The 1885 Wm. E. Dodge Statue - Bryant Park

photo by Alice Lum

 William E. Dodge was, by all accounts, a good man.   The problem for many following his death in 1883 was that he was not a great man.

The Connecticut-born millionaire made a fortune when he and his father-in-law, Anson Greene Phelps, founded the mining company of Phelps, Dodge and Company in 1833.  It grew to become one of the country’s largest mining firms.  His business interests went on to include the establishment, with partners, of the Macon and Brunswick Railroad.  But the accumulation of wealth was perhaps secondary to Dodge’s idealistic and heart-felt humanitarian and social interests.

His compassionate ideals were formed early in life.  His father, David Low Dodge, founded the New York Peace Society, a pacifist organization.  The peaceful and caring atmosphere of home would affect Dodge’s numerous adult interests.

As the Civil War approached he was an outspoken abolitionist and for the rest of his life he would finance schools for black students.    Following the war, he turned his focus to the plight of the American Indian.  In 1868, with Peter Cooper, he established the United States Indian Commission and worked with Ulysses S. Grant on the Peace Policy with the Native Americans.

Dodge was one of the Commissioners who traveled West to meet with representatives of the Arapaho, Kiowa and Cheyenne nations to explain and discuss Government policy regarding Native Americans.

William Earl Dodge

When the United States Calvary slaughtered 173 Blackfeet in Montana in 1870—an event that became known as the Marias Massacre—William E. Dodge fought for the prosecution of the commanders in charge.   He went on to campaign for an Indian Affairs cabinet department.

Dodge was an ardent supporter of the Young Men’s Christian Association and, all the while, served as President of the National Temperance Society.   The Society strongly felt that demon alcohol was the source of domestic violence, ruined homes and lives, crime, poverty and other social ills.  One means of fighting the scourge of alcohol was the erection of temperance fountains in large cities.   The availability of clean, pure water, it was felt, would deter the taking of strong drink.

Less than a month after Dodge’s death on February 9, 1883 a movement began, initiated by the Chamber of Commerce of which he had been President for several years, to erect a statue in his honor.   A committee was appointed on March 3 “to consider and devise a plan which would most fittingly meet the wishes of the public,” as explained by the Chamber of Commerce later.  The committee included some of New York’s most respected names in business; Samuel Sloan, John A. Stewart, William H. Fogg and Samuel D. Babcock among them.

380 private donors contributed and eminent sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward was given the project.  To support the statue, prominent architect Richard Morris Hunt was commissioned to design the pedestal, which appropriately was to include a temperance fountain.  

Two years later the Academy of Arts examined the finished sculpture.  In a letter to the Parks Commissioners, it proposed the site, saying “it is a fine piece of work, and should be erected in the square at Thirty-fifth-street, Sixth-avenue, and Broadway.”  Not everyone was pleased.

The New York Times immediately lashed out, saying that if the approval for the spot by the Parks Commissioners had been given, “it has been improvidently given, and should be withdrawn.  If it has not been given, it should be withheld.”

The Editor was vehement that the statue to Dodge should not take up public space.  Dodge was a good man.  But he was not a great man.

“We have no wish at all to detract from the private virtues of Mr. Dodge, which were without doubt such as to entitle him to the affectionate veneration of his descendants and to account for the amiable exaggeration of his public importance which prompts the proposition for the erection of a statue of him in a public park.”

The Editor went on to say that the statue would be entirely appropriate as an ornament to Dodge’s tomb, or attached to the headquarters of any one of the charitable institutions he founded or supported.  But public statues, it argued, were not for good men.  They were for great men.

“This is an honor which ought to be reserved for men whose standing as public men or whose acts as public benefactors have given them an unquestionable title to the broadest recognition.  Now, it is perfectly plain that Mr. Dodge was not a man of this public importance, and that a public statue of him would be an absurdity.”  Even Dodge’s best friends, the Editor argued, “would not think of calling him a great man, and the honors of public statuary ought to be reserved for men about whose greatness there is no question.”

The editorial warned that if the Dodge statue were to be erected on public ground, it would open the floodgates for statues of any person of good moral character whose friends or family could afford to pay for one.

The newspaper would not get its wish.

On October 22, 1885 the statue was unveiled in Herald Square.   Ward had depicted William E. Dodge in the realistic portraiture style for which he was best known.    The millionaire businessman and philanthropist leaned casually on a pedestal atop Hunt’s monumental granite base.   In tribute to Dodge’s life-long dedication to the avoidance of alcohol, a temperance fountain flowed from the mouth of a lion into a carved basin.  The statue was partly enclosed by a semicircular granite bench.

