Queen Anne Sisters at Nos. 251-255 W. 70th Street

In the last two decades of the 19^th century, developers on the Upper West Side grabbed up long rows of property and erected speculative rowhouses.  Quite often their architects created enclaves of harmonious structures that flowed together almost as a unit—each standing on its own merit; but architecturally similar to its neighbors.  In 1885 architect W. H. W. Youngs would go a step further.

Developer E. Stanton Riker commissioned Youngs to design three rowhouses on West 70^th Street, Nos. 251 through 255.  The playful Queen Anne style had caught on among those daring enough to step out of the more formal residential box; and Youngs turned to this style for the houses.  His design resulted in the three residences pretending to be one grand home.

Completed in 1886 the brick, brownstone and terra cotta houses rather surprisingly rejected the asymmetry associated with Queen Anne.  Youngs liberally splashed Romanesque Revival into the design in the form of hefty arches at the parlor floor (including the great span that served as the entrance for No. 253) and a gaping arch below the central, terra cotta-filled gable.  He successfully created the illusion of a single, imposing mansion.

The three houses became home to upscale, respectable families.  By 1895 when Michael Giblin sold No. 251 to John Noble Golding, the Rev. Claudius M. Roome and his wife lived next door and Harvard graduate John O. Powers lived in No. 255.

John Noble Golding was a highly respected real estate broker with an office at No. 9 Pine Street far downtown.  Educated at Trinity School, he was a member of the Lawyers’, Army and Navy, Colonial, New York Yacht and the New York Athletic Clubs.  Golding was also a member of the American Geographical and Numismatic Societies.

Not only was Golding responsible for massive real estate deals like the Equitable Company’s purchase of its Nassau and Liberty Street site; the sale of the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue for $125 million, and the New York Yacht Club’s property; he sold sites to some of Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens for their mansions.  Included in his client list were Edward Berwin, Charles T. Yerkes, Howard Gould, Stuyvesant Fish, Perry Belmont, George Baker, Joseph Pulitzer and Thoams F. Ryan to name just a few.

As was the case with all the wives of moneyed businessmen, Mabel Golding busied herself with charities.  One of her favorites was the House of Refuge for Women, at Hudson, New York.  The children of these impoverished women were often overlooked and in 1898 Mabel sent off eight bibs, books, wagons and other toys to the House of Refuge.

The year before her donation, Claudius M. Roome, living next door, had been appointed the new curate of Christ Church, then standing at the corner of the Boulevard (later renamed Broadway) and 71^stStreet.  Born into a prominent old Dutch family, he graduated from Columbia College and Columbia Law School.  Having practiced law for a few years, he gave it up to enter the General Theological Seminary.

Roome’s father had been an important businessman and it was most likely the family's wealth rather than his church salary that enabled him to live in the upscale home.

The outwardly-serene home life of the Goldings, with their daughter Mabel, was shattered in 1904 when John Golding moved out.  Finally, in 1910, Mabel filed a separation suit to ensure her financial survival.  The New-York Tribune published the scandalous headline “Wife Sues J. N. Golding.  Manager of Astor Estate Defendant in Separation Suit.”

Millionaire real estate man John N. Golding would tire of his wife.  The Successful American, January 1903 (copyright expired)

Unexpectedly at the time, the title of the 70^thStreet home was in John’s name, not his wife’s.  Mabel, with no legal expectations of income, testified that John Golding had $3 million in real and personal property.  The terms of the separation required him to convey the title to Mable and to continue paying off the $15,000 mortgage.

The unsuspecting Mabel Golding was no doubt shocked and humiliated when, in 1918, the house was sold at auction for $14,000—less than the mortgage which her husband had decided not to pay.  She took her husband to court again, suing for the $15,000 (about $220,000 today).

Her millionaire husband apparently came through and Mabel and her daughter retained possession of the house.  She would remain in the house another two years before selling it in April 1920.  Although the new owner, Taylor Holmes, promised he “would occupy,” he resold it a month later.

Hiding under the vines that crawl up the facade, the pressed metal bay can be seen in autumn.  http://www.luxurynewyorkcondominium.com/condo/251-west-70th-street-new-york

By now Rev. Roome had moved on and F. K. Kraetzer, Jr. owned No. 253.  Mrs. R. A. Du Foureq was leasing it at the time that Mabel Golding moved away.  A year earlier No. 255 had fallen victim to a trend that was sweeping over the Upper West Side.  In 1919 real estate operators Houghton Company announced that the house was “being altered into small suites.”

That year The Cornell Alumni News reported that Ensign William F. Tufts had been released from active service in the Naval Reserve and “is now with the McCandless plant of the Westinghouse Lamp Company.”  He was among the first tenants in the newly-converted house.   Another resident held a related job.  M. H. Naigles, XV worked in the installation department of Western Electric Co. “on the automatic phones.”

Nos. 251 and 253 held out as single family homes for a few more years.  In 1937 the former Golding house was home to Mr. and Mrs. Frank Seitz.  The couple had met a colorful acquaintance through a mutual friend around 1930.  Mrs. Muriel Du Pont Bergman told them she was the illegitimate daughter of Delaware Senator T. Coleman Du Pont. 

Now, following the senator’s death, Mrs. Bergman appeared with a letter showing that she had inherited about $40 million from the estate.  Happy and excited, she asked the Seitz couple if they would loan her $15,000.  If so, she would generously repay them with $1 million from the inheritance.

