The 1912 Otis Elevator Building - 260 11th Avenue

The building upon its completion in 1912 -- The American Architect, September 18, 1912 (copyright expired)

Elisha Graves Otis did not start out with the intention of inventing elevators.   It all began because in 1852, according to The Sun half a century later, he became tired of lugging heavy materials between floors of the bedstead factory in Yonkers where he was superintendant.   Otis set about constructing a freight hoist. 

Although variations of hoists and elevators were already in existence, this one had a significant difference.  Otis devised a brake that would automatically engage should the rope break; preventing the platform from crashing to the floor.    As word spread, Otis began building similar elevators for local merchants.

By 1854, as he opened his first factory in Yonkers, he had given up bed making and turned his attention solely to the manufacture of elevators, establishing the E. G. Otis Company.  That year he not only opened his first factory in Yonkers but managed to astound the masses at New York’s Crystal Palace international exposition.   Although marketing would prove to be one of his weak points, Otis outdid himself here.  He stood confidently on the elevator floor as the contraption was elevated high into the air.  The inventor then sliced through the rope as Victorian women gasped below.  The safety brakes immediately deployed, stopping the elevator from falling.  “Otis” and “elevator” were soon nearly synonymous.

In 1857 the Otis firm installed the first passenger elevator in the elegant new E. V. Haughwout Building on Broadway.  In 1897, the same year that the firm installed the first electric-powered elevator in the Demarest Building, it came to the rescue of the Paris Exposition's Eiffel Tower.  French engineers were baffled by the angled legs of the tower--elevators by nature required a straight shaft.   In exasperation and with time running out before opening, they turned to Otis Brothers & Co. (Elisha Otis had died in debt in 1861) who solved the engineering problem.

Unlike their father, brothers Charles and Norton Otis were brilliant admen.  The new buildings with Otis elevators--each one taller than the last--were used as marketing tools in Otis advertisements.

The firm continued to grow and, to eliminate competition, bought up competing companies.  Two separate law suits, about a decade apart, along with increased government anti-trust regulation, forced Otis to consolidate is many related companies into the Otis Elevator Company in 1906.

Part of the outcome of the last anti-trust case was an attempt on the part of Otis to regularize its operations.  A central headquarters building would help accomplish this.

In 1909 the Otis Elevator Company purchased land in the industrial neighborhood of 11^th Avenue in Chelsea from Ambrose K. Ely.  On the stretch of avenue between 26^thand 27^th Streets an elevator works (possibly already Otis) occupied a former iron works building.   Otis commissioned the architectural firm of Clinton & Russell to design a multi-purpose headquarters building here.  The firm, established in 1894, had already designed numerous New York City business buildings.

Clinton & Russell provided the industrial building with a reserved dignity -- photo by Alice Lum

Ground was broken in 1911 and a year later the handsome 7-story building was completed.  Faced entirely in brick with limestone detailing, it ignored its industrial neighborhood and presented a formal, refined presence.   A deeply-overhanging copper cornice crowned it all.  A century later the AIA Guide to New York Yorkwould call it “A massive Romanesque brick cliff.  Look up to the glorious copper cornice, hovering on high…That’s sobriety: the building halts, duly crowned:  none of your sky-scraping.”

As the building neared completion The Western Architect said “the building is an imposing structure of modern architecture and construction” and The New York Times called it “a notable improvement in that quarter of the city.”

Sketch from The Independent, 1912 (copyright expired)

The structure included functional departments on the two lower floors:  a garage, stock rooms and machine shops, and the service department where factory-trained technicians handled replacement parts and repair problems.   The upper five floors contained the company offices.  The remote location prompted the inclusion of conveniences for the staff:  there was a dining room, pantry, baths, a barber shop and a law and patent library.

The Arts & Crafts-inspired lobby featured intricate brickword and multi-color tiles -- The American Architect, September 18, 1912 (copyright expired)

“This concentration under one roof will greatly facilitate the business of the Company and provide for the benefit of users of Otis Elevator products the most complete Supple and Service Organization of any elevator company in the world,” wrote The Western Architect.

The year that the doors to the new building were opened, Otis installed the elevators in the world’s tallest building, the Woolworth Tower.   Year after year architects and engineers came to 260 11^th Avenue to arrange elevator service for new structures:  The Empire State Building, The Chrysler Building, Chicago’s Sears Tower among them. 



