The 1909 Manhattan Square Apts -- No. 44 West 77th Street

In 1904 architects Herbert Spencer Harde and Richard Thomas Short designed and built the sophisticated West 85^th Street apartment building called Red House.  The upscale brick, stone and terra cotta structure was frosted with elaborate Gothic elements.  Three years later they would outdo themselves with the even grander Manhattan Square Apartments.

Portrait painter Walter Russell had by now added real estate development to his interests.  He formed the Walter Russel Bond & Realty Co. and before the outbreak of World War I would be responsible for what The Sun called in 1914 “several buildings notable for size and attractiveness.”  Among his first would be the lavish apartment building at Nos. 44 through 48 West 77^thStreet.

The site was exemplary.  It overlooked Manhattan Square where the New York Natural History Museum stood.  Next door was the fashionable Manhattan Square Hotel.  Russell, perhaps inspired by Red House, commissioned Harde & Short in 1907 to design his 14-story structure.

The results were stunning.  The architects created a soaring neo-Gothic fantasy of brick and terra cotta.  As they had done with Red House, they dropped Gothic screens along the tops of expanses of windows and lavished the façade with tracery, trefoil carved balconies and a French Gothic tower.  While Red House smacked of a great English estate; this new cooperative apartment building was cathedral-like.

On January 9, 1909 The New York Times remarked “In its architectural features the building represents a distinct departure from anything hitherto attempted in apartment house construction in this city.”  The Sun said it “is considered among the finest specimens of Gothic architecture among city apartments.”

A sketch appearing in The New York Times on January 9, 1909 included both a stylish carriage and an automobile.  (copyright expired)

There were just two apartments per floor, prompting The Times to say “It has been possible to provide rooms of a size seldom found outside of the largest private residences.”  The living rooms, or “salons,” measured 18.5 by 27.5 feet and dining rooms were 15 by 20 feet. Residents could choose between “studio suites” of ten rooms and three baths, or nine rooms and three baths.  In the basement, servants would find the “ironing room.”  The Edison Monthly noted that “an electric iron, with separate outlet and meter, are provided for each tenant.  Each outlet is provided with a lock and key, making it impossible for one tenant to make use of an outlet belonging to another.”

The New-York Tribune mentioned that budgetary overruns.  “The plans for the building were filed in March 1907, Harde & Short, the architects, estimating the cost at $750,000.  The building, however, cost considerably more than this.”  Even if it had come in on budget the expense would have topped $18.5 million in today’s dollars.

A postcard of the Manhattan Square Hotel (with red flag) also showed the Manhattan Square Apt.  Across the street is the red brick Natural History Museum.

Before the first brick was laid Russell had made an agreement to sell the finished building.  On November 19, 1909 the New-York Tribune reported that the title would be transferred “within a few days” to the Manhattan Square Apartment Association.  The building quickly filled with a broad array of well-to-do residents.  Because of their association with Walter Russell and the window-walled "studios," several well-known artists moved in.

The "ironing room" of the Manhattan Square Apartments was a major convenience.  Edison Monthly June 1909 (copyright expired)

Among these was eminent sculptor Karl Theodore Bitter who was one of the first residents.  Following Joseph Pulitzer’s death in 1911 a competition was held to design an ornamental fountain in the open area in front of the Plaza Hotel which the publisher had envisioned.  Bitter won the commission for the fountain’s figure of Pomona, while Thomas Hastings of Carerre & Hastings would design the basin.

The project stretched on for several years; but Bitter would never see it completed.  He finished his clay model of Pomona in 1915.  Only a few days later, on April 9, the 47-year old artist left the Metropolitan Opera House with his wife around 11:30 p.m.  They headed across Broadway to catch an uptown streetcar.

“The street was filled with automobiles, picking up owners in front of the opera house,” reported The New York Times, “and Mr. and Mrs. Bitter threaded a dangerous way across the thoroughfare to the northbound car tracks.”  Edward T. James was driving south and swerved to avoid a limousine turning away from the opera house.

