The 1886 Church of St. Anthony of Padua -- Sullivan and Houston Streets

In 1850 there were 4,531 Italian immigrants in the United States. Ten years later the number had more than doubled. With no Italian-speaking parish in New York, Archbishop Hughes worried about the growing number of Italian Catholics with no church. An Italian priest was given the charge of establishing a small chapel on Canal Street dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua.

Cardinal John McCloskey, in 1865, entreated the group of Franciscans who had settled in upstate New York to set up an Italian parish to replace the little chapel.  Father Leo Pacillo responded, establishing the Italian national parish of St. Anthony of Padua in 1866. The parish used the former Free Congregational Church at 149-151 Sullivan Street near West Houston Street.

Ironically, its first official act was the baptism on March 23, 1866 of an Irish baby, Elizabeth Kelly.

In 1882 the land adjacent to the church, formerly occupied by a brewery, was scheduled for auction. By now the church structure was inadequate for the quickly-increasing membership and the parish desperately needed the land in order to expand. On the day of the auction, January 31, the city was hit with a major blizzard. Father Anacletus DeAngelis was the sole bidder who made it to the auction through the snow and for a bid of $53,000 purchased the property.

English-born Arthur Crook, who would design several Manhattan churches, was selected as the architect. The Italian congregation asked for a structure of which they could be proud – one on a par with the Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.   Crook created a granite faced Romanesque building reminiscent of buildings the Italians remembered from their homeland. It would be the first church constructed by an Italian community in the United States.

On June 14, 1886 Archbishop Corrigan presided over the laying of the cornerstone. Inside was a tin box holding newspapers and several gold and silver coins.

As the church slowly took shape, marble artisans in Carrara, Italy were at work on the grand altar, communion rails and pulpit. The marble work alone would cost $12,000. The contract for the stained glass windows was finalized, costing $10,000, and the new 2,400-pipe organ was being built by George Jardine & Son at a cost of $8,000.

At last. on June 10, 1888, the church was dedicated. Stretching back 150 feet, it was 75 feet wide and rose 100 feet at its highest point. Above the central of the three entrances stood a life-size figure of Saint Anthony. Dominating the main façade was a 26-foot diameter rose window. Behind the church and connected to the monastery that fronted Thompson Street, was a campanile housing three large bells; the largest, weighing 5,000 pounds was dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua; the second weighing 3,000 pounds to “Blessed Virgin Conceived Without Sin,” and the smallest at 1,500 pounds dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi.

Inside the space soared to 86 feet. There were 33 stained glass windows – 14 in the clerestory, 14 along the side aisles and five in the sanctuary. 1500 worshippers could be accommodated. The total cost of the church and monastery was $200,000. Tall cast iron columns with gilded capitals were painted to simulate veined marble. According to The New York Times, “Boldness of outline and perfection of proportion have been relied on rather than gaudy decoration.”

The Italian congregation had gotten what they asked for – something to be proud of.

Throughout the decades the parish would be known for its colorful Feast of Saint Anthony. Although the feast started out rather solemnly, it evolved into a carefree, week-long street fest of Italian foods.

In 1905 The New York Times reported on the feast. “Little Italy’s dark, dismal streets, with their towering tenements, many of which shelter thirty families of astonishing size, were transformed yesterday into a riot of color and gayety in honor of the feast of St. Anthony of Padua. All work was abandoned, men, women, and children donned their holiday attire, and everybody kept open house for visitors, who came from all parts of the city and State to participate.”

The newspaper described the “pinwheel and paper flower men,” the organ grinder with his pet monkey and musicians in colorful uniforms. But the most evident was the array of food. There was “fancifully molded cheeses made of goats’ milk. Pile of tomatoes and cucumbers were on the pushcarts. They were bought and eaten as they were, and it was no uncommon sight to see an Italian child just able to toddle about gnawing away at a big green cucumber with apparent delight and relish.”

In April of 1914 two young women from St. Louis sent a small box of gold trinkets to the church “expressing the hope that they might be devoted to the honor of St. Anthony.” The following Sunday the gift was announced from the pulpit. Congregants immediately began showering the church with jewelry and precious metal items.

“Within two weeks we had 200 gifts,” remarked Father Silvione, “and in another month 500 had made donations. They were mostly gold rings, and some came from all parts of the East.”

By June the priest had had a gold reliquary, studded with gems, fashioned from the donated jewelry, which was put on view during the Feast of St. Anthony that month.
The darkest time for St. Anthony’s occurred on November 4, 1938. On that morning the monastery caught fire and quickly spread. On young lay brother, here only one year from Italy, perished along with a cook. Priests were trapped, some jumping out windows to adjoining buildings or clinging to window ledges praying for help. Seven trapped priests were saved by firefighters.

One priest, Father Fagan, had escaped but rushed back into the blazing building to rescue Father Louis Vitale and returning again to rescue Father Bonaventure Pons. With flames surrounding him, Father Fagan jumped from a window to a roof below. He died of his burns five days later.

The Church of St. Anthony of Padua is still run by the Franciscan brothers and while its congregation is more ethnically mixed, the annual Feast of Saint Anthony goes on, memorialized in the an unforgettable scene in the movie “The Godfather.”
Posted by tom Miller at 3:30 AM No comments: Links to this post Labels: arthur crook, greenwich village, italian romanesque, new york architecture, new york church

Friday, April 29, 2011

The Lockwood De Forest House - No. 7 East 10th Street When landscape painter Lockwood De Forest II married Meta Kemble in 1879, his love affair with things Indian and exotic was already well-established. That same year he had partnered with Louis Comfort Tiffany to form the interior decorating firm of Associated Artists.

