Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the opening of New York City’s iconic Fifth Avenue, ever-popular NYC history buff Anthony Bellov presented this talk, part of his “Before Salmagundi” series, on April 4th, 2024 at the historic Salmagundi Club (1853) – the oldest mansion still standing on Fifth – at #47. Co-sponsors were Village Preservation (GVSHP), the Coffee House Club, the Merchant’s House Museum and the Victorian Society.
it is my great pleasure tonight to
introduce our speaker and the member of
the library committee Anthony bov a
native of Brooklyn a longtime upper
westsider with a bachelor in
architecture from Pratt Institute he’s
pretty
smart and a master in museum leadership
from bang Street College a singer P
pianist and a voice teacher awardwinning
[Music]
videoer
preservationist read New York history B
and most importantly a proud artist
member of the Sal Mandi Club put them
all together and you get Anthony B
I love at the chair of the library
committee but he can’t
read I my glasses okay he have his
glasses so that’s okay good evening
everybody and I’m so pleased to see you
all here we are going to have some fun
tonight so uh hker down and get ready
for it before I begin the actual program
a couple of thank yous I need to do and
I need to introduce you all to a very
distinguish you’re all distinguished
guests but somebody I want to point out
to you all is Richard Moses sitting
right there near back Richard is the
head of lesie the Lower East Side
preservation initiative and for his
Doctorate or Masters Masters for his
master’s degree uh he wrote The
Definitive history and Analysis of the
building you’re sitting in right now the
last three talks I gave before the Sal
before Sal Mandi series were
specifically about this building and
there is no way I could have given those
presentations without Richard so Hearts
to you Richard thank you so much for
that work of love which is
so you added a lot of important
information so okay you’ll get your
money
afterwards so now why are we having this
talk tonight about Fifth Avenue in the
past I’ve spoken about the clubhouse
itself which was formerly The Holly And
then the park Mansion but you may or may
not know we are celebrating a yearlong
celebration of the 200th anniversary of
the opening of Fifth Avenue in 1824
fifth only only or wow goes back 200
years this year so there’ll be a lot of
programs in the course of the Year about
5 Avenue uh again I would like to thank
my co-sponsors who have been thanked
already uh saly Library Village
preservation Coffee House Club
Merchant’s House Museum and the
Victorian society they’ve all been great
supporters not only of the work I do but
of the work that we do here at salagi
and I thank them all uh and uh Kobe’s
thanks I need to thank Tom Miller the
author of the uh the block uh BL Post
daytonian in Manhattan how many of you
here read daytonian in
Manhattan okay that’s pretty good should
be more hands every day six days a week
Tom posts a single building somewhere in
Manhattan and he analyzes the building
talks about it’s a funky history and all
the things that happen to it it’s a
wonderful post I check it every morning
because I’m a Dr no because I like to
wake up to something like that and I
could not be this talk tonight without
all the work that Tom has done in
advance to present information to me he
would be here tonight but he’s getting a
talk elsewhere in the CATE so uh
daytonian in Manhattan uh it’s worth it
it’s worth it when you remember it check
it out okay now moving right into the
program itself uh I want to stress
before we begin that this is not a
comprehensive history of lower Fifth
Avenue that would take five or 6 minutes
longer than I’m going to speak today but
what this will be is kind of a walking
tour up Fifth Avenue from Washington
Square to 14th Street the uh confines of
the village and I have picked buildings
that I personally find interesting
either architecturally or historically
or for some of the juicy stories that
have been produced in them over the
years so I’m going to be very selective
in what we talk about tonight uh so
apologies if your favorite vanished
Mansion is not mentioned in our talk but
I’m guessing it will be and right at the
start it’s important that you all grasp
immediately Fifth Avenue was not laid
out as New York’s primary sinon address
it happened over the course of time it
happened in a sort of a random
development so what you’re looking at
here is the rater map um this is a very
famous map that historians and I allude
to frequently in our talks and this is a
representation of lower Manhattan and
the upper Harbor in 1767
1768 the British commissioned this map
from Bernard ratzer because they
basically wanted to have an idea of what
they owned and New York even when it was
very underdeveloped as opposed to
overdeveloped but I didn’t say that um
had an extremely important haror um uh
the best Harbor in North America one of
the best Harbors in the world and so
they knew that this city was going to be
significant now mind you this map dates
to about a 100 years after the British
basically seized New Amsterdam from the
Dutch so we’re looking at a city that’s
already almost 150 years old at this
point but you can see it’s
larly um Farmland so here’s a closeup of
the area as best as I could ser surise
is where our Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue
we’ll be talking about tonight exists
it’s a little hard to tell because
there’s absolutely nothing there all we
see are the two post roads and the old
Bloomingdale Road which some of you may
know is kind of sort of broad back but
not really and so really the area that
we’re talking about 50 years before
Fifth Avenue was christened just simply
did not exist in 1785 the city of New
York hired kazm Kazmir ger to survey
what they called the common lands this
was an area of Manhattan Island that was
owned by the city starting at about 23rd
Street today and going up as far as
Harlem Village the city was broke you
probably know after the Revolutionary
War the city wasn’t ruins there had been
two serious fires During the Revolution
it had been occupied by British troops
for the entire duration of the war and
the city was literally in Ruins and
broke and they needed to do something to
uh forestall not foreclosure but
bankruptcy so they said we have to sell
the common lands so they engaged uh gork
to uh survey the lands and divide them
more or less into five acre plots which
they then put up for sale but what’s
significant about this map is he chose
to run road called the Middle Road right
up the middle of the land so it was a
very convenient name uh that spine
becomes very
significant uh when the commissioner’s
map uh occurs and here you probably
recognize this the commissioner’s map of
1811 this is the famous commission that
divided Manhattan Island up to 155th
Street into the grid iron Street system
it current
still largely displays why did they stop
at
155th because they just could not
imagine the city going any further past
that for hundreds of years while they
were wrong uh and there is the Middle
Road which in 1811 was Christen Fifth
Avenue so as I said before why Fifth
Avenue why not somewhere else and in
fact before Fifth Avenue even existed on
paper there was somewhere else actually
several eles but before we talk about
the eles I want to talk just for a
moment about the map you’re looking at
right now I have used this map many
times in my talks and I’ve always noted
it as the drips map of 1852 what an
awful
thing uh and then this time around when
I was putting this talk together I said
why do they call it the drips map and
duh Anthony was named after the man who
made it Matthew RS who was born in
Ireland in 1812 fled the famine in 1849
landed in Philadelphia and then
relocated to brookin in 1850 where he
set himself up as a map publisher uh and
soon became famous for these enormous
highly detailed maps of the city of New
York AKA Manhattan remember the city of
New York and Manhattan were one and the
same in those days all little black
spots on this map represents the print
of a building so he was probably more
than just a little obsessive but
nowadays it’s wonderful to have this map
because it tells us so much about New
York in the
midcentury and here’s a closeup of that
map and this represents the first of the
really great uh exclusive wealthy
neighborhoods in the city and this
really dates back to prior to the Civ
particip
yes it does uh to the Revolutionary War
the Bowling Green and State Street area
uh you can see there it is right down
