Daytonian in Manhattan

The William Sackett Jr. House - 123 East 10th Street

2026-04-18T04:00:00.002-04:00

123 East 10th Street (left) is identical to its next door neighbor.

Once part of Director General Peter Stuyvesant's farm, or bouwerij, the block of East 10th Street between Second and Third Avenues saw an explosion of development in the early 185os. Robert and Franny Carnley moved into a newly built house at 191 Tenth Street and in 1854 Robert erected two matching homes next door at 193 and 195 (they would be renumbered 123 and 125 East 10th Street in 1865).

Four stories tall and two bays wide above a low basement, their rusticated first floors held fully arched openings. Full-width cast iron balconies fronted the second floor windows. The red brick-faced upper floors featured elliptically arched openings with molded stone lintels.

Carnley originally rented 193 Tenth Street. His first tenants were the family of James P. Harper, a grocer, who remained through 1857. They were replaced by the Kendall family. Merchant Joseph A. Kendall operated an enterprise at 30 Barclay Street and Rufus W. Kendall ran a dry goods business on Vesey Street.

On January 20, 1864, the Carnleys' daughter, Frances (known as Fanny), married William H. Sackett, Jr. The couple initially moved into the Carnley house, but by 1866 they owned and occupied 123 East 10th Street next door. Sackett operated a furniture business at 397 Eighth Avenue.

Like many families, the Sacketts took in a boarder. Living with the family in 1868 was Luke Wisely. He unwisely decided to take a swim in the East River at the foot of East 17th Street on July 2 that year. The New York Times reported that he "undressed himself to bathe...and on jumping in struck his head on a rock, sustaining severe injuries." Wisely was taken to Bellevue Hospital and it appears he recovered.

Later that year, in December, William and Fannie welcomed a son, Robert Carnley Sackett. Tragically, the boy died at the age of one-and-a-half on June 23, 1870. His funeral was held in the house two days later. (The couple would have two other children, Emma Carnley and Isabel Thompson Sackett.)

The Sacketts left 123 East 10th Street in 1871, but retained ownership. The Donoho family occupied it in 1872. Sisters Mary and Margaret, who were 25 and 28 years old respectively, worked in Archer & Anderson's bookbindery at 81-85 Centre Street.

At 5:20 on the afternoon of Christmas Eve 1872, a fire broke out in the Centre Street building. On December 26, The New York Times reported, "It was hoped that all had been rescued from the building by the firemen, police, and others, who were soon on the spot, but there now seems no reason to doubt that seven or eight persons lost their lives." The girls' brother, John Donoho, searched at the Franklin Street Police Station and the Park Hospital for the women with no success. Four days after the inferno, the New York Herald reported that the Donoho sisters were among the seven bodies still not recovered from the ruins.

The following year, the Barker family rented the house. William H. Barker worked in City Hall, as did Edward P. Barker, who was a deputy park commissioner. (Edward was appointed in 1858 with an annual salary of $480, or about $19,000 in 2026.) William J. Barker listed his profession as a clerk in 1873, but ran a storage business on Washington Street by 1876.

The Barkers remained here at least through 1880. The house saw a rapid succession of renters until Dr. Richard W. Muller moved in around 1892. Born in 1860, he was considered a specialist in diseases of the scalp and hair.

Muller originally rented at least one room in the house and his first tenant was Charles Moehling, described by The New York Times as "a well-educated and highly-cultured German." Moehling was the head bookkeeper at the banking house of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co.

If Dr. Muller was hoping for engaging conversation with his roomer, he was disappointed. The highly-private Moehling spent his evenings in his room, studying and writing. He contributed several lengthy articles on finance and literature to local German-language newspapers. Muller remarked later, "in all the time Mr. Moehling was in my house, I never exchanged five minutes' conversation with him. He lived entirely to himself, like a hermit, almost."

On the morning of February 22, 1894, Moehling left home unusually early. Instead of going downtown to his office, he went to Central Park. Around 11:00 that morning, Park Policeman McKenna found the body of the 50-year-old in a clump of shrubbery. He had shot himself in the left ear with a 32-calibre pistol. Next to the dead man was a note that read,

My name is Charles E. Moehling, and I occupy a furnished room in the house of Dr. R. W. Muller, 123 East Tenth Street. I desire that my body be taken to Charles Diehl’s undertaking shop in Essex Street.

No one could imagine why the bookkeeper had taken his life, although Dr. Muller noted, “The servant in the house said she had noticed him several times feeling his way about the house, as if he were losing his sight, and it may be because of his failing sight and utter friendlessness that led him to take his life.”

