The Uneasy Marriage of Styles at No. 30 East 74th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In the first years after the end of the Civil War, before the arrival of the marble and limestone mansions of the city’s wealthiest citizens, developers lined the blocks off upper Fifth Avenue with rows of carbon-copy rowhouses.   Central Park, now nearing completion, was a selling point for the potential merchant class  homeowners.

Winters & Hunt were among the speculators transforming the rocky landscape into regimented blocks of homes.  In 1870 they commissioned brothers David and John Jardine to design a row of eleven Italianate brownstone-clad houses—Nos. 30 through 50 East 74^th Street.  The firm, D & J Jardine, was busy at the time designing similar groups of homes throughout the city.

This row, a block away from the park and just east of Madison Avenue, was not exceptional.  Four stories tall above high English basements, the houses shared the unremarkable architectural elements of hundreds of similar structures built around the same time.  One of them, however, would flex its individuality a few decades later.

Anchoring the western end of the row was No. 30.  By the 1890s it was being operated as a boarding house for upscale, respectable residents.   It was owned by the retired manufacturer and dealer of knit goods, Martin J. Weil.  The German-born immigrant had arrived in New York in 1852 at the age of 14.  Weil and his wife Malvina, had six children and the aging couple lived here with their boarders.

In 1895 The Chironian, a newsletter published by students of the New York Homoeopathic Medical College, announced that graduate Dr. H. Everett Russell had moved into the house along with his practice.   The well-heeled physician would live here through the turn of the century and his comings-and-goings during the summer social season would be noticed.  In 1902 The North American Journal of Homoeopathy reported that “Dr. H. Everett Russell, of 30 East 74^th Street, will be at Squirrel Inn, Haines Falls, NY from July 1 to September 25.”

Another boarder at the time was Miss Josephine E. Stone, a teacher in a nearby public school.

On October 7, 1901 Martin Weil died in the house at the age of 63.   Two months later, on December 11, Malvina sold the house.    Sometime before the house changed hands again, in 1905, Dr. Russell moved to the northeast corner of Bedford and Morton Streets in Greenwich Village.

The newest owner was George E. Marcus.  Marcus was a partner, with his father and brother, in the exclusive Marcus & Co. jewelers at No. 544 Fifth Avenue that The Sun deemed “a famous jewelry house.”  The newspaper noted that “His knowledge of art was used to great advantage in the business.”

Marcus & Co. created high-end items like this art nouveau wine cooler.

The days of taking in boarders were over.  Marcus moved into the house with his wife, Anna, and their son Herman (who would later be better known as Peter).  By now the neighborhood was one of high-end residences and modern mansions.   Wealthy homeowners often either razed their Victorian brownstones to replace them with more stylish residences; or simply remodeled them to reflect the current architectural fashions.

On September 8, 1906 The Sun reported that Marcus had filed plans for “a two story bay extension in the colonial style for the four story residence…at No. 30 East Seventy-fourth street.”  The newspaper noted that the cost would be $5,000—about $95,000 today.

Marcus hired architect George A. Glanzer to design the addition which in no way could be described as “colonial.”   Unlike most renovations in the neighborhood which obliterated the old brownstone facades; Glanzer left the top two stories untouched.  He lowered the stoop and disguised the first two floors with a neo-Gothic addition.  Red brick laid in Flemish bond was trimmed with brownstone quoins, carved eyebrows terminating in gruesome faces, and bandcourses.  Apparently both the Marcuses and their architect hoped no one passing by would look up.

Brownstone quoins and trim accented the red Flemish bond brick, creating a charming update -- photo by Alice Lum

The Marcus family summered at the fashionable cottage community at Moose Head Lake, Maine and entertained through the winter season in the 74^th Street house.  In April 1909 Herman’s engagement to Francesca Steele Butler of Washington D.C. was announced.  Soon George and Anna would be alone in the house with their staff of servants.

In 1911 the Marcuses completed another renovation when they added the picturesque second floor oriel with its intricately-designed multi-paned windows and quatrefoil-carved brownstone panels.  The artistic addition greatly improved the visual appeal of the house—although the starkly incompatible upper floors continued to be the house’s sore thumb.