The couple turned over their entire life’s savings to Muriel Bergman.  On August 28, 1937 the 50-year old con artist was arrested in Portland, Oregon on charges of forging the inheritance letter.

Two years later the Seitzes were gone and the house was sold at auction.  It was won by Gus Trachtenburg for $5,700—a fraction of the $17,000 assessed value.  It was converted in 1941 to two apartments in the basement, three furnished rooms on the first floor, and four furnished rooms on each floor above.  In 1945 No. 253 was divided into apartments; two per floor except the third floor which had four furnished rooms.

At least one relic of Mabel Golding's house survives.  http://olshan.com/property.php?id=6557

By the 21^st century Youngs’s brilliant design had been viciously abused.  Only a few of the stained glass panels survive, a regrettable picture window was installed on the third floor of No. 255, and the stoops of the end houses were removed.  Nos. 251 and 253, still apartment buildings, were joined internally in 1978.

Despite it all, W. H. W. Youngs’s arresting triple residence still manages to catch the eye.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

Henderson Place: Homes "For Persons of Moderate Means"

John C. Henderson was a successful businessman in 1880, having made his fortune in the hat, fur,“straw goods” and other businesses. As the neighborhood known as Yorkville began developing he saw an opportunity to increase that fortune.

Yorkville was established in the first half of the 19th Century by German immigrants, later joined by a substantial Hungarian population. Approximately five miles north of the city, it was surrounded in the pre-Civil War period by sprawling, bucolic country estates of wealthy New Yorkers like John Jacob Astor and Archibald Gracie.

By the second half of the century the area was becoming increasingly developed as families sought to escape the congested city. In response, Henderson purchased approximately one half acre of land between 86th Street and 87th Street at East End Avenue where he planned a quaint, dead-end street lined with uniform homes “for persons of moderate means.”

He commissioned the firm of Lamb & Rich to design his houses -- thirty-two in all -- that would comprise a charming mini-village. Completed in 1882, the architects produced two rows of Queen Anne houses of red brick and terra cotta that romantically mix architectural bits of Elizabethan, Flemish and classic styles. Turrets and gables, towers and arches blend to create the feel of a unified, storybook enclave. While each house shares similar details, like the fish-scale slate mansard roofs with dormers; each is distinctly individual.

The houses sat back from the sidewalk just enough to permit tiny yards for shrubs and flowers.

Despite The Real Estate Record & Guide's assertion that the little dead-end street would give residents "the disagreeable feeling of living in what the French call a bag's end," Henderson’s speculative project was a success.  His modest three-story houses were quickly sold or rented (yearly rent being about $650). The quaint charm of Henderson Place, however, soon caused his plan to backfire.  The homes which he intended for families of “modest means” attractived those of far higher incomes.

By the middle of the 20th Century well-to-do families populated Henderson Place. Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Morse Lane lived at No. 6 in 1958 when their daughter, Pamela, made her social debut; while Mr. and Mrs. John Drayton Depew made their home at No. 16 in addition to a home in Rye, New York. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne lived here, as did the Duchesse de Richelieu and renowned educator and early feminist, Mrs. Millicent McIntosh.


Tragically, eight of the houses were razed in the 1940s to make way for a high rise apartment building. The surviving 24, however, are amazingly intact with very little alteration and an astounding state of preservation and maintenance.

One of the most charming hidden corners of Manhattan, Henderson Place was designated a New York City Landmark in 1969. At that time the New York City Landmarks Commission called the street “an exceptionally attractive group of houses with individual front yard plantings and trees” and “they have remarkable charm and dignity for houses which were built for ‘persons of moderate means.’”

The Helena Flint House -- No. 109 East 39th Street

In 1879 the East 39^th Street block between Park and Lexington Avenues was lined with brownstone-fronted homes erected within the past 15 years.   The Cuyler family lived in No. 109 and that year young Charles Vanderpool Cuyler was attending the New York City College.  While the Cuyler house was not especially old, it would not survive many more years.

In 1886 the wealthy and unmarried Helena Flint purchased the commodious 25-foot wide property and had the brownstone razed.  The Italianate style that had essentially defined residential New York City architecture for years was quickly falling from favor.  Helena Flint commissioned Henry F. Kilburn to design a modern residence on the cutting edge of fashion.

The fanciful Queen Anne style had made its appearance in New York only a few years earlier.  Its asymmetry, mixed materials, and playful toying with historically-inspired elements were in stark contrast to the formality of previous residential designs.  Seen more often in suburban homes—with cone-capped, wrap-around porches and whimsical balconies—the style presented a challenge to urban architects.

Kilburn presented Helena Flint with a four-story brick and brownstone house above an English basement.  Directly above the entrance, a carved stone oriel gently curved away from the façade.  Handsome carvings like the frightening stone lions heads with gaping mouths that flanked the third floor cornice; the Aesthetic-style floral panels separating the grouped fourth-floor openings; and the frightening face that made up the gable medallion added to the visual interest.  On either side of the steep gable were charming miniature dormers with copper conical caps.

Whimsical carvings and pointed fairy-land type dormers add to the charm.

Exactly why Helena Flint decided to erect her New York City mansion is unclear.  Her father, Thomas J. S. Flint, was a prominent Chicago grain merchant.  The enterprising millionaire then founded the Larchmont Manor Company, the purpose of which was “developing the [Manor Park and Larchmont Village, New York area] into a suburban community.”   The result was Manor Park, a charming planned community along the Long Island Sound.  Thomas Flint died in 1881 and Helena would be a generous contributor to the parks and upkeep of Manor Park for the rest of her life.