De Forest took his new bride on a nearly two-year honeymoon to India. While there he found the woodcarving studio of Muggunbhai Hutheesing who struggled to keep India’s traditional art forms from disappearing. While De Forest wanted to help preserve the Indian arts and crafts, he also recognized the financial opportunity of importing the ornate moldings and furniture for Associated Artists. As art historian Roberta Mayer put it, he recognized “a way to create beauty and make money at the same time.”
De Forest’s love affair for Indian decorative arts was manifested in the five-story home he built at 7 East 10th Street in 1887. Working with architect Van Campen Taylor, he created a residence which would have been nearly devoid of architectural interest had not it been slathered with lush Indian teakwood carving. The double-doored entrance, on sidewalk level rather than above a traditional high stoop, was framed in intricate wood carvings and a deep wooden cornice projected over the brick façade. However the second story oriel window, supported by four heavy brackets was the piece De resistance. An explosion of carved florals, animals and geometric designs, its dark teak color dramatically contrasted with the tan brick. The deep-relief carvings of the brackets were masterpieces of Indian art. A projecting, tiled roof finished the window.

It was a house that The New York Times said “attracts the attention of even the most careless passer-by, it is so wholly individual and unique—an artistic oasis in the dull desert of commonplace red brick and brownstone fronts.”

The interiors were even more lavish. The Times remarked that “Outside it has been obliged of necessity to concede something to its environment, even at the sacrifice of distinct and consistent individuality. Within, however, there have been no limitations…and the house is altogether Oriental.”

In 1887 America was obsessed with things Asian. However the fashion limited itself almost exclusively to Japanese and Chinese decorative arts. The De Forest House was unique. “In all the United States there is not another house like this,” said The Times.

On the second floor, a huge landing opened onto the parlor on one side and the dining room on the other. The windows of the dining room were framed in intricate lattice-work and the ceiling was supported by carved teakwood beams forming squares in which were carved rosettes.

The ceiling of the parlor was stenciled brass with a carved frieze. Throughout the house were piles of Oriental rugs, chests and other carved furniture, porcelains and brass.

It was, as The House Beautiful would deem it in 1900, “the most Indian house in America.”

As Lockwood De Forest went about his business painting landscapes and decorating homes, Mrs. De Forest entertained. On December 2, 1903 she hosted a tea here for her debutante daughter two years later the house was the scene of a Christmas sale for the benefit of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. Society women passed through the teakwood archways inspecting baskets, card, calendars, pottery and dolls.

Here writer Rudyard Kipling, whom the artist had met in India, stayed on at least one occasion.

In 1922 De Forest moved to Santa Barbara, leaving the exotic and unique house on East 10th Street forever. When the house was sold, much of the interior detailing was removed and sold at auction.

Using a $2.5 million gift from Edgar M. Bronfman, New York University purchased the house in 1994 for use as the Edgar M. Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life. A three-year restoration of both the interior and exterior was initiated by Helpern Associates.

Today the De Forest House remains the attention-grabber that it was over a century ago. The teakwood carvings are still crisp; having withstood the severity of New York City weather better than the eroding brownstone buildings around it.

non-credited photographs taken by the author
Posted by tom Miller at 2:51 AM 2 comments: Links to this post Labels: greenwich village, lockwood de forest, new york architecture, New York Landmarks, van campen taylor

Thursday, April 28, 2011

The 1867 Metropolitan Savings Bank Building -- Bowery and East 7th Street

The end of the Civil War brought an immediate boost to New York businesses. Over 35,000 miles of new railroad track was laid within only a few years and reconstruction of the South meant an inflow of cash to Northern merchants. In 1866 the Metropolitan Savings Bank decided to build a new, magnificent bank building.

The board chose architect Carl Pfeiffer to design the structure. Pfeiffer, who arrived in the United States at the age of 16, had spent his time in the West; only arriving in New York two years before this commission. With the vivid lesson of New York’s great fire of 1835 that destroyed most of the building in southern Manhattan and considering the valuable cash and paper bonds and documents that would be housed inside, Pfeiffer convinced the board that a fireproof structure was advisable.

The architect chose the latest architectural trend coming out of Paris for his new building – French Second Empire. He designed a stately four-story white marble building over a raised basement. Deep quoins at the corners drew the eye upward to the graceful slate mansard roof. Here a series of robust, arched dormers sat primly along the cornice. A steep set of stone stairs rose from the Bowery sidewalk to the rusticated, arched entranceway.

Upon the building’s completion in May of 1867, The New York Times said “This is pronounced authoritatively to be one of the finest structures from garret to basement in the City.” The fireproof construction was widely applauded. “In the construction of this building no combustible materials have been used, either externally or internally, where masonry or iron-work could be made available, rendering the same fire-proof.” Pfeiffer used only cast iron staircases and columns and the vaulted basement ceiling was constructed entirely of iron. The Superintendent of Buildings reported to the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of New York a year later that “Were buildings constructed after the manner of the Metropolitan Savings Bank, the frequency of conflagrations, and the immense destruction of merchandise by fire and water, which have from time to time visited upon our city, would be materially lessened, if not altogether prevented. It is one of the handsomest and most thoroughly constructed buildings in the city, and is a perfect model in its precaution against fire.”

The finished building cost about $150,000. Inside, black walnut furniture was used throughout which The Times deemed “extremely simple in design, yet evincing excellent taste.”

The floors not used by the bank were leased out and, mostly due to the well-publicized fireproof construction of the building; they were filled almost immediately resulting in the building paying for itself. The Stuyvesant Safe Deposit Company took a ten year lease on the basement and sub-basement. The second floor was rented by the United States Assessor of Internal Revenue.

The brethren of the Eastern Star Lodge of Freemasons took a ten-year lease on the top floor and lavished it with their own decorations. $10,000 was spent on the ceiling frescoes alone and another $10,000 was spent elsewhere, causing The Times to say “This, it is claimed, will be one of the finest, if not the finest Masonic Hall in the United States.”

The Metropolitan Savings Bank remained here until 1935 when it moved to its new offices at 754 Broadway. The wonderful white marble building sat empty until 1937 when it was sold to the First Ukrainian Evangelical Pentecostal Church.

