The 1885 Albert I. Sire Carriage House -- No. 211 West 58th Street

By 1885 the block of West 58^th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues was lined with handsome private carriage houses.   That year Albert I. Sire completed his own at No. 211, next door to that of Lambert Suydam directly behind his mansion that faced 59^th Street.

The ambitious and wealthy Sire had widely-divergent interests.  An attorney, he was also a partner in Sire Brothers which managed the New York Theatre and the Casino Theatre; and was well-known as an owner and racer of trotting horses.    But it was his real estate development side that would manifest itself in his personal carriage house.

As President of the Madison Avenue Real Estate Company he not only bought and sold properties, but developed commercial and residential buildings.  His calculating mind would produce an anomaly among the block of millionaire’s private carriage houses. 

His eclectic building combined elements of Victorian Gothic at the second floor—engaged stone columns upholding limestone arches that nearly, but not quite, came to a point; and matching columns on carved brackets at the far sides—floriform carvings of the Aesthetic Movement, and a stepped gable that hinted at Flemish Revival.  Below the central parapet in carved stone letters Sire emblazoned his name.

Albert Sire branded his carriage house with his name in stone.

While the other carriage houses provided shelter for expensive horses and vehicles on the first floor and lodging for groomsmen or stable boys on the upper floors, the Sire building doubled as an apartment house.  The three upper floors were income producing residential space—a nearly unheard of concept (especially considering the noises and offensive odors of the stables).

Although Albert I. Sire owned a horse farm at Morris Farms, New Jersey; he apparently sometimes boarded his trotters in the city.   On Christmas Day, 1886 he ran an advertisement in The Spirit of the Times with the eye-catching headline “SPEED! SPEED!! SPEED!!!”  It offered for sale “The well-known trotting horse Black Prince…Also, the black gelding Judge Russell, record 2:32 can trot in 2:30.  Both will be sold at a reasonable price.”  The advertisement directed to apply to Sire’s employee, A. Straut, at 211 West 58^thStreet.

On October 12, 1889 The New York Times reported on the trotting races at the grounds of the Driving Club of New-York.  The newspaper included Albert Sire among “The cream of New-York’s trotters and owners of trotters.”

In the meantime, a variety of tenants were living above Albert Sire’s expensive horses.  Architect Thomas S. Goodwin was here in 1893, and before long attorney William Woods moved in.  The lawyer found himself on the wrong side of the legal system in September 1897.   It all began when the E. S. Dean Company, “discretionary pool operators,” went into bankruptcy in the spring of 1896.  Samuel Kellar had been the manager of the establishment and he was arrested on a civil order in April, but later discharged.

Woods was approached by Robert A. Ammon, the former president of the Mining Exchange, and lawyer William A. Sweetser with a scheme to blackmail Kellar.  The trio sent him official-looking letters declaring they had documents which, if made public, would send him to jail.  The lawyers offered to destroy the documents for $30,000 (about three-quarters of a million dollars today).

Unfortunately for the blackmailers, Kellar instead went to detectives who instructed him to meet the extortionists with marked bills.  Immediately upon the exchange of the cash, the detectives swooped down on the crooks.  The money was found in Woods’ pocket and he was held on $1,000 bail.

Next door to Sire's building was the elaborate carriage house of Helen Gould, which replaced Lambert Suydam's earlier stable.

A year later Albert Sire found himself acting as attorney for one of his tenants.  Mary Kupper and her husband occupied an apartment above the carriage house.  When George Peterson arrived to deliver coal one day, Mary pointed out the coal hole cover in front of the building.  When the delivery had been made, she remembered clearly “after the coal was in I saw that the man shut the cover, and tried it with the shovel, and then he moved away.”

A day later John Finn was walking along West 58^thStreet and fell into the coal hole in front of No. 211.  Shaken and covered with coal dust, the angry man initiated a law suit complaining that not only had Peterson not properly replaced the cover; but that the Mary Kupper and her husband were negligent for omitting “to carefully close said coal hole, and fasten the cover thereof.”

Sire defended his tenants through two trials over the accident.

By 1901 when Sire’s carriage house was sold, there had been a one-story addition built in the rear.  Albert and his brother had experienced major financial difficulties concerning their theaters in 1900, which possibly resulted in the foreclosure sale the following year.

Incidentally, Albert Sire’s problems only worsened within the next few years.  On October 29, 1903 his 33-year old wife, Beatrice died suddenly in their mansion at No. 22 West 59^thStreet.  The death was explained by the coroner as a macabre accident—she reportedly drank carbolic acid “having been taken in mistake for medicine.”

But the family gave another version.  Clarence Sire insisted that she suffered a heart attack and that Albert was at her bedside when she died.  “She had been ill for eight or nine months,” he said.

The fact that the death was not immediately reported coupled with the somewhat confusing circumstances resulted in an inquest.  That inquest ended in a shouting match between coroners, described by The New York Times as a “lively quarrel,” and Coroner Scholer pronouncing Coroner Jackson “unfit for office.”  What was decided, at least, was that Beatrice Sire died of carbolic acid poisoning, not heart disease, “though whether the acid was taken intentionally or not [Coroner Jackson] was not prepared to say,” said The Times.

