The Methodist Mission Building - 209 Madison Street

 

photograph via apartments.com

When Joseph C. Skaden's three-story brick house at 209 Madison Street was offered for sale shortly after his death in 1853, it was described as having "all the latest improvements, cold and hot water baths, gas, &c."  The advertisement noted, "The location [is] one of the most desirable in the seventh Ward."  And an inventory of the furnishings testified to the high-end status of the neighborhood.  It included a "rosewood parlor suite in crimson plush, with covers; mahogany marble-top chamber furniture" as well as "fine oil-paintings [and] marble mantel ornaments."

By the mid-1870s, 209 Madison Street was home to the family of Reverend M. F. Compton.  His son, George N. Compton, would become a Methodist minister as well.  

On June 25, 1885, a trio of purchasers acquired the house for $15,000--or about $435,000 in 2023 money.  In the three decades since Joseph Skaden's death, the neighborhood had greatly changed.  Most of the once-refined homes had been converted to rooming houses, or demolished to make way for tenements for the waves of immigrants flooding the Lower East Side.  

The group had purchased 209 Madison Street for the New York City Church Extension and Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.  Rev. George N. Compton, who had previously lived in the house, was no doubt highly involved in the transaction--he was the pastor of the Madison Street Mission, founded around 1856.

The trustees hired the architectural firm of D. & J. Jardine to make massive renovations.  Their plans, filed in June 1886, called for the "front [wall] taken down and rebuilt and rear wall in basement and first story taken out and iron beams furnished, height of building increased 4 feet."  The plans further noted that the top floors were "to be occupied as a mission chapel."  

The new home for the Madison Street Mission (better known as the Methodist Mission), left little trace of the building's domestic beginnings.  D. & J. Jardine's design was an ecclesiastical take on Romanesque Revival.  The three arched openings of the first floor shared a continuous, terra cotta triple eyebrow.  The architects saved the Mission Society funds by placing a flat terra cotta pediment over the entrance, rather than a hood or portico.  The double-height chapel in what had been the second and third floors was illuminated by two tall stained glass panels that flanked a rose window.

Rev. George N. Compton, who also served as the superintendent of the Sunday School, had a considerable commute.  He lived far north at 223 East 124th Street.  Only the sexton, John R. Hayes, lived in the mission building.

The Methodist Mission administered to the impoverished residents of the neighborhood by supplying medical aid as well as religious services.  Physician William James Hall was in charge of the mission's dispensary and tended to the sick locals.  The Gospel in All Lands would later say (rather self-righteously), that the Methodist doctor worked "among Roman Catholics and Jews, drunkards and thieves, in the Madison Street Mission...rejoicing in the work of relieving distress, and leading the sinful to the Physician of souls."

On August 12, 1890, Dr. Hall addressed an open-air meeting of the Seventh Ward, demanding that Rutgers Slip be made into a park.  The World commented that the neighborhood housed "one of the densest tenement populations in the city."  Hall said in part, "Some years ago, the people of the neighborhood could get a breath of pure air along the river front, but the demands of commerce have driven them back, and now they have only narrow and ill-smelling streets, confined by tall tenement houses."  He predicted victory for the locals, saying "This place that is now a disease-breeding scar on the face of New York will become a health-giving ornament and a joy to all the children."

A week later, The World reported that children were flocking to the Methodist Street Mission to join the fight.  The article said the mission "has become the recruiting place during the past week of the little people of the Seventh Ward who have set their heads on having Rutgers slip as a playground."  (An open space for children was, indeed, needed.  Of the 75,000 people living in the ward, 35,000 of them were children.  Dr. J. Coughlin of the Anti-Poverty Society told a reporter from The World that on hot days, "They have nothing left them but to sit in the windows and on the doorsteps and shrivel up in the sun.")

An example of the plight of the tenement dwellers was Norbert Pfannerer, an unemployed shoemaker who was referred to the mission in January 1894 by Police Headquarters.  He had gone there in desperation, begging "for some work that he might earn bread for his loved ones," according to The Evening World on January 23.  

"We are starving," he pleaded, "but I don't want charity.  I only want to work and earn bread."

Pfannerer and his family lived on the top floor of a tenement building.  His eldest child was 6 years old and the youngest not yet a year.  When his wife gave birth to the last child, according to The World, "her husband was too poor to furnish her with the necessaries of life which her condition required, and consumption [i.e. tuberculosis] rapidly seized upon her."  For the past few days the family had eaten only "a soup made from stale bread."

In 1895 the Methodist Mission Society moved the Hope of Israel Mission into the building.  Founded in 1893, it continued the dispensary work, under Dr. A. C. Grimm, who treated from 50 to 80 patients a week that year.  

In his first report to the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. A. C. Gaebelein said:

Our new quarters at 209 Madison Street are admirably fitted for our mission work.  By the help of kind friends, we have been enabled to refurnish the whole house, and also to make very necessary repairs in the plumbing roof painting, etc., amounting in all to about four hundred dollars.  Here we have our offices and the headquarters of our publication department.

A reading room in the basement contained Bibles in English, German, Hebrew and Russian, along with newspapers in those languages.  

The goal of this group, however, was notably different from the Madison Street Mission.  As the 20th century neared, the Lower East Side was increasingly filling with Jewish immigrants.  The Hope of Israel Mission set out to convert them.  

Rev. Gaebelein insisted there were no strong-armed tactics involved.  He said the neighborhood Jews "understand now that we are not doing this work from any selfish motive or trying to proselyte them, but that we have a higher aim...No effort is made to induce passers-by to enter the church, though a few signs in jargon bidding everyone welcome hang in the windows."

Ironically, in June 1897 the Mission Society sold the building for $24,000 to congregation Chevra Etz Chaim Anshe Walosin.  Now a synagogue, the basement of the building where the Hope of Israel Mission attempted to convert Jews to Christianity was transformed into a mikveh (a ritual bath) in 1907.  Architect David Stone's renovations included, "toilets, tubs and vault" at a cost of more than $445,000 by today's conversion.

In 1915 the congregation hired architect Fred Horowitz to make exterior alterations.  It was possibly at this time that the a Magen David, or Star of David, was imposed upon the rose window and onion dome-like pinnacles crowned with Magen Davids were placed upon the parapet.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

At some point following World War I the building became home to Congregation Agudath Achim Anshei Barisoff, organized in 1891.  The synagogue continued to serve the neighborhood until the structure was converted to residential purposes in 1993.  The double-height worship space was floored over, creating two internal stories.  

The stoop and stained glass windows were removed, and the rose window bricked up.  Shop spaces were installed in the basement and former first floor.  There were now three apartments per floor in the upper portion.

