The 1834 Thomas Cox House -- No. 17 Barrow Street

photo by Alice Lum

Greenwich Village with its winding streets and quaint buildings has long inspired romantic stories and interesting tales—whether or not they are true.

In 1834, as the village of Greenwich experienced a boom in development, a handsome Federal-style double house was built at Nos. 15 and 17 Barrow Street.   The two mirror-image homes, two and a half stories tall, featured Flemish bond brick and tall prim dormers.   A horse walk, or passageway to the rear yards, tunneled through the center of the homes accessing the two private stables.

The modest but attractive houses were constructed for Thomas and Henry Cox, presumably brothers.   Both men were carters—the equivalent of today’s local truck drivers or deliverymen.  Thomas Cox lived at No. 17.

photo by Alice Lum

The block along Barrow Street between West 4^thStreet and 7^th Avenue remained quietly residential for most of the century.  In 1875 Laura Trace, a teacher in the Girls’ Department of Grammar School No. 10 on Wooster Street, was living at No. 17.   But by 1894 when Edward Kelly lived in the house, changes were on the way.

Irish immigrant Michael Hallanan was a force in that change.  The blacksmith had arrived in New York from Galway, Ireland in 1861 and his fortunes took a turn when he invented a vulcanite rubber horseshoe pad.  The New York Times would remark “His inventions proved not only profitable to himself but a blessing to horses.”

In 1896 Conrad Schafer demolished No. 15 Barrow to construct an imposing private stable designed by H. Hasenstein.   The following year Michael Hallanan purchased No. 17 and renovated it as his horseshoeing operation.  An immense arched opening with double carriage doors was installed that engulfed the basement and parlor floors and the horsewalk became the entrance to the upstairs living quarters.

The demolition of half of the double house resulted in an odd window above the new entrance where the horsewalk had been -- photo by Alice Lum

Hallanan’s patented rubber horseshoe was not only earning him a sizable income, but he received awards at the Paris, Louisiana Purchase, Pan-American and St. Louis Expositions.   Fame and fortune, however relative, did not entice the blacksmith from his shoeing profession; however he began cementing his financial security by investing in Greenwich Village real estate.

By 1901 he had leased No. 17 Barrow Street to Abraham J. Norris while he moved his own operation to No. 186 West 4^th Street, just down the block.     An idea of Hallanan’s growing real estate holdings is evident in a petition signed by Norris and him that year.  The men joined other businessmen in the neighborhood seeking to have “the carriage way of West Fourth Street, from McDougal street to Barrow street…repaved with asphalt pavement on concrete foundation.”  Norris listed No. 17 Barrow as his address; Hallanan listed Nos. 186, 188 190, 194 and 196 West 4^thStreet.

Hallanan did not attempt to match the brickwork when he created the large arched entrance.  The origin of the coat-of-arms type decoration remains arcane. -- photo by Alice Lum

Abraham Norris was still leasing the building in 1917 and living upstairs when he served as agent for the State Fair Commission’s Division of Agriculture.

By the time Hallanan died in April 1926 he had earned the affectionate nicknames of the “Greenwich Village Blacksmith” and the “Father of Sheridan Square.”  The latter was due to his influence in the naming of that park.  The 79-year old was the largest property holder on Sheridan Square.

Within two decades, the former blacksmith shop was converted to a restaurant.  And with its new life another set of romantic Greenwich Village stories was born.

Popular lore suddenly made No. 17 Barrow Street the former carriage house of Aaron Burr.  And to spice up the story, the building was haunted by the spirit, not only of Burr, but of his daughter Theodosia.   The wonderful and spellbinding tale sidestepped the historic facts that Cox’s 1834 house was a residence, not a carriage house; and that it was built exactly three decades after Burr fled New York.  Additionally, the educated and privileged Theodosia Burr would never have visited a utilitarian structure filled with horses, hay and manure, let alone haunt it.

With or without ghosts the latest restaurant (established here in 1973), One if By Land, Two if By Sea, is a charming upscale restaurant that remains here four decades later.  Upstairs are two apartments.   The nearly 200-year old house is perhaps even more charming because of its Victorian alterations and the tall tales that it tells.

The Surprising Studio at No. 114 Waverly Place

Beneath the stucco and curved lines of the studio building hide bones of an 1826 house.

When George P. Rogers began construction on the first brick mansion on the north side of Washington Square in 1828 the area was still so far north of the established city that the residence was considered his “country house.”  Only two years earlier the square had been used as a potter’s field.

Yet development had already crept into the district.   Before Rogers contemplated the area for his elegant new home Thomas R. Mercein had begun work on a row of nine speculative rowhouses just off the square on Waverly Place.  Mercein was president of the New York Equitable Fire Insurance Company and his row of houses reflected the burgeoning growth of the Village of Greenwich in the 1820s.

Completed in 1826 the Federal-style homes were faced in brick with dormered attics and paneled brownstone lintels above the windows.    By 1842 Richard R. Smarte was living in No. 114, listing his occupation as “accountant.”

Near-lethal problems arose in the house in mid-May 1878.  Without warning the wife of Francis B. Brown was “suddenly attacked with chills, followed by high fever and general prostration,” as described by The Metal Worker on May 18.  Within the week other members of the family suffered the same symptoms.