The delightful oriel window was a second thought.  The original Victorian facade looks down from above.  -- photo by Alice Lum

The summer of 1914 was a particularly satisfying one for George.   On August 2 The Sun reported on the goings-on at Moose Head Lake saying, “Golf matches, power boat racing and dancing have surpassed all other interests here and the large influx of new arrivals has made this the liveliest week of the summer.  Each evening the Mount Kineo is gay with the younger set who dance, while the dansant at the Moose Head Lake Yacht Club has given an attractive feature to the summer life.

“To George E. Marcus of New York belongs the honor of breaking the amateur 18 hole record for the Kineo links, a seventy-five made in a medal play competition.  A crowd watched the hardest struggle ever seen in match play on these Northern links.”

The summer resort where he enjoyed his golfing triumph would become the scene of his death three years later.   George went to Moose Head Lake alone “for a short vacation” on Saturday July 28.   Three days later he decided to take a swim in the lake.  “It is supposed that while swimming he was seized with an attack of heart trouble and drowned before help could reach him,” reported The Sun on August 3.

Violent storms that rolled in later that day took down the telegraph lines, so the family could not be informed of the tragedy until two days later.   At 9:00 in the morning on August 3 Marcus’s body arrived in New York by train and his funeral was held that afternoon at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church.  His obituary reflected Herman’s name change, “he is survived by his wife, who was Miss Anna R. Hand, and one son, Peter.”

Somewhat fearsome faces flank the entrance and parlor window -- photo by Alice Lum

Anna left the 74^th Street house, leasing it with all her artwork and furnishings for the winter season to Henry R. McLane, of Millbrook, New York.  She would continue leasing the residence, and the following year Mrs. Warren Kinney used it for the season.

Before long son Peter Marcus lived in the house.   An established artist, while here he endeavored to execute a series of paintings of Manhattan buildings which he brought together in a book titled New York The Nation’s Metropolis.   In its introduction J. Monroe Hewlett, the President of the Architectural League of New York, said “Peter Marcus is a painter not an architect, but he is also a designer experienced in the goldsmith’s craft and there is evident in these charcoal studies a pleasure in the delineation of the tracery of bridge cables and trusses, derricks, scaffolding and electric signs, that in contrast with his broad and greatly simplified expressions of architectural form and detail, adds vastly to the eloquence of his work.”

The year that the book was published, in 1921, Peter moved to Stonington, Connecticut where he died of a heart attacked on June 8, 1934 at just 44 years old.

On January 18, 1923 banker S. Barton Chapin purchased the Marcus home for $61,500.  He quickly turned a profit on the property, selling it in November for $70,000 to Colonel Lloyd C. Griscom “for occupancy,” according to The New York Times.

Griscom came to East 74^th Street with a broad and impressive political background.  He had served as Secretary of the United States Legation at Constantinople at the turn of the century; held the posts of American Ambassador to Italy, Minister to Persia, Japan, and Brazil, and in 1910 was the President of the New York County Republican Committee.  In 1919 he was made Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George at Buckingham Palace by King George for his service in World War I as liaison officer on the staff of General Pershing.  His far-flung interests by now included publishing several Nassau County Long Island weekly newspapers, studying painting with John Singer Sargent, and within a few years he would collaborate with John McGowan on a play, Tenth Avenue.

On September 17, 1929 the widowed 56-year old announced his engagement to Audrey Margaret Elizabeth Crosse, daughter of Marlborough Crosse of Southsea, England.  The wedding took place on October 3 at Marston Trussell Hall, Leicestershire.

photo by Alice Lum

In 1932 the Griscoms built a spectacular country home in Syosset, Long Island called Huntover Lodge, on a 54-acre estate.  When the house was completed they left East 74^th Street for good.  In 1938, the year that Huntover Lodge including Georgian paneling and rare prints and manuscripts burned to the ground, Mrs. Grace T. Lapham leased the house on East 74th Street.