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The Lost Essex Market-Eastern Dispensary Building - Essex and Broome Streets

 

Valentine's Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York, 1870 (copyright expired)

A petition was presented to the Board of Aldermen on June 29, 1818, requesting a market-place in the neighborhood of Ludlow and Essex Streets.  It said in part, "A large proportion of the inhabitants of this section are mechanics and laboring men, who reside from half a mile to one mile and a half from any of the markets now established."  The Board approved a new market, completed in September 1818.

The quickly erected structure, on the southwest corner of Essex and Broome Street, lasted only until 1824, when it was replaced by another.  The environment of the Lower East Side neighborhood at the time was reflected an article in The Press in November 1825 about the "hog catchers" enlisted to round up the animals running freely in the streets.

We are glad to learn--and the reader will be both surprised and gratified at the information--that the hog-cart, so long a desideratum here, is making a tour of sequestration through the city, and collecting the unsightly and ferocious quadrupeds which have hitherto enjoyed free commons on our streets.

By 1849 the police department had taken over the second floor of the building.  Here the Essex Market prisons and the Essex Market Court were established.  

On December 30, 1851 The New York Times reported that the Board of Aldermen had approved $53,229 for the rebuilding of the Essex Market.  Architect Benjamin G. Wells produced what Thomas F. De Voe, in his 1862 The Market Book, called "a large, handsome brick building."  The exterior was completed in December 1852, and the structure opened on March 23, 1853.

The rather severe three-story edifice smacked of Norman fortress architecture, with a crenellated corner tower.  A tall fire watch tower rose above it.  Again, while the ground floor housed fish, produce and butcher stalls, the upper floors were occupied by the police station, prison and Essex Courthouse.

Despite its recent renovation, within two years the market operations had moved to more modern quarters and

the condition of the building was woeful.  On August 17, 1855, The New York Times wrote, "Of all the rascally old rookeries that disgrace the town--considering the uses to which it it put--perhaps the Essex Market Police Court-room is the most wretched."  The article said, "Old and dilapidated, filthy, buggy, it has become a receptacle not only unsafe for the health of the officials necessarily attached to it, but absolutely perilous to the lives of its prisoners."  Happily, it noted, a proposition for a new Police Court and County Jail had just pass the Board of Councilmen.

At the time, the Eastern Dispensary was operating from a small building at 79 Ludlow Street, where it had been since 1836.  Incorporated four years earlier, it provided the only medical care available to the impoverished inhabitants of the neighborhood.  Medications were dispensed, vaccinations administered, and physicians treated patients either here, or in the squalid rooms in which they lived.  A letter to the editor of The New York Times in 1854 said the doctors, "are daily and continually administering to the wants of the afflicted poor, who, were it not for the timely assistance thus rendered, would be left to languish in secret helplessness and unattended through the time of sickness, and many of them to sink, through neglect, into a premature grave."

The old Essex Market building was again renovated, and in August 1860 the Eastern Dispensary moved in.  The World noted its occupation of the building was "at the pleasure of the municipal authorities."

The renovated first floor.  The dispensary proper took up most of the second.   Annual Report of the Eastern Dispensary of the City of New York, 1861 (copyright expired)

The considerable challenge faced by the doctors was evidenced in the 1861, which it required three pages to list the various conditions treated the previous year.  Among the most frightening were typhoid fever, gun shot wounds, cholera, botched abortions, and small pox.  More curious conditions on the list, by today's perspective at least, were idiocy, old age and masturbation.

The 1861 Report stressed that the wretched living conditions of the immigrant population, and heavy drinking among some, contributed greatly to their illnesses.  "Obviously the presence of intemperance greatly obscures the prospects of the poor, destroys their self-respect, absorbs their means and makes the descent to pauperism the more sure and rapid."  In 1860, 17 cases of Delirium Tremens (alcohol withdrawal) had been treated, with one death.

On July 14, 1861 The New York Times began an article about the rise in small pox saying, "Now that this dreaded disease is skulking on our byways and secretly holding sway in higher places, vaccination becomes a serious duty, to be overlooked only by those who would nurse a pestilence."  New Yorkers lined up outside police station houses and dispensaries to receive their shots.  The writer wrote with an elitist bent, "The class who form the majority of applicants at the Eastern Dispensary are descendants of generation upon generation of low intelligence."

The following year, on May 28, the newspaper reported on the annual spring "rush for vaccination at the Eastern Dispensary."  The article said it was the "busy season" for the dispensary, "as the annual period for mothers to convey their young infants, and make a general turn-out of the family to share in the privileges of vaccination, or such other blessings of prevention and cure as are to be had for the asking."  Once again, the newspaper descended into elitism at best and racism at worst.  It said the district was fortunate in that those seeking vaccines were "mainly among a robust and cleanly class of Germans and Swedes, whose infants are brought early to be operated upon while they possess a pure and wholesome vitality.  A perfectly healthy Irish baby, though more rarely produced, is thought very highly of by the physicians."

The challenges to the doctors were expressed to a visiting reporter from The Daily Observer in March 1875.  He described, "A very thin old man and a very plump little girl sat side by side.  Germans and Italians, Irish and native Americans, discussed their respective ailments and bragged of their great sufferings."  But when he spoke to a physician, the frustration became apparent.

We find that very many of the diseases are the result of the patient's own imprudence or wickedness.  Drunkenness is at the root of most of them.  And it is also very discouraging to have so much harm done by the people's not complying with the physician's orders.  They can't half the time.  They can't get nourishing food, but they might keep a little cleaner.  Fresh air is free, but often I have visited a small-pox patient or a case of scarlet fever, and found the windows all nailed down.  It's a wonder how a person strong and well could live in such an atmosphere.  Yes, it is rather unsatisfactory work.

In 1883 the Eastern Dispensary treated 21,948 cases.  The New York Times, on April 2, 1884, commented, "This total comprises all ages, colors, and conditions of persons who received relief."  The article noted that financial help from donors was needed.  "State aid to the dispensary has been discontinued, and its aid from the city is small."

The "pleasure of the city authorities" mentioned by The World in 1860 ran out in 1889.  The New England Journal of Medicine explained “The Trustees are compelled, now, however, to appeal to the public, because the city authorities have offered the Essex Market building for sale, and the dispensary officers are hence forced to provide a permanent home for the dispensary.  They have purchased a plot of ground on the corner of Broome and Essex Streets.”

The cornerstone of the new building at 57 Essex Street was laid on January 29, 1890 and the Eastern Dispensary was relocated in May 1891.  