Actress Rose Beckett was living in No. 211 at the time.  She was found dead in her apartment on Friday, April 8, 1904.  An autopsy revealed that she had died of natural causes.  In reporting the case, The New York Times parenthetically mentioned another tenant.  “George Rossiter, a boarder,…was sent to the alcoholic ward of Bellevue.”

Three years later John O’Malley was living here when he borrowed the car of F. A. Dwyer so he could drive himself to the Metropolitan Race Track in Jamaica, Queens.   When he sped past the Brooklyn Headquarters motorcycle squad, a chase ensued.    The Brooklyn Daily Star reported on the three-mile chase.  The officers clocked him “on the Hoffman Boulevard, and he was pursued down the Boulevard to Hillside avenue and then to the Merrick road before he was taken into custody.”  He was charged with driving at the break-neck speed of thirty-five miles an hour.

By the time the T & S Realty Company sold the building for over $110,000 on February 16, 1915, the former carriage house level had been converted to commercial space.   The sale document described the property as “a five-story tenement and store building.”  It would appear, however, that the “store” was actually an automobile garage and showroom.

In November 1920 the “store” was leased to the Motor Hearse Corporation of America; and the following year in December it became home to the Commerce Truck Corporation for its offices and showrooms.

A few years earlier, in 1916, Norman St. Clair Hales had moved in upstairs.   During his long residency here the actor became friendly with the men of the fire station two buildings away.   On December 30, 1929 he was invited to an informal party in Engine Company 23 celebrating the upcoming promotion of Lieutenant P. Joseph Connolly.  Around 2:00 in the morning Hales and Fireman Thomas J. Walsh were on the third floor of the firehouse where Hales was “doing contortionists’ tricks.”  When he stumbled and lurched towards the fire pole opening, Walsh shouted a warning and grabbed for him.

Hales caught the fireman’s arm, but now both men were pulled off balance and fell through the opening.    Hales hit the second floor first, with Walsh falling on top of him.  Just as the firemen were carrying Hales downstairs, a fire alarm came in.  In an attempt to ensure that the ambulance would find him, they deposited the actor on the sidewalk outside No. 211.

When the ambulance arrived from Metropolitan Hospital, Normal St. Clair Hales was dead on the pavement.  A subsequent inquiry exonerated all persons present at the fire station.

The exceptional double doors featured glass panels with wheel-cut designs, unusual star-burst oval glass insets, and heavy carving.

By 1930 The Broadway Tabernacle Church had taken over the old carriage house and garage space.  The church had previously been located at 56^th Street and Broadway (hence the name) and would operate from No. 211 for decades to come.

Meanwhile, the personnel director of the popular-priced Grand Opera Repertory was living in one of the apartments.  Orlando Crawford was 22 years old when he was arrested on June 11, 1933 for violating the Sunday Closing Law by staging a production of Rigoletto at the New York Hippodrome. 

Crawford and his cohorts apparently did not learn their lesson.  Two weeks later, on June 25, they were in handcuffs again for the same crime.

The some time during the 20th century the neighborhood had been the piano district with manufacturers like Steinway and Chickering erecting grand buildings to showcase their instruments.   In 1984 the ground floor of No. 211 became home to the Museum of the American Piano.   Museum director Kalman Detrich displayed approximately 18 instruments, piano-making tools, catalogs and photographs.

Hefty lions' heads embellish the entrance doors.

Later, for several years, the ground floor was showroom to piano merchant Klavierhaus.  Then, in August 2013, Carl Demler, owner of Beethoven Pianos, purchased the building as its piano showroom.

Although a zig-zagging fire escape mars the remarkable façade and the first floor has been covered over in a concrete-like substance, Albert Sire’s highly unusual carriage house/apartment building is a delightful survivor.

 

photographs taken by the author

The St. John Baptist House -- Nos. 231-233 East 17th Street

photo by Alice Lum

By 1875 the lower east side teemed with tenements crowded with impoverished immigrants, mostly German.  A quarter of a century earlier, in Clewer, England, the Sisterhood of Saint John Baptist had been formed to alleviate the suffering of the poor.  Now, in May 1876, a New York branch was established to further the work.

The sisterhood was part of the Protestant Episcopal Church and fell under the direct charge of the influential Bishop Henry C. Potter and the Reverend G. H. Houghton.  In 1877 Helen Folsom purchased two plots of land at Nos. 233 and 235 East 17^thStreet in the fashionable Stuyvesant Square neighborhood for the Sisterhood.

Helen came from the well-known Winthrop family of Massachusetts.  She purchased the land from Rutherford Stuyvesant, a family relative by marriage, and conveyed it to the Saint John the Baptist Foundation for $10.  Her magnanimous gesture was possibly prompted by a family interest—it is thought that Sister Helen Margaret was her niece.