Now known as the First Ukrainian Assembly of God, the church remains in Carl Pfeiffer’s innovative and beautiful building. The Bowery stoop has been removed but otherwise little has changed. In examining the building in 1976 the National Register of Historic Places remarked “The interior of the Metropolitan Savings Bank Building remains remarkably intact, retaining most of its original fabric.” The original paneled doors, wainscoting and moldings are all in place.

The Register went on to say “the Metropolitan Savings Bank Building is among the most aesthetically distinctive commercial buildings to survive from the nineteenth century in New York City.”

Posted by tom Miller at 3:07 AM No comments: Links to this post Labels: Carl Pfeiffer, east village, french second empire, metropolitan savings bank, new york architecture, New York Landmarks

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

The Little Half House at No. 35 West 12th Street

Along the quiet block just off 5th Avenue in 1840 a comfortable brick residence was built at No. 35. West 12th Street. By now the Federal style of architecture was melding with the proportions of the wider Greek Revival style –this house being a roomy 25-feet wide. A brownstone stoop rose to the parlor floor over a deep brick English basement.

Within a decade grand Victorian homes were being built as 5th Avenue mansions crept northward from Washington Square. By the time Francis Deery was living here in 1862 the house was out of style.

After the end of the Civil War the owners of No. 35 gave their home a makeover. In 1868 the house was brought up to date with a fish-scale mansard roof with two arched dormers above a vigorous cornice supported by scrolled brackets.

The Second Empire mansard gave the home a full third story, replacing the half-story dormered attic. The owners now had a residence on a par with the new houses on the block.

Then in 1893 the homes to the east at Nos. 33 and 31 were razed for the construction of a mammoth stone apartment building. But the two plots were not wide enough for the project and the developers purchased half of the lot on which No. 35 sat.

One half of the handsome house was demolished and the remainder was renovated to accommodate life in 50 percent of the former floor space. What resulted was a quaint, storybook house of miniature proportions.

Here in the 1930s lived the lyric soprano of the Metropolitan Opera, Minnie Egener, her husband Louis Hasselmans who was the conductor of French opera at the Met, and their daughter Geraldine. The diva died in the house on January 15, 1933.

In the last half of the 20th century a modern apartment building was built on the west side of No. 35. The skinny appearance of the house was suddenly intensified as it became squashed between the two goliaths.

Today the home is still a private house whose dollhouse appearance illicits adjectives like “cute,” “adorable,” and “sweet” from passersby. The AIA Guide to New York City commented that the loss of half the house in 1893 left “a curious but not unpleasing reminder.”

No. 35 West 12th Street is one of New York's delightful architectural oddities that keep urban explorers intrigued.

photograph taken by the author
Posted by tom Miller at 2:32 AM 4 comments: Links to this post Labels: Federal architecture, french second empire, greenwich village, new york architecture

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The 1895 Bowery Savings Bank Building - 130 Bowery

As the turn of the 20th Century approached, the face of the Bowery was changing. A 1905 postcard, showing off the elevated railway erected in 1878 and the hustle of motorized street cars and drays, noted that the Bowery was “Formerly being a place of congregation for many of the notorious habitués of the underworld. The street is now a thoroughfare that is an exit to the famous East Side of New York.”

It was in this more respectable neighborhood that The Bowery Savings Bank planned its spectacular headquarters in 1893, 60 years after its founding. In giving guidelines to the group of architects vying for the commission the bank’s committee instructed “that an edifice ought to be erected which should impress the beholder with its dignity and fortress-like strength on account of the neighborhood in which it is to be located.”

The committee chose the designs of McKim, Mead & White and they got what they asked for.

As construction got underway The New York Times promised that the building would “be one of the handsomest in the country as well as one of the largest wholly devoted to banking purposes.”

Borrowing loosely from the design of the Bank of England in London, the architects also drew inspiration from the monumental white marble edifices that graced Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition of a year earlier. The firm created a Roman temple to banking that wrapped around the existing building at Bowery and Grand Street. The L-shaped structure had a majestic two-story portico on Grand Street with four colossal Corinthian columns supporting a classical pediment. Frederick MacMonnies sculpted two reclining figures representing Time with an hour glass and scythe, and Industry that rested against an enormous clock within the pediment.

The narrower Bowery façade was entered through a deep, coffered triumphal arch flanked by fluted columns matching those on the Grand Street side and capped by an identical pediment.

Like other new bank buildings following the Financial Panic of 1893, the building was intended to instill confidence in those who would entrust their savings here. The classical, sturdy limestone structure exuded the strength and stability that wary investors found reassuring.

The interior was a dazzling display of grandeur. A century later the AIA Guide to New York City would say of it, “Roman pomp wraps around Renaissance luster…Pass through the triumphal arch into an interior that is one of the great spaces of New York.”

A 100-foot, mosaic-floored corridor led from the Bowery entrance to the main banking area which sat beneath an enormous amber glass dome. Corinthian faux-marble columns with gilded capitals supported the dome and matching marble pilasters rose between the windows. Beneath the dome was the 8-foot tall cashier’s counter crafted of Sienna marble and bronze grills. White mahogany trim and glazed brick walls finished off the interior design, under a rich coffered ceiling based o the Basilica of Constantine in Rome.

Construction was completed in 1895 at a total cost of $570,421.57.
﻿﻿The bank, which was founded “for the sole purpose of protecting the savings of the thrifty poor,” had by 1907 become “the largest and most successful savings bank in the entire world,” according to that year’s “World Almanac & Book of Facts.” The almanac went on to say that “This one bank has greater savings than all Canada, all Norway, or all Holland; it has one-tenth as much as all Great Britain. It is paying its depositors $4,000,000 a year on their savings. This is a record unparalleled in the world.”

The Bowery Savings Bank remained in its imposing Roman temple until 1982 when it was sold to H. F. Ahmanson & Co., who renamed it Home Savings of America. In October 2002 it ceased to be a bank and the building opened as Capitale – a banquet and events venue. Owner Stan Greenberg spent $4 million to restore and convert the36,000 foot space.

