The 1893 G. Gennert Bldg -- Nos. 24-26 East 13th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1889 East 13^th Street just off Fifth Avenue was changing.  The block had shared the fashionable reputation of not only the elegant avenue, but of Union Square, just a block to the north.   Since the time of the Civil War refined homes had lined the East 13^th Street between Fifth Avenue and University Place; but by now commerce was quickly overtaking the neighborhood.

The house at No. 24 East 13^th Street still clung on in 1889 and was home to Francis Doyle.  The 22-year old man stopped into a nearby saloon at No. 58 University Place before 9:00 a.m. on August 26 that year.   He would regret his early morning drinking.

Ernest Schultz was the bartender that morning and he toyed with a 38-calibre revolver behind the bar. The New York Times reported the following day that “Schultz was snapping the hammer of the revolver and at the third snap the revolver went off, the bullet striking Doyle in the heart.”  The bartender was arrested and Doyle was removed to the New-York Hospital. Francis Doyle recovered, but he would not remain much longer at No. 24 East 13^th Street.   

Thirty-three years earlier Gottlieb Gennert and his brother arrived in America from Braunschweig, Germany.   In 1854 they established a photographic supply house on Maiden Lane--one of the first  in America.  The Gennert brothers quickly became well known for daguerreotype mats and cases and other photographic supplies.

Around 1860, as the daguerreotype lessened in popularity, the brothers made a dramatic career change.  They took their knowledge of sugar beet refining to Chatsworth, Illinois, where they founded the Germania Sugar Refining Company.   Then, following the Civil War, Gottlieb returned with his wife and four sons to pursue his true passion—photography.

Living in Jersey City, in 1869 he opened a photography shop in Manhattan.  G. Gennert became one of the foremost experts in photography in the country.  The Photographic Journal of America said of him “Mr. Gennert needs no introduction to our readers.  He has been established since 1854 as an importer and manufacturer of photographic materials and apparatus, and is one of the acknowledged leaders in that line of business.”

G. Gennert was doing business at No. 54 East 10^thStreet; however by 1892 the firm, now run by his sons Maurice G. and Gustav C., had severely outgrown the space.  They purchased Doyle’s house on East 13th Street and the property next door at No. 26 as the site of their own building.  Completed a year later the Beaux Arts structure exuded Belle Époque opulence in a store-and-loft building.

Balconies, polished granite columns, arched French windows and elaborate spandrel decorations created an especially attractive 1890s commercial facade -- photo by Alice Lum

The G. Gennert business was established in the street level, second floor, and basement and leased out the upper floors.  The Photographic Journal of America praised the “handsome business structure” saying “As to the building itself, it can honestly be said that it is a model one in every sense of the words.”

The periodical said of the six-story structure, “It is of handsome and artistic exterior, the materials used being light buff brick and terra cotta trimmings.  Polished granite pillars lend dignity and impressiveness to the first floor.  In solidity of construction and in perfection of lighting, this building surpasses any other of its class yet erected in New York.”

photo by Alice Lum

Gennert had two electric elevators installed in the building.  Girders were carried on cast iron columns footed in concrete 12 feet below street level.  The substantial construction did not escape the note of The Photographic Journal which mentioned “To those who are familiar with the flimsy construction and gloomy darkness of the older business structures of New York, the Gennert Building will come as a revelation, with its solid iron pillars, massive beams, and floods of light.”

The solid construction would prove essential a few years later.  In the spring of 1905 vibrations on the sixth floor of the building became so strong and worrisome that tenants threatened to leave.  Ongoing investigations finally pinpointed the source—the Carey Printing Company building 190 feet west of the Gennert Building.  The massive printing presses on the upper floors of that building were sending vibrations through the intervening three- and four-story houses and into the Gennert Building.  A court order resulted in the Carey Company adjusting their presses to eliminate the vibrations.  In the meantime an engineer’s inspection of the Gennert Building showed “that the building was in excellent condition without evidences of undue settlement or cracks.”  The Engineering Record, Building Record and Sanitary Engineer attributed the structure’s resistance to the vibrations to its being “considered to be a well constructed, mill type, loft building.”

In 1893 while Gennert’s building was being constructed the City assessed the property at $25,000.  His fine-looking edifice greatly enhanced the value.  A year later when the structure was completed and filled with tenants, that tax valuation had doubled to $50,000. 

G. Gennert managed to keep itself on the cutting edge of photographic technology.  In January 1894 Wilson’s Photographic Magazine noted “metol is rapidly making its way to the front rank among developers…Mr. G. Gennert, 24 East Thirteenth Street, New York City, the importer of metol, has therefore arranged to send all who apply for it, and enclose ten cents for postage, a free sample.”  The magazine added “It is well worth a trial.”

An advertisement featured a sketch of the new building  (copyright expired)

Gennert not only imported and sold photographic equipment and materials, he invented some of them.   In May 1896 The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration made note of the Architectural Montauk Photographic Camera made by G. Gennert which was given as third prize in the “Brochure Series Competition.”  The model was for serious photographers, selling for $65—about $1,500 today.

Gennert devised and sold an entire line of "Montauk" cameras like this one.  photo from The Brochure Series of Architectural Competition, May 1896 (copyright expired)

Gennert published a general catalogue of the photographic apparatus and supplies offered at his 13^th Street store.  In 1900 The New Photo-Miniature advised “Readers who would be well informed of what is new and desirable will do well to send five cents for copies of these attractive lists.”