Architect E. T. Littell set to work designing the “Mother House and Novitiate” that would house up to 40 sisters.   The building, most often referred to as the St. John Baptist House, was completed within the year.  Littell produced an asymmetrical Victorian Gothic pile in keeping with the religious organization it housed.  Between the pointed arches of paired Gothic windows within single brownstone arches were carved quatrefoils.  The offset doorway was approached by a steep, wide brownstone stoop and bandcourses of the same stone ran between each floor, doubling as sills.   Especially picturesque was the jerkin-headed gable that interrupted the steep slate-tiled roof.

The sisters quickly took up their vocations of tending to the poor and sick.   Headed by Sister Frances Constance, the Lady Superior, they visited and ministered to the residents of the tenements.  The New York Times noted “Their dress is very similar to that of Roman Catholic nuns, and when walking the streets they are easily mistaken for nuns.”

They established a “work-room for ecclesiastical embroidery” in the house, where women learned needlework and a means of income.  The Times said “They act as teachers to the pupils, and also devote themselves to general missionary work for the Church.”

Among the missionary sisters was Sister Gertrude Verena; one of the original group.  By 1880 the Holy Cross Mission had been established by the sisterhood a few blocks away on East 17^thStreet and Avenue C.   Early on the morning of November 7 Sister Gertrude Verena went to the mission, as she always did; then headed back sometime after 10:00.

A tall, thin stranger had been noticed in the neighborhood during the past few days loitering around Stuyvesant Square and sometimes blankly staring at the St. John the Baptist House.  Thomas Stanton lived in a rented room in the basement of No. 43 Grand Street and, according to The Sun on November 9, “For the last week he had been out of work, and to pass the time he strolled up to the park in Stuyvesant square, and sat on the benches.  He saw Sister Gertrude pass in and out of the house several times.”

Stanton was a Roman Catholic and assumed that the woman in the black habit was a Catholic nun.  That morning, as she approached the stairs of the St. John Baptist House, Stanton was abruptly standing there on the sidewalk.  The Times reported “When Sister Verena had approached to within 10 feet of the strange man, he suddenly drew from his pocket a six-shooter, and taking deliberate aim, without saying a word, began firing at her.  Two shots were discharged and entered the woman’s left thigh.”

Sister Gertrude Verena, despite her wounds, ran up the brownstone stoop.  Stanton pursued her, firing his weapon over and over until the rounds were spent.  One entered the sister’s right ankle, another went through her left thumb and the other two struck the stone steps.

At the time the other sisters were in the chapel at the rear of the house; but the gunfire was audible, followed by the frantic ringing of the doorbell by the wounded woman.  The sisters rushed to her aid, helping her into the hallway where she fell unconscious.

The National Police Gazette provided its vision of the attack on November 20, 1880 (copyright expired)

In the meantime, Stanton casually walked along East 17^thStreet toward Third Avenue audaciously carrying the spent weapon in his hand.  The two men who had witnessed the shooting from across the street disappeared before they could be questioned.  It was a stalwart newsboy who seized Stanton and held him until Police Officer William B. Deems arrived to arrest him.

The National Police Gazette, under the headline “The Very Stones Cry Shame—A Little Sister of the Poor Shot While Returning From an Errand of Mercy,” opined “It was clear that he was insane, and he was locked up to await an examination.”

Indeed, Stanton appeared to be disturbed.  He told investigators he had been bewitched by the sister, who harbored a demon who spoke to him.  “I didn’t want to hurt her.  I only wanted to scare her and make the witch leave her,” The Sun quoted him as saying on November 9, 1880.  The witch, he said, was “always around me and talking to me.  No; I can’t see her, and never did see her.  I can’t repeat anything that she says, but I always hear her talking, day and night.”

For some reason the innocent Sister Gertrude Verena drew his attention.  “He saw Sister Gertrude pass in and out of the house several times, and on Sunday he made up his mind that she was the cause of all his trouble.”

Meanwhile, the sister was cared for by Dr. Stuyvesant F. Morris, the physician of the House, who pronounced the wounds “very serious, but not necessarily fatal,” according to The New York Times.  It was believed that the heavy fabric of her habit had helped break the force of the bullets.

Within two days The Sun reported that she was “in a fair way to recover” and Dr. Morris believed he would be able to extract “the bullet imbedded in the muscular tissues of her back” that day.

The wounded Sister Gertrude Verena desperately climbed the brownstone stoop seeking help.  At the time the school addition, at left, had not been constructed. -- photo by Alice Lum

The sisters’ work continued and in 1883 the plot at No. 331 abutting the House to the west was acquired for a school.   Architect Charles C. Haight received the commission to design the structure which sympathetically expanded on Littell’s original plan.   The St. John Baptist School doubled as a boarding and day school, and was described by “The Centennial History of the Protestant Episcopal Church” the following year “a new school-house for young ladies” which would accommodate about 30 pupils.  Haight’s building projected beyond the St. John the Baptist House nearly to the property line.  The addition resulted in the entrance of House becoming visually centered.