A 1912 advertisement in The Evening World proudly displayed the new building (copyright expired)

In the meantime, Otis engineers constantly worked on innovations to keep the firm on the top of the elevator heap.  From here came ground-breaking inventions such as the push-button elevator and automatic doors.
 

Otis Elevator Company remained in the 11^th Avenue headquarters for seven decades, finally moving to Midtown in 1974.   The building that had been built and used as the home for a single firm was leased out over the years to smaller factories and offices.

A century of use and weather has not detracted from the ambitious copper cornice nor the limestone trim -- photo by Alice Lum

For the young and trendy New Yorkers of the late 1970s and early 80s, No. 260 11^th Avenue would be known as Les Mouches.  The multi-level disco/supper club/cabaret was on the upper floors and its gargantuan dance floor was the scene of frenzied dancing under miles of lights, upscale dining and celebrities both on stage and in the crowd.    On Saturday nights in 1980 Patti LuPone went directly from the Prince Edward Theatre to perform at Les Mouches (named after Jean-Paul Sartre’s play The Flies); a year later Maureen McGovern played here after her performances of The Pirates of Penzance;as did Julie Budd and the Bee-Gees.  In the audience a patron could rub shoulders with celebrities as diverse as Grace Jones and Phyllis Diller.

By the mid 1980s Les Mouches was gone, replaced by Chippendales.

The days of thumping music, glinting disco balls and scantily-clad muscle boys passed on.  The Otis Elevator Building is once again filled with a variety of small businesses and factories.  But Clinton & Russell’s striking 1912 exterior design remains nearly completely unchanged.

photo by Alice Lum

The Lost New York Club -- No. 370 5th Avenue

Shortly after the New York Club purchased the mansion, the Caswell family erected a small building (left) for a commercial art gallery on the site of the former gardens--photographer C. C. Langill from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York -- http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHZECLN&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=603#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHZECLN&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=603&PN=3

In 1859 the Fifth Avenue Hotel was among the most fashionable in the city.  Its rooms and restaurants saw the comings and goings of foreign heads of state, U.S. Presidents, famous writers, artists and actors.  The wealthiest and most powerful New Yorkers met here to draft deals, nominate candidates for office and—in today’s terms--network.  Merchants fortunate enough to lease space in the upscale hotel were assured a most lucrative business.

That year Philip and John Rose Caswell opened their pharmacy in the hotel; the same year that John built his magnificent mansion at No. 370 Fifth Avenue.  The house sat in the most prestigious residential neighborhood of Manhattan; a block north of the brownstone residences of John Jacob and William Astor.   The New York Times described it as “of brick, with brownstone facings, four stories high, and a piazza at the rear.”

The southern half of the block was developed in 1870 when the magnificent Alexander Turney Stewart house was completed.  The white marble palace, the showplace of Fifth Avenue at the time, gleamed among the brownstone mansions around it.  The two houses were separated by thirty-three feet of lush lawns and gardens owned by Caswell.

The Caswell brothers’ highly successful drugstore would stay in the Fifth Avenue Hotel until 1876, when the partnership was dissolved.  Within three years John teamed with William R. Massey to take over the apothecary business started by Scottish doctor William Hunter in Newport in 1752, a New York branch of which had already been established in 1833.  The pair agreed that Caswell would oversee the Newport store while Massey ran the New York branch.

The new operation, Caswell-Massey, flourished and the already-wealthy druggists became even more so.   With John Caswell now living in Newport, the Fifth Avenue mansion was superfluous.  The pharmacist struck a deal with the exclusive University Club to convert his residence into its newest clubhouse.

The University Club had been organized in 1861 when a group of wealthy college alumni sought to form a social club that would keep old school friends intact.  Now, in April 1879, it listed 325 members on its rolls and fully expected to expand that number to 400 before moving into the Caswell mansion a month later.

In 1879 the Caswell mansion retained its brick and brownstone exterior and classical Fifth Avenue entrance.  Next door, separated by a wide garden, is the white marble Stewart mansion.  One block south are the brownstone residences of William and John Jacob Astor.  A horse-drawn omnibus heads south down the quiet avenue.  -- photographer unknown; from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York -- http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHZECLN&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=603#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHZECLN&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=603&PN=3

The club would be the first incursion of a non-private residence into the area.  But the upscale organization and its pedigreed members posed little threat to its surrounding neighbors.   The New York Times made note of the mansion’s excellent adaptability to its new function.  It “is considered a admirable location as a rendezvous for the gentlemen composing the club,” it said on April 11, 1879.  The newspaper mentioned that the piazza in the rear “affords space for a promenade and an after-dinner smoke.  The grounds are in good order, and allow sufficient room for croquet, tennis, or, as one of the members suggested yesterday, a game of ‘I spy.’”