The Bowery Savings Bank exterior was designed a New York City landmark in 1966 and the breathtaking interiors were landmarked in 1994.
Posted by tom Miller at 3:24 AM 1 comment: Links to this post Labels: Bowery Savings Bank, chinatown, McKim Mead and White, new york architecture, New York Landmarks

Monday, April 25, 2011

Montparnasse on Skid Row -- No. 222 Bowery

The Bowery in 1884 was a mixed bag. As the recreation area for Little Germany, it teemed with German beer halls and music halls. There were impressive bank buildings and respectable retail stores during the daylight hours. But it was also home to “disorderly houses” – the polite term for brothels – and saloons. Shady characters and sailors loitered in doorways after nightfall.

In an effort to salvage the souls of young men adrift in this sea of vice, the Y.M.C.A. established the Young Men’s Institute at 222 Bowery. The association was intended to afford "opportunities for physical and mental development, social recreation, and special industrial instruction to young men of moderate means,” as reported by The New York Times.

Designed by Bradford Lee Gilbert, the official architect to the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroads, it was completed in 1884 – a robust red brick Queen Anne style building with terra cotta and granite trims. The Architectural Record and Guide admired it as “spirited and picturesque” while The New York Times called it “an attractive four-story structure, with a front of brick stone, and iron.”

Visitors entered a large reception room with a large fireplace and built-in “chimney corner seats.” Here were newspapers, writing tables and upholstered chairs and settees. The walls were of no-nonsense plaster with wood trim.

Also on the first floor was the gymnasium “furnished with all the requirements of a good physical training place, including plenty of pulling and rowing weights, dumb bells, Indian clubs, climbing ropes, inclined and horizontal ladders, spring board, striking bag, two horizontal bars, two pair of parallel bars, and several substantial mats to prevent bruises from falls,” according to The Times.

A locker room with tub baths and showers adjoined the gym, as well as two bowling alleys.

The second floor contained the wood-paneled library, outfitted initially with 800 books which the boys were allowed to take home, and a 500-seat auditorium. Above were the classrooms where classes in penmanship, free hand, architectural and mechanical drawing, bookkeeping and “the trades” were taught.

Concerts, lectures and readings were offered in the auditorium and activities (which smack of today’s after-school programs) were organized including a glee club, an orchestra and a debating club.

The facilities were open to young men “of good character” between 17 and 35 years old who could pay the dues. A year’s membership cost $4 and a gymnasium membership was another $3. Classes cost 50 cents per term.

A year after the building opened, fire broke out in the Brush Electric Illuminating Company at 204-210 Elizabeth Street. The grease-soaked floors and supplies of stored paraffin resulted in a major conflagration which threatened the Institute. When the young men realized the danger and began to panic, Superintendent C. H. Sage rallied them into a fire-fighting brigade. By the time they reached the auditorium the lead in the stained glass windows was beginning to melt and the windows, bit by bit, fell apart.

Using “the standing fire extinguishing apparatus”, the boys fought the flames that burst through the destroyed windows, setting fire to the furniture.

When Engine Company No. 9 finally responded, they vented the roof by smashing the stained glass skylight in the dome. When it was over the young men had saved the building, which sustained $22,000 in damages; however the once-beautiful art glass windows and dome were gone.

In January 1889 the Institute had 650 members and a daily attendance of about 280 boys, with another 348 young men attending classes. By now the number of courses offered had increased to include carriage drafting, steam engineering, vocal music, physiology and first aid. A year later 13,065 young men attended the 37 free entertainments.

Taking its cue from the pleasure gardens that attracted the city’s well-to-do, the Institute installed a Roof Garden in the summer of 1891. Furniture was brought up, along with electric lights, and here the young members could escape the insufferable heat for a while. “Members read and play chess, or smoke lying at full length on the skylights,” reported The Times. “It would not be a roof garden if there was not something to drink there, and a large water cooler supplies Adam’s ale of superior quality and in unlimited quantity.”

The first year a piano was hoisted up to the roof garden to supply music to the boys; however after a short time in the weather it was just an empty hull.

Times had changed by the Great Depression years and in 1932 the Bowery was the seedy, last stop for alcoholics, the homeless and others down on their luck. The Y.M.C.A. left the building, which became home to small manufacturers and loft space.

The story of the red brick building should have become uninteresting at this point. But as the Nazis stormed into Paris, Cubist and non-figurative abstract artist Fernand Leger escaped to New York where he took up residence in a part of No. 222 until his return to France in 1945. Before long muralist and abstract painter James Brooks moved in. Then artist Wynn Chamberlain.

In 1959 abstract painter Mark Rothko took over the old gymnasium to work on his murals. That space was passed on to Abstract Expressionist painter Michael Goldberg in 1962.

The Victorian building intended for young men of good character had become a meeting place of the hip generation of poetry, literature and art. On April 24, 1965 The Times said “A vision of Montparnasse replacing Skid Row glimmered Thursday night around 222 Bowery when Wynn Chamberlain, the painter of conventional people unadorned by clothes had 130 friends up (six flights) to hear William Burroughs and Mack Thomas read their own fiction.”

Burroughs moved in. And Gysin, whom New York Magazine called “the artist’s artist among the Beats.” Gysin’s lover, artist and poet John Giorno, lived there as did artist Lynda Benglis. William Burroughs called his apartment “the bunker” and tagged the door buzzer with that name rather than his own.

Others who came and went, visiting the artists and poets, were Allen Ginsberg, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Blondie.

In 1997 Burroughs died and Giorni, who still lives at 222 has preserved “the bunker” exactly as he left it.