Dr. Muller had two roomers in 1895, attorney Reginald H. McMinn and Ellen M. Coe, the head librarian of the New York Free Circulating Library. The New York Herald described Ellen as "a handsome woman of about 45." She was appointed head librarian when the Free Library was organized years earlier. While living here, she met one of Muller's well-respected patients, Dr. Joseph H. Rylance, rector of the nearby St. Mark's Church in the Bowery.

Rev. Rylance's wife died in 1885. Now, on February 15, 1895, he announced that Ellen M. Coe "would shortly become his wife," as reported in the New York Herald. The high-profile engagement was covered in several newspapers, resulting in a barrage of reporters rushing to the Free Circulating Library. Ellen was ready for the onslaught. When a reporter from The Evening World attempted to interview her, "a bright-eyed, rose-checked young woman" told him, "Miss Coe wishes me to say that she is very much distressed at the publicity given to her name, and she refers inquirers to the Rev. Dr. Rylance."

Ellen Coe's marriage resulted in a vacancy. On August 16, 1895, an advertisement in the New-York Tribune read, "Cosily furnished rooms; one or two gentlemen; conveniences, private house; reasonable."

By 1899, Dr. Daniel Cook took over the lease of 123 East 10th Street. An 1867 graduate of the University of New York, he advertised his office hours as 8 to 10 a.m. and 5 to 7 p.m. Cook's reputation earned him a well-known clientele. On April 14, 1899, for instance, the New York Journal and Advertiser reported that boxing manager Martin Julian was in "very critical condition with typhoid pneumonia." The article said, "This famous promoter of pugilistic events is being attended by Dr. Cooke, of No. 123 East Tenth street."

Cook remained here until June 1904 when Frances Sackett sold the house to Bernhard Schneller. (Schneller simultaneously purchased No. 125 from Henry H. and Harriet W. Holly.)

Schneller's first tenant was yet another physician, Dr. Alfred H. Stiebeling. Born in 1866, Stiebeling would create headlines three decades later. His six-year-old granddaughter would die in 1927 and on July 12, 1937 The Berkshire Eagle would title an article, "Doctor Takes Poison at Grave of Granddaughter."

In the meantime, the respectability of some occupants of 123 East 10th Street had declined. On June 1, 1914, the New York Press reported that George Borden had been arrested as one of the four men who committed a jewel heist from an Avenue A store.

Charles Kirchman rented a room here in December 1914. He told the landlady that his name was William Dillon and that he had just lost his job with the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company. (It is unclear why he disguised his identity.) Three weeks later, Kirchman was still unable to find employment. On January 25, 1915, he wrote a letter to his sister, saying in part, "My last prayer is that God will deliver my soul into a better world than the one I am leaving." The next day, The Evening World reported, "His body was discovered to-day in the gas-filled room."

The following year, Julius Segletti occupied a room here. On Saturday night, July 15, he took his sweetheart to a dance hall on East 8th Street. As they prepared to leave, 22-year-old Carrol Marres approached and asked, "May I dance with your lady?"

Segletti replied, "She's too tired."

"But just one dance wouldn't harm. May I?"

"No," replied Segletti.

Marres walked away. Fifteen minutes later Segletti and his girlfriend left the hall. As they walked along Avenue A between 7th and 8th Streets, Marres rushed up from behind. He drove a knife into Segletti's head. He died of a fractured skull in Bellevue Hospital. Marres was captured the following day and Segletti's girlfriend, whose name was withheld, identified him as the murderer.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Living here at midcentury was life-long bachelor Colonel Julian Fairfax Scott. Born in Maryland in 1877, he was a member of the New York National Guard. In 1909, he was appointed Cleaning Commissioner in charge of the Bronx. He died in the house on November 14, 1953.

Scott was followed at 123 East 10th Street by Dr. Edward Campbell Berger and his wife, Ethel. An osteopathic physician, Berger graduated from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathy. During World War II he served with the U.S. Army in North Africa and Italy. While living here he was with the administrative department of the Outpatient Service of the Osteopathic Hospital and Clinic of Le Roy Hospital.

Both 123 East 10th Street and his architectural twin have survived in remarkably pristine condition.

The venerable house was never converted to apartments and remains a single-family home today. Its exterior appearance is essentially unchanged since 1854.

photographs by the author

The Evangelical Lutheran Savior (Sts. Kyril & Metodi Bulgarian Cathedral) 552 W. 50th St.