The catalog included a depiction of the new building -- copyright expired

Gottlieb Gennert died in 1901; but the firm continued to offer revolutionary products under his sons’ supervision.  The following year The American Amateur Photographernoted that Gennert had introduced a “sensitized collodion emulsion for three-color and general reproduction work.”  The magazine said that “Up to the present time negatives for these processes have been made by the old wet collodion method.  The new emulsion does away with the troublesome silver bath, is six times more rapid than wet collodion, and is orthochromatic.  The introduction of this specialty has long been desired, and it will undoubtedly meet with general appreciation among those for whom it is intended.”

The oval widows above the side entrance doors epitomize Belle Epoque taste -- photo by Alice Lum

Upstairs, tenant Otto Heinigke of Heinigke and Bowen was as well-known as his landlord.   The firm produced high-end stained glass and mosaic works for commercial, religious and residential buildings.  Otto Heinigke had studied art at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, originally intending that easel painting would be his life’s work.  But after working with the stained glass firm of Roger Riordan, he decided on stained glass and mosaics.  In 1890 he partnered with Owen J. Bowen who had worked with both Louis Tiffany and John La Farge.

Heinigke and Bowen's advertisement appeared in the Catalogue of Architectural Exhibitions in 1901 (copyright expired)

Within only a short time the firm was doing work for the preeminent architects of the day, including McKim, Mead & White; James Renwick; John Russell Pope; Cass Gilbert; Adams Cram; York and Sawyer and others.   The firm would be responsible for all the stained glass in the Library of Congress and the Woolworth Building, as examples.

In July 1905 The Architectural Record commented on the leaded glass windows Heinigke and Bowen executed for George Gould’s summer house in Lakewood, New Jersey.  “Perhaps no one has ever given more thought and attention to the leading of white glass than Mr. Otto Heinigke, of Heinigke and Bowen…He shows that charming and interesting effects can be obtained without color, or by an exceedingly spare use of it, and great refinement and style gained by a careful study of lead lines alone.”

One of the magnificent windows produced for George Gould's summer estate -- photo The Architectural Record, July 1905 (copyright expired)

By now photography was a major industry and G. Gennert and other independent firms were fighting the mammoth Eastman Kodak Company for a slice of the business.  When Kodak was charged with controlling the industry, Gustave Gennert appeared as a government witness on June 25, 1914.

He testified that “The Eastman Kodak Company controls 80 per cent of the country’s photographic business and the independents have the rest.”  The New York Times reported that “Mr. Gennert also raised a storm of protest from the Eastman attorneys when he testified that in 1911 he went to Europe to procure raw materials for making a collodion printing paper, only to find that none of the large firms would sell to him."

“The whole reason for the refusal of this European paper trust was that I was not concerned with the Eastman Company,” he said.

The bitter battle between Gennert and Eastman Kodak would rage on for years.  On August 14, 1921 The New York Times reported that “G. Gennert, manufacturer and importer of photographic apparatus brought a ‘treble damage’ suit for $6,000,000 in the United States District Court yesterday against the Eastman Company.”  The suit accused Kodak of a “scheme and design to injure and ruin the business of plaintiff by illegal and monopolistic methods.”

G. Gennert moved on to West 22^nd Street by 1931.  Throughout the next few decades its handsome building would see the comings and goings of several small offices and manufacturers; yet apart from a necessary but unsightly fire escape, little of the outward appearance of the building was changed.

Close inspection reveals handsome spandrel ornamentation and fluted columns beneath an unfortunate paint job -- photo by Alice Lum

In 1974 a renovation created eight apartments per floor above second floor with a sports club in the basement, first and second floors.   The Beaux Arts façade of balconies, blind balustrades and polished granite columns still commands a second glance from passersby on East 13^th Street.

Bazar Francais -- No. 666 6th Avenue

Charles Ruegger took over the middle house in 1929, renovating it as Bazar Francais

In 1850 6th Avenue around 20th Street was still sparsely developed. While a block to the east on Fifth Avenue mansions had begun spilling northward from Washington Square, on 6th Avenue construction had barely started.

Richard Upjohn’s quaint Church of the Holy Communion had been completed in 1846 at the northeast corner of 20th Street. Four years later William Johnson filled the remainder of the block with five matching four-story brick row houses, including No. 666. Completed In 1851, the modest, vernacular homes were constructed for middle class families.

By the early 1880s 6th Avenue was bustling as commercial buildings began lining the thoroughfare from 14th to 23rd Street. Edwin P. Smith, who owned No. 666 at the time, converted it to small hotel and added an extension to the back. By 1900 the area was known as The Ladies’ Mile and well-dressed female shoppers glided from emporium to emporium along the Avenue. That year the former house was outfitted with a storefront that covered the lower two floors.

C. J. Brodil sold their fancy leather goods here, while another tenant around that time was Hardings Plaiting Establishment.  Meanwhile the upper floors were still rented for residential use.

David Harum was living here on October 4, 1905 when he was arrested in a raid on a poolroom. The New York Times noted that he “was bitter at being classed among the goats, and not among the sheep, whom the police turned loose.”

Harum complained to the reporter, “It’s awful to be pinched, but to be called a piker an’ a cheap skate to boot beats all.”

Frazin & Oppenheim established its shoe store here. It was not a good choice of locations, for only a block away, at the southeast corner of 20th Street, was Cammeyer’s, reportedly the largest shoe store in the world. By 1909 Frazin & Oppenheim declared bankruptcy.

Anna M. Wright owned the building in 1911, along with the two former houses on either side. That year it was discovered that a surveying error had resulted in property being omitted from her deed—a strip of land 60 feet long and about ¾ of an inch wide. For the cost of $1.00 the “infinitesimal strip” as a newspaper account described it, was restored to Ms. Wright.

The building was being used as a store and factory in 1925 when Speer Realty Company purchased the property. The wood-framed storefront had been redone in metal in 1922 and a fire escape installed that zigzagged down the façade.