Perhaps to counter the opposition of the city newspapers, the pamphlet accompanying the unveiling noted the such an honor “has hitherto been paid chiefly to those who were eminent in arms or in statesmanship, in science or in letters.  But a genius for doing good would seem to be as worthy of posthumous gratitude as a genius for wilding the sword or the pen or the eloquent tongue.  Deeds of unselfish benevolence deserve a monument as truly as deeds of patriotism, or the achievements of distinguished statesmanship and intellectual culture.”

The statue and fountain can be seen in front of the New York Herald Building shortly after its dedication -- NYPL Collection

The following day The New York Times gave a tepid review of the 2,200 pound statue.  “It represents Mr. Dodge in street costume, bareheaded, leaning on some books, which are on top of a column.”  The Evening World would be even less enthusiastic later when it said “It monopolizes the finest site for a statue in the city.”

The pamphlet of the unveiling ceremonies included the above photograph --copyright expired.

Biographer William Carlos Martyn, however, liked both the statue and the spot.   In his 1890 book “William E. Dodge: the Christian Merchant,” he wrote “The Christian merchant stands in an easy attitude on a massive pedestal, the water he so stanchly advocated trickling at his feet, the brow uncovered and uplifted, an expression of resolute goodness on his noble face—like a benediction embodied in bronze.  As the hurrying throngs pass and repass, in the morning, at noon, or when the evening shadows begin to build a vault above the noisy thoroughfares that here converge, many are the eyes that rest lovingly upon that form.”



photo nycgovparks.org

After more than half a century standing in Herald Square William E. Dodge was kicked out.  The humiliation was a result of the movement to erect a monument to the Herald’s publisher James Gordon Bennett.  In 1939 as preparations for the Bennett memorial began, the Dodge statue was dismantled, crated and stored away.  In the process, Richard Morris Hunt’s imposing pedestal was purposely destroyed.

On January 27, 1941 The New York Times reported on the installation of two flagpoles at the New York Public Library as a memorial to former Mayor John Purroy Mitchel.  The article ended by parenthetically noting “It was also announced that the bronze statue of William Earle Dodge, president of the State Chamber of Commerce from 1865 to 1875…has been moved to Bryant Park at the rear of the library.”

photo by Alice Lum

The newspaper clearly misspelled Dodge’s middle name, adding an “E” at the end.   But the mistake could nearly be excused when the new, bland granite base was examined.

Here, too, Dodge’s middle name was spelled EARLE.   Chiseled deeply into the base, the superfluous E could not be rectified, so today each of the other letters is gilded with the hope that the unadorned E will blend into the stone.

The William Earl Dodge statue stands proudly in Bryant Park despite its several embarrassments, a monument not to a great man, but to a good one.

Pigeon droppings are perhaps the least of the indignities Dodge's likeness has endured over the years -- photo by Alice Lum

The 1888 Jackson Square Library -- No. 251 W. 13th Street

Unlike some privileged boys George Washington Vanderbilt was intrigued by books.  When only 12 years old he began cataloguing each book he read.   A series of small notebooks, entitled Books I Have Read, recorded each title, numbered consecutively, along with the author.  His affection for reading and books got him in trouble with his mothing, Maria Louise Kissam Vanderbilt that same year.  On May 27, 1875 he wrote in his dairy

“I have been way down town today and have displeased Mother, she gave me two dollars to buy a sketch book with which I went to four stores but could not get one so I spent it on books, besides $2.65 of my own money which Mother did not like…I got two volumes of the Young American Abroad.  And the last volume of the Yacht Club.”

Vanderbilt kept his list current and when he died on March 6, 1914 at the age of 51 following an appendectomy, his last entry was No. 3159—Volume III of Henry Adams’ “History of the United States.”  George Vanderbilt was reading an average of 81 books a year at the time of his death.

Few New Yorkers had the money or leisure time that enabled George Vanderbilt to pursue reading.  The few libraries that existed prior to 1880 were not open to the general public.  But that year the Free Circulating Library was incorporated.   The response was so great that the sidewalks around the first library—a single room in a building on 13^th Street near Fourth Avenue—were blocked.  At closing time on one occasion, of the 500 books only two were left on the shelves.

George Washington Vanderbilt -- from "Twenty-eight Years in Wall Street" 1888 (copyright expired)

It was the sort of worthy project that caught the attention of the bibliophile Vanderbilt and he decided to fund a branch of the Lending Library in Greenwich Village, opposite Jackson Square. 