Doctors arrived at the house, trying to discover the source of the mysterious illness.  Dr. Alfred S. Purdy of 288 Madison Avenue was called in, who forwarded a report to the Board of Health.  Professor Chandler was notified and he sent an inspector, Dr. R. L. Wilder, to further investigate.  Finally, reported the Medical Record, “The report of Dr. R. L. Wilder fully confirmed the worst suspicions that had been entertained, there were no traps under any of the wash basins or bath tubs and a free passage for sewer gas was therefore given.”

In an effort to modernize their home, the Browns had indoor plumbing installed.  But their contractor did a shoddy job at best.  The Metal Worker reported “large quantities of sewer gas” were found in the house.  Wilder called it “the worst piece of plumbing work we ever heard of,” and The Metal Worker (with obvious disdain for New York City) added “It was almost incredible that such bad work could be found, even in this city.”

The Board of Health “very promptly issued peremptory orders” to have the situation corrected.

As the 19^th century wore on, most of the homes along the row eventually became boarding houses; while steps away on Washington Square the refined mansions remained single-family homes of the wealthy.   In 1885 the Rev. J. S. Atwell lived in No. 114, and by 1893 it was home to Edward L. Connell, “baritone,” and Frederick Marschall. 

Marschall was not only an artist and illustrator, he was somewhat of a self-styled music critic as well.  When he attended the piano recital of Eugenie Castellano on Wednesday, January 18, 1893, he left with a favorable impression of the pianist.  The New-York Tribune was less enthusiastic about the performance.

Within days Marschall penned a letter to the editor rebuking its review.  He said that he had been “anxious to see the Criticism in Your valuable Paper which I read daily—I was pained to see the Brutal manner in which Your Critic assailed this young and talented girl.”

Marschall took the opportunity to poke a retaliatory jab at the critic.  “The only explanation I can find—is—that Your Critic did not receive the Customary Tip.  Respectfully Yours, Frederick Marschall.”

Two years earlier Marschall had illustrated a book of verses about the sea, published by De Wolfe, Fiske & Co. of Boston.  Along with his commissions, he served on the faculty of The Sharp Art School, teaching decorative painting.  Marschall and his singing co-resident would be the first wave of artistic types at the address.

Also in the building at the time was the remarkable Adelaide Rosalie Hasse.   Intelligent and aggressive, she did not always win over male Victorian co-workers who expected women to stay at home pouring tea.  Hasse landed a position in the new Astor Library and set to work organizing the world’s largest collection of government publications, which dated back to colonial days.   She is credited with the development of the Superintendent of Documents Classification system still used by the Government Printing Office today.

Frederick Marschall’s presence was a hint of change that would come to the Waverly Place block by the turn of the century.  Greenwich Village became New York’s version of Paris’s Left Bank as artists and musicians were drawn by the picturesque winding streets and charming buildings.  Cashing in on the movement, property owners converted old structures into artist studios, with expanses of glass to provide natural light.

The house next door had also been converted to studios when this photo was shot in 1932.  The sewer gas scare of 1878 may be responsible for the noticeable vent pipe protruding from the upper facade.  photograph by Charles Von Urban from the Collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWR2P6VX&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=579

In 1920 artist Murray Percival Bewley sought out the services of architect William Sanger.  The architect transformed No. 114 Waverly Place from a prim Federal residence to fantastic artists’ studios. 

Bewley was born in Fort Worth, Texas on June 19, 1884.  His mother was an avid patron of art and inspired him to develop his talents. After years of study in Denver, Chicago and Pennsylvania, he arrived in New York where he studied under Robert Henri and William Merrit Chase.  He traveled with Chase to Florence; then lived in Paris from 1906 to 1913 where he continued his studies and exhibited his works at the Salon.  After marrying Bernice Wren, also of Fort Worth, he brought his bride to New York in 1916 and staged his first one-man show at the Feragils Gallery.

By now innovative architect Frederick Junius Sterner had been transforming outdated Federal and mid-Victorian homes into neo-Tudor and Mediterranean-style fantasies across town in the East Village.  William Sanger now took a page from Sterner’s book.   His completed studio building, slathered in stucco, exhibited romantic hints of Italy with decorative pseudo-balconies, arched openings, and off-set studio windows with French doors.  The stoop and English basement remained nearly unnoticed because above it all Sanger’s design detonated with a soaring, sensuously-curved roofline encompassing an expansive studio window.

Bewley’s focus was on portraiture and his ability to capture light and shadow was masterful.  But he stayed in the Waverly Place studio only until 1924 when he left New York for good. 

Bewley's "Lighting the Lantern" reflected his ability to capture light -- http://mail.aol.com/38109-111/aol-6/en-us/Suite.aspx

When debutante Elizabeth Consuelo de Cravioto returned to New York after a year of finishing school in Paris and “a course of sculpturing,” she continued her art studies.  Her mother apparently whole-heartedly supported her artistic bent; procuring an apartment and studio in No. 114 Waverly.

On January 27, 1929 Mrs. L. Ryals de Cravioto announced the engagement of Elizabeth to Magill Smith of New Orleans.  One month to the day later, The New York Timesreported on the wedding of “the first debutante of the season to be married.”  The ceremony took place in the fashionable St. George’s Church on Stuyvesant Square, “using the double ring ceremony.  Old French rings, each a double circle of gold, heirlooms of the family of the bridegroom’s mother, were used.”