2026-04-17T04:00:00.027-04:00

photograph by Farragutful

On the evening of September 4, 1887, fire broke out on the second floor of the tenement building at 552 West 50th Street. The following day, the New-York Tribune wrote that the flames had spread throughout the five-story building "and early this morning were still burning fiercely." Tenements in the Hell's Kitchen district like this one were crammed with indigent families. The article said that fire department officials predicted "that not less than ten bodies were buried in the burning ruins."

Steinhardt & Son erected a "three-story brick ribbon factory" on the site. A minor labor problem arose in the summer of 1893. The Evening World reported that some union members "had been insulted at Steinhardt's factory, 552 West Fiftieth street, for refusing to work on Memorial Day."

On October 1, 1897, Herman von Hollen purchased the building for $12,000 (about $468,000 in 2026). The buyer was, more precisely, Reverend Herman von Hollen, rector of the Evangelische Lutheriske Heilands Kirche (Evangelical Lutheran Savior Church).

Born in Hanover, Germany on December 1, 1852, Von Hollen was ordained in 1878. He married Matilda Lomberg in 1890 and had seven children, three of whom died in childhood. The Von Hollens relocated to New York City in 1896. Rev. Von Hollen organized the congregation in March 1897, just seven months before purchasing the factory building. He had chosen a hardscrabble neighborhood in which to minister, and his was the first Lutheran church in Hell's Kitchen.

Within a month of the purchase, Von Hollen had commissioned the architectural firm of Kurtzer & Rohl to renovate the factory into "a three story brick dwelling and mission house." The renovations cost him the equivalent of $117,000 today. The architects' focus was the interior and little of the building's exterior appearance was altered. In his 1907 Genealogical and Family History of New York, William S. Pelletreau described the Lutheran church:

It is a brick edifice, neatly furnished, with a seating capacity of about four hundred. The work of the church is in larger degree among a poor class of the German population.

By 1903, the church was known simply as the German Lutheran Christ Church. The renovated factory is the light-colored brick structure toward the left. Federation magazine, June 1903 (copyright expired)

The Von Hollen family, a caretaker, a maid, and a housekeeper occupied the upper floors.

The ruffians of the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood were noted for their mischievousness, not their piety, as the newly-arrived German minister soon discovered. On June 28, 1898, The New York Press reported that he defended himself before Magistrate Kudlich when he was accused by "half a dozen women" of abusing their children. Von Hollen explained, "that he and his congregation were annoyed by children of the neighborhood, who howled around the church and threw stones and tin cans through the windows during services."

The mothers, "accused the minister of running out of the church and pulling the children's ears," said the article. The magistrate sided with Von Hollen and dismissed the case, "but warned the women to be careful of their children's conduct hereafter."

Despite the magistrate's order, little changed. Three years later, on May 18, 1901, The Evening World reported that Von Hollen had discovered two boys attempting to break into the church. When he confronted them, John Ruck and Charles Kaiser, both 12 years old, pelted the minister with rocks. It was a substantial assault. The New York Morning Telegraph said that when Von Hollen appeared in court, "His scalp was furrowed by cuts and his clothing was gore [i.e., blood] stained." But Rev. Herman von Hollen was what the newspaper described as, "One of the so-called 'turn the other cheek folk.'" He begged Magistrate Zeller to "give the boys another chance," according to The Evening World. Zeller told the delinquents that "were it not for Dr. Von Hollen's appeal...he would send them both to the House of Refuge."

Adolph Hernman worked as the caretaker of the property and lived in an upstairs room. The German immigrant sported "a beard of patriarchal dimensions," as described by the New York Herald. He, too, would become a target of neighborhood hooligans. On August 15, 1905, he was walking along West 50th Street with a package when four boys "came up to him and asked for a match," as reported by the newspaper. When he thrust his free hand into his pocket to get the match, "the four boys grabbed him. Each one got a fistful of whiskers and the four pulled in different directions."

The reporter presumed that the prank was "exceedingly painful to the flesh, but more lacerating to the spirit." Hernman found a policeman who "offered himself as the hook if Hernman would walk through the block again as bait." And sure enough, within a few minutes one of the boys, 16-year-old Charles Kabish, attempted to grab the caretaker's beard. The policeman rushed in and nabbed him.

The New York Herald reported, "Kabish wept a bucketful in court, but Magistrate Finn has seen boys cry before." The teen was jailed for a day to spend "in meditation upon the evil of pulling whiskers and being caught at it."