there at the foot of the island and
let’s zoom in a little bit closer so
what you see here is the Rems of that
neighborhood Remember by
1852 New York had moved Uptown but here
is State Street curving around here this
open area is the battery as they call it
now Battery Park what we know of as
Castle Clinton was called Castle Garden
in those days and it was out in the
middle of the water all of this is
landfill now and then here is Bowling
Green right here this is the oldest Park
in New York City it was originally
cattle uh pasture land or Dutch times
and it became a park officially in
1753 and if you look around even in 1852
when this map was drawn you can still
see individual buildings all along this
side the west side of Broadway although
on the east side a lot of the lots have
filled in and become warehouses and such
by now but this gives you an idea of
what was so special about that combined
neighborhood here in the lower right
hand corner is a drawing of Bowling
Green itself in 1831 Bowling Green still
very much looks like that the fence
dates back to the 18th century and it’s
still there and I talk about that in
another video uh but here even in 1831
you can still see around the sides all
of these palatial homes which by 1831
had largely been converted to hotels and
boarding houses but it just shows you
how beautiful the Bowling Green area was
After the Revolution and into the 1820s
here’s a photo of Bowling Green and the
southern end of it in
1869 and even that late uh these
wonderful palatial roow houses are still
all f facing Bowling Green by the way
that was called steam ship row because
it was by this point all the offices of
the various steam ships before the
pinard building and white star and all
that but if you look past um and these
houses remain standing into the very
early 20th century when they were
replaced by the big customs house that’s
there now and now is the uh the Museum
of the Native American Indian here in
the distance a harbor and here right
along the edge
battery which is right here this is an
engraving of State Street in
1852 and it shows you even that late
even though these houses were no longer
private residences you get why this was
such a popular such an exclusive
neighborhood those breezes on a hot
summer’s day if you go down to Battery
Park it’s really delicious so uh but the
little arrow indicates the one building
here that is still
standing yeah slight change
SC this is the James P Watson House
7even State Street why is it still
standing it was owned it’s owned by the
Catholic church and it became part of
the mission in the later 19th century to
Aid immigrant Irish girls just as they
would step off the boat because people
would be waiting to get them into their
nefarious clutches and the church and
the mission were there to steer them
along the path of good and righteousness
and get them jobs in good houses where
they could be servants and establish
their footing in the new world uh what’s
really significant about this house
first of all architecturally it is truly
unique it’s a splendid example of pure
Federal architecture and built in 1793
it’s largely intact and I’m so sorry
that it is never open to the public uh
because it really should be historically
it’s extremely
important but a little while later
fashion in the form of Commerce because
Commerce done her wrong guys pushed uh
the the wealthy and the residents right
up off the tip of the island and all
those beautiful houses became warehouses
and Office Buildings and you know what
it looks like now so a lot of the
wealthy moved up to the first area in
the city that was really designed with
the intention of the wealthy and if you
look at Good Old Mr dri’s map here down
here is the triangle of City whole park
way up here is Washington Square here is
Canal Street and here is was Hudson
Square St John’s Park uh this is a
closeup of it and this is significant
because we’re going to talk about this a
little bit
more uh because if you look around here
you’ll see that surrounding the park the
footprint of really substantial houses
but if you look over towards the river
it’s warehouses if you look a little bit
it’s all just simple basic row houses
nothing Grand about them and then Canal
Street is lined with shops even as is
the
1820s so this was an enclave surrounded
by a very different
city this is what it looked like this is
a print of St John’s Park in 1826 a
magnificent Georgian Church surrounding
of the park or beautiful tow houses very
much along the lines of what you saw
down on steage ship Row the park was
Private like Brammer Park uh you needed
a key to get inside it was a landscaped
and it was open only to the shareholders
of the park who were the people who
lived around it but coner stepped in
commers in the way of commodore
Vanderbilt in the 1850s Vanderbilt ran a
rail L up the western side of the park
and he built a huge rail Terminus here
with warehouses upstairs and uh by this
point the wealthy were already leaving
because the park had become dangerous
the neighborhood around it was filled
with rough Sailors and Hooligans and
Working Class People and uh the
residents uh St John’s Park were
actually being moned so it was no longer
a good time plus the city was moving
North it was just a matter of time
before St John’s went the way of Bowling
Green in State Street by the way this is
St John’s park today it is the exit
ramps to the Holland town so it was a
very convenient place to put them and
all right you know yes that’s horrible
but St John’s Park was lost to us long
before the invention of automobiles and
the fact that it’s still an open space
and actually those of you who know it
today it’s been there’s still a whole
lot of cars going around there but
there’s some Greenery there too so in a
way I’m glad it’s still
there but there was another area um
almost contemporary with St John’s Park
maybe just a little later and this was
the Bond Street Lafayette Place area
that was being developed
exclusively for the wealthy the wealthy
were wanting more and more their own you
know uh seclusive area someplace where
they could just be by themselves and not
have to deal with um the r excuse me so
this is Lafayette Place at the time was
only about three blocks long Bond Street
down here was arguably the best address
in the city and if you look up here in
Washington Place one of the access
points to Washington Square which is
right here remember this map is
1852 one of these houses right here the
big double wides on this side of the
block was the first Mansion of commodor
vanderville the man who ruined St John’s
Park so ironically there he is living
there but we’re talking the wealthy of
the wealthy let me show you a photo of
it this is in 1866 so by this point um
the neighborhood was already on the SK I
have sort of this this uh gauge in my
mind every 20 or 25 years neighborhoods
in New York particularly at that time
seemed to change because the neighbor
the city was moving upwards so you could
always keep up with changes and
developments and the styles of
architecture so generally speaking every
20 or 25 years you’ll see a whole change
over in what’s going on in any
particular neighborhood not so much now
because now nobody can afford any
neighborhood but this is 1866 really
about 15 years after this area ceased
being the best address in New York but
it was still a good
address yeah this is what happened years
later suddenly this huge asteroid came
crashing down and kill all the D oh no
that sorry um this is a divin press
building dropped on the corner of East
Fourth Street and lafette place uh it’s
kind of horrify us today although it’s
one of the nicest buildings in the
neighborhood now it’s really a superb
building but I especially love this
Photograph because in it you can see the
surviving Patrician homes here on
Lafayette Place here on East Fourth
Street and even though there all row
houses so there even there were some
freestanding mansions on Lafayette place
but mostly roow houses these are the
best and of the best at least as good as
anything as you will find standing today
anywhere in
Manhattan and this area luckily has some
survivors the last two neighborhoods all
that’s left standing of them is the
Watson house of St John’s Park there’s
not a brick left but here in the Bond
Street Lafayette Place area we have some
survivors here in the upper leftand
corner is what remains these are the
ruins of colon bro range Terrace there
was originally nine room houses now
we’re down to four and they’re crumbling
before our eyes down at the bottom of