In March 1950 the Harab Realty Corporation purchased No. 30 East 74^th Street and two months later announced plans for altering it into apartments.  Before the end of the year there were eight apartments in the building as well as an office.

photo by Alice Lum

Today the basement level office is a retail store and there are still two apartments per floor above.  The Marcus’s neo-Gothic addition remains an especially charming addition to the block; yet one still has to wonder why they stopped at the second floor.

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

The Lost Lenox Mansion -- No. 53 5th Avenue

Henrietta Lenox's house (left) was a smaller version of her brother's massive corner mansion --photo by Wurtz Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHQBFEB&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHQBFEB&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894&PN=2

Born in 1759 in Kirkcubright, Scotland, Robert Lenox arrived in New York City at the end of the Revolutionary War.  In 1783 he married Rachel Carmer and the couple had six children—only one of which was a son.   Lenox amassed a comfortable fortune in the East India trade and in 1818 paid $6,920 for thirty acres of land far to the north of the city where wealthy New Yorkers still maintained large summer estates.   Called the Lenox Farm throughout the 19^th century, it would eventually be known as the Lenox Hill neighborhood of the Upper East Side.

The nearly $7,000 that Lenox paid was a staggering amount and Lenox knew he had overpaid for the land.  But he also predicted the eventual value of the property as the growing city spread northward.  In his will dated May 23, 1829, he cautioned his son to hold on to the potentially-profitable land.

“I give, device, and bequeath to my son, my only son, James Lenox, ‘My Farm at the Five-Mile Stone,’ purchased in part from the Corporation of the City of New York, and containing about thirty acres, with all its improvements, stock of horses, cattle, and farming utensils, for and during the term of his life, and after his death to his heirs forever.  My motive for so leaving this property is a firm persuasion that it may at no distant day be the site of a village, and as it cost me more than its present worth, from circumstances known to my family, I like to cherish the belief it may be realized to them.  At all events, I want the experiment made by keeping the property from being sold.”

Upon his father’s death in 1839, James Lenox became one of the wealthiest men in the city.  At 39 years old, he took over the family business for six years, then retired in 1845 to concentrate on his true love—collecting and studying.

Almost immediately following his father’s death, Lenox began construction of a pair of impressive mansions at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 12^th Street.    Development of Fifth Avenue had begun only a few years earlier when Henry Brevoort completed his handsome brownstone mansion in 1834.  The Lenox mansions would diminish the Brevoort house.

The paired homes stretched 131 feet up the avenue—the width of at least four normal-sized building lots—and 150 feet along 12^thStreet.   James would live in the massive corner house, his sister Henrietta in the significantly smaller—albeit expansive—adjoining mansion.   The brownstone structures were designed in the currently-popular Gothic Revival style; taking the motif to the point of romantic crenellation along the roofline.  Ornate Gothic-style iron fencing enclosed the surrounding yards.

Lenox’s influence led to the immediate Fifth Avenue neighborhood's becoming a family enclave.  The blocks around Henrietta’s and James’ mansions filled with the lavish homes of the Maitlands, Kennedys and Banks families—all related by marriage to the Lenoxes.

Before his mansion was completed Lenox had already begun his collecting.    He traveled throughout Europe amassing a broad variety of books, artwork and artifacts.   But he became increasingly private, filling his house with his collection and neurotically guarding his treasures against the outside world.  In 1845 he began a long-lasting relationship with Englishman Henry Stevens who would act as Lenox’s book purchasing agent.  It was not until 1847 that the two would meet and Stevens remembered that visit well.

In his 1886 “Recollections of Mr. James Lenox of New York,” Stevens told of arriving in New York and sending a message to Lenox that he “would be glad to see him at any time and place most convenient to himself.”    A boy returned with a one-line reply “To-morrow morning at nine o’clock at my house.”

Stevens’ acquaintances were excited that someone was being given access to the mansion.  “Now we shall hear and know something of Mr. Lenox, his library, and new house,” they told him. 

“The next morning, on the stroke of nine, I mounted the broad stone steps and rang the bell.  A maiden servant opened the door on the chain six or eight inches, and asked, ‘Are you Mr. Stevens?’ ‘Yes.’ 'Mr. Lenox is in his office below; you can enter by the door under the steps.’  Down I went and again rang a bell, when Mr. Lenox himself unlocked a door and an iron gate and gave me a warm welcome.”