"The sculptor saw the danger and threw his wife to one side.  He got her so far from the automobile’s path that, while she was struck, she was only tossed aside.”  Things did not fare so well for Bitter.

He was struck and dragged for 30 feet, “crushed between the pavement and the car.”  Bitter suffered a fatal skull fracture.

Marie Bitter’s grief was exacerbated when only a month later a 23-year old chauffeur objected to the probate of the will.  Carl Bitter claimed he was the artist’s son; the result of a common-law marriage with Adelaide Omar.  The untidy affair would play out in the courts for months.

The World's New York Apartment House Album published floor plans of the massive apartments in 1910 (copyright expired)

In the meantime another well-known resident found himself in the courts.  Dr. Otto G. T Kiliani, too, was one of the first owners.  Born in Germany, he was Professor of Clinical Surgery at Columbia University and a surgeon at the German Hospital.  Patients who could not afford to pay were offered free treatment at the hospital and such was the case in April 1912 when Jacob Weiss was operated on.

Two years later he sued Dr. Kiliani, charging “that after operating on him they had sewed up two sponges in his abdominal cavity,” explained The Times on January 23, 1914.  When the case went to trial, not only did Weiss produce “practically no evidence in support of his charge;” but “It was shown that Dr. Kiliani had not even been present at the operation.”

Dr. Kiliani later told reporters “Suits like these are being brought constantly against physicians and surgeons and the plaintiffs are usually those who have received free treatment.”

Also living in the Manhattan Square Apartment in 1915 was 70-year old former politician Theodore W. Myers.  Myers had served as City Controller, was former President of the National Democratic Club, a member of the Chamber of Commerce and a partner in a banking firm Arthur Lipper & Co.  The New-York Tribune estimated his worth at between $3 and $4 million.

The wealthy Myers held memberships to the New York Athletic Club and New York Yacht Club. He was apparently well-traveled for he also was a member of the Automobile Club of America, the Automobile Clubs of France and England, and the Travelers’ Club of Paris.

Several years earlier Rose Alixis Knight moved into the building with her mother.  Rose was about 30 years younger than the widowed Myers, so their sudden marriage on February 10, 1915 was a shock to political and social circles.  The New-York Tribune began its report of the wedding saying “Cupid has taken to politics and is playing queer pranks with the politicians.”

The couple remained in Myers’ apartment where his noted collection of paintings and engravings was hung.  They spent winters in Florida and on March 20, 1918 after just having returned to New York, Myers suffered a fatal heart attack in the apartment.  His funeral was held here two days later.  His young widow was left in grief; but considerably wealthy.

Another well-known artist in the building was Samuel Montgomery Roosevelt.  As war ravaged Europe and before the United States entered the conflict, wealthy New Yorkers often worked for war relief.  On Sunday, March 26, 1916 at 9 p.m. Roosevelt and his wife hosted a musical recital “to aid widows and orphans of French soldiers,” as noted in The Sun that afternoon.

Roosevelt would remain in the Manhattan Square Apartment for years.  The cousin of Theodore Roosevelt, he was as much a member of the artistic world as high society.  He was a member of the exclusive Knickerbocker, Lambs, Manhattan, New York Yacht, Tuxedo, and Larchmont Yacht Clubs, among others.  A close friend of John Singer Sargent and James A. McNeill Whistler, he too painted society portraits like that of Theodore Roosevelt, Bishop James H. Darlington, Oliver Belmont and the Earl of Kintore.

As with all wealthy New Yorkers, the newspapers followed the Roosevelts’ movements.  On June 10, 1919 The Sun mentioned “S. Montgomery Roosevelt, 44 West Seventy-seventh street, will leave New York to-day for the Grand Cascapedia, Canada, for salmon fishing, and will be gone a fortnight.”

A year later the coverage would be more shocking.  The headline in the New-York Tribune on August 20, 1920 read “Samuel M. Roosevelt Drops Dead in Club.”  The 64-year old artist collapsed on a staircase of the Knickerbocker Club.  Before a doctor could arrive, he was dead of a brain hemorrhage. 