Possibly Eleanor Ruthrauff was instrumental in Helena’s decision.  A year before purchasing No. 109, Helena had employed Eleanor as a private tutor for her young cousins.  The employee-employer relationship quickly changed and Eleanor moved in with the 35-year old Helena that same year.  According to Helena later, she “made a will in 1885, leaving everything to Miss Flint.”

The 39^th Street house was completed in 1887 at a cost of $30,000—in the neighborhood of $725,000 today.   The two women moved into what was without a doubt the most eye-catching home on the block; in one of the most fashionable areas of the city.

Newspapers essentially treated Helena and Eleanor as a couple.  The pair traveled together and social columnists reported on their comings and goings with no distinction between the wealthy Helena and the one-time employee, Eleanor.   After they spent a year and a half in Europe, the New-York Tribune reported on October 15, 1893, “Miss Helena Flint and Miss Eleanor Ruthrauff have returned to No. 109 East Thirty-ninth-st. after an eighteen months’ stay abroad.  They arrived on the Touraine.”

Helena’s brother Edward E. Flint was, like their father, prominent in the Chicago grain business.   In 1895 his family visited New York, staying with Helena.   On Tuesday, December 17 the trip took a tragic turn when the 52-year old died in the house.  The funeral was held in Helena’s home on the morning of December 19.

The relationship between Helena Flint and Eleanor Ruthrauff came to an abrupt end in 1897.   Earlier, Helena sailed alone for Europe, leaving $25,000 in bonds with Eleanor.   Upon Helena's return, Eleanor refused to return the bonds.   An infuriated Helena Flint took Eleanor to court to recover the funds which nearly equaled the cost of her home.

On May 29, 1897 the New-York Tribune commented on the about-face in their relationship.  “Miss Ruthrauff was formerly Miss Flint’s companion, and the two women were fast friends.”  The newspaper summed up the battle: “The $25,000 in dispute is declared by the complainant to have been only a loan, but by the defendant to have been an absolute gift.”

Presumably heartbroken (she told the court “we went everywhere together”), Helena Flint left New York for good.  She leased the house to the President of Fidelity Bank, Edward H. Peaslee until 1902.  Then on April 13 that year the New-York Tribune reported that “Miss Flint” had sold the house to Don H. Bacon “on private terms.”  In fact, Donald and Mary Bacon paid Helena Flint $70,000 for the house making her a tidy profit.

In 1914 the Bacons were considering a permanent move to St. Augustine, Florida.   They commissioned New York architect E. F. Strassle to design a sumptuous home at No. 29 Valencia Street there.  In the meantime, the Plaza Hotel had become home to the Princess Elisabeth Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy—one of the most colorful residents the hotel would ever host.

Born in Hungary, she had been schooled as a portrait painter in Budapest and Munich.  She received much notice for her exhibition of portraits in the Salon de Paris in the early 1890s.  Her marriage to the Russian Prince Lwoff in 1899 was short-lived, ending in divorce; but she was allowed to use the royal title and continued to receive an annual allowance from the Prince.

Now ensconced in a Plaza suite (one which included a private chapel), she kept a menagerie of animals including a lion, named Goldfleck, and maintained a staff of servants.  In 1910 she raised social eyebrows when, according to The New York Times, she “slammed the door of her private elevator at the hotel in the face of the Duchess of Manchester.”

In 1913 she staged an exhibition of her society portraits in the hotel.  A year later The Times said “the Princess, who has painted the portraits of many famous persons in this country and Europe, has an apartment of twelve rooms furnished in regal style, and fronting on Central Park.” 

On March 26 that year detectives arrived at the Princess’s suite to arrest her dinner guest, Edmund Gallauner, on fraud charges.  The Times said that when they had pushed their way past the butler, they “started through rooms carpeted with costly rugs and hung with valuable paintings and tapestries to the dining room of the Princess.  They found her at the far end of the room, wearing a coronet and ermine robes and sitting under a gold-embroidered canopy which covered a dais.”

The Bacon home in Florida was completed in 1915 and their move coincided with Princess Lwoff-Parlaghy’s unceremonious 1916 removal from the Plaza for failure to pay her rent.  She moved into the 39^th Street house, still owned by Donald and Mary Bacon.

Perhaps the first luminary the Princess pursued for a portrait sitting in her new studio was inventor Nikola Tesla.   Somewhat superstitious, he had never posed for a portrait before, feeling that to do so was unlucky.  The charismatic Princess persevered; but when he arrived at her top floor studio Tesla was discouraged.  The New York Times explained “The room which she had chosen did not have a skylight in it and the much desired north exposure was missing.”

Tesla solved the problem by erecting a cluster of powerful electric lights in a high corner, then filtering the light through blue glass.  The inventor deemed the resultant light “just of the right quality.”

On March 1, 1916 Princess Lwoff-Parlaghy hosted a reception specifically to unveil the Tesla portrait.  The Times reported “Mr. Tesla, having solved the problem of the artificial sun fell to thinking about other parts of the universe, and there he sat oblivious to his surroundings.  So it was that the painter was able to produce a likeness in which there is no evidence that the subject was conscious that anybody was even watching him, much less studying his features from the other side of an easel.”

The Princess's portrait of Tesla was the only one for which he ever sat.  NordseeMuseum, Husum, Northern Germany

On October 2, 1919 the New-York Tribune reported that Don H. Bacon had sold his “fine house in 39^th Street.”  Interestingly, the newspaper got just about all the historical facts wrong.  “The house was erected from plans by Hoggson Bros. about nine years ago and represented an investment of over $110,000, including the land.”  If Hoggson Bros. had any hand in the house, it may have been renovations ordered by the Bacons when they first purchased it.