Relations between Mrs. de Cravioto and the bride’s father, Senor Carlos Cravioto were apparently somewhat strained.  He chose to remain in Mexico City rather than attend the wedding.  Following the ceremony the guests moved across town to the roomy Waverly Street studio for a reception.

Like Mrs. De Cravioto, who remained on in the apartment after her daughter’s wedding, not all of the residents were artists.   In January 1941 IT&T executive Edward James Walsh was recalled from Antwerp, Belgium as the German invasion washed over the country.  Walsh and his wife moved into No. 114 where he died a year later on November 6, 1942.

At the time artist Jacob Getlar Smith lived and worked in the building.  On January 10, 1943 The Brooklyn Eagle announced his exhibition of 26 watercolors he had executed within the past three years.  Among the works was “Waverly Residence,” which the newspaper called “an accomplishment in picture building.  It is a case of seeing a commonplace brownstone house in an interesting way of lighting, color and composition.”

Smith’s muscular style resulted in several WPA/Federal Art Project works, including murals.  He sometimes used men hired by the government’s work relief program as his subjects.  His ability to see the uncommon in the commonplace is reflected in his moving works.  The artist once explained himself, saying “The artist should be a seeing-eye dog for a myopic civilization.”

Smith's "The Snow Shovelers" was probably set in nearby Washington Square --http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=22556

The unexpected studio building on Waverly Place has been painted a bright but pleasing coral pink.  Although the original color scheme which set apart the massive, curving upper floor is lost, the flavor of Sanger’s original design is as fresh as it was in 1920. 
 

Architectural historians argue about the style of the architect’s design, especially that sinuous roofline.   The Landmarks Preservation Commission calls it “French Art Nouveau,” another critic deems it “Jugendstil.”  Call it what you will, it is remarkable and wonderful.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

The Italianate 1853 No. 58 West 9th Street

photo by Alice Lum

When builder Reuben R. Wood constructed the three matching brownstone homes at 54 to 58 West 9th Street in 1853, the area was just emerging as a fashionable neighborhood. The four-story residences were intended to attract high-end buyers. While other homes of the period were fronted with steep stone stoops, the entrances here were just three shallow steps off the sidewalk.

Arched openings marked the first floor, above which a cast iron balcony ran the length of the three buildings. Tall French doors opened onto the balconies allowing cooling breezes to wash through on sultry summer nights. The Italianate dwellings were the last word in comfortable merchant class homes.

Over the years, updating resulted in three different cast iron railings along the once-consistent balcony -- photo by Alice Lum

Fourteen years before the houses were completed, Edmund Carleton was born in Littleton, New Hampshire, the son of Judge Edmund Carleton who was a strong opponent of slavery. As the boy grew up famous abolitionists like Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison in his home and his father became active in the underground railroad.

When the Civil War erupted, Edmund joined the Union Army as a dispatch bearer and participated in thirteen battles. After the war, although he had been educated in law, he entered the medical profession. By the middle of the 1870s the highly-esteemed doctor was living at No. 58, having earned positions as Treasurer and Professor of Surgery at the Medical College for Women and Emeritus Professor of Homoeopathic Philosphy at New York Medical College and Flower Hospital.

The deeply recessed entranceway creates an intimate sitting area overlooking the street -- photo The New York Times

The doctor lived here with his wife and two children--a son and daughter--for over a decade. During that time some untidy business ensued when he was forced to take the actress and singer Lillian Russell to court. In November 1882 Dr. Carleton paid several visits to the entertainer and supplied her with medications.

According to The Evening World six years later, “The fair defendant agreed, promised to pay the amount, but though the doctor tired himself out by writing many notes and making personal application he could not get any of his money.”

The newspaper went on to say “It took five years and seven months to tire out the doctor’s patience; but he went to Court determined to recover the money with costs.”

The popular Ms. Russell owed Dr. Carleton $39. Rather than submit to the humiliation of a public trial, she settled.

Original first floor detailing like marble mantles and sculptured woodwork remain -- photo Trulia.com

Following the trend of many of the socially prominent, Dr. and Mrs. Carleton eventually moved north to a house just off 5th Avenue at 53 West 45th Street. The wealthy widow Mrs. John Bleecker Miller and her daughter Maria Duane Bleecker Miller moved into No. 58. Mrs. Miller was an active member of the State Charities Aid Association and was a close friend of another member, Mrs. F. E. Chadwick.

The recessed, double doors and the egg-and-dart and rope moldings create an elegant entrance -- photo by Alice Lum

Mrs. Chadwick’s husband, Navy Commander French Ensor Chadwick, had been Rear Admiral Sampson’s Chief of Staff during the Spanish- American War and would eventually reach the rank of rear admiral himself. The Chadwicks divided their time between Washington, DC, Newport, and New York; depending on the Captain’s availability and duties.

While in New York the couple stayed at the Miller residence on West 9th Street.

On the afternoon after Christmas in 1896 the parlor was the setting for Maria’s marriage to Wilmot Townsend Cox. The Times called it “a pretty house wedding.” The room was decorated with evergreens, palms and other potted plants and the bride wore white moiré. Among the guests at the reception were prominent New York names such as Beekman, Irving, Townsend and Valentine.