Then in 1929 Chalres R. Ruegger relocated his French kitchen and tableware store here. Ruegger installed an impressive pressed metal parapet above the cornice that boldly announced CHARLES R. RUEGGER 1929. He added another metal sign, BAZAR FRANCAIS, above the second story storefront that ran the width of the building.

Ruegger added a pressed metal parapet that announced "Charles R. Ruegger 1929."

Ruegger’s business already had a reputation for its quality wares. He had been doing business in New York since 1874, originally on South Fifth Avenue (later renamed LaGuardia Place). The name Bazar Francais dated to around 1895.

Still visible are the impressed metal signs "Bazar Francais" over the second story window and "Charles R. Ruegger Inc" below it.

In March 1929 Ruegger purchased the building from Samuel and Nettie Lichtman. The Times reported that “It is to be extensively altered and occupied by Mr. Ruegger for his business of hotel, club and restaurant equipment.” Among the alterations was the removal of the unsightly fire escape to the rear of the building.

Around this time Ruegger opened a shop nearby on 19th Street for the manufacture industrial metal such as ducts and ventilators. The 78-year old Charles Ruegger died in 1931. He had not only created a successful business in the Bazar Francais but was mayor of Woodridge, New Jersey, for two consecutive terms. His son, Charles Jr., continued running the business.

After World War II the firm would produce its own line of copper and brass cookware. The Bazar Francais continued to offer imported kitchen ware as well as its own high-end goods, becoming the first gourmet outlet in the country. Along with small items like butter brushes, the firm offered decorative and hard-to-find articles like the 1956 nickel-plated wine rack “that completes the apartment dweller’s suburban-scorning life.”

Bazar Francais manufactured and sold attractive copper and brass goods like this double boiler

In 1975, after a string of Charles Rueggers had run the Bazar Francais for a century, the business closed.

A painted sign for Bazar Francais is gradually disappearing on the side wall.   Upjohn's Church of the Holy Communion is visible at the right.

Today three of William Johnson’s 1851 houses still stand, with No. 666 in the middle. Despite the passage of decades, Charles Ruegger’s parapet still remains as does, amazingly, the metal signs below and above the second story. The little group and the picturesque church that now houses boutiques are the last remnants of this portion of 6th Avenue before the Civil War.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

The 1900 Adams & Co. Building - 675 Sixth Avenue

http://www.flickr.com/photos/edenpictures/3709077714/

Samuel Adams had made a name for himself in Colorado before returning to New York City in the 1880s. There he not only owned a silver mine, but was elected to the State Senate.

Adams opened an important dry goods store at the north end of The Ladies Mile at 675 6th Avenue, between 21st and 22nd Street. While his neighbor to the south, the Hugh O’Neill Dry Goods store, sold moderately-priced goods, Adams & Co. catered to those women looking for more expensive and decidedly conventional merchandise.

By 1899 Adams’ business was so successful, with assets of $3.6 million, that a new and grander structure was necessary. He commissioned architects DeLemos & Cordes who were responsible for the palatial Siegel-Cooper store further south to design his new emporium. In sections, he began razing his store and rebuilding – precluding the necessity of closing his business and losing customers or sales.

On December 23 of that year The New York Times anticipated the six-story structure which would cover seven acres of floor space. “The new store will be in the Renaissance style of architecture, light colored materials being used in its construction, and it will be fireproof throughout. Three handsome entrances in Sixth Avenue will give access to the store, each flanked by pilasters of polished granite with artistic bronze scroll work. In the center of the store and extending to the fifth floor there will be a handsome and well lighted rotunda surrounded by ornamental columns and arches.

“Broad and handsome marble stairways will rise from the main floor, one from the rotunda and one from each street entrance. The large central stairway will lead directly to a richly decorated parlor for the convenience of women patrons and to the manicuring establishment on the second floor.”

Shoppers would find departments for women’s and children’s garments, a “commodious” restaurant, and a photograph gallery. A pneumatic tube system connected the sales floor to the offices, whisking away the customer’s cash and returning the change. To awe the turn-of-the-century shoppers, Adams had engineer Harry Alexander outline the rotunda in electric lights as a glittering nighttime display.

“When completed the building will be a noteworthy addition to the architecture of Sixth Avenue,” remarked The Times.

Actually, the completed building was Beaux Arts in style, not “Renaissance” as The New York Times had promised. It was, nonetheless, “noteworthy.” The great granite structure signified solidity and success. Four three-story Corinthian columns separated five recessed, arched windows above the second story. The restrained ornamentation bespoke of the high-quality merchandise within.

That high-quality merchandise within, as well as many of the high-quality shoppers, was injured when, at 5:00 on May 29, 1906, the 10,000 gallon water tank on the roof gave way and crashed through the stained glass skylight over the rotunda. Over 3,000 shoppers were in the store when the tank plummeted five stories to the dress department on the first floor.

In the panic that followed “many of the shoppers lost their purses and handbags, while some threw away their bundles and wraps. Some had their clothing torn…There was considerable screaming among the women when the accident occurred,” reported The New York Times.

Amazingly there were only a few serious injuries and, despite the three inches of water that covered the first floor and the $2000 damage to inventory, Adams & Co. was back in business within a few days.

That same year Samuel Adams merged with his neighbor to the south, the Hugh O’Neill & Co. Adams was growing older and his daughter Eileen, married to the son of John Phillips Sousa, was not interested in the dry goods business. With the merger, Adams would remain as President. A tunnel under 21st Street would join the two retail palaces.

Adams said “The individual management of the two stores will be as heretofore and nothing will be done to disturb the pleasant relations which have existed between them and their patrons. But the stores, occupying two city blocks, by combining their facilities, can offer greater attractions to the public than they have been able to do as individual units.”