Stevens was shown the magnificent two-story Gothic library, the gallery “and a room or two besides the hall, and many closed doors.”   Stevens said “I came to the conclusion that the treasures of his mind, as a matter of habit, like his front door, always ‘had the chain up.’”

Even after the pair had established a close relationship Lenox remained detached.  On November 25, 1868 he wrote to Stevens offering a 15-minute window in which to meet.

“My Dear Sir,  I have received your letter of the 24^th from Ithaca.  I will be at home on Friday morning from ¼ past to ½ past 9.  Should the holiday of tomorrow prevent you getting this note in time, I will be at home at the same time on Saturday, and if you are not here by ½ past 9 on Friday, I will expect you on Saturday.  Yrs. very truly,  J. Lenox”

Henry Stevens was one of the few outsiders to glimpse James Lenox’s growing collection.   Scholars and bibliophiles tried, but were almost always rebuffed.  A distinguished clergyman from Brooklyn had a strong desire to see the library.  He arrived at the Lenox mansion and passed his card through the cracked door.  The Sun reported “He was left standing outside the door until the aged servant had gone with great deliberation for an answer, which was in effect: ‘Mr. Lenox don’t know you, has never heard of you, and you can’t see his library.’”

Another time Chief Justice Daly wished to see a particular book, of which there was only one copy in the country—in Lenox’s library.  He sent a note to Lenox and, as recorded in The Sun, “The book was sent, but a servant was sent with it, with orders to wait until the Judge got through with the book, and then to bring it back.”

Lenox’s collection went far beyond his library, which contained the first copy of a Guttenberg Bible in America, all the known editions of Milton’s “Areopagitica” and “Paradise Lost,” and first editions of Shakespeare’s plays.  His walls were hung with uncounted numbers of oil paintings, sketches and etchings.  In 1848 Lenox outbid the Congress Library for George Washington’s Farewell Address.  He paid $2,200 for the manuscript (about $50,000 today) and considered it one of his greatest treasures.

James Lenox -- NYPL Collection

In the meantime, while Henry Stevens was scouring the world for rare books and Lenox was amassing an enormous art collection, the millionaire spent freely on philanthropic causes.  A pious Presbyterian, he was famous for his devout morality and willingness to spread his wealth to worthwhile causes.   While he held on to the Lenox Farm as his father wished, he donated parts of it for the establishment of the Presbyterian Hospital and the Presbyterian Home for Aged Women.  

His charity included the not-so-grand, as well.  On June 19, 1865 he sent a letter to Colonel Vincent Colyer that read, “Dear Sir:  I enclose a check to your order for $250, which you will please apply to the purchase of ice, fruit, etc., for the returning soldiers.  Yours very truly, J. Lenox”

Family members urged him to name the hospital for which he paid "The Lenox Hospital," but he steadfastly refused.  He eschewed notoriety as passionately as some millionaires sought it.  And although he gained the reputation of a recluse, he was social among his small circle of intimate friends, most of whom were relatives.

On January 24, 1870 the New-York Tribune wrote “For many years past, scholars have known of the existence in this city of a private library and gallery of marvelous value, comprising collections of unequaled importance in several departments of literature, and containing treasures of art whose worth could not be computed by dollars, or compared with any that existed elsewhere in the country…As [Lenox] possessed the habits of a recluse with the tastes of a scholar, there were but few even of his more intimate acquaintances in scholarship who ever had had anything like a full comprehension of the value of his collections, and it is doubtful whether anybody but himself could make a catalogue of his library, or give a statement of his treasures…During the long period of their collection, the owner has guarded them with a jealousy and rigor which have effectually discouraged all attempts of outsiders to enter the sacred precincts.”

But now, the newspaper announced, James Lenox had decided to make a “gift to the people of this city.”   The collection had successfully overwhelmed the Fifth Avenue mansion and now, Lenox felt, was the time to make it public.  He donated Lenox Farm land, the blockfront on Fifth Avenue from 70th to 71st Street for a library, along with $300,000—two-thirds of which was to be spent on erecting the building and the remainder to defray the expense of maintaining and operating the library.