The entire block where the Essex Market building stood was vacant in 1928.  To the left can be seen the 1891 Eastern Dispensary.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The block where the former Essex Market-Eastern Dispensary building stood was demolished in 1928 as the site of the Seward Park High School.  

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The 1891 Garfield Flats - 104 Forsyth Street

A coat of chocolate-colored paint covered the checkerboard terra cotta tiles and polished stone columns of the first floor.

A North Carolinian, Lt. Colonel Benjamin Forsyth was based in New York State during the War of 1812.  He was killed in action in June 1814 and became a hero in both his native state and in New York.  North Carolina named Forsyth County after him and in 1817 New York City changed the name of an eight-block stretch of 2nd Street to Forsyth Street.

The block of Forsyth Street between Broome and Grand Streets would be lined with prim brick-faced Federal style homes.  No. 104,  was a 25-foot wide, two-and-a-half story home with a wooden dwelling behind.  (In the rear yards of nearly each house on the block was be a small building--either a second house, a stable or a shop.)

The quiet residential block began to change in the years before the Civil War as thousands of immigrants poured into the Lower East Side.  Between 1859 and 1880 the number of Jews who settled in New York City had doubled--from 40,000 to 80,000.  Little Forsyth Street saw the construction of several synagogues, and private houses were either demolished to be replaced by tenements, or were converted to shops.

No. 104 had a store on the first floor in January 1890 when Albert Stake bought the property.  While he lived on Staten Island, he made his livelihood in Manhattan, buying and selling real estate as well as insurance.

Stake wasted no time in setting his plans for the Forsyth Street property in motion.  Twelve days after the purchase architect A. I. Finkle filed plans for a five-story "brick and stone flat" to cost $17,000, or about $475,000 today.

Mostly forgotten today, Finkle was busy in the 1880's and '90's designing, for the most part, tenement buildings.   Aimed at low income families, the buildings offered little in amenities but were often lavished on the outside with overblown ornamentation.  Finkle did not disappoint with his design for No. 104, and threw in a heavy splash of patriotism and sentiment.

Nearly a decade had elapsed since the assassination of President James A. Garfield, but public emotions were still strong.  Stake dubbed his building The Garfield and Finkle announced its name in a flowing banner in the pressed metal cornice, along with a patriotic shield.

A centered stone stoop let to the entrance under a portico upheld by polished stone columns.  A quilt of Queen Anne style terra cotta tiles graced the upper portion of the first floor facade.  Finkle did not hold back on the succeeding levels.  A burst of colors and materials graced the second floor--brownstone, limestone, terra cotta, and brick.  Winged faces upheld floating pairs of Corinthian pilasters, the tympana above the windows were decorated with delicate vines, and the spandrels were filled with multicolored tiles.  Carved Renaissance Revival panels formed the bases of the three-story piers above, which terminated in terra cotta Corinthian capitals.

Albert Stark was an operator, not a landlord, and as soon as the building was completed he sold it, in February 1891, to Frederick J. Seelig for $45,500--a hefty $1.25 million today.

The basement level contained two stores, one on either side of the stoop, with living space behind.  H. S. Eisler opened his "houshold furniture" store in 1891; and Victor Cohen moved his family and shoe shop into the other.

Colorful tiles and carved angel heads on the outside could not change the fact that life on the inside of tenements was often miserable.  Apartments were either drafty and cold in the winter or stiflingly hot in the summer.  There was no hot water if there was running water at all, and sanitary conditions were poor.  And landlords were notoriously cold-hearted.

The landlady of No. 104 in 1895 was Sarah Davis.  She grew impatient when Victor Cohen fell behind on his rent.  Cohen and his wife had five children, the youngest just a year and a half old.  After running his shoe store here for nearly four years, business had dropped off.  Sarah David ordered the family out.

She hung a "To Let" sign on the storefront and rented the space to another tenant.  Cohen was told he had to be out by February 1.  But his youngest child was seriously ill and a doctor warned against moving him.  When the family was still there on the first of February, Sarah was enraged.

What happened next prompted The Evening World to run the headline "DYING CHILD EVICTED / Sad Case of Victor Cohen, a Poor Cobbler."   The article told that Sarah Davis got a dispossession notice from the court giving the Cohens five days to move out.  Fearful of moving the boy and with nowhere to go, they stayed.  Sarah took her next move.

"The next day Marshal Hirschfield evicted him, although Dr. Shenkman said it would be dangerous to take the child out of doors," reported the article.  Neighbors took the family in until Cohen was able to find rooms nearby on Hester Street.

In 1899 Bennett & G signed a lease for one of the stores.  The firm ran a string of soda fountains around the city.  The Bennett & G soda fountain would remain for several years.

In the meantime, things had not improved for tenants who were paying about $13 a month rent (around $390 in today's dollars) for three rooms.  On May 4, 1900 the Tenement House Commission made an "inspection tour" of Lower East Side buildings.  The inspectors found that there were no hallway lights in No. 104 Forsyth Street, in violation of city law.  "Tenants have to grope along it and stumble as best they may up the staircase," reported The New York Times.

Among those who groped along the hallways was John Sullivan.  While others in the building made their living as blue collar laborers or tailors and such, Sullivan preferred an easier method--robbery.  Around 1:00 in the morning on November 13, 1901 he and two cronies, John Shea and Frank Lynch, saw a lone sailor at the corner of New Chambers and Oak Streets.  They attacked, knocking him to the ground.  While two held him down the other went through his pockets and took all the money he had--25 cents.  The New-York Tribune reported "They then gave him several kicks and went on their way."

The sailor, Swan C. Carlsen, did not call for a policeman (despite being only steps from the 5th Precinct Station House).  Instead he following the Irish toughs from a safe distance.  Just as they reached Catherine and Cherry Streets, Henry Moore walked out of Andy Horn's saloon.  He became their second victim.

"They knocked him down and were going through his pockets when his yells reached the ears of Detective Hahn and Patrolman Frank Sheridan," who were around the corner.  The officers ran to the scene where "a desperate struggle ensued."  The Tribune happily reported "The highwaymen were subdued."  Swan Carlsen went to the station house both as a complainant and a victim.  John Sullivan and his cohorts were charged with highway robbery.

G. Sucher moved his barber shop into one of the basement stores in 1903 and, like the soda fountain, would remain for years.

The conditions upstairs were no better, or perhaps were worse, than they had been.  In 1907 the owner was ordered to correct conditions which made the building a "public nuisance."  The catch-all phrase often referred to foul odors, garbage, rats and vermin, or other conditions that made the property a problem to the neighborhood.

