Longtime Ephemeral readers know I have a special interest in the underside of the Gilded Age: the roughly 16% of the city’s population who worked “in service” managing the cooking, cleaning, driving, and washing inside the mansions and brownstones of upper class households.
On Thursday, October 19 at 7:00 pm, I’ll be at Old Westbury Gardens on Long Island to give a presentation about servants of the Gilded Age city: “Life Below Stairs in Gilded Age New York.” Using visuals and first-person accounts, I’ll explore how wealthy New Yorkers navigated the domestic side of life—and the often tense relationships they had with the people they employed.
New York City is rich with grotesques and gargoyles on commercial and residential buildings. Some are scary, others silly or cheeky. Many are shrouded in mystery, the symbolism and meaning intended by the builder lost to the ages.
But these two fellows guarding the entrance to an Upper Manhattan apartment house are the first I’ve ever seen who look like they’re dressed in colonial-era wigs and clothing.
What’s the significance behind their circa-1770 outfits? I think it has to do with the location of the apartment building they adorn, and its proximity to a colonial mansion that played a role in the Revolutionary War.
The building is 432 West 160th Street. Officially, this address is in Washington Heights. But it’s also adjacent to Jumel Terrace, a historic district of 50 Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival row houses built between 1890 and 1902.
The center of Jumel Terrace is the Morris-Jumel Mansion, built around 1765 as a summer home for Roger Morris, a British army officer, and his family, according to the mansion’s website. (The mansion is now a historic site and museum, below).
At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the Morris family fled their Georgian mansion and went to London, as many other Loyalists in New York City did. George Washington and the Continental Army then took over the empty house for several weeks in 1776 after the bruising Battle of Brooklyn.
Could these two grotesques in their colonial garb represent the Revolutionary War figures who occupied the house in the early years of the fight for independence?
I’d like to think the architects or developers who built 432 West 160th Street (above) 150 years or so later are giving a subtle nod to the Morris-Jumel Mansion’s place in American history.
Keep heading toward the East River, and the carriage houses start to look less like whimsical one-offs and instead resemble functional commercial stables that housed many horses for various owners.
But there’s one unusual stunner at 305 East 38th Street, east of Second Avenue. Crammed between two tall residential towers is this one-story holdout (above) with a delightful blond brick facade and two arched entryways that appear to be horse doorways.
Despite its horse stable appearance, however, this little charmer (below, in 1940) was built for an automobile, not an equine.
Considering that this holdout got its start in the 1910s, that makes sense; cars had already outnumbered horses and carriages by this time. According to the Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide from April 1917, plans were completed for a “one-story brick garage, 25 x 100, at 305 East 38th Street.”
The cost of the garage: $5,000.
Who was the garage for? A fellow named Henry Hof, of 567 Third Avenue. Hof appears to have been a real estate man; his name shows up in early 20th century newspaper archives covering the leasing of new commercial buildings in prime areas.
How long Hof parked here isn’t known. But like so many of the horse stables on East 38th Street, this little garage was renovated into a residence at some point in the 20th century.
As the other buildings on this former low-rise block were topped and tall towers went up in their place, the garage became a holdout—a remnant of the New York of more than a century ago, with old-school ornamental brickwork and a curlycue ribbon of brick around the facade.
One contemporary touch to note: the ornamental iron window grills!
[Third image: NYC Department of Records & Information Services]
His name was John P. Weldon. Since 1911 he occupied space at 34 and 38 Stone Street, where he operated an ironworks, making things out of metal and doing some repair work, as he told a courtroom in the 1910s when asked to testify in a trial. He described the premises as a “workshop.”
His father was an immigrant from Ireland, who arrived in New York City in the mid-1800s and founded the Weldon ironworks, according to research from Walter Grutchfield. Exactly when he was born and when he died isn’t clear, and how he spent his life outside of his ironworks business is also unknown.
But at some point in his life he created this manhole cover, found in the West Village on West 13th Street near the Whitney Museum. Simple yet elegant, it’s decorated with circles of raised squares (to keep horses, cars, and people from skidding). In the middle is one single star.
