partners moved to Canal Street, where a five-story marble clad store awaited which was dubbed Marble House.  Offering "Everything From Cradle to Grave," Arnold, Constable & Company gained a reputation among the ladies of the monied carriage trade.  Business continued to boom and Marble House, only a decade later not only was the store cramped, but the retail district was moving northward

A second store was planned near Union Square.  The resultant 1869 five story marble, brick and cast iron palace designed by Griffith Thomas on Broadway at 19th Street incorporated large arched windows that allowed exceptional daylight into the selling floors.  A mere three years later Thomas was called back in to enlarge it down the 19th Street side.  He created a French Second Empire extravaganza -- Walt Disney Victorian architecture on steriods! 

 

 

A monumental two-story mansard roof was added to the entire structure.  The French-style architecture was most likely intended as a hint of the European goods offered inside -- gowns from The House of Worth in Paris, French china and imported silks.  The carriages that parked outside carried New York's feminine elite.  Mary Todd Lincoln was a regular shopper and the account ledgers read like the social register:  Vanderbilt, Carnegie and Astor for example.

Wiilliam Schickel designed the final westward additions and even established his offices in the building.  Despite a change in materials, the cast iron Broadway facade giving way to brick and masonry towards 5th Avenue, the additions are nearly seamless.  When the 5th Avenue end was completed, Arnold, Constable & Company became the first department store with a 5th Avenue address.

5th Avenue facade looking east down 19th Street

James Constable died in May of 1900.  Fourteen years later the store moved again, razing the Vanderbilt mansion at 40th Street and 5th Avenue for a new, more modern store.  Luckily for New Yorkers this grand old lady remains, a striking remnant of a fashionable era.

non-credited photographs taken by the author