Club officials told reporters that very few alterations would need to be made.  “There are stairways at the front and rear, extending from the first floor to the attic.  The halls are wide and roomy, and a good wine-cellar occupies part of the basement.  The heating apparatus is in a good condition, and the kitchen, while being well-adapted for culinary purposes, affords room for an additional range.”

The club would stay on in the house for less than a decade.  The Caswell family more than doubled the rent in 1886, causing no small amount of ill-will and a search for a new location.  The following year the club moved on to the old Union League clubhouse on Madison Square. 

While the Caswell family and the University Club were bickering,  fire swept through another prestigious clubhouse—the New York Club at West 25^th Street and Fifth Avenue.  Chartered in 1845, it was the oldest men’s club in the city.  The club had moved several times in its three decades of existence, the last time only a year earlier to its present location.  A day after the fire, on April 3, 1876, The Times said “The building burned last night was one of the most prominent in the City.  It is a brown-stone five-story edifice filling the delta formed by the junction of Broadway and Fifth avenue.  In former years it was known as the Worth House, a first-class family hotel, and a favorite resort for Southerners, and the private residence of Edward S. Stokes.”

The blaze had started below ground in the kitchen “by the overboiling of some fat on the range,” reported newspapers.  The Times reported that “As in the case of the Fifth Avenue Hotel fire, the mischief was done by a dumb-waiter or elevator running from the kitchen to the top of the house.  Up this wooden shaft the fire sped with startling rapidity, and seized upon the servants’ quarters in the attic of the building.” 

The frescoed ceilings, the fine furnishings and paintings, everything on the upper floors were all destroyed. A day after the fire damages were estimated at $30,000—a hefty $600,000 by today’s standards.

The New York Club, perhaps not wanting to fall victim to suddenly-ballooning rents as had the University Club, negotiated the purchase of the old mansion.  A price of $242,000 was arrived at; but the cagey Caswells did not include the surrounding L-shaped gardens—only the building was included in the sale.

Before moving in, the club extensively updated the old pre-Civil War mansion.  The renovations would nearly double the cost of the property.  "King’s Handbook of New York City" wrote of the resultant transformation.  “The club-house is the Caswell house, the former home of the University Club, remodeled into a graceful building of the Queen Anne style.”   Red brick and white limestone were used to create an entertaining façade with a balcony above clustered windows on the Fifth Avenue side, and a split entrance staircase at the new main entrance on 35^th Street.  Inside detailing was updated with the latest in Eastlake and Queen Anne influences.

The interiors were outfitted in the latest taste.  Show above is the main staircase--Harper's Weekly, March 15, 1890, NYPL Collection

The sale on behalf of the club was handled by attorney and club member Edward Gebhard.  But trouble soon arose.  In the fall of 1886 Gebhard submitted his bill of $1,022.50 covering his legal services; an amount he asserted was “about one-third what he would have charged any other client,” as reported in The Sun.

Just prior to this, Nathaniel Whitman was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Board of Directors.  Whitman and Gebhard had long been personal enemies because Gebhard “had detected and exposed him (Whitman) for cheating at cards,” reported The Sun.  Whitman retaliated by inducing the board to turn down a gentleman whom Gebhard had proposed for membership.

Enraged, Edward Gebhard tendered his resignation from the club on October 26, shortly after his invoice had been paid.  The lawyer was infuriated when six months later he received a letter demanding that he return the $1,022.50 “paid by this Board under a misapprehension.”  The ugly matter resulted in a public court battle and much unwanted press.

As the old mansion was being renovated, Fifth Avenue homeowners were concerned that the Caswell family might have unfriendly plans for the garden plot between the club and the Stewart mansion--ample space for  commercial structure.  On May 17, 1887 Charles S. Smith, the executor of the Caswell estate, was questions regarding the report that a business building might be erected on the lot.

“The report is not without foundation,” he replied smugly.  “My wife, who is a Caswell, and myself think of putting up a building that will be a credit to the location.  Our plans have not yet materialized.  When they do it will give me pleasure to make public the details.  We have obtained a permit to erect a building, and in all probability will carry out the idea some day.”