For at least a century, I’d guess, this manhole cover has been in place—an otherwise anonymous worker’s mark on the cityscape. Was he proud of his work, and therefore made sure his name was included? Perhaps he wanted to be remembered by future generations of New Yorkers.
You can barely walk through a New York City park or square without coming across some kind of war memorial, and I consider that a good thing.
Sturdy doughboy statues, proud eagle sculptures, sedate bronze plaques—these monuments don’t just pay homage to the dead but connect us to different eras in Gotham’s past. They remind us, even for a passing moment as you hurry to catch the bus, about the human toll of combat.
But occasionally you encounter a war memorial that feels not just forgotten but almost actively neglected, so battered by the elements over time that it’s become more of a receptacle for litter, not a source of reflection.
That’s the case with this granite, five-foot marker outside the Hunts Point 6 train station in the Bronx. Intended to honor the Hunts Point natives who lost their lives in World War I, it sits on a sidewalk island once known as Crames Square, for a local resident named Charles Crames who was killed in the Great War.
“To the men of Hunts Point who gave their lives in the World War 1914-1918,” a simple inscription at the top reads like a scroll between two carved ribbons.
This granite marker didn’t start out so unloved. “Three thousand residents of Hunt’s Point [sic] attended the unveiling of a seven-ton granite memorial to World War dead from that part of the Bronx,” wrote the New York Times in a small writeup on May 23, 1938.
The afternoon ceremony went from 2:30 to 4:30, and it was preceded by a parade “of civic organizations, school children, Gold Star mothers and veterans and auxiliaries of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars,” continues the Times.
Buglers played taps, and a local official told the reporter that “the purchase of a bronze eagle three feet in height was being considered by the civic association to complete the monument.”
Eighty-five years after the unveiling, Crames Square no longer honors a Great War casualty because it no longer exists. This busy spot is now known as De Valle Square, after a Cuban-born priest who led the nearby Bronx parishes at St. Anselm’s and St. Athanasius in the 1970s and 1980s.
The granite monument itself hasn’t been erased, but there’s an empty circle which perhaps held the bronze eagle the civic leader at the parade mentioned to the New York Times reporter.
Sometimes you come across an image that compels you to do some research. That’s what happened when I found myself viewing this fleeting moment of intimacy below.
“At Mouquin’s” is a portrait by William Glackens, a founder of the Ashcan School known for his tender urban realist landscapes of New York City at the turn of the century.
In this painting, Glackens shows us two patrons at a cafe called Mouquin’s—a bustling, covivial spot on Sixth Avenue and 28th Street in early 20th century Manhattan’s red-light Tenderloin district. It should be a lighthearted, jubilant scene befitting this decadent era before financial panic, the Great War, and Prohibition.
Yet the painting captures a disconnect. While a man of wealth and status tries to engage the interest of a woman sitting with him at a small table, she’s a million miles away—sipping a different drink, turned in another direction, alone in the crowd in 1905 New York City.
Who is this woman, and where is Mouquin’s? The Art Institute of Chicago, which has the painting in its collection, sheds some interesting light.
“In this vivid painting, William Glackens portrayed the members of his circle at their favorite meeting place, the New York restaurant Mouquin’s. Jeanne Mouquin, the proprietor’s wife, shares a drink with James B. Moore, a wealthy playboy and restaurateur, while the artist’s wife, Edith, and art critic Charles Fitzgerald are reflected in the mirror behind them.”
The members of Glackens’ circle also included fellow Ashcan School painters Robert Henri, George Luks, Everett Shinn, and John Sloan. The group began gathering for nightly rendezvous at Mouquin’s after Glackens, Henri, and Sloan all found themselves renting studio space in the Sherwood Building on Sixth Avenue and 57th Street, according to Bennard B. Perlman, author of Painters of the Ashcan School.
While Glackens captured the dynamic between men and women inside the cafe, Shinn painted the exterior of this unusual, colonial-looking structure in wet winter weather (second image, above).