Cox was well-respected lawyer who was graduated from Harvard and the Columbia Law School. The newlyweds would remain at No. 58 and would have two children here – a son, Townsend, and a daughter, Anna Helme Townsend Cox. The attorney, who had offices at 51 Wall Street, served as President of the Washington Square Home for Friendless Girls and was a member of the school board.

Following in her mother’s and Mrs. Chadwick’s footsteps, Maria Cox became a member of the State Charities Aid Association, as well.

The family would remain in the house at least until World War I.

photo by Alice Lum

Tragedy visited No. 58 West 9th Street on February 17, 1924. The house was owned by Dr. Ettora Perrone, who lived here with his wife and 8-year old daughter, Rose. Mrs. Porteus Harrington also lived in the house with her 2-year old son, Donald. Because her husband, a World War I invalid, was in Cleveland undergoing treatment for shell shock, Dorothy Harrington had temporarily taken the fourth floor of the house.

The 30-year old Dorothy was well respected, the daughter of the former rector of Grace Church, Reverend E. W. Worthington, and the niece of Supreme Court Justice Vernon M. Davis.That night she had an appointment with her uncle to go over legal papers regarding the transfer of some of her property. The nursemaid was off that day. Feeling that the baby would be safe with the Perrone family at home, she left him alone for what she considered “a brief absence.”

Dr. Perrone was in his study when he noticed fire trucks on the street outside. When he rushed into the hallway, he found it filled with smoke and heard the cries of young Rose, who was in bed with tonsillitis. As he carried the girl out of the burning house, he told the fire fighters he had seen Dorothy leave and that the 2-year old may be alone upstairs.

Although the fire had not reached the fourth floor, the rooms were smoke-filled when a fireman reached the baby’s room. Finding the boy by groping about with his hands, he rushed down the stairs and into the fresh air with the toddler; but it was too late. The child had suffocated

The fire damaged the second and third floors, causing $8000 in damage.

Members of the Perrone family, including Captain Hector Perrone, were still living here by the middle of the century.

photo Trulia.com

The gracious home survived as a single-family residence and was updated and restored around the turn of the 21st century. It was put on the market in 2011 for $8.75 million.  Although some of the exterior architectural details have been stripped off, the dignified house at No. 58 West 9th Street is a well-preserved page from Greenwich Village history.

The Unexpected No. 43 Perry Street

The stepped gable, vehicle bay and white marble facade create an architectural riddle at first glance.

On the quiet Greenwich Village block of Perry Street between Waverly Place and West Fourth Street stands No. 43—an out-of-place structure clad in white marble and touting a carved heraldic emblem, stepped parapet, stained and leaded glass windows and a wide vehicle bay.   It gives the appearance of a former upscale carriage house or perhaps a religious society clubhouse.  Its history is more surprising.

The devious façade pretends to be from the 1840s; but it put on the wrong dress.  An early Victorian neo-Gothic structure in this neighborhood would have been clad in a far less imposing material than marble.  In fact, the rather eye-catching façade was installed in the 1960s; when most architects were looking to Modernism, Brutalism and other streamlined styles.

In the decade prior to the Civil War, No. 43 Perry Street was a rooming house filled with immigrant families.  On Sunday morning, March 7, 1852 Police Officer Westerfield was walking his rounds when he noticed smoke coming from “the second story of a dwelling-house at No. 43 Perry-st., occupied by a large number of poor families,” said The New York Times the following day.

“The inmates being suddenly aroused; great excitement and confusion took place.  Fortunately, the fire was speedily extinguished with a few buckets of water.”

The daughter of one of the families here was looking for work later that year.  An advertisement appeared in the New-York Daily Tribune on June 22, 1852 that read “A respectable girl wants a situation as Cook, Washer and Ironer.”  She said that prospective employers could call “in the rear, first floor, front room, for two days.”

Another boarder living here that year was Thomas Murray.  The Irishman was a construction worker and on November 18 was working on putting a new foundation to an existing frame building at the corner of Hammond (later renamed West 11th) and Bleecker Streets nearby.  At around 2:30 that afternoon Fire Warden Hays inspected the site and, according to the New-York Daily Tribune, “at once saw that it was in a very precarious condition”  He warned the workers not to remove certain stones in the existing foundation wall because of the danger of collapse.  “This prediction, unfortunately, proved too true,” said the newspaper.

About 20 minutes later another worker, Timothy Collins, heard a crack and warned his boss, Daniel Linn.  No one took his warning seriously, including Thomas Murray who was in the excavation.  “The cautious laborer was in the act of ascending upon the cellar wall to the street when the building fell,” reported The New York Times, “and he barely escaped with his life.”

The other men were not so lucky.  Daniel Linn was crushed to death, and Murray “was severely injured, he having received several contusive wounds on different parts of his person,” reported the Tribune.  Timbers had fallen on him; but a police officer, Taylor, “discovering the great danger in which Murray was placed, with an almost superhuman effort, removed the heavy mass of timbers from his body, and this probably saved his life.”

The Times was less optimistic about Murray’s chances.  “Mr. Murray is an aged man residing at No. 43 Perry-street, and it is feared his injuries will terminate fatally.”