While the Princess went on living in the residence, it went through a rapid-fire succession of owners.  Bacon had sold it to C. Grayton Martin who resold it in June 1920 to Bacon.  Then on September 11 that year,The Times reported that Donald H. Bacon had sold it to Agnes C. O’Neill.   In July the following year the New-York Tribune reported that Agnes O’Neill had sold it to the Princess Elizabeth Livoff [sic] “for her residence.”

Although she reportedly received thousands of dollars for her portraits, the Princess’s lavish lifestyle outweighed her income.   Jeweler Ludwig Nissen filed a claim of $200,000 against her in 1923.  Presumably he had lent her the money to purchase the house.   On August 27 Sheriff Joseph A. Lenman arrived at the house which was reportedly filled with $1 million in art and furnishings.

The Princess’s doctor asked for compassion, saying that she was on the verge of death.  Pleading illness or imminent death was a common ploy for those seeking to escape the clutches of the law; and the Sheriff planted himself on the stoop of the mansion in what The Philadelphia Inquirercalled a “death watch.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer published a grainy photograph of Sheriff Joseph A. Lenman "waiting for Princess Lwoff-Parlaghy to die at her home, 109 East Thirty-ninth street, New York, before seizing her famous art treasures for debt."  August 31, 1923

Princess Lwoff-Parlaghy died in the house on Tuesday, August 28, 1923.  Saying that she “died destitute,” The Timesnoted that “When the Princess died and a Deputy Sheriff and his aides waited in the house with writ of attachment against the luxurious furnishings to satisfy debts, no friends called.  They were barred by the Princess’s wishes.”   But on September 1 more than 100 mourners pushed into the house for her funeral.

“The services were impressive, the archpriest wearing his robes of silver cloth as he intoned the full ritual of the Greek Orthodox Church.  After the services, Edwin Markham, poet, delivered an eulogy in which he paid tribute to the Princess’s genius,” reported the newspaper.

The Times wrote “The Princess was buried in her court robes of blue and gold and she wore a crown of silver and her twenty-two royal decorations.  During the services Deputy Sheriff Lanman and an assistant were in the house, and later when friends asked for keepsakes, which they said had been promised to them, the officer refused to allow them to be taken away.”

When the house was sold the following year, the New York Post repeated the story that it had been designed by Hoggson Bros. in 1911.  It was resold in 1926 to Emily Hepburn who renovated it to nine apartments on the upper floors.  She removed the brownstone stoop and installed a commercial space at sidewalk level.

That ground floor area became the Merchant’s Club and while it had the name of a private men’s organization; it was in reality a high-end speak-easy.    On December 22, 1931 a series of raids by Federal prohibition agents targeted “an area between Thirty-ninth and Fifty-eighth Streets, and included resorts in the ‘speakeasy Fifties,” reported The New York Times the following morning.

Along with other well-known nightclubs like the Stork Club, the Mona Lisa and Casa Bella, the Merchant’s Club was raided.   The newspaper inaccurately described the club as being “in an old brownstone fronted house.”  In the foyer was a “brilliantly decorated Christmas tree, and beyond the foyer was an expensively furnished dining room and a bar.”  The agents seized $20,000 in “liquors and rare wines” and arrested the cashier, a dozen waiters, two bartenders, four cooks, a busboy, one porter, a clerk, dishwasher and the hat-check boy.  A month later, on January 20, 1932, Prohibition administrator Andrew McCampbell announced his intentions of stripping the Merchant’s Club of its elaborate furnishings.

When Henry Payson purchased the property from Jacob Perlow in 1944, it was assessed at $57,000 (around $710,000 today).   In 1950 a fourth floor apartment was being rented for $55 per month.

Nine years later Helena Flint’s New York mansion became the Kittredge Club for Girls and included the Kittredge Club Theater where the infamous Merchant’s Club had been.   The house provided safe lodging for women within a social environment.

The club remained in the house until 1994 when it was purchased by the Society of Jewish Science.  The religious organization hired the architectural firm Fox & Fowle to convert the interiors for semi-institutional use.  The results were less than sympathetic.

Although some interior demolition was necessary due to degradation of the structure with age; other changes were little short of vandalism.  Original mantels, paneling and leaded glass were discarded.  The Princess Lwoff-Parlaghy’s top floor studio that had risen to a peak was given a flat-dropped ceiling.

The curved glass that followed the contours of the oriel were replaced with flat panes in 1994.

Henry Kilburn’s delightful Queen Anne house survives on a much-changed block.  But as was the case in 1887, it remains a scene-stealer.

The Jacob Dreicer House -- No. 4 East 78th Street

A decade after speculative builders had lined the blocks branching off Central Park with identical and monotonous brownstone rowhouses, the 78^th Street block between Fifth and Madison Avenues was still mostly undeveloped.  In 1871 Silas M. Styles had erected three such homes; but nothing further would happen on the block until the 1880s.

When architect Edward Kilpatrick purchased the 23-foot wide plot at No. 4 East 78^th Street, he intended that this home would stand out.   The Queen Anne style was on the cutting edge of residential design and No. 4 would embrace it with passion.   Kilpatrick began construction of the home in 1887 and when completed in 1889, it had all the architectural bells and whistles expected in the fanciful style.