Unfortunately, with the migration of the retail stores uptown, The Ladies’ Mile slowly declined. In 1913 Adams & Co. closed for good. The green and white marble rotunda, the scrolled metal work and the polished stone floors became home to small businesses and lofts.

In the 1920s Hershey Chocolate Company made candy here and two decades later it was home to the Central Time Clock Company, and other small industrial firms.

Finally, with the rebirth of the Ladies Mile in the 1980s, Israel Taub’s Chelsea Green took ownership and began a restoration, with input from the Landmarks Preservation Commission – although the building had not yet received landmark status. Architects V. J. Kale and Reginald Grasmick restored the exterior and reconstructed the central rotunda.

Mattel took over the top three floors, giving the Adams & Co. building the new name “The Mattel Building” and in 1994 Barnes & Noble Booksellers moved into the ground floor for a 14-year stay.

Late in 2010 Trader Joe's took over half of the ground floor space vacated by Barnes & Noble.  The Adams & Co. Building remains as dignified, beautiful and aloof as it did in 1900.

The 1892 Cammeyer Building

William C. Rhinelander died in 1878 but he had no intention of going out of business. The real estate tycoon left an estate valued at between $50 and $75 million, portions of which were bequeathed to his children and various charities. However, the will named a committee of Executors to manage his real estate holdings, directing them to increase “the rents, issues and profits of any part of his real estate, or of its ultimate value, to make improvements either by building or the acquisition of land adjacent thereto.”

And so William Rhinelander continued in the real estate business well past his death.

In 1892 his estate built a handsome retail and office building on the southeast corner of 6th Avenue and 20th Street at the northern edge of The Ladies Mile where other high-end emporiums had already begun appearing. Where eight four-story brick homes had stood, architects Hubert, Piersson & Hoddick produced a six-story, red brick Neo-Renaissance building with white stone and terra cotta trim, Corinthian colonnettes, a heavy copper cornice and elegant iron balconies.

The retail space was leased to Alfred J. Cammeyer, the foremost shoe vendor in the city. Born in 1840, Cammeyer started in the business at the age of 15, working as a clerk in a shoe store. As he learned the business, he saved enough money to open a store of his own at Bleecker and Carmine Streets in 1876. By the time the Rhinelander building was being constructed he had grown into a larger shop at 6th Avenue and 12th Street.

On September 29, 1893 The New York Times reported that Cammeyer’s “spacious premises proved unequal to the demands upon them” and the store would be moving to the building at 6th Avenue and 20th Street.

The new building, said The Times, “constructed in massive and dignified style is, architecturally speaking, a welcome addition and ornament to Sixth Avenue…and is probably the largest and best equipped boot and shoe establishment in this country, if not the world.

“The main floor of the mammoth shoe store is beautifully finished in mahogany. There are separate departments for men, boys, ladies and children, besides a slipper department and a mailing department, the house having an enormous trade on mail orders.”

A year later there were 400 employees working in Cammeyer’s store. His hand-made, affordably-priced foot ware (advertised as “foot clothing”) kept the store constantly busy selling “dainty and substantial shoes and boots.”

On the night of January 18, 1899 that all nearly came to an end.

About an hour after the store closed at 8:00 that night watchmen in the store across the avenue noticed smoke and pulled a fire alarm. Police officer George Reid entered the building to check for anyone left inside. On the second floor he found Margaret Lynett “diligently sewing and unconscious of the fire.”

Officer Reid instructed the woman to hurry outside, but when they entered the hall and Mrs. Lynett saw the smoke, she fainted. “Reid made a gallant rescue by carrying the woman to the street where she was resuscitated,” said The Times.

By 1:00 am the first two floors were in ruins. Six feet of water flooded the basement and charred shoes littered the burnt interior. The next morning the newspapers told of the huge “stalactites” of ice that hung from throughout the interior, making the blackened store look like “a cavern.”

The substantial brick and stone building, however, was not seriously damaged and on March 6 the store reopened. Cammeyer stocked 25,000 souvenir tape measures for re-opening day, but they ran out before closing time. Hundreds of customers lined 6th Avenue all day waiting to get in.

It was necessary for Alfred Cammeyer to increase his sales staff to 600.

advertisement from NYPL Collection

A crowd of hungry shoppers, Cammeyer’s would find out in 1903, was not always a good thing. On Feburary 10 the store promoted a “bargain counter.” Sixty-year old Mrs. Olonzo A. Emery traveled in from Sommerville, New Jersey for the event. As she was about to be waited on, the crush of other women around her became too much. She “uttered a cry” then fell to the floor. By the time the store’s physician, Dr. Schfeldt, could attend to her she was dead.

On August 14, 1909 Alfred Cammeyer died “of apoplexy” at 69 years old. The man who started out as an impoverished Yiddish-speaking teenager ended life in a mansion on Central Park West and 72nd Street, the owner of the largest shoe store in the country. His funeral was conducted at The Church of the Holy Communion – across the street from his beloved store.

Cammeyer’s will bequeathed the business to his “friend and trusted employee,” Louis M. Hart, with the express wish “that Mr. Hart would continue the business under the name of Cammeyer.”

As the great stores gradually moved away from 6th Avenue, following Macy’s, Tiffany’s and Benjamin Altman’s north of 34th Street, Hart followed. In 1914 Cammeyer’s Shoes moved to 381 Fifth Avenue.

It was the end of the opulent days for the building at 6th Avenue and 20th Streets. The grand shoe store was divided into small retail spaces, then office space. In 1937 the interior walls between the Cammeyer Building and the Alexander Building to the south were broken through, joining the two buildings.

