The Victorian Remnants at Nos. 162-170 E 60th Street

The remnants of five handsome homes somehow survive amid the Bloomingdale's Department Store complex.

In the early decades of the 19th century, women’s straight-gowned Empire styles gave way to more voluminous skirts. Then around 1860 the hoop skirt took hold. To be truly in fashion women needed the new-fangled contraption that supported yards of fabric spilling in a great circle from their waist to the floor.

Lyman G. Bloomingdale and his brother, Joseph, were quick to recognize the potential of the new fad. In 1861 they opened the Ladies Notion Shop on what was then the fashionable Lower East Side of New York. The brothers sold one item: the hoop skirt.

While the Bloomingdale brothers busily sold hoop skirts, the Upper East Side was developing.  Real estate speculation erupted in the form of row houses; and in 1868 construction began on six harmonious homes in the French Second Empire style—the latest in architectural fashion—stretching from No. 160 to 170 East 60^thStreet.  The four men who invested in the project most likely had a hand in the construction.  At least three of them were in the building trade—Nicholas Seger was a carpenter, George Herdtfelder was a mason, and Conrad Thiele was a stone supplier.  The forth partner, George Rothman, appears to have been a real estate operator as his name appeared repeatedly in real estate transactions at the time.

The brownstone-fronted homes, completed in 1869, were described by the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide as “four-story high stoop brown stone houses.”  Three bays wide, they featured the up-to-date obligatory mansard roofs of the French style and carved window enframements.  Merchant class families moved in.   Attorney Philip Smith purchased No. 170 in 1869; outspoken journalist and editor James McMaster bought No. 166; iron merchant Lewis Snow took No. 162 and wholesale butcher Philip Ottmann’s family was at No. 164. 

Fish scale tiles and delicate detailing survive above the industrial loading docks below.

The tranquil residential apple cart was about to be upset by Lyman and Joseph Bloomingdale, however.  By now the hoop skirt was out of fashion.  In its place came elaborate dresses with bustles and flounces. There were suddenly different gowns for different occasions – tea gowns for entertaining at home, the “seaside dress,” day dresses with high necklines and evening gowns with plunging necklines and off-the-shoulder sleeves.

The brothers reacted, renaming the business The East Side Bazaar in 1872 and selling a variety of European apparel, including undergarments and corsets, gentlemen’s furnishings and ladies’ dresses.

In 1885, while the grand emporiums were clustering together along 6th Avenue’s “Ladies’ Mile,” the Bloomingdale brothers made a daring move. They began construction of a new store at the corner of 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, far apart from the shopping district and directly behind the 60^thStreet homes.  By now the original owners had mostly moved on.  No. 170 was owned by Bernard S. Levy; No. 168 was sold in 1882 by William Smith to Meyer Katzenberg; and prominent clothing merchant Jonas Rosenberg lived at No. 164.

The Bloomingdale Brothers store, designed by Schwartzmann & Buchman, was six stories tall and an immediate success.  It catered mostly to the middle class and was a true department store—selling clothing, books, household items and even pianos.  Within a year of opening, the brothers bought up the three houses at Nos. 166 to 170 and converted them to an annex “not quite next door to the existing store,” as reported in newspapers.

The store continued to expand—taking over the surrounding real estate like kudzu.  On December 28, 1889 Jonas Rosenberg died in his house at No. 164 East 60^th Street and within months Bloomingdale Brothers had acquired that house and the one next door at No. 162. 

No. 168 was, perhaps, the most impressive of the homes.

For years the retailer maintained No. 170 as Bloomingdale Hall.  The Olympic Lodge used it as its headquarters and through the 1920s meetings were still held at that address.  In the meantime, in 1893, the store commissioned the architectural firm of Buchman & Deisler to design the large addition on 59^th Street.  Bloomingdale Brothers was rapidly engulfing the block—but No. 160 stubbornly held out.  And when the new store addition was built the owners of No. 160 went to court.

Joseph McGuire purchased the house in 1890 and set about adding a 35-foot extension and altering the interiors as a boarding house.  Court papers noted that while the Bloomindales owned Nos. 162 and 164; the buildings “still retain the outward appearance of four-story private brownstone dwellings.”  Not long after McGuire bought No. 160 construction began on extensions to those two houses as well as the new addition.  The noise and vibrations caused constant upheaval in the McGuire house.

The court case took five days, during which 61 witnesses testified. “One of the tenants, a Mrs. Reiger, testified that No. 160 East Sixtieth street rocked and vibrated just as a boat does when water is rough, and one Schaefer, who lived at 156 East Sixtieth street, two doors from the plaintiff’s premises, declared that the sound resembled a small-sized earthquake,” reported The New York Supplement.