Another portrait painter in the building was Italian-born Francesco Paolo Finocchiaro.  He had arrived in New York around the turn of the century and in 1910 was made a chevalier by the King of Italy.  The artist married widowed socialite Florence Angell Mason in her Madison Avenue home on October 30, 1918.  The Sun said “The bride has been identified with the summer life in Newport, where she has a home in Catherine street known as Wabun.”  The newspaper noted that the newlyweds would be living in Finocchiaro’s Manhattan Square apartment.

As expected, the couple remained socially active and hosted entertainments like the “reception with music” in the apartment on May 8 1920.

Not involved in the arts was Robert Reis, the head of the underwear firm Robert Reis & Co.  The wealthy businessman lived here with his wife, Sarah—their three children were all grown by now.  In 1918, the same year that Finocchiaro and his new bride were getting settled, Robert Reis died leaving an estate of about half a million dollars.  Sarah remained on in the apartment, enjoying her summers at Loon Lake in the Adirondacs through the 1920s.

By the time of Reis’s death the United State was firmly entrenched in the European war.  It would shape the lives of several residents, such as German exporter Engen Schwerdt whose offices were at No. 79 Wall Street.  On Tuesday February 26, 1918 The Sun ran the headline “Wool Exporter Held as Leader in German Plot.”  The newspaper explained that Schwerdt had been arrested for master-minding a plot to divert wool to the German army.

“For the purpose of hoodwinking the Textile Alliance, which was organized for the purpose of preventing wool from falling into German hands, dummy concerns appear to have been employed by the plotters, and from evidence in the hands of the authorities it has been learned that the schemers became so bold as to store their wares in London.”

The newspaper said “Schwerdt’s American wife is at her residence, 44 West Seventy-seventh street.”  She pleaded to reporters “We are both for the Allies.  I am as good an American as can be found.”

At the other end of the spectrum was Marjorie Snare Mason.  Her husband, Colonel Charles W. Mason, Jr., was in France with the 30^th Infantry; her brother, Frederick Snare, Jr. was also in France with the 305^th Machine Gun Battalion; and her father, Frederick Snare was commander of the Red Cross Base Hospital No. 6 at Bordeaux, France.  With the men in her life fighting abroad, the 36-year old woman was alone in her Manhattan Square apartment.  On January 19, 1919, she died in her home of heart disease.

The building would become home to members of the theater, as well.  Actress Selma Paley was living here in 1920 when she was sued by the wife of Oliver Morosco for, according to the New York Clipper on June 30, “alienating the theatrical man’s affections.”

Modernization streamlined the facade, removed the pinnacle and Gothic screens, and enlarged the upper floor openings.

Samuel Goldwyn had an apartment here at the same time, and throughout the decades it would become home to Erica Jong in the 1940s, and to actress Patricial Neal and her new husband Roald Dahl in 1954. 

At some point before mid-century the building lost the name Manhattan Square Apartment (possibly because of the 1922 building on West 81^stStreet that took the same name) and became known as The Studio Building.

On September 28, 1939 The New York Times reported that “A forty-five foot studio living room is being constructed for the special use of Paul Trebilcock, portrait painter, in the building at 44 West Seventy-seventh Street.”  It is possibly at this time that the windows of the top floor were stripped of their mullions and plate glass installed.  Tragically, at some point a misguided attempt at modernization resulted in much of the Gothic ornamentation of the upper floors being stripped away and the marvelous gables, parapets and pinnacle were destroyed.  The dripping Gothic screens, as well, were trashed.

The building would make a brief appearance in Tom Wolfe’s 1987 The Bonfire of the Vanities: A Novelin the line “Kramer had that vision comfortable in place when just up ahead, from the swell-looking doorway of 44 West Seventy-seventh Street emerged a figure that startled him.”

