Join us for Inwood History Night at the Indian Road Cafe.

Sid will regale us with the fascinating history of the HARLEM RIVER and how this waterway has left its indelible mark on Northern Manhattan. Along the way we’ll view some wonderful, rare images (rare even to Cole and Don). Stop by and learn about how this “river” continues to influence our urban landscape.

Don’t miss it.

Details: 7:30 pm Tuesday Feb. 7, 2012
Place: The Indian Road Cafe

Since launching MyInwood.net I’ve read thousands of century-old news accounts regarding all things Inwood, but the following article, written in 1916, is one of my favorites.

Isham Hill article, New York Herald, September 26, 1913

The account contains so many elements from my little corner of the neighborhood—The Seaman Estate, Isham Park, the still-standing Hurst house on Park Terrace East and 215^th and the 215^th Street stairs—all frozen in a unique turning point in Inwood’s history.

While poorly written, the article, published in the New York Herald, captures the Park Terrace area as Broadway developers ascend the 215^th Street stairs to discover a lush and unspoiled paradise they knew was ripe for urbanization.

New York Herald
Sunday, September 26, 1913
ISHAM HILL, A BEAUTY SPOT, OPENED TO PUBLIC TRAFFIC
Gift of Park Site and 215^th Street Station Stairway Encourage Further Developments

Is Isham Park and its environs at the threshold of a new era in the development of this noble and long neglected area of the westerly heights section of Manhattan?

Three years have elapsed since when, in September 28, 1912, there was held a civic celebration of the gift of Isham Park to the city of New York by Mrs. Julia Isham Taylor and Miss Flora E. Isham.

215th Street stairs, New York Herald, Sunday, September 26, 1913.

In the interim the park has grown into a place of quiet rest and beauty, a somewhat long double flight of steps has been erected from 215^th street and Broadway to the crest of the hill at Park Terrace East, the Daughters of the American Revolution, Fort Washington chapter, have been placed in possession of a quiet nook in the old Isham family mansion, an additional gift of land has added to the area of the park, Seaman avenue has been opened, regulated, graded and curbed, with sewers now being set and to be completed in about six week’s time, the work of opening Park Terrace East, 215^th street and a section of Cold Spring road (Indian road) along the banks of the Ship Canal is progressing toward completion.

Isham Mansion, New York Herald, Sunday, September 26, 1913.

Also, afternoon tea, toast and crackers are being served by Mrs. Frank Glynn in the stately old dining hall of the Isham homestead, and John Connolly, faithful park keeper the last four years, continues to watch over his bit of grass, flowers and “darlint” trees in the constant fear that ere long a few of these, his friends and boon companions, will be pulled up by their roots by the giant “Progress” to provide an uninterrupted way for still another lateral leading westerly from Park Terrace East, thence connecting with Broadway by steps, or some form of circuitous hillside route yet to be constructed.

Isham street on the south, 218^th street on the north, Broadway on the east and the Ship Canal on the west mark the physical boundaries of the small area of the delightfully located and overlooked Isham Hill and Park, the key to the future of which is the 215^th street subway station, a few hundred feet east of the staircase continuation of 215^th street.  Another factor of the future that, however, is to be reckoned with is the inevitable trend of automobile traffic from Broadway north from Isham street ad south from 218^th street, into Seaman avenue and along the Isham hill ridge the instant these improvements are fully completed.

There cannot be even the shadow of a doubt that the natural attractions of this and the Inwood-Hudson region then will prove sufficiently strong in their appeal to effect a division of at least a goodly percentage of the more leisurely automobile traffic that now clings to Broadway.  The advent of this traffic will mark the day when the builder of the higher grades of apartment houses will discover Isham Hill and its advantages.

Home of

Rich in romance and historical data, Isham Hill is the location of the Isham, Dyckman, Seaman (Dwyer) and other homesteads of the earlier years.  At the top of the 215^th street stairway, however, are two modern dwellings of high cost and attractive appearance.  One is the home of William H. Hurst, president of the Stock Quotation Telegraph Company, vice president of the New York News Bureau Association, and prominent in other corporations the other, the home of Gerald S. Griffin, a civil engineer.

Old Seaman Mansion, New York Herald, Sunday, September 26, 1913.

To the north of these rises the stately home of Thomas Dwyer, known formerly and for many years as “Seaman’s Folly.” This has direct entrance to Broadway, and commands superb views of all the surrounding country.  In the same neighborhood is the residence of John Mara, and the old Dyckman mansion, now occupied as St. Phillip’s Home, lies just beyond. The next lateral north of 218^th street is 225^th street, which emphasizes the seclusiveness of the Isham Park neighborhood.

New York Herald, Sunday, September 26, 1913.

Isham Park, the original deed of which—the gift of Miss Julia Isham Taylor—was dated July 17,1911, extends from Broadway to the Ship Canal, parking the centre of the hill, east to west, between 213^th and 214^th streets and park frontage for the greater number of all the remaining Isham Estate lots.  The park also has a most advantageous strip of additional frontage along the entire westerly side of Cooper street, the southerly extension of Park Terrace East, to Isham street.  On April 15, 1912, the area of the park was considerably enlarged by a gift of land from Miss Flora E. Isham.  The estate of William B. Isham controls the remaining lots.  Some easy and adequate means of reaching the crest of Isham hill, except by climbing the long flight of steps provided at 215^th street, where an escalator would have solved the problem, is all the region needs to bring it well within the scope of the demand of just such builders as have improved the better parts of the Fort Washington avenue and other Washington Heights sections.

Mute evidence of the correctness of this forecast is the trend of apartment builders along the lower and less attractive level of Broadway.  Here, at No. 5,000 Broadway (212^th street), Grenville Hall, an elevator apartment house, has been a distinct success.  Further north, in Broadway, at the southeast corner of 215^th street, and comprising the southwest corner of Tenth avenue (the route of the elevated-subway line) two new five story non-elevator apartment houses are being completed by Charles Flaum, a builder who sold them several weeks ago to Thomas E. Loughlin, an investor.  These houses contain fifty apartments of three, four and five rooms, at $8 average monthly rent a room, and are fifty per cent rented, although unfinished.

Of the eight stores (seven in Tenth avenue and one at the Broadway corner), six have been rented at $600 to $2,000 each for those in Tenth avenue.  Knap & Wasson, the agents, say they are not making concessions.

In the opposite (west) side of Broadway the Reville-Siesel Company is completing a fifty foot non-elevator house, containing twenty-four apartments of three rooms and bath in the rear and four rooms and a bath in the front, and four stores.  Eighteen of the apartments are stated to have been rented at $7 to $8 a room average monthly rental, and three of the stores.  McDowell & McMahon are the agents.

These rentals are in no way indicative of the prices builders might expect to obtain for higher grade elevator apartments atop Isham Hill, but serve merely to indicate the trend of the demand to districts north of Isham street.

Seaman Arch on Broadway and 216th.

On the west side of Broadway, formerly known as the Kingsbridge Road, at 216^th Street, stands a neglected and nearly forgotten monument to Inwood’s past.  The great marble arch, constructed in the 1850’s, once led visitors to the glorious Seaman mansion, which, until the 1930’s, stood on the current site of Park Terrace Gardens on Park Terrace East and 217^th Street.

Just before the turn of the twentieth century the old mansion and surrounding property, built by the descendants of Dr. Valentine Seaman, who introduced the small pox vaccine to the United States, were rented to a group of wealthy equestrians.

What follows is an 1896 description of the new riding club that includes a spectacular sketch of the arch as it was seen before the encroachment the modern infrastructure and apartment buildings, which would soon wipe the mansion, but not the arch, off the face of a once rural little fiefdom.

Harper’s Bazaar
November, 1896

SUBURBAN RIDING AND DRIVING CLUB

The rapid improvement of the annexed district of New York for business purposes has been steadily despoiling the rural drives, which for many years have been one of the chief charms of the metropolis for horsemen.  The closing of Jerome Park two years ago for a public reservoir, and the temporary disuse of Jerome Avenue, due to the building of the new Central bridge over the Harlem River, forced the riders and drivers to seek other roads for reaching the suburbs.  Or many years the Jerome Park clubhouse was, by common consent, the rendezvous for gentlemen who owned and drove fast horses for pleasure, and its abandonment left them without a stopping-place on the east side of the city, save the many road-houses which line Jerome Avenue.

The rapid improvement of the drives on the west side of Manhattan Island, on the other hand, has attracted most of the riders and drivers to that side of the city. And Kingsbridge Road is gradually taking the place of Jerome Avenue.  That it will be the driving centre of the city in years to come is shown by the number of fine drives recently finished, in course of completion, and planned for that section of the city. What better place, therefore, could be selected for the new home of the lovers of horses than this thoroughfare?

A number of the leading spirits in the old management of the Jerome Park clubhouse got together two years ago and formed the nucleus of what is now the most promising organization of its kind within many miles of the metropolis.  The Suburban Riding and Driving Club has met with unusual success and already numbers among its members most of the better class of horsemen in the city.  Its clubhouse at 217^th Street and the Kingsbridge Road is a convenient stopping place for gentlemen driving in or out of the city on the west side, and its comfortable reading-rooms and smoking-rooms, café and restaurant attract a goodly attendance of members almost every bright day.

The Old Seaman Mansion (Source- Harper's Bazaar, 1896)

The Harlem River Speedway, now building and destined for use within a year or two, the new French Boulevard overlooking the Hudson River, and now almost completed, with Dyckman Street, already open for public use, to connect the two great boulevards with Kingsbridge Road, will offer to New York horsemen a circuit of fine drives not to be equaled by those of any other city in the country.  The upper end of the Speedway turns into Dyckman Street just under Fort George Heights, and will pour its steady stream of fast horses into that thoroughfare to seek other avenues of return to the Park and other drives of the lower part of the city.  Dyckman Street, a mile of fine level drive, intersects the Kingsbridge Road at 204^th Street, and connects the new French Boulevard with that and the Speedway, at Inwood, just west of the Kingsbridge Road.  Thus is completed a network of fine public drives, combining opportunity for fast driving, fine views of both the Hudson and Harlem rivers, and complete isolation from the thickly settled parts of the town.

216th and Broadway in 1895 (Source-Harper's Bazaar)

Only half a mile above the junction of Dyckman Street, and standing on a hill a few hundred feet back of the highroad, stands the new home of the horsemen in what for many years was known as the “Seaman Castle.”  The Suburban Riding and Driving Club is as thoroughly secluded as any other spot on Manhattan Island.  The massive arched stone entrance attracts much attention from the passers-by, but the road up to the clubhouse winds around the side of the hill, and thus isolates the building.  Once inside the grounds, the picturesqueness (sic) of the place is perhaps its most noticeable feature.  The property has been laid out with an eye for the landscape effect, and with much success.  Facing the entrance is a small pool with a fountain in its centre, which is supplied from a stream falling over the rocks from the hill above, where stands the clubhouse.   The road bends around through a grove of trees, and finally emerges at the crest of the hill facing the old homestead of the Seaman family.

The building, which is of white marble, faces west, and from its porch and front windows can be seen the silvery line of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, a mile or so above, winding its snakelike course toward the cleft in the hills which overlook the Hudson.  Through this opening the “Rhine of America,” with the Palisades beyond it, can also be seen.  From the back and north end of the building the valley of the Harlem, with the river itself winding through it, is also spread out before the eye as in a panorama.

Southwest of the clubhouse are the stables and sheds for the accommodations, both temporary and permanent, of the members’ horses.  A large white marble stable was found on the property when the Suburban club took possession, but additional sheds have been added.  Near the stables, too, is the great quarry from which was taken the marble for the buildings on the place. The great archway entrance, the “Castle” itself, the stable, and even the walls that surround the property, are built of the fine quality of marble that was found on the land.  On the side of the hill just below the clubhouse are extensive greenhouses, which furnish flowers for the decoration of the rooms, while vegetable gardens on the property supply many of the necessaries of the kitchen.

Main Hall of the old Seaman mansion (Source-Harper's Bazaar, Nov., 1896)

Within, the building has been altered somewhat for its new tenants.  The bedrooms have become private dining rooms; the great dining-hall and parlors are used as a café, public dining room, and reception-room; while an old conservatory at the southeast corner of the “Castle” has been altered for a smoking and “sun” room.  Over $10,000 has been spent in alterations and repairs on the clubhouse and grounds by the members of the Suburban club.