course is the public Theater which began
life as the aster Library it was
developed in three pieces over the
course of 20 years for 1949 1869 it’s a
beautiful building today and it gives
you a little bit of a clue of how nice
it was there at one time but the star of
the show certainly in my mind is the
merchants House Museum and if you have
not been to the merchants House Museum
yet why not it is so important it is so
wonderful an intact 1832 Roadhouse with
the furniture the family used still in
it it’s like a little bubble landed over
this building when the neighborhood was
falling apart and it’s still there to
this day but anyway this is basically
all that’s left of the Bob Street lafan
Place Neighborhood but uh
contemporaneously with it there was
another neighborhood uh Second Avenue I
was like what second seconden Second
Avenue was a was a good
neighborhood Second Avenue was where all
the millionaires were moving and for a
short time in the late first half of the
19th century it gave Fifth Avenue quite
a run for its money here’s Second Avenue
right
here just to give you a a point of
reference here’s St Marks in the valy up
here is Styers square and this was the
magnet that Drew people to uh Second
Avenue this is what Second Avenue looked
like back in the day as late as 1865
ston Square important you notice the
trend here there was Battery Park and
Bowling Green there was St John’s Square
here’s ston Square we also would be
dealing with gry park with Union Square
the square sent it to be magnets that
drove expensive properties to them but
what went wrong here is that the styons
who were developing Second Avenue
delivered the serson square as promised
in 1836 but the city fell back on their
own development and they didn’t wind up
opening cuson Square fully developed
fully landscaped until 1850 that just
north of St Marks in the bowy they ain’t
nothing folks you see these empty blocks
this is 1852 by this point lower Fifth
Avenue was almost completely developed
so what done Second Avenue in basically
Commerce uh procrastination
and of course we all know the
immigration that was going on in the
city at that time the Lower East Side
was filling with immigrants and already
tenement buildings were being
constructed Second Avenue was just too
uncomfortably close and then the Mora
and Germans moved into Second Avenue
made inclin of deut land which was
apparently a wonderful place to live for
a long time but not if you were a
millionaire and the winner as we all
know now now these arrows here indicate
Second Avenue
and left hand place so look how close
Washington Square is and here’s F AMU
launching northwards from there but when
these two areas in St John’s Park were
already developed and very affluent
places to live this is what Washington
Square looked like I don’t know thank
you this is Fifth Avenue in the 1820s
just leaving Washington Square it was
still basically the Middle Road but this
was not going to last for very long
because because in 1824 the year Fifth
Avenue was opened it was opened because
this happened this is Washington Square
marvelous painting of it in
1851 uh you probably all know that it
was originally a cemetery and a Potter’s
field and the estimates are between 10
and 20,000 graves are still right
underneath the pavement uh when they do
development in Washington Washington
Square they hit bones uh and then not
doggy bones but uh Washington Square was
a breath of green air in a sea of brick
uh V’s house was right over here right
down the street and this is the original
NYU building here so you had Washington
Square a square like in the other places
and within a few years of its opening in
1824 houses Patrician houses circled the
square logically speaking but then there
was this sort of safety valve this
street moving northward
from Washington Square which none of the
other squares
had this is a drawing of Washington
Square in 1871 and we’ll talk about this
drawing in a few minutes but um that
Arrow indicates the start of Fifth
Avenue so again remember when those
other neighborhoods were in their Glory
Fifth Avenue appeared only on paper it
was basically an embryo at that point
but when Second Avenue dropped the ball
uh they moved over one of the important
things thank you mosette br for this
terminology uh was that Fifth Avenue was
bounded by what she calls anchor houses
on the east side of Fifth Avenue is the
famous Rome and there’s a photo of it to
the left uh dating back about a hundred
years and here it is today and you can
see it’s still very much the same and on
the west side of Fifth Avenue we have
another anchor house the old Rylander
Mansion which was built about six years
later and designed by Richard upjn his
name is going to figure prominently in
today’s talk the r Rylander Mansion was
one of the grandest houses of New York
at that time this is Washington’s Grand
North it’s not there anymore I’m sorry
to report to you but with the row of
Grecian houses on one side and the
Grecian houses uh on the other side
specifically the Ryland mention it
became a siphon sort of pulling people
up Fifth
Avenue and more significant than either
of those was the brevort Mansion on the
corner of Fifth Avenue and 9th Street it
was built in 1834 on brevort property
smart boy uh and it was the very first
house built on Fifth Avenue and in this
slide I tried to take all the other
houses away so you get an idea of what
Henry bort was complaining about in 1834
when he said he felt like he he was in a
house in the middle of the woods because
there was simply no one else there at
that
time but the jury on the top what really
defined the square and Fifth Avenue came
much later this is a photo of the
original Washington arch in
1889 uh it was built to commemorate the
100th anniversary it’s hard to believe
it was only 100 years before that George
Washington became the first president of
the United States it was built of wood
and plaster intended to be temporary and
if you look at this image here on the
left is a Rin ler Mansion here on the
right is one of the Grecian houses of
the row and down here if you look down
here you can see their reviewing boxes
there stands here so this engraving was
done just at the time when the parade
happened but people liked the arch so
much that they said let’s build a
permanent one and so they had a
subscription they raised hoodles of
money and they got Stanford white to
design uh a mar by Stone of Washington
Arch which was built in 1892 and set in
the park itself as this was a better
place to put it than stradling the
sidewalk so we’re right at the foot of
Fifth Avenue now uh but before here are
the anchor houses that I was telling you
about here’s the row the original 1832
183 wrot and here is the Rin land where
was the Lin Rylander Mansion of 1840 uh
what happened to that Mansion it lasted
into the 20th century it was converted
into Apartments uh and although there
was a lot of protest in 1950 it was
demolished it really didn’t look like
itself anymore but it was demolished but
the developers put up a modern apartment
building that was very resp respectful
as you can see of the scale and the
style of Washington Square North very
unusual for 1950s so my hats off to the
designers but before we start moving up
Fifth Avenue let me point out one thing
to
you the eagle uh above the Keystone in
the arch and there’s another one on the
north side of the arch as well sculpted
by Philip
Martini big deal well yes Philip Martini
was a salag gandan and if you go
downstairs those of you who have dinner
or having dinner afterwards um
make a point of walking through the bar
for a moment those of you who aren’t
having dinner head for the bar but um
you will see on each side of the
staircase going down to the pool room
downstairs these two wonderful grotesque
figures on each side in the angles
opening down into the bar and those were
sculpted by Philip Martini in 1917 when
somean evoled this building and
converted it into a clubhouse he was an
extremely highly uh regarded
architectural sculpture his work uh
there’s a lot of his work in New York
City a lot of his work is no longer
present because he worked mostly in a
substance called staff which is a
ctitious plaster and so it would last
for a while but it was not meant to last
permanently we think of the famous White
City the St Louis Exposition the
Columbian Exposition in Chicago he was
responsible for the lineon share of all
the sculpture on those bu
so hoay for Sal
M yes thank you thank you and here we go
here’s our walking tour this is an early
photo of the arch with the Rin Lander
and the row The Mansions intact on each