Behind No. 104 was the Eldridge Street Police Station.  On the afternoon of Friday, March 12, 1910 officers were playing handball in the yard of the station house when a fire in Minnie Brennsilber's kitchen on the second floor erupted.  The men looked up to see flames licking out of the apartment window and jumped the fence.

Patrolman Martin Owen was the first to enter the burning building.  The New York Times reported "Owen rushed to the second-floor hall, and, bursting into the apartment of Mrs. Minnie Brennsilber, found her and her two young children cowed with fright."  The way down was blocked by flames, so Owen headed up.  He grabbed the youngsters and directed their mother to follow to the roof.  There he took them to the roof of the building next door.

In the meantime, Officer August Schimp had brought 60-year old Rose Flitzer to the roof.  The two policemen went back into No. 104.   On the third floor the heat burst a window and the resulting back draft overtook the men.  With their uniform coats ablaze they managed to scramble back to the roof where they fell unconscious.  They were found by other policemen who carried them to the street.

At the same time, a fireman from Truck 6 was "found staggering through a lower hallway, almost overcome by smoke, but was revived by an ambulance surgeon," according to the newspaper.  Another responder, policeman John Stanford, dodged serious injury when a blazing mattress thrown from an upper window landed on him.  Another policeman managed to push the mattress aside before it could burn Stanford.

Both Officer Schimp and Owen were honored for their bravery the following year by the mayor and police commissioner.

Close inspection reveals the once colorful tiles, now significantly damaged, and the quirky winged faces.

Hyman Grossman moved his grocery store into the basement of the repaired building.  He found himself in trouble in November 1911 when health food inspectors fined him $100 for violating the pure food laws.  The New York Times reported the fine was "for having bad milk."

World War I had a personal effect on at least one family in The Garfield.  Six residents of Forsyth Street were drafted on the same day in March 1918, including Samuel Wasserman who lived at No. 104.  The men were ordered to leave "for Camp" on April 3.

One tenant of The Garfield was not enthusiastic about his military service.  On June 9, 1921 the War Department published its list of "draft deserters."  Included was Leib Merkin of No. 104 Forsyth Street.

A grisly discovery was found in front of The Garfield on July 28, 1956.  Police had been looking for Frances DiZinno's 1955 Buick sedan since it was reported stolen the night before.  At around 8:30 Detectives Edgar Brennan and Joseph Byrnes spotted the car parked in front of No. 104.

"When the detectives opened the door of the car they were assailed by an unpleasant odor," reported The New York Times.  "On the floor of the rear seat was an unwieldy tarpaulin bundle tied with heavy cord in a way that indicated to them that it contained a human body.  When they opened the trunk compartment they found an even larger bundle, wedged against the spare tire."

Before long the street was filled with Homicide Squad detectives, the Police Department mobile laboratory truck, and officials from the Medical Examiner's office.  "Meanwhile crowds of excited residents of the densely populated area made Forsyth Street impassable," said the article.

The bodies were identified by fingerprints as two of the three men wanted by the FBI for jumping bail in a fur hijacking case.   James Joseph Roberto was a former prizefighter known as Jimmy Russo, and the other was Richard Michael Langone.  Both had been killed by ax blows to the head and had been dead for as long as three days.

As the search intensified for the third defendant, Louis Joseph Musto, a shocking twist in the case came to the surface.   James T. Ryan had joined the New York Police Department on February 1, 1947 and was promoted to detective in January 1949.  Then, in November 1955 he was demoted to patrolman "for the good of the service."  Now, three days after the bodies were discovered, he was pulled off his post and arrested for receiving stolen property in connection with the fur heists.

By the last quarter of the 20th century the Forsyth Street neighborhood, once filled with German Jews, then Italians, was increasingly becoming part of New York's Chinatown. 

Nevertheless, Seymour Anczelowitz operated his store, Sy's New and Used Clothing, at No. 104 here in 1982.  Just before 1:00 on the afternoon of January 31 that year a man and a woman came into the store and told the 47-year old he was being held up.  Whether Anczelowitz fought back or not is unclear; but the crooks shot him in the head.  They escaped with as much as $2,000 in cash.  Anczelowitz was taken to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition, where he later died.

Despite its often sketchy history, the suffering of its early tenants, and the unfortunate coat of brown paint on the stone and tile of the first floor, A. I. Finkle's patriotic and exuberant Garfield is still an attention grabber.

photographs by the author

The M. Rosendorff & Son Building - Nos. 277-279 Grand Street

Exactly ten years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Grand Street was laid out; its exceptional width earning it its name.  By the 1820s the road was lined with handsome Federal-style brick faced homes. One of these, No. 279, was home to "Brother Lovett," a member of the Columbia Lodge No. 1 of the Odd Fellows.   Lodge meetings were frequently held in the Lovett house.

Half a century later things had drastically changed on the Grand Street block between Forsyth and Eldridge Streets.  Grand Street had become a major shopping thoroughfare.  The expansive dry goods store of Hill, Moynan & Co. had engulfed the four houses at Nos. 271 through 277.  Like its neighbors, the former Lovett house had been converted to a commercial structure.

Hill, Moynan, & Co. advertised in the 1877 booklet "Forty Years of Methodism in Eighty-sixth-street, City of New York" (copyright expired)

Another dry goods merchant was Morris Rosendorff, who opened his store around 1863.  When his son, Louis, entered the business it was renamed M. Rosendorff & Son.  As the population of the Lower East Side exploded, Morris Rosendorff got in on the development bandwagon, focusing as much of his attention on building tenements and stores as on his dry goods business.

Rosendorff bought and sold property at a dizzying rate in the first years of the 1880s.  He repeatedly turned to the architectural firm of A. H. Blankenstein & Co.   Blankenstein's partner was Henry Herter.

Morris Rosendorff already owned No. 279 Grand Street when the Mott Estate sold eight "store, dwelling and tenement" properties on October 22, 1886.  The Record & Guide reported "M. Rosendorff, the Grand street dry goods merchant, secured four of the eight parcels for $110,200."  In a separate article it noted "No. 277 Grand Street...which was so eagerly bid for" sold for $65,400--a little over $1 million today.

A month later The Manufacturer and Builder reported that Rosendorff intended to construct "two iron-front stores" at a cost of $50,000 on the site of Nos. 277 and 279.  The article did not mention an architect.  Most likely that was because Rosendorff had a decision to make.  Henry Herter and A. H. Blankenstein had parted ways.  Herter was now partnered with Ernest W. Schneider and the pair would make their mark on the Lower East Side mostly designing tenements and loft buildings.