During the winter the wives and sisters of the members make the place attractive by a series of receptions at the clubhouse, while sleighing and driving parties frequently stop there.  A number of other attractive features have been added.  Golf links have been laid out on the big meadow west of the “Castle,” and twenty-six acres of land afford ample opportunity for the sport.

Interior of Seaman Mansion (Source-Harper's Bazaar, Nov. 1896)

Over two hundred members have been enrolled already, and the list is growing rapidly.  The men who headed the movement for the new club, and who have since been elected to the principal offices, are representative horsemen of the better class, and their names guarantee the permanency of the organization.  The initiation fee is set at $25, and the annual dues are the same figure.

Today-Inside the arch looking out.

For another description of the Suburban Riding and Driving Club, click here.

"Pop' Seeley's cabin at the foot of Cold Spring Road in 1893 photograph by Ed Wenzel. (Source: New York Historical Society)

Sometime before the turn of the twentieth century, on the northernmost tip of Manhattan, a folksy, business savvy and somewhat mischievous fellow named “Pop” Seeley set up shop in a quaint little cabin in the shade of a mighty tulip tree on the shores of a then meandering and muddy creek called the Spuyten Duyvil.

Today the location of the tulip tree, allegedly the spot where Peter Minuit swapped the island of Manhattan for a handful of trinkets, is marked by a boulder with a plaque proclaiming: “According to legend, on this site of the principal Manhattan Indian Village (Shorakkopoh), Peter Minuit in 1626 purchased Manhattan Island for trinkets and bead then worth about 60 guilders. This boulder also marks the spot where a tulip tree (Liriodendron Tulipera) grew to a height of 165 feet. It was, until its death in 1938 at the age of 280 years, the last living link between the Reckgawawanc Indians who lived here.”

Seeley cabin in 1906 photo.

A stone’s throw west of the tulip would have been Seeley’s cabin…

Former resident Aimee Voorhees, who would later construct a pottery works a short distance from the Seeley cottage, described “Pop’s” home as a “small white frame house more than a century old. It was built for a retired sea captain seeking a snug harbor. We have never been able to find but his name…but Pop Seeley told us stories about him. Pop lived here until he died.” (Helen Worden, Round Manhattan’s Rim)

Inwood Hill Park, as we know it today, wasn’t even a spark of an idea when “Pop” Seeley moved into the peaceful cove now buried under a soccer field made up of landfill from later subway digs—at the time, Inwood Hill was referred to locally as Cold Spring Mountain.

So who was “Pop” Seeley?  That is truly is a question for the ages.

How or even when “Pop” Seeley arrived on the banks of the Spuyten Duyvil remains a bit of a mystery.  A popular fellow with fisherman and reporters alike, the details of his early life remain somewhat murky.  “Pop,” it would seem, had a different story for nearly every person he encountered. He told some writers his name was Abraham, others Lynch, but his real name, most likely, was Andrew Jackson Seeley.

According to a New York Times article dated July 3, 1910,  “If you are lucky you may run across ‘Pop’ Andrew Jackson Seeley working at his boats along the creek front.  ‘Pop,’ as he is affectionately and familiarly called by most everybody in that neighborhood, is sort of a self-constituted ‘guardian’ of the old tree, and, in his way, almost as interesting.  He doesn’t have a whole lot to say to a stranger at first, but if you can get him to talking he may tell you that he has lived within the shade of that old tree for more than a score of his eighty years.  He may tell you, too, just how much he loves and protects it from vandal hands.”

“The Old Man of the River,” The New York Times reporter continued, “has been most everything—soldier, sailor, fireman.  Fought many a good fight back in 61’, was a member of the New York Fire Department for seventeen years, and as a sailor has been over many a foreign sea.”

“Pop” simply reveled in spinning fantastic yarns—and from there his legend just grew.

Boss Tweed climbs into rowboat before fleeing to Spain. Could the boatman have been "Pop" Seeley? (Frank Leslie's Illustrated Dec 18, 1875)

In 1921 an old-timer would tell reporter Eleanor Booth Simmons that Seeley “was a boatman and a great character, and he always had charge of things in these parts…I’m told it was Pop who rowed Boss Tweed, the Tammany ringster, out to the ship by which he escaped to Spain when he was sentenced to imprisonment for embezzlement in 1875. Pop lived in that old house alone, for he couldn’t get along with his family.”

Something of a curmudgeon, “Pop” was known to complain bitterly about his ill treatment as a non-union man working the docks— but where?  A well-worn Brooklyn directory from the years 1889-1890 lists an Andrew J. Seeley, occupation “boatman,” as being employed by Bush C. Hicks.  Could this have been “Pop?”

Even his time in the neighborhood, if you could call the undeveloped swampland a neighborhood, remains in doubt.

In 1915, the year of Seeley’s death, writers of his various obituaries couldn’t even agree on how long he had lived in his little hideaway nestled between the Hudson and Harlem Rivers.  Had he lived there all of his life or just a “score” of years?  No one seemed to know.  That his obituary was published in no less than three New York papers stands testament to his influence on those who passed through the region—many returning year after year just to have a talk with “Pop.”

Regardless of his sketchy origins, “Pop” Seeley would become the unofficial mayor of the marshy shallows of the area then called “Cold Spring.”

In choosing his homestead, Pop carefully selected a shady spot close to a spring from which once flowed water so sweet and icy-cold that its presence was well-known throughout the region. Seeley would initially list has address as being at the base of Cold Spring Road.

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

On November 13, 1897 amateur historian James Reuel Smith would write, “The ‘Cold Spring’ is some eight hundred feet south of the most northern point of Inwood, and on the east side of it.  It is about one hundred feet from the shore of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, or as it has come to be known as in it’s enlarged and modernized condition, the Harlem Ship Canal.  It is some six feet long east and west, and three feet wide north and south.  Its water comes out from under a piece of rock, and a springhouse is built over it of just the dimensions of the spring and some six feet high.  From this house a pipe runs the distance of some ten feet into a barrel sunk in the ground.  The overflow runs out of the barrel near the top and into the Creek.” (The Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century.)

But Pop’s oasis had so much more to offer than just crisp and natural water that was fit to drink— it had long been a favorite among anglers who knew the Spuyten Duyvil to be flush with striped bass.  The marshy waters were also a choice locale for oystermen who used the fertile creek to seed their oyster beds before taking the young bivalves elsewhere to mature.

Seeley Cabin in 1904 photograph.

So, it was in this tranquil oasis that “Pop” Seeley had the idea to open a boathouse complete with a modest marina where he would sell and repair old yachts—a marina that would flourish well into the early twentieth century.

Not surprisingly, Seeley’s business endeavors did not end there. In addition to his boat business, “Pop” operated a store on the shore where fishermen and sun-scorched day-trippers could purchase refreshments for steamy summer afternoons on the water spent, rod in hand, swatting flies and discussing the state of the Union.

And, in those pre-prohibition years, it is safe to say that “Pop” Seeley likely sold more lager than bait.

An inset in the below photo, snapped in 1906, indicates that “Pop” was an official distributor for the A. Liebler Bottling Company—which bottled, among other things, a product many still drink today.

Seeley Cabin in 1906 photo. (Note inset with Liebler Bottling Company sign.)

Incorporated in New York City in September of 1887, the A. Liebler Bottling Company, did a brisk business from their plant on 128^th and 10^th Avenue “bottling, selling, and delivering lager beer, soda-waters, and aerated waters, with its name and certain marks and devices blown and impressed thereon.”

At the time, the company’s top-selling product was Yuengling beer.  Still in business today, the popular brand holds the distinction of being America’s oldest brewery.

Turn of the century postcard for the Liebler Bottling Company.

Of course there was the matter of “Pop’s” water supply. Seeley himself, who, by some accounts, would have it plugged, because it competed with his flourishing beer and soda sales, controlled the cold spring.

In June of 1898, Smith, who had visited the spring just a year earlier and described it as “the largest…within the corporate limits of the City of New York,” would lament: “As this spring interfered with Seeley’s sale of soft drinks to boatmen, he put a padlock on the spring house, and filled in with earth the space where the water appeared outside, so that the overflow runs into the creek below the level of the tide.” (The Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century)

Smith would later describe local reaction to the closing of the well as “incendiary.”

Nevertheless, “Pop” would remain, until his death, a well-liked character despite his many flaws and eccentricities.

Pop Seeley obit The Sun February 13, 1915.

According to his obituary, published in the Sun on February 13, 1915, “Andrew J. Seeley, often referred to as ‘The Old Man of the Hudson,’ since he spent eighty four years on the banks of that river, dropped dead yesterday at a lunch wagon at Broadway and 216^th Street.  Mr. Seeley was one of the most picturesque characters of the Inwood district and was a favorite with many boaters, who visited him yearly. In his heyday he was considered one of the best scullers on the Hudson, often winning the admiration of other experts by his agility in falling out and climbing into a frail scull without upsetting it.  He lived with his eighty year old wife at the foot of Cold Spring road and the Hudson River.”

Pop Seeley obit from the New York Herald, February 18, 1915.

Another obituary, published in the New York Herald would report, “Andrew J. Seeley, the aged boatman of the Spuyten Duyvil and known to everyone in that vicinity as “Pop” Seeley, stepped into a coffee wagon at Broadway and 216^th Street last night and after ordering a sandwich dropped dead.  He was eighty-five years old and it was said his death as the result of general collapse.

Despite his age “Pop” Seeley could row a boat as strongly and skillfully as he did many years ago when he had a reputation as a sculler.  In the last forty years the police have credited him with numerous rescues off drowning persons in Spuyten Duyvil.  Only a month ago he saved a woman and her child.

His specialty was the rescuing of boys who insisted on swimming in the dangerous channel.  His boat was always at the ready for an emergency, and he pulled many of them out of the water.”

What follows is a description of an encounter with Pop Seeley written by a first class passenger on the electric launch Aria after the vessel made a stop at Seeley’s boathouse in 1904.  On October first of that year the account was printed in a periodical titled “Our Paper.”

“On the northern end of Manhattan Island will be found a place marked on the map as Spuyten Duyvil.  Although a part of the great New York city, it has not kept place with the populace’s grand march onward, but retains a great deal of its original simplicity.

Very near here is the King’s bridge of the Revolutionary time, which marked the outer barriers of the British forces and which was very carefully guarded by them.

Spuyten Duyvil Creek, itself, can be entered from both the Hudson and Harlem rivers and is a convenient thoroughfare for the smaller boats.

Here are planted the tiny oysters, and from here, when of the right size, millions of them are taken to larger beds.

No wise person ever attempts to swim across the Creek, as there are many treacherous little eddies and under currents to hamper the swimmer.

The story runs that way back in the time when the Dutch held sway over the island, a German was left by his fellows of one side of the Creek.  When he discovered their departure, heeding no warnings, he threw himself into the water, exclaiming, “I will swim across it in spite of the devil!” and away he went to his own destruction. Since then the place has born the name of Spuyten Duyvil.

On one side of the Creek is the Cold Spring Mountain—so named from the many springs of pure, cold water, which bubble out among and over the rocks.  Here, over the mountain, the Indians used to stealthily approach and make their mightily raids upon the unsuspecting villagers, and then, with a fierce war-whoop, triumphantly return, laden with their spoils.

But, in spite of all the wonderful happenings there in by-gone days, Spuyten Duyvil would be to us but simply a place of interest which we visited, had it not been for two personages whom we met there—known far and near in this region as the ‘powers that be’ of the Creek—Pop and Ma’am Seeley.  They are types of those kind-hearted people one sometimes meets in little out-of-the-way places—ignorant of the ways and workings of the great world, but well versed in local legendary lore and the simple mysteries of their own home life.

It was Pop who met us with outstretched hands, not a haughty New York shake, but a warm grip.  As an especial proof of good fellowship, according to his custom, he first made a pretense of spitting on his hands before extending them cordially.

It was Ma’am who welcomed us no less warmly and invited us to call, treating us with as much consideration as though we had been her especial guests.

A simple, kind-hearted old couple are they, who although not given to worldliness, live quiet, helpful lives, enjoying what pleasures come to them, without trying to seek outside interests.  Although living right in the shadow of New York city, Ma’am solemnly informed us she had never been to a theatre or a picnic in her life.  Her careful training has evidently extended to her daughter, who recorded but one picnic on her list of pleasures, and who, until her marriage, had never seen the inside of a theatre.