The times are changing once again for the Bowery, however. The first floor of No. 222 is home to Green Depot an eco-friendly housewares store. Little by little the apartments are being leased at market rates and the vestiges of the Beat Generation are flaking away.  The red brick building, however, holds an important place in 20th Century art and literary hisory.
Posted by tom Miller at 3:57 AM 1 comment: Links to this post Labels: bradford lee gilbert, chelsea, new york architecture, queen anne architecture

Saturday, April 23, 2011

The Lost 1857 New York Historical Society Building

In 1804 the United States was only 28 years old. New York City, on the other hand, was 190 years old. Accordingly John Pintard, the secretary of the American Academy of Fine Arts, conceived of an institution dedicated to the history of the city that included a library, lecture hall and museum of artifacts.

The most prominent citizens of the city joined in the effort and within a few years the New York Historical Society boasted a collection of thousands of books, along with oil portraits, engravings, maps, almanacs and historical documents.

The Society bounced around different venues for nearly half a century, finally using rooms provided by New York University until its collections grew so large it required a building of its own. On December 7, 1853, members agreed on a plot of land at the corner of 2nd Avenue and 11th Street, in one of the most fashionable residential areas of the city. Wealthy neighbors had donated $5000, just under half of the price, towards the purchase of the lot provided it be used for the erection of the Society building. An advertisement for the submission of architectural plans had already been placed and designs were being received.

Other locations that had been considered but which were turned down were the triangular plot at Broadway and Fifth Avenue where the Flatiron Building would later rise and the southwest corner of Broadway and 20th Street upon which Lord & Taylor’s grand emporium would be built.

The 2nd Avenue site, however, in 1853 was choice. Across the street was St. Mark’s Church and the mansions of the city’s leading families like Stuyvesant, Rutherford, Fish, Livingston and Chanler surrounded it.

On October 17, 1855 the cornerstone was laid. The press reported that “the stone was so large that fears were entertained that it would break down the platform, but by the aid of a derrick it was placed in position.”

Architects Mettam & Burke had won the commission for their two-story Italianate stone building. With the memories of the Great Fire that had destroyed most of downtown New York only two decades earlier, the building was intended to be fire-proof. Cast iron staircases, hollow walls and iron beams were used. “Then the boldness of the Society in venturing upon the construction of a fire-proof building, and carrying it so rapidly to a point from which completion will be an easy job, certainly belongs to this and no past age,” said The New York Times a year later on October 9, 1856.

In the same article, The Times poked fun at the Society in general saying “Whether or not the Historical Society is a fogy-ish association has been a good deal agitated for three years past. Those who never attend its meetings are quite satisfied that it is; those who do attend are divided…when half the members sleep through half the discourse, and only wake to applaud the conclusion, one would certainly get the impression that the Society was slightly fossilized.”

The “easy job” of completing the structure seemed less so as the years dragged by. The new building was not finished for nearly three years; but it was worth the wait. Dedicated on November 3, 1857, the $85,000 building was completely paid for when the doors opened.

“The building is solid and substantial,” said The Times, “but has a light and graceful look, as best becomes an institution where sound historical learning and the amenities of art are fostered together.”  The newspaper asserted it was “built of a dark drab-colored stone, brought from Portsmouth, New-Brunswick, the first of the kind ever introduced into this City.”
A tall porch with Doric columns sheltered the entranceway and formed a handsome balcony above. A stone balustrade fence enclosed the grassy yard and cast iron gas lamps illuminated either side of the approaching walkway.

The first floor housed a 50-foot by 65-foot lecture room capable of seating 600 persons. Upstairs was the Library and Art Gallery under a great 47-foot high glass dome that flooded the space with light. “The proportions are good; the alcoves and shelves are durable and elegant; the decorations in white and gold are chaste and pretty,” said The Times.

The refined exterior easily slipped into the residential nature of the neighborhood by not appearing “commercial.” At the dedication ceremony (which was also the 53rd anniversary of the Society’s founding) Benjamin R. Winthrop presented the “Washington chair,” made from wood used in the house at Pearl and Cherry Streets which was the first home of George Washington after his inauguration.

As donors gave their art collections, the museum area of the Society became more and more eclectic. Finally the members decide to hone the collections to only those items that were specific to New York City history. Many of the museum’s collection of paintings and art became the basis of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 1860s.

With the 20th century came change to the once fashionable area around the Historical Society building. As mansions were razed for commercial loft buildings, the Society building was surrounded by a congested manufacturing district. A move uptown was deemed necessary.

In 1908 York & Sawyer designed a solemn Beaux-Arts building on the west side of Central Park and the New York Historical Society moved out of the dignified building that had housed its lectures and exhibitions for nearly 60 years. The building sat empty until being sold in 1912 to be converted into a newsboys’ club. The main hall was turned into a gymnasium.

Within a few decades the stone Italian structure was gone, replaced by a non-descript brick apartment house.
Posted by tom Miller at 2:45 AM No comments: Links to this post Labels: italianate architecture, lost new york, Mettam and Burke, new york architecture, new york historical society

Friday, April 22, 2011

The Remarkable House at No. 48 West 10th Street

Quiet West 10th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues was lined with handsome brick Federal homes throughout the 1830s and ‘40s. As the 1850s approached, Victorian homes -- wider, taller and more impressive-- began replacing existing structures.

Just after the Civil War, in 1871, Mrs. Sarah Charlotte Clarke owned the little house which was decidedly out of fashion, architecturally.  The socialite and dressmaker commissioned architect Daniell Tyrrell to renovate the out-of-date home. Stylish, paneled double entrance doors were added, the parlor floor windows were extended, the delicate Federal ironwork was replaced with heavier, more robust Victorian railings and a bracketed cornice was installed.

Most impressive, a fashionable mansard roof was added, bringing the structure up-to-the-minute in taste. Later, in the last quarter of the century, the lintel over the doorway was replaced with a modern late Victorian design.

