Daytonian in Manhattan

Murders, Suicides and Jazz - 90 West Houston Street

2026-06-18T04:00:00.000-04:00

A flurry of construction along Houston Street between Laurens Street and Thompson Street around 1828 filled the block with two-and-a-half story Federal-style homes. (This section of Houston Street would later become West Houston, and Laurens Street would be renamed South Fifth Avenue in 1870, West Broadway in 1896, and LaGuardia Place in 1967.) Like its neighbors, 90 Houston Street would have been faced in Flemish bond brick, while one or two dormers would have pierced its peaked roof.

Beyond the rear yards of the Houston Street houses were the elegant homes on Bleecker Street. Angelica Gilbert, perhaps, hoped to draw clientele from those wealthy families. She established Miss Angelica Gilbert's Boarding & Day School in 90 Houston Street. An advertisement in the New-York Evening Post on September 2, 1830 described the school as being, "where with competent assistance, children are taught the rudiments, and young ladies the highest branches of a sound and elegant education." And, indeed, Angelica Gilbert's students came from some of Manhattan's most illustrious families, including the Rhinelanders, Kipps, and Wards.

As early as 1850, the 18-foot-wide house had multiple occupants. Listed here that year were Archibald Murray, a carver; and two butchers, William Odell who worked in the Essex Market, and George Vale, whose store was on Stanton Street.

Produce merchant Peter Lisse and his wife, Ernestine, were here in 1853. Apparently boarding with them was Francis Burke, who operated a liquor store or saloon.

Following Peter Lisse's death in 1854, Ernestine took over his business, listing her profession as "vegetables" in the Union Market. She also now accepted more boarders. Listed here in 1857, along with Francis Burke, were cabinetmaker John Hoffman; upholsterer George Stetter; and Simon Lampert, a "segarmaker."

Boarding here in 1870 was Margarette P. Luthy. On June 10 that year, Walter L. Butler arrived at the house and handed her a letter from her good friend, Fannie C. Shattuck, who lived on Second Avenue. In it Fannie apologized for her handwriting, saying, "I am very nervous," and explained, "When I see you again I will be a married woman." The letter said that she and the man bringing the letter were to be married at 3:00 that day, and asked to borrow some of Margarette's things for the ceremony. The letter said in part:

You know what I mean--your collar and undersleeves--and if you will oblige me so much will you loan me a pair of earrings and any little thing that you would think would do for me to get married in, and I will take the best of care of them, and would like to see you on to-morrow morning without fail. Please send by my intended anything you will loan me, as I have not much time.

Margaretta Luthy gave Fannie Shattuck's "intended" a pair of gold and coral earrings, a breast pin, a lace collar, handkerchief, a "chemisette and a pair of undersleeves." The items were valued by Margarette at $68, or nearly $1,750 in 2026 terms.

When the blushing bride did not arrive the next day, Margarette investigated. Fannie C. Shattuck was not married, nor had she been engaged. And the letter's handwriting was unfamiliar not because Fannie had been nervous, it was because it was written by Walter Butler.

As it turned out, Butler was the ne'er-do-well nephew of Civil War General Benjamin F. Butler. He was tracked down and arrested in Yorkville on June 24. The New York Herald reported, "Butler attempted to cut his throat before he was taken from the house." He pleaded guilty and sentenced to two years' and six months' hard labor.

Owner J. L. Brooks made significant changes to the building in 1871. On February 11, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that he would transform the "two and a half story...second-class dwelling" by raising the attic to a full third floor "with Mansard roof to be added." The building would be enlarged to the rear with an eight-foot deep extension, as well. Equally important, The New York Times noted, "store to be made in front."

Brooks's contractor transformed the Federal-style house to a Second Empire-style store-and-apartment building. A cast iron storefront was installed, and a stylish mansard with three prominent dormers brought to the building up to date.

via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

West Houston Street was becoming increasingly commercial, and the neighborhood in general was filling with immigrants. Among Brooks's initial tenants was Pierre Fagani. He was arrested on June 10, 1872, charged "with having stolen a counterfeit $20 bill, and afterward attempted to pass it on a poor shoe-maker," as reported The New York Times.