By mid-month Rosendorff had made up his mind.  On November 13, 1886 the Record & Guide pointed out that "Ernest E. W. Schneider and Henry Herter, who have entered into partnership" had made plans for a six-story tenement for Rosendorff on Henry Street.

Simultaneously, Schneider and Herter went to work designing a tenement and store for him at No. 141 East Broadway, and the two matching buildings on Grand Street.  The plans for the Grand Street structures estimated the costs at $25,000 each.

The completed structure was, in fact, not totally clad in cast iron as originally planned.  The third floor (all that remains of the 1886 design) was faced in planar stone.   Here cast metal lintels floated slightly above the openings.  It was the highly-unusual cornice, however, that stole the show.   Its bracketed and paneled design, including molded swags, would not have been out of the ordinary were it not for the two deep hoods encompassing giant rosettes.  They smacked of the Moorish details that would be seen on Schneider & Herter later synagogues.

While Morris Rosendorff and his son operated their dry goods store in the building and continued to wheel and deal in real estate, Mrs. Rosendorff busied herself with philanthropies.  In 1887 she hosted a ball in the new Webster Hall and used the proceeds to feed 400 impoverished Jews at Passover.  The following year she outdid herself.

On March 26, 1888 The New York Times reported "Mrs. M. Rosendorff, a benevolent Hebrew, went all the way to 52 Eldridge-street yesterday afternoon from her home, 108 East Sixty-second-street, to distribute more than 5,000 pounds of meat to the deserving poor."

On January 24 she had rented the Roumania Opera House on the Bowery and sold 1,000 tickets to a benefit performance of King Solomon.  The funds paid for a kosher butcher shop on Delancy Street "to supply the meat, and when the beasts were slaughtered according to the Jewish rite, everything was ready for distribution" in time for Passover.

The line of indigent "from nearly every part of the city" began to form around 11:00 on March 25 and continued until around sunset.  Each would receive a paper "order" to take to the butcher.  The newspaper noted "The first poor person served was Mrs. Mary Isaacs, who said she was mother of six children.  Mrs. Rosendorff gave her an order on Mr. Levy for seven pounds of meat.  Mrs. Isaacs returned effusive thanks and then made for the butcher's, where she got her Passover food."

Among the nearly 800 who received their orders were some non-Jews; "but that made no difference to Mrs. Rosendorff; they were poor and they might share," said The Times.

Businesses were required to report the number of employees between the ages of 8 and 14 to the Board of Education.  In 1893 M. Rosendorff & Son listed just one worker in that category.  But none of the employees would be working for the dry goods store for long.

Morris Rosendorff's declaration of bankruptcy in the fall of 1893 was reported across the country.  The Chicago Tribune noted on November 24 that the firm had unsecured liabilities of $75,000--a sizeable $2 million in today's dollars.  The company's attorney, Adolph L. Sanger, explained "The Rosendorffs for the last few years have been buying and selling real estate and building houses, and the difficulty of raising money in the last few months bothered them very much."

Three months later a Sheriff Sale was held to auction off the vast Rosendorff inventory.  Once emptied, Nos. 277 and 279 were offered at auction in May, 1894.  But no one seemed interested.  After several attempts, they were finally sold at foreclosure auction on November 1.

A sale advertisement listed the vast array of goods.  The Evening World, February 22, 1894 (copyright expired)

Although M. Rosendorff & Son had operated from the combined buildings, they were now sold separately.  No. 277, purchased by Charles S. Fairchild, brought $48,000 and No. 279 was sold for $50,000 to Joseph Levy.

Despite their independent owners, by 1896 there was a single tenant, G. Glauber, who operated his "novelties" store here.  At around 11:40 p.m. on the night of December 16 that year a fire broke out in the store.  Before it was extinguished it had spread to the millinery shop of J. Nasanowitz next door at No. 275.

By the turn of the century separate businesses operated from the two buildings.  No. 277 was sold in 1898 following Charles Fairchild's death.  By 1900 it was the candy store and factory of John D. Harder; while No. 279 was home to Isaac Krauschauer's cloak business.

The two properties would be united again in 1904 when Nicholas Pappas purchased them in April.  Like John D. Harder, Pappas and his partner John Condax were candy makers.  Within months the confectioners hired architect William C. Sommerfeld to do $1,000 in interior renovations.

In 1908 Pappas & Condax were manufacturing and selling one particular article which drew the suspicion of the Board of Health.  Samples of their Chocolate Roman Punch Drops were taken for testing.  The results were satisfactory--"alcohol absent."

The following year Pappas & Condax left Grand Street, while retaining ownership of the properties.  Once again the two buildings were leased separately.  The latest in fashion for Edwardian women included extravagant headgear often ornamented with rare feathers.  The London Feather Novelty Co., headquartered on West 34th Street, opened a branch store in No. 277 where it would remain for several years.  The other store was rented to F. Davis, who was granted permission by the Board of Aldermen in 1910 to "keep two show cases within the shop line in front of No. 279 Grand st."

New-York Tribune, October 10, 1909 (copyright expired)

At some point following World War I the buildings' owners had returned to their native country.  On June 25, 1921 The Record & Guide reported "John Condax and Nicholas Pappas, of Greece, sold 277-279 Grand st...The buyer will occupy."

That buyer was Louis Frescher who opened his fur store in the combined buildings.  The furrier would remain here for many years, despite an uncommon string of bad luck.  It started on March 4, 1924 just as salesman Jack Greenbery had put final touches on the window display.  Three men entered and asked to see furs.

Just as Greenbery headed for a display case, one of the men drew a revolver and ordered him into a rear bathroom.  Hearing the noises, fur-cutter Jacob Feingold emerged from the workshop in the rear, and was ordered to join the salesman.  When the porter, Thomas Benjamin, came up from the basement, he too was corralled in the bathroom.  All the employees were tied up and $15 was taken from Feingold's pockets.

The New York Times reported "While hundreds of persons were passing the door...three men, armed with revolvers..escaped with $30,000 worth of mink, sable and Hudson seal coats and neckpieces."  The cool bandits even made several trips to their automobile, bringing back blankets into which they wrapped 40 furs pieces and 20 coats.

The valuable furs were repeatedly a temptation to crooks.  In 1932 an attempted robbery landed one crook in Sing Sing with a 20-year sentence.  Then in November 1935 a hold-up resulted in $20,000 worth of goods being stolen.  Less than a year later, on the morning of September 14, 1936, eight men rushed into the store at around 10:00.  As had been the cast in 1924, they forced Bernard Trencher, an owner, and bookkeeper Rae Levinson into a rear room.