Prior to 1880 Sarah Clarke moved two doors down to No. 52 and in 1880 Dr. Eben M. Flagg lived here with his wife Minnie. The doctor ran his practice from the first floor; the parlor used as the waiting room. It was the scene of an unfortunate incident when Mrs. Aimee Howard arrived to have a dental procedure performed. She brought with her an expensive umbrella with a carved, ebony handle.

After five hours in the dentist chair, Mrs. Howard prepared to leave, only to find her umbrella was gone. Minnie Eban casually explained that her friend, Mrs. Stewart had taken it because it had begun raining while she visited to bring Mrs. Eban tickets to the bal de l’opera. She provided Mrs. Howard a spare umbrella.

A week later, when Mrs. Howard returned to pay her bill, she inquired about her umbrella. “Oh, it’s been stolen,” lamented the dentist’s wife.

A scene ensued.

Mrs. Howard commenced legal proceedings and the press became involved. All parties appeared in court while, in the meantime, Mrs. Flagg penned an advertisement offering a $10 reward.

Mysteriously, on March 13, a boy knocked on the door of No. 48 around 6:00 in the evening delivering a parcel that “a man had just given him.” The boy said the man had given him 25 cents and directions to deliver the umbrella to Dr. Flagg. The case was dropped. And Dr. Flagg undoubtedly lost a patient.

Despite the rather high-tone residents of the block, a livery and boarding stables was erected next door to the doctor’s home in 1863 by Moses Devoe – despite limitations on the property that “no nuisance should ever be maintained on the lot.”

In 1887 it had become an annoyance to Sarah Charlotte Clarke who lived on the opposite side.

“She says that it is full of rats and cockroaches all the year round and that in Summer flies by the trillion breed there; that foul stenches are generated there and fast men congregate there,” reported The New York Times.

“The rats and the cockroaches and the flies in Summer are very, very neighborly,” the newspaper went on, “and so are the stenches which do not at all resemble the perfumes of Araby…The flies make the sweet afternoon sleep of Summer impossible, and pack the milk pitcher so full that in a few minutes after it is placed on the table the milk overflows and the puddle on the cloth is at once dried up by a new lot of flies.”

Worse, Mrs. Clarke admitted, were the fast men who sat around the sidewalk smoking cigars and “do not confine their wickedness to the stable.” She complained that they flirt with the servants and even “make eyes” at her. She sued Moses Devoe for $15,000 for the injuries the stable had done to her.

In 1901 the house was home to Japanese landscape painter Kikishi Yama, perhaps the sole Japanese landscape artist in the country who worked in oils. Mr. Yama maintained his studio across the street at No. 51, according to The New York Tribune.

By 1927 Romeyn Park Benjamin, the brother-in-law of Enrico Caruso was living here. He died in the house, aged 46, on December 7, 1939.

Perhaps no period in the long history of the house is more intriguing than when Marguerite Pumpelly Smyth lived here. A follower of the Eastern guru ‘Abdu’l-Baha, Marguerite (who called herself Daisy) had many long-term guests who were also involved in the spiritual movement. The house was a famous meeting place for people of all races and religions and “fireside meetings” were nearly constant. Upon entering the door, one often heard the guru’s voice in a spontaneous chant he had recorded in 1912. ‘Abdu’l-Baha personally blessed each room of the house.

Juliet Thompson, a cult figure of the movement, moved in. She would often entertain the author Kahlil Gibran who lived at No. 51 West 10th where Kikishi Yama had had his studio. The author would invite Thompson to his studio where he would read aloud the last chapter of whatever book he was writing.

By the late 1940s Daisy Smythe, Juliet Thompson and the colorful troupe of spiritual residents had moved on. Dr. Dimitri Marianoff , the son-in-law of Albert Einstein, was here in 1950 and by 1954 it was the home of Frank M. Didisheim and his wife, who annually turned the small rear garden into a free, modern sculpture exhibition for about a week at a time.

Divided into apartments, one family per floor, in 1962, No. 48 West 10th Street is a remarkable house with an equally remarkable past.

non-credited photographs were taken by the author
Posted by tom Miller at 2:51 AM 6 comments: Links to this post Labels: greenwich village, juliet thompson, kahlil gibran, new york architecture

Thursday, April 21, 2011

The 1904 Church of the Most Precious Blood The Federal-Style 1832 No. 56 West 10th Street The block of West 10th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue is a time-line of architectural styles. Federal residences are interspersed among mid-Victorian row houses and early 20th Century apartment buildings. The end result is a fascinating and charming residential enclave.

Among the stand-outs is No. 56, an orange brick Federal home built in 1832 when Greenwich Village had just started developing from a sleepy rural community to a fashionable neighborhood. As New Yorkers fled the congestion and cholera of downtown, they built scores of similar homes in the tiny village of Greenwich.

Built for a well-to-do merchant-class family, the builder added special touches to enhance its simple lines and understated dignity. The wrought iron fencing protecting the English basement was capped with stylish palmettes and the elegant doorway was flanked with fluted Ionic columns and lacy leaded side lights. It was the wrought iron basket newel posts, however, that were intended to proclaim the status of the family. Perched on brownstone pedestals, the expensive ornate newels posts were capped with stylized iron pineapples – the symbol of welcome since early sailing days when returning ship captains would skewer a pineapple onto the fence post, signaling that he was home and receiving visitors.

Two high, arched dormers raised the attic height where servant girls would sleep.

Around the time of the Civil War the house was updated with a new cornice with ornate scrolled brackets, but otherwise the house remained as originally designed even as wealthy Victorians built wide, fashionable homes in the latest style just down the block.

The attractive home caught the eye of Oscar L. Spitzer in April of 1890. The family of Mary Bachman was living there when Spitzer knocked on the door and explained that the Fire Department was looking for land in the neighborhood for a new engine house. He lamented to the family of his unsuccessful search for a site so far, however he was very much impressed with West 10th Street as a location for the new firehouse.

He visited the family again a few days later, hinting at the possibility of a fire house being built next door or nearby. Mary Bachman, in the meantime, had discussed the matter with her lawyer only to find out the Fire Department had no intentions of building a new house.