Eventually the space was taken over by the Audits and Surveys offices and drab governmental workspaces filled the building for decades. The once-exclusive Ladies Mile deteriorated and most of its imposing retail palaces sat empty and dark.

In the late 1990s the district was rediscovered. One by one the enormous Victorian stores were recycled into luxury residences or new retail spaces. In 2010 the Cammeyer Building was renovated into 67 residential condomiums, “The Cammeyer.”

The Converted 1847 House at No. 648 6th Avenue

The building gives no hint to those passing Starbucks today that it was once a brick residence.

By the middle of the 1840s residential neighborhoods were creeping northward towards 23^rd Street.  A decade earlier rows of dignified Greek Revival mansions along Washington Square planted the seed of a refined neighborhood that spread up 5^th Avenue.  Along 6^th Avenue more modest homes were being built.

Richard Upjohn’s lovely Church of the Ascension had been completed in 1841 just above Washington Square on 5^th Avenue, quickly followed by his wonderful Gothic style Church of the Holy Communion on 6^th Avenue and 20^th Street, completed in 1846.  The two churches reflected the rapid development of the area.

A year after the Church of the Holy Communion opened and one block to the north, William Winslow built his wide three-story brick clad home at No. 684 6^th Avenue.   But the quiet neighborhood of respectable homes along the wide avenue would not last very long.

By the end of the Civil War things were changing.  In 1869 Edwin Booth opened his colossal granite Shakespearean theater at the corner of 23^rd Street and 6^thAvenue.  Dry goods stores and other retail establishments, like Wiliam Moir’s 1870 cast iron jewelry store building on the opposite corner of Booth’s Theater, gradually replaced the houses.   By the 1880s, 6^th Avenue had become the center of the shopping district known as The Ladies’ Mile.   The residences that were not demolished to make way for the block-wide retail palaces were converted for business use.

And so it was for the former home of William Winslow.

By the 1870s it had already been converted to the dry goods business of John Byrne on the street level, with boarders living above.   In April of that year Byrne took in a boarder, Richard Burns, whose stay would be both short and memorable.  Within 24 hours the new tenant had taken off with $91 worth of clothing from the store.

“It appeared that he decamped with the property after one day’s residence with the complainant as a boarder,” reported The New York Timeson May 3, 1870.  The felonious tenant was sent to the State Prison for four years.

While 6^th Avenue between 14^th Street and 23^rd Street filled with gargantuan department stores along most blocks, it was perhaps the charming Church of the Holy Communion that prevented the monster emporiums from obliterating the small former residences north of 20^thStreet on the east side of the avenue.    Along with them, No. 684 continued to adapt.  Although the little building could not compete, its store owners happily rode the coattails of the great retailers like Cooper Siegel Department Store and Adams Dry Goods.

In 1900 owner Alex Hess commissioned architect David P. Miller to install a proper storefront to the building.   Not long after he sold the building to Frederick Klingman who, by 1905,  had the good fortune to lease the store to Singer Sewing Machine Company.  Perhaps it was through an arrangement with Singer that Klingman remodeled the entire building.

That year he hired respected architects Buchman & Fox to completely redesign the façade.   Any hint of Winslow’s brick home that had survived was now obliterated.   Expansive upper story windows framed in cast metal flooded the interiors with sunlight.  Fluted Ionic pilasters separated the openings and supported a simple cast cornice.  Paneled brick pilasters ran up the sides. 

Buchman & Fox's clean new look, done possibly to placate Singer, replaced any trace of the house.

Singer Sewing Machine would not stay long, however.  In 1908 P. Genninger leased the street level and Mrs. A. Zoller took the upper floors.   In 1912 Adolph A. Hageman owned the building, leasing the storefront to Johnson J. Pusey.

Three years later, in February, Hageman leased the store and basement again; this time for a 16-year term.  Optician J. H. Maguire moved his practice here from his former East 23^rdStreet office.

They heyday of the Ladies’ Mile was over by the 1920s.  Throughout most of the 20^thcentury the once-grand emporiums along 6^th Avenue sat vacant or were used as manufacturing or warehouse space.   A renaissance began in the 1980s and one-by-one the massive department stores were renovated to be used once again as retail space or residences.

In 1996, reflecting the trendy new neighborhood, a new aluminum storefront was installed on No. 648 which made no attempt to sympathetically co-exist with the historic upper floors.   But above street level the squat little building looks much as it did when parasol-bearing women in shirtwaists shopped for laces and bonnets along the Ladies’ Mile.

photographs taken by the author

"The Big Store" -- 1896 Siegel-Cooper Department Store

Print NYPL Collection

In 1893 when the World’s Columbian Exposition opened in Chicago, Henry Siegel and Frank Cooper were running a highly successful department store there. The gleaming white, monumental architecture of the fair left a lasting impression on Siegel who suddenly envisioned a store unsurpassed world-wide.

Only two years later the designs had been drawn by architects DeLemos & Cordes; a colossal structure to be built on 6th Avenue – along the Ladies’ Mile – between 18th and 19th Street. It was intended to astound. As plans were prepared for filing with the Department of Buildings, The New York Times announced on March 23, 1895 the anticipated 85,560 square foot store.

“Siegel, Cooper & Co. have recognized, as progressive New-York merchants have recognized also, that a dry goods building need not be a public eyesore in the street… A splendid tower will be built on the Sixth Avenue side, in the centre of the front, that will reach 250 feet above the sidewalk. This tower will be surmounted by a great cluster of electric lights that will be visible from a long distance. The walls of the building are to be of different kinds of stone, gracefully ornamented.”

The $4 million that Siegel and Cooper spent on their “gracefully ornamented” building bought them the largest department store in the world. The scope of the structure was unheard of – six stories tall and a full block wide, stretching back to Fifth Avenue. Lavish Beaux-Arts ornamentation in marble, yellow brick, terra cotta, copper and bronze recalled “the grandeur of ancient Rome.”