Pop seemed to delight a good deal in telling how he escaped the strict clutches of his better half.  Among his escapades was a visit to Coney Island by night, and one to the Aquarium at the battery by day.  He declared that Ma’am lay in wait for him with a broom when he at length stealthily returned.

Pop was a non-union man and gave us quite a spirited talk on the far-reaching powers of that organization.  A large building had to be left uncompleted because its builder did not “belong.” Other buildings put up by independent parties, were injured almost beyond repair.  No boats could get loads unless they were unionists.  He told the story of a thirty five cent pet-cock, which rapidly increased to a dollar and a half because it could not be sold unless a man went along to fix it.

The Seeley home is a small, unpainted house, presenting a better appearance inside than out.  The front commands a view of the wharves with their numerous houseboats, waiting for chance buyers or for some repairs. A little to the right of the house is the inevitable hen yard with its few tenants.

Following the well-worn path, protected by the many trees, you come to one of the famous cold springs and near it—if you please—is a building no less important than the one in which A. J. Seeley supplies his customers with tonics and a few of the luxuries of life.

Here you may find Pop at almost any hour, and here it is that pleasure parties stop to refresh themselves, or eat their luncheon and, as he would tell you, “to see Pop.”

Just back of the store stretches a long line of woods, and pedestrians may find many pleasant and well-beaten paths to take them to the top of the mountain. It is an ideal place to reach on a hot day.

Our memory steals back to the time when we left Spuyten Duyvil and our friends there.

It shows us Pop, leaning over a large pan, with a huge piece of watermelon in his hand.  Next we see Ma’am, with hands upraised and eyes turned heavenward, devoutly thanking God that a boat, stolen while left in her care, had been recovered.  There is Annie, earnestly telling of her miraculous escape from the owls of the wood, and of her thwarting their attempts to pick out her eyes by throwing her apron over her head.  The sleepy, frightened eyes of the tired little boy follow us wistfully.  Last, but not least, we recall the members of the crew returning to the Aria laden with their spoils, watermelon and tonic, so generously provided by the Seeley’s.  Then farewell to Spuyten Duyvil.”

Aftermath of Fire on 207th and Broadway (photo taken: January 4, 2012)

A massive fire ripped through a building on 207th and Broadway last night.  Above are before and after photos of the devastation.

For news and additional photos click on this news link from DNAInfo.com.

Princess Naomi and her grandchildren in 1930's photo taken by Reginald Bolton (Source:NYHS)

Since moving to Inwood  I’d heard stories of an almost mythical figure known only as Princess Naomi, who, in the 1930’s, took up residence near the old tulip tree in Inwood Hill Park. The site of the tree, which was felled by a hurricane in 1938, is now marked by a boulder with a plaque claiming to be the spot where Native Americans sold the entire island of Manhattan for a handful of trinkets. But for years, or so I’d been told, the shady spot along the Spuyten Duyvil, belonged to Naomi.

The story of Naomi fascinated me and I decided to make a trip to the National Museum of the American Indian to make an inquiry. What I received was an earful and an education on the public’s romantic notion of Indian life as presented in both history books and popular culture.  “First of all,” I was told, “there is no such thing as an Indian Princess.”

“Have you ever heard of an Indian King or Queen or Duke?” the woman asked in an unabashedly mocking tone.

“No,” I apologized, not meaning to offend.

Soon a rational discussion began, but the helpful staff of librarians and historians could find no mention of Naomi, sometimes spelled Naomie, in their records.

So the hunt continued—but gradually I began to stumble on bits and pieces of Naomi’s life and times in Inwood Hill.

Her real name was Naomi Kennedy.  She hailed from New Orleans.  And, if the stories are to be believed, she was of Cherokee descent.   (The original inhabitants of the area had been the Lenape.)

New York Evening Post, 1935.

According to a 1935 column in the New York Evening Post, titled “A Good Time on a Quarter,” tourists, curious New Yorkers and children could take the subway to 207^th Street and “lunch with an Indian with a gold tooth.”

The Indian, of course, was Naomi.

According to the article, in order to reach Naomi, one had to “walk west into Inwood Hill Park and take the plainly marked trail to the Tulip tree where Hendrick Hudson stepped ashore to barter with the Indians.”

And while the writer of the Post article, one Henry Beckett, may not have had a full grasp of Hudson’s voyage nor the politically correct vernacular of the modern age, he had met Naomi under the tulip tree in 1935 and left behind a description for the ages.

Tulip tree and cottage, 1913. (Source: Library of Congress)

According to Beckett, “Just beyond the tree, now dying at last, is a small brown house with green shutters. Go around to the front porch.  Unless unlucky, Indian braves and squaws in rocking chairs making souvenir trinkets of bright beads. Speak boldly, for there’s not a tomahawk on the premises, and ask for Princess Naomi.”

“Okay friend,” she said, using the Cherokee word for “righto,” when I requested a pow-wow. “Step inside and have a chair while I get my specs.”

Although her skin is coppery, the princess has a smile that is literally golden because of a gold tooth.  She wears Indian clothes decorated with much beadwork.

Boxer Bill Kennedy; record: (His boxing record: won 19 (KO 3) + lost 28 (KO 10) + drawn 10 = 62)

“Cherokees,” she said, “don’t have much show around here, so I am lucky to have this place.  I come from Oklahoma and my tribe used to live in Georgia, where they learned to speak English.  Well, I always wanted to come to New York, but my son, a boxer—he goes by the name of Billy Kennedy—told me I couldn’t stand an ordinary house, with steam heat, so he put in an application to get me the post of caretaker here.”

Thus it happens that a Cherokee princess is now queen of the Vale of Shora-Kap-Pok, a glen where the Weckuaesgeek once lived.

Naomi then went on to tell the reporter that she had held the post for the past six years.

“I must be the goods,” Naomi said.

Princess Naomi in front of Indian caves in Inwood Hill Park. (New Yorks Times, Nov. 15, 1936)

“All of the Indians in the city, about 600 of them, members of fifty tribes, come to see me.  Some make baskets, bracelets, and moccasins. Those on the porch now are Iroquois.  I get along with them all—Algonquians, Mohawk, anything.  I’m vice-president of the United Indians of America, a Brooklyn organization.  September 29 is Indian Day up here.  Big Doings.”

Naomi went on to tell the reporter, “Back in the woods a bit is what’s called an Indian cave, but between you and I and the gate-post, I don’t believe Indians ever lived there. It leaks.  Oh, here comes Chief White Eagle. My tribalman.”

“The chief,” the article continues, “who lives at the Y.M.C.A. and is a CWA recreation leader, wants to establish a real Indian village, with tepees and more substantial houses, all in Indian style.”

Interviewing Chief White Eagle, the reporter learned more of the plan for an Indian village in the park: “Indians would come here from all over.  Railroads could advertise it. Grand publicity.  I have a general plan for the village, but in order to lay it out right I must first fly over the ground in an airplane.”

Following up on Chief White Eagle’s comment, the reporter wrote: “The Chief’s countenance was as solemn as a Chief’s face should be. If the idea of using an airplane to lay out an Indian village struck him as incongruous, he did not show it.”

In summary, the Post reporter wrote, “The attractions of Inwood Park include glacial pot holes, with boulders maybe 50,000 years old, a shell heap indicating hundreds of years of Indian feasting, the pottery studio of Harry and Aimee Voorhees and the Dyckman Institute with its collections.

You too dear reader can lunch with an Indian princess on the shore of the Spuyten Duyvil (Harlem Ship Canal to you). Bring your own lunch.

EXPENSES: Subway: 10 cents. Large root beer served by princess: 10 cents. Bead trinket: nickel.  Total: Two bits.

Princess Naomi, Utica NY Observer, 1932

But Princess Naomi was much more than a local curiosity.  She was part of a growing neighborhood of which she truly seemed to care about.

Niagara Falls Gazette, Dec. 24, 1932

Several years before the article in the Post, Naomi saw a group of nearly thirty Inwood kids sliding and playing on the then frozen Spuyten Duyvil.  According to a 1932 article in the Niagara Falls Gazette, Naomi warned the children that the ice was dangerously thin; but kids being kids, they failed to heed her warning.

A short time later the ice gave way.

Naomi and her son Bill were helpless to stop the unfolding tragedy as they watched the kids take the icy plunge from the window of their cottage.

As the wet and shivering children scrambled out of the Spuyten Duyvil many likely made their way to Naomi’s cottage, described as a wooden shack directly across from the old Isham Park Yacht Club.

Unfortunately one child, ten-year-old James “Red” McGuire, who lived on Cooper street and attended Good Shepherd, drowned in the tragedy.

Of course there are other sources that mention Princess Naomi including the oral histories collected by author Jeff Kisseloff in his book “You Must Remember This.”

In one section Kisseloff  interviews Dorothy Menkin who moved to Inwood from the Bronx in 1933.  In the book Menkin describes the Inwood Hill Park of her youth: “There were two peach trees at the very top overlooking Dyckman Street.  The kids used to eat them, and of course they got sick.  Then there was the famous tulip tree.  It was almost dead then.  They were propping it up with cement.  The Indians would come in September and dance around that tree and sing their songs.  Princess Naomi had her little gift shop next to the tree.  She was some character.  She was in costume all the time, but come Sunday she took the costume off and walked around 207^th Street with high heels and everything.”

Another former Inwood resident, Mary Devlin, who was born in 1900, also had fond memories of Princess Naomi.  From her description to Jeff Kisseloff: “I used to take my children up to Inwood Hill Park every day.  There was a big spring right by Princess Naomi’s shop.  I would bring my empty milk bottles, fill them with water, and bring them home.

Princess Naomi was lovely.  My children were crazy about her.  She had a little museum with trinkets and things.  On Labor Day weekend, they had pow-wows every year.  The Indians came from all over, and they pitched their tents.  Then the men would put up a platform, where they all did their dances, and they had Indian contests.”

Annual Indian Day Festival in Inwood Hill Park, New York Times, October 1, 1934

But while these staged gatherings were thrilling events for the children of Inwood and the surrounding region, the participants themselves often had misgivings about the performances.

Native American Gloria Miguel, who lived in Brooklyn, dreaded the subway rides to Inwood.  Half Algonquin and half Cuna (a Central American tribe), young Gloria, who answered to Bright Moon at home, described her childhood experiences to Jeff Kisseloff:

“When I went up to Inwood, it was like a big spotlight on me.  I went along with my family because they took me, but I was very shy about it. I didn’t want people to look at me or take photographs of me.  It wasn’t until later that I realized that my background was something to be very proud of and that those people were just ignorant.

I had a North American outfit that my mother made for me.  It was a little dress made of cloth with some fringe on it.  I had moccasins and a beaded headband.  It was just a show outfit.  It wasn’t from the background of my people.  Since my parents did this for show business, they dressed according to what the show was.  They both had authentic costumes at home.  I just sat in my costume and watched.

Indian festival day in Inwood Hill Park, 1930's. (Source: Public Places of Childhood, 1915-1930, Sanford Gaster)

With the pow-wows (where she met Crazy Bull, the grandson of Sitting Bull) they were grasping onto the culture, trying to be proud in their way.  That moment was there for them before going back to welfare and their own neighborhood.  It was their way of holding on.”

Robert Moses

By 1938, Robert Moses, as part of his development plan for the park, evicted all of the residents, legal or illegal, of Inwood Hill.  There were house-boaters, potters, squatters and of course Princess Naomi and her son Billy Kennedy, a featherweight boxer who helped build and paint fences in the park when he wasn’t in the ring. (His boxing record: won 19 (KO 3) + lost 28 (KO 10) + drawn 10 = 62)

Years later, Moses would say of the eviction process, which included chopping down what was left of the tulip tree: “There were other trees, many decrepit. In the middle was a kiln where an Indian princess taught ceramics under dubious auspices. She had a son who didn’t work. Both were on relief, and the relief checks were delivered to the princess at a mailbox fastened to a tree. The hullabaloo about disturbing the princess, the kiln, the old tulip tree, and other flora and fauna was terrific.” (Public Works, 1970).