The ground floor became home to Joseph Rath's beer saloon. It changed hands over the subsequent years. By 1879, it was run by Adolph Luttig.

Several of the tenants continued to be on the wrong side of the law. Around midnight on March 5, 1881, resident James McDonnell and five other thugs attacked Alfred Speanot on South Fifth Avenue. Speanot tried to escape on Bleecker Street, but the three overtook him, knocked him down and beat him while trying to snatch his watch. Police Officer Scullion came on the scene and while three of the men fled, Scullion captured the others, including James McDonnell. When asked in court what they had to say, one of the prisoners explained that Speanot, "struck them first."

Pierre Soulan, who lived here with his wife in 1888, worked as a waiter in the exclusive Delmonico restaurant. A native Frenchman, The Evening World said he was "well connected in his native country." In October that year, Soulan's eyes "began to trouble him," according to The Evening World. On the advice of his physician, he went to the Eye and Ear Infirmary where an operation was performed.

The surgery was not only unsuccessful, it left Soulan in significant pain. A second operation was proposed. The Evening World said that since the first procedure, Soulan "has been more or less deranged." At 5:00 on the morning of December 5, Mrs. Soulan called her husband to breakfast, saying it was nearly time to go to work. She then noticed blood on the bedclothes. Soulan, who was unconscious from a loss of blood, had slit his wrists with a razor while still in bed. The Sun said, "It is supposed that the prospect of another operation was too much for him." Amazingly, at Bellevue Hospital it was said he would recover. (He would, however, now face charges of attempted suicide.)

The Morris family occupied rooms here in 1894. On the evening of July 4 that year, 17-year-old Frank Morris and his 14-year-old friend, William Laugin, who lived around the corner, were setting off firecrackers on South Fifth Avenue between Bleecker and Houston Streets. They would be witnesses of a brutal crime.

Maggie Davis and her boyfriend, George Washington Gibbin, had been drinking that night. The two separated and, suspicious, Maggie followed George. The New York Herald reported that she "saw him talking to another woman." She went home, retrieved a large butcher knife, and went out looking for Gibbin. She found him near the spot where Morris and Laugin were lighting their firecrackers. Frank Morris turned just in time to see Maggie, who had sneaked up behind Gibbin, raise the knife. He yelled a warning to the unsuspecting man, but it was too late. The New York Herald said, "As he did the weapon descended three times in rapid succession. Gibbon was stabbed in the back, in the chest, and in the right thigh."

Morris and Laugin were in court to testify. While Maggie Davis (who was "well known to the police as a general hard character") insisted she had not done the stabbing, the New York Herald said, "Morris and Laugin both contradicted her."

In the meantime, the ground floor space at 90 West Houston Street became J. S. Rowley's Restaurant in 1893. The patrons of the all-night operation were not necessarily upstanding citizens.

Among the regular customers was Alice Walsh, whom The Evening World described as a "poor outcast." She entered the restaurant at around 12:30 on the morning of April 21, 1895. According to the cook, Michael C. McNamara, a few minutes later four men entered, one of them saying, "There she is."

Alice was "much disturbed" according to McNamara, "and then became very angry when the men began to abuse her for having deserted them." When one of the men threatened her, Alice "retorted by showering vile epithets upon him, after the fashion of the women of the street."

One of the men told Alice to come with them to the Yorktown Hotel.

"Not on your life," she answered.

"We'll make you," said one of the men.

"No you won't," said Alice, and she pulled out a long, steel hairpin and threatened, "I'll stick you with this, --- you, and I mean what I say."

Finally, at around 1:55 a.m., all five left. McNamara said as they headed toward Thompson Street, he could still hear them "talking loudly and making threats." Later that morning, Alice Walsh's body was found "in the squalid hallway at 148 Thompson Street." She had been kicked and beaten and then fatally stabbed in the abdomen.

A month later, on May 18, 32-year-old Tony Murphy was "ejected from Rowley's restaurant by Walter Patrick Henry," as reported by The Evening World. The barman was less than gentle in removing the unwanted customer. Murphy was found unconscious on the sidewalk outside at 5:00 that morning, bleeding from the head. The newspaper reported that he was hospitalized with a "probable fracture of the skull." Walter Henry was arrested.

