Nos. 704-706 Greenwich Street

photo by Alice Lum

On the first day of July in 1885 Julius Munckwitz resigned his position as Architect of the Department of Public Parks.  Born in Leipzig, Germany, he had spent several years working with Parks Commissioner and co-designer of Central Park Frederick Law Olmsted in designing useful and pleasing public parks buildings.  Perhaps his salary cut in 1881—from $3,000 to $1,500—contributed to his decision; but he now turned his attention to individual commissions, several of them in Greenwich Village.

By the last decade of the century the neighborhood from the Hudson River to Hudson Street was almost entirely industrial.  In 1892 Munckwitz was hired by Simon Adler and Henry S. Herrman to design an expansive stables building at Nos. 704 and 706 Greenwich Street.  The men had been partners in an insurance company, Adler & Herrman, since 1887, but they were familiar with speculative real estate development.  The highly-active Herrman was not only President of the Union Exchange Bank of New York and a Director of the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, he was a vice-president of the Hudson Realty Company.

The resulting four-story building was intended for use by a commercial delivery firm with additional income provided by cheap housing or offices on the upper floors.  Completed in 1893, it was an attractive while undeniably utilitarian structure.  Munckwitz sat the structure on a base of rough-cut stone trimmed in dressed brownstone.  Two massive sets of double carriage doors were separated by long, slender square-headed windows and flanked on either side by arched openings.

The upper three brick stories were neatly separated by brownstone bandcourses, and continuous stone lintels—treated differently at each level—ran the width of the structure.

Shortly after the building’s completion the Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide reported that, on December 27, 1893, the stables was sold by “Simon Adler and Henry S. Herrman to Mary J. Edwards,” for $60,000.  A wealthy widow, Mary Edwards was a member of the Colonial Dames of America and held real estate throughout the city.

Her first commercial tenant here was the Baker Transfer Co., owned by Jessie F. Baker.  The delivery firm operated here for five years before falling into financial problems.  In 1901 the Crosby Transfer Co. moved its operation into the building.  The rough neighborhood caused the company headaches in the form of horse thieves.

In June 1907 the problem had become epidemic, overwhelming the police force.  The manager of Crosby Transfer told a reporter from The New York Times “In the last six months there has been such an amount of horse stealing that the police records of the last six years cannot measure up to it.”

The latest incident involved a shipment of decorative Asian household goods headed for Vantine & Co. on Broadway.  “In this case horse, truck, and goods were stolen, and our hope is that the goods on the truck—two cases of Japanese umbrellas and bamboo porch shades belonging to Vantine & Co.—were sufficient to appease the thieves, and that they turned the horse and truck adrift,” he said.

The manager expressed his frustration at the ineptitude of the police.  “They hang ‘em out West, but we don’t even catch ‘em here…The old custom was to drive off a truck, dispose of the contents, and then let the horse prowl about until the police picked it up or some one brought it back for a reward.  But of late the thieves have not been content with disposing of the goods in the stolen trucks.  They have repainted the trucks, sold them, and sold the horses also.  They seem to have ‘fences’ in the suburbs, where they can manage to dispose of horse, truck, and contents.”

The bold thefts were taking place in broad daylight at the crowded Hudson River piers.  “The business is so heavy at these points that frequently the drivers have to leave their teams outside and walk up the piers to get their consignments rather than wait in line, tiring out their horse and themselves by long stretches of inactivity,” explained The Times.  When the driver would return, his entire rig was often missing.

The newspaper advised the trucking firms like Crosby Transfer to buy insurance.  “It is not only usual, but safe, to insure your teams against depredators of the wild and wooly Western type.”

The elevated train of the Manhattan Railway Company had been running up Greenwich Street since 1891; and the noisy overhead contraptions and the skittish horses below were not always a happy mix.  On the night of March 22, 1909 little 8-year old Nora Dacey and her 3-year old brother were standing on the sidewalk near the corner of West 10^th and Greenwich Streets when a train passed overhead.  The children lived nearby at No. 273 West 10^th.

Down the block at Crosby Transfer a horse which was standing harnessed to a truck was spooked by the train.  The frightened steed galloped down the sidewalk towards the children with the heavy truck in tow.  A neighbor, Minnie Kelly of No. 169 Perry Street, saw the impending catastrophe and snatched the little boy just as the runaway horse approached.  Although she tried to grab Nora, the horse knocked the girl to the ground and the heavy truck wheel ran over her ankle, crushing it.

Policeman Gallagher from the Charles Street Station managed to stop the out-of-control horse a block away.  The boy and girl were treated at St. Vincent’s Hospital and sent home; but Nora was taken back later that night suffering from shock.

The following year Crosby Transfer left the Greenwich Street building and on March 12, 1910 The New York Times reported that it had been leased.  David Walsh, Inc., operated by brothers David and James Walsh took the space.   Another trucking company, it ran successfully from the building for years—so successfully that in 1918 Laura Jay Edwards, Mary’s daughter, sold the building to David Walsh.

In 1921 Walsh bought an additional property at No. 271 West 10^th Street and moved its operations there.  By now automobiles outnumbered horses but the noble steeds were not entirely gone.

John Ochse was leasing the building in 1926 when Department of Buildings records recorded a conversion to “stable.”  After three decades of commercial trucking use, it was now a boarding stables for private horses.  It was no doubt at this time that the black-lettered “Boarding Stable” signs were painted on the brick façade.

Still legible above street level are the quaint signs of nearly a century ago -- photo by Alice Lum

David Walsh died in the 1960s and his brother died by 1976.  In 1978 the building was sold by the Walsh estate and two years later was converted into apartments.  The wide carriage doors were filled in with glass blocks; the only major alteration to Julius Munckwitz's handsome facade.