A dramatic, sweeping stone stoop rose to the asymmetrical entrance floor.  Three levels of rough-cut brownstone, including the basement, were surmounted by a story of red brick with brownstone trim.  A steep mansard with a copper-clad dormer capped it all.  As attention-grabbing as the off-set porch was; it was trumped by the broad arch of the second floor.  A mid-century photograph shows the arch filled with glass panes—if these were original, this area may have been intended as a conservatory of sorts.

The sweeping stoop emphasized the offset porch.  Note that the stone fence to the right terminates in a wonderful carved lion's head.  photo by Berenice Abbott from the collection of the New York Public Library

As construction neared completion, on January 5, 1889, the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported that Kilpatrick had sold the house to “Fannie wife of Arnold Falk.”  The Falks took out a mortgage of $24,000 on their new home, about $590,000 today.

Falk, with his brother Gustav, was a partner in G. Falk & Bro.  Born in Germany, Falk had started out in business in America as a cigar-manufacturer.  In 1859 he and his brother partnered to import leaf tobacco from Holland and Hamburg, and export American tobacco to Europe.  America’s Successful Men of Affairs said of him in 1895, “Success came to this house through their enterprise, industry and good character.”

The Falks would not enjoy their upscale new home for long.   Arnold died in Heidelberg, Germany on June 18, 1891.   The house passed rather quickly through new owners.  In 1895 it was purchased by Mary A. McLaughlin, whose husband was a police captain.  He was placed under harsh scrutiny by the New York State Senate’s Lexow Committee that same year.  The committee was formed specifically to weed out corruption and graft within the New York City Police Department.

Delicate carving rims the maw-like arch.

Frederick A. Burnham, President of the Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association, purchased the home from the disgraced couple.  He was as well known for his chess-playing abilities as for his business acumen.  Burnham regularly appeared in newspapers reporting the results of chess tournaments.  In April 1897 he sold the house for about $75,000.  At the time the family of Jacob Dreicer was living at No. 118 East 64^thStreet.  But before long they would move into the fashionable home off Central Park.

Dreicer had come to New York from Russia in 1866.  Two years later he established his jewelry business at No. 1128 Broadway.  At a time when American socialites were interested mainly in pearls, Dreicer brought with him an appreciation for brightly-colored gems like emeralds, rubies, and sapphires.  Decades later The New York Times would remember that “colored stones were valued by many persons as little more than colored glass.”

The Dreicer name became synonymous with exquisite jewelry.  In 1885 Jacob took his son, Michael, into the firm as a partner, changing the firm’s name to J. Dreicer  & Son.   Unpleasant publicity came to the family towards the end of 1897 when daughter Mary (known as Mamie) filed for divorce from her husband, Max Lasar.  To make matters even messier, Max, a diamond dealer, was arrested for smuggling, and $100,000 worth of unset diamonds seized on December 3.

In reporting the arrest, The Sun mentioned “Mrs. Lasar, was a Miss Dreicer, a daughter of Jacob Dreicer…who, with his son Michael, keeps a swell jewelry store at 292 Fifth avenue.  The marital troubles of Mr. and Mrs. Max Lasar have attracted considerable notice.”

By 1911 Jacob and his wife Gitel were living in the East 78^thStreet house.   The area had been plagued by burglaries that year.   On February 22 The Times said “Residents of the block have been agitated because three weeks ago thieves entered the home of Jacob H. Schiff and stole clothing of two servants from their rooms…Also about the same time, it was learned last night, thieves attempted to pry off one of the iron bars guarding the Clark art gallery.”

Then on February 21, Mary Ryan, a servant in the Colfax house at No. 9 East 78^th Street, was startled by two men on the roof of a three-story extension behind the mansion.  She threw open the window and demanded to know what they wanted.

“We’re private watchmen,” one snapped.  “Shut the window and forget it.  We are looking for burglars.”

So Mary did.  But later, when she happened upon Thomas Smith, a watchman for the gargantuan mansion of William A. Clark, she mentioned the encounter to him.  Suspicious, Smith rushed back to the Clark house and up to the fourth floor where the art gallery bar had been tampered with earlier.  He saw the beams of flashlights on the gallery roof and telephoned police.

While police rushed to the mansion, the thieves were apparently scared off by Smith.  In the meantime the Dreicers were entertaining in their home.   The Dreicer’s butler, Henry Whitehead, who lived on the top floor, was busy with the reception.  The burglars jimmied open a fourth floor window and made off with some of Whitehead’s clothing and a box of cigars.  Police surmised they heard the voices of the people below and were frightened away before they could take anything of value.

Following her divorce, Mamie and her son, Walter Lasar, had come to live with her parents.   In 1916 the somewhat pudgy young man graduated from Yale, where his classmates had referred to him as “Dubie.”  Later that year a college publication said “Lasar is undecided about his future occupation.”

That year the Dreicers did renovations to the house.  On September 30 the Record & Guide reported that they had commissioned architect Henry O. Chapman to add an apartment and one-story addition to the house at a cost of $2,500.

The Dreicers, like all wealthy families, were acutely aware that their mansion was a tempting target for burglars during the summer months when the family was away.   It was possibly the 1911 burglary that prompted them to install a burglar alarm.  But on Monday, May 27, 1918 when the Dreicers closed the house and headed for their summer estate at Lawrence, Long Island, they forgot one thing.  The Sun, on May 31, said “The burglar alarm protecting the big stone residence of Jacob Dreicer of the Fifth avenue jewelry firm of Dreicer & Co. at 4 East Seventy-eight street  was left unconnected for the first time in many years.”