That these painters chose Mouquin’s as their hangout isn’t surprising. Founded by Swiss immigrant Henri Mouquin, the cafe first opened its doors on Nassau Street, then moved to Fulton Street. In the early 20th century, Mouquin’s relocated to the Tenderloin. There, politicians, newspaper writers, artists, and authors enjoyed alcohol-fueled conversations until the 2 a.m. closing time.
This was no stuffy Gilded Age dinner spot. Mouquin’s “always was distinctly New York and like the city, thoroughly cosmopolitan,” wrote the New York Herald in 1919. “Because of this character it has the breadth and freedom of cosmopolitanism. It never troubles itself about the rules.”
What gave Mouquin’s even more atmosphere was the building’s pedigree as a surviving piece of colonial New York City. Originally an 18th century estate house owned by the Varian family, it served as headquarters for Hessian generals during the Revolutionary War.
In 1825, the house was converted into a roadside inn called Knickerbocker Cottage (above, in the 1850s). In the first half of the 19th century, Sixth Avenue at 28th Street was almost the country, far from the din and activity of the main city. By the time Mouquin and his wife moved the cafe here around 1900, the area was in the middle of theaters, gambling houses, and other nightlife venues, accessible via the elevated train roaring overhead.
Mouquin’s entertained an eclectic mix of New Yorkers until the 1920s, when it was done in by Prohibition. The vine-covered, Parisian-like facade disappeared when the structure was knocked down soon after. But what a convivial atmosphere this colonial cottage had in its late Gilded Age heyday!
[Top image: Art Institute of Chicago; second image: Fine Art America; third image: Columbia University; fourth image: NYPL; fifth image: Library of Congress]
I’m excited to announce a couple of upcoming events in November—hope to see Ephemeral readers and New York City history fans!
Home Sweet Mansion: A Peek Into the Domestic Lives of Gilded Age New Yorkers
Join Ephemeral New York for an insightful look at the 19th century city’s servant class—the people who cleaned the mansions, made the meals, drove the carriages, and managed the households of Gilded Age Gotham.
Using quotes from actual servants, we’ll explore who the servants were, what their lives were like, and the various positions available in the sumptuous mansions and elegant brownstones of the Upper West Side and beyond.
This is a Zoom talk done in conjunction with the historic preservation organization Landmark West! The talk takes place on Wednesday, November 9 from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Reserve tickets here.
Exploring the Gilded Age Mansions and Memorials of Riverside Drive
It’s a beautiful time of year to stroll along Riverside Drive’s winding carriage roads from 83rd Street to 107th Street and learn about the avenue’s Gilded Age beginnings—when it rivaled Fifth Avenue as the city’s premier mansion row.
On this New York Adventure Club walking tour, we’ll look at the mansions that remain as well as those lost to time, plus the families and characters who lived in them. We’ll also explore Riverside Drive’s wonderful monuments meant to inspire the city. Tickets are available here.
[First image: MNCY, MNY204627; second image: NYPL; third image: New York Adventure Club]
On Sunday October 16, I’ll be leading another relaxing and insightful walking tour that explores the Gilded Age mansions and monuments of Riverside Drive—and there’s still room for more guests.
We’ll begin at 1 p.m. on Riverside and 83rd Street, dip into Riverside Park, and then stroll up to 108th Street. In between, we’ll delve into the history of this beautiful avenue born in the Gilded Age, when the Drive became a second “mansion row” and rivaled Fifth Avenue as the city’s “millionaire colony.”
The tour explores the mansions and monuments that survive, as well as the incredible houses lost to the wrecking ball. We’ll take a look at the wide variety of people who made Riverside Drive their home, from wealthy industrialists and rich business barons to actresses, artists, and writers.
Though we cover a lot of territory, the tour goes at a breezy, conversational pace. Fall is the best time to walk New York’s streets and neighborhoods. All are welcome! Tickets are available here via the New York Adventure Club.
[Top image: MCNY, 26908.1F; second image: MCNY, F2011.33.73; third image: NY Adventure Club]
The Gilded Age was a captivating era of growth, greed, and deep cultural changes that set into motion the way we live today. It was a time when men and women typically occupied vastly different spheres: men in the outside world of business and industry, women as the center of home, family, and society.