In 1887 Vanderbilt was no stranger to Richard Morris Hunt.  Work was underway that year on George’s stable on Staten Island and on the Vanderbilt Family Mausoleum, both designed by Hunt.  Ten years earlier the esteemed architect had designed the massive William K. Vanderbilt chateau on Fifth Avenue and within a year he would begin work on the palatial Marble House in Newport, also for William.

George’s library would be less grandiose, but no less enchanting.  In 1887, two years before Andrew Carnegie donated his first library in the United States; the first bricks were laid for George Vanderbilt’s.  There was no fanfare associated with the opening of the library on July 5, 1888.  A small listing in the New-York Tribune that day with the heading “What Is Going On To-Day” simply noted “Opening new Vanderbilt Library, Jackson Square.”

New-York Tribune, March 24, 1901 (copyright expired)

The handsome new building was, nevertheless, an “ornament” to the neighborhood.   Unlike the frothy confections that characterized some of the other Vanderbilt projects; the library was a take on a Flemish guildhall.  It was a very early example of the architectural fad that would sweep the city in the next decade recalling Manhattan’s Dutch roots.  A red-tiled roof hid behind a curving Flemish Renaissance gable and wrought iron strapwork decorated the red brick façade.   Wrought iron numerals on the four piers, just above the first floor, gave the date of construction: 1887.  A touch of Gothic was introduced by the trefoil decorations in the blind arches of the window openings.

Wrought iron numbers spell out the date of construction.

Vanderbilt’s completed gift to the city cost him $40,000—about $900,000 in today’s dollars.  By 1892 the Free Circulating Library consisted of four buildings, including Vanderbilt’s.  “The Memorial History of the City of New-York” that year said “Wealthy citizens have contributed generously to this admirable free library, and its benefit to the community at large is evident from its circulation of nearly half a million of volumes in 1892.”

Old rowhouses still abut the library in this stereopticon view -- NYPL Collection

In 1899 the chief librarian, J. Norris Wing instituted a innovation nearly unheard of in public libraries:  the “Open Shelf” system.  Until now, the books were kept under the safeguard of librarians.   The concept of allowing the public to run free among the inventory of books was unheard of.  But Wing insisted that “The only proper way to manage a circulating library so as to avoid all unnecessary delay and friction in the bringing together of book and reader, is to run it upon the open-shelf system.”

The Children's Reading Room -- photo NYPL Collection

Until that year, readers looked over the library’s catalog of books, noted the number of the volume he wanted, filled out a call slip and waited until the librarian returned “after a weary search to inform him that the book is out,” said The Sun.  Under Wing’s system, the reader simply wandered the shelves, chose his book and checked it out.

The Sun was impressed.  “From 1880, when the first branch was opened, up to about eighteen months ago the public was excluded from the places where the books were kept, and when the proposition was made to give the readers free access to all books in the library many of the attendants shook their heads.”  The experiment was tried with one branch, then two, and by August 1899 all the libraries were on board.

Librarians were pleased--instead of running back and forth all day with stacks of books they were giving recommendations and advice.  “Now we are fresh when our day’s work is done,” said one.  “Moreover, we know that we can and do help the people who use the library to an extent not one of us thought possible under the old system.  Before we mostly only carried books; now we advise about books.”

The newspaper pointed out the two drawbacks:  wear and tear on the books and theft.  Nevertheless, the advantages outweighed the negatives.  “I do not know how many books were stolen elsewhere,” said one librarian, “but in my branch the thefts do not amount to anything worth speaking about, and even if they’d steal much more, I would still prefer the open shelf.”

There was one other problem that some associated with the open shelf system—the transfer of communicable disease.  On November 11, 1897 Dr. John S. Billings, the director of the New York Public Library spoke in the Jackson Square Library regarding “The Disinfection of Books.”   Among his comments he said “At an investigation made by the State Board in Iowa three years ago it was found that six cases of scarlet fever were undoubtedly communicated through circulating library books.  Other diseases may be communicated in the same way.  There is not much danger o this from the edges of cards, although they are foul and filthy, and undoubtedly filled with bacteria.”

Dr. Billings presented the problem of disinfecting books.  Heat could not be used, since sufficient heat would destroy the bindings and pages; and applying chemicals was equally counter-productive.  “We cannot apply a solution of corrosive sublimate or zinc chloride.  The fumes of burning sulphur are both inadequate and undesireable.”

Instead he suggested placing the contaminated book under a bell jar with a saucer of formaline.  Although apparently effective it was a labor- and time-consuming process.  Nevertheless, nearly a decade later the fears of Dr. Billings would manifest themselves at the Jackson Square Library.  The janitor and his family lived in the building and in January 1908 his son fell ill with scarlet fever.