Eight years later another tenant named Murray, possibly a relative, suffered a bizarre accident.  In May 1860 John Murray “died in consequent of injuries received by falling from the stoop of his house, No. 43 Perry-street, while laboring under an attack of dizziness,” said The Times on May 8.

The rooming house would not last much longer.  Builder Linus Scudder was busy in the neighborhood, erecting high-end homes.  By 1866 he had constructed two upscale residences for Jeremiah Pangburn at Nos. 54 and 58 Perry Street; and two houses for Walter W. Price at Nos. 61 and 63 Charles Street.  The arrival of merchant class families meant the need for stables.

Scudder first erected a two-story stable in the rear yard of No. 43 Perry; then replaced the old house with a three-story carriage house.  The carriage bay accessed a passage to the rear stables.   The upper floors were apparently leased as residential space.  In 1872 John Rooney listed No. 43 as his address.

In 1885 The New York Times remarked that “Hudson, West Thirteenth, and Gansevoort streets form a triangle which is covered with one and two story stables, produce stores, a coal yard, and E. H. Adickes’s store of willowware, hardware, &c.”   Adicke also ran a coal and wood business from No. 43 Perry, which was no longer being operated as a stable.

When her husband died, Fredericka R. Adickes continued to run the coal and wood business here; as well as another at No. 18 Seventh Avenue.    The businesses went slowly downhill and by October 1898 Fredericka was in trouble.  Knowing that her creditors were closing in, she sold the business to her sons, Eibe, Edward and Frederick; and transferred all her property and possessions to her daughters, Mathilda and Annie, “for a nominal consideration.”  The business name was changed to “the name of Eibe H. Adickes, and the same appears on their wagons and remains thereon at president,” said court documents in 1900.  Fredericka Adicke was certain she could relax because she was now legally insolvent.

Her creditors felt differently.   The entire family was taken to court and the decision was that they “in concert, did, by connivance, conspiracy, and combination, cheat and defraud the plaintiff.”   It was the end of the Adicke wood and coal operation at No. 43 Perry Street.

The fanciful architecture with its heraldic decoration is far removed from the structure Fredericka Adickes knew.

The building was taken over by Albert C. Jetter and Albert S. Longwell for not only their “stable and office;”  but The City Record in 1906 documented Jetter’s office was for his business “to sell milk,” and that his licensed wagon was also “to sell milk.”  Longwell’s listing was the same.

An advertisement appeared a year late in The Tammany Times for “I C Jetter Wholesale and Retail Dealer in Milk.”  The operation would remain in the building for years and in 1917 was incorporated as the Jetter Dairy Company.

In 1918 “The Milk Fight” broke out between the Dairymen’s League and the Milk Conference Board of Retailers.   The Conference Board realized that by importing milk from the Midwest they could save money.  Early in January 1919 Governor A. E. Smith convened a meeting to hear both sides of the fight.

On January 8 the Dairymen’s League placed a long advertisement in The Evening World saying that while in Albany, “They will endeavor, however, to save the 700,000 cows owned by their 62,000 members from destruction, which must surely come if the dairy farmers cannot get the Conference Board Retailers to pay the cost of production prices for milk.  They will also continue, as best they can, every endeavor to bring in free milk for the benefit of children, invalids and others who must have it.”

The ad listed Jetter Dairy Company as among the “fair-minded retailers and wholesalers in and about New York who are ready to sell you pure, inspected, nutritious, Up-State milk (not stale, Western, long-freighted milk).”

By the beginning of the 1930s Jetter Dairy Company had left Perry Street, moving far upstate to Madison County, New York.  When Jane Wassey purchased No. 43 in 1948, it was described as a “three-story brick dwelling.”  While converted to residential space, the structure itself was not highly valued.  That year the property was assessed at $17,000, only $4,000 of which was the building.

Wassey resold the building in 1951 to Austin Beton.   He installed a store on the first floor with a spacious duplex apartment above.  But his upgrading of No. 43 would be nothing like the two year project initiated by owner B. Doing in 1965.  Architect Simon Zelnick veneered the façade in white marble and created a Gothic inspired fantasy home.   A third renovation was completed in June 1992 that updated the single family house.  Where the carriage bay had been—and later Beton’s store—was now the homeowner’s personal garage.

Leaded panes with stained glass insets add to the charm.

The building that was assessed in 1948 for $17,000 sold relatively recently for $3 million.  It is a refreshing and surprising presence on the Perry Street block—the type of structure around which popular, if inaccurate, Village lore arises.

photos by the author

The Mad Hatter Tearoom -- No. 150 West 4th Street

In 1822 panic overtook New York City as a devastating by a yellow fever epidemic decimated the population.  Many of those citizens with means enough to flee headed north to the sleepy village of Greenwich.  Within a few years new Federal-style brick homes lined the winding streets as the village burgeoned.

Just to the east, near the potters’ field that would become Washington Square, sat a small two-story frame house with a brick facade. By the time the newcomers were settling in the Village the little building with its shallow peaked roof at No. 150 West 4^th Street had stood for at least a generation.   Years later in 1917 the New-York Tribune would comment that it “was originally a farmhouse when it was built, more than a century ago, a mile north of the city.”

In 1828 the first house was constructed on the north edge of Washington Square, now a formal park and parade ground, and within the decade fine brick homes would appear all around the tiny wooden house.  Miraculously, it remained.