Despite the vandalism of the upper stories, the building still has, for the most part, only two apartments per floor.  Even in its decimated state, Harde & Short’s “distinct departure from anything hitherto attempted” is still an eye-catcher.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

Harde & Short's 1904 "Red House" -- No. 350 West 85th Street

photo by Alice Lum

Architects Herbert Spencer Harde and Richard Thomas Short kept themselves busy around the turn of the century designing tenement houses throughout the city.  Harde branched out into real estate at some point, establishing the Eronel Realty Company – “Eronel” being his wife Lenore’s name spelled backwards.

With the Upper West Side rapidly developing, Eronel Realty acquired the plot of land at 350 West 85^th Street and, in 1903, commissioned Harde & Short to design an apartment building on the lot – in short, Harde hired himself.

Terra cotta was just making its mark as a remarkably versatile and relatively inexpensive material and the architects embraced it with gusto for this project.   In an effort to lure well-to-do residents from private homes into apartments, Harde & Short lavished the façade with intricate terra cotta ornamentation.  It would be a stark departure from the firm's usual tenement buildings.

Drawing on several styles and periods, they created an eye-catching and unique structure.  Expanses of multi-paned windows hardened back to great English country estates while dripping Gothic screens coexisted with terra cotta salamanders – the symbol of Francis I.

photo by Alice Lum

 Harde & Short played the red brick and white terra cotta against one another, creating visual interest that was accentuated by the light and shadow of the façade’s angles and bays.   The distinctive six-story building was completed in 1904, drawing the unexcited comment from The Real Estate Record & Guide which said it was “a departure from the usual.”

The salamander, symbol of Francis I, would appear again in the facade of Harde & Short's magnificent Alwyn Court -- photo by Alice Lum

 Harde named his building “Red House” and immediately moved in with Lenore.  Joining them in the new building were socially-important Mr. and Mrs. William Smith Young and their two daughters, Caroline Grace and Lucy.  The 32-year old attorney was a member of no fewer than five exclusive clubs, including the Columbia Yacht Club and the Cornell Club.

photo by Alice Lum

 Mrs. Young, who went by the ponderous name Caroline Marshall Page Young was a Daughter of the American Revolution and was active in philanthropic and charitable causes.  On May 14, 1907, for instance, she and Mrs. Franklin P. Duryea, who lived in the elaborate Ansonia Apartments, hosted “a bridge” to aid the School for Crippled Children.

Reflective of the difference between West Side and East Side, many of the tenants here were movers and shakers; unafraid to break the chains of tradition or to question the status-quo.

photo by Alice Lum

At this same time the banker Ashton Parker was living here.  His astonishingly modern views on smoking in public sound more like 2011 than 1905.  Parker complained to the editor of The New York Times, calling public smoking “a nuisance” and “disagreeable to ladies.”

“Why is it that smoking is forbidden in the ladies’ cabin, yet is permitted in the Wall Street ferry house, where the ladies wait for the boats?” he asked.

Other early tenants were Harvard graduate Semour M. Peyser and William Robinson.   The modern-thinking Robinson owned an early motorcycle which, sadly in 1906, caused him to be charged with “overspeeding on a motor bicycle.”  He was released on $100 bail.

Smith College alumna Nancy Elizabeth Barnhart was living here in 1915 when the women’s rights advocate won honorable mention for her submission of a poster design for the Woman Suffrage Campaign Poster Competition exhibited at the gallery of the Society of Beaux Arts Architects.

Not all of the endeavors of the residents were so lofty, unfortunately.   Alexander S. Timson was a 20-year old insurance broker when he lived here in 1911.  On his wedding day, June 10, Detectives arrived at Red House where they arrested Timson as a jewel thief.  When he was searched at the station house, police found two diamond rings set with sapphires, two diamond hatpins also set with sapphires, one diamond ring set with pearls and another diamond ring.

“This is terrible.  I am to be married tonight,” Timson protested.  “My people, who live in this city, are wealthy, and will help me out of this trouble.”

Timson’s people never showed up.

photo by Alice Lum

Little has changed on the exterior of Red House.  The windows have been replaced, as have the entrance doors and the original paint scheme for the windows has been changed to black.  Yet it appears very much as it did when Lenore and Herbert Harde moved in in 1904 – what the AIA Guide to New York City calls “a romantic six-story masterpiece.”