The library was shut down indefinitely.  When asked how long the building would be closed, Dr. Billings told reporters “That depends on the physician in charge of the case.  As soon as he orders the patient removed the building will be fumigated and opened.”  The New-York Tribune sympathized with the neighborhood readers.  “In the mean time the book lovers who patronize that institution will have to walk a half-mile or more to the nearest branches of the New York Library, on Leroy and West 23^d streets.”

A few years earlier, in 1904, William Howe Tolman in his “The Better New York” praised the Jackson Square Library.  “It circulates about 126,00 volumes a year, and its cheerful reading room is filled day and evening with more than a hundred readers.  An interesting feature to be noticed upon entering the main library is the glass-covered cases against the wall, where are placed clippings from the illustrated papers of the day, depicting subjects which are interesting to people of New York at the time.  This is done weekly to create interest in current events, and after looking at the pictures anyone can consult the librarians as to proper reading in connection with each subject.  To help the musically inclined in the study of operas presented at the Metropolitan Opera House during the season, scores are lent for a period of three days each.”

The effectiveness of the library was in part enough to prompt a Department of Finance investigative committee to push for discontinuance of city support of a nearby recreation center.  That same year it reported “As to the library feature, there is no reason whatever for its existence in this centre, as the Jackson Square Branch of the New York Public Library…is in the same block and meets all the needs of the community in this respect.  This library is open in the evening until 9 o’clock and is well patronized by the young people.”

By the Great Depression the Library had lost its ornamental weathervane -- photograph NYPL Collection

The innovative programs, like the current events boards, continued throughout first half of the 20^th century.  Art displays were a regular event.  In 1951 there were an exhibition of drawings of pre-war Korea by a young Korean student and artist, Sam-Kih Min; and another of artwork by Turkish school children.  In the 1950s “story-hour” entranced children as story books were read aloud.

The library building gained a replacement weather vane in the renovations.

Then in 1961 in order to save the marvelous Jefferson Market Courthouse, plans were laid restore and convert that building to a library.  While the proposal would save the threatened landmark, it would mark the end of the line for the Jackson Square Library.   Richard Morris Hunt’s Dutch fantasy sat empty until artist Robert Delford Brown purchased it in 1967 for $125,000 as his residence and headquarters for his First National Church of the Exquisite Panic, Inc.   In 1970 an interior renovation by Paul Marvin Rudolph, among the world’s preeminent modernist architects, was completed.   “The AIA Guide to New York City” said of the completed project, “Brown and Rudolph’s conversion was a thoughtful, subtle endeavor, carving light-filled spaces from the dark masonry rooms within the old library.”

The New York Times was less appreciative.  Nancy Hass, thirty years later on March 2, 2000, said “The formal front doors and a chunk of the ground floor had been hacked away in a renovation of shocking proportions.  In their place was a rubble-strewn gated courtyard that dropped off sharply in the center, where a metal stairway led to an exposed basement.  The house seemed to cantilever precariously above the sidewalk.”

Brown affixed a plaque to the façade “The Great Building Crack-Up.”  Inside, Rudolph’s interiors reflected his genius at melding light and lines into spacial geometry and visual cohesion.  (Nancy Hass preferred the term “zany pad.”)

It would not last all that long, however.  Around 1995 television writer Tom Fontana discovered and purchased the now-available building.   Having paid about just under $2 million for the structure, he then nearly doubled the cost by having Paul Rudolph’s work obliterated.  New York Magazine, in 1997, called the process “de-geniusing it.”

The vaulted glass ceiling, seen above in the Adult Reading Room, was painting over during WWII.  Bentley painstakingly removed the paint and restored the ceiling.  photo NYPL Collection

Fontana, who told The Times “the place was ridiculous,” commissioned architect Ron Bentley to redesign the interiors.  In the annihilation of the Rudolph design, Bentley fashioned an upscale single family residence on the two upper floors.  Fontana’s offices were installed in the lower two stories where Rudolph’s single surviving feature, the entrance, remains.

non-historic photographs taken by the author

The Unfinished Cornice of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

By 1895 the red brick Gothic-inspired Metropolitan Museum of Art building in Central Park had become inadequate for its collection. Designed by park designer Calvert Vaux and his assistant Jacob Wrey Mould, it sat back from Fifth Avenue, a chunky Victorian building that blended well with other Central Park structures.

The museum trustees called upon Richard Morris Hunt, who had been busy designing massive Vanderbilt mansions, to plan an addition. Hunt designed a grand Beaux Arts palace to the front of the existing museum, rich with sculpture and monumental columns.