By the turn of the century Greenwich Village was no longer a separate community, but a district within New York City.  It teemed with variety of residents:  the affluent old families of Washington Square, the slum dwellers in the Minetta Lane area, Italian and Irish immigrants in the recently-built tenements, and middle-class working families.  And it was quickly attracting artists, poets, musicians and authors as Greenwich Village became New York’s answer to the Left Bank of Paris.

In 1916 sculptress Edith Unger opened a tearoom called "The Mad Hatter" in the cellar of the little building at No. 150 West 4^th Street.  It claims the distinction as the first tearoom in the Village; based on the fact that the earlier subterranean establishments also served wine; making them technically not “tearooms.”   Unger’s cozy below-ground shop would become famous among the hidden Bohemian destinations haunted by the artsy crowd.

Above the stairs leading down to The Mad Hatter, Edith painted the words “Eloh Tibbar Eht Nwod”—a tongue in cheek backwards spelling of Down the Rabbit Hole.   Along with tea, patrons could also purchase light fare.  In 1939 the Federal Work Administration’s “New York City Guide” remembered that “Here commercialism, even on the part of the proprietress, scarcely existed.  Meals were written on the cuff, never to be erased; but all "true" Villagers were welcome so long as they kept the conversation flowing well into the night.”

Edith ran a catchy advertisement in Bruno's Weekly on September 16, 1916, (copyright expired)

Edith was also well-known for her theatrical costume designs, mostly for productions staged in Provincetown; a mecca for New York City artists, actors and poets.  In December 1916 The Ink Pot described her new two-room establishment, calling The Mad Hatter “a funny little cellar tea and demi-tasse establishment just off Washington Square.”

“The front room, perhaps twelve feet deep and fifteen feet wide, contains four small round tables, half a dozen chairs, as many little wooden benches built for one, and two wall-seats.  Eighteen persons crowd it.  Between the rooms is a wide and venerable chimney, with the big open fireplace facing the rear room.  In that rear room (of about equal size) are no chairs; only narrow wooden benches around the walls, and little wooden tables and little wooden one-person benches, and shelves for dishes.

“All the old walls and the chimney are painted in quiet gray or pale yellow.  The walls of the back room are covered with drawings done by various artists, and nearly all the drawings represent characters or scenes from ‘Alice in Wonderland.’”

The ceilings were no more than six feet high and the floorboards were the original, century-old boards.  “A pot of coffee is simmering on the stove in the back room, an ice-cream freezer stands just outside the back door, and cakes, and bread, and tea, and muffins, and jam appear from somewhere when called for.  Toast also appears, but about half the time it is forgotten after being put in the oven, and eventually it ceases to be toast.  Then somebody smells it, and the process is repeated.”

The publication remarked on the Villagers who came here.  “They are gentlemen and gentlewomen.  None others find comfort there.  There is nothing boisterous—just a hum of conversation; a haze of tobacco smoke; a cheery greeting for the newcomer; a chuckle or laugh over a funny story; a discussion (occasionally general) concerning some phase of literature, art or social conditions; a narrative of experience in some far region or unusual situation.  All under the flickering light of candles whose guttering, in some cases, have completely hidden the candlesticks that hold them.”

Before long Edith would hire the fascinating Eliza Helen Criswell.  Eliza had graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1904, where she had been captain of the basketball team.  Comfortable with her sexuality, she insisted on being called Jimmie, James or Jim. 

Jimmie Criswell took a part-time job at The Mad Hatter to supplement her income teaching languages.  She met Mathilda Spence and the two took a room in the Village.  Jimmie cut her hair short, cast off shoes in favor of sandals, and took to wearing artsy smocks.  For more formal events, she would don a tailored suit and tie with a wide-brimmed slouch hat.

Eliza "Jimmie" Criswell before the fireplace in The Mad Hatter.  For decades this photograph was mistakenly captioned "Portrait of a Boy in The Mad Hatter Tearoom." -- photograph by Jessie Tarbox Beals, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWR7YEX8&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=608

Edith Unger would not keep The Mad Hatter for long.  Whether because of her strenuous schedule of sculpting and designing; or because as some reports say she was being harassed by uptight neighbors, in July 1917 she sold the business to Jimmie and Mathilda.

Jimmie Criswell poses below Edith Unger's handpainted sign "Down the Rabbit Hole" backwards.  Already a storefront had been installed at street level.  Photograph by Jessie Tarbox Beals, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York ttp://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWR7YRJI&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=608

The relationship between the pair eventually dissolved and when Mathilda left for Europe, Jimmie stepped down from her teaching position to devote all her time to the tearoom.   Her presence in the smock and tie of a French artist added to the atmosphere of the picturesque café.

Jimmie started a satirical publication for patrons called Mad Hatter Mutterings.  In it were printed short stories, drawings, poems, articles and “gossip.”   She described herself in the December 1920 issue:  “The Management of the Mad Hatter is, and cheerfully, cook, cashier, waiter, bouncer, bus boy, check room boy, official chaperone, arbiter, elegantiarum, chess scorer, peace maker, drainage system, book keeper, cat nurse, censor, and goat of said coffee house.”