By 1892, in addition to the embroidery school in the House and the St. John Baptist School next door, the sisters had undertaken a staggering amount of work.  They were in charge of St. Hilda’s School, a boarding school “for young ladies,” in Morristown, New Jersey; the St. Andrew’s Hospital for Convalescent Women at 213 East 17^th Street; the Mission of the Holy Cross and a Girls Day School in connection with it; St. Anne’s Cottage, a summer home for the women and children of the Mission; the Midnight Mission on Greene Street in the desolate area of brothels and vice where the sisters created “a refuge for fallen women;” St. Michael’s Home on Long Island which Living Church Quarterly described as “an offshoot of the Midnight Mission, chiefly for young and hopeful cases, and partly prevential;” and the Christ Church Home, an institution for children in South Amboy, New Jersey.  In addition to this all, Living Church Quarterly reminded readers that the sisters carried on “mission work among the German population of the East Side of New York.”

In 1915 the church sold the East 17^th Street buildings to Evodkim Mescherky for $70,000—about $1 million today—who quickly established the Russian National St. Vladimir’s Home.    The buildings were little changed and Russian immigrants, some having fled the recent turmoil at home, were housed here. 

On March 24, 1918, with Russia caught up in World War I and revolution, Colonel Nicolay Nicolaywich Koch was living here.  Formerly a Colonel in the Russian Army, he issued a passionate plea to his countrymen to help fight Germany.

He said in part, “The world calls us an ignorant, unfortunate and poverty stricken people.  But this is only half of a misfortune.  It is not our fault; but, the most terrible thing of all, we are accused of treachery before our faithful allies in the fight for the world’s freedom.”  He said that because many called the Russians “contemptible,” that “many of us, because of lack of courage, begin to consider concealing our Russian nationality.”

His emotional plea continued “To you, sons of our downtrodden, beloved, and only recently great, free Russia, I appeal in this terrible hour of unheard-of trials and beg you from the depth of my tortured heart to firmly decide to stand up and defend our native land, threatened with long slavery and innumerable sufferings, to free her from the iron grasp of the tyrants.”

Among the Colonel’s co-residents here were some who openly supported the Bolshevik party.  When two of them joined like-minded protestors in a demonstration in Washington Square in October 1919, they found themselves behind bars.

The New-York Tribune reported on October 12 that “Six men and a woman who were arrested Wednesday, when several hundred aliens professing Bolshevik convictions tried to parade from Washington Square without a permit, were sentenced to six months in the workhouse yesterday.”   Among those arrested for disorderly conduct were 28-year old Karl Schula and 25-year old David Klipper of St. Vladimir’s Home.   

The judge was particularly mindful of the group’s banners; one in particular which read “Deport Us to Russia—We’ll Be Free There.”  The New-York Tribune noted “He agreed heartily with the suggestion of some one in the packed courtroom that Henry Ford or some other wealthy man would earn national gratitude by chartering a ship and giving free passage to those who approved of Lenine and Trotzky.”

On July 18, 1920 Eastern Orthodox history was made in the chapel of St. Vladimir’s Home.   The former chapel of the Sisterhood of St. John Baptist was now the Catholic Church of the Transfiguration, a branch of the Holy Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Nicholas.    The Times reported that “For the first time in the 1,894 years of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Litany of St. Chrysostom will be said tomorrow morning in the English language.”

It was an extraordinary break in tradition, possibly prompted by financial problems.  The Times noted that “As the Russian Church in America has been embarrassed financially ever since the revolution in Russia, the English branch will be maintained by voluntary contributions.  All pecuniary aid from Russia stopped after the Bolsheviki took $200,000,000 from the churches there.”

The Church of the Transfiguration would not be here long, however.  A month later the building was sold in a foreclosure sale and was acquired by the Russian Church Relief Corporation for $64,000.  Just four months later, on December 10, newspapers reported that the buildings had been sold.

Controversy in the brick and brownstone buildings came to an end as the newly-formed Smith College Club converted them to club rooms, dining rooms and twelve sleeping rooms per floor above the first floor.  Here alumnae of the prestigious women’s college found temporary housing; and fund raising and educational events were held.  For eight years the society pages would publicize the glamorous affairs.  One of the first was the benefit dance “and bridge” at the Plaza Hotel on the day after Easter that year, a month after the club moved into their new clubhouse.

Then, in June 1929, the Smith College Club sold the building to the Friendly League for Christian Service; an organization for business woman.  The Times reported that it “will be opened as a home for business woman on July 1.”

A month later the newspaper would write about some of the organization's unusual features.  “The new Friendly Centre which has been opened by the Friendly League for Christian Service…has removed any age limit on employed women, and it is for business women that the residence will be operated.  Most homes of this kind do not permit women to stay after they are 35 years of age.  Nor will the centre refuse admission to a business woman who receives a generous salary.”

The article did point out that the cheapest rooms would be held for financially struggling girls.  “The reasonable rooms, however, will be reserved for employed girls and women with small incomes.”  The women living here enjoyed a library, lounge and auditorium.

The Friendly Centre would stay on in the building for decades; finally selling it in 1996 to the Salvation Army.   A minor conversion updated the facility, with laundries and offices on each of the floors, along with the bedrooms, and a chapel on the first floor.