side so we’re going to walk right
underneath that building and we’re going
to begin our walking tour now and the
first building we see
salute the first building we see is
number one fth Avenue what a classy
address huh except when it went up in um
1835 it was the second building built on
Fifth Avenue and U James Borman had no
idea what was going to happen to the
Avenue so what Borman decided to do
unlike brevor was to build a house which
he intended to be a Schoolhouse for the
affluent girls of the neighborhood of
girls school and if you look at the
building it’s really nothing to right H
about it’s basically a brick wall with a
lot of Windows punched into it very
simple details it’s kind of Grecian
because that’s the ARA we were talking
about but he did not go for any bells
and whistles because who knew what was
going to happen under the
fa so he designed this exclusive school
with the intention of attracting
neighborhood girls Washington Square
people people around Barn stream around
uh LEF place and um shortly thereafter
the Mrs greens who were two sisters from
new hire um purchased the building and
opened their school here and it was
extremely successful and just a short
while later their brother Andrew Haswell
green uh moved in to live with them I
heard ooze thank you okay those of you
who really know about New York history
know how important this person is we’re
not going to um
talk about this detail with every
building but he really deserves being
singled out because he’s a tremendously
important influence in New York you see
right here uh right up here that he’s
called the father of uh greater New York
whether that’s a good thing or a bad
thing it depends which burrow you born
and we’ll talk about that too but uh he
came and live with his sisters when they
moved out and moved their school
elsewhere he stayed put and became his
mansion in 1845 when he was starting out
he was a lawyer in the office of future
US presidential candidate Samuel J Tien
10 years later he became New York City
School Board president he became one of
the commissioners of the Central Park
commission and he was the man
expressly uh responsible for persuading
the commission to uh accept the olad and
fox greensbor plan he became a nemesis
to your friend and mine
boss
Tre uh other projects that he oversaw
during the commission was Riverside
Morningside P Washington Parks he
refined the street plan above 155th
Street he widened and straightened
Broadway and he created Columbus Circle
the American Museum of national history
and the Metropolitan Museum of Art uh in
1870 he became New York City controller
and he was brought in specifically to
address the shambles the city finances
were in after Boss Tweed and his cronies
had plundered the treasury
repeatedly and there’s an interesting
story about that too uh he was framed
during his time as controller right here
in front of this door so it’s the door
to this building uh on July 2nd of 1873
he was walking to his house with his pal
and lawyer James C Carter when he was
stopped by the clerk of arrests of the
city who attempted to throw him in the H
Scout because he claimed that uh green
had made $500 of s money vanished now
$500 was a lot more money back then than
it is today uh the whole plan was to
bege his name because this was right
during the Tweed trials and if he could
compromise Green’s reputation maybe TW
stood a better chance of being acquitted
of some of the crimes he was uh accused
of I mean they were a little put off by
this whole thing but he reaches into his
vest pocket pulls out the cash that he
had which was
$350 which was more than
$6,500 in today’s money so it’s like who
walks around with $6,000 in their vest
or who even wears the vest anymore uh he
was able to get the other hit $150 out
of the house and he said here take it
and so the whole frame up was completely
thored by the fact that he he walked
around with thousands of dollarss in
hiset uh don’t move a little bit more on
green before we move on cuz this man was
incredible um he established the niagar
Parks Commission which was New York’s
first state park and what word should
come after Niagara Falls exactly the
Falls are there today because of this
man he was also the executive of tien’s
trust and he combined it with the aster
and Linux life libraries leading to the
creation of the New York Public Library
in the
1890s he proposed a plan off for the
city of Greater New York the
consolidation of the five burs that we
know today that’s why he’s called the
father of Greater New York he rallied
New Yorkers in 1894 to save the 1812
City Hall from Demolition it’s still
standing today because of him this man
is just unbelievable he was also
president of the New York Zoological
Society which is located
where the Bron the Bronx right from 1895
to 1897 what happened to this miracle
worker on November 13th
1903 uh he was walking up to his home he
had bad luck with doors apparently he
was living at Park Avenue and 4th Street
at that time so he flew the CP but he
was shot five times outside his door uh
by Cornelius Williams who mistook him
for businessman John R Platt who was the
lover of Hannah Elias a lady of the
evening so the moral of the story uh
green should have stayed on Fifth Avenue
and if he had done that he’d still be
alive
today so moving right along in 1877
William Butler dunan and his family
bought the house and made it their
mansion for for a substantial lent of
time about a half a century I’m not
going to do this with all the houses but
this
house excuse me has such an amazing
history that I just I just could not
leave this stuff alone so what was so
great about him if you read Diaries and
books of the era if you’re an expert or
a groupy of the late 19th century you
know this man you know this name he was
a partner in the New York branch of the
London Bank firm of Duncan Sherman he
was one of the 2 five subscribing
members to the iconic Patriarchs ball
and I should hear
o thank you if you don’t know what the
patriarch’s ball is another salag
gundian member Carl Raymond has a
wonderful podcast called the guilded
gentl and he talks about the patriarch’s
go in one of uh those podcasts it
couldn’t be any more exclusive only 25
families were members of the Patriarchs
and they included his Pals the kennedies
the carnegies the rylanders the asers
the van rers the Livingston and the
Shermer horns so these are the people he
uh sipped tea with for a while until his
death in 1912 he was considered
officially New York’s Premier citizen so
that’s all then all this going on in
this little simple nondescript house his
son daughter and grandchildren remained
in the house until 1923 when it was
leased for 3 years they all scaved up
town they couldn’t stay downtown anymore
and then of course the inevitable
happened yeah yeah uh in 1926 the entire
block was
raised the the house we talking about
plus the three adjoining houses uh now I
mean I have to admit one fth Avenue
today is a mighty goodlooking building
it’s a beautiful Art Deco Tower but
that’s what happened and that’s what’s
going to happen to pretty much every
other building we visit now on this tour
of all the buildings we’re going to talk
about only three of them are still
standing the John Taylor Johnston house
1856 and you’ll see on the map it’s
blank because this map dates to
1852 so this house was built four years
later so there he is John Taylor Johnson
son of a Scots born shipping Baron meder
he was wealthy and sophisticated and one
of the things he did that was
particularly noteworthy is that when
everybody else I love that
sound when he was uh when everybody else
was building Brownstone Fifth Avenue was
almost exclusively Brownstone down here
because that was the stone of choice in
the 1840s and 1850s he decided to
advertise his wealth by building his
lavish Mansion as I said out of white
Vermont marble in case you don’t real
realized marble from Vermont is way more
expensive than Brownstone from New
Jersey so uh he was really advertising
something and he also appreciated that
an Italian a house should be white not
brown and this could be a pazo somewhere
in Italy uh dating back to anywhere
after the life Renaissance italianate
italianate looks like Italian houses it
was a very creative
name he was a passionate art collector
and his huge house rapidly became too
small to accommodate his art collection
so he expanded into his Stables which
were right behind the house they were on
8th Street uh he created an extremely
important art collection which he opened
to the public once SE now you need to
