Thursday, June 26, 2014

Countess Annie Leary of New York City Evicted From Her Fifth Avenue Mansion – 1904



Photo Source: Both Sides of Fifth Ave. J.F.L.Collins 1910


This is perhaps a bit silly but there is so little available on the life of Countess Annie Leary of NYC that a bit of gossip in a tattle mag of the time says a lot about interest in the rich and famous even back then.


Broadcast Weekly 14 April 1904


The way this is written I am not certain if Countess Annie was evicted from her long term home at 3 Fifth avenue, which I cannot find a picture of yet – or she first left that perhaps childhood home at 3 Fifth Avenue when a 99 year lease, made by her father James Leary the Merchant/Hatter, on the land it was built on expired in 1902. That the two year lease is perhaps another rental further up Fifth Avenue and that too became unavailable as developers were tearing down these old brick or brownstone mansions and building apartment buildings in the teens and 1920s.

In any case, Annie seems to have been "homeless" for a few short years while she finally moved into digs at 1032 Fifth Avenue between 84th Street and 85th Street and in sight of the Metropolitan Museum of Art across the road, located within the boundaries of Central Park.

The house at 1032 Fifth Avenue was a fixer upper, a renovation and re-clad in white stone of a bunch of spec townhouses built in the 1870s. In the image of 1032 above, the building next door at 1033 is still a brownstone as of 1910, and 1034 was being converted at the same time with Annie’s 1032 in 1905 with the “rebuilt front wall” and getting in Annie’s case a three story extension in back where the stables used to be. 


April 1905

The building progress report lists Countess Leary’s no doubt temporary address as 16 E 75th Street.

1033 btw is still standing with a white stone re-clad and squeezed between two tall apartment buildings.



                                              1033 Fifth Avenue NYC                                          
                                                                                                                                          Google Maps


The smart looking townhouse at 1032 Fifth Avenue is described in some accounts as a mansion and I guess it is, was, but maybe a little bit cramped – less space I would say in square footage than 3 Fifth Ave from Plot Maps I have seen – but the difference is of course made up by location, location, location. 


.

Speaker Boehner to Sue President Obama - GOP Lynch Party? - Get Lawyer Atticus Finch to Defend the Prez




Speaker Boehner to Sue President Obama - GOP Lynch Party? 

- Get Lawyer Atticus Finch to Defend the Prez.


.

Siebrecht and Wadley – Send Flowers By Telegraph – 1895