McGuire lost his case and the family gave up.  In 1903 the house was purchased by the Goelet estate from the Gross estate and was soon headquarters of the East Side Taxpayers’ Association—still stubbornly refusing to be gobbled up. By 1909 it was the clubhouse of the Irish-American Athletic Club which stayed on at least through 1913.

Eventually, however, the powerful store would get its way.  In 1902 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide noted that “Bloomingdale Brothers have purchased from Henry Silberborn No. 749 Lexington av., a 4-sty dwelling…They already own No. 751, adjoining, and Nos. 137 and 139 East 59^th St., which abuts the Lexington av. parcel…In addition to that previously mentioned they own all the property in the block, with the exception of Nos. 743 to 747 Lexington av…and Nos. 152 to 160 East 60^th st.”

One by one those holdout properties fell and in 1927 Bloomingdales purchased the last remaining property in the block, on Lexington Avenue.  Architects Starrett & Van Vleck received the commission to design the striking Art Deco addition that engulfs the Lexington Avenue blockfront.

While No. 160 was lost in the process, somehow its five 1869 neighbors survived—at least from the waist up.  A loading dock replaces the English basement and parlor levels; but a glance upward reveals the picturesque Victorian houses nearly untouched under a coat of paint.

Above the loading docks, carved out of the houses' former English basements and parlor floors, a cast metal sign announces the store's name.

photos by the author

An Improbable Survivor -- No. 11 East 11th St.

photo by Alice Lum

As the Fifth Avenue blocks just north of Washington Square developed, wealthy attorney and property owner George Wood joined the trend.   Henry Brevoort, Jr. had built his grand, free-standing Greek Revival mansion at the corner of 9^thStreet in 1834.  The avenue at the time was desolate, but the presence of the powerful and wealthy Breevorts would soon change that.

Within a decade the lower blocks of Fifth Avenue filled with the homes and churches of New York’s richest citizens.  George Wood built his mansion, No. 45, at the corner of East 11^th Street.  The attorney held vast amounts of real estate—including no fewer than 39 houses in Brooklyn, most along Sidney Place, State Street and Joralemon Street; vacant building lots and docks in Brooklyn; 340 acres in Minnesota; a 30-acre farm in Rye, New York; and land in Walde, Texas.

To accommodate his carriages and horses, Wood acquired the building lots stretching through the block from 11^th to 12^thStreets behind his mansion.  His “carriage house and stable” was set far back from East 11^th Street, possibly to relieve his fashionable neighbors of the unpleasant odors. 

The Wood family included five daughters—Catharine, Anna, Mary, Julia, Louisa—and two sons Frederick and George.   As the threat of civil war rumbled, George Wood would make his opinions on slavery vividly apparent.   W. M. Evarts diplomatically called him “a man who loved the Union and the whole Union.”  However his comments that the slaves were of an “inferior” race would bristle the ire of many.

In 1858, at the age of 69, Wood was afflicted with paralysis.  Two years later, at round 1:00 in the morning on Saturday March 17, 1860, he woke with a pain in his arm.  Mrs. Wood attempted to help by rubbing his arm; but he broke out in a cold sweat on his forehead and soon after died.  A century and a half later, the symptoms point to a heart attack.

Wood’s vast estate was divided among his children, now grown and married, and his wife.  She kept the Fifth Avenue mansion, “his plate and household furniture,” along with other property in Brooklyn.  Apparently well aware of the plights of many Victorian heiresses, the skilled attorney added in his will “The devises to his daughters are to be free from the control of their husbands.”

Wood’s funeral was held in the Fifth Avenue mansion, attended by the members of the bar who announced the “by the death of George Wood, the New-York Bar has been deprived of one of its most distinguished ornaments.”

When Wood’s widow left No. 45 Fifth Avenue is unclear; however the carriage house somehow became part of an shockingly unexpected scandal within seven years of Wood’s passing.  At 11:00 on the night of July 20, 1867 “Sergeant Haggerty, Roundsman Rae, and Officers Barker and Inman, of the Fifteenth Precinct, made a descent upon the disorderly house No. 11 East Eleventh-street,” according to The New York Times the following morning.

Somehow George Wood’s carriage house had been transformed into a brothel, squarely in the center of Manhattan’s most exclusive residential neighborhood.  Five women, aged 18 to 28, and two men, Marshall Allan, 21 and Robert Baer, 18, were arrested.  “The prisoners were all marched off to the Mercer-street Station-house and locked up for examination,” said the article.

Respectability came back to the little building when H. Van Rensselaer Kennedy moved into No. 45 Fifth Avenue.  His purchase of the house increased the Kennedy presence in the neighborhood, which was already substantial.   Robert L. Kennedy lived at No. 99, Rachel L. Kennedy at No. 41 and Mary L. Kennedy lived around the corner at No. 10 East 11^thStreet.