The Lenox Library, designed by Richard Morris Hunt, was as much museum as library; housing Assyrian antiquities and paintings by Constable, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Turner and Raeburn alongside American works by Frederick Church, Cole, Morse, Copley and Inman.

On February 17, 1880 James Lenox died in the brownstone mansion on Fifth Avenue.  The Sun reported that "He was in excellent health up to the last two months of his life.  From that time he began to succumb to the infirmities of age.  His death was peaceful and painless.”

The private man in life remained private in death.  “He shrank so much from notoriety that he left rigid instructions to his relatives and friends to withhold all information of his life from publication.  This wish was thoroughly respected, so that applications made last evening to his relatives, his pastor, Dr. Paxton; his physician, Dr. W. H. Draper; his former associate, Royal Phelps, and others who knew him intimately, elicited the universal reply, ‘Mr. Lenox shunned publicity, and he has sealed our lips.’”

photograph "Old Buildlings of New York City," 1907 (copyright expired)

The funeral took place in the mansion at noon on February 21 during a raging snowstorm.  The New York Times reported “The last request of the late James Lenox—that his funeral should be strictly private, attended only by his relatives and most intimate friends—was so carefully respected that less than a score and a half of persons were gathered in the plain, old-fashioned brown-stone dwelling at Fifth-avenue and Twelfth-street.”  Only two of the mourners, his doctor and his pastor, were not relatives.

There were no flowers in the house and the simple mahogany casket was ornamented only with a silver plate inscribed “James Lenox. Born 19 August, 1800.  Died 17 February, 1880.”

The funeral party followed the coffin from the house at 1:00.  The Tribune noted “The funeral procession, in which there were only eight carriages, attracted little notice as it slowly moved in a  blinding snow-storm through Twelfth-st. to Second-ave. and thence to the Marble Cemetery, in Second-st., where the remains were placed in the family vault, No. 124, the table of which is inscribed with the name of Robert Lenox.  The storm still raged as the little party of twelve gentlemen and five ladies stood gathered around the vault when Dr. Paxton pronounced the benediction.”

The bachelor millionaire left nearly his entire estate to his unmarried sister Henrietta.  By the time of his death he had donated over $3 million to charitable causes.   His massive mansion would sit vacant until Henrietta’s death six years later on July 6, 1886.  Her immense estate, valued at around $10 million, was divided among the many relatives.

The Lenox mansion became the property of the Presbyterian church and became known as the Presbyterian House.  It was here in December 1888 that a conference between Northern and Southern Presbyterians was held in an attempt to bring “about co-operation and possibly an organic union.”

Before long the house was used for the church’s missionary offices.  Called Mission House, various committees and groups used its rooms.  In July 1892 scores of visiting members of the Presbyterian Christian Endeavorers visited the facilities.  The Timesreported that “they filled the sidewalk on the east side of Fifth Avenue from Madison Square to Twelfth Street…The representatives of the two boards took charge of the visitors and showed them the building and all that it contained.  There was the library, with all its curios, maps, and attractive objects picked up by observant Presbyterian missionaries in all parts of the world, and here placed to make a really valuable museum.”

In 1894, after receiving a large bequest from a wealthy church member, the Presbyterian Church erected the large Presbyterian Building at No. 156 Fifth Avenue.  The former Lenox mansion was now somewhat of a white elephant.  After three years of arguing, the General Assembly decided to sell the house in 1897.

“When the Lenox mansion, at 53 Fifth Avenue, was sold there were fears that this fine type of the spacious old-time New York residence would be torn down to make way for a modern structure,” said The New York Times.  But it was purchased by nearby Fifth Avenue resident Thomas Fortune Ryan for the expressed purpose of preserving the neighborhood. 

The house with its nearly twenty rooms had old Italian marble fireplaces, spacious entry hall and staircase and frescoed ceilings.  But it was in a serious state of disrepair by 1905 when the newly-formed Institute of Musical Art moved in.   It cost the school $11,000 in repairs.