"Then they compelled Ernest Jackson, Negro porter, to lead them to the workroom, under the store, where Michael Picozzi, designer, and ten other employes bent over their benches," said The New York Times.

The workers were told "This is a hold-up.  Keep quiet, and nothing will happen to you."

While two men held everyone at gunpoint, the other six "swept up all the furs in the workroom, cleaned out the street show-windows and emptied all the store racks."  They made off with $40,000 in loot.

In the meantime, the Trenchers had renovated the building in 1925.  They hired architect Irving H. Fenichal to install a restaurant on the second floor and a "dwelling and studio" on the third.  Six years later architect Samuel A. Hertz did further renovations, remodeling the top floor for the Columbus Civic Club.  It would remain here until about 1940, when the space was renovated for "light manufacturing."

After mid-century the two addresses saw a variety of tenants, including the Eldridge Textile Company which was here from the 1950s in the mid-1990s.   The firm suffered a blaze on the night of December 3, 1960 that resulted in three injured fire fighters and "considerable" damage to the stock.

The neighborhood that filled with German Jews in the 1870s and '80s when Morris Rosendorff over-speculated in real estate now sits squarely in Manhattan's Chinatown.  Schneider & Herter's cast iron base is gone--replaced by a medley of cheap storefronts under garish vinyl awnings.  But, above, the remarkable cast metal cornice survives, reminding the passerby of a time when Grand Street was an important shopping district.

photographs by the author

Constant Change: Tenement to Synagogue to Art Studio -- No. 80 Forsyth Street

By the Civil War years, thousands of immigrants were pouring into the Lower East Side.  The three-story brick house at No. 80 Forsyth Street and the little two-story dwelling in its rear yard were home to a few of them.  The family of one tenant in the back building, however, had been in New York at least for one or two generations.  In her advertisement for work in The New York Herald on October 3, 1865, she clearly differentiated herself from her neighbors.

HOUSEKEEPER'S SITUATION WANTED--By An American widow woman.  Call at 80 Forsyth street, in rear, first stoop.

By 1874 the property was owned by the Schwartz family.  That summer C. Schwartz hired builder A. Shappel to convert the front house to accommodate a store for Anthony Schwartz.  The alterations cost $200.   Schwartz described his shop as selling "furniture, &c."  And he proudly listed "two pianos" among the inventory the following year--surprisingly upscale items in the impoverished neighborhood.

At the time the immigrant population in the neighborhood was changing.  Between 1859 and 1880 the number of Jews who settled in New York City had doubled--from 40,000 to 80,000.  Before the turn of the century, Forsyth Street--only about eight blocks long--would see the arrival of several synagogues.

On March 28, 1881 the Congregation Kol Israel Anshe Poland (Community of Israel, People of Poland) purchased No. 80 Forsyth Street for $12,000, about $287,000 today.  The small congregation took out a mortgage for 50 percent of the cost.

Their renovations made the old brick structure nearly unrecognizable, other than the Italianate pressed metal cornice.  Two story Gothic-arched windows at the upper floors were separated by round openings--all of them filled with stained glass originally, no doubt.  They were united by a single, slightly protruding brick eyebrow.  Wrought iron fire escapes incorporated stars of David into the design.

Close inspection reveals the Stars of David within the wrought iron fire escape designs.

The conversion, completed by summer of 1882, included a mikveh, or ritual baths, on the ground floor where Anthony Schwartz had exhibited his two pianos.  Congregation Kol Israel Anshe Poland did not intend to operate the baths, however; and in August signed a 10-year lease with Solomon B. Oschinsky, charging him $400 per year.  What must have seemed to be a savings of time, expense and trouble would cost the synagogue in the end.

The City taxed the congregation $670.30 on the property every year from 1881.  So Congregation Kol Israel sued in 1885, "asserting that as the property was used for religious purposes, it ought not to be taxed," said The New York Times.

Prior to the trial, which was not held until May 2, 1888, the City did some investigating.  While "the congregation said that the baths were a feature of its religious ceremonies and that the expense of sustaining them was defrayed by the members of the congregation," officials found that Solomon Oschinsky was operating it as a business.

"But the city proved that the baths were used, not only by the members of the congregation but by all Hebrews who wished to use them," reported The Times.  Upon that evidence, Judge Lawrence decided that the synagogue was liable for the taxes.

All the while the synagogue was the scene of weddings, funerals and services.  Later that year, for example, on October 18 the "happy synagogue wedding," as described by The Evening World, of Rachel Rosenthal to J. Doniger was celebrated here.

The somewhat lavish event was in stark contrast to the often-gritty surroundings.  The newspaper noted "The bride wore a dress of white satin, with trimmings and draperies of cream plush and white lace.  A long bridal veil was fastened in her hair by a wreath of orange blossoms.  Her ornaments were diamonds and pearls."  After the ceremony the guests "were received in Everett Hall, where they sat down to a bountiful supper, after which they danced for several hours to the music of Wollenberg's orchestra."

Among the first congregants in the synagogue were Samuel A. Samuels and his wife.  In 1882 he purchased two pew seats, both given the number 10.  A clause in the pew deed clearly noted that should the congregation ever relocate, "the said Samuel A. Samuels shall be entitled to the same seat in such other Synagogue."  The trustees of the congregation apparently did not take the wording so literally as did Samuels.

In 1892 Congregation Kol Israel Anshe Poland sold the synagogue, as it moved into its new, expansive shul at Nos. 20-22 Forsyth Street.  Samuels was enraged when he realized that the pews allotted to him and his wife were numbered 20--not 10--and he demanded his rightful numbers.  The trustees refused, explaining that the relative location of the pews was the same, just not the numbering.

Samuels was unmoved and sued Congregation Kol Israel Anshe Poland to "redress the wrong which he claims to have suffered by reason of not having been allotted seats No. 10," according to court papers.  Although lawyers for the synagogue argued that the wording "same seat" referred to location and not specific number; the courts ruled in favor of Samuels.  What is unclear is whether the synagogue had to renumber all the pew seats; or whether Samuels and his wife were simply relocated.

In the meantime, No. 80 Forsyth Street became home to Beth Hamidrash Sha'arei Torah, also known as Sharo Torah.  An early New York congregation, it had been formed in 1856.  In 1906, the same year it celebrated its jubilee, it hired architect Nathan Langer to make "extensive alterations" to the synagogue, as described by the Record & Guide on March 24.