The architect envisioned the building executed in glimmering white marble. This was, unfortunately, the middle of the great depression that lasted from 1893 to 1897. Indiana limestone would have to do. Shortly after finishing his plans, Hunt died in 1895 never to see the completed structure.

The financial Panic of 1901 struck the year before the new museum building was completed. Albany was strapped for cash and the museum trustees were in no better shape. In 1902 the grand edifice was finally completed.

Except that it wasn’t.

Sculptor Karl Bitter had executed four limestone statues for the facade; allegories of Sculpture, Painting, Architecture and Music. High above the street atop the paired Corinthian columns Hunt had provided for monumental sculptural cornice groups. Great limestone blocks had been hoisted into place creating bulky, crude pyramids waiting to be carved. But then the money ran out.

The massive blocks sat unfinished. The same fate befell the huge circular stone blanks in the Great Hall which Hunt intended to be sculpted out as portraits.

In 1911 architects McKim, Mead and White added the north wing to Hunt’s Fifth Avenue facade. Then two years later they matched it with the south wing. The limestone pyramids, however, were ignored.

Starting in 1975 the Museum was greatly expanded with six additional wings being added by architects Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo and Associates. Vaux and Mould’s original structure was now completely engulfed by the additions, one section of the facade still being visible in the Lehman Wing.  And with all the additions and construction, the clumsy limestone piles atop the Fifth Avenue cornice remained.

Today thousands of visitors climb the grand sweeping stone stairs of the Metropolitan Museum of Art daily. Few, if any, of them notice the crude, unfinished blocks on the otherwise elegant Beaux Arts facade.

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The 1883 Sidney Webster House -- No. 245 East 17th Street

photo by Alice Lum

When the young and optimistic Sidney Webster left Gilmanton, New Hampshire to attend Yale University, he could have had no idea of the remarkable career that was ahead of him.  Webster was graduated in 1848 and from Harvard Law School two years later.  The young attorney’s “capacity for statesmanship and the management of men,” as later noted by The New York Times, caught the attention of newly-elected President Franklin Pierce.

The President took the 24-year old to Washington with him to serve as his private secretary.  Throughout the Pierce Administration Webster became closely acquainted with the nation’s leaders, among them United States Senator Hamilton Fish of New York.

With the end of Pierce’s term of office in 1857, Webster returned to New York and on June 7, 1860 married Sarah Morris Fish, the eldest daughter of Hamilton Fish.   The couple moved into a wide rowhouse at No. 245 East 17^th Street in the fashionable Stuyvesant Square neighborhood.

While Sidney Webster practiced law in New York, his father-in-law was appointed to President Grant’s Cabinet as Secretary of State in 1869.  He routinely consulted Webster on matters of constitutional law—an area in which Webster was regarded as an authority.

By 1883 Sidney Webster had accumulated a substantial fortune.

That year Stuyvesant Fish, Webster’s brother-in-law, persuaded him to become a Director of the Illinois Central Railroad.   At the same time Edward H. Harriman also joined the railroad as director.  Not only did the two strike up an intimate friendship that would last for decades, but Harriman relied on Webster’s deep experience in public life, his astute judgment and his detailed understanding of the law in many of his most critical business decisions.

In the meantime, the house in which the Websters lived had become decidedly passé.   Esteemed architect Richard Morris Hunt was commissioned to design a new residence for the site.  The same year that Webster entered the Illinois Central Railroad the new house was completed.

Hunt produced an asymmetrical, modified French Renaissance home like nothing in the neighborhood—or in the city.  The high brownstone first floor created a base for the three stories of orange brick above.  Ornamentation was reserved, for the most part, for the top-most floor above a brownstone cornice where four joined dormers framed the steep roof behind. 

Wonderful metal ornamentation drips onto the slate shingles of the roof -- photo by Alice Lum

In keeping with their wealth and social status, the Websters were expected to maintain a country retreat.  In April 1899 the attorney purchased the George F. Jones estate in Newport, Pen Craig and Pen Craig Cottage.

The Times reported on the purchase.  “There is a handsome villa on it, as well as greenhouses, a gardener’s cottage, and a landing pier.  Pen Craig Cottage, situated on the other side of Harrison Avenue, together with the adjoining lot [is] also included in Mr. Webster’s purchase."

All the while Webster divided his free time among his various gentlemen’s clubs: the Knickerbocker, the Manhattan, Metropolitan and the exclusive Union Clubs.