understand that all of these Mansions
were full of costly art full of
sculptures and all sorts of O but it
doesn’t mean they were all good or that
they were all authentic his stuff was he
knew what he was doing uh his collection
included uh works by such Masters as do
Buon Coro Thomas Cole Gilbert Stewart
frerick church and
tur in on December 19th of
1870 uh he gathered together a bunch of
millionaires with the idea of dazzling
them uh with his art collection so he
invited the likes of James beakman JP
Morgan rther stus Alexander van renair
and artists including Sal Gandhi’s own
John lfar Albert bead Frederick church
and Architects like James renrick
Calbert box and Richard Morris hunt and
he showed off his art because that he
wanted to raise the initial monies for
the Metropolitan Museum of Art and that
night they raised
45,000 of the needed
$250,000 to create the museum which was
initially housed in the former dodworth
Mansion at 618 5th Avenue at 53rd Street
and that is the first home of the
Metropolitan new war and you can see
just by looking at it four Windows wide
it’s a mansion folks B Window uh
entrance to the side this is very
similar to the house you’ve walked into
tonight he passed in 1893 leaving
sizable fortunes to his four children
and big bequests to Metropolitan and the
City University of New York in 1898 his
son-in-law Mali became the Cil General
to France so you can imagine there was
some pretty nice parties in this and the
house began to get the uh be Christen
marble house uh the rylanders still
owned the entire block however these
houses were un least land and um in 1928
they decided it was time to sell their
property so all these people were going
to have to give up their Estates which
was not really a problem because by this
point most of these houses were boarding
houses anyway and the families had long
ago scadal up to the east 60s and the
East 70s but the great crash the
depression up uh held up the development
the house became
Apartments uh in the 1950s the staes
behind it uh were home to the clay club
which provided Studio space for artists
but but as is inevitable especially in
this talk uh in 1950 the money was
assembled the properties were all
assembled and it was announced that the
whole block was coming down for a modern
development there was a lot of
protesting when Marvel house was going
to be torn down which is interesting
because in 1950 the idea of
demonstrations to preserve a historic
building just did not exist in this
country so very very early manifestation
and here’s a marvelous photo
uh this is the building we were just
talking about we’re going to move on to
this building which many of you would
recognize if you know fth Avenue at all
this photo is from Fifth Avenue New York
from start to finish by photographer
Burton Wells who in 1911 brought his
camera with a very expensive wide angle
panoramic lens and photographed fifw all
the way from the start this is the first
building and if you look the first photo
and if you look here there’s the arch
and there’s the Rylander mansion and he
walked all the way to 93rd Street where
fth Avenue stopped in those days and he
documented the whole street uh the
middle of the Avenue was already lost it
was all uh commercial buildings by this
point but low and Fifth Avenue still
look very much in 1911 the way it did 50
years prior so we’re very lucky to have
these photos and now we’re going to talk
about 10 fth Avenue I’m sure many of you
recognize this building it’s still
standing there today although we all
know it’s in perilous condition right
now here is um where it’s situated right
here on the corner of 8th Street and
Fifth Avenue and it was
developed by Henry brador he built four
row houses on that side of the street
because uh he was bringing people to
Fifth Avenue to increase the value of
Fifth Avenue and make sure it remained
patriti so there were four houses
originally this marvelous photo shows
you the two houses furthest North in the
row and so you can see what this house
looked like when it had a stoop and
front door here so you get a not
storefront on the ground floor uh the
house was bought by Iron Merchant Thomas
egleson and he lived there very happily
for about 30 years his son Thomas
egleson
Jr was also involved in the iron
business in the mine business and he
persuaded Columbia College in 1864 to
open the first school of
mining in North America so that done he
felt that he had served Mankind and so
he pretty much sat back and started
buying fancy things and going on La
trips but he did do something else that
was very
significant he organized a group of
local homeowners to defy boss tweed’s
attempts to destroy washing Washington
Square yes I was dumbfounded when I
discovered this because I had no idea
that Washington Square had ever been
threatened we’re talking in the late
1860s uh Tweed started ripping the park
to shreds uh with the intention of
building an Armory on the on the um
Eastern side of the park uh facing NYU
and you just left piles of dirt in
debris forcing all the people people
around the park to start moving out uh
he succeeded on the south side of the
park almost all the mansions on that
side were V but eglon and his corts got
together and defied him uh and killed
him at Bay and then of course the famous
trial started and the end of B three and
not the end of Washington Square thank
you very much Junior in 1906 number 12
was replaced by this very oddl looking
apart building I mean it’s pretty but
and uh the two houses North uh were
stripped of all their architectural
details sing whereas the house of Rog
you about number 10 which is still
standing uh was converted into bachelor
apartments and uh stores uh bachelor
apartments meant no cooking allow on
premises and then uh stores were added
to the ground floor around
1930 now what has happened since as you
all know is the two stripped buildings
on the North End of the row have been
demolished even though they were
landmarked to be replaced by a high-rise
Tower which has been threatening the
foundations of the two buildings to the
South and all kinds of cracks have
opened on 10 uh Fifth Avenue which uh
forced the building to be evacuated so
all the people who lived here had to
flee their homes because the building is
on the verge of collapse now just the CL
terfy before we move
on this is the oldest structure still
standing on Fifth Avenue but you’ve all
heard me at various times say salag
gandi is the oldest Mansion surviving on
Fifth Avenue by 19th century terminology
imagine is a house with four or more
windows across it eon’s house only had
three so that’s a townhouse RAR mansion
and I’m s here’s another one of those
wonderful uh window uh photos
here is one uh Fifth Avenue the building
I talked you about in 1911 it was still
extremely plain we’re going to talk
about 15 fth Avenue what is this
structure it’s BR house 1845 built three
years before the iglon and other houses
which are right across the street here
is a little corner of the front yard of
that building which is oing down now
brador House was built as the first um
trans Hotel on Lower Fifth Avenue it was
fine with the residents around there
because there was no place for people to
stay unless they were going to stay in
their friends houses and sometimes the
houses were full of people and the
people who chose to stay at the breward
house were princes and princesses and
kings and queens and and diplomats and
prime ministers so it was a fairly
respect cow people and here’s where it
was located right here right across the
street from the house I just spoke
about um as built by Henry breor to cash
in on F was growing cach in 1895 50
years later uh owner Albert Clark he was
a operator of hotels he took over
control of the operations here too and
he expanded the hotel into his Mansion
right next door so I guess he didn’t
want to live next door to the hotel
himself uh the hotel remained very very
popular for years into the 20th century
his daughter Emma Clark roach uh kept it
going but the neighborhood had changed
by the 20th century this was Bohemians
this was freethinkers this was Anarchist
and some of the uh residents long-term
residents of the hotel included Eugene
O’Neal Edna St Vincent mle President
Garfield I guess he was respectable
before he was
assassinated uh Mark Twain in his
earlier years Edith Wharton lived the
building for a while and shocking even
at an opera Senter Fodor shopen lived
there so the times there were a change
different uh and then during uh
prohibition and the Great Depression
gave the hotel a real double w because