In 1907, Rev. Herman von Hollen purchased a one-story brick church on Walton Avenue in the Bronx. He retained ownership of the East 50th Street structure, and leased it to the Roman Catholic Church of St. Clemens and Mary. The congregation occupied the building as it collected funds for its own structure. On November 4, 1911, The New York Times reported that the St. Clemens and Mary congregation had purchased "two old residences" at 408 and 410 West 40th Street. The article said, "a new edifice for the parish work is to be erected at once."

The new St. Clemens and Mary Church building was completed in 1912. The consecration ceremony was held on May 26, but it went horribly awry. The New-York Tribune headlined an article, "Crowded Stand at Church Collapses." The article said that 3,000 persons panicked as the stands inside the church buckled. Although 15 people were injured, some enough to be hospitalized, the ceremony went on.

Rev. Herman von Hollen now leased the West 50th Street building to the newly formed Saints Cyrillus and Methodius congregation. It was founded by Franciscan friars to serve the increasing Croatian immigrant population. The 1914 The Catholic Church in the United States of America recalled:

On October 16, 1913, this parish was formally established for the Croatians and entrusted to Rev. Ambrose Sirca, O.F.M. An old church at 552 West 50th Street which was formerly used by St. Clemens' Polish congregation was obtained and dedicated to SS. Cyrillus and Methodius.

On New Year's Day, 1915, The New York Times reported that Von Hollen had sold the property to "St. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church." Now that the congregation owned the building, it set out to make it look like a proper church. In April 1915, it commissioned architect Frederick J. Schwartz to remodel the structure. The New York Herald reported that his plans "consist of building an entire new front wall, new stairs to the choir, new vestibule, and an addition to the choir loft for a sanctuary and sacristy." The renovations cost the equivalent of $483,000 today.

Schartz's neo-Gothic design gave nods to the Croatian congregation's roots. Faced in beige brick and trimmed in sandstone, the facade was dominated by a two-story, Gothic-arched stained-glass window. The copper-clad steeple atop a square, featureless base reflected traditional Southeastern European prototypes.

The main stained-glass window depicts Saints Cyril and Methodius. photograph by Carole Teller

The renovated church was dedicated on September 30, 1915. The New York Herald reported, "and it will be known henceforth as the Church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius." The article noted, "This will be the church centre for more than five thousand Catholics who came to the United States from Croatia, in the southern part of Austria-Hungary."

Aloysius Viktor Stepinac was the Archbishop of Zagreb (in Croatia). Stepinac was imprisoned by the Yugoslav Government in 1946 for accused treason. Croatian-American citizens protested. On October 12, 1948, The New York Times reported on the "two young women in Croat peasant costumes" and five young men who picketed the Yugoslav consulate on Fifth Avenue. The article said, "The young women said they were members of the Stepinac Club of New York, connected with the Church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius of 552 West Fiftieth Street."

In 1974, the congregation of Sts. Cyril and Methodius merged with that of St. Raphael's Church on West 41st Street and moved into that building. The East 50th Street structure empty sat until 1979, when it was purchased by the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Church. The diocese made renovations, completed in 1984. It was dedicated on May 12.

The following day, The New York Times reported that dozens of lay volunteers had "worked countless hours transforming a dilapidated church on the West Side of Manhattan into the showpiece of Bulgarian-American life in the New York metropolitan area."

photograph by Carole Teller

The article said that three artists, "who worked more than 70 hours a week on the project for the last two years," headed the group that embellished "nearly every square inch of the interior of the St. Kiril and Metodi Eastern Orthodox Church." The main force behind the remodeling, including its financing, was 43-year-old Bulgarian immigrant Anton Russev. The article said the painting was either done directly onto the plaster walls, or on panels in Russev's Lafayette Street studio. An official of the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Church said this was the only structure in the United States "that has been decorated in traditional style with Eastern Orthodox icons."

photograph by Carole Teller

The congregation is still in the building with its riveting history.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post.

J. M. Felson's 1929 218 West 10th Street

2026-04-16T04:00:00.005-04:00

image via streeteasy.com

Abraham Schwartz was a builder and real estate developer, head of the A. M. Schwartz Building & Construction Company. On May 2, 1928, he purchased three three-story apartment buildings at 340 through 344 Bleecker Street and the abutting, five-story apartment house on the southwest corner of West 10th Street. The next day, The New York Times announced that the old structures, "will be razed and replaced by a modern six-story elevator apartment building containing electric refrigeration and other modern improvements."

Schwartz commissioned the Russian-born architect Jacob M. Felson to design the building. Completed the following year, the residential entrance was placed at the western end of the West 10th Street side. The four stores along Bleecker Street were designed with deep arcade show windows that enabled the proprietors to create large displays. (The corner store was double the size of the other three.)