Many of the tenements in the neighborhood were dangerous firetraps.  Such was the case with the five-story building at No. 69 Forsyth Street, nearly opposite the synagogue.  At around 3:30 on the morning of June 21, 1925, fire broke out here.  The New York Times reported "All the six families in the house were aroused from sleep to find their rooms ablaze at the side and rear, and exit by the stairs cut off by flames that extended from the street level to the top." Among those trapped were the widow Freda Marks and her three sons, one of whom was an invalid, on the fifth floor.

Because the fire originated in the entrance hall on street level, the wooden stairs quickly burned through all the floors.  One of Mrs. Marks's neighbors, Louis Rosen, lived on the second floor with his wife and two children.  He later told reporters that he "opened his door to the hall and stair and was met by a gust of flame.  There were no rear fire escapes and his rooms at that end were afire."

Rosen tossed his children from the front windows to the arms of men on the sidewalk.  Then he lowered his wife and dropped her before jumping to the street himself.

Firemen found the Marks boys, 19-year old Alexander, "a semi-paralytic," Theodore and Benjamin all unconscious on the floor.  The Times reported "Mrs. Marks, who was 55 years old, was found dead on her bed, suffocated by smoke."  With the smell of smoke from the burned out building still pungent, the funeral of Freda Marks was held in the synagogue later that afternoon.

On October 12, 1930, after the buildings on the opposite side of Forsyth Street had been demolished and a new park was being constructed, a store was in the ground floor of the former synagogue (right).  photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

By 1930 Sharo Torah would leave Forsyth Street and by 1946, when the Manhattan Store Fixtures Company purchased No. 80 Forsyth Street, it was described as a "loft building."  The neighborhood would see incredible change beginning in 1965.

In 1882 the Government had passed the discriminatory Chinese Exclusion Act which essentially banned all immigration from China.  The restriction was slightly eased in 1943 when exactly 105 Chinese per year were allowed.  Then, in 1965, the Federal Government did away with the quota system and, as had been the case with Eastern and Middle Europeans a century earlier, Chinese arrived by the thousands and settled in the Lower East Side.

Two years before the change in immigration law, the former shul at No. 80 Forsyth Street had been purchased by abstract artists Milton Resnick and his wife Pat Passlof.  They converted it to two apartments--a duplex in the basement and ground floor, and another on the top floors.


Resnick and Passloff lived in worked out of No. 80.  His works are represented in prestigious galleries like the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D. C., the National Gallery of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.  Passlof, an abstract expressionist, had studied with Willem de Kooning.  Resnick died in 2004; and Passlof died of cancer at the age of 83 on November 23, 2011.

The building was sold in 2013 to, according to a Wall Street Journal article, "help fund a foundation to showcase [Resnick's] artwork and advance the legacy [Pat Passlof] thought he deserved."  The sale helped form the Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation, a non-profit organization to preserve, exhibit and publish works by the two artists, was well as "other painters working out of that tradition."

Today the former synagogue is painted an industrial green, and is surrounded by vinyl awnings with store names printed in Chinese characters.  The venerable structure which has seen such tremendous change is easily overlooked by the casual passerby.

photographs by the author

The 1892 Eastern Dispensary -- No. 75 Essex Street

In the first decades after the Revolution contagious disease was a threat as some New York City neighborhoods grew crowded and unsanitary.  Yellow fever alone reached epidemic proportions in 1795, 1799 and 1803, claiming thousands of lives.  Other diseases—typhoid, smallpox, and cholera among them—struck well-founded fear in citizens and public officials.

In response, the city organized the first Board of Health in 1832, specifically to combat yellow fever and cholera.  But years before that, in 1791, the first of the public dispensaries opened—more or less the precursors of today’s urgent care walk-in clinics.   The same year that the Board of Health was organized, the third dispensary was opened at 420 Grand Street in a slum neighborhood of Irish immigrants who lived in squalid, unhealthy surroundings.  The Eastern Dispensary was granted its charter on April 25, 1832.

By the early 1850's, the Eastern Dispensary was treating thousands of immigrants each year, reflected in monthly reports.  On February 21, 1852, The New York Times reported that in January 1,843 patients received medical aid, of which 465 were attended to in their homes and 1,829 in the dispensary.  “Fifteen patients died,” noted the report.  During that month 3,787 prescriptions were given out.

Unlike some other facilities, the Eastern Dispensary was, as pointed out in an 1854 letter to the Editor of The Times, “wholly supported by voluntary contributions.”  The writer noted that the physicians at the dispensary “are daily and continually administering to the wants of the afflicted poor, who, were it not for the timely assistance thus rendered, would be left to languish in secret helplessness and unattended through the time of sickness, and many of them to sink, through neglect, into a premature grave.”

In florid Victorian prose, the unnamed writer prompted the public to donate.  “The Trustees have occasion to regret that the annual income of the Dispensary has not increased in proportion to its opportunities of extended usefulness.”

By the time of that letter the Dispensary was located at 79 Ludlow Street, having moved there in 1836.  By 1860, according to the president of the facility, G. A. Black, “it was treating a larger number of patients than any other dispensary in the city.”  That year the Common Council allotted the dispensary two rooms on the second floor of the Essex Market Building—a multi-purpose structure that housed not only a public market but an armory.

Close inspection reveals the Eastern Dispensary sign on the right of the market-armory-clinic building.  Report of the Eastern Dispensary, 1872 (copyright expired)

Then, in 1889 the Eastern Dispensary was told it needed to vacate its space.  The New England Journal of Medicine explained “The Trustees are compelled, now, however, to appeal to the public, because the city authorities have offered the Essex Market building for sale, and the dispensary officers are hence forced to provide a permanent home for the dispensary.  They have purchased a plot of ground on the corner of Broome and Essex Streets.”

The Journal added, parenthetically, that the dispensary “is one of the oldest medical charities, is located in the centre of the most densely populated portion of the city, and has never asked aid from the general public.”

The trustees paid $47,000 for the site (about $1.25 million in 2016 dollars).  The architectural firm of Rose & Stone was commissioned to design a state-of-the art dispensary building.  Its cornerstone was laid at 3:30 on the afternoon of January 29, 1890.  The Sun reported that 30 policemen kept the streets clear “and a big crowd stood behind the line of bluecoats, and watched the ceremonies from a distance.  The windows of all the tenement houses near by were full of interested spectators.”

Inside the copper box deposited in the cornerstone were copies of the daily newspapers, a copy of the dispensary charter, and photographs of the trustees.  Traditionally coins minted that year would be included, but the trustees insisted “the dispensary had none to spare for such a purpose.”  Indeed, it did not.  Only a portion of the cost of the land had been paid and the full $75,000 price tag to build and equip the new building still had to be raised. 