The idea of a commercial building in the midst of their respectable mansions did not sit well with the likes of Caroline Astor and other millionaires on the avenue.  But The New York Times said flatly “Fifth-avenue residents in the vicinity look with intense disfavor upon the idea of the Caswell heirs, but however disagreeable a business building in that neighborhood would be to them they have no power to prevent its erection except by purchasing the plot.”  The plot was not purchased and, indeed, before long the L-shaped garden was filled with a small, tasteful commercial building that housed an upscale art gallery.

The renovated mansion bore little resemblance to its former brownstone embodiment -- photographer unknown; from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York -- http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHZECLN&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=603#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHZECLN&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=603&PN=3

The club finally occupied the house in May 1888 and by November the clubhouse was ready for public inspection.  On November 10 a day-long reception was held and “hundreds” of guests filed through the newly-refurbished halls.  “The result, judging from the exclamations of admiration and congratulation which escaped from the visitors after an inspection of the various apartments, must have been highly satisfactory to the promoters of the reception and an ample reward for all their trouble and pains,” reported The New York Times.  It was a rare opportunity for New York’s female population to see inside the male-only domain.

“Probably more than 1,000 people, a large number of whom were ladies, were the club’s guests between 3 o’clock in the afternoon and 10 o’clock at night.  By far the larger number attended in the evening, when ladies in full costume and gentlemen in evening dress presented a brilliant sight as they promenaded to the enlivening music of Lander over softly carpeted floors, through spacious rooms made doubly beautiful by rich hangings and profuse floral decorations.”

The first floor contained the main sitting room paneled in cherry wainscoting.  The furniture here was cherry to match and the “curtains in this room are very beautiful, being of silk grand Italian tapestry, having a rich copper hue.”  Also on the first floor were the office, a small reception room “richly furnished,” and a billiard room.

The second floor dining room offered “delicacies of a most tempting nature prepared solely by the club chef.”  The room was paneled in dark oak and featured a large fireplace opposite the entrance doors.  The costly interior decoration included Axminister carpets and Italian draperies.  Also on this floor was a card room and a library, both paneled in antique oak, and a private drawing room.  The upper floors were relegated to sleeping rooms for members.

By the turn of the century, the Astor mansions had been replaced with the hulking Waldorf-Astoria Hotel--commerce was creeping up Fifth Avenue.-- photo NYPL Collection

New members paid an entrance fee of $300 and yearly dues of $75 for the privilege of using the clubhouse and claiming its prestige.  Out-of-towners, called “non resident members,” enjoyed fees and dues of exactly one-half that amount. 

One of the “non-resident members” in 1901 was millionaire Bostonian Frederick A. Gilbert.  Gilbert was the President and General Manager of the Boston Electric Light Company.  He often traveled to New York on business, and was well-known at the Waldorf-Astoria where he always stayed (that hotel by now occupied the former site of the Astor mansions between 33^rdand 34^th Streets).

In January that year Gilbert arrived in New York to attempt to consolidate the Edison Company, New York City’s major electric concern, with his own.  On the 18^th of January he spent most of the day in the Wall Street area then returned to the hotel before going to the New York Club where he was to dine with friends.

The 54-year old Gilbert, whom The New York Times described as “very corpulent,” was seated at his table in the main dining room around 8:45.  The newspaper said “The room was well filled.  Mr. Gilbert was quite jovial and was telling a story to his companions when he suddenly paled and, clutching his throat and his breast at the same time, exclaimed, ‘I am ill!’”

Staff ran to summon doctors, but before they had even left the room, Gilbert lurched forward “and in a few moments life was extinct,” said The Times.  Polite dinner conversation was over among the other members in the room.  “The incident created much excitement, and the diners gathered about the table at which Mr. Gilbert had been eating.”

The newspaper somewhat bluntly ran the headline “Dropped Dead At A Club.”

Later that year the glorious marble A. T. Stewart mansion was razed.  The New York Club was little-by-little being engulfed by commerce.  In February 1905 club members were embroiled in heated discussions; not about whether to leave the clubhouse, but where to go.  In January the club had sold the old mansion to Boehm & Coon for $1,100,000.  The developers simultaneously bought the L-shaped Caswell property that embraced it.  There was little doubt now that the end of the road for the venerable Caswell mansion was near.