As luck would have it, Walter Lasar went back to the house around dusk on May 30.  When he reached the front door, he saw that the glass doorknob had been broken.   Rather than enter, he rushed to Fifth Avenue and hailed a policeman.

Officer Joseph Healy went inside, stationing Walter on the stoop.  Floor by floor the policeman checked the house; finally hearing the sound of labored breathing and footsteps “of persons who obviously were struggling under a heavy burden,” reported The Sun.

Healy pulled his nightstick and handgun and crouched on the staircase.  When the burglars appeared, he pounced, ready for a fight.  But “the two were so frightened at the figure that jumped from the dark that Healy had little trouble in catching both before they knew what was happening.”

The two “husky boys” were school-aged.  William Kelly was 13 years old and his accomplice, Thomas Cody was just 12.  The boys had crammed everything they could carry into suit cases.   At the 67^th Street station police said “the contents of the suit cases were worth several thousand dollars.  Especially valuable appeared the glittering contents of several small boxes filled with stones of various sizes, shapes and coloring, many of them diamonds.”

The young criminals were turned over to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Walter Lasar soon became less undecided about his future and in 1920 had risen to the rank of 2^nd Lieutenant in the Quartermaster Section of the U.S. Army Reserves.  That year Gitel Dreicer was looking for a new girl to serve in her dining room.  An advertisement in both The Sun and the New York Herald on May 15 read “Wanted: A competent waitress with best of reference.”

The following year would be devastating for the Dreicer family.   On July 26, 1921, Michael Dreicer was at his summer estate, Deepdale, formerly owned by William K. Vanderbilt, Jr.  The 54-year old jeweler died unexpectedly that day.   His father was deeply affected.  Less than a month later, on August 14, the 82-year old Jacob Dreicer died suddenly in his Lawrence, Long Island summer house.   The Evening World attributed his death to a broken heart.

“There was a strong tie of respect and affection between them and it is said the son’s death was a mortal blow to the father.”

Living in the East 78^th Street house with Gitel Dreicer were two of her three daughters and two grandsons.  Mamie had retaken her maiden name of Mary Dreicer and interestingly enough, Walter also renounced name Lasar name, becoming Walter Dreicer.  Frances was widowed.   The population of the mansion was reduced by one in April 1922 when Frances’s son, Louis S. Davidson, married Alice Virginia Ansbacher in the Ritz-Carlton.

The women lived together on East 78^th until December 6, 1933 when Gitel Dreicer, 89-years old, died.   The estate was divided equally among Mary, Frances, and their married sister Regina who lived at No. 270 Park Avenue.

Walter Dreicer never married, living on in the in the house until his death at the age of 44 in October 1938.   His funeral was held in the mansion on Thursday morning October 6.

The brownstone carvings included seashells between the cornice brackets.

A decade later the house was divided into large apartments, one each on the parlor and second floor; and two on each floor above.  A doctor’s office was established in the basement.  It was most likely at this time that the wonderful brownstone stoop was removed and a more commercial entrance installed at sidewalk level.

Perhaps the most noteworthy resident in the renovated house would be the young Woody Allen.  Eric Lax, in his Woody Allen: A Biography, mentions “As part of his continuing education, every afternoon at four o’clock Woody walked the four blocks from his apartment at 4 East Seventy-eighth Street to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and spent half an hour studying a different exhibit.  His choice for viewing was sequential rather than random and so eventually, by doing his thirty minutes each day, he studied the whole museum.”

Despite the tragic loss of the dramatic stoop; Kilpatrick’s robust design still makes a bold statement on the block among the more expected limestone-fronted mansions of the period.

photographs by the author

The 1882 William J. Morton Mansion - No. 36 West 56th Street

photo by Alice Lum

The romantic and sometimes whimsical Queen Anne style of architecture—with its gables and turrets, stained glass windows and eccentric mixture of materials and colors—made its debut in New York City with Sidney V. Stratton’s New York House and School of Industry in 1878. It would soon become a frenzied fad on the cutting-edge of architectural fashion.

Architect Bruce Price would be among the first New York architects to test the new style. In 1881, a year after he married Elizabeth Lee, Dr. William J. Morton commissioned Price to design a town house at 36 West 56th Street, just west of the most fashionable residential thoroughfare in New York: Fifth Avenue.

Morton was the son of another esteemed physician. A scandal over the elder Morton’s possibly questionable claim to have discovered surgical anesthesia resulted in his reputation being blighted. The editor of the Southern Medical Journal said that “an unprejudiced committee would find that Morton was an imposter and a mercenary promoter.”   William J. Morton would spend the rest of his life bitter and resentful over his father’s treatment by the medical community.

Morton’s home was finished in 1882; a five-story up-to-date structure with all the bells and whistles necessary for an urban Queen Anne building. The first floor, where Dr. Morton’s offices were housed, were clad in rough-cut stone, accessed by a shallow flight of steps from the sidewalk. The second and third floors featured an oriel window that formed a stone balcony with a quirky iron railing at the sun-washed fourth floor. Terra cotta tiles, brick, small paned windows, and stone melded to create an eye-catching and romantic house.

The American Architect and Building News got the address wrong, but provided a colorful sketch of the house in its December 17, 1887 issue.

Because the doctor’s offices were on the first floor, the kitchen was located on the top floor; a highly-unusual arrangement in residential layouts. A dumbwaiter carried the hot food to the dining room.