Where Princess Naomi wound up after her unceremonious eviction in a mystery to this writer, but hopefully someone reading this article can help fill in those missing pieces.

Broadway near Academy Street in 1925.

This holiday season, like many of my Inwood neighbors, I chose to remain home when I would really rather have been sunning myself on just about any faraway sandy beach.  So, instead of climbing the walls, I took several walks in a convenient oasis just several blocks away—Inwood Hill Park.

The brisk hikes reminded me of an article I read not long ago in the New York Herald which advised cash strapped New Yorkers that they need not stay at home—that natural wonders lay just a short hike away.

While the below piece was written in 1912, it holds as true today as when it was written a century ago.

New York Herald, July 21, 1912

New York, Herald
July 21, 1912
Vacations “on the Half Shell”

"The Dyckman House," by Ernest Lawson, 1913.

“The stay-at-homers solved the vacation problem.  Instead of moping because they cannot go to the seashore or the mountains and spend a ‘wad’ of money, they smile optimistically and take their vacations ‘on the half shell.’  Furthermore, they declare it a great sport.

Within the borders of Manhattan alone, unappreciated because unsought, the stay-at-homes are finding the beauties of the South of France and rural England, the romance of the Riviera and the serenity of a Swiss valley, each in capsular form and waiting to be taken at the rate of one a day.

A five-cent fare, either by the Broadway surface car or the subway brings you to Dyckman street.  Here you can take the open highway.  You may be inclined to loiter under the shadow of the towering oaks and elms of Inwood, and to spread you picnic lunch on the huge boulders along the way, not knowing the beauties further on. But wait!  A short block from Broadway to Prescott Avenue there is an abrupt turn, and you enter picturesque Bolton Road.

It seems like a bit of rural England, and looks it, too, with a dash of the Isle of Wight, the River Thames and the Embankments thrown in.

From the brow of the hill nearby there is a marvelous view of the Palisades and the Hudson.  A bit further and you come to the forbidding walls of the circumspect Magdalen Home on the river side.  To the right is a deserted mansion commanding a splendid view of the Palisades and the river.  Further on is atypical countryseat.  It would cover many city blocks and extends from Bolton road down to the Hudson.

Straus residence on Bolton Road.

A little further on is the old Isidor Straus country place, the last house on Manhattan Island.  From every point at this end of the island are extended views of the Hudson and Harlem rivers, Fordham Heights, the Hall of Fame, Bronx Park and the uplands of Long Island, while directly opposite are the Englewood cliffs.

A few paces beyond is a strange formation of rock which is the Mecca of many a geological class.  It is the product of some pre-glacial period.

The James McCreery home on Inwood Hill.

The return trip may be taken by the roadway close to the river, past the McCreery and numerous other old Knickerbocker mansions that will have passed when the City takes over this section as a park.  One of these old homes now furnishes the background for a well know moving picture concern, where ‘Wild West’ pictures by the score are produced with no other mountain scenery available than the Palisades.  The river road, though less secluded than Bolton road, is nevertheless quaint and picturesque, and a bit more like Normandy than cosmopolitan New York.  St. Michael’s Villa, which stands high on the opposite cliffs, makes the illusion complete.

Having made the detour to the upper portion of the island, the foot of Dyckman street is reached.  Here the motor ferry may be taken to the Palisades side, but that is really another day’s jaunt.”

Happy Holidays Inwood!

530 West 215th Street, Inwood, NYC.

530 West 215th Street at Park Terrace East

Many people, some who’ve lived in the neighborhood for years, often ask me, “What’s the deal with the beautiful bricked up building next door to the Northeast Academy School?”

Well, here’s the deal:

If the  architecture looks institutional in style,  it should.  Built by architect James O’Connor in 1912 , the home served as the private residence of William Hurst, his wife, Minnie, and their ten children.

Minnie and William H. Hurst. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Wright who wrote into MyInwood.net: "Mr. Hurst's daughter Theresa was my Grandmother".

A noted architect, O’Connor graduated from Columbia University in 1898 where he earned the degree of Bachelor of Science in Architecture. The native New Yorker also studied in Paris at the Ecole de Beaux Arts before returning to the States to form his own architectural firm. During a later partnership with James F. Delaney, the two would design convents, schools and public housing projects including the Morrisania Housing project in the Bronx, the convent and  hospital building for St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village as well as the Tuberculosis and Cancer Hospital on Roosevelt Island.  Over the course of an impressive career, which spanned the first half of the Twentieth century, O’Connor found himself the recipient of numerous architectural awards for both residential and commercial projects, including best design for his work on the Grace Steamship Lines building; once located downtown.

A specialist in the design of indoor tennis courts, O’Connor would also design private residences up and down the east coast including homes in Middleburg, Virginia,  Greenwich, Connecticut and of course the old brick  house on 215th Street designed for William H. Hurst.

William H. Hurst. (Photo courtesy of Hurst Great-Grandson Kevin Wright)

The 100 x 120 foot lot, which sat across the street from the old Seaman Mansion, was purchased  by Hurst in 1910.  A wealthy man, Hurst made his fortune as as president of the Stock Quotation Telegraph Company, which supplied stock ticker equipment to financial firms.  A year after purchasing the property, Hurst would serve as jury foreman in the famous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in which some 146 garment workers, mostly young girls, were killed.  The lethal inferno remains the deadliest industrial accident in New York City history.

Hurst real estate transfer, New York Daily Tribune, April 15, 1910.

Like the current south-north migration, Hurst moved his large family to Inwood to escape the cramped quarters of their former West 80′s townhouse.

Mr. and Mrs. Hurst would also require extra living quarters for their servants.

View of Hurst home in 1920's as seen from traffic circle near current site of Bruce's Garden.

According to the New York Times, “The 1925 census return shows him in the house with his family, four female Irish servants and Alex Setchof, a 22-year-old Russian chauffeur. All five of the staff had been in the United States for only a year.

In 1921, a butler, James J. O’Brien, sued Hurst because he was bitten by the family poodle on the lawn while serving tea. Mr. O’Brien wanted $2,000, and said that Hurst had pressured him to settle for only $25; it is not clear how the case was resolved.”

While little has been written about the lives of the Hurst family–a writer named Robert Emmet Ireton dedicated his 1909 book, A Central Bank,  to “William H. Hurst,  President of the Stock Quotation Company, Treasurer of the New York News Bureau Association, Loyal Friend and Citizen…as a Token of Esteem, Regard and Respect.”

Old newspaper clippings also tell us that  the family placed an advertisement in 1917 seeking the services of a private nurse.  Perhaps one of their ten children suffered some chronic malady?

Hurst family seeks nurse, New York Herald December 2, 1917.

Old newspaper clippings also tell us that the Hurst family lost a daughter in 1925 and that the funeral mass was held inside Good Shepherd Church, just down the street from the family home.

Hurst loses daughter, New York Timess June 20, 1925.

The family would be rocked by another tragedy when Minnie Hurst, who had mothered ten children, died in January of 1929.  Like her daughter before her, Minnie’s funeral was held at the Church of Good Shepherd.  There was likely not a dry eye in the house.

Minnie Hurst obituary- The Kingston Daily Freeman, Jan 26, 1929

Hurst himself would die less than two months after his wife’ s passing.

William Hurst Obituary, NY Times, March 25, 1929

Hurst estate settled, New York Times, September 26, 1930.

After Hurst’s death in 1929, according to the New York Times, the property was sold and the brick building, with terra cotta detailing, was converted into a convent. In 1946 the grounds were expanded to create the Garrard School of the Academy of the Sacred Heart of Mary.

Sacred Heart of Mary ad, Herald Statesman, Yonkers, March 16, 1968.

A local resident who attended the school in 1964 described life there in a neighborhood forum. “The entrance way was a grand style with black and white tiles, a crystal chandelier and symmetric winding staircases to the second floor. To the left of the staircase was a sunroom which was used as a sacristy for the chapel. On the first floor there were two sitting rooms on each side of the entrance. Opening into the lager area a chapel on the right and a classroom on the left (front hall like a T shape).

Upstairs another grand entrance way with the classrooms surrounding it. All rooms with fireplaces and sunshine. Some rooms were painted light blue and some light yellow. Mantels were white. On the third floor were the nun’s quarters. One died up there so there could be a ghost. We heard rumors of terrible things that went on up there. We had quite an imagination.

In the basement were the kitchen and a room to eat. Not a full cafeteria style. There was a nun that was one of the lesser orders of the RSHM and she was called “sister”, as opposed to “Madame” which (is what we called) the teachers.

We learned and spoke French. All prayers were in French and we had to curtsey in a sweeping style bringing one leg out in a ballet motion and bow with skirt held. Meeting a nun in the hallway to curtsey was difficult when you had a full load of books in your arms.”

The school closed around 1969, and in 1974 the Northeastern Conference of Seventh-day Adventists bought the old Hurst house as well as the property next door, 632 West 215th Street, for a new school, Northeastern Academy.

Unfortunately, Mr. Hurst’s former home, which had fallen into disuse, was gutted by a fire set by vandals in 1988 and has been bricked up ever since.

And…as often happens when digging through history, one often finds something unexpected.

According to 1936 newspaper advertisement, the family of William La Morte lived in a home where Northeastern Academy now stands—Their house was built in 1925 and boy did they like their carbs.

1936 ad from the Herald Statesman, Yonkers, November 18, 1936 (note the address under the family photo is 532 West 215th Street.)

James Reuel Smith

Today, when a New Yorker wants a glass of water, feels like a shower or needs to wash the dishes; the act is as easy as turning on a tap.  But, before the turn of the twentieth century such simple tasks took a bit more effort—especially in the then undeveloped land of northern Manhattan, where the infrastructure simply didn’t exist.

Gathering even a pail full of water was a laborious task and typically involved a walk to the nearest spring or well.

Luckily, for early residents, Inwood was blessed with some of the freshest and coolest drinking water Mother Nature could provide—and for early settlers, those water sources were plentiful.

But, as time marched on, most of these naturally occurring water supplies were plugged up, paved over and simply forgotten.  If not for the writings and photographs of an obscure author named James Reuel Smith, even the memory of these springs and wells might have been forever lost.

Beginning in 1897, Smith began bicycling around the then rural areas of northern Manhattan and the Bronx, with a camera and a notebook in hand, interviewing old timers about ancient drinking holes and taking snapshots whenever possible.

Springs and Wells title page

Born in 1852 in Skaneateles, New York, Smith understood, as the dawn of a new century approached, that he would likely be the last person to photograph the bubbling springs before they disappeared completely—as had already happened in lower Manhattan.

While the image of a grown man on a bicycle photographing water sources, some no larger than a puddle, might seem eccentric, especially for a married man, Smith offered no apologies.  He had no children and a considerable amount of family money, so why not indulge in a hobby?

And write he did.  Sometimes he would spend an entire afternoon in the shade of a dying cherry tree writing about the sweet taste of the fruit while speculating about its origin.  Was it once part of a larger orchard?  Like so many amateur historians, his curiosity was as much endearing as informative.

While Smith would never live to see his work published—he died in 1935—he left his notes and photographs to the New York Historical Society, which, in turn, published his papers in 1938 in a rare book aptly titled The Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century.

In his notes, Smith would write, “A city spring frequently possesses all the beautiful surroundings of a rural one, and besides exciting that pathetic interest aroused by something pleasurable which will shortly cease to exist, it is, for the meditative, a link which connects the thoughts with the past.”

What follow are several photos and descriptions of the wells and springs once located in the Inwood are that were captured by Smith in 1897 as he rode around the neighborhood on his bicycle.

Dyckman Street Between Nagle and Post Avenues: Plate 47a

Plate 47a from James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century"

September 25, 1897.  Some three hundred feet north of Dyckman Street, there is a spring at the base of a vertical of rocky ground covered with a thick clump of trees. Dyckman Street was formerly called Inwood Lane.

Northeast of Dyckman Street and F Street (Payson Avenue) Plate 47b

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century"

September 25, 1897.  At a point about three hundred feet northeast of the intersection of F Street and Dyckman Street is located what is probably the most generally known spring in the city.  Its water has been demonstrated by numerous analyses to be the purest on Manhattan Island.  It is situated at the base of a perpendicular wall of rock sixty feet in height and as many in width.  A little brick coping has been built out from the face of the rock, making a basin some five feet long and two feet wide.  The water is about fifteen inches deep.  It is on the Gantz property and is called “the white stone spring.”