The 2080 square foot apartment above was listed in 2013 for $2.3 million http://www.corcoran.com/nyc/Listings/Display/2578861 

Then in 2008 the venerable structure was converted to luxury condominiums.    No trace of the interiors remains where sisters in black habits once shuffled dutifully about.  But while the windows have been replaced; the exteriors are remarkable intact and still delightfully picturesque.

photo by Alice Lum

The 1903 Church of St. Veronica -- No. 153 Christopher Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1796, about three decades before the rural village of Greenwich would explode in a flurry of development, the imposing Newgate State Prison was opened at the foot of Christopher Street.  The institution would be abandoned by 1829 and slowly demolished; but the area would little improve.

Further away, respectable Federal-style brick rose along the twisting streets of the Village and on 6^th Avenue the elegant Greek Revival St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church was erected in 1834 to serve the expanding community north of the city.   But as the century progressed, the neighborhood along the riverfront filled with less comfortable residents.

Irish immigrant laborers were drawn to the area by the low-paying but readily available jobs on the docks and in surrounding businesses.   In 1845 Nash, Beadleston & Co. opened a brewery in part of the old prison, a coal yard appeared on nearby Charles Street along with an iron works, a soap plant and a lime shed.    In stark contrast to the prim homes of the middle class nearer to St. Joseph’s, these families settled in cheap tenement houses.

In the 1880s, as the population continued to increase, the neighborhood was at best seedy and, at worst, dangerous.  At the foot of Christopher Street was Mulqueen’s tavern, opened in 1883 where dockworkers and sailors gathered for stout and malt liquors.  The New York Police Department would later describe the area as “the resort of outcasts, drunkards, dissolute people, and a dangerous class of depredators and petty highwaymen.”

The situation drew the attention of Archbishop Michael A. Corrigan.  St. Joseph’s Church was already overcrowded and the riverfront area was teeming with poor Irish workers.  In January 1887 he created the parish of St. Veronica’s to serve the “6,000 souls” estimated to live there, covering the area bounded by West Houston, Bank and Hudson Streets.

Father John F. Fitzharris, who had been first assistant pastor at the refined St. Joseph’s, was reassigned to lead this new flock in the much less refined neighborhood.   Four months later, on Palm Sunday April 3, the first services were held in what The New York Times called “a temporary chapel in Washington-street.”  The newspaper noted that the “chapel was crowded at all the services.”

The “temporary chapel” was a warehouse-stable building.  Father Fitzharris faced a significant financial challenge in establishing his parish.  He started out with $626 collected from among the St. Joseph’s worshipers on March 27.  Adding to the funds would be an uphill journey.

The old warehouse and stable was costing Father Fitzharris $2,000 per year and he spent $6,000 to convert it into what resembled a church.  The priest elicited donations not only from the neighboring churches—St. Bernard’s, St. Joseph’s and St. Francis Xavier’s; but from as far away as St. Peter’s Church downtown on Barclay Street.

The unrelenting priest collected enough that a year later he was able to purchase property on Christopher Street, between Washington and Greenwich Streets for $69,500.   The cornerstone would not be laid until March 16, 1890, however.   With the impoverished parishioners giving what they could to the building fund, it would be a slow process.   At a time when churches and other substantial buildings were being erected within a year or possibly 18 months, it would be another 13 years before the church was completed.

The congregation worshiped in the basement throughout this time as construction plodded along above their heads, sometimes halting for a year or more while funds were gathered.  The architect chosen for the project was John J. Deery whose home office was in Philadelphia, but who divided his time between there and New York.  Deery had started out in 1875 working under Edwin F. Durang who almost exclusively designed Catholic church projects.   By now Deery worked on his own and, like his mentor, concentrated on ecclesiastical projects—although he would also design the baseball fields for the Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago teams.

Deery’s design for St. Veronica’s would result in a somewhat bulky Victorian Gothic structure of brick and limestone.   What it lacked in ethereal grace it made up for in stocky solidity.  

photo by Alice Lum

Four years after starting his project, Father Fitzharris died, never to see his completed church.  His successor Father Daniel J. McCormick would not live to see the structure either; dying in January 1903.  Finally, on June 7 of that year, sixteen years after the parish was founded, the Church of St. Veronica’s was opened.  The parishioners had good reason to be proud.   Despite having little money, they had raised enough to build a substantial church building.

Much of the money had come from two parish fairs staged by the women—events that often lasted a week or more and included carnival-like festivities like games of change, refreshments, music and entertainments and home-made gifts to purchase.   At one, held in 1880, a featured prize was a full set of bow and arrows and a tomahawk said have once belonged to Rain-in-the-Face, an Indian from the Camp of Sitting Bull.  The two fairs alone had raised over $33,000.

Tenement buildings crowd in against the church building in the early 20th century -- NYPL Collection

The priests of St. Veronica’s would deal with much in the impoverished and mostly illiterate parish.  In 1908 the Greenwich House Papers reported that nearly 50 percent of the fathers of St. Veronica’s students were unemployed.    Alcohol and violence often resulted in tragedy.