The busy Dr. Morton was the editor of the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases and was on the forefront of 19th century medicine. He was highly involved in the experimental use of electrotherapy and x-rays. The 1896 book “The X-ray; or, Photography of the Invisible and its Value in Surgery” called William J. Morton “the best X Ray expert in the United States.”  Dr. Morton wrote the book so the acclaim could be a bit biased.

By the time that book was published, however, the Mortons had moved out. Civil War hero Major General Daniel Butterfield and his wife, the former Julia Lorillard, were living here in April 22, 1890 when the house caught fire. General Butterfield left his mark on the military not only by his outstanding service during the war, but by composing the bugler’s Taps. On that night, an overheated range caused a blaze that resulted in about $400 damage.

The Butterfields moved on to 616 5th Avenue by the turn of the century, selling No. 36 West 56th to Annie Barnes Kellogg, the wealthy widow of Ansel Nash Kellogg. Kellogg had founded the Kellogg Newspaper Company of Chicago and originated the “plate matter” for country newspapers. It was possibly Annie Kellogg who commissioned the sensitive renovation to the fifth floor—changing the double-window to a series of four side-by-side windows and reducing the triangular framing to a small pediment along the roof line.

It was possibly Annie Kellogg who altered the fifth floor, adding windows and removing the pseudo-gable, the scar of which can be still seen at the left -- photo by Alice Lum

Annie lived here alone with her servants until November 23, 1904. On that afternoon around six close friends gathered in the parlor to witness her marriage, performed by the Rev. Dr. Charles Hall Everest. The New York Times headline gasped, “Over Sixty Years Old, She Marries Man Much Younger.”

The “man much younger” was Alfred Grenwood Dale, the assistant manager of the Grand Central branch of the Corn Exchange Bank. “Mr. Dale is twenty-five years younger than his bride,” remarked The Times.

By 1912 little remained of Millionaires Row on Fifth Avenue in the 50s as wealthy New Yorkers built mansions farther up along the Park to escape encroaching commercial interests. It may be that Annie’s marriage to the young Alfred Dale did not last, because when she sold No. 36 that year she was using the name Kellogg. The house had been valued a year earlier at $93,000.

Bruce Price used a marvelous mixture of materials including stone, terra cotta and a delightfully fanciful iron balcony railing -- photo by Alice Lum

By the time of Prohibition, West 56th Street was no longer residential and had become a bit shoddy. In 1933 Dr. Morton’s once-elegant mansion was converted to a restaurant. Plans filed with the Department of Buildings describe the restaurant on the first two floors, “private dining room” on the third and offices and store rooms above. The restaurant, however, was in truth the Mona Lisa Club, a high-end speakeasy that, despite its elite patrons was not immune to occasional police raids.

The Mona Lisa Club went the way of Prohibition and in 1936 there was a store on the first floor and three apartments on each floor above. The Mi Chou Gallery, an Asian art gallery, was here from 1958 to 1960 and the building continued its mixed-use through the end of the century.

An inexcusable, artless addition destroyed the first floor in the late 20th century -- photo by Alice Lum

At some point a bizarre-looking street-level addition obliterated the first floor and eradicated the entrance stairs. But above the brutal addition, Bruce Price’s extraordinary Queen Anne design is remarkably intact.

LeBrun's 1888 Engine Company 54 -- 304 West 47th Street

photo by Alice Lum

Napoleon LeBrun achieved the advantageous position as official architect for the New York City Fire Department in 1879. His firm’s name was changed to LeBrun & Sons as his sons joined him in the business. By the time it had completed its last firehouse in 1895, the firm had designed more than 40 structures for the FDNY.

A century before function mandated the appearance of firehouses which, by the end of the 20th century were little more than barren concrete garages, the LeBruns created a series of Italian palazzi and French chateaux to house the firemen and trucks. A variety of materials and historic periods inspired their attractive additions to the city’s neighborhoods.

An aged fire house was located at 304 West 47th Street for over thirty years when, in 1884, a new station was approved for Engine 54. The cornerstone would not be laid for four years because of delays caused by construction of another firehouse on 67th Street. In 1888 there was a flurry of building for the FDNY and in order to meet the demand LeBrun recycled an existing design.

The building was completed in September of 1888. It was a carbon-copy of the firehouses built for Engine Company 15 on Henry Street and for Engine Company 53 at 175 East 104th Street, both completed in 1884. While Engine Company No. 54 did not possess the splashy carved shells of the Italian Renaissance of LeBrun’s Engine 14 or the Loire Valley feel of his Engine 31, it was a masterful interpretation of current popular trends.

The architect blended Queen Anne and Romanesque styles, using the red brick of the façade to create a rich textured surface between floors. The capitals of the cast iron, street-level columns featured sunflowers, an element ever-important in the Eastlake movement of the late 1880s and 1890s. Terra cotta ornament and stone courses added to the visual interest. LeBrun deftly melded the proportions and materials of the firehouse with the residential buildings surrounding it.

At roll call here on April 7, 1896, Captain William F. Hayes was surprised by the company when the fire fighters presented him with a silver fire trumpet, made by Tiffany & Co. Hayes was celebrating his 30th year with the Fire Department.

Firemen at the turn of the century faced a perilous situation when fighting fires. The buildings were illuminated by gas lamps and the flammable material was piped throughout the buildings. When builders saved money by using lead pipe for the gas in the tenement building at 424 West 47th Street, they created a situation that would cost fireman Frank Featherson his life.

Featherson, with the rest of Engine 54, responded to the fire that had broken out in the cellar of the building. He was among a handful of men who dragged a hose to the cellar where the smoke was the thickest. The heat from the blaze melted the lead pipe, filling the already suffocating space with poisonous gas. Although an explosion never occurred, Frank Featherson succumbed to the mixture of smoke and gas.