they couldn’t serve liquor anymore and
the building was getting old uh in 1948
the city advised them that they needed
to bring the hotel up to code but by
that point it was over 100 years old and
it would have cost more more to upgrade
the building than the building itself
was worth so the final 52 residents were
evicted in 1948 uh the owner kept the
cafe the restaurant and the ballroom
opened but that wasn’t enough to pay the
bills and so once again in 1952 the
entire block was raised uh place by
high-rise apartment Tower opening in
1955 called the brevort so that’s where
that name comes from
25th Avenue real briefly I just thought
this was interesting because it was
basically an apartment building built 8
years before the Dakota and it was built
on the empty lots that been sitting
there for half a century and which were
the favorite place for baseball games
for the neighborhood kids but finally in
1876 up went this interesting looking
building anyway 35 of the 37 streets
were pre- rented before the building
even opened and the neighborhood was
okay with it
because they would rather have a
residential hotel in the neighborhood
than boarding houses uh a residential
Hotel means the units did not have
kitchens and dining was on a cart in a
very elegantly paneled dining
room public spaces were furnished with
gilded moldings Oriental art and fine
furnishings courtesy of the rylanders
this was really a palace and it was for
people who either didn’t want to have a
mansion in the city or just were not in
the city often enough to have one and so
they treated this very much as a PID
care two of the many people who lived in
this hot particularly interesting or
Florence Sutro on the right she was a
child prodigy musician she was an artist
she was a lawyer mind you this is in the
19th century she was a woman uh she
wrote the book women in music and law
and she was a regular exhibitor at the
National Academy of Design and here on
the right side is Susan Elizabeth blow
who’s called the mother of the
kindergarten because she instituted
kindergartens in public schools and she
even had a special school to train
kindergarten teachers way back in the
day she was the author of educational
issues in the kindergarten they both
died in their apartments in the
Berkeley uh but as is the Way of All
Flesh uh in 1937 the Berkeley closed the
contents were dispersed Beautiful Pain
paintings antique furniture There was
quite a rush to get their hands on some
of this wonderful stuff that was in the
building and a uh arcco higho building
replaced in which is not a bad looking
if you go and look at it it’s got some
really nice details 24 fth Avenue the
Renwick house designed by James Renwick
Jr here it is on the Southeast corner of
9th Street and Fifth Avenue recognize
this this is breadward house practically
right next to it the renick hired their
son James how convenient to design this
building but James was already a famous
architect he had already designed Grace
Church when renick designed this
building this bedroom right here was
designed especially for Washington
Irving who was a close friend of the
family and did not have a town housee in
the city and so would preload I mean
would visit uh his friends when he was
staying in the city for an 11 time uh in
1876 the rcks relased the building to uh
WB jard whoit Horrors as a boarding
house although would have been a very
upscale boarding house and 50 years
after the building was first constructed
Mark Twain leased the house uh among
many of the changes he made to the
building this is the place he lived
longest in New York City two four years
he installed an aolan orchestral player
organ uh i’ like to play a piano play
for it was so big they couldn’t get it
up into the parlors so they installed it
downstairs on the basement level and he
ran speakers through the walls up to the
Parlor so he could entertain people he
just loved this player hor he also loved
to play pool and in 1906 Albert pay
basically moved into the house to write
his famous four volume biography of Mark
Twain and here was pay and Twain that’s
cute 10 here they are playing pool
somewhere in this building in
1925 uh Twain was long gone by this
point uh granish Village Historical
Society fixed a bronze plaque to the
sidewall unfortunately I could not find
an image of that black it had portraits
of Washington Irving and Mark Twain on
it you know writing in the middle uh but
the house was in trouble financially
they converted it to apartments and and
a bank leased the house to convert it
into a Bank building but then the Great
Depression happened and in
1933 they had to give the building up in
foreclosure uh there were attempts to
relocate the building as a museum a
historical wanted to just move it
somewhere else U they had a big
fundraising drive and they were able to
raise $3 of the estimated $770,000
that was needed to move the building
there was even a parade in the mid 1930s
were all young children dressed up as
Mark Twain characters and they walked up
and down fifth AV year holding signs
Save The Mark Twain House but LaGuardia
was not interested and so finally in
1954 the entire dock was raised and that
building the breward was constructed on
the whole block here we are almost the
star of the show um for Fifth Avenue
this is the famous bredart house the
very first house built on Fifth Avenue
and here it is you can see it on a big
plot of land taking up past the Fifth
Avenue Frontage and it is freestanding
and it remained freestanding for its
entire existence one of the very few
houses on Fifth Avenue that was
completely unattached on all four sides
a designed by town and Davis by the way
very important Architects at this point
in time Henry who built the house wanted
to build on Bond Street or Second Avenue
but his grandfather said you’re building
on the farm and so he constructed the
house on the corner of 9th Street at fth
Avenue on the Old breor Farm he was the
one who complained that he felt like he
was living in the middle of the woods a
groundbreaking Greek Revival design 1834
this was when Greek Revival was H ha h a
gorgeous doorway um and the house
featured seven main bedrooms nine
servant rooms a billiard room library
and double parlor
it was a Showplace and people just
scrambled to get invitations to come to
this house even though they had to
travel way up to 9th Street and Fifth
Avenue in the middle of the woods to go
to it but there was a
scandal uh on March 1st of 1840 brev
warts threw a b costume as they called
it uh everybody in New York wanted to be
invited to this day uh along with many
other guests was was the varay who uh he
was the British Cil uh in New York and
his daughter Matilda barlay she came uh
as the character of lull Rook I know
right don’t we all dress up as her the
heroine of an enormously popular epic
poem written in 1817 by the Irish poet
Thomas Moore her costume supposedly cost
$300 which is about
$10,700
today so all right I don’t know what he
was made of um so in itself that was a
scam how much your costume cost also
attending was handsome deire t poock
bergn a wealthy South Carolinian planter
and he was dressed as fomor who happened
to be laa rook’s lover home
coincidence as the bow ended in the we
hours of the morning morning uh Matilda
and poock could not be found anywhere in
the house because they had
absconded and married at 4:00 a.m. she
was 16 at the
time and here is I could not find uh Jim
Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald who had
a field day with this ball he covered
the story selling Reams and reams of
papers for day uh fomenting anger
because he was comparing the ball the
goings on the enormous costs with the
plight and problems of the working class
so it was really getting nasty this uh
is the wedding announcement but it’s in
the Brooklyn star of March 2nd 1840 I
could not find a copy of the herald went
back this far uh the Herold was banned
from clubs hotels and upper class homes
and it lost advertisers as a
result as another result Mass balls
after this scandal were outlawed in the
city for decades afterwards and stiff
fines were leveled un
violators uh as a side note the um
couple remained married less than two
years to produce a son who sadly died in
infancy poock lost his fortune and died
destitute in 1868 Matilda went back home
and remained at home caring for her
elderly parents until she married
married late in life so definitely not a
fairy tale only 16 years after the
brewards built the house they decided to
head up town and Henry dur bought the
house for
$57,000 uh he was a distant relative of