By using the suggested decline in property value caused by an engine house next door, Spitzer was attempting to scare home owners into selling at a cheap price so he could built an apartment building. Reaction among the neighbors was strong. As The New York Times pointed out, “Some of the property owners have lived for many years in their residences and strongly object to leaving them. Therefore the feeling against Spitzer is not a mild one.”

By the turn of the century, John Alvin Young, president of the Windsor Trust Company was living at No. 56. He sold the house in December 1906 to Malvina Appleton when he moved his family to Long Island.

A year later, in August, Malvina rented the home for the winter to newlywed socialites Mr. and Mrs. Outerbridge Horsey. Horsey was a noted lawyer and his wife was the daughter of the socially-prominent Washington DC widow, Mrs. Charles Carroll Lee.

In the years during World War I and immediately thereafter, the bohemian charm of Greenwich Village drew artists and musicians. In 1923 architect Howard Major was commissioned to add a “private art studio” in the English basement.

Still a private residence, No. 56 West 10th Street is a remarkable state of preservation. Its ironwork is pristine, its architectural detailing intact. It is a stand-out on a street of remarkable buildings.

non-credited photographs were taken by the author
Posted by tom Miller at 2:52 AM No comments: Links to this post Tuesday, April 19, 2011

The Lambs Club Building - 128 West 44th Street

High brow Victorians viewed those in the theatrical profession as slightly beneath them. As elite gentlemen’s clubs sprouted around the city in after the Civil War, a group of actors and musicians formed their own club, The Lambs.

Founded in 1874 its expressed purpose was to provide “the social intercourse of members of the dramatic and musical professions with men of the world, and the giving of entertainments for mutual amusement and instruction.”

The club was named after British drama critic and essayist Charles Lamb and his wife, Mary, who hosted a weekly open house for those in the theatre, its meeting place was called “the Fold” and its members, “Lambs.” Continuing the tongue-in-cheek language, the President and Vice President were the “Shepherd and the Boy,” and yearly outings were known as “Washings” or “Shearings.”

In 1897 the club moved into its first permanent home at 70 West 36th Street; however within a matter of years it outgrew the facility. Members would regularly stage both private and public productions called Gambols (satiric revues).  These eventually led to the need for their own, private theatre when contention arose among members over the use of certain public venues.

In 1902 the Lambs decided to erect a new clubhouse “The club had not intended to build for four or five years,” announced De Wolf Hopper, the Shepherd, “but at an information meeting last night it was decided to put up a new building, to contain our own theatre for gambols, etc., within a year.”

The club approached architects McKim, Mead and White – all of whom were members – to design the new clubhouse. Lots were purchased at Nos. 128 and 130 West 44th Street, near the Broadway theatre district, for the new structure.
Stanford White headed up the design – a brick and marble Georgian building with terra-cotta embellishment completed in 1905. A marble street-level base supports an impressive second story of high French windows and paired Ionic columns. Between the arched windows of the third floor, lambs’ heads peer down from the Flemish-bond brickwork.

The first floor housed the lobby with its row of telephones, a billiard room and a grill room. The banquet hall faced 44th Street behind the large second floor windows. The Lambs’ private theatre was installed on the third floor, while above were offices and sleeping rooms for the members.

Ten years later the building was doubled in size by architect George A. Freeman who added a mirror-image addition.

The atmosphere of the club was distinctly different than that of other gentlemen’s clubs. “While many of the clubhouses of the Big Town display constantly the dignity and spirit of Greenwood Cemetery on a rainy Saturday afternoon, the Lambs is as full of snap and ginger as an outlaw bronco, a bunch of freshly lighted firecrackers, or a schoolboy the first day of vacation,” quipped The Times in 1914.

“While other clubs are renowned because of the magnificence of their homes, the opulence and social position of their members, the excellence of their libraries and art collections, their exclusiveness, picturesqueness, eccentricities and efforts toward civic, political and economic improvement, the Lambs base their claim to fame on the individual members.”

Indeed, the halls and rooms were home over the years to such members as the Barrymores (except Ethel), Irving Berlin, Cecil B. DeMille, David Belasco, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Ridgard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Fred Astaire, George M. Cohan, Spencer Tracy and thousands of others.

The membership did not include, however, females. “The Lambs permit no women other than housemaids and scrubwomen to pass their portals, and then only by the servants’ entrance,” noted The Times. There was the time, however, when a well-known Broadway actress strode into the club around midnight, walked into the crowded grill room and announced “Good evening, gentlemen.”

The actress then walked out, leaving the group of Lambs dumbstruck.

Members were passionate about their club, no more evident than in 1954 when the will of comedian Joe Laurie, Jr. requested that his ashes be cast into “a roaring fire some winter’s day in the fireplace at the Lambs Club.”

Problems came in 1974 when the club was in danger of losing the building to a $350,000 mortgage. In December a fund-raising gala was held to try to stave off receivership. It was all too late.

In May of the following year the building was taken over by the Manhattan Church of the Nazarene which announced its intention “to clean up Times Square.”

Thirty years later Indian-born businessman Sant Singh Chatwal purchased the building, converting it to the Chatwal Hotel. After a renovation that took several years, the hotel opened in 2010. Stanford White’s turn-of-the-century interiors were, for the most part, gutted and replaced by sleek neo-Art Deco spaces.

The exterior of the former Lambs Club was designated a New York City landmark in 1974.
Posted by tom Miller at 2:33 AM 2 comments: Links to this post Labels: george a. freeman, McKim Mead and White, midtown, neo-georgian architecture, new york architecture, New York Landmarks, stanford white, the Lambs Club

The 1905 Gotham Hotel -- 5th Avenue and 55th Street

The first shovels of earth removed in 1901 for the foundation of John Jacob Astor’s St. Regis Hotel at the southeast corner of 5th Avenue and 55th Street signaled the beginning of the end of the area as Millionaires’ Row. A year later Fifty-Fifth Street Company purchased and demolished the mansions across the avenue at the southwest corner to begin construction of an elegant family hotel, the Gotham.