The 1908 Parkview -- No. 45 E. 66th St.

photo by Alice Lum

In the first years of the 20^th century apartment living for the wealthy had attained acceptability.  Lavish apartments, as large as private homes in square footage, provided luxury, panache, and  modern amenities.  Upper Broadway welcomed the trend with elaborate apartment buildings and residence hotels like the 1903 Hotel Belleclaire at 77^th Street, the hulking Chatsworth Apartmentscompleted the same year at the corner of 72^nd Street, and the ebullient 1904 Ansonia Apartments at 73^rd.

Charles F. Rogers got into the act with plans for another grand apartment building across Central Park on Madison Avenue.  Rogers was the son of sculptor John S. Rogers who was responsible for filling middle-class Victorian parlors country-wide with affordable and popular plaster groupings—Civil War soldiers returning home, a boy mourning his dead dog, lovers wooing, for instance.  They were the 19^thcentury equivalents of Norman Rockwell prints executed in plaster.

Although plans for his new structure were filed in May 1906, Rogers did not secure the property until nearly a year later.  He organized the Park View Company and on March 2, 1907 The New York Times reported on the purchase of the All Soul’s Church of which Rogers was a member.  The newspaper said that the organization intended “to improve the site with a ten-story house-keeping apartment house.”

A year earlier the architectural firm of Harde & Short had completed an eye-catching apartment house nearly 20 blocks north called the Red House.   The red brick and white terra cotta building dripped with neo-Gothic ornament, causing The Real Estate Record & Guide to deem it “a departure from the usual.”

Rogers apparently approved of the departure, for he commissioned Herbert Spencer Harde and Richard Thomas Short to design the Park View Apartments.  Completed in 1908, the $1 million structure was reminiscent of the Red House in its decoration; taking it to the edge without stepping over.

The Parkview towered over the brownstone rowhouses of the neighborhood.  First floor apartments were protected by a wall and the centered entrance defined the corner -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

As with the Red House, Harde & Short draped intricate Gothic screens like rows of lace around the building and used multi-paned windows to capture the historic period.   The façade of the Park View was as much glass as it was masonry—a remarkable feat in 1908.

photo by Alice Lum

The prominent rounded corner served as the entrance to the building, which quickly dropped the name Park View in favor of the address—777 Madison Avenue.  There were just two apartments per floor, with either 12 or 14 rooms, and the building quickly filled with important business and society names.

Among the first residents were Henry W. Poor and his wife, the former Constance E. Brandon.  Poor was a publisher and financier; the President of Poor’s Manual of Railroads, Publishers; a Director of the Postal Telegraph-Cable Company of Texas; the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company; and the United States Casualty Company. 

photo by Alice Lum

Herman Behr was an early resident.  He and his wife moved in with their unmarried son, Karl.  Although Karl was an attorney with an office at No. 40 Wall Street, he was best known as one of the foremost tennis players in the country and had been a member of one of the Davis Cup teams.   Both of Herman Behr’s sons had made names for themselves in sports.  Karl’s married brother, Max, who lived in Morristown, New Jersey, was a well-known golfer.

In November 1911, young Karl sailed off to Europe “on a pleasure trip,” according to the Newark Evening News.  Six weeks later the wealthy athlete headed home, boarding the new R. M. S. Titanic in Southampton, England.

On April 16 The New York Times listed Karl Behr as among the missing on the doomed ship.  Then later that same day the Behr family received a telegram notifying them that Karl “was among the passengers saved.”

Among other survivors of the disaster was the pregnant Madeleine Force Astor, wife of John Jacob Astor.  Prior to their marriage she had been unsuccessfully wooed by Nils Florman who claimed to be a descendant of Swedish royalty (although he was making a living as a jewelry salesman at the time).   The New-York Tribune later noted “but investigation of the Florman family tree was said to have revealed that it was not all the young jewelry salesman represented it to be.”