In 1890 the clubhouse and the Silo Gallery building next door are festooned with patriotic flags and bunting; possibly to celebrate the end of the Spanish-American War -- photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York -- http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHZECLN&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=603#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHZECLN&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=603&PN=3

In March 1907 the New York Club moved into its new nine-story home on West 40^th Street.  The New York Times called it “a bachelor’s heaven.”   Within months the Caswell mansion was demolished and in its place was rising the eleven-story commercial building designed by Clinton & Russell, with George A. Boehm as associate architect.  The building survives today.

The view down 5th Avenue today is unrecognizable from the days when the Caswell, Stewart and Astor mansions lined up along its western side.  photograph taken by the author

The passing of New York Club building was indeed the end of an era--the last vestige of the elite residential neighborhood in this section of Fifth Avenue.

The Barely-Recognizable Shell of Whyte's Restaurant -- No. 145 Fulton Street

Whyte's Restaurant as it appeared in 1910, one year after opening -- Architecture and Building (copyright expired)

In 1904 Edward E. White and his son, Frank H. White, came to New York from St. Louis where they had learned the restaurant business.  The native Ohioans had set their sights on making it big in New York City.   Four years later their plans were set.

At Nos. 143 and 145 Fulton Street in Manhattan’s busy financial district sat an old printing house building which was available for lease.  On New Year’s Eve, 1908 Edward White signed a 21-year lease on the property and The Sun announced that he would “tear down the present structures and erect on the site a three story building which he will occupy as a restaurant.”

It would not be just a restaurant, however.  The Whites envisioned a high-class eating establishment on a par with the nearby Delmonico’s.   They hired architects Clinton & Russell to design a building with character and charm that would attract notice.

On May 8, 1909 The Sun reported on the filing of the plans “of modified old English design” at a projected cost of $50,000.   In 1909, with modern skyscrapers rising skyward all around, the short, quaint cottage would, indeed, be eye-catching.  The owners modified their name with a “Y” to be more in keeping with the old English theme.

The building was completed within the year and Architecture and Building called it “a quaintly attractive little building, designed in extremely good taste.”

Architectural Review 1913 (copyright expired)

Looking more, perhaps, like a Swiss chalet than a Shakespearean cottage, the façade was half-timbered with colorful paintings within the stucco panels.  The many-paned windows were deceptively expansive and a charming planted window box stretched along the second floor.

Inside, the main floor featured the gentlemen’s dining room with the long oak bar and its well-shined brass spittoons.    The Times would later recall that “Whyte’s strove to retain an Old-World aura, with its dark paneling [and] gilt-framed portraits.

The main dining room in 1913 -- Architectural Review (copyright expired)

Also on the ground floor were the rathskeller and a cafe.  The ladies’ dining room was upstairs, as was the kitchen.  The top floor was given over to the bakery and storerooms.

The nearly-male only population of the daytime Wall Street area resulted in few feminine patrons.  Decades later a manager would insist that women were never banned “unlike other restaurants of its type.”  He added “I think it was the bar right in the dining room that may have discouraged them.”

The Ladies' Dining Room on the 2nd Floor -- Architecture and Building 1910 (copyright expired

Nonetheless, diners of both sexes raved about the American fare offered by Whyte’s.    Eating at Whyte’s was more expensive than most other restaurants—except Delmonico’s—but it was worth it.  The menu of seafood, steaks and freshly baked pies was famous throughout the city.  It became a favorite watering hole for executives and a luncheon meeting place for politicians, businessmen and stock brokers.  Throughout the 1910s the New York 7^th Infantry Regiment met every Tuesday in the summer months and it was a favorite venue for honorary dinners and celebrations.

The New York Times remembered, decades after the opening, that “The restaurant’s specialty of the house was finnan haddie, but some long-time aficionados said that the homemade rum-raisin ice cream was Whyte’schef d’oeuvre.”

Judge Edward Weinfeld might have taken issue with that, however.  In his autobiography he reminisced “We would leave and go over to Whytes, a famous restaurant on Fulton Street.  I remember exactly what I would have.  I think Lillian did, too:  the most delicious cold salmon you ever tasted, the finest blueberry pie just oozing with blueberries and juice—no gelatin or anything like that—and iced coffee.”

1918 was not a pleasant year for Whyte’s restaurant.  With the war raging in Europe and rationing in effect, the Federal Food Board instigated a ban on wheat flour.  Restaurants were required to use a wheat substitute known popularly as “Victory Mixed Flour.”  Whyte’s didn’t.

On June 6 the restaurant was found in contempt of the ban when it was found using wheat flour in its Vienna and French rolls.  A violation notice was posted on the restaurant.