Five firefighters were injured when, on June 5, 1906, they responded to a small blaze in a 4-story building two blocks at 503 W 55th Street. The small fire had ignited in a pile of rags at the Boston Steam Scouring and Dyeing Works. As the Engine Company arrived and began unrolling the hose, a powerful explosion blew out the rear and front walls. Sara Bernad, wife of the owner, was blown out of a second story window, her body landing forty feet away from the building. Windows in houses along the street were blown out and the explosion shook buildings as far as four blocks away.

The firefighters suffered mostly burns and cuts from the flying glass; however the explosion tossed John McGinnis cross 55th Street.  He suffered critical injuries.

The handsome firehouse served Engine 54 for almost 90 years. In 1977, after a $2 million renovation of the building, the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre opened it as a 194-seat theater with proscenium stage.

The award-winning group introduces new and important Hispanic contributions to mainstream theater. The PRTT’s sympathetic treatment of the exterior and innovative renovation of the interior are commendable—a praiseworthy recycling of an historic and beautiful property.

The 1888 Excelsior Power Company -- 33 Gold Street

Photo by Ken Mac

Somehow in 1887 Martin B. Brown convinced William Milne Grinnell to design the new headquarters for his Excelsior Power Company. Grinnell, while trained as an architect at Yale, never practiced. According to the 1922 State of New York Thirty-Third Annual Report of the State Hospital Commission, “He devoted himself largely to travel and the collections of works of art, and having a penchant for oriental art, spent much time in Egypt, Algiers, Tunis and Persia, occasionally extending his trips to China and Japan.”

Nonetheless, Grinnell paused in his travels long enough to design Brown’s building.

Brown’s firm, originally called the Excelsior Steam Power Company at 13 Spring Street, converted steam to electricity. As the population became familiar with electricity and its safety became more apparent, demand increased. Brown, who was also the printer for the City of New York, needed a more suitable building. (The very interesting Brown was also Fire Commissioner, President of the Queens Ice Company, Vice President of the 19th Ward National Bank, invented the steering wheel for fire trucks and built the first “cable road” in New York at 125th Street.)

The seven-story building at 33-38 Gold Street was completed in 1888, a sturdy red-brick Romanesque design with Queen Anne touches. Red terra cotta tiles, rough-cut stone blocks and multiple heavy arches gave interest to the substantial façade.

Above the entrance a cast-metal sign pronounced the building’s name over the terra cotta date – perhaps the structure’s single most interesting feature. Writing in the AIGA Journal of Design over a century later, Paul Shaw called the sign a“gutsy nameplate” and said “the proto-Art Nouveau letters, one of the great examples of architectural lettering in New York, are cast in metal and affixed by screws. Oddly, the date does not match the nameplate. Instead, it is cast in terracotta in Gothic revival style.”

Photo AIGA Journal of Design

Along with the power company and his printing business, Brown filled the building with other printing firms and jewelry manufacturers. In September of 1891, an exhibition was held here demonstrating a new printing press that “will print 24,000 to 40,000 shop bills in an hour and will use two miles of paper in that time.”

Other tenants included Patterson Press, Clark & Zagalla printers, C. P. Goldsmith jewelers and Stern Brothers & Co., a jewelry manufacturer who remained for decades.

In the first decades the new building seemed cursed by fire. A fire on Fulton Street on July 29, 1894 damaged the rear of the building. Four years later, on June 1, 1898 the Clark and Zugalla company on the fourth floor caught fire doing $3000 damage. Again, on January 25, 1901 the building caught fire. Through it all the substantial building never sustained serious structural damage.


The Excelsion Power Company building in 1895 -- "King's Photographic Views of New York" -- author's collection

No. 33 Gold Street’s back luck was not limited to fire. On September 10, 1892, 15-year old Frank Cowey got his hand caught in a pipe-cutting machine in the shop of E. F. Keating. The boy walked, with help, to the Chambers Street Hospital where doctors performed an amputation of a finger. When the ether cup was removed from his face, the boy was dead.
At the inquest a week later, the jury exonerated the doctor from all blame in the matter. It decided that “death was caused by an injection of cocaine administered by Dr. Cushing with proper judgment and was in a measure due to ‘a peculiar unknown existing idiosyncrasy.’”

Another boy died at No. 33 Gold when 16-year old Francis Faeth, a worker at Stern Brothers, climbed out on the fire escape on the 6th floor to witness the excitement of a jewelers strike on the street below. The boy fell to his death.

Here, in 1921 Special Deputy Commissioner Carleton Simon seized a large quantity of opium and counterfeit revenue stamps in the jewelry firm of Sebastian Fagella. A few months later Fagella was arrested again, this time for producing forged fight tickets for the Dempsey-Carpentier bout.

The narrowness of Gold Street, originally laid out for horse carts and pedestrians, discouraged the growth of retail or office space. No. 33 Gold Street, therefore, retained nearly all of its architectural integrity – never being seriously altered with shop windows or pseudo-modern fronts.

Photo Wally Gobetz

Now converted to residences, its over-sized entrance arch has been bricked up, the original windows have been replaced by an unsympathetic modern mish-mash, and a truly unfortunate choice of a metal “Dutch door” with scalloped edges around the window serves as an entrance.

Nevertheless, one of William Milne Grinnell’s rare buildings – if not his only one – survives remarkably intact and essentially overlooked.