57-year old Frank Van Heck lived at No. 76 Morton Street and often visited neighborhood saloons playing his accordion.  On the evening of July 7, 1901, however, he visited friends in the building--Peter Gilleyn and his wife, Mary.  There were also two men there whom Van Heck did not know.  “They were all drinking and having a lively time in Gilleyn’s apartment,” reported The New York Tribune the following day.  Then things turned ugly.

Gilleyn asked Van Heck to play his accordion.  He refused.   The host said “Well, if you don’t do it right quick, I’ll make you.”  To prove his point he produced a club and knocked Van Heck down. Within seconds there was a melee.  The two strangers wrenched the club from Gilleyn while his wife grabbed a pair of scissors and joined in the skirmish. 

When Van Heck saw Gilleyn heading for him with an axe, he bolted out the third floor window.  Father Horrigan of St. Veronica’s rushed to the scene where the man who refused to play the accordion lying on the sidewalk with a broken skull and jaw.   While the two strangers fled, police took Peter and Mary Gilleyn into custody.  Father Horrigan administered last rites on the pavement.

Irish priest John J. Brady was assistant rector of St. Veronica’s in 1916 as the United States’ involvement in World War I seemed imminent.   He left his position to join the Navy, taking a berth on the battleship Arkansas.  Almost immediately after the U.S. entered the war he asked for a transfer to the Marine Corps.   He became the first Catholic chaplain to land with the first American troops in France.

The feisty priest did not wait behind the lines for the injured to be brought back.   He would later be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for manifesting “utmost disregard for personal safety during the attack of June 6, 1918, in the Bois de Belleau, exposing himself fearlessly throughout the attack, passing up and down the front lines, cheering the men and caring for those who were wounded.”

Fourteen days later he was at it again.  On July 18 at Chateau Thierry he made “two complete tours of the front lines under severe fire and administered to the men under unusually trying circumstances.  He continued to expose himself to mortal danger to carry cigarettes to the men in the line who had no other opportunity to get them.”

Father Brady, a true man of the cloth, did not restrict his attentions to the Allies.  “Chaplain Brady knew the Germans in opposite trenches would need last rites soon,” reported The Sun.  “He assisted in carrying wounded to first aid stations and gave the last rites to the desperately hurt not only of his own command but to dying Germans on the field as well.  It is said that he gave consolation to thirty Germans, but as a patriotic Yankee he drew the line at carrying them off the field.”

On St. Patrick’s Day, 1918, Brady was riding in a jeep with three French soldiers when a shell hit the car.  Everyone except the priest was killed.  In a letter to his mother, Father Brady said that “the blessed Irish Saint” must have been with him.

For some reason the red brick has been painted red and the white limestone has been painted white.  photo by Alice Lum

On the morning of September 19, 1926, the new Bishop John Mitty celebrated his first pontifical mass.  He did so in the Church of St. Veronica’s.  Mitty had attended church here as a boy and then, having become a priest, celebrated his first mass here.  He felt it appropriate to begin his elevation in the friendly surroundings of his old church.

Among the messages of congratulation was one from Gene Tunney, challenger for the world’s heavyweight boxing title.  “The message expressed Tunney’s regret at not being able to attend the services,” reported The New York Times.   The Irish fighter was a member of the congregation and had graduated from its school in 1911.  The parish was proud of its newly-famous member, although the pastor, Rev. Patrick H. Drain, had to tip-toe around the prize-fighting issue.

“No, the Catholic Church is not opposed to prizefights as long as they are conducted in a legitimate way,” he told a reporter.  “Pugilism in the past was conducted in a ‘rough-neck’way, but now it is becoming elevated by Gene Tunney.  He is a man of high moral character.  He is a good Catholic.  He often comes to mass here on Sunday when he is in town.  He likes to be known as a ‘Greenwich Villager.’”

Tunney’s prizefighting was also a potential source of revenue.

There was still a substantial debt owed on the church building in 1926 and, therefore, it had never been consecrated in its 23 years of existence.   Father Drain was determined to erase the $279,000 mortgage and in his fund-raising sent a letter to Tunney asking if he would care to help the parish.

Just before Tunney’s reply came late in September 1927, the money had all been raised.    When Father Drain opened the envelope from the prize fighter, he found a check for $1,000 “to help the church in any way you see fit.”  With the mortgage paid, the priest decided that “what would help the most just now was to paint the rectory inside and outside,” said The Times.

With a new paint job supplied by Gene Tunney, the Church of St. Veronica’s was finally consecrated by Cardinal Hayes on November 27, 1927.   The cardinal reflected on the 12-year effort to erase the debt saying “I want to say publicly that this is an accomplishment which will go into the records of this archdiocese and that it will be recorded in letters of gold.”