The group commissioned Hiss & Weekes to design the structure which would abut McKim, Mead & White’s Italian Renaissance University Club to the south, completed a few years earlier. As is the case now, architects of the time tended to treat each commission as a stand-alone project; ignoring the possibility of sympathetic treatment of surrounding structures. Hiss & Weekes felt otherwise.

They chose a consistent Italian Renaissance design and lined up stone courses and cornices, even mirroring the five arched windows on the Fifth Avenue side. The Architectural Record of 1902 was appropriately impressed. “We all know how woefully individualistic our builders have been,” it said, “resulting in a mass of fragmentary, inharmonious, clashing architecture, no attempt being made to work in common for the sake of beauty and uniformity. This great projected hotel of eighteen stories is designed to harmonize with the adjacent University Club, which is a fine piece of architecture.”

The rising limestone hotel would be more restrained than its extravagant Beaux-Arts neighbor across the avenue; however for the entranceway the architects pulled out all the stops. The doorway gushes with elaborate sculptural ornamentation. It is capped by a broken pediment surmounted by the reclining figures of Ceres and Diana on either side of a bull’s-eye window. On either side are two double-story banded Doric pillars.

Family hotels were intended for well-to-do New Yorkers who no longer wanted the trouble of maintaining a private home, and for out-of-towners who spent considerable time in the city and needed to retain a second residence. By October 2, 1905 the hotel was ready for occupation.

There were 400 sleeping rooms, both single and en suite, and by opening day all the rooms with a Fifth Avenue frontage were taken. A banquet hall and ballroom were on the second floor, while the third floor was dedicated to private dining rooms.

The New York Times was impressed with the appointments. “The furnishings of the Gotham, while extremely rich, are far from garish. There is not the slightest striving after gaudy effects, the whole atmosphere being one of good taste.”

The wealthy and well-known began moving in immediately. Mrs. M. A. Hanna, widow of Senator Hanna, was the first resident, following closely by Senator T. C. Platt’s family.

There was, however, a problem. The Gotham sat directly across 55th Street from the 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church, well within the limits that prohibited the sale of liquor in the hotel. After continued legal battles ending in failure, the hotel shrugged off the snag.

“We are in the hotel business and if our guests ask us for anything we don’t happen to have, there is nothing to prevent us from sending out and getting it,” explained manager Frank V. Bennett. “Suppose a man likes wine with his dinner, or a cocktail before it. Is there any law to stop us from getting it for him? Well, I rather think not.”

And, in fact, the hotel hired young boys fitted out with wicker baskets or milliners’ boxes, whose duties were to rush to a supply base a block from the hotel and fill guests’ orders for wine or liquor. Since the guests’ money was turned over to the off-site vendor and not the hotel, the liquor law was circumvented (although the hotel protested that “There is no attempt to evade the law.”).

Despite the clever ploy, the hurdles to getting a drink at the Gotham contributed to its foreclosure within three years of opening. In October 1908 it was put on auction, the mortgage under foreclosure being $500,000 with prior liens amounting to $2 million. The hotel, which cost about $2 million to build and between $1 and $2 million more to furnish sold for $2.45 million to Benjamin P. Cheney, President of the Hotel Holding Company.

Cheney immediately made changes. While the long-term residents stayed on, he focused more on traveling guests. And despite the troubles in its short past, the hotel still lured New York’s elite.

In the grand Louis XV ballroom on December 22, 1909 Mrs. Richard Stevens hosted her Christmas dinner for 60 guests, after which more arrived for dancing and a midnight buffet supper. Among Mrs. Stevens’ guests were Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Goelet, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Dana Gibson, The Marquis de Beauvoir, Prince Troubetskol and Mrs. And Mrs. Clarence Mackay.

Cheney’s new management resolved the financial problems and in 1914 he sold the profitable hotel to Franklin Pettit for $3.5 million. Pettit intimated that “it probably would be resold in a short time to some wealthy investor.”

Mr. and Mrs. George Bird, who had lived in the Gotham for 12 years, were shocked when they returned to their suite of rooms on January 17, 1918 to find that $25,000 worth of jewelry had been stolen in their maid’s absence. It was a rare tarnish on the Gotham’s sterling reputation.

In 1920 the newly refurbished and redecorated hotel was sold once again, this time to Julius and William Manges for $4 million. The Manges Brothers were on a buying frenzy of Manhattan hotels – having just purchased the Hotel Cumberland, and already owning the Netherland, the Endicott, the Martha Washington, the Great Northern and the Grand.

The Great Depression delivered a crushing blow to the owners and in 1932 the hotel was once again in receivership in a $2 million foreclosure action by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Within a few years apartments were being offered, each with “serving pantry and electric refrigeration.” By 1938 the street-side restaurant was closed and five stores were opened up on the ground floor facing 5th Avenue.

The hotel was sold and resold until, in 1979, it was taken over by Rene Hatt who initiated a nearly-ten year, $200 million renovation. It was purchased by the Peninsula Group in 1988 which, ten years later, closed it again for a $45 million overhaul.

The Peninsula essentially gutted the building, keeping only the best of the interior details. Carol Franklin Associates was brought in to design the spaces, the hotel’s instructions being to give it “Parisian ambience.”
Exotic African woods, enormous antique French chandeliers, and Italian marble were imported for the project. According to the designer’s website, “Security cameras were installed above ceilings to be lowered at the request of royal guests.”

The grand Gotham Hotel stands proudly once again after a century of sometimes tumultuous times.
Posted by tom Miller at 2:46 AM 12 comments: Links to this post Labels: Hiss and Weekes, italian renaissance architecture, midtown, new york architecture, New York Landmarks

Not long afterward William and Edith Moore sold the mansion.
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