Two gigantic bronze, fluted pillars supported the triple-arched entranceway. On the second floor over-sized windows allowed passengers on the 6th Avenue elevated train to window shop. A ramp enabled those same passengers to enter directly into the store on the second floor. In ornamentation, sheer size and grandeur, Siegel-Cooper outdid all competitors.  Henry Siegel deemed it "The Big Store."

Photo Jackie Jouret

Central to the first floor was a fountain in the center of which was a 13-foot high statue of “The Republic,” by Daniel C. French. Costing $15,000 it was brass with face and arms of white marble. Colored lights illuminated the fountain. “The figure is a heroic one of a female in classical garb,” said The Times. “The arms are extended upward. One hand supports a staff of Liberty, the other a golden orb, on which an eagle perches. On the globe glows an electric star, the light of which is in vacuum and opalescent…”

Before long the phrase “meet me at the fountain” was a catch-phrase for shoppers along the Ladies' Mile.

The day after the store’s opening in 1896, The Times reported that nearly 150,000 people attempted to enter the store. Inside 3,000 employees were waiting to serve them. “Persons visiting Siegel, Cooper & Co.’s store will be spared the annoyance of seeing over-worked shop girls behind the counters and children of stunted growth running up and down stairs. There will be separate elevators for the use of the employees,” said The Times. For its children employees, Siegel-Cooper provided a classroom and two hours of school per day.

In addition to the expected goods – silverware, linens, clothing and china, for instance -- Siegel-Cooper sold groceries (canned goods were canned on the premises), furniture, pets and hardware. An enormous refrigerated room kept meats and dairy foods fresh.  In the fish department, huge tanks displayed the live fish for the shopper's ease of choice. On the roof, an vast conservatory offered giant palms, orchids and rare plants for sale.

Francis Morrone and James Iska, in their "The Architectural Guidebook to New York City," wrote “The quintessential New York experience was to buy a five-cent ice-cream soda and sit beside the fountain, taking in the pageant of fashionably attired women making their shopping rounds.”

Of the 124 departments, some were found in no other shopping establishment. The store offered both a dentist and doctor office, a beautician and a barber shop, a post office, an office for theatre tickets and a bank.  In the basement the store operated its own plant for power, lighting, heating and ventilation.  The bicycle department had a track for test rides.

In September 1896 a rumor circulated that Siegel-Cooper would be offering a sale on bicycles -- $100 bikes would be sold for $9.99. Before dawn on September 14, 1896 several men in bicycle suits had lined up. By 7:00 the crowd had grown to a few hundred.

And it continued to grow.

An hour and a half later Police Captain Chapman estimated the number at 40,000, blocking 6th Avenue from 17th Street to 22nd. When the doors to the store were finally opened, one patrolman suffered two broken ribs in the crush of the crowd.  Upstairs in the bicycle department “The counter was overturned. The railings were broken. Cases of wheels were knocked down and men in trying to extricate themselves stepped on the bicycles and broke some,” reported The New York Times. “During the trouble dresses were torn and a few women fainted. No one besides the policemen were hurt much.”

There had never been any bicycles on sale that day.

By 1904 Henry Siegel, whom Joseph Devorkin called “the Napoleon of the Department Store Industry,” was financially over-extended. He sold his department store to Joseph B. Greenhut for $500,000. Greenhut later reported that Siegel cried during the transaction. Greenhut’s timing, however, was bad.

In 1902 Roland Macy had moved his business uptown to 34th Street, building a block-encompassing Palladian emporium. Little by little the shopping district followed. By 1915 Greenhut’s store failed. Although he reorganized and reopened, it lasted only three years, closing for good in 1918.

As World War I raged overseas, Henry Siegel’s Renaissance-style palace was put into use as a military hospital. Where Edwardian ladies with broad-brimmed hats had shopped for laces and Limoges teacups, doughboys now recuperated in make-shift wards.

World War I soldiers at the "US Debarkation Hospital #3" in the Siegel-Cooper Building

After the war the grand structure was reduced to loft space. In 1937 the central tower was removed and at some point the statue of The Republic from the fountain was shipped off to Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Tishman Speyer purchased the mostly-empty building in 1987 and in 1991 exterior restoration was initiated. Now, along with most of the great emporiums of The Ladies’ Mile, the Siegel-Cooper building has been rejuvenated with new stores. The Siegel-Cooper had little alteration to its façade even at street level and the exterior looks very much as it did on opening day in 1896.




Photo Jackie Jouret

Billy the Oysterman -- No. 11 E. 20th Street

When William Brady began construction of the three-story Italianate rowhouse at No. 11 East 20^th Street in 1852, he was a little late to the party.  By now businesses were infiltrating the residential neighborhood between Madison Square and Union Square along Broadway.  No sooner had the brick-faced house been completed in 1853 than tax documents reveal that it housed small shops.

In 1865 the firm of Locke & Craige owned the building.  A year earlier U.S. Congress House Documents documented that the government had paid the firm $721.10 “for a site and building for a post office in the city of New York.”  With the money from selling its building, the company apparently bought No. 11 East 20^th.

At some point around 1870 the building got a facelift with neo-Grec lintels over the openings, a pedimented cornice, and a two-story shop front.  By 1900 the neighborhood had become a major shopping district.  That year owner Sarah Hale Witthaus hired contractor James Waddell to install a modern storefront with expansive windows at the second floor.  It attracted a new tenant, furrier Robert Arnold.  On July 1, 1902 Fur Trade Reviewnoted “Mr. Robert Arnold, importing and manufacturing furrier, has removed to exceptionally desirable premises at 11 East Twentieth street, near Broadway.”