Pierre Soulan was not the last of the tenants here to attempt suicide. Jacob Froelich, a tinsmith, lived here in 1899 when he became infatuated with another resident, Mrs. Taylor. On November 17, he swallowed Paris Green, a rodenticide, because Mrs. Taylor "did not look favorably upon his suit," reported the New York Herald. The article noted that he had done this before, "but cried out in time." It added, "He will not die this time either."

More successful was Louis Guillemot, who lived here with his wife and two children in 1900. The 24-year-old worked as a collector for an insurance company--calling on clients and receiving their premiums. Each morning he would meet his supervisor at a grocery store on Macdougal Street to report and turn over his collections.

On the morning of February 7, 1900, he was in trouble. He had used $15 of his previous day's collection (about $600 today) for personal purposes. Just before his supervisor arrived, he mentioned his plight to someone in the store, then walked into the rear room and shot himself in the chest.

The store space here became home to M. Martin & Co., commercial plumbers, by 1916. A delicatessen occupied the space during the Depression years, and in 1964 it was converted to a luncheonette. At the same time, the upper floors were converted to apartments, two per floor.

Among the tenants in 1986 was Ruth Polsky, a booking agent for clubs and discotheques. On the night of September 8 that year, she was outside the Limelight on Sixth Avenue when a driver for a car service ran a red light and smashed into a taxicab. The taxi spun out of control and careened into five people on the sidewalk, including Ruth Polsky, who was killed.

The ground floor space became Zinc Bar in 1993. In reporting its opening, The Villager said, "Along with espresso, they provide blues and jazz and some Brazilian music." Zinc Bar remained here until July 2008. A coffee house, Moka Moment, occupies the space today.

photograph by the author

Medicine, Socialists, and Theater - the Oft-Altered Merrill Williams House - 83 E. 4th Street

2026-06-17T04:00:00.000-04:00

photograph by Carole Teller

In the 1830s, a few developers lobbied the city to rename a block or two upon which they had erected high-end residences. If they were successful, the blocks acquired a sense of exclusivity. The 1836 Longworth's American Almanack explained, "Part of Fourth [Street], between the Bowery and Avenue 2d, has the soubriquet of Albion-place."

Among the homes along Albion Place was that of stockbroker John W. Stebbins and his family. Their Federal-style house was faced in Flemish bond brick and sat above an English basement. Originally two dormers pierced its peaked roof.

Interestingly, the Stebbins family listed their address as 409 Fourth Street in 1836, rebuffing the Albion Place name. And, equally interestingly, all of the subsequent occupants followed suit. Visitors and mail carriers, nevertheless, would have other issues with which to contend in the upcoming years. In 1850 the address was changed to 425 Fourth Street, and in 1864 to 83 East 4th Street.

Born in 1807, John W. Stebbins was a partner with his brother H. G. Stebbins in the brokerage firm Stebbins Brothers at 50 Wall Street. Despite his young age, he was also the president of the Mercantile Library Association. His residency here would be short-lived. On June 4, 1837 he died at the age of 30 "after a protracted illness, according to The Evening Post. His funeral was held on June 6 "from his late residence 409 Fourth st., Albion Place," said the newspaper.

When the property was scheduled to be sold at auction in February 1846, it was described as:

The elegant two story and modern attic brick house, No. 409 Fourth st, having basement and entire under cellars, tea room in rear, front and back stair ways, croton water in kitchen and second floor in closets. It is altogether a first class modern house.

The mention of Croton water was significant. Indoor plumbing, made possible by the Croton Reservoir, was not available before 1842. So this house was among the very first to have the luxury--not to mention the "closets" on the second floor. Water closets, or toilets, were an expensive indulgence.

The house was purchased by Henry A. and Rosalie Heiser. At the time, Henry ran a dry goods business on Pearl Street. He changed course in 1851, turning to shipping.

That year was one of joy and tragedy for the Heisers. A baby boy, Russell, was born in May 1851 and he died just before turning four months on September 8th. His funeral was held in the parlor the following afternoon.