Cooper Street and West 204^th Street: Plate 48 and 49a

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

May 18, 1898.  Hawthorne Street (West 204^th Street) and Cooper Street were built up some twenty feet above the natural level of the land with many pieces of white marble from the quarry.  Cooper Street runs over the original site of this spring, but the owner of the ground insisted on having the spring preserved, so a semi-circular well of marble was built around the western half of the spring.  The water is very cool, although the sun, during the first half of the day, shines down full upon it.  The milkman, William Drennan, who lives on the Kingsbridge Road (Broadway) just above, and his brother, a plumber, made the connection to carry the spring’s water to its present location.  They disconnect the pipe in the winter to prevent freezing. To the right of the pipe is a culvert through which a brook runs through the meadows farther west, and joins the water flowing from the spring.  The two streams, united, run under the little dark red house below.  The Drennans never had a well built but used this spring when it stood in front of the French-roof house now facing Cooper Street and not far from it.  They still keep milk in the little house over the brook, in a large box through which the water runs. (They have Croton water at the house.)

Cooper Street is about two hundred and fifty feet west of, and parallel to, the Kingsbridge Road, from which the spring and the little house over the brook are plainly visible.  In the photograph (plate 48) the red wooden milk house may be seen in the lower left corner; in the center and left of the center are two houses on Cooper Street, and above, along the heights of Inwood, are several homes along Prescott (Payson) Avenue.

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

On Line Of 213^th Street East Of Line Of Ninth Avenue (The Nagle or Century House) Plate 49b

May 18, 1898.  In 1736 John Nagle built him a stone dwelling on the banks of the Harlem River at what is now 213^th Street and he built so well that the house is standing and occupied today.  It is now resplendent in a new red roof and suit of clapboards given it by its owner.  The house is at present occupied by a man named White.  In 1861, it was a house of entertainment known as Post’s Century House.

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

The spring well of this house is about seventy-five feet west of it, and about three hundred feet east of the line of Ninth Avenue, which has been laid out this year.  The water is about six feet below the level of the ground and is three feet deep and not very clear.  There is no cover over the well, which is curved with loose stones at the top.  Down below it is some five feet across. The pail is one of tin; it is well rusted and leaks.

West of the well is an old graveyard with some forty graves in it.  The oldest decipherable date is 1825 and some of the names are Vermilye, Harris, Lockwood, and Smith.  Near the graveyard is an old orchard of considerable extent, with apple, plum, and other fruit trees.  It is the largest orchard left on Manhattan Island.

Isham Estate (Isham Park) Isham Stable Spring: Plate 50a

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

June 9, 1898.  Along the easterly border of a marshy meadow, which stretches to the Harlem Ship Canal, there is a fence on the Isham property, near the stable. Twelve feet east of the fence, sixty feet east of the back part of the meadow, and about 500 feet from the Canal, there is a spring.  It is at the foot of one of four little fruit trees, which, with two others a short distance away, are all that is left of what was perhaps long ago a flourishing orchard.  The tree behind the spring looks like a peach tree.  Buttercups grow around it.  Wild birds sing in the four fruit trees and drink at the spring.  Their piping song mingles with the whistling tugs on the Canal.  The Isham’s horses and three cows come to the spring about noon for their drink, the cows respectfully giving precedence when a thirsty horse approaches by rising lumberingly and moving away with dignified alacrity.

The spring rises at the base of a small rock.  It is eighteen inches deep and about twenty inches across.  Natural rock forms the back of its basin, and in the front a piece of white Kingsbridge marble, which has become slimy and yellowish-brown.  Bubbles rise from the bottom, which is somewhat sandy and over which a conical fungus grows.  The water is not cold but cool. Although exposed to the direct rays of the sun.  I drank from it, and found it a trifle salty.  The overflow runs into the marsh.

Isham Estate (Isham Park) Isham Meadow Spring: Plate 50b

June 29, 1898.  About twenty-five feet southeast of the Isham stable spring, and on the other (or west) side of the fence, there is a spring.  It bubbles up freely like champagne at the southwestern end of a small ledge of rock that crops out from nearly the lowest level of the marshy meadow by the Spuyten Duyvil Creek.  The rocky ledge forms one third of the basin, the rest being made of bricks laid in mortar. The spring is about three feet from side to side and two feet from back to front.  The water is about two feet deep; although the outlet pipes still projecting up, and some pieces of brickwork, show that it was once a foot deeper.  The curbing has probably been trampled down by the cows that pasture in this meadow.  The bottom is sandy, and the same brown fungus that grows in the stable spring grows in this one.  The water is cold and nice, although it is completely open to the sun.  There is a frog in the spring.  In the bottom there is a piece of iron pipe about two inches in diameter, which leads away in the shape of an “L” to the southwest.  The pipe perhaps follows the path of least resistance in the ground and supplies a pump in the barn, for there is no house on the meadow, nor would its boggy condition lead one to suppose that there was ever a house there.  The overflow from this spring runs away into the marsh, as does that of the stable spring.

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

This is, I think, one of the most pleasantly situated springs of all.  It is not only pretty in itself, but is picturesquely located.  From it there is a view across the meadow, through the opening where the Spuyten Duyvil Creek empties into the Hudson, of the Palisades on the opposite side of the River.  The surrounding scenery is dominated on the west by the towering cliff of Inwood, and enclosed on the south and east by the rolling slopes that run back to the Kingsbridge Road (Broadway).

Between Broadway And Spuyten Duyvil Creek, South of West 218^th Street- The Seaman-Drake Estate: Plates 51 and 52

June 29, 1898.  West of the Kingsbridge Road (Broadway) and Northeast of the Isham estate, is the magnificent Seaman-Drake estate.  The property contains twenty-six acres, and as formerly owned by Valentine Seaman.  Its large white marble entrance arch (said to have cost $30,000) is within a few hundred yards of the northern end of Manhattan Island, opposite West 216^th Street, and is just “twelve miles from New York” according to the old brown milestone set by the roadside, just south of the arch.  This arch has for half a century challenged the admiring observation of every traveler entering or leaving New York City by the Hudson River Railroad.

The grounds are a specimen of old-time gardening, laid out in the Italian style with statues, walks and driveways.  Scattered about are small pieces of marble statuary on pedestals, representing Europa, Euterpe, and other classical characters.  Where the walks lead down a slope there are marble steps, with figures of lions at the sides. The dwelling itself is of marble and has ampelopsis vines trailed over its south side.  By those who live within sight of it, it is familiarly called “the marble house.”  This mansion is said to have cost $150,000.  From it there is a fine view of Spuyten Duyvil Creek towards the Hudson on the north and of the Harlem River towards the south.  The chief man now in charge has been there only eighteen months but the man under him has been there or in the immediate neighborhood some thirty years.  He lived near the Inwood Cold Spring sixteen years and built the basin for it.

Near and north of the marble entrance arch there was a fishpond, fed by a spring, which within the last month has been filled in by Mr. White who occupies the Nagle House.  Some of the gold and silver fish that used to be in it were eight or ten inches long, the caretaker says.  So many fish were taken from it that the neighborhood still smells of their decayed bodies.

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

The road from the entrance arch winds through the grounds up a gradual ascent to about sixty feet higher than the Kingsbridge Road level.  At this point, about three-eighths of a mile in, there is a well with a lattice arbor, south of the mansion.  (Plate 51a)  It is reached by a broad path on which there are a few stone steps ornamented at the sides with two large mortar vases prettily carved, and containing century plants.  The well is eighty-five feet deep, four and one half feet across, and curbed with stones.  It is latticed over, and is in good preservation.  It is fitted with a pump, of which the sucker was too dry to work, when I first visited the well, in May of this year 1898.  The pump was not used while the estate was leased by the driving club (which was until about a year ago.) The caretaker has since, however, poured water down the tube and got it working, and now, in June, he drinks nothing but this water.  He even carried it with him, for I found him making hay with a jug of this water carefully placed near him in the shadow of a haycock.

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

The gardener’s house, a stone structure, stands some five-hundred feet from the Harlem Ship Canal, and is shown in two of the photographs (Plates 51b and 52b).  There are large trees about its eastern front and ampelopsis vines growing over the wall at the back.  It has a one story extension with a roof shingled with wide cut slates.  Two gutters, one in front and one at the rear, conduct the water by two pipes down the southern end.  The two pipes join near the ground forming a large “Y,” the stem of which carries the water to a circular cistern with a wooden top and a trap door.  The cistern is full today (June 29, 1898).  A pipe leads from it to a pump in the gardener’s house.

There is a smaller cistern at the barn from which (when needed for the horses) the water is pumped into a large block of stone that has been symmetrically hollowed out as a trough.

North of the mansion there is a well which is now flagged over.  It used to feed the house pump, which has since been connected with the Croton system.  Water used to be pumped from the cistern near the mansion to the top of the edifice, to supply a fountain in the grounds.  As the house is some forty-five feet high, sufficient pressure was thus obtained to give a stream with considerable play, when water was turned on at the fountain.

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

The mushroom house on the estate is dug into the side of a hill.  It is some twenty-five feet wide and deep, and twenty feet high.  The back of it is formed by the natural rock of the hillside.  The front wall is two feet thick and is entered by a narrow and high doorway.  The door has fallen to decay.  In front of the house is a planked space some six by fifteen feet; the caretaker says the spring rises under this planking.  The water of it is first visible, however, some three-hundred feet away in a field, in a barrel (sunk in the ground and almost hidden from view in the tall June grass), to which a pipe leads from the mushroom house spring. (Plate 52a)  A few feet away is a box that formerly stood over the barrel.  Nearby, a line of white daisies marks the direction of a winding path that was once upon a time used from the gardeners house north to the stable.

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

West of the gardener’s house, and about forty feet from the edge of the Harlem Ship Canal, there is another spring. (Plate 52b) It is in the angle of a fence corner, about eight feet from the fence and near a gate that leads to a dock on the Canal.  The spring is two feet in diameter, and its basin is a large piece of cement pipe stuck in the ground.  The curbing of the spring is about four inches higher.  The outlet is through a slit in the cement curbing, and the water runs from it through the grass and into the creek.  The spring has a sandy bottom.  The land hereabouts is practically flat, and the ground nearby is marshy.  The caretaker says that the spring sometimes goes salty.

When they began to dredge the Harlem Ship Canal, the men took water from this spring for their boilers, but Mr. Drake objected. So they dug a hole about three feet deep in the ground on the other side of the fence, about twelve feet north of the spring, and thus took the overflow of the spring and obtained sufficient water.

West Of Broadway, North Of West 218^th Street (Baker Field Of Columbia University) The Isaac M. Dyckman Well: Plate 53a

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

June 29, 1898.  The (Isaac M.) Dyckman house is west of the Kingsbridge Road, north of West 218^th Street.  Its well is just north of the porch at the west end of the house.  This is a latticed well, built something like the Seaman-Drake well, but having a rope and bucket instead of a pump.  The rope runs over an iron pulley at the top.  Its use was discontinued within a year or so apparently because one of the buckets broke, and there is Croton water in the house, there was no urgent need for replacing it.  The well is about twenty-five feet deep.  It has a trap door, which is now down.  There is a spout at the side, and a stone slightly hollowed out to catch and carry off the water without having it dig a hole into the ground.  The entrance to the well is within three feet of the house, almost facing the house, so that it is not easily photographed by daylight.

This well is just about opposite the power house on the Kingsbridge Road, and west of it about four hundred feet.

North Of West 218^th Street, Near Spuyten Duyvil Creek: The Dyckman Ice Pond: Plate 53b

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

June 29, 1898.  The Dyckman ice pond is about one hundred and fifty feet north of the gardener’s cottage on the Seaman-Drake estate.  It is a beautiful object.  The pond is about three hundred feet long by seventy-five feet wide and for the most part is cut out of the natural solid rock.  Heavy trees and foliage and vines surround it, and I came within a foot or two of walking into it over a bluff twenty-five feet high! A swallow was busily engaged skimming for insects on the pond and it darted about dipping into the water with a swishing splash every now and then.