Change comes quickly to New York City neighborhoods and by World War I most of the lower Fifth Avenue mansions, including No. 45, were mere memories.  Around the corner on East 11^thStreet was the Hotel Van Rensselaer and on the corner of Fifth Avenue No. 43 was now an 11-story apartment building.  But sitting smugly between the two towering buildings George Wood’s carriage house with its deep grassy approach still clung on.  With the disappearance of horses as motorcars took over, the little two-story building had been converted to a garage.

David H. Nott who owned the hotel was rightfully concerned about the future of the little garage.  Were it to be leveled and a tall building erected, his hotel would lose air and light.  And so he bought it.

In July 1921 he hired architect C. F. Winkelman to convert the garage into a one-family dwelling, “forming an annex to the Hotel Van Rensselaer,” reported the New-York Tribune on July 28.  The architect estimated the renovations would cost about $10,000.

photo NYPL Collection

A year later, in its February 1922 issue, Popular Mechanicsmarveled at the concept.  “A novel extension of the Hotel Van Rensselaer, in New York City, is just being completed,” it announced.  “In order to protect the hotel’s light, the company decided to take over and improve this property by building a two-story seven-room house.  This house, of distinctive Moorish architecture, is set back 50 ft. from the sidewalk, with a picturesque formal garden, laid out with a flagstone walk and low brick walls in front of it.  Tucked away between its tall neighbors, it is almost lost to the view of the casual passer-by.”

Because Knott Realty Company owned both the “apartment hotel” at No. 43 Fifth Avenue and the Hotel Van Rensselaer, it had a vested interest In keeping the little house intact.  The New York Times made special note of the charming condition of the house on April 16, 1930.

Winkleman deftly transformed the carriage entrance and the hay loft opening into expansive windows -- photo by Alice Lum

The newspaper said it “has been famous for many years in the lower Fifth Avenue area as the only house in that locality with an ample front yard…The front yard is laid out with paths and a wide garden plot which is now being prepared for Summer flowers.  The yard is protected by a low wooden fence with a neat gate typically suggestive of a well-kept place in the country.  It is one of the very few small houses on Manhattan Island with a front garden plot.”

That same month William Simmons, “a steamship man,” leased the house; but it appears the deal fell through.  A month later stock broker Arthur L. Selig and his family were living here.  Selig was a member of the firm Perez F. Huff & Co., Inc. at No. 75 Maiden Lane.

Selig, his wife and daughter, settled in to the comfortable home.  “Mr. Selig was a familiar figure in the neighborhood,” noted The Times.  “His constant companion was an Irish terrier, which he took out for a walk on Fifth Avenue every evening.”

But the Great Depression, with its haunting images of stock brokers flinging themselves from office windows, visited the little house on East 11^th Street.  Family friends reported that Selig “worried over losses in the stock market” and only weeks after moving in, Selig committed suicide by shooting himself with a pistol.

The Times reported that “His body, clad in pajamas and a bathrobe, was found in his library…Mrs. Selig and her daughter discovered the body soon after they awakened yesterday morning.  It was slumped in an arm chair, the pistol grasped in his right hand.  The bullet had entered the right temple, passed through the head, and embedded itself in the library wall.”

The broker carefully planned his death, leaving a note for his wife containing information regarding his insurance and other pertinent details, ending with the words “My thoughts are all for you.”

The tragedy of Selig’s violent death shared the newspaper’s spotlight with its unusual setting.  The Times could not resist mentioning the quaint little residence.  “The house has been something of a curiosity to passers-by, for it is one of the few with a front garden in downtown Manhattan.  It was well kept, and during the Summer months, was always blooming with flowers.”

The original gates and posts (left) survive.  The low brick garden wall has been replaced with a more secure fence --photo by Alice Lum

In 1951 the Hotel Van Rensselaer, the apartment building at No. 43 Fifth Avenue, and the house at No. 11 East 11^th Street were sold to Samuel D. Bierman as a package. 

As the trio of buildings continued to survive with little change, a small Jewish congregation was formed in 1959, Congregation Etz Chaim, the “Tree of Life.”  As it gained its bearings, the fledgling congregation held services in the Fifth Avenue Hotel.

A year later Bierman was ready to dispose of his buildings “as part of a plan to reduce his holdings,” said The Times.  On October 30, 1960 Freedman & Melcer, Inc. purchased No. 43 Fifth Avenue for about $1 million.  Parenthetically, The Times noted “The purchases included a one-story dwelling on a lot 25 by 100 feet at 11 East Eleventh Street.  The house, now vacant, adjoins the apartment house.”

The house would not remain vacant for long.  Congregation Etz Chaim found a permanent home and renamed itself The Conservative Synagogue of Fifth Avenue.  Half a century later little has changed to C. F. Winkleman’s Mediterranean remake.  And, as was true in 1922, “tucked away between its tall neighbors, it is almost lost to the view of the casual passer-by.”