The widowed Dr. Merrill Whitney Williams purchased the property in 1855. Born in 1801, he married Eliza B. Duyrea in June 1826 and began his practice the following year. Eliza died in 1844. Moving into the house with Williams was his only surviving child, Elizabeth Ann (known as Lizzie), who was 20 years old in 1855. (Two children John Duryea and Harriet Emma, died in childhood.) Also living here was Williams's unmarried sister, Emma.

Emma Williams died in the house at the age of 74 on December 1, 1867. Her funeral was held in the parlor on the 3rd.

The room was the scene of a much happier event four months later. Elizabeth was married here to merchant and banker Robert Macy Gallaway on April 20, 1868. The newlyweds started their lives together in the East 4th Street house.

Dr. Merrill Whitney Williams died on December 3, 1873 at the age of 72. Robert and Elizabeth left 83 East 4th Street within a few months.

By the time of Williams's death, the once-refined neighborhood of upscale private residences was quickly filling with immigrants and tenements. No. 83 East 4th Street became a boarding house.

Among the first boarders was German-born Carl Denninghoff. Born in 1835, he came to America in 1857 and found a job as a "drug clerk." He lost his job in 1874 and 18 months later was still unable to find work. On October 26, 1875, the New-York Tribune reported, "He was found dead in his bed yesterday afternoon, and had left a note stating that he had committed suicide." Denninghoff had swallowed "an overdose of morphine."

While the upper portion of No. 83 continued as a boarding house, in 1881 Charles Steckler leased the basement for the Steckler Association, a political club. On November 19, 1882, the New-York Tribune reported that, "having refurnished its rooms," the organization had a house warming. The article said that Frederick H. Conkling "spoke of the principles of the two great parties, and he treated at length the Jeffersonian doctrines."

The following month, Charles Steckler was presented with a $1,000 diamond ring here in "recognition of his services." (It was a generous tribute, worth about $32,500 in 2026 terms.)

By 1885, the boarding house portion was operated by a Mrs. Betz, described by The Sun as "a stout, good-natured German woman." In January that year, a "German cripple and a tall, good-looking German with a broad moustache" climbed the stoop with a 16-year-old German girl." They asked Mrs. Betz if she had a room for the teen. The two men, they explained, were Marie Probanski's cousins and they had come with her "to vouch for her respectability."

The Sun said that Marie's "fair, pretty face and bright brown eyes at once won the landlady's heart." The mustached man paid a week's rent and the two left. Marie found work as a seamstress and shortly became close friends with another boarder, actress Anna Rando. After a few weeks, Marie confided into Anna.

She said she had come from Poland the previous August to visit her father and find work in America. He found her a job as a servant, but she "gave it up because she wasn't strong enough," explained The Sun later. She said her father eventually became abusive over her not working and she ran away. Whether her story was true would never be known.

At 4:00 on the morning of February 11, 1885, Mrs. Betz was awakened by noises from Marie's room. "She found the girl vomiting violently. Beside her bed lay a little white envelope marked 'Arsenic--Poison.'" Marie died shortly afterward.

As the boarders were gathered around the dining room table that night, "a short, dark-bearded German burst into the room, accompanied by a stout, rosy-cheeked woman." The man was Marie's father, Joseph Probanski, and the woman her stepmother. They had been searching for Marie for a month. Joseph' story was far different from his daughter's.

The tall, 27-year-old man with the moustache, he said, was Oscar Lang. "He is a scoundrel and a married man. I'll fix him for this," he said. He told Mrs. Betz, "He put the girl in this house so that I couldn't find her, and meant to ruin her. She had a good home in my house with her stepmother."

Police searched for Oscar, but were initially able to find only his brother, Paul (the "cripple" who had appeared on the stoop that first day). Paul added to the confusion of Marie's story. He denied that Oscar was married, and said, "Her father swore at her, and told her to leave the house if she couldn't earn money...He wouldn't have had anything to do with sheltering her if her father had acted like a father to her."

The Steckler Association remodeled the basement level again in 1885. Calling it "a strong political East Side organization, on April 27, the New-York Tribune reported it "received their friends in their newly renovated rooms at No. 83 East Fourth-st." The article noted, "Many prominent politicians and business men were present."