The southern end of the pond is made of small blocks of Kingsbridge marble and there is a sluice cut to let the water out into the creek a few hundred feet away.  Near this sluice is a wooden platform with two long planks extending out into the pond.  It was made to haul ice up when it is cut from the pond.  They did not cut ice here last year.  These planks, worn quite smooth and white, were covered with a thousand tadpoles, and from the other end, every few moments, came the deep note of a full-grown bullfrog.

At the north, the shore of the pond slopes steeply upward with a bend, forming a ravine, which is crossed by a rustic bridge.  On the pond is a small red rowboat with a small anchor as if it were used for fishing in the pond.

This pond is supplied by springs, although there is Croton water laid into it also.  It takes two or three days to fill the pond when it has been drawn off for cleaning.

Just north of the pond is a hill, covering about three acres of ground, made from the white stone and stuff taken from the Canal, and for which the United States are paying Mr. Dyckman $2000 a year rent.  What with rain and settling, it is so solid a mass that Mr. White, the man who filled the Seaman-Drake fish pond, found it cheaper to go a good deal farther and get earth to fill with.

Near Spuyten Duyvil Creek, Inwood: The “Cold Spring”: Plates 54a and 54b

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

November 13, 1897.  The “Cold Spring” is some eight hundred feet south of the most northern point of Inwood, and on the east side of it.  It is about one hundred feet from the shore of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, or as it has come to be known as in it’s enlarged and modernized condition, the Harlem Ship Canal.  It is some six feet long east and west, and three feet wide north and south.  Its water comes out from under a piece of rock, and a spring house is built over it of just the dimensions of the spring and some six feet high.  From this house a pipe runs the distance of some ten feet into a barrel sunk in the ground.  The overflow runs out of the barrel near the top and into the Creek.

This is the largest spring within the corporate limits of the City of New York.

With the exception of the cottage of an old boatman, Abraham Seeley by name, there is not a house within a mile of this spring, but it pours forth as copious a stream as though its duties were to supply a city’s needs.

May 21, 1898.  The man on the Seaman-Drake estate lived at Cold Spring sixteen years and made a basin for it.  He says it discharges six gallons a minute, which is about three times as much as the flow from the usual bathroom faucet.

Near Cold Spring are two others, one nearly hid at high tide and cut out of a white rock.

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

June, 1898.  As this spring interfered with Seeley’s sale of soft drinks to boatmen, he put a padlock on the spring house, and filled in with earth the space where the water appeared outside, so that the overflow runs into the creek below the level of the tide.

On Tuesday, June 28, 1898, Murray’s house back of Seeley’s caught fire from frying fish, and burned down at four in the afternoon.  The fire engine had such a time getting there that it did not reach the place until half past four!  Even the next day many believed that it was Seeley’s house which had burned, and the cause of the fire was said to be incendiary resentment over Seeley’s having closed the “cold spring.”

Inwood Hill, East Side: Plate 55a

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

June 9, 1898.  This spring is about one hundred feet down from the road that, after resolutely winding its way through the forest of Inwood on the east side, finally when it is within half a mile of the northern end goes about and retraces its course towards the south again, although somewhat west of its first course.  The spring is some fifteen feet above the level of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek and within fifty feet of it.  A walk three boards wide leads to it from a little house nearby and towards the east.  It rises in two barrels side by side south of the walk.  One of them, for drinking purposes,  is covered with a hinged wooden flap, and the other, for ablutions is open.  The water is said to be a little hard for washing, unless soda is added, so rain is used for laundry purposes. The water appears to be muddy, but this is only the color of the sides of the barrels, for when water is dipped out, it is found to be crystal-white, as well as cold and very nice to the taste. The board walk is on the north side of the spring.  On the south side there is a board platform to stand on, as the ground is wet and soppy from little trickling streams.

If there is pure spring water anywhere on Manhattan Island, it should be found here, as there is only one house within four hundred feet of it, a second about seven hundred feet away, and no other within half a mile.  The primitive forest surrounds it without anything to contaminate the soil.  Immense tall trees, thick green foliage, and tiny rivulets, trickling down the sides of the hill are the characteristics of the place.

Inwood Hill, West Side: Plate 55b

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

May 18, 1898.  This spring is reached by following the road from Tubby Hook north along the Hudson.  It is about seventy-five feet from the river and forty feet above its level.  A basin has been scooped out of the nearly solid rock for it, and the sides of the basin slope conically upwards very symmetrically so that the periphery of the water at the surface is nearly a perfect circle.  A dome of stones is arched over the top almost exactly reversing the lines of the sloping walls of the basin below.  The dome is open in the front and the contour of the inside is that of a perfectly formed lemon.  The periphery of the basin at the surface of the water is cemented to make it perfect in form. The water is about two and one half feet deep and about three and one half feet in diameter.  The top of the arch is about three feet above the surface of the water.  The water is cold and good to the taste, and so crystally clear that the sides and top of the dome are reflected in it as in a mirror.  The overflow disappears down in a channel made in cement.

Two short converging gravel paths lead up to the spring from the road, and there is a house on the property about three hundred feet northeast of the spring.  Above the spring stands a sign reading “No Trespassing Allowed.” Round and about are large trees.

Inwood Hill, West Side: Plate 56a

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

May 18, 1898.  The last house on the Bolton Road is Mr. James McCreery’s.  One eighth of a mile south of this house, about two hundred feet from the Hudson River, a pump comes up through a slab of blue stone four feet square.  The handle is broken off near the top and the pump is rusty; it has evidently not been used for some time.  The pump is on a terrace some fifty feet above the level of the Hudson, and there are several terraces above it, which appear to have to have once formed a serpentine road to the river but now are so grass grown that they look merely like sloping lawns.  There is a pretty view of the river from here although now it is disfigured with shad poles, and the fishermen are inspecting their nets.  Wild birds are singing in the large forests round about and no sound is heard that is foreign to the country.

A maid in spectacles offered me a drink of distilled and boiled water as they have no well or spring and use Croton water.

Inwood Hill, Northern End: Plate 56b

From James Reuel Smith's "Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, at the End of the Nineteenth Century."

June 19, 1898.  This forest well is nearly the highest point of Inwood and just beyond it the hill slopes down to the Spuyten Duyvil Creek.  It is the last natural water supply source on Inwood ridge and is nearly  a half a mile from any habitation.  The water is about five feet from the top, and about a yard in circumference.  It is symmetrically curbed with stones, and is covered with two flat heavy stones, one of which I could hardly move, and the other not at all.  The water is perfectly clean on top as the stones protect it thoroughly. Although it is within two feet of the pathway, it would never be noticed by a stranger as the covering stones look perfectly natural.

Seeley told me about it and said it was twenty-five feet deep.  Afterwards the man on the Seaman-Drake place told me that he measured it on a bet with McCreery’s gardener, and that it was thirty-four feet to the bottom.  He said it once supplied McCreery’s house.

Where does the water come from that rises to within five feet of the top of almost the highest point in Inwood?

A little brooklet appears about three hundred feet away and loses itself in some underground passage on its way to Spuyten Duyvil Creek.

Seeley’s son says that not far from here were found battle axes and other relics, and a cave that had been made by Indian braves.  He got a piece of British money from the cave but when he went to find the cave a second time there was no trace of it.  There had been a landslide, and hundreds of tons of stone concealed the place.

Author’s note:  After reading Smith’s account, myself, Cole Thompson, my partner on all things Inwood history related, Don Rice and his sons, James and Alan, took to Inwood Hill for an exploratory mission of our own.  To our amazement, we think we may have located the final well described by Smith (Plate 56b above).  The description and location felt right to us, but who knows.  Check out the Youtube video below and judge for yourself.

Bad Girl by Vina Delmar

In 1928 pulp fiction author Vina Delmar burst onto the publishing scene with “Bad Girl,” a shocking and scandalous exploration of pre-marital sex and pregnancy. At the time of its publication “Bad Girl” was considered so racy it was banned in parts of the country. The petite 23-year-old with porcelain skin and lustrous black hair worn in a bob, seemed perplexed by the controversy surrounding her first novel. “I spent three years and a half working on the book. I wrote it about people I know because I lived among them and saw them daily,” she would tell one critic.

The controversy however, proved extremely profitable. Before the book hit the shelves the young author was given a $10,000 advance.

Vina Delmar

The following year, Delmar, born Alvina Croter in New York City in 1904, published two more lurid tales of modern women living in the big city. Both “Loose Ladies” and “Kept Woman” explored the sex lives of pent up New York women.

“Kept Woman,” for the most part, was set in Inwood, and its pages included descriptions of familiar streets including Dyckman, Vermilyea, 207th and Broadway. Avon Publishing described “Kept Woman” as “a great novel of the life of the ‘other’ woman.”

Kept Woman by Vina Delmar

According to the book jacket, lead character Lillian Cory “was flattered when well-to-do, good-looking Hubert Scott fell in love with her, but she found herself faced with a painful decision when she learned he was married and could not be divorced. Should she suppress her emotions and turn away from him-or should she give in to their love and become his mistress?”

In one scene two cheating couples are making dinner plans when Lillian, the heroine of the story, suggests, “How about the Arras Inn?”

“Why the Arras Inn?” a member of the party asks.

“Because nobody else seems to have thought of a place and the Arras Inn is in my neighborhood and I can duck right home after I’m fed,” Lillian responded.

The book continues:

“The ride back to Inwood was the same as the one to the roadhouse…Hubert drove at twenty miles an hour and Lillian smoked and thought what she would order at the Arras Inn. Lobster for choice. But suppose they didn’t have lobster? A club sandwich, maybe. Or a chicken salad.

When the couples arrived at the Arras Inn, Delmar continued:

The Arras Inn was on Broadway, a few doors off 207th Street. It was a long, narrow place with latticed walls and colored lampshades. There was music, singing, and once or twice a fire to vary the monotony.

There was lobster. Everybody ordered lobster. Little talking was done as the party chewed small, thin claws and delved hopefully into large, fat claws. Hubert had mayonnaise all over his mouth. Lillian didn’t think it very becoming. She wanted to tell him to use his napkin, but she was afraid it would make him angry. She kept her eyes resolutely turned away from him.

The waiter came and carried away the shells. Lillian ventured a look at Hubert. There was still some mayonnaise down in the corner of his mouth. May came to the rescue.

“Big Boy,” she said, “wipe your mouth and if your nose needs blowing for God’s sake blow it before it starts to show.”

Hubert wiped his mouth.

Everybody lit cigarettes.”

And so ended an imaginary dinner in an imaginary restaurant on the corner of Two Hundred and Seventh and Broadway—as far a most readers unfamiliar with Inwood would assume.

Arras Inn ad NY Evening Telegram July 1913

But the Arras Inn was a very real place indeed. After all, Vina Delmar was an uptown girl and had likely dined at the Arras Inn on a number of occasions.

Arras Inn 1925

For several decades, beginning not long after the turn of the century, The Arras Inn was considered one of the finest dining establishments in northern Manhattan—and Delmar’s description of the restaurant, when compared to old advertisements, news clippings and vintage photographs, seems completely accurate.

Arras Inn interior from vintage postcard

Located at 4928 Broadway, a few doors south of 207th Street, currently a pawnshop, the Arras Inn provided city dwellers with not only fine food, but also music and entertainment. A 1913 advertisement in the New York Evening Telegraph boasted “dollar fish dinners” and a menu that included crab, steamed clams, chicken gumbo, planked sea bass, soft shell crabs, squab, chicken, corn on the cob, grilled sweet potatoes, Virginia ham, hot corn muffins and cantaloupe.

Arras Inn Interior, 207th Street and Broadway.

Arras Inn New York Evening Telegraph, July 1916

Arras Inn ad in the New York Evening Telegram, July 29 1922

New York Times, 1922 Prohibition raids

After the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919 the management of the Arras Inn thumbed their noses at Prohibition and became one of the better-known speakeasies in the developing young neighborhood.

With a wink and a nod, stealthy bartenders would pour real beer into twelve ounce ceramic mugs emblazoned with the phrase “I’m on the water wagon now.”  To the casual observer it would appear that these lawbreakers were sipping cups of coffee.

In late September 1922, according to the New York Times, a team of Federal and local agents known as “The Dry Squad” raided the Arras Inn where “they said they found 120 bottles of real beer.” Before the team departed they issued summonses to owner Paul Boehn and a waiter named John Cronan who resided at 537 East Thirteenth Street.