Among the sparse decoration was this beautifully-carved panel between the first floor openings-- photo by Alice Lum

All the while that Webster practiced law and kept his affairs above board, his close friend Edward Harriman was deeply involved in the back rooms of politics.  In 1904 Theodore Roosevelt approached him, asking him to raise $200,000 for the New York State campaign.  In exchange Roosevelt promised to remove Chauncey M. Depew from the Senate and send him off to Paris as U.S. Ambassador.

Harriman raised the money, the Republicans won the election and the President backed away from his promise.  Harriman was surprised and outraged.

In January 1906 he wrote a lengthy letter to Sidney Webster, addressed to his home on East 17^th Street.  In it he detailed the agreement with the President  and how he had been double-crossed.    In a mysterious manner never quite explained, the letter was leaked to The New York World, which published it in April 1907.

The letter, which became popularly known as the “Where do I stand?” letter, caused a political scandal.   Roosevelt’s response was denial.  “Mr. Harriman was duly branded as a liar by the President,” said The New York Times.

Through it all Webster remained unscathed; his sterling reputation untarnished.

On May 30, 1910, Webster died at Pen Craig in Newport.  Sarah remained in the house thirteen more years.  Then, on February 16, 1923, she died in her “cottage” in Newport, as her husband had.

Two months later the Websters’ only son, Hamilton Fish Webster, sold the family home.

Charles Tatham purchased the house.   A partner in Tatham and Brothers, makers of lead shot and tin-lined iron pipe, he was an accomplished fencer and for years was treasurer of the Fencers’ Club of New York.  The family was still living here in 1932 when the engagement of daughter Anne Sands Tatham to Lawrence Jacob Abbot was announced.

The marriage would bring together two literary families—Anne’s grandfather was Edward Payson Roe, a well-known novelist and author of “Barriers Burned Away;” while Abbot’s parents were both editors and writers.

Following the Tathams, No. 245 became home to Dr. Benjamin Stich and his wife Mollie.  Stich was a diagnostician with the New York Post-Graduate Hospital.  On August 11, 1942, on his 50^thbirthday, Dr. Stich suffered a heart attack in the house and died.

In the early 1960s pianist Hazel Scott lived here following her divorce from Democratic Representative Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.  She was publicly embarrassed in 1962 when an income-tax lien was filed against her for $44,198.18 in unpaid Federal income taxes.

Then, through the 1980s and 1990s the house was used by the Beth Israel Medical Center as a psychiatric clinic.  In 1995 it also housed the hospital’s Nutrition Center.  Here participants were educated in, among other things, which foods caused weight gain, how to read food labels, how to modify recipes and how to make sensible food selections in restaurants.

Sadly, the clinical use decimated the interiors.  By 2004 when the home was taken over by the East End Temple, little was left to salvage.   BKSK Architects was commissioned to renovate the house into a synagogue and the interiors were essentially gutted.

Architectural purists no doubt shudder at the replacement doors -- photo by Alice Lum

Although most of the architectural detailing is gone, replaced by sleek modern designs, the library retains its 1883 oak mantle and paneling.  And outside, Hunt’s dramatic French Renaissance design survives.

Part of Hunt's 1883 oak woodwork was salvageable -- photo http://www.interiordesign.net/article/476749-Silence_is_Golden.php

The Lost Wm. K. Vanderbilt Mansion -- 660 5th Avenue

 

Alva Vanderbilt and Richard Morris Hunt's white limestone creation stood in stark contrast to the brownstone homes around it -- photo by Byron Co. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWPNYHL3&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Although a Southern girl, Alva Erskine Smith grew up spending summers in Newport and traveling through Europe.  Her family had moved to New York City in 1857 when she was four years old and she later attended a private boarding school in Paris.  She met fabulously wealthy William Kissam Vanderbilt at a party thrown for Consuelo Yznaga, one of her best friends.  Vanderbilt most likely did not realize he had met a woman unlike nearly any other in New York society.

The couple was married on April 20, 1875 in Calvary Church and would go on to have three children.  Opinionated and self-confident, Alva was determined to rise to the top of New York Society—a position securely held by Caroline Schermerhorn Astor. 

Contemporary writer James D. McCabe, Jr. described Fifth Avenue saying, “The principal material used in the construction of the buildings on the avenue is brown stone.  This gives to the street a sombre look,” and he pointed out Caroline Astor’s mansion, “At the northwest corner of 35^th street is a plain dwelling of brick, with light stone trimmings.”  Alva Vanderbilt set out to break the “sombre look” of Fifth Avenue and outshine Mrs. Astor’s “plain dwelling.”