But that doesn’t mean women didn’t have power and influence. Join me on Thursday, July 7 from 1-2 p.m. as I moderate a free Zoom presentation that features stories of women during the Gilded Age from Laura Thompson, author of Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies, and Betsy Prioleau, author of Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age.
“Women in the Gilded Age: Two Authors’ Insights” is part of American Inspiration, the best-selling author series by American Ancestors. Among the Gilded Age women we’ll explore are Consuelo Vanderbilt, daughter of social climbing, new money doyenne Alva Vanderbilt, and Mrs. Frank Leslie, who took over her husband’s publishing empire and influenced millions of readers.
Follow this link for more information and to sign up. Audience questions will be addressed, and both authors are wonderful storytellers. The event should be informative as well as a lot of fun. Everyone is welcome!
Like many downtown neighborhoods, Chelsea has its share of back houses—a second smaller house or former carriage house built behind a main home and accessed only by an often hidden alleyway.
Now imagine not just one back house but an entire row of them forming a community where a group of people lived and worked for decades, almost locked within a city block. That’s kind of the story of Paisley Place, which got it start after yellow fever hit New York City in October 1822.
With an epidemic raging, city residents fled. “The banker closed his doors; the merchant packed his goods; and churches no longer echoed words of divine truth,” stated Valentine’s Manuel of 1863. “Many hundreds of citizens abandoned their homes and accustomed occupations, that they might seek safety beyond the reach of pestilence, putting their trust in broad rivers and green fields.”
A good number of these fleeing residents relocated to the village of Greenwich, putting down roots there and transforming it into an urban part of the city within a few decades.
Southampton Road making its way through Chelsea on the John Randel survey map from 1811
One group of immigrant artisans—Scottish-born weavers who carved out a niche by supplying New York with hand-woven linens—went a little farther north. These tradesmen and their families set up a new community in today’s Chelsea off a small country lane called Southampton Road. (above map).
“A convenient nook by the side of this quiet lane was chosen by a considerable number of Scotch weavers as their place of retirement from the impending dangers,” according to Valentine’s. “They erected their modest dwellings in a row, set up their frames, spread their webs…and gave their new home the name ‘Paisley Place.'”
This 1857-1862 street map shows a row of three houses in the middle of the block marked “weavers.”
Southampton Road, which once wound its way from about West 14th Street and Eighth Avenue to West 21st Street and Sixth Avenue, soon ceased to exist as Chelsea urbanized and conformed to the street grid. The houses of Paisley Place then became “buried in the heart of the block between 16th and 17th Streets and Sixth and Seventh Avenues,” wrote the Evening World.
Through the decades, the weavers carried out their trade. Paisley Place consisted of “a double row of rear wooden houses entered by alleys at 115-117 West 16th Street and 112-114 West 17th Street,” per The Historical Guide to the City of New York, published in 1905.
A similar map also from 1857-1862 marks another back house with “weaver”
More is known about their houses than the weavers themselves. “The little colony mingled only slightly with the scores of other nationalities of early New York,” stated another Evening World piece.
By the 1860s, the weavers became something of a curiosity, the subject of newspaper articles and magazine sketches. After 1900 the people of Paisley Place were gone; they either died or moved on when their hand-weaving skills were no longer needed in the era of industrialization.
Their homes hidden inside a modern city block held on a little longer. “The Scotch weavers are gone, but the houses which they built still hold their long accustomed place on the line of the vanished Southampton Road,” stated a Brooklyn Standard Union article from 1902.
17th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues
The writer of the Standard Union article noted that two remaining wooden houses had a “quaint picturesqueness [that] was of a sort to warm the heart of the antiquarian.”
Today, 17th Street doesn’t seem to carry any traces of this former community, and no remnants remain of the wood houses that would be in the middle of this tightly packed block. This antiquarian, however, wishes that something of their lives was left behind.
[Top image: Valentine’s Manual, NYPL; second image: John Randel survey map; third and fourth images: NYPL]
Ephemeral New York 