the borts and they held on to this house
until after World War I although it was
always called the BR house it was sold
to BR descendants in 1919 who had were
hoping to restore it bringing back to
its former glory but they changed their
mind and sold the house again in in
1925 and yes this is what happened to it
24 fth avenue hotel a residential hotel
opened its doors on August 1st
1926 a very very fine building uh this
is the house on the corner of 9th and
Fifth Avenue with the restaurant and by
the way if you’re walking by I didn’t
say this but you can just walk right
into bronze revolving doors and check
out the lobby this gorgeous building the
lobby Alex and I went in the other day
it was it’s beautiful inside
magnificently restored intch 1926 lobby
but I did not say to go in there
okay so we’re moving up again there’s
Bread House this is number 32 fth Avenue
on the corner of T
Street the shiff Eno Mansion
architecturally an extremely important
house here it is also freestanding in
1852 when this map was
drawn heart shift from New Orleans
engaged uh Paris train dof lenow to
design the first the first Second Empire
house in the USA what makes it second
nire well I’m going to avoid the obvious
and you’re going to say first of all
look at the massing with this projecting
little mini Bay and the attached
plasters all along here definitely not
looking like your typical brown stone
but the P because this was a French
architect uh is the roof Al as they said
a mansard roof if you see a mansard roof
I don’t care what the rest of the house
looks like that makes it Second Empire
officially and this was the very first
mansard roof not only in New York but in
the entire USA the second owner Josiah
goer moved in a year later because shiff
died less than here after he go to
Manion uh guier also has a very nice
French name and he had tons and tons and
tons of money and he had lots of Art and
he could afford this house remember when
it was built it was freestanding
although in this photo there’s buildings
on side of it uh he was a bon a man
about town he loved to go hunting with
his buddies and he and his buddies
formed the New York Association for the
protection of game because he at least
understood that game could not just
continuously uh reproduce itself just
for the pleasure of hunters he knew
there needed to be um periods when they
were off Market there was a season and
there was an off seon and he and his
buddies would go to stores that were
selling game putting fish off seon with
placards and walk around on the street
Pro uh boycotting the stores and telling
people not to shop there so I just love
these feisty multi-millionaires who
could just you know way way Cutting Edge
for their
time in the 1890s he and his buddies
also started buying up other properties
on Fifth Avenue because they were trying
to Stave off development by the 1890s
the area north of 14th Street going all
the way up into the 50s was becoming uh
commercial properties many of those
buildings are still standing to this day
and it was beginning to creep south of
14th Street they didn’t want to have
anything to do with this so they started
buying up the buildings and renting them
out rather than risk losing their
beloved neighborhood but ultimately he
gave up and in 1897 he sold the house to
Amos
arino vastly wealthy even richer than he
was he was so rich rich he was so rich
that in
1884 when his son embezzled money from
the Second National Bank that he was
running uh the bank threatened to CS so
you know okay thank you um all right
even better that’s wonderful thank you
very much so he out of his own pocket
repaid the bank’s investement so that it
didn’t go under and people didn’t lose
their savings although they say he was
never the same again afterwards he was
so shaken by what his son had done uh
his son Amos F Eno inherited the mansion
and part of the estate $1.5 million and
Contin continued the fight to keep
development off of lower Fifth Avenue he
left enormous requests to many
institutions when he died in 198
1918 and this created a problem because
his relatives were not pleased about
these inquests and so they began legal
action to say that he was not in his
right mind when he wrote his will so
between 1918 and
1923 the estate was limbo as what they
called the bequest foring
relatives uh challenge the will uh when
the estate was finally settled in
1923 the estate promptly tore down the
building and built 305th Avenue in its
place and I believe there’s somebody
here tonight who lives in 35th isn’t
there yes hi hi so you can tell me
everything I’ve said so far is Gospel
truth correct we just Cate the 100th
anniversary congratulations you don’t
look
100 but
congratulations Fifth Avenue 10 Street
is this building so gorgeous Richard up
John one of his first Works he designed
it in 1839 it took three years to build
so completed in 1841 there it is just
North of the Eno mansion and just
Norther of brewood mansion very early
work of el Johnson he modeled the tower
on the Magdalene College Tower in Oxford
uh as you know here Fifth Avenue was
still on page when uh this church was
open and the rylanders had a lot to do
with this church because they knew that
they wanted to protect their property uh
values at Fifth Avenue as well and so
they move the whole Parish up from
downtown when the older church building
burn and rebuilt it there on the corner
of fifth at 10th big secret at the time
President Tyler and Julia Gardner were
married here in 184 24 he was the first
sitting president to be married while in
office and they got married secretly
because they knew if word had gotten out
there would have been mobs in front of
the church and mobs on Fifth Aven here
I’m sorry are simply not
done parishioners of the church include
the Belmonts the rylanders the asers and
the
defers parish rectory is also worth
taking a look at marvelous Gothic
Revival residential structure you just
don’t see these there are a handful of
these in all of today’s New York City
greater New York it was not a style that
was popular for private residences
because most people felt up too
ecclesiastic uh Progressive Parish they
supported such Charities as Libya
Ireland and the Five Points what a
combination and 1885 go it sometime I
snapped this picture just the other day
uh Julia and Serena R uh W Lander the
grandchildren of the Builders of the
wander Mansion uh paid for a redo of the
church inside Stanford white was
responsible it’s really very very Beau
isn’t the AL piece of the
forlash also
Sal uh and it’s still there today and
declared a national landmark okay um
we’re going to talk very briefly about
this building 35 Fifth Avenue the grer
hotel also 1876 right across the street
from the church um also a Family
Residence Hotel and because of its
stateliness once again the remaining
family uh members of U fth Avenue did
not object to it being there uh it was
typical in the fact that there was no
cooking in the suets uh but uh they all
went down to the m Flo that was a
picture of the lobby by the way not the
dining room contain Suites ranging from
two rooms B to eight rooms and two baths
and um the families were permitted to do
whatever they wanted with the apartments
because they were leasing them long term
just like anybody who lives in Manhattan
today uh in 1926 the drer was replaced
by the grubner 455th Avenue I don’t know
if any of you recognize in this building
right here next to 455th Avenue let’s
just say you’re sitting in it right now
but 455th Avenue uh
a very unusual building it was built by
uh George wood and it’s quite
distinctive these these uh sort of hoods
Over The Parlor Windows a very
distinctive singular uh door frame here
flat lentils on the second floor and
then projecting lentils on the third
floor the double windows you just don’t
see a lot of houses like this very very
unusual plus it had private stables
around the corner very houses on Fifth
pis would although he was a very
successful lawyer and very esteemed as a
professional was a very nasty man he was
racist he was sexist he was xenophobic
we would not like him very much today so
uh and the house also has a very
distinctive history uh he he died in
1860 only shortly after building the
house uh the family sold the house in
1866 to the Lennox family and it was
basically rented for the remaining of
the 19th century all sorts of different
families very high-end families very
prestigious families but it was a rental
and late in the century was converted
after 1886 to Apartments so you know
there goes the
neighborhood uh in 1925 it was