By now the Village tearooms were destinations for “slummers,”--the upper or middle-class residents of respectable neighborhoods who came to see how Bohemians lived and behaved.   The establishments were painted as semi-shocking places where men wore long hair and women short hair; where a female patron could freely smoke a cigarette; and social ideas were dreadfully modern.   Women’s magazines depicted the tearooms as places were women could go even without a male escort.

After an article about Greenwich Village in the Ladies’ Home Journal in March 1920, Jimmie Criswell moaned “Lady Slummers who read the Ladies’ Home Journal are swamping us” and later noted “quartets of old ladies infested [the] front room.”

Despite the intrusions by non-Villagers, the artistic set continued to call The Mad Hatter home.   On any particular night one might run into Sinclair Lewis, Lewis Mumford, the Gish sisters, poet Harry Kemp, or journalist Hendrik Willem Van Loon.

Somewhat unexpectedly, considering Jimmie’s sexual history, a relationship developed between her and Van Loon.  She reportedly was starved for real affection and responded to his courteous behavior and attentions.  In turn she typed his manuscripts, mended his clothes, and did other little favors.  Despite the fact that he was already engaged to New York Evening World journalist Rene Gibbs; he proposed and Jimmie accepted.

Harry Kemp was seated in The Mad Hatter one night in 1922 when an attractive red-haired woman in her 20’s stepped into the dim room.  The poet was so taken with the Barnard graduate that he declared “I’m going to marry you.”  In 1923 he did just that. 

Frances McClernan soon found out that marrying a nationally-recognized poet did not translate into marrying a comfortable lifestyle.  In addition to her modeling jobs for Camay Soap and the B. Altman & Co. catalog; she took a job as manager of The Mad Hatter three nights a week.  “I had a husband to support,” she explained.

In 1932, when this photograph was taken, The Mad Hatter was gone.  The entrance has been paved over and the cellar is accessed through a sidewalk hatch.  photograph by Charles Von Urban from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWR7YEX8&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=608

Jimmie’s marriage to Van Loon did not last and in 1927 he married playwright Frances Goodrich Ames.  When he divorced her, he and Jimmie reunited; although whether they actually remarried is unclear.   When he died in 1944 she inherited the bulk of his estate.

In 1946 the building was sold; assessed at the time at $21,000—about $185,000 today.  The Mad Hatter had been gone for at least a decade and the sidewalk entrance to the cellar paved over.  Any hint that a cozy and artistic tearoom had ever existed was obliterated.  An expansive storefront had been installed at street level; although the original residential nature of the building was still obvious above.

Today an attractive park nestles up to the venerable building.  A diner is housed on the first floor and stucco is slathered over the front façade.  The old cornice and ancient brick chimney survive on the building whose architectural lines still hint at its early beginnings. 

non-credited photographs by the author

The Lost Thomas Paine House -- No. 309 Bleecker Street

In 1914 the Paine House still retained much of its integrity -- photo NYPL Collection

In the years following the Revolutionary War Greenwich Village was still an isolated, rural community surrounded by country estates and meadows.   Herring Street ran roughly east and west, dotted with mostly modest homes and small commercial buildings like groceries and dry goods shops.

While villagers carried on their quiet existence, Thomas Paine was enjoying the rewards of his work and writing.    The State of Pennsylvania gave him $2500 for “expenses,” New Jersey gave him a home in Bordentown and New York presented him with a farm at New Rochelle.  He lived most of the time in Philadelphia, enjoying the life of a refined gentleman.  But Paine’s own outspoken writings would change his life.

In 1787 he sailed for Havre to exhibit his model of an iron bridge to the French Academy of Science.  Paris was on the brink of revolution and Paine made his opinions known—most notably concerning the royal execution.

“My having voted and spoken extensively, more so than any other member, against the execution of the King, had already fixed a mark upon me,” wrote Paine later.   The inventor, rationalist and author realized he was in danger of arrest.  “Pen and ink were then of no use to me.  No good could be done by writing…My heart was in distress at the fate of my friends, and my harp was hung upon the weeping willows.”

While expecting to be taken away to the guillotine, Paine wrote the first part of “The Age of Reason,” a work that would prompt his anti-Christian reputation.  Six hours after he finished the book he was arrested.   When he was finally released from prison in 1802, he was sick and old.

Paine sailed to New York, moving into a wooden house on Herring Street owned by a couple known only as Mr. and Mrs. Ryder.    The modest two-and-a-half story home was one of only three on the block between Columbia Street (later named Grove Street) and Reason Street which was named in honor of Paine’s “The Age of Reason” (it would later be bastardized to Raisin Street in 1827 and subsequently renamed Barrow Street).

The Ryders had another boarder, a French woman named Madame Marguerite Bonneville and her two sons.    Paine, now feeble and confused, rarely left the modest frame house.   Samuel J. Willis remembered decades later “I almost daily passed the house on Herring street where Thomas Paine resided, and frequently, in fair weather, saw him sitting at the south window of the first story room of that house—the sash was raised, a small table or stand was placed before him, with an open book placed upon it which he appeared to be reading.   He had his spectacles on, his left elbow rested upon the table or stand, and his chin rested between the thumb and fingers of his hand; his right hand lay upon his book, and a decanter, containing liquor of the color of rum or brandy, was standing next to his book and beyond it.

I never saw Thomas Paine at any other place or in any other position.”