Florman was also “attentive to Miss Katherine Force,” Madeleine’s sister; and became engaged to Helena Stallo, joint heiress with her sister to the millions left by Standard Oil magnate Alexander McDonald.   The engagement, according to the Tribune, “was broken by Miss Stallo.”

In 1914 Florman turned his attention to the 19-year old heiress Olga V. Kohler.  Olga’s father, Charles Kohler, was a wealthy piano manufacturer and owner of racing stables.  He had died leaving his three teen-aged daughters and widow a fortune of more than $4 million.  Olga received a $25,000 per year income (nearly half a million today).   Her father’s will provided another $100,000 to be paid when she reached 25, 35 and 45 years of age.

Olga fell for the smooth-talking Swede and on April 5, 1914 the couple was married in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  The Washington Herald reported that the marriage “amazed society.”  The pampered and entitled teenaged bride sailed off to Europe for the honeymoon.  Unfortunately, war broke out while they were touring Wiesbaden, Germany, and the newlyweds were trapped for a time.  “When the Flormans did get away it was without baggage valued at $3,000,” said the New-York Tribune.

The teen-aged Olga had trouble budgeting.  Upon their return to New York she took an apartment at No. 777 Madison Avenue, paying $5,000 a year rent.  She then spent $20,000 to furnish the apartment.  And she was pregnant.  Once the baby arrived, Olga was in a financial pinch.

Now, 20 years old, she raised eyebrows of working Americans nationwide when she applied to Surrogates’ Court on June 25, 1915 saying her $25,000 annual stipend was insufficient.  The Tribune reported “It is impossible for her to take care of the baby, maintain her $5,000 a year apartment at 777 Madison Avenue, her summer cottage at Sands Point, Long Island, and employ nurses, maids and chauffeurs on that amount, she asserted.”

Olga pointed out to the court that her son, born on January 18 was a “large item of expense.”  The Tribune report dripped with sarcasm.  “His advent required the engagement of a trained nurse and an ordinary nurse to wheel the perambulator and shake rattles before his scowling features when he was ill tempered.  And to wash and dress the youngster, Mrs. Florman found she could not do without a special maid.

“And then, of course, Mrs. Florman must have her own maids.  The rent must be paid, too, not only on Madison Avenue, but at the summer cottage on Long Island.  Three servants besides the chauffeur are required at the Sands Point home.  For servants alone Mrs. Florman pays $2,000 a month, she asserts.”

Resident Olga Florman found herself in a financial bind in 1915 -- New-York Tribune, June 26, 1915 (copyright expired)

Nils Florman apparently chipped in on the household expenses; but his $50 a week salary selling jewelry was not much help.  Olga finally got her way.  After two years of legal wrangling, The Washington Herald reported on August 18, 1917, “Mrs. Gola V. Florman and her two sisters, Vera Kohler, 16 years old, and Rita Kohler, 17 years old, have proved to the satisfaction of Surrogate Cohalan that they are unable to live on an annual income of $25,000 each, and the Surrogate has ordered they each be paid $120,000 a year.”

When Max Loewenthal purchased No. 777 Madison Avenue on November 12, 1921, the New-York Tribune called it “one of the finest on the East Side” and mentioned among its tenants “Mrs. Jane L. Armour, Goelet Gallapin, Harrison Williams, Leonard M. Thomas and Walcot C. Lane.”  Also in the building was eminent astronomer Joel Browne Post and his family.

That year Constance E. Poor died and her apartment was taken by Stephen H. P. Pell and his family.  The arrival of the Pells would begin a succession of high-profile events.  Mrs. Pell was highly involved in human rights causes and hosted meetings of the National Woman’s Party here.   She was the group’s National Finance Committee and traveled to Washington to “call on President Coolidge on Feb. 15, the birthday of Susan B. Anthony, to ask his support of the equal rights amendment,” according to The New York Times on January 23, 1927.

Stephen Pell had served in both the Spanish American War, receiving the Sampson and Spanish War medals; and in the First World War in which he was severely wounded, earning him the Croix de Guerre from the French Government.   Two weeks before his wife announced her upcoming trip to see the President, the French Government conveyed another tribute on Pell.