The new organization which would eventually become the Julliard School attracted promising musicians from around the nation.   32-year old John G. McFadden came here in November 1906 from Oberlin, Ohio, where he had worked his way through college, focusing on vocal music.  He entered a class taught by Prof. W. Klamroth and showed great talent; but suddenly developed a catarrhal infection that threatened his prospects of becoming a singer.

Klamroth sent him to Dr. Percy E. D. Malcolm, who saw the young man once a month.  McFadden refused to become a charity case so he scrimped on food in order to save money for his doctor bills.  “He had grown thinner and thinner, his hair had turned to a grizzly gray, and Dr. Malcolm warned him more than once that he was not nurturing his body properly,” reported The New York Times.

The doctor found the singer “on the verge of collapse in a chair in his office” in April 1907 and sent him to the New York Hospital where he died.  The Times ran the headline “Young Musician Starves” and wrote “The poorly nurtured body could not stand the strain and early yesterday he succumbed.  He had been eating, it is said, in the cheapest restaurants, with great infrequency, and depending on the scanty meals that he had in his cold hall bedroom.”

The Institute rented space to other organizations, the U.S. Aeronautical Reserve and the Washington Square Association among them.  Then in 1910 it laid the cornerstone for a new, modern facility uptown.

With the school gone Thomas Ryan gave up.  “Mr. Ryan paid about $385,000 for the property,” said The Times on April 2, 1911, “and he bought other property in the neighborhood in an effort to prevent the encroachments of business.  A little over a year ago Mr. Ryan felt that lower Fifth Avenue was doomed to become a commercial section, and he bought his new Fifth Avenue house, adjoining George Gould’s home at Sixty-seventh Street. 

“On the site of the old Lenox mansion will be erected an eighteen-story business structure costing more than $1,500,000.”

photograph taken by the author

The modern office building, designed by Maynicke & Franke, survives today and its footprint reveals the massive scale of the Lenox mansions that dominated the corner.

The Church of the Covenant -- 310 E. 42d Street

photo by Alice Lum

When the six-year old Presbyterian Church of the Covenant began plans for a “country chapel” and parish house in 1871 it did not have far to look for an architect.  Josiah Cleaveland Cady had formed the architectural partnership of Cady, Berg & See the previous year.  He was also among a group of church members who had earlier established a mission Sunday school above a stable on East 40^th Street.

The original church, on Fourth Avenue, was designed by Renwick -- photo NYPL Collection

Now the church had decided to establish the Sunday school along with a chapel and parish house seven blocks north at No. 310 East 42^ndStreet.   The New York Times later reported “The church grew so rapidly and extended its mission work over such an area that it was found necessary to erect a mission chapel.  A plot of ground was purchased on East Forty-second Street, near Second Avenue, and here was built what has since been called the Covenant Chapel.”

Cady designed a charming Victorian Gothic structure of brown-red brick trimmed in limestone.  Quaint gables, diamond-paned windows and a slate tiled roof melded into a picturesque structure in the still-developing neighborhood.

photo by Alice Lum

The northward growth of the city that instigated the new chapel would, before long, cause the closing of the Church of the Covenant.  On December 17, 1894 The New York Times reported “Being inadequate to the needs of the congregation, the mother church, on Park Avenue, was torn down some time ago, and its congregation will now worship in the chapel, to which has been transferred the title Church of the  Covenant.”  Special services were held the evening before commemorating the original church cornerstone and a memorial tablet to William Curtis Noyes which were installed in the former chapel.

The Victorian Gothic interior included elaborate pierced fretwork -- http://covenantnyc.org/church_life.html

In the summer of 1897 Sunday school teacher Mrs. Ann Jacques initiated a series of ten-day outings in the country for young boys of the congregation.  She took groups of the boys to Nyack, New York, where they could get away from the crowded city and enjoy the fresh air.  The problem was that she failed to notify the boys’ parents.

The mother of Joseph McCormack rushed to the 67^thStreet police station in June saying that a “woman in black” had kidnapped her son.   After some investigation, Detectives Keating and McDonald discovered the woman in black was Ann Jacques. 