Three days before the cornerstone ceremony The New York Times had noted the astounding amount of work being done by the Eastern Dispensary.  The previous year doctors “treated 61,228 patients, treatment being given 106,748 times.  This is the largest work ever one by a medical institution in America, and it has never been exceeded except in the great medical institutions of Vienna, Paris, and London.”  The newspaper pointed out “The patients treated were largely recently-arrived immigrants, who rarely become chronic charity seekers.”

The newspaper said of the new dispensary “It is expected that this will be one of the most perfectly equipped buildings of its kind in the country.  Its street floor and first floor will be devoted to the apothecary shop, rooms for the visiting physicians, an office for the physician in chief and his assistants, and accommodations for the immediate isolation of cases of contagion.”  Above were the waiting rooms and examination rooms and “apartments for the attending physicians.”

Construction was completed in mid-May 1891 at a total cost of $133,000.  Rose & Stone had produced a brick and brownstone Italian Renaissance palazzo—a refined edifice amid lowly tenement surroundings.  Alternating courses of brick and stone created a rusticated base relieved by large arched openings.  Despite the restrained ornamentation of the upper floors (or because of it) the Eastern Dispensary building exuded dignity.

Once the equipment and furnishings were moved in, the dispensary was opened for “public inspection” on June 16.  In reporting on the opening, The Sun mentioned “It is at the corner of Broome and Essex street, one block from the shabby old building at Grand street that has been occupied for years.”

Just before the Dispensary moved into its new quarters it merged with the Good Samaritan Dispensary, formed earlier that year through an immense bequest from the recently deceased Sarah Burr.  Her will instructed that the funds were to be used to found a dispensary.  The Eastern Dispensary now had a “superb building,” as described by The Sun; but was straddled with insurmountable debts.  The Good Samaritan Dispensary had large resources, but no facility.

The solution was a merger.  The Sun reported that on June 1 “the Eastern Dispensary ceased active operations, and the Good Samaritan Dispensary entered upon the field.”

The name change in no way affected the operations of the Dispensary.  And the increased facilities afforded space for programs impossible before.  Immediately Dr. Harry Koplick designated one room for the “work of preparing sterilized milk and placing it within the reach of the poor, who need it most and know least of its advantages as food for children in the summer months,” as reported by The Sun.  (Dr. Koplick, incidentally, developed a method of early diagnosis of measles here, today known by doctors as “Koplick spots.”)

On April 18, 1892 Good Samaritan published its first report, which showed a 24 percent increase in new patients seen (up to 90,856) and a 21 percent increase in prescriptions.  The Sun noted “The dispensary is not wholly a free charity.  From the Eastern Dispensary the Good Samaritan Dispensary learned to collect from each applicant, except the very poorest, the sum of ten cents, so that the self-respect and independence of the beneficiaries are preserved, and they contribute actually very largely to the maintenance of the institution.”

The breakdown of the patients’ origins reflected the changing neighborhood and the incredible influx of immigrants.  Nearly half of them, 40,609, were of Russian birth.  Only 2,909 of the children treated were of American parentage.  “Austro-Hungary provided 6,555 patients, Germany sent 3,192, and Roumania 2,981.  Ireland sent only 1,3165 and England came next with 756.”  Other nationalities included Italy, France, Palestine, Sweden, Turkey, Greece, Scotland, Holland and Sweden.  “More than 28,000 of the 35,571 children treated were of Russian parentage,” according to the report.

The conditions endured by the indigent families and the types of cases treated at the Good Samaritan Dispensary were exemplified by the Samuel Dorf family in 1893.  Samuel, his wife and son lived on the top floor of a six-story apartment house at 136 Delancey Street.  Crowded into the apartment with them were Samuel’s brother, Barney, and his family of four.

Shortly before noon on March 21, 1893 the stove was knocked over and the kerosene-fueled fire spread rapidly through the rooms.  Terrorized, Mrs. Dorf placed four-year old Abraham on the fire escape then prepared to climb through the open window herself.

But, The Evening World reported, “The screaming child wriggled about in his fright on the fire-escape, and before the excited mother could get him in her arms again he rolled down through the opening in the grating and landed with a sickening crash on the fire-escape attached to the first floor.”

Mrs. Dorf climbed rapidly down the iron fire escape to find Abraham bleeding and unconscious.  “She picked him up in her arms and rushed to the Eastern Dispensary where Dr Swinburne did what he could for the little sufferer, while an ambulance from Gouveneur Hospital was being summoned.”  The toddler was diagnosed with a compound fracture of the thigh, numerous other fractures, and “internal injuries, which may prove fatal.”

In 1901 The New York Times reflected on the changing demographics around the Dispensary.  It noted that originally “the region was largely inhabited by the Irish."  The article continued  “There came a time, not so many years ago, when most of its patients, or at least a considerable percentage, were Italians.  Now the great majority of them are Hebrews.  There is no longer a distinctively Irish quarter.”

The New-York Tribune reported on an increased illegal drug problem in the city on April 29, 1915.  Amid a long list of recent arrests, the newspaper noted “Early yesterday morning Thomas Green, seventeen years old…walked into the Good Samaritan Dispensary…and holding two clerks at bay with a revolver, stole an ounce and a half of morphine valued at $5.  He sold the drug for $15.”

Surrounded by tenements, the Dispensary as it appeared on September 5, 1930, from the collection of the New York Public Library

But offenses like Green’s were rare.  The Dispensary continued its good works, including the milk program, for decades.  But by the 1940s, when the price of visiting the clinic had risen to 75 cents, a marked change was noticed.  The strengthened economy brought on by World War II along with increased health insurance coverage greatly reduced the amount of patients.  From 1940 to 1954 the number of new patients dropped from 22,607 to 4,326.  The operating deficit which was $10,562 in 1940 rose to $38,852 in 1954.

On September 18, 1955, The New York Times reported that the Good Samaritan Dispensary “apparently has outlived much of its usefulness” and that it would close on September 30.  Four years later the building was converted to offices on the upper floors with retail space at ground level.

In 2013 demolition of the entire block surrounding the former Dispensary Building was begun to make way for a mixed-use development, part of the Essex Crossing project.  Preservationists scrambled to save the building.  They received their response from the Landmarks Preservation Commission on March 27, 2014.  The Commission found that the “property lacks the significance necessary to be considered” and “does not meet the criteria for designation.”

With that potential problem out of the say, the owner got rid of his tenants and placed the vacant building on the market for $30 million.   The Italian palazzo that looked a bit out of place in 1891 now sits on a barren landscape awaiting its fate.  

photographs by the author