Completed in 1929 at a cost of $238,700 (about $4.73 million in 2026), Felson's sleek, tripartite 1920s take on the Medieval Revival style included an arched corbel table below the fifth floor cornice, and stepped Tudor-inspired gables with blank shields atop the parapet. Above the residential entrance Felson placed a carved Renaissance-inspired panel.

Abe Schwartz could not have predicted that the Stock Market would crash the year his building opened. In August 1931, he lost the property in foreclosure.

A woman who lived here at the time (whose name was not disclosed in newspaper articles) was having an affair with a married Brooklyn man, Valentine C. Bauman. In the meantime, Ruth C. Bauman was doing some private investigating on her own and tracked down her wandering husband to Manhattan and 218 West 10th Street. On the evening of November 4, 1931, Ruth and "several of her friends," according to The Brooklyn Standard Union, barged into the apartment.

Ruth told a judge on January 8, 1932, "There he was sitting on the side of the bed in two-piece underwear talking to a woman in [a] flesh-colored negligee." According to Ruth Bauman, her husband remarked, "Here I am." The article said that Ruth was "a free woman today."

The arcade storefronts survived as late as 1941. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Jane Carabine and Margaret Dusseau shared an apartment here as early as 1932. Margaret came home early on the night of February 26, 1933, to discover her 30-year-old roommate dead. The New York Times reported, "Gas was escaping from a jet of the kitchen range." Police called Jane's death accidental.

As early as 1963, Aldo's Italian restaurant occupied the southern-most commercial space. It was replaced by Boomer's soul food and jazz restaurant around 1972. That year New York Magazine called it "a casual Village place where spareribs and black-eyed peas are served up with great sounds by the likes of Ray Bryant, Bobby Timmons and Cedar Watson."

The De Santis-Jensen "semi-antiques shop," as described by The New York Times on August 21, 1965, filled the corner space. Owned by Stuart Jenson and Anthony de Santis, the shop appealed to "the special kind of person who appreciates kookiness as much as we do," according to Jensen. He told The Times, "Barbra Streisand hasn't been in here, but Tony Perkins has, and so have Eli Wallach, Leonard Bernstein and Anne Bancroft."

photo by The New York Times photographer Bill Allen, August 21, 1965

Living here by 1987 was Glenn R. Purdy, an editor for Travel Agent magazine. On July 23 that year, Purdy did not arrive at work. When no one could reach him, senior editor Joe Murphy went to his apartment. Getting no response from inside, Murphy walked over to the nearby Sixth Precinct station house.

Officers returned with Murphy and entered the apartment. "They found Mr. Purdy's body on the living room couch," reported The New York Times. According to one of the officers, the 57-year-old had been stabbed in the back and his pockets had been "ripped apart." Because there was no sign of forced entry, officials thought Purdy knew his killer. A bloody kitchen knife was recovered in the apartment.

The building's most celebrated tenant was playwright, librettist and screenwriter Terrence McNally, who lived here with his life partner (and, later, husband), Broadway producer and former civil rights attorney Tom Kirdahy.

Born on November 3, 1938, McNally graduated from Columbia University in 1960. The next year, he was hired by novelist John Steinbeck and his wife to tutor their two teenaged sons while they traveled. (McNally was already in a relationship with playwright Edward Albee.)

His first full-length play, This Side of the Door, was produced in 1962, and his Broadway debut came in 1965 when he was just 26 years old. He would go on to write hits like Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class, and The Ritz.

Terrance McNally posed in front of the marquee of his first Broadway musical, The Rink, in 1984. from the collection of the New York Public Library.

In reviewing his Mothers and Sons in the Observer on March 26, 2014, Rex Reed called the play "a masterpiece," and McNally, "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced." He also wrote the books for the musicals Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime.

McNally addressed gay sexuality and the AIDS crisis. Writing in The New York Times on March 24, 2020, Jesse Green and Neil Genzlinger said, "His gay stories never came across as a narrowing of theater's human focus but as an expansion of it, and by inviting everyone into them he helped solidify the social change he was describing."

McNally and Kirdahy were still living at 218 West 10th Street when the four-time Tony Award-winning playwright died in Sarasota, Florida on March 24, 2020 at the age of 81.

photo via streeteasy.com

For decades the southern space on Bleecker Street was home to Manatus, a diner-type restaurant, while the Village Apothecary on the corner enjoyed equal longevity. They were replaced by the Saint Theo's restaurant and a Pdpaola jewelry store, respectively.