The space became Frederick Bengal's "coffee-house," around 1890. Charles Henry Parkhurst was not so sure that coffee was the only thing being traded here. The clergyman and reformer founded the Society for the Prevention of Crime in 1891 and in November 1893 he sent word to Captain Doherty of the Fifth Street police station "that the coffee-houses in his precinct were nothing but gambling resorts." During the last week of November, Doherty made raids on seven such places, including that of Frederick Bengel, who was arrested.

The post-World War I years saw the neighborhood become the center of labor and Socialist groups. No. 83 East 4th Street was home to the Unemployment Council by 1921. On December 4 that year, The New York Times explained, "The Unemployment Council is made up of delegates from various unions."

Within a year, the Organization of the Unemployed, the United Labor Council and the Workers' Party of America operated from the building. On March 11, 1922, The Daily Worker reported on the 15 million people starving from famine in Russia. "Can you witness this suffering without raising a hand to help?" asked the article. It said that a "vast relief army is being mustered in New York City" and one of the stations where donations could be left was at 83 East 4th Street.

Around 1939, the attic was raised to a full floor. Its wall of windows was topped with a stepped parapet. The brick was painted white and the basement and parlor floor were converted to Royal Hall, a meeting and entertainment space. On October 31, 1943, The New York Times reported that the United Nations Folk Dance Group met here once a week.

A canvas marquee sheltered patrons of The Royal in 1941. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

A decade later, the Royal Hall became the Royal Playhouse. On October 30, 1953, a new play The Wedding Present by Ken Parker premiered here.

The Royal Playhouse was a short-lived venture. In 1954, the Fourth Street Theatre opened. It lasted until the Writers Stage Theater took over around 1960.

In 1967, the New Dramatists Workshop operated within the building. Two attendees of a performance of Megan Terry's Keep Tightly Clothed in a Cool Dry Place on March 23 that year were undercover officers. In one scene, four actors--Yale University drama students--used an American flag as a blanket, threw it on the floor and rolled in it. They were arrested for "desecrating an American flag."

On February 27, 1969, The New York Times reported that the Playwrights Unit, headed by Edward Albee, Richard Barr and Charles Woodward, had purchased 83 East 4th Street for $77,000 (about $675,000 today). Barr and Woodward were the producers of the highly successful The Boys in the Band, and Albee was a Pulitzer Prize dramatist. The article said, "The organization gives new dramatists an opportunity to see their scrips presented on a professional basis without the commercial pressure of paid public performances and newspaper criticism." The theater space was now known as The Next Stage.

In 1972, the Players Workshop opened here, described by the New York Amsterdam News on October 28 as "a new performing arts center." It offered courses and workshops in drama, dance, costume design and sewing.

A letter to the editor of The Villager printed on June 26, 1975, said that "the old Playwright's Unit theater is now operating under the name of Wonderhorse." A product of The Alive Company, "a music-oriented performing theater group." (The writer noted that when Wonderhorse was not in use, The Next Stage could use the space.)

Theater groups came and went. In 1991, the New York Theatre Workshop purchased the property and moved in the following year. (The group's principal performance venue is at 79 East 4th Street.) No. 83 East 4th Street became a 75-seat "black box space" for readings, the organization's administrative offices, and a workshop. The group continues in the vintage house today.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post

The Frank and Elizabeth Larom House - 219 West 78th Street

2026-06-16T04:00:00.000-04:00

The extended Hall family were builders and developers. William Hall began the tradition that was continued by his sons William W. and Thomas M. Hall. (They operated both as William Hall's Sons and W. W. & T. M. Hall). Joining in the familial trend were Arlington C., and Harvey M. Hall, who worked together; and William H. Hall Jr. and T. R. A. Hall.

In 1890, the latter two purchased ten building lots on the northern side of West 78th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. They hired the architectural firm of Thom & Wilson to design upscale, three-story and basement homes on the site. Completed in 1891, they wore Romanesque Revival pants and Renaissance Revival shirts.

Among them was 219 West 78th Street. Its basement and parlor levels were clad in chunky, undressed brownstone blocks, typical of the Romanesque Revival style. Beefy carved stoop newels continued the motif. Thom & Wilson introduced the Renaissance at the parlor floor with sumptuous fruit-and-flower carvings in the single lintel that connected the windows and above the doorway. Formal fluted columns with complex capitals flanked the entranceway.