In 1879 she and architect Richard Morris Hunt embarked on a four-year project to design and erect a lavish and gleaming white limestone mansion at No. 660 Fifth Avenue.  It sat squarely in the midst of what would be known as “Vanderbilt Row.”  Alva was highly involved in the project and a friend would famously say later “she loved nothing better than to be knee deep in mortar.”

The massive French Renaissance palace, called the “Petite Chateau,” was completed in 1883.  Most critics raved.  The Architectural Record said it “possessed distinction, elegance, dignity and even repose” and was “pleasant in the color and texture of its stone, strong and free in treatment, discreet and refined in its ornamentation.”  Not everyone was overwhelmed.  Century Magazine’s critic complained “We can only call it a very showy house, and add that to some eyes it may seem imposing.”

Architectural Record June 1908 (copyright expired)

Alva wasted no time in throwing the doors open for a costume ball that eliminated any competition for social event of the season.  According to the New-York Tribune the following morning  on March 27, 1883, “From 600 to 800 people were present, but owing to the large rooms there was little discomfort from crowding.”

The newspaper estimated that “The ball probably equaled, if it did not excel, in beauty and general attractiveness any similar entertainment ever given in this city.”  A photographer was on hand to capture each socialite and millionaire garbed as historical figure—Cornelius Vanderbilt was Louis XVI and Lady Mandeville wore a dress “copied from a picture by Vandyke of a Princess de Croy.” 

As the carriages of Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens pulled up to the awnings erected over the sidewalk, less privileged New Yorkers crowded the avenue and West 52^ndStreet.  A squad of policemen kept the throng back.  The Tribune condescendingly remarked “A great multitude of persons to whom, plainly, the habits of high-class society were unknown, began to gather in front of Mr. Vanderbilt’s house soon after nightfall…there were young men and old, giddy girls and sedate matrons, widows in weeds and babies in arms.”

Two years after the completion of No. 660 Fifth Avenue William’s vast fortune was increased by the death of his father, William H. Vanderbilt.  William received about $55 million, around $1.3 billion today.  But limitless wealth would not buy domestic harmony.

 

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper depicted the art gallery in 1884 (copyright expired)

William and Alva had three children; but by 1894 tensions between the pair were obvious.  When William returned from Europe—alone—on December 12, 1894 The New York Times reported “Upon arriving in town, Mr. Vanderbilt did not go to his own house, 660 Fifth Avenue, but to the home of his mother, Mrs. William H. Vanderbilt, at 640 Fifth Avenue.  He would see no reporters last night.”

Before long the drawing rooms of Fifth Avenue were shaken by Alva’s suit for divorce, citing William’s extramarital dalliances.  She walked away with $10 million and much real estate, including the imperial Marble House in Newport.  But William retained the Fifth Avenue mansion.

Eventually the now-single millionaire would pick up where Alva left off in entertaining.  On March 24, 1898 The Times reported on the private concert he gave for about 350 guests.  “The world of society was, of course, well represented.”  The newspaper noted that the floral decorations had come from the conservatories of Vanderbilt’s sprawling Long Island estate, Idlehour, and “were arranged by his servants.”

The brownstone houses next to the mansion would be replaced by the near-matching home of William Jr. photo by McKim Mead & White from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWPNYHL3&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

On September 12, 1899 William’s brother, Cornelius Vanderbilt II died.  With his passing, William became the unofficial head of the Vanderbilt family.  William closed his homes to entertainments during the expected period of mourning.  A year later, on November 19, 1900, he gently stepped back into the role of host by giving a quiet dinner for just 14 guests in the Petite Chateau.  The Times explained “The guests comprised the five or six men and women who have entertained Mr. Vanderbilt this Autumn at their country places and several from out of town.”

The mansion was as imposing from the rear as from Fifth Avenue -- photo by McKim Mead & White from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWPNYHL3&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Eight years after Alva Vanderbilt walked out of No. 660 Fifth Avenue there was a new Mrs. Vanderbilt.  William married Anne Harriman, the daughter of banker Oliver Harriman.  Anne had been married and widowed twice--to Samuel Stevens Sands and to Lewis Morris Rutherfurd, Jr.  The middle-aged couple (William was now 54 years old) would have no children.  But Anne Vanderbilt successfully picked up the reins as hostess of the Petite Chateau.

In 1906 Vanderbilt’s son, William Jr., commissioned McKim, Mead & White to design a compatible mansion next door at No. 666 Fifth Avenue.  Existing brownstone homes were demolished and the firm produced a mansion so harmonious with No. 660 that it was often confused as one building.