When investigators returned they found that Whyte’s continued to use the banned flour.  The New York State Food Commission ordered the bakery portion of the restaurant to be closed for three days and gave an ultimatum:  close the restaurant for seven days or pay a fine of $1500, payable to the American Red Cross.

Frank White blamed the violation on “an Austrian baker” whom he had subsequently fired.  The baker contended he had never been instructed to use the substitutes.   On June 10 Frank White made out a check to the American Red Cross for $1,500 to keep his business open.

That same year Edward White died.  The ownership of the restaurant went to his widow, Mary, and her four sons, including Frank.

The restaurant had another turbulent year in 1920.  It started in February when J. J. Mullan walked into Whyte’s for lunch.  Passing the hat check boy, he was escorted to a table and one of the “captains” helped him remove his overcoat and hat.  The waiter then hung them on a hook nearby.

When Mullan was finished with his meal, he asked the waiter for his hat and coat.  Only the hat was still hanging on the hook.

The enraged diner insisted the restaurant was to blame.  The restaurant insisted that it was not.  The issue ended up in court.

Happily for Whyte’s the judge ruled in its favor.  “We are dealing with a subject that is a matter of everyday experience with most of us, a commonplace of life in a large city, and we know that restaurant managers do not, and in the nature of things cannot, station employees to stand guard over coats and hats, unchecked, and hung on hooks about the room.  Even if there were such watchers, they would not know which coat belong to a given guest.”

The judge added that coat checks were there for a purpose; one which Mr. Mullan chose not to use.

Later that year Frank White had his fill of his union wait staff.  In addition to their average wage of $50 a week, the waiters were given three free meals per day.  And yet on August 17 they threatened to strike.

So Frank White fired them all.

“I will not be run by Bolsheviki,” he told a reporter from The New York Tribune.  “These men have been trying to run the restaurant for a year.  They wanted us to take back one of the men and we agreed to do this.  They wanted us to discharge our head waiter and we told them we’d keep him and let them go.”

White added “The men seemed to be swayed by the advice of some Bolshevik Russians among them.”

In March 1929 the Whites decided to move the restaurant uptown.  “On March 23,” reported The Times, “The Whytes, Inc. proprietors of the Fulton Street place, will open a new modern restaurant at Fifth Avenue and Forty-third Street, where they will introduce dancing at the dinner hour.”

The mammoth Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Fifth Avenue was slated for destruction in May, to be replaced by the Empire State Building.  A group of its employees banded together to buy the Fulton Street restaurant.

The Times said that Whyte’s, “for many years the dining place of businessmen and city officials of downtown New York, is not to pass out of existence, as recently reported, but will be continued under the name of Woolley’s.”  The three top managers would be Sherman E. Woolley, the steward and purchasing agent of the Waldorf; George Lucas, the Waldorf’s assistant manager; and head waiter Theodore Meyer of the Waldorf’s men’s café.

Despite the vast experience of the managers, the venture failed.  On August 17 that same year Woolley’s sold its lease.  Before long, Whyte’s Restaurant was back on Fulton Street.

Although Frank H. White—the real force behind Whyte’s Restaurant—died on Christmas Eve 1943; the restaurant kept on.  It was by now a Wall Street institution and The New York Times raved about its mince pie in 1957.  The food critic called it, in mouth-watering terms, “a triumphant of bakery, full of apples, currants, fruit peels and spices as well as raisins.”

Unbelievably, however, in April 1971 Whyte’s was out-bid for its space and was unable to renew the lease.  “We were outbid so fantastically we just didn’t have a chance,” manager George Macris told reporters.  After 66 years in business the quaint chalet that offered superb food to Wall Street moguls, politicians and regular Joes, was forced to shut its doors.  A few of the 150 employees had been with the restaurant for 38 years.  “Some of them cried like babies,” said Macris.

The most regular of customers received a letter or telephone call notifying them of the closure.  Others found a note on the door explaining that a chapter in New York social history had ended.

Clinton & Russell’s charming three-story building was not demolished for a high-rise office building.  Instead the street level was obliterated and today accommodates a discount electronics store and a fast food fried chicken outlet.  The wonderful multi-paned casements were replaced by plate glass sheets and the interiors were gutted for a women’s health spa.  A coat of industrial-colored yellow paint covered the picturesque exterior panels and half-timbering.

Deplorably abused, the little building is barely recognizable today -- photo by Alice Lum

All of this makes the case for saying that, if the building was not demolished, it was quite certainly destroyed.