An Unexpected Survivor -- No. 337 East 41st Street

photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

In 1870, four years after the official end of the Civil War, New York City was returning to normal.  It would be another three years before the Financial Panic of 1873 brought real estate development to a near halt.  For now the land near the East River which only a few decades earlier had still been sprawling country estates was being developed with speculative housing and commercial buildings.

That year the East 41^st Street block between First and Second Avenues caught the eye of two developers.  In September 1870, five months after architect John Sexton filed plans for six Italianate rowhouses along the south side of the block, developer S. S. Stevens started work on the remainder—13 houses on the north side and six on the south.  Stevens commissioned the fledgling architectural firm of Hubert & Pirsson to design his 19 homes.  Like those of Sexton, they would be Italianate in style, three stories tall over high English basements.  Faced in brownstone, they were intended for middle class families.  The homes sat back from the property line, creating generous garden areas behind handsome Italianate iron fencing.

Completed in April 1871, No. 337 East 41^st Street was owned by S. J. Lazarus, who would have spent $10,000 for the new home--about $185,000 today.  He was affiliated with the Mack Brothers furniture store at No. 1029 Third Avenue.  But the home’s status as a single-family dwelling would be short-lived.

The house had a tin-covered roof and cast metal cornice -- photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

By the mid-1880s it was operated as a boarding house.  In 1884 Marie E. Flandran lived her while she earned her living teaching boys far downtown in Grammar School No. 20 on Chrystie Street.  On November 5, 1888 an advertisement in The Sun offered: “To Let—Third floor, three light rooms: private house; $16; furnished hall rooms $1, $1.25.”  The rent for the somewhat spacious third floor would equate to about $378 today.

That same year one of the residents of No. 337 was operating his mail-order business from home.  An advertisement in Leslie’s touted: “Dumon’s Hair Restorer “Entirely New Discovery” Perfectly healthful and will produce luxurious growth of hair by using from one to three bottles.  Put up neatly in half pint bottles, and forwarded to any address on receipt of One Dollar, or six bottles for $5.”

Within the decade the house was returned to a single family home.  Along with Dr. Abram G. Levy here was his wife and one of three daughters—two of them had already married.  Levy was born in Boston on May 5, 1818 and spent most of his youth in the South—in Texas and Louisiana.  Educated in New Orleans, he received a medical degree but chose instead to go into journalism.

In the 1850s he moved to New York State, editing a newspaper in Port Chester.  Later he moved to New York City where he was connected with the newspaper The Mail and Bag.  The highly-literate Levy spoke seven languages fluently.

In the spring of 1897 Dr. Levy contracted pneumonia and, according to The New York Times, “a complication of ailments developed.”  He died in the house on May 2, 1897.  Two days later, at 10:00 in the morning, his funeral was held in the parlor here.

In the years following the end of World War I the far East Side neighborhoods began seeing substantial change.  In 1920 Elisabeth Marbury hired architect Mott Schmidt to transform a Victorian rowhouse at No. 13 Sutton Place into a Georgian mansion—the first domino to drop in what would become one of Manhattan’s most exclusive residential enclaves.  Elsewhere in the area blocks of old houses were upgraded with new facades and modern apartment buildings replaced outmoded structures.  By 1925 the area around No. 337 East 41^stStreet was heavily industrial along the river.  The French  Company embarked on an early and ambitious urban renewal project on December 18, 1925—the largest housing project ever attempted in Midtown Manhattan.

Within one month the firm purchased more than 100 buildings that covered five acres, spending $7.5 million.  Before long the French Company owned nearly all of the property between East 40^th and 44^th Streets between First and Second Avenues—a sweeping area that did not include No. 337 East 41^st.

Construction on Fred F. French’s “human residential enclave” began in 1927.  He envisioned “tulip gardens, small golf courses, and private parks,” intended for the middle class.  Within five years nine large apartment houses and a hotel were completed—all designed in a charming Tudor Revival style.

While construction progressed, Alexis T. Wilstrup was living in the anachronistic brownstone at No. 337 East 41^st Street.   The 64-year old died in July 1930 having worked for The New York Times as a clerk for 23 years.

The fate of the stubborn survivor was in doubt on May 8, 1985 when real-estate moguls Harry B. Helmsley and Alvin Schwartz sold off their vast holdings in Tudor City.  Among the structures sold were six of the 13 large apartment buildings, two parks and No. 337 East 41^st Street.

Nestling against a large apartment building and abutting a park, the unlikely relic is a single family home again -- photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

Perhaps because of its relatively small footprint—allowing little option for development—the little house endured.  In 1990 it was converted to a single family residence once again.  Although the brownstone has been painted grey, the exterior is virtually untouched.  The Italianate fencing, the railings of the stoop and even the Victorian double entrance doors survive—the last remaining sliver of a time when this block of East 41^st Street bustled with middle-class families.