New York Times, 1928

On February 11, 1928, after closing for the evening, a fire broke out in the kitchen of the Arras Inn. As smoke billowed from the building a man named Joseph Klein, his wife and two young children were in a deep slumber in their apartment on the second floor.

On Broadway, patrolman Louis Schwartz  reacted without a thought for his own safety and sounded the alarm before running into the smoke filled building to rescue Klein and his family.

Firemen responding to the inferno raised ladders to the window and were able to lower Klein, his wife and two young daughters to safety before the flames engulfed the entire block. Seven other storefronts, including a vegetable store, a tailor and a grocery were completely destroyed in the blaze.

And while the file closed the book on the Arras Inn, Vina Delmar went on to a long and distinguished career as a Hollywood screenwriter.

Arras Inn in 1926

While her books were banned in Boston, her work titillated Tinsletown producers. Even in the late 1920’s, the studios well knew that “sex sells” and treated Delmar like visiting royalty.

Loose Ladies by Vina Delmar

While Delmar would achieve critical acclaim in Hollywood, she was nominated for an Academy Award in 1937 for her screen adaptation of “The Awful Truth,” she found life on the west coast dull and tedious. ‘It’s not a fertile field for a novelist,’ she would once say of her work in California. Like a character in her romance novels, Delmar was a New Yorker through and through and longed for her former haunts in the Bronx and northern Manhattan.

Delmar would later explain that the real life inspirations for her characters were found on the streets, barstools and subways of the only place she had truly felt comfortable—the New York City of her youth.

Women Live Too Long by Vina Delmar

“‘I came to know, first hand, the girls who go to Coney Island, who pack the medium-sized movie theaters and write fan mail, who chew gum, work for a living, put on lipstick in crowded subways, and try to live on $1.60 a day. Some of them are tough and some of them are not. I grew up with these people, and when I decided to write, I wrote about them. It seems to me that if you’re going to write, that’s what you have to do. Don’t wander into strange lands, but write.’”

While pockets of the nation were horrified by Delmar’s graphic depictions of the sexual proclivities of fictitious big city women, no offence was taken in Inwood where the raven-haired enchantress of urban pulp became an unlikely local hero.

In the fall of 1929 O.O. McIntyre wrote in his syndicated New York by Day:

“Inwood, which is the uptown Dyckman Street section glorified in Vina Delmar’s “Kept Woman,” evidently does not resent the chiffon chimera of the ladies in love with love which the novel created. A drug store heralds the Vina Delmar sundae and a little gown shop is to be called The Vina Delmar. Inwood, it might be added, is chiefly a community of self-respecting people with a neighborly flair, and is not hard boiled.”

Vina Del Mar passed away in Los Angeles on January 19, 1990.  She was 86 years old.

Arras Inn, undated photo.

Location of the former Arras Inn, currently a pawn shop.

“Dum vivimus vivamus”
-Motto of the Hoboken Turtle Club

According to legend, as the history of most social clubs is so often based, the Hoboken Turtle Club was founded in 1796. It is reputed to have been the oldest social club in the United States.

The club was the brainchild of John Stevens, a former Captain in George Washington’s Continental army. An inventor, lawyer and treasurer for the State of New Jersey, Stevens amassed a fortune through shrewd real estate investments, the invention of a screw-driven steamboat capable of ocean navigation and marriage into an extremely wealthy family. Among Stevens’ holdings was the Stevens Castle, currently the home to the Stevens Institute of Technology.

But, despite all of Stevens’ accomplishments, he had a problem. Turtles.

According to an 1878 New York Times article, Stevens’ riverfront Hoboken, New Jersey estate was plagued by conniving cold-blooded reptiles, which often poached his prized European chickens.

One day Stevens hired a local shepherd boy to go down to the riverbank to investigate. As the chickens dug for clams on the muddy shore, the boy sprawled out on the ground nearby engrossed in a romance novel.

Suddenly, according to the Times “a huge turtle, with an arched back completely covered with moss, crept out of the river, seized an unsuspecting hen by the leg and dragged her off to his felonious retreat on the river bottom.”

Ever the soldier, Stevens declared war on his hard-shelled nemesis in a most ingenious manner. He summoned a group of wealthy Manhattan businessmen to cross the Hudson to dine on turtle soup. “He was remarkable in his selection of great eaters.”

Hoboken Turtle Club medal.

The Times described the members of the newfound Hoboken Turtle Club as “one of the weightiest assemblages of solid men to be found between Wall Street and the Treasury Department.”

Their motto: “Dum vivimus vivamus,” Latin for, “As we journey through life, let us live by the way.”

The feasts often went on for days and, after several years, the Hoboken Turtle Club had devoured the local supply of turtles.

Soon these powerful men who had been duped into pitching tents on the Jersey side of the Hudson numbered several hundred. Before long they would move their annual feast into the city. By 1878 Tammany Hall was hosting the event. A giant turtle shell emblazoned with the letters “H.T.C “ hung from the balcony.

As the years passed, entrance to the club became one of the most coveted memberships in town. In an 1896 speech marking the 100th anniversary of the Turtle Club, the organization’s president, William Sulzer, noted that Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Burr and Clay had all been Turtle Club members.

By the 1890’s, the Turtle Club had fallen on hard times. Membership was down. Still the party went on. Manning the soup kettle for the latter half of the 19th century was a man named John Tarbell; described by many as stout, clean-shaven and secretive. Tarbell’s talents were renowned among turtle aficionados. His turtle soup recipe, a “state secret,” was shared only with the president of the organization. Two days before the guests arrived Tarbell would enter the cookhouse with his turtle, “its flippers tied and its eyes abulge with apprehension.” Forty-eight hours later the turtle would “emerge in a soup that is fragrant, palatable and nutritious.”

Hoboken Turtle Club photographed after relocation to Kingsbridge. Note the Seaman Mansion in the background. (Image courtesy of Don Rice)

In June of 1893 the Turtle Club found a new home in the old Kingsbridge Hotel, once the site of Hyatt’s Tavern; an important drinking establishment dating to the days of the Revolution. William Sperb, a veteran member and turtle enthusiast purchased the old hotel to ensure the club’s survival.

There, on the Spuyten Duyvil, members achieved truly remarkable levels of excess unheard of even in the Club’s early days. It was not uncommon for a man to drink ten cocktails before breakfast, but the amount of alcohol consumed was hard to measure, because, as a bartender at the King’s Bridge Hotel told one reporter, “the veterans drink their cocktails from pitchers.”

Breakfast was served at 8:00 a.m., and, according to a Times article published that year, “consisted of cocktails, stewed eels, fried eels, baked and fried bluefish, porterhouse steak and turtle steak.”

Members of the Turtle Club were not simply there to dine; they were expected to participate in the preparation of the feast. Famous members, including “such men as John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr adopted the rule that no one could partake of turtle unless he had taken some part in its preparation.” Dinner was served at 4:00 in the afternoon and consisted of boiled eggs, brandy and, of course, turtle soup.

Frank Leslie's Illustrated September 7,1889.

Surprisingly, the secret to a good turtle soup is not turtle. In 1878 Tarbell confided to a reporter that, “You see, this is turtle soup of the best kind, but there’s not much turtle in it. It wouldn’t do you know. Too much turtle spoils turtle soup…If 1,500 turtles made any better soup than six; we’d have the 1,500. But they wouldn’t; they’d spoil it. It would be so rich, nobody could eat a cupful of it.”

Tarbell’s hearty concoction was so famous it was reportedly served to French General Lafayette when he visited America.

The main ingredients, Tarbell told the reporter in a hushed tone, were vegetables including: potatoes, turnips, cabbage, radishes, peas, beets, tomatoes, cucumbers and cauliflower. Of course there were other ingredients Tarbell refused to divulge.

So what does turtle soup taste like?

Dr. I. I. Hayes, a polar explorer and Club member, compared the taste of turtle to fried seal’s liver and walrus bacon. It was said the soup was so rich that no man could eat more than two plates, but of course, members had consumed a huge breakfast. Not to mention a superhuman number of cocktails.

While many had never tasted seal’s liver and walrus bacon, the 1887 Times article provided this description:

“To receive a turtle soup you must first chop a hard boiled egg very fine in the bottom of your plate. Then you squeeze into the egg the juice of half a lemon, and pour into it, also, a teaspoon full of mellow old Otard brandy from a bottle, which furnishes you a drink at the same time. The egg is to prepare the plate, and the drink is to prepare the stomach. Then your plate is filled with soup, and while the egg struggles from the bottom to float on the surface, you lay aside all earthly thoughts, forgive all your enemies, and forget all your creditors and put a teaspoon full of it into your mouth. Then you remove the spoon and shut your eyes, and your soul, on the wings of sensuous thought, passes outward into lotus land, and for a time you are lost in a dream that is so still, so perfect, and so all absorbing that you wish, lazily and sadly, it might never end. But you swallow the soup and open your eyes, discover that the face of nature is unchanged, and then, your intellect having reasserted its sway, you conclude that the turtle, like the swan, yields its only perfect symphony in its death.”

Unfortunately the Hoboken Turtle Club, whose name had been changed in 1892 to the New York Turtle Club, would once again resume its nomadic existence.

Kingsbridge Hotel in turn of the century postcard by Charles Buck.

On October 27th, 1903, the Old Kingsbridge Hotel was destroyed in a fire that swept through the Kingsbridge area. At least twenty other buildings were destroyed in the inferno.

By 1938, the Club was meeting in the Rathskeller of Manhattan’s Terminal Hotel, where inscribed above the door, a sign read, “When you enter this cellar, you meet a good feller.”

Shortly thereafter the former Hoboken Turtle Club faded into memory.

Read more Inwood history here.

As summer winds down, I thought it might be fun to share a photo of an old swimming hole that used to be a source of great fun and entertainment near the turn of the last century.  The area, on the bank of the Hudson River at  Dyckman Street was called the “Inwood Bathing Beach.”   This not so little oasis in those days before air conditions was one of several installations to dot the local waterways during the summer months.

Inwood Bathing Beach, NY Tribune, July 15, 1906

According to the 1906 account from the New York Herald, “A novel resort far uptown on Manhattan Island is the Inwood Bathing Beach, at Dyckman (206th) street and the Hudson River. The clean sandy beach, the fine stretch of water and the bathing houses have combined to make this especially popular. It is only three minutes walk from the Broadway cars and there are accommodations for 1,500 persons at a time. A lifesaving crew is at hand for the protection of bathers, and swimming masters afford instruction to those who are not competent swimmers. Boats may be secured for rowing, and refreshments are served in the pavilion.”

For the curious: The building in the upper right of the photo is the original Jewish Memorial Hospital.

Tubby Hook today

Recently, MyInwood.net reader Frank Yannaco wrote in to tell me about the concession stand his family once owned and operated inside the Isham Street entrance to Inwood Hill Park.

Inwood Hill Park Concession stand on the corner of Isham and Seaman in 1977. Louise & Frank Yannaco pictured with merchandise in the background.

We soon began a dialogue that included a promise of photos and descriptions of his life in Inwood.  True to his word, Frank soon emailed me photos and descriptions from Inwood’s not so distant past.  I would like to thank Frank for his valuable contribution and encourage other readers to reach out and do the same.

Yannaco family poses for photo in front of the concession stand in 1977.

"Joe" and Frank Yannaco, 1960

According to Frank, “Joe’s” Concession Stand was located in Inwood Park on Isham Street across the street from Good Shepherd Church. My Family owned the stand from the mid 1920′s when the Presbyterian Medical Center was built.  It was given to my Grandfather James Pupley and his brother Peter by the NYC parks department when they arrived in this country from Greece in the 1900′s. They went to the Parks Department with the idea to sell snacks in the park. His original stand was on the site of the Presbyterian Medical Center. They asked him what park he wanted to relocate to and he chose Inwood Park.

Joe (his real name was Pete) sold candy, soda, hot dogs and ice cream. Frank and Louise, his niece, took it over in 1971 and remained until 1988. It has since been torn down. All the original owners – James, Pete, and Frank and Louise (my parents) have passed away.”