And, amazingly, the Boarding Stable signs still survive at the second floor—a reminder of a time when horses (and horse thieves) populated the Greenwich Street neighborhood.

The 1870 Hotel Mumm -- No. 680 6th Avenue

In the years prior to the Civil War French immigrant John G. Torrilhon had established himself in the butcher business.  In 1860 the Thompkins Market opened near the Cooper Union.  It was an unusual cast iron-fronted building with a split personality.   The upper floors housed the Armory of the Seventh Regiment, while the ground floor served as a high-end grocery. 

In 1862 historian Thomas F. DeVoe recorded the scope of Torrilhon’s offerings.  “Under the stairway are located stands Nos. 43 and 45, kept by two Frenchmen, (F. A. Bailly and J. G. Torilhon,) who keep, besides pork in every conceivable form, boned turkeys, capons, larded bird-game, filet de boeuf, etc., many of which are cooked ready ‘for parties, breakfasts, dinners, or suppers, cold or warm.’”

In the meantime, to the west Sixth Avenue was developing.  By now modest homes had cropped up along the blocks between 14^th and 23^rdStreet.   The uptown movement of commerce was already making itself felt.   In 1869 Edwin Booth opened his colossal granite Shakespearean theater at the corner of 23^rd Street and 6^th Avenue and a year later William Moir’s expensive jewelry store opened on the opposite corner.  John Thorrilhon saw opportunity beyond the butcher trade.

The same year that Moir opened his jewelry store, Thorrilhon commissioned Julius F. Munckwitz to design a hotel at No. 680 Sixth Avenue.  The choice of architects was, perhaps, surprising since Munckwitz was at the time the Supervising Architect and Superintendent of Parks.  While working on Thorilhon’s hotel he was simultaneously designing park structures with Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould.

A harmonious blend of Italianate and neo-Grec styles, the four-story building was faced in Ohio stone.  Each floor was separated by a projecting band course with another connecting each row of windows.  A handsome pressed cornice finished the reserved composition.

The Ohio stone, easily mistaken for marble, was carved with neo-Grec details.

Having established his hotel, the ambitious butcher branched out once again.  With a partner, John P. Dietrich, he opened a restaurant south on 6^th Avenue at No. 344, listed in city directories as J. G. Torrilhon & Co.

Business in the new hotel was apparently good, for a year later Torrilhon brought Munckwitz back to add a two-story extension to the rear.  As the grand retail palaces of 6^thAvenue crowded in during the last quarter of the century, the hotel got in on the act.

In 1887 the building was owned by John Parke.  He hired contractor J. H. Fitzpatrick to remove the street level façade and install a storefront.  While the Hotel Mumm operated upstairs, the first floor was rented out to retail stores for additional income.

Parke had died by 1899, but his family held on to the property and replaced the storefront that year.  Changes, however, were coming to the Ladies’ Mile.  In 1902 Macy’s Department Store leap-frogged the entire shopping district, closing its store at 14^th Street and 6^thAvenue and opening its enormous new emporium on 34^th Street.  it was the first domino to fall that would result in the end of the Ladies’ Mile.

Unlike the blocks filled with grand emporiums, this one sprouted a jumble of small commercial buildings like the hotel.

The Parke family would own the building for decades, leasing the hotel.  As the neighborhood changed, so too did the character of the hotel’s operators.  John Heiser ran a delicatessen at No. 1543 Third Avenue in 1905 when he was suspected of complicity in the saloon murder of William J. Harrington, called by The Sun “a Bowery hanger-on and rounder.”

Heiser took over operation of the Hotel Mumm and things quickly went downhill.   In the years just prior to the war, the grand retail stores had nearly all closed and the forty-year old hotel was, at best, dowdy.  Heiser’s solution for the problem was to turn it into a disorderly house—or brothel.   A little cash supplied to Police Inspector James H. Gillen insured that there would be no disruption of business.

That all came to a screeching halt in the spring of 1914.  Police Commissioner McKay suspected graft and ordered a raid on suspected disorderly houses.  Among them was the Hotel Mumm.

While Inspector Gillen faced charges of neglect of duty and failure to enforce laws, Heiser had problems of his own.  On April 11, 1914 the New-York Tribune reported “Inspectors may come and inspectors may go, like Gillen, but the Hotel Mumm goes on forever.”  The article said that Lieutenant Dan Costigan’s “specialty nowadays is going around raiding places that every one except the police knows are running.

“Into his net last night fell the proprietor of the Hotel Mumm, one John Heiser, who can go into the jewelry business, judging from his appearance last night.”

At Gillen’s trial one particular witness testified about the hotel.  The Evening World reported “Women and men of bad character congregated there, he said.  He had observed many men and women entering and leaving the hotel without baggage.  Many times, he said, he had been solicited by women near the hotel while on his way to his studio.”

The hotel was converted to shops and offices and throughout the 20^th century was home to an assortment of small businesses—dressmakers and embroiders, for instance, took space on the upper floors while various stores (one a china and glass merchant) occupied the street level.

After the dark period of the 1970s and 80s when the old Ladies’ Mile suffered neglect and misuse, a renaissance brought new purpose to the blocks of buildings.  In 2005 No. 680 was renovated to apartments—two per floor—and today a Chipotle serves Mexican food at street level.

Few would suspect that the staid stone structure once took care of the lodging needs of Victorian tourists and, later in life, satisfied baser desires.

photographs taken by the author