Paine’s residency in the Herring Street house was not serene.  He had become overly-sensitive to criticism and was alienated from most of his former friends.  Bouts of apoplexy had left him an invalid and members of the clergy constantly attempted to gain access to the author in order to persuade him to recant his writings in “The Age of Reason.”   

Cunningham Janvier later wrote “It was during Paine’s last days in the little house in Greenwich that two worthy divines, the Rev. Mr. Milledollar and the Rev. Mr. Cunningham, sought to bring him to a realising sense of the error of his ways.  Their visitation was not a success.  ‘Don’t let ‘em come here again,’ he said, curtly, to his housekeeper, Mrs. Hedden, when they had departed; and added: ‘They trouble me.’  Mrs. Hedden denied them admission—saying with a good deal of piety, and with even more common-sense: ‘If God does not change his mind, I’m sure no man can!’”

As Paine’s frailty increased, it became necessary to move him from the Ryder house.  In his 1847 biography “Thomas Paine,” G. Vale noted “That, when Thomas Paine’s sickness increased on him, and boarding house attention was scarcely sufficient, Madame Bonneville took a small house for him, May, 1809, in Columbia street, and here she attended on him till his death.”

Only a few weeks later, on June 8, 1809 at around 9:00 in the morning, Paine died.

Within the next two decades Greenwich Village experienced an explosion in population and development.  In 1829 Herring Street became part of Bleecker Street and the Ryder house was renumbered No. 293 Bleecker.  Around this time it was purchased by the wealthy Delaplaine family.

Around the time of the Civil War, when Isaac C. Delaplaine was elected to the 37^th Congress as a U.S. Representative from New York, Bleecker Street was renumbered again.  Now the old Ryder house was No. 309.

By 1844 Bleecker Street was bustling with commerce and the house had become the home of J. Tabor’s Confectionary store.   There would be many commercial incarnations.  In 1855 Lee & Co. did business from the ground floor.  That year the firm received two “diplomas” at the Crystal Palace exhibition—one for an “enameled wire sign” and the second for “gauze-wire stand screens.”

Valentine’s “Manual of the Corporation of the City of New-York” noted in 1864 that “Isaac C. Delaplaine, Esq. of No. 278 Fifth Avenue… has had its lower rooms altered into a meat and vegetable market.”

Valentine's Manual included a map showing the Ryder house "C" as well as the Grove Street house where Paine died, "E" -- copyright expired

The street-level where Thomas Paine had sat by the window reading nearly 70 years earlier was a “beer and billard saloon” in 1876, according to The New York Times.   But through its various uses, New Yorkers always remembered the clapboard building as the Thomas Paine House.

In 1920 when Anna Alice Chapin wrote her book “Greenwich Village” the house had become decrepit.  “You may find the house if you care to look for it—the very same house kept by Mrs. Ryder, where Thomas paine lived more than a century ago.  So humble and shabby it is you might pass it by with no more notice than you would pass a humble and shabby wayfarer.  Its age and picturesqueness do not arrest the eye; for it isn’t the sort of old house which by quaint lines and old-world atmosphere tempt the average artist or lure the casual poet to its praise.  It is just a little old wooden building of another day, where people of modest means were wont to live.”

Five years after Anna Chapin called it "humble and shabby," No. 309 was photographed with its similar next door neighbor -- photo NYPL Collection

Chapin did notice that at least some of 18^th century architectural detailing was intact.  “Ugly, dingy rooms they are in that house, but glorified by association.  There is, incidentally, a mantelpiece which anyone might envy, though now buried in barbarian paint.  There are gable windows peering out from the shingled roof.”

The author was amazed that the two houses where Paine last resided still survived in 1920.  “A dozen times 309 Bleecker Street and 59 Grove Street have almost gone in the relentless constructive demolition of metropolitan growth and progress.  But—they have not gone yet!”

Anna Alice Chapin spoke too soon.

In the midst of the Great Depression the Delaphaine family still retained possession of No. 309 Bleecker Street.  After a century of ownership, in February 1930, they sold the property to Alfred Heyman. The New York Times reported “Mr. Heyman, the new owner, is having plans prepared for improving the site.”

photo NYPL Collection

In 1930 history and architecture still took second stage to “progress.”  The fact that an 18^th century wooden structure, once home to one of the country’s most brilliant thinkers, still survived was incidental to the property value.

About a week after the sale, on March 9, The Times reported “The old Greenwich Village home of Thomas Paine, the rationalist, is to be demolished to make way for a modern building.  Nearly a century and a quarter have elapsed since the author of ‘Common Sense’ and ‘The Age of Reason’ took up residence in the wooden house adjacent to Bleecker and Grove Streets that is now about to come down.”

The upper windows are gone and part of the clapboarding has fallen away as the house is prepared for demolition.  The reverse of the photo reads "the house where Thomas Paine lived shortly before his last illness is shown in its last stages of decay." -- photo NYPL Collection

Amazingly, by today’s perspective, there was no outcry, no attempt to save the miraculous survivor.    It was replaced by a one-story store “of tile and brick,” only to be demolished in 1957.  A utilitarian, architecturally bland one-story supermarket took its place.

The Thomas Paine House gave way to an unremarkable one-story supermarket-turned-clothing store.  -- photo by Alice Lum