demolished for the 16 story building but
part of it still survives because around
the
corner are the staes still there in
place I’m sure many of you know this
building um but it didn’t always remain
a stable in on July 20th of 1867 it was
raided because it had become a very
highend brel and in fact it was such a
high-end brel it doesn’t appear in any
of those guide books that were issued to
visitors tourists in New York at the
time later on the building survived and
became a garage in the early 20th
century uh later yet the owner of the
hotel rener next door David H
converted it into a one family house cuz
he didn’t want the property to be
developed and cut off all the light and
air to the side of his building and uh
into the 1930s and 40s it was famous for
its lovely Garden always flowers in
1960 the the three buildings in the
combined package were all sold and the
Stables became the conservative
synagogue ofu which it remained to this
day so I just wanted to see this picture
really really quickly because this is a
this that we just don’t have anymore and
this is where you really get the idea of
just how special lower fif Avon was
beautiful houses but not these enormous
palaces these ostentatious buildings
that were being built after the Civil
War up toown it was quiet it was austere
it was sedate it was beautiful it was
classic so let’s take a quick look at
First Presbyterian Church right across
the street from us there it is designed
by Joseph sea Wells and what again the
magdaline tower they move their
congregation up from Wall Street uh
where their initial church was destroyed
in the great fire this is the second
Church they have a full block front on
Fifth Avenue and Wells just utilized it
magnificently the South lawn which is on
the corner of 11 Street is actually the
church graveyard the bodies were moved
up from the graveyard on Wall Street and
reentered on the sou one but they
thought it was so pretty without
gravestones that they just stuck the
gravestones in the Crypt so as far as I
know they still downstairs uh in the
early 20th century associate pastor Dr
Fosdick uh was famous for his fiery
attacks on racism and social injustice
the lines were up Fifth Avenue to hear
talk fabulous windows in the church uh
three by Tiffany also a Salan two by
Charles Lamb and five by m Armstrong
Armstrong Armstrong was also a member
and the building on the North side
replaces the building that was the
former salag gundi Club but it was
designed in 1950 by Edgar A taffle a
student of Franklin right and it marks a
very important step forward in modern
architecture because he tried to
communicate with the antique Gothic
structure next door he put in a row of
quattra foil uh um a balcony along it it
it’s modern he’s not pretending it’s an
old building but it communicates very
nicely with the church next door nothing
like this had ever been done before
which brings us to 51 Fifth Avenue Eli
white bought a PRC built house this is
one of the few houses on Avenue spec
built a transitional Greek Revival
Italian style house he owned white and
Son’s half manufacturing and was a
director of the North River Insurance
Company he passed in the house 1973
what’s very interesting in this house is
his granddaughter Caroline Fitzgerald
she was extraordinary a lot of
extraordinary women on Fifth an back in
the day because they had the money they
could afford to be extraordinary um she
lived regularly in Europe she studied
poetry and the classics at Yale she
studied Sanskrit and she married into
the British royal family sort of in 1889
she married the brother of the vicroy of
India so she became like the step step
step something or other of Queen
Victoria but that was enough for New
York
newspapers in uh 1898 William wooden
company publisher of medical books and a
medical record moved in and they stayed
there for the next 30 years until in
1928 wood n was replaced with a 16 story
luxury building and here is the prize
winner of lower fifth AV L expansion R
almost done folks um sorry I apologize I
tend to get ver I don’t know if you
notic that um lenx Mansion was built
very early in the Avenue’s history 1841
it was huge Len’s family had an enormous
China trade fortune and they owned a
farm up in Midtown Manhattan which we
now call Lennox Hill so there’s
something to smoke over uh and they
continued investing in real estate in
1839 James Len inherited the fortune
built the double Mansion retired in
1845 dedicated to collecting rare books
Fine Art o for the rest of his life
hence the Lennox collection which is now
part of the New York Public Library he
was a noted recluse a very prominent
Brooklyn Minister thank you um came
knocking at the door when he presented
his card and said please I would very
much like to meet Mr Lennox and see his
collection door was slammed in his face
he was left standing out there on the
sidewalk and a few minutes later the
servant returned handed him back his
card says Mr Lennox says never heard of
you don’t know you go away and he close
the door and that’s what happened
however he was extremely generous uh
with Charities and he was very very
loving to his other family members he
just did not like the general public so
most people never got to see the inside
but here we are getting to see the front
entryway to this house it was just
filled with treasure he left the house
to the Presbyterian church across the
street and he uh also uh donated his
collection to the Lennox Library which
was built way uptown on Fifth Avenue in
71st Street and remained standing there
until the early 20th century when the
collections were moved to 42 Street oh
by the way the building was the uh home
of the precursor of the juli art school
in the early 20th century but it was
replaced by a monster Tower in 19 11
this is exactly the thing that the Fifth
Avenue Association was formed to to
fight in
1907 uh this monster Tower could not
have been built after
1916 because now uh lower Fifth Avenue
is regulated if you notice commercial
building stops right at the corner of 12
Street everything south of 12 Street
it’s highrise but it’s residential it’s
not commercial we can thank the fifth
atomy Association for that and last but
not least 65th Avenue one of the most
important Mansions this is here not the
windows facing the lawn but the windows
facing the street was the former site of
Sal mandhi they rented the Richard of
upj town house until 1917 so in 1911
when this photo was taken that’s where
Sal M gundi was before they bought this
building there it is on the map very
austere on the outside uh that’s what
people did back back in the day Robert
Minter was the sign of the shipping
Empire he his father lost all his money
in 1812 and Robert Minter regained it
all working with his partner and then
brother-in-law grenell to make uh their
shipping company the most prominent in
in New York he personally paid for the
Flying Cloud which was the most famous
of all the clipper ships he PID for it
out of his own pocket and held the
record until something like uh 2008 uh
he and his pal would meet Thursday
nights to solve the problems of the
world and one Thursday night after he
and his wife Anna returned from a 18mon
stay in Europe for people uh they
noticed that there were promenad and
Gardens all over Europe and New York
didn’t really have anything like that so
we met Anna in on the Stag meeting one
night she said wouldn’t it be nice if we
created a park in New York work
something where people could go to and
common on and enjoy nature and his
buddies all thought that was a great
idea and that was the birth of Central
Park in 1848 he actually donated a
substantial amount of the land which is
now in
1866 he died His Son suff suffering a
nervous disorder committed suicide
181 uh and the house remained empty for
10 years until Harry LR Cannon and
Elizabeth Mary moved in and had a way
out of a time in this house well into
the 20th century
but yeah ultimately the property was
sold in
1915 but notice the difference between
what we call the forms building today
and that monster that’s right across the
street from this was built in 1924 as
the McMillan and Company building later
the for building and that bring brings
me to uh this phot of the inside of our
parlors this is what these houses look
like inside very very rare examples of
photos of Interiors time but that’s our
Mrs Hol and that’s our front parlor so
come and take a look at it I no it’s all
the art that’s hanging on the walls in
1871 so I think now it’s time to quench
our thirst and our hunger we could stop
at monos or we could just go downstairs
[Applause]
you