The two Vanderbilt houses were often confused as one -- photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

The mansions of New York’s millionaires were tempting targets for burglars despite constant police vigilance and private security.  In 1899 James Anderson, alias Eleazur Hardy, was sent to the Elmira Reformatory for robbing the houses of J. Pierpont Morgan and Charles T. Yerkes.  Back on the street in 1908 he got inside the Vanderbilt mansion on February 13. 

When Anderson left the house he had with him $230 worth of Mrs. Vanderbilt’s silver—more in the neighborhood of $5,500 today.  The burglar’s freedom would be short-lived, however.  On March 10 he was convicted of the robbery and was back behind bars awaiting sentencing.

William Kissam Vanderbilt -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

By December 1910 when Anne Vanderbilt gave a debutante dance in the mansion for her daughter, Margaret Rutherfurd, Fifth Avenue had changed.  The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel stood on the site of the old Astor mansion and the St. Regis Hotel had replaced the elegant homes at the corner of 55^th Street.  In response to the dogged incursion of commerce into the formerly exclusive residential neighborhood, millionaires were fleeing northward along Central Park.  But the Vanderbilts stood firm.

The vestibule of the mansion would become a make-shift infirmary three months after the debutante ball.  On March 15, 1911 Mary Cunningham, a 47-year old seamstress was crossing Fifth Avenue when she was hit by an automobile. The driver stopped momentarily, then sped away.

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Two men carried her to the lower step of the Vanderbilt mansion, then were given permission by a family member to bring her into the vestibule.  A Vanderbilt limousine was called for to take the woman to Flower Hospital.  A doctor arrived about 12 minutes later and diagnosed a broken left leg and contusions.  When the Vanderbilt car drove up, the doctor sent it away, saying he preferred that the patient be transported by ambulance.

In the meantime, three other Vanderbilt limousines pulled up to take the family to the opera.  Working around the doctor, the patient and onlookers, a servant rolled out a long red carpet down the steps.  Apparently unmoved by the situation Anne Vanderbilt and her companions sidestepped the woman.  “Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, Sr., three young women, and three men, appeared,” reported The Times.  “They walked down the carpet-covered steps into the automobiles, and in the rear of the procession came Dr. Croak and the ambulance driver carrying Mrs. Cunningham.”

Society hostesses often gave dinners followed by a trip to the theater.  Anne Vanderbilt found it more convenient on January 21, 1912 to simply bring the theater to No. 660 Fifth Avenue.  The New York Times reported that “those who have been asked in will have the opportunity of seeing Mme. Simone and her leading man, Arnold Daly, in a one-act play, entitled ‘Bryant 5800.’  This is an adaptation by Gaston Mayer of Tristan Bernard’s ‘Les Coteaux de Medoc.’”

As did many other wealthy socialites, Anne Vanderbilt threw herself into war relief work as World War I erupted.  In 1915 she traveled to France where she saw the work of American surgeons among the wounded French soldiers.  She continued throughout the war hosting benefits in the mansion and raising money and awareness regarding war-related causes.

 

American Architect & Building News June 5, 1886 (copyright expired)

On July 5, 1915 Saerdes R. Fowrdbes, of Yonkers, was released from the State Hospital for the Insane at Poughkeepsie.  A year later, on May 31, 1916 he stood on Fifth Avenue in front of the Vanderbilt house and lobbed bricks at the windows from a leather bag he carried.  Before his arrest he had shattered several panes.  The broken window glass was nothing compared to the man’s intentions—he carried a stiletto with the intention of killing the owner of the house.

Fowrdbes, however, was at the wrong house.  Calling the man a "maniac," The Evening World explained that he believed “that it was the residence of John D. Rockefeller.”

In July 1920 William Kissam Vanderbilt died while traveling in Paris.  Within four months the mansion that had been his home for nearly four decades was on the market.  The Times reported on November 10 “Negotiations are in progress for the sale of the mansion of the late William K. Vanderbilt at 660 Fifth Avenue…and reports among real estate men yesterday were that the deal would be concluded before the end of the week, with the purchase price between $2,500,000 and $3,000,000.”

Two weeks later the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guidereported that the Empire Trust Co. had purchased the house.  “The structure will be remodeled into a banking house.”  The New York Times was less optimistic saying “The ornate graystone structure…will probably be replaced by a modern skyscraper.”

As it turned out, the Empire Trust never converted the house to a bank branch as intended.  Instead it put the house back on the market.  It sat empty for five years before being purchased by Benjamin Winter in May 1925.  The Times reported on May 20 that “the real estate operator…will erect a twenty-story business building on the site.”

Manhattan being Manhattan, that structure did not last, either.  A sleek 40-story tower was later erected on the site. 

photo by the author