In April 1930 a memorial tablet was unveiled in honor of the deceased war veterans of the parish.  It was a gesture that would hauntingly foreshadow another memorial decades later.

photo http://catholicmanhattan.blogspot.com

By the 1970s the neighborhood that had once been home to poor, hard-working Irish immigrants was the center of New York’s gay culture.   Christopher Street was synonymous nation-wide with the Gay Rights movement and bars and shops catering to homosexuals lined the street from 6^th Avenue to the Hudson River.    The congregation of St. Veronica’s was now a broad mixture of ages, races and sexual orientation.   Gay groups met in the basement of the church.

But the AIDS epidemic would change the complexion of Greenwich Village forever.

As more and more men became ill and died, the light-hearted atmosphere of Christopher Street plunged into despair and fear.    By the mid 1980s hundreds of Village residents were dying every year and the Catholic Church was viewed by many as an enemy.   Cardinal John O’Connor declared that there would be no talk of condoms in his “jurisdiction,” although it was widely known that the use of condoms would prevent the spread of AIDS.  At the same time he ousted the gay group Dignity from a Manhattan church where it held its weekly masses.

O’Connor was confused when he gave AIDS patients “the smile I am told does wonders on television,” only to be turned away.   But when it appeared that the cardinal was blind to the needs of one part of his flock who felt shunned by their church he did a remarkable thing.

O’Connor reached out to Mother Teresa for help.   The nun sent a staff of her Missionaries of Charity to New York to establish the Gift of Love Hospice in their converted rectory of St. Veronica’s.   The nuns, in their iconic blue-and-white habits, became a comforting and familiar presence along Christopher Street.   The small house could shelter only 15 AIDS victims, but the nuns worked tirelessly caring for the dying men.

In June 1993 the AIDS Memorial in the Village was installed in the balcony of St. Veronica’s church.   It consisted of brass plaques with the names of Villagers who had succumbed to AIDS.   There are over 1,000 of them.  Every year during Gay Pride week, St. Veronica’s holds an interfaith service to remember the victims of the devastating epidemic.

photo by Alice Lum

The Archdiocese of New York converted the church to a chapel of Our Lady of Guadelupe/St. Bernard’s Church on West 14^th Street in March of 2006.   Now formally titled the Mission of Our Lady of Guadalupe, no one calls it that.   To New Yorkers and, particularly, Greenwich Villagers, it will always be St. Veronica’s.

The St. Vincent Ferrer Priory -- Lexington Avenue and 65th Street

photo by Alice Lum

As the Civil War raged to the south, the Father Preachers of the West sent representatives to New York.  Among the first was French-born Father Thomas Martin, who moved into a brownstone on Lexington Avenue and 62^nd Street in the Upper East Side where similar rowhouses were quickly lining the streets.   Before long more Dominican priests followed and Archbishop John McCloskey encouraged the group to establish a parish in the area.   Urban pioneers who ventured north into what had a generation earlier been sprawling country estates of the wealthy needed a convenient place of worship. 

The “fathers of the white-robed order,” as described in The Evening World, borrowed $10,000 to purchase land at Lexington Avenue and 65^thStreet.   Plans were drawn for a brick chapel and school, and on November 10, 1867 the cornerstone was laid by Archbishop McCloskey.  Two years later the chapel was completed as well as a simple convent to the rear of the church.  The parish of St. Vincent Ferrer was now established.

As the war came to a close and the workforce marched back home, the area developed at a greater pace.  The Lexington Avenue block between 65^th and 66^thStreets was soon surrounded by brownstone houses and the accompanying commercial concerns like dry goods stores and groceries.  St. Vincent Ferrer’s membership and religious staff burgeoned and in 1879 the chapel was replaced by a substantial church.  That same year plans were laid for a New York City provincial headquarters, or “convent.”

The Fathers commissioned German-born architect William Schickel to design the new convent.  After studying architecture in his homeland, he had immigrated to New York around 1870, landing a job with Richard Morris Hunt as a draftsman.  Within three years Schickel ventured out on his own.  He would go on to design multiple structures for the German community, as well as several buildings for the Catholic Church.

For the convent, Schickel worked in the appropriate Victorian Gothic style; but also drew from his German training.   Reflecting the building’s purpose—a home and workplace of Catholic priests—the design is restrained and dignified.  There was a decidedly ecclesiastical air to the Gothic arches, the split entrance staircase and deeply recessed entrance.  Schickel masterfully blended materials—brownstone, orange-red brick and slate--to create a polychromatic façade sitting aloofly above street level on a deep brownstone basement.

photo by Alice Lum

Taking advantage of the commodious lot, the architect sat the building back from the property line, affording a grassy lawn and garden space protected by a cast iron fence.  The convent was completed in 1881, deemed by The Evening World as “a large and commodious structure.”  A gallery connected the church with the convent’s private chapel.

The Fathers used the building, as well, for its missionary work.   “At the Convent of St. Vincent Ferrer there are several who are set apart for this particular department of religious work,” reported The Evening World. 

Then in 1888 an new “parish school-house” addition was erected to the rear at a cost of $80,000, capable of accommodating 1,200 students.   48-year old Father Raphael Ferrari was curate of the St. Vincent Ferrer Convent in 1931 when he had an inspired idea.  The priest began plans for a summer pilgrimage for the school children to Vatican City.