The Times explained “She went to the McCormacks and asked Joseph’s 14-year-old sister, Nellie if the boy wouldn’t like to go away.  Nellie let the boy go.  She couldn’t explain the matter to her mother, who reported to the police that the boy had been kidnapped.”  The newspaper added “Half a dozen other east-side boys are said to be likewise ‘missing’ and at Nyack.”

photo by Alice Lum

Sunday services in the Church of the Covenant were normally subdued.  But such was not the case on April 3, 1898.  On that evening services “were rudely interrupted by a sneak thief,” according to The New York Times.

Church member Joseph Miller arrived late and slipped into a rear pew.  He casually tossed his overcoat over the back of the pew and turned his attention to the service.  Earlier the sexton, Benjamin F. Davis, had noticed two young men enter the church.  His suspicions were raised when the men loitered about in the rear, without taking a seat.  Davis watched the men distrustfully.  His caution was warranted.

“As soon as Miller had become interested one of these young men seized his coat and was about to make off with it when Davis grabbed him,” reported The Times.  “There was a lively tussle in the rear of the church, several members going to the assistance of the sexton.”

When Police Officer Widder arrived Davis was still holding 21-year old William Reilly.  Unfortunately, according to the newspaper, “his confederate got away.”

As the years passed, the neighborhood around the Church of the Covenant gradually changed.  Tenements, a power plant and slaughterhouses filled the surrounding blocks.   Then in the 1920s real estate developer Fred F. French changed all that.  He built his quixotic Tudor City on the three square blocks between East 40^th to East 43^rd Streets, from First Avenue to Second.

The first residential high-rise complex in the world, the buildings reflected old English architectural styles—neo Gothic, Tudor revival, and Jacobethan.  Despite their height, the quaint design of the structures created an Old World atmosphere. 

When the Church of the Covenant (by now affiliated with the Brick Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue) laid plans for replacing its outdated parish house, it turned to Tudor City for inspiration.  On December 1, 1926 a meeting of congregants was held during which the planned $30,000 parish house was announced.

The Tudor-inspired Parish House melded nicely with the Gothic church -- photo by Alice Lum

The new parish house was completed the following year.  Its Tudor-inspired design with diamond-paned windows, half timbering and creative brickwork was surprisingly harmonious with the Gothic church.

In 1933 Adolph Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and his racist pronouncements raised the ire of Rev. Howard V. Yergin of the Church of the Covenant.  On April 29, 1934 Yergin denounced Hitler from the pulpit.  In what was no doubt a controversial sermon, he also attributed the blame for religious racism to Jews and Christians alike.

“I am, frankly, about as much irritated by certain leaders of the Jewish race in America as I am by Hitler,” he said.  “Both proceed on the same assumption—that the Jews are a race apart, with special attributes, either of good or evil.  I refuse to accept the contention that the Jews are now the chosen people of God, whatever they may have been at one time.  To believe that in the year 1934 any one race is chosen of God is to do violence to every concept I have of a God who is God of all the earth and of every race and individual therein.”

The Christians were not off the hook either.  “If, therefore I call upon every Christian to cease looking upon Jews just as Jews and therefore to eschew Ku Klux Klans and so forth, so also I call upon those of the Jewish race and religion to cease thinking of themselves as a people set apart and thereby entitled to special consideration.”

The following year the Church of the Covenant was the scene of a grisly accident.  Herman R. Voigtlander was a 52-year old hosiery manufacturer who lived in a one-room apartment in the Tudor City Woodstock Tower building.  Around 10:00 on the night of October 14, 1935 church sexton Max Grandel heard a crash and called police.

The responding officers discovered the pajama-clad body of Voigtlander on the roof of the church.  Detectives found that his bed had been slept in and surmised that he lost his balance while opening the casement window, falling to his death on the church roof.  

The lowered street level necessitated a new stone base, staircase and relocated entry -- Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress

In 1950 the city graded 42^nd Street, lowering it several feet.   The change necessitated a granite and limestone base and a flight of steps from the new sidewalk level.  The entry doors were repositioned at the time.

J. Cleaveland Cady’s delightful Church of the Covenant continues as a vigorous presence in the Tudor City neighborhood.