Who carved a horse above the entrance to this East Side brownstone?

East 116th Street between Second and Third Avenues has a long history as a bustling shopping strip—first as a crosstown street between the Second and Third Avenue Els in the heart of Harlem’s Little Italy, and since the 1940s and 1950s as a main thoroughfare for predominantly Hispanic East Harlem.

235 East 116th Street

The brownstone-fronted houses on the north side of the street form a handsome, stately row. Built when Italian laborers began moving into an area already colonized by German, Irish, and Jewish residents, you can imagine that these homes were owned by more middle-class folks in what was otherwise a working-class and poor neighborhood.

But on Number 235, which borders a historic church, something curious is carved above the entrance. It’s the image of a horse, in motion with no saddle, framed by a rectangular space set inside an oval.

Underneath the horse are what look like Greek letters. Google tells me this translates into, well, “horse.”

Number 235, in 1929, is to the right of the church; see the oval above the door

I’ve found myself passing by this horse a few times in recent months, and it’s an unusual relic, something I’ve never seen on any other brownstone entrances. Based on the black and white images of the house below, it seems that the horse has been here since at least 1929.

Stables and carriage houses in pre-automobile New York City often had an ornamental horse head or horse image outside the building, but this brownstone—built in 1879—doesn’t appear to have ever been used as a boarding space for horses.

From 1939-1941

Could someone involved in the carriage industry have lived here? Newspaper archives indicate the brownstone was home to Charles Schneider in 1907, profession unknown. In the 1910s and 1920s it was occupied by Salvatore A. Cotillo and his family. Cotillo was a Fordham-educated lawyer who immigrated from Naples as a boy and later became a state senator and then a city judge. Other owners and occupants haven’t been identified.

The horse could be a symbol of sorts, harkening back to ancient Greek or Roman mythology. Or maybe a resident created it on a whim? It’s here to stay, and I’d love to know the origins.

[Third image: NYPL; fourth image: New York City Department of Records & Information Services]

Manhattan’s one-time biggest Little Italy

Mulberry Street does a better job of selling itself as Manhattan’s authentic Italian enclave.

But before World War II, the Little Italy of East Harlem had three times the population of the Little Italy centered around Mulberry Street.

In 1930, about 89,000 Italians of various regions lived in mostly crummy tenements from 96th Street to 125 Street East of Lexington Avenue.

“In Italian Harlem there was on East 112th Street, a settlement from Bari; on East 107th Street between First Avenue and the East River, people from Sarno near Naples,” writes historian Gerald Meyer.

“On East 100th Street between First and Second Avenues, Sicilians from Santiago; on East 100th Street, many Northern Italians from Piscento; and on East 109th Street, a large settlement of Calabrians.”

Uptown Little Italy’s biggest festival was the feast of the Madonna of Monte Carmelo. Crowds of half a million would attend. (The photo above documents the festival in 1954.)

After World War II, many of the old tenements were razed to make way for new public housing projects; Italian Americans moved out as the Hispanic population swelled.

The main drags of East Harlem, 106th and 116th Streets, have long since lost an Italian feel; the elegant Italian Savings Bank on 116th Street is now a funeral home.

But a few Italian businesses still exist, like famous Patsy’s Pizza, at First Avenue and 117th Street.