One week before Christmas Day, on December 17, he visited the steamship ticket office of Gaetano La Loggia at 191 Sullivan Street to begin arranging details for the trip.  Suddenly five hold-up men rushed into the office brandishing guns and demanding money.  Hoping that his clerical attire might deter the robbers from harming the two clerks of La Loggia, Father Ferrari rose from his chair and moved towards one of the men.

Two of the hold-up men fired at the priest, wounding him in the stomach and arm.  The would-be robbers then fled without the $500 dollars in cash they sought, leaving Father Ferrari to die on the office floor.

photo by Alice Lum

By the time Father Urban Nagle was transferred to the convent in 1940, it was more often called the “priory.”  Father Nagle was sent here to edit the Holy Name Journal, the official publication of the Holy Name Society.  But the priest was more well-known for his involvement with the Blackfriars—the theatrical group that took its name from the Blackfriars Theatre in London that sat on the site of a 13^th century Dominican monastery.   Working with Brother Fabian Carey, he quickly established the Blackfriars Theatre here that year and staged its first production in the fall of 1941.

Father Nagle described the group saying “The professional stage is too dependent on box office receipts.  Accordingly, it is of amateurs that our Guild is composed, men and women who understand the great and inherent power of a National Catholic theatre, and are willing to sacrifice personal comfort and remuneration to the attainment of an ideal.”

photo by Alice Lum

Theater, traditionally considered a harbor of sin and corruption by some, had its detractors within the Church.  Nagle argued, “Today there is no reason why the church and the theatre should fight against each other.  The dramatic instinct in all of us is too strong to be suppressed.  Cannot the theatre be used as a medium to bring beauty and high idealism into the lives of everyone?”

While Broadway drew audiences with renowned actors with names like Barrymore, Lunt and Fontaine; Nagle presented unknown performers and new writers. 

Among the amateur playwrights was another resident of the priory, the Rev. Thomas M. McGlynn.   Father McGlynn had already caught the attention of the Church for his astounding sculptural talents.  He had designed and sculpted the baptismal font in the St. Vincent Ferrer Church in 1932.  He was also responsible for a marble statue of Our Lady of Fatima in the Basilica of Fatima in Portugal.

But in 1944 he turned his attention to script writing.  For the Blackfriars he wrote Caukey.  The play addressed racial issues decades ahead of its time.  In it, blacks were the majority and whites a minority.

By 1948 Nagle estimated that more than 100 actors who started out on the Blackfriars stage were now professionals.  And the priest himself had become a household name.  He made regular appearances on the “Hour of Faith” national radio show, frequently appeared on television and wrote several popular books.  In January 1952, after an apparent rift with the Provincial, Father McDermott, Nagle was assigned as chaplain at the Dominican Sisters’ Motherhouse of Saint Mary of the Springs in Columbus, Ohio.

Tragedy struck around 10:00 on the night of July 29, 1974.  Father Fu opened the door of his room to discover smoke pouring into the hallway from the main staircase.  He pushed the fire alarm button, and rushed back to his room where he was joined by two other priests.  As fire trucks roared up Lexington Avenue, the fire and smoke made escape through the main entrance impossible.

Brother Mark Schratz was in his room watching the Yankees-Red Sox game.  A polio victim, he grasped  his crutches upon hearing the alarm and started down the smoke-filled corridor.  Unable to see through the smoke, he fell down a flight of stairs.

When the fire fighters arrived, they “found priests at many of the windows of the second, third and fourth floors, shouting for help, their escape cut off by the fire and intense heat, which swept up the main stairway of the five-story brick building, trapping the priests in their rooms,” reported The New York Times.

Fire fighters raised a ladder to the window of Father Fu’s room, rescuing the three priests.  Another ladder reached the room of the 65-year old pastor, the Very Rev. Paul C. McKenna.  With singed hair and eyebrows, he was lowered to the street in his red bathrobe.

As the firemen battled the blaze, the United Press International received a disturbing phone call.  The caller said he had set the fire and “would ‘bomb’ it next time.”   Later the caller telephoned again, threatening to bomb the church within two months.  “I’m letting loose a tirade against the Catholic Church,” he said, “They’ve buffaloed people since the Spanish Inquisition.”

Indeed the New York Fire Department indicated that the presence of gasoline or other flammable material was discovered where the fire started in the first floor hallway.

Before it was over, 67-year old priest Father Thomas Smith was dead and more than a dozen others had to be rescued from their rooms.

photo by Alice Lum

Three years later, sculptor and playwright priest Thomas M. McGlynn died at the age of 71.  In addition to his Blackfriars play, he had written “Vision of Fatima,” published in 1948, and sculpted busts of Popes Pius XII, John XXIII and Paul VI.

Today there is little change to the handsome brick and stone convent.  Its silent walls have sheltered missionaries, playwrights and artists.   Sitting somewhat reservedly on its lawn, arm’s length from the passerby, it is a delightful piece of Victoriana amid the hubbub of Lexington Avenue.