The building was sold in 1906 to “an investor.”  Soon Arp Laue signed a 15-year lease on the building for an aggregate rental of $75,000.  The quiet existence of No. 11 East 20^th Street was soon to change.

The following year, next door at Nos. 7 and 9, Holtz & Freystedt built an impressive 12-story Beaux Arts building.  The restaurateurs reserved the lower two floors for its French-inspired restaurant. 

In the meantime, German immigrant William T. Ockendorf ran his own restaurant on West Third Street.  Known as “Billy the Oysterman,” he started out small, opening an oyster stand in a basement at Wooster and West Third Streets.  Oysters sold for “a cent a-piece.”  Later he moved his restaurant with its sawdust-covered floors upstairs on West Third Street.  Later The New York Times would reminisce “’Billy the Oysterman’ became an institution known throughout the city.”

In 1910 the man who had started his new life selling oysters for a penny personally walked into the Albany Statehouse to incorporate his business.  He had big plans. 

A year earlier Holtz & Freystedt expanded its restaurant, breaking through the wall to No. 11.  The plan would be short lived, however.  By 1912, with business failing, Holtz & Freystedt abandoned the expanded space.  A year later it closed its doors for good.

As quickly as Holtz & Freystedt evacuated No. 11, Billy the Oysterman moved in.  The New York Times said “The present restaurant of ‘Billy the Oysterman’ offers a sharp contrast with the saw-dust covered floors of the earlier places  It has tiled floors, mounted fish on the walls and expensive furniture.”

The by time Billy the Oysterman moved into No. 11 (lower right) it was already squeezed between towering buildings.  The wall of windows at the second floor and the centered doorway can be seen.  photograph by Wurts Bros from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWW7A9LU&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631

Billy the Oysterman took up the lower two floors and the top floor was leased to various businesses throughout the years.  Katz & Co., owned by Phil Katz, was here in 1915, according to The American Cloak and Suit Review; and Baumann-Marx Realty Co., Inc. had its offices in the building in 1918.

William T. Ockendorf died on January 20, 1914.  He had amassed an estate equaling over $1 million today “mainly accumulated in the oyster business,” said The Sun on February 1.  Ockendorf left the business to his three sons, George, Harvey and William. 

George Washington Ockendon, the eldest son, took on the sobriquet of Billy the Oysterman.  Like his brothers, he had a public school education and learned the business first-hand.  Despite his sometimes rough-edged demeanor, he was a consummate host. The New York Times remembered on December 11, 1928 “With his brothers, he would personally greet the prominent guests.  Among those who came frequently were Governor Smith, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney and leaders of sport, politics and the stage.”

Business flourished, requiring additional staff.  On a single day in 1918 two advertisements appeared in the New-York Tribune.  One read “Kitchenmen Wanted—No Sunday work,” the other simply said “Oysterman—No Sunday work.  Billy the Oysterman.”

George Ockendon not only had a large personality, he had a large physique. The Sun took the opportunity to poke fun at Ockendon’s girth on April 5, 1919 following the auction of actress Marjorie Rambeau’s furniture.

“The big thud on Broadway’s consciousness occurred when Billy the Oysterman, who looks as though he carries a large part of the stock of his restaurant on Twentieth street concealed on his person, bought a huge mahogany chair, formerly the property of Grover Cleveland, with compartments that might be useful before prohibition sets in.  It was whispered that Billy went to the chair—or vice versa—not because he bid $23, but because he was the only one present who could fit its dimensions, Billy breaking the scales at something like 300 pounds.”

The newspaper’s mention of hidden compartments and Prohibition was somewhat foretelling.  The Ockendon brothers had no intention of letting Prohibition put an end to their selling alcohol.  The restaurant’s first brush with dry agents ended with a lucky break.  On April 23, 1921 The Times reported that “Policeman George Chaffers of the East Twenty-second Street Station said he had found three sealed bottles of whisky in a handbag in the apartment of Ockendon at the East Twentieth Street address.”

The policeman did not have a search warrant and Judge Thomas J. Nolan begrudgingly discharged George Ockendon.  Nolan was not happy.  “This testimony opens up another angle of the situation.  The policeman acting under orders is not to be criticised, but the orders seem to be absolutely contrary to law and repulsive to the Constitution.”

Jacketed waiters serve in the handsome downstairs room.  The staircase to the second floor dining room can be seen behind the oyster bar.  photograph Gas Logic magazine, June 1918 (copyright expired)

Billy the Oysterman would not continue to be so lucky.  George used the third floor and basement to warehouse liquor and established a “private bar” in his office for trusted patrons.  On October 24, 1922 Prohibition agents purchased drinks served by waiter Otto Seidt.  The following day they returned, this time with a search warrant.

Eight agents descended on Billy the Oysterman at noon and swarmed over the restaurant.  According to The Evening World later that day, “They discovered ten cases of whiskey and several barrels of bottled beer and ale of unauthorized but strongly verbalized authority.”  The New York Times reported “The total value of the seized goods at the current bootleg prices was given at $5,000” and increased the number of cases of whiskey to 25.

When the agents crashed into the private bar, according to The Times, “A patron…was about to place a glass of whisky to his lips.  The agent snatched it away from him and placed it with the other seized stuff.”

The Evening World said “The patrons of the place showed strong indignation.  Some were unhappy because ‘so much good stuff had to go to waste;’ others were incensed against the management because they had never learned that forbidden beverages were to be had in the place.”

According to the New-York Tribune “A crowd gathered and watched the agents load cases and barrels on a big warehouse truck.”  The newspaper provided a more detailed inventory of Billy’s stash.  “In the seizure were cases of wines, gin, whisky and cordials.  The beer alone was reported to be worth $5,000.  The liquors, including choice wines, were worth probably $5,000 more.”

