PR Spokesperson Katrina Pierson, for Trump, Ready with Press Release for any Donald Shootings on Fifth Avenue.

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90 Fifth Avenue NYC - Arthur and Countess Annie Leary Cottage - 1890

This a rough sketch of one of the lesser known members of Mrs. Astor’s 400 Society types from the late nineteenth into early twentieth century gilded era New York.

I began, out of curiosity, a search for existing records and images on the Internet for a picture of 90 Fifth Avenue in 1893, the year of death of Arthur Leary, one the extremely few Roman Catholics on “The” Mrs. Astor’s “400” society list. He made the cut not I think by social graces as much as by sheer wealth and having gone to school as a child with “The” Mrs. Astor’s husband, William B Astor Jr..

That personal and probably business as well  connection of Arthur’s was in imitation of the original part of Arthur’s inherited wealth of his father James, who in turn was a business client and associate of William B. Astor Jr’s grandfather, John Jacob Astor, the German born immigrant that founded the American Astor family dynasty line. 

James Leary had been a hatter, using the infamous Astor monopoly controlled beaver pelts, in a shop in the basement of the original luxury hotel “The Astor House” in downtown NYC across from City Hall and before the Civil War.

The three older Leary brothers Arthur, Daniel and George seemed to have made a fortune off of shipping during the Civil War and beyond which ended up being invested soundly in Insurance Companies and Banks by Arthur.

Arthur was unmarried and so his old maid sister Annie Leary usually accompanied him to society balls and to Newport in summer to visit with their peers, the gilded age rich in their million dollar plus “cottages” on the ocean.  After Arthur's death, sister Annie spent the next twenty six years giving much of his estimated anywhere from seven to twenty million dollar fortune away to charity, mostly to Catholic related charities and building projects. 

Anne became “Countess”Annie Leary after the early 1900s who had a Papal title bestowed on her for philanthropy and charity work and most notably towards NYCs Italian immigrant community.

“I began, out of curiosity, a search for existing records and images...” because of the Arthur Leary NYT’s Obit in typical effete NYT’s fashion describing his house at 90 Fifth Ave. as “quaint”. It was no doubt a small simple house not reflective of his immense wealth and social standing as compared to the other urban castles of the rich built further up Fifth Avenue. 

Leary NYT Obit 1893

The Leary’s I suspect were very frugal. From what I have read the house at 90 Fifth Ave may have been rented at one time, waiting for its original owner Dr. Thaddeus Halsted (not Halstead) to die about 1870. He has various addresses in various NYC directories for his doctor’s practice and or residence. I suspect that as a rental property, it did not have many changes or alterations along the time line from when it was built around 1835 as three small houses for the children of William Halsted who had a big mansion built there at the same time at 1 West Fourteenth Street and or “84” Fifth Ave on the lot per city lot maps. The three children’s houses were of course “86”, “88” and “90” Fifth Ave.

Fifth Avenue – Old and New 1824-1924 by HenryCollins Brown (Pages 39 and 40)

  

As the other buildings on the block went commercial with rebuilds, upgrades and add-ons I suspect that the Leary Cottage remained a simple house, probably two rooms on two rooms in a house footprint of 18’8” X 100’ on an 18’8” x 199’ lot per the Bromley 1891 Atlas of the City of New York Lot Map.

Papal Countess Annie Leary of NYC
Photo by Theodore C. Marceau 1859-1922
(original copyright expired)

Countess Annie Leary - Find A Grave 

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Arthur Leary - Find A Grave 

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Haight House Apartments 1870 - Kensington Hotel 1901 - New York City

Hotel Kensington, Fifth Ave. near Washington Square – Photo by Byron Company (New York, N,Y,) – 1904 -From the Collections of the Museum of the City of New Yorkhttp://collections.mcny.org/Collection/Hotel-Kensington,-Fifth-Ave.-near-Washington-Square.-2F3XC53THVN.html

(Kensington Hotel 1901, formerly Haight House Apartments (French Plan) 1870, formerly New-York Club, formerly Private Residences, Southeast Corner Fifth Avenue and E. Fifteenth Street, NYC)

The Haight Mansion, (No. 2 ? E. Fifteenth Street) from the early 1850s. was the original corner part of the Haight House Apartments (1870) of the still fashionable Fifth Avenue neighborhood just off Union Square. The new apartment buildings offered services like a hotel to a perhaps reluctant upper crust who saw the new apartment idea little different than the age old tenements of the poor. 

By the turn of century (1900) the apartment building was a new hotel setup from about 1901 after a fire in the late 1890s at the apartment building setup. The building I believe got torn down in 1906.

Some supporting links for your information:

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...B266838A669FDE

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9B05E7DD123DE034BC4953DFB766838E649FDE

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=99241792

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http://upcommons.upc.edu/revistes/bitstream/2099/12610/1/C_89_3.pdf

"Only a year later, in 1871, the first apartment building with hotel services was opened. It was an adaptation of an old family home into multi-family dwelling for twenty families and several bachelors. 

The building was situated on the corner of 15thStreet and Fifth Avenue, it was called Haight House and had five floors, four devoted to family apartments and the fifth floor devoted to bachelor apartments. In each floor plant there were five apartments composed by three bedrooms, parlor, living room, kitchen, pantry, bathroom and two bedrooms for the service. 

On the fifth floor there were eleven bachelor apartments, five of them had a parlor and two bedrooms, the rest had only a parlor and a bedroom.

 A laundry and a kitchen sited in the basement could serve through a dumbwaiter the different apartments. Meals were served in the common dining room or in each of the apartments. Pneumatic tubes and electric bells connected the apartments with the kitchen and the reception of the building. 

After the construction of the Haight House many similar buildings began to proliferate in New York. Although most of the examples followed the same pattern, the name used to designate them used to change depending on its character or its services. During this first epoch both the used terminology to describe them and the law that regulated them were of a great ambiguity. 

The existing housing law considered only the word "tenement", which defined a building that housed three or more families cooking on their premises. Usually the word "tenement" was associated to low income working class, so new housing typologies targeted the middle class using other terms to be clearly different from them, apartment building with hotel services were usually appointed under the term hotel, family hotel or apartment hotel. During these early years several examples were built around Fifth Avenue, between 10th and 27th Street…"

Advertisement 1901 - (copyright expired)

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A House of Prayer

From a journal – May 2003


...Rushing to my express bus on Fifth Avenue I glanced up the steps into an unused entrance to Saint Thomas Episcopal Church, a structure I have mentioned before in this journal – (a place where I have gone to pray and mediate and admire the unique massive stone altar piece and stained glass)...

I saw a Muslim engaged in his 4th (?) prayer of the day. He was shoeless – white socks on gray stone – I had seen something like this before, at this same spot, on a cold dark winter night at 5:30 P.M. last winter or one winter ago – one loses track of time here in New York –

...glanced before, at that time, and did not pay much attention to that scene – (did not wish to stare or to intrude on prayer which can be both a public or a private thing). (I was also in a hurry to catch my bus). Later I tried to recollect the scene, reconstruct the scene – but the memory did not fit. Was not reminded of it again until today.

I thought that there were stone saint icons on the side of that locked wooden door area. Today, in less darkness, I noticed the angle of the pray-er’s focus. That focus was not in the direction of the stone statues but on stone support columns – round pillars rising up to typical gothic angle – an arabic angle? – a muslim angle? Which came first, the gothic or the...-

Does not matter. I am reminded of this pray-er and Isaiah’s words. “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations” Those words more than ever are needed today in this world.

God be praised!...
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