The second and third floors discarded any hints of Romanesque. The windows within the planar brownstone surface were framed by shallow quoins and capped with lintels carved with intricate swags of fruits and flowers. A pressed metal cornice with paired corbels completed the design.

On October 6, 1892, only two of the homes were still unsold, including No. 219. An advertisement in The Evening Post for the "3-Story High-Class Houses" read:

For sale--206 and 219 West 78th St.; remainder of row of ten thoroughly seasoned; ready for decorating; restricted neighborhood front and rear. Liberal mortgage.

The mention of "restricted neighborhood front and rear" meant that commerce (like stores) was prohibited on the 78th and 79th Street blocks.

The house underwent a quick succession of owners until about 1896 when glove importer Frank William Larom and his wife, the former Elizabeth Elmira Shute, moved in. Born in 1862 and 1867 respectively, the couple was married on December 14, 1887. They had two children, Irving Hastings and Edith Emerson.

Elizabeth had deep American roots and was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the National Society of New England Women. Her father, builder William Shute, had erected the Grand Opera House. Like most wives of affluent businessmen, Elizabeth was involved in charitable work. She annually donated items to the New York State Woman's Relief Corps Home for orphans and wives of veterans. In 1896, for instance, she donated "1 blanket, 5 tidies, 13 books, dolls and toys." ("Tidies" were embroidered pieces of cloth used to protect the backs of upholstered furniture.) The 1914 Woman's Who's Who of America would mention that Elizabeth "interested in animal welfare." (She was a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.) It also noted that she was "against woman suffrage."

Edith Emerson Larom was 12 years old when she died on April 21, 1905. The little girl's casket sat in the parlor until her funeral there on April 24.

The 1914 Social Register listed Irving Hastings Larom as living in the Cottage Club at Princeton University. Known as Larry, upon his graduation the following year, he relocated to the Far West with Winthrop Brooks (of the Brooks Brothers family). They established Valley Ranch near Cody, Wyoming. A dude ranch, he advertised in part, "You'd enjoy wearing ranch clothes, the cowboys, the ranch work, the saddle-leather atmosphere of the place."

Now empty nesters, Frank and Elizabeth sold 219 West 78th Street in December 1918 to Dr. Ferdinand G. Kneer and his wife, the former Annie L. Thoe. Kneer had been the pathologist at Harlem Hospital, and was now a surgeon at St. Katherine's Hospital. Additionally, he was also president of the Kneer-Kuhl Co. and an amateur photographer and a pioneer in the creation of colored "optical lantern" slides. He used those in illustrating his lectures.

Ferdinand G. Kneer died on June 17, 1927. His funeral was held in the parlor three days later, followed by services in the Church of the Transfiguration on East 29th Street. Annie did not remain in the house for long. She sold it in February 1929 to the Monel Holding Corporation. The New York Times remarked that the buyer "will remodel the premises into small suites."

Something went awry with the negotiation, however. The Monel Holding Corporation was still leasing the property from Annie L. Kneer as late as 1934. On November 13, 1938, The New York Times reported that Annie L. Kneer had leased the house to a new tenant for five years. "The tenant will alter the building," said the article.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The residence was remodeled again after the Feingold Realty Corporation purchased it in September 1962. "The buyer, an architect, plans to alter the building into small apartments, one of which he will occupy," reported The New York Times. That architect was Alexander Feingold. He reconfigured the interior to seven apartments while preserving the exterior appearance.

At the time of Feingold's purchase, the neighborhood had severely declined from the era when Frank and Elizabeth Larom first stepped from their carriage in front of the stoop. Thirty-five years later, Feingold still lived here. He recalled his early years in the house to The New York Times journalist Christopher Gray in 1995, saying, "the block was plagued by prostitution and drugs." Feingold and his neighbors turned things around. Gray reported, "An early step forward, around 1966, was the planting of trees by the Department of Parks, followed by brick enclosures Mr. Feingold's firm designed for the tree pits a few years later."

There are still seven apartments in the building. And Thom & Wilson's interesting hybrid design is amazingly intact.

photographs by the author