By now Billy the Oysterman had taken over the former Holtz & Freystedt space as well.  The brothers--perhaps in part because they ignored Prohibition--were doing quite well for themselves.  The restaurant’s 1921 Profit and Loss Statement disclosed that George was earning $19,500 a year, and his brothers $12,000 each.  Those figures would equal about $240,000 and $150,000 today.  George’s salary was of intense interest to his wife, Florence, who began divorce proceedings in 1922.

Despite Federal raids, Billy the Oysterman continued on with relative normalcy.  The same year that agents made their noon raid, the Upholstery Association of America took over the second floor for its annual elections.  “Following the election of officers a beefsteak dinner and smoker will be provided by Billy the Oysterman,” announced The Upholsterer and Interior Decorator.

The Ockendons would not surrender in their battle against Prohibition. In 1926 the restaurant donated $50 to the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment.  And two years later George’s brother William got even with one government agent.

William was in the restaurant in June 1928 when undercover agents Palmer F. Tubbs and Samuel Kupferman ordered a drink.  When they were served, they identified themselves.  But Kupferman took William Ockendon aside and said he would “fix things up” for $500.  Ockendon paid the bribe.  Then immediately went to authorities.

On August 2 William Ockendon took the stand to testify as a witness for the Government before a Grand Jury.  In return for his testimony against the corrupt agents, he received immunity for the liquor sales.

George W. Ockendon died four months later in December, never to see the repeal of Prohibition.  The hard-edged and feisty restaurateur got the last word at least in one respect.  The divorce initiated by Florence was not yet finalized.  When George’s estate was filed he had cut her out of the will, leaving her a meager $500.

The title of Billy the Oysterman passed to William Thomas Ockendon, now the oldest brother.  The fame of the restaurant only increased.  In 1934 William Ockendon estimated he had sold 41,693,063 oysters; later putting the estimate into the context of a barrel a day—upwards to 1,400 oysters daily.  In 1935 Cole Porter wrote “A Picture of Me Without You.”  The lyrics included Billy the Oysterman:

Picture H. G. Wells without a brain

Picture Av’rell Harriman without a train,

Picture Tintern Abbey without a cloister,

Picture Billy the Oysterman without an oyster

William continued the family’s attention to fresh food and good service.  On November 19, 1934 his passion would nearly require that he be physically restrained.  The following day The New York Times wrote “An ultramarine-finned sailfish and a lean-jawed barracuda, both safely stuffed, stared fixedly last night from the walls of Billy the Oysterman’s…as the Society of Restaurateurs debated the merits of the table d’hote and the a la carte meal.”  The newspaper said “William Ockendon—Billy the Oysterman himself—was regarded as having struck the most telling blow”

The restaurant owners had come to decide whether offering limited menus of ready-made items would save them “from financial ruin.”  The very idea incensed Ockendon.

Standing before the association he said “I am 100 per cent opposed to the table d’hote meal.  I think it’s a joke—“  He was interrupted by an owner who said “It’s no joke; we use the same food for the table d’hote as the a la carte meal.  We—“

Now Ockendon interrupted in what The Times called a roar.  “There was never a roast chicken roasted at 11 o’clock to serve at 12 o’clock, that was good at 2 o’clock.”

When the debate between the two men verged on verbal violence, William Zelser of the White Horse Tavern “struck a conciliatory note.”  He soothed the men saying “There is room for both types of restaurant in this city.”

The Times ended its recap of the evening saying “Finally the echoes of the debate died away and the sailfish and the barracuda stared down upon empty tables and well-filled ash trays.”

Billy the Oysterman opened a second restaurant at No. 10 West 47^th Street in 1938.  By now the restaurant was known nation-wide.  Forbes Magazine had commended two years earlier “Billy the Oysterman, like Oscar of the Waldorf, has become a national institution, foodwise.”

In 1938 the New York City Guide, published by the Federal Writers’ Project, listed the prices at Billy the Oysterman as “lunch from 85 cents, dinner $2.00.”  By 1946 when No. 11 East 20^th Street was sold by the Fifth Avenue Bank of New York, the 47^th Street location had become the main restaurant.  No. 11 was termed “a branch.”  Four years later Billy the Oysterman closed the 20^th Street restaurant after nearly half a century of business.  The 47^th Street operation closed in 1953.

A 1940s menu from the 47th Street restaurant mentions West 20th Street a "branch"

When William Ockendon died in October 1961 at the age of 80, The New York Times fondly reminisced of his passion for serving good food; and it brought up the heated debate of 1934.  “He once confessed that he himself was not fond of oysters and added that, perhaps, he had seen too many.  He was, however, a champion of the casual manner of dining and once lectured the Society of Restaurateurs on the beauties of the table d’hote and the evils of the a la carte fashions.”

The restaurant tradition at No. 11 East 20^th Street continued when Miriam Novalle purchased the building in 1996.  She told a Times reporter ”I just want to be in the tea business.”  With Rhode Island restaurateur Hank Kates, she opened her tea shop, salon and mail order company called T Salon.

The centered entrance created in 1900 was moved to the side before the shop opened later that fall.  T Salon would remain in the space until the early 2000s.  It was replaced by ‘Wichcraft, a trendy sandwich shop that remains there today.  In 2009 owner Tom Colicchio expanded to the second floor, where dinner was now served with waiter service and wine.

Once a destination so well known that Cole Porter’s mention of it was universally understood, the little building at No. 11 East 20^th is a bit sorry looking and mostly overlooked today.  Squashed between two towering buildings, it was the home of an important page of Manhattan’s culinary and social history, now forgotten.

photograph by the author