Fort Ticonderoga, built by the French military in 1755 and crucial in the French and Indian War, stood on Pell property.  Stephen Pell commissioned architect Alfred C. Bossom to head a restoration of the fort and he established a museum on the property.  The French conferred the Legion of Honor on him for his work on the fort on January 5, 1927.

Residents Mr. and Mrs. Williams took the prize for the social coup, however, when on September 18, 1924 the Prince of Wales arrived for “a light meal.”  The Timesnoted that the Williams home was in “a large apartment house.”

Following supper, the Williams accompanied the Prince to the Gaiety Theatre.  Purposely entering after the play had begun, they were unseen in the dark “and he went in unnoticed,” said The Times.  No doubt to the frustration of Mrs. Williams, after each act concluded, the Prince left his seat with his companion, General Trotter, “and went to the steps leading into the aisle along the wall.  There they stood until the house was darkened again and the curtain went up once more.  No one in the audience had seen them.”

Only when the newspapers hit the streets the following morning could Mrs. Williams bask in the attention.

Carlisle J. Gleason and his family were living here in 1926.  It was a notable year for the Gleasons for several reasons.  Daughter Louis was married in East Hampton, Long Island in July to the dashing Lieutenant Frederic Stanton Withington, Jr., of the Navy in a small stone church.  The reception was held in the Gleason summer estate, Greyshingles.

Later that year Gleason employed Terence Stuart to clean the many windows of the Madison Avenue apartment.  The 28-year old specialized in high-end residences and also cleaned the windows of Mrs. Mary Crimmins at No. 157 East 63^rd Street.  Stuart turned out to be as good at cleaning out jewelry chests as he was cleaning windows.  Unknown to the millionaires, a teen-aged Stuart had been convicted and sentenced to serve from five to ten years for his part in a hold-up in 1919.  “He escaped a year later from Clinton Prison, was recaptured and sent back, but was released on parole” in 1925, reported The Times.

After he left, Mrs. Crimmins found she was missing $25,000 worth of jewelry, including a pearl necklace worth $3,000.  Carlisle Gleason had lost $20,000 in jewelry.   Stuart found himself going back to prison, now, with a new ten-year sentence.

Harde & Short would, no doubt, have disapproved of the window air conditioners--photo by Alice Lum

On February 22, 1928 Jane Livingston Armour died of pneumonia in her apartment here.  The wealthy widow of Herman Ossian Armour of the Chicago packing firm Armour & Co. was 83 years old.  Her passing was symbolic of the end of an era in the Parkview apartments.

By now retail stores along Madison Avenue were commanding high rents.   That year the building owners commissioned Thomas & Churchill to alter the street level, moving the entrance to No. 45 East 66^th Street.  The sidewalk level was now converted into store space.

Surprisingly it was not the Great Depression, but World War II that signaled the end to the grand, expansive apartments.  The restrictions of the rent control laws that came into effect during the war could be circumvented only by subdividing the apartments.   From 1948 to 1953 vacated apartments were dissected, becoming two.  The building was modernized by removal of most of the lacy terra cotta screens of the 6^thand 10^th floors.

Two decades later the building was threatened when owners Bing & Bing sold the venerable apartment house to Sigmund Sommer in 1973.  Sommer’s idea of improvements included the installation of fluorescent tubes in the hallways and firing the elevator operator in favor of automatic controls.

The residents revolted.  Rent strikes and demonstrations resulted in Bing & Bing reacquiring the building in 1977, the same year it was designated a New York City landmark.

A decade later No. 777 Broadway was converted to cooperative apartments.   Vincent Stramandinoli was commissioned to head a restoration of the façade, including replacement of the lost terra cotta elements.

Sunlight pours in through the expansive glass -- photo by Alice Lum

Harde & Short's wonderful turn-of-the-century structure, considered by some their masterpiece, emerged from the restoration a fantastic relic of early 20^th century luxury living.