Along with his description of the concession stand, Frank also included this ode to Inwood in the 1950’s penned by his wife, Mary:

Mary Tolfree (Yannaco) and sister Eileen TolfreeSherman Avenue on Easter Sunday, 1957

Inwood in the 1950′s we did not
have a TV much less the Internet.
You got together at friends homes
to watch a show in black & white.
There was not many “networks” or “choices”.
A phone I don’t think so.
The stoop was the meeting place.
Your relatives were down the block
or a bus ride away to the Bronx.

Our Family went to St Jude’s Chapel
on Sundays and said the Rosary
as a family every night.
Our friends waited on the stoop for us
to come down.
{The Bazaar was held for many years
to make money to build the church.
Before that, mass was held in the movie theater.}
Then you were Proud to be a Catholic,
bless yourself in public when
you passed a Church,
and bowed at the name of JESUS.

All the stores were closed on Sunday.

Regina's Bakery, 1958-Eileen Tolfree

Except for Regina’s Bakery.

The Tolfree kids on Academy Street next to Moe's Candy Store in 1957 (four of seven children in the family)

My mom Eileen worked there back in the 50′s
In Washington Heights there was a bakery
called Home Made Pastry on 188th
and St. Nicholas Ave. She worked there for years.
On Sunday that was servile work unless
you had to feed your family.

Our family The Tolfrees lived at
584 Academy Street.
We 3 boys and 4 girls have 24 children; with
grandchildren we total around 92 decedents of
Herbert and Eileen Tolfree.

We lived across from Moe’s candy store.
Remember the egg creams and cokes in
the paper cone and metal holder cups.
The stools that spun and Moe.
We lived near the corner and there was
a “Meat Market” at 584.
Outside in the nice weather Pop with his umbrella cart would sell hot dogs and orange drinks.

Mary (right) and her sister Rita Tolfree on Academy Street looking east down Sherman Avenue

I moved from 584 in 1959.
Went to Saint Jude’s School till
3rd grade 56-59.
Remember 1st grade Sister Mary Magellan
and Miss Scott from kindergarten.
All of my family went to either St. Jude or Good Shepherd.

First Friday Mass at St Jude’s Chapel.
Remember the luncheonette near St Jude.
We would go there for breakfast after
First Friday Mass before returning to school because we had fasted from the night before.
Those were the days.
Navy Uniforms white shirts and beanie hats.
Back then women and girls would wear hats, then scarves, then doilies and then tissues.

Now we don’t wear hats at all!!!

Louise & Frank Yannaco working the concession stand in May, 1977.

Across from Good Shepherd in Inwood park
there was a octagon stand that sold hot dogs, candy and soda.
The man’s name was Joe, so they called him.
His real name was Pete.
He was my husband Frank Yannaco’s uncle.
Then he retired and Frank & Louise
Yannaco took it over.
It was in the family for 40+ years.
They gave up ownership in 1989.
Louise also worked at Miramar pool in the 50′s.
near the pool was a luncheonette on 210 St
and 10th ave.
Frank’s grandfather owned that in the 50′s.

Tolfree Girls at the Academy Meat Market on Sherman and Academy in 1959

Remember the fish store with the live fish.
The Bazaar and Miss Rinegold.
The stoop we sat on and
the gutter we kept out of.
(They had nothing to do with rain.)
Connecting roofs we climbed over.
Fire escapes we use to hang out on.
Both my husband and I were born in
Jewish Memorial hospital.
Re-named in 1936 in honor of the
Jewish Soldiers who died in WWI.

Inwood for me was a real
neighborhood back then.
In the heart of NYC zip code “34?.
Even though I did not know it then.
My neighborhood was special.
The “Super” would wash the floors
every Saturday and polish the brass
handrails and mailboxes.
On Saturday everyone
would clean their house.
Nobody worked on Sunday because
you went to mass and had a special
dinner to prepare for the family.

Rita Tolfree on confirmation day, Academy and Sherman, Moe's Candy Store, 1952

Neighbors you could turn to by just
yelling out the window or down the alley.
The place many of us yearn for now.
I think Inwood is still that place,
my building is still standing and
I’m sure 50 years later people are still yelling out
the windows to their neighbors….

"Ward or Public School No. 52 was a landmark on the southeast corner of Broadway and Academy Street from 1858 to almost 1957. This picture dates from about 1902, or midway of that period. Note the gas lamp with a mailbox on the lamppost. At the right is the house where the caretaker lived." -Source- William Tieck, Schools and School Days.

In 1858, the year Inwood’s first school was constructed , the area wasn’t even yet known by its current name. Locals, of whom there were few, all referred to the region on Manhattan’s northernmost tip as “Tubby Hook.” Folks downtown hardly even considered the backwater region as being part of their city.

So imagine the surprise when a monolithic, rectangular red-brick structure capped by fourteen chimneys rose from a cow pasture on what we now know as Academy Street and Broadway.  Everyone, locals included, were puzzled as to the need for such a large and modern structure. There were barely enough children in the area to fill even the first floor. Besides, children in those lean times, like their parents, literally lived off the land, and were needed in the fields to care for the crops and herd cattle. Who really had time for school?

Public School 52 on Broadway and Academy in 1930. Note old and new schools sit side by side before demolition of old school in 1956.

According to the late Kingsbridge historian William Tieck, “the growth of the Tubby Hook school was so slow that during the first thirty or forty years of its existence only the lowest floor of the three story structure was used. Because School Commissioner James MacKean was one of the prime movers in the erection of the building, it was long known as “MacKean’s Folly”. The land itself was donated by Isaac Michael Dyckman, who retained an active interest in the school until his death in 1899.” (Schools and School Days in Riverdale, Kingsbridge and Spuyten Duyvil, 1971).

"Even as late as 1908, when Public School 52 celebrated its fiftieth anniversay, it was surrounded by the wide-open spaces shown in the remarkable vista above. The picture was taken in a northeasterly direction overlooking the junction of Riverside Drive with Broadway and Dyckman Street. To the right of the school is the mansion-like dwelling of the caretaker, Mr. O'Neill. Landmarks include the original Mount Washington Presbyterian Church; above its steeple, the now abandoned powerhouse at 216th Street; and, on the horizon, the two buildings of the Catholic Orphan Asylum and Webb's Academy and Home for Shipbuilders. A string of subway cars is barely visible on the distant-and then new- elevated line running up Tenth Avenue. Note the trolley tracks and gas lamps." Source: William Tieck, Schools and School Days.

More than a century before Tieck’s seminal work on the history of education in the Kingsbridge section of New York, a reporter from the New York Herald visited the old Ward School 52 as part of an annual examination of city schools.

According to the article, dated June 16, 1865, “The new and progressive schoolhouse at Tubby Hook is one of the most interesting monuments of that beautiful and romantic region. Yesterday the annual examination of the classes was made by Mr. S. S. Randall, the General Superintendent of Schools, with the assistance of Assistant Superintendent N. A. Calkins, H. Kiddle and William Jones. There were eight classes—five grammar and three primary—consisting of one hundred and fifty children in all. They were under the management of Mr. G. Miller, the principal, and his three pretty and intelligent lady assistants. Indeed, all the lady teachers of New York are pretty and intelligent—so much that, in this respect, they differ from the teachers of other cities. They seem to be appointed for their beauty and intellect. The examination was careful and searching, and embraced mathematics, astronomy, geology, history, grammar and a variety of other studies. All the classes acquitted themselves well, and the result of the examination was by no means discreditable to them.”

Ah the ladies…but we digress.

The sturdy old building stood for nearly a century, with civil war heroes and other famous men passing through its doors before it was demolished in 1956 to make room for an addition to the newly constructed J.H.S. 52.

What follows is a 1911 newspaper description of Inwood’s first public school during its prime:
The Sun
March 26, 1911
TUBBY HOOK’S OLD SCHOOL
ANTIQUATED STRUCTURE UPTOWN WHICH HAS A HISTORY.

Something About the District in Which It Stands—Many Well Known Men Went to School In Old 52—The Late John B. McDonald One of Them.

In the upper end of the city, on Manhattan Island, surrounded by up to date apartment houses, electric railroads underground, and in the near distance over-head trolley roads, the elevated part of the subway as well as the main line of the New York Central Railroad, stands an old fashioned brick schoolhouse where formerly a genuine excuse for absence from school was given by the parents of pupils as “the boys were needed to drive the cows to pasture.”

The Sun, March 26, 1911

Up to about twenty-five years ago the place, 206th Street and Broadway, was known as Kingsbridge Road.  Inwood: locally and unofficially it was also known as Tubby Hook; muddy in winter, dusty in summer and looked upon by a non-resident as not being part of the city of New York. The origin of the name Tubby Hook may be traced to a family named Tubb who lived in the neighborhood of a point of land just a short distance south of the Spuyten Duyvil. This locality was later known as Inwood on the Hudson, warranted by the extensive woods surrounding the Dyckman tract of land, and is known now as Dyckman street and Broadway, about a hundred feet south of where the old schoolhouse stands.

To get at the history of this old familiar landmark, which is part of our present local school system, it is necessary to inspect the records of the township of New Haarlem, of which Washington Heights forms a part. A few years after the town was established in 1658 by the last of the Dutch Governors, Peter Stuyvesant, the famous one legged soldier recognized the need of some one person to perform the duties of a schoolmaster for the poor children of the district; the population of Manhattan Island at this time, December 4, 1663, was about 2,000 souls. The Schepens, or Magistrates, held a lengthy meeting, and at its close “a capable man” was appointed; but the very limited means of the residents prevented them from contributing toward the schoolmaster’s salary.

The best they could do was to give two dozen schepels of grain each for his support. The absence of money made it obligatory on the part of the Magistrates, Daniel Tournier and Johannes Verveelea, also Jan Pieterson Slot, who could not write his own name, to petition the Director General and Council of New Netherland for a grant in aid of the appointment of Jan La Montegne, Jr., son of a physician, who was one of the first settlers of New Haarlem. At the time of his appointment the future schoolmaster, who was secretary of the Board of Magistrates and a parish clerk, resigned to take up his new duties at a salary of fifty guilders ($20) per annum, which was considered “the least possible salary.”

For seven years, or until 1670, Mr. La Montagne served in the capacity of schoolmaster, when he moved away. Hendrik Van der Vin succeeded him and fulfilled the same duties at a salary of eight times as much as that paid to Mr. La Montagne. The increase in the schoolmaster’s salary was evidentially too much for the residents, for when his salary was not forthcoming in 1678 it became necessary to make a house to house canvas for subscriptions, which netted 300 guilders, an matters were squared with New Haarlem’s second schoolmaster, at least for the time being. This subscription, together with the rent of the town meadows, was devoted to the salary and support of Mr. Van der Vin, who agreed after some persuasion to accept it for the first year, after which his full salary was assessed upon the residents. The town also voted to rebuild his residence. Nevertheless he lived in poor circumstances and finally fell into debt, the town being compelled in 1682 to pay a bill of $6 for Van der Vin’s pens, ink, paper and writing material.

Reginald Pelham Bolton, a civil engineer, and a well known resident of Washington Heights, whose ancestors owned considerable property in the neighborhood of Bolton road, just west of Broadway and near the old schoolhouse, has in his possession a large quantity of old time official records, one of which bears testimony that Van der Vin was a gentleman well acquainted with Latin and Spanish, remarkable for his accuracy, methodical in his habits and very precise in his duties as a clerk.”

He was succeeded by John Tiebout, who resigned after some years and gave way to Guiliaem Bertholf, who served for one year. Tiebout returned and served until 1690, when he and his family of twelve children moved to Bushwick. Tiebout was succeeded by a young man, a recent arrival from Vlissingen by the name of Adrien Verrautl, and “judging from his penmanship, a scholar,” who filled the place until 1708 when he became voorleser at Bergen, N.J., being recommended by the people of New Haarlem.

Religious discussion of an acrimonious nature left the town without a schoolmaster for about fourteen years, or until 1722 when John Martin Van Harlingen arrived from Holland, who held the position until 1741, although for a long time after this the New Haarlem church people made no appointment. The war of the Revolution did away with education; something more important at this period, many sought protection inside the American lines, returning after evacuation to find their homes ruined.

Chapter 189, Laws of 1801 enacted by the Legislature then holding its twenty-fourth session at Kingston, N.Y., provided that a sum of be raised by a tax for the further support of government, such moneys to be invested in real securities and the interest thereof to be expended for the instruction of poor children in the most useful branches of common education. A town meeting was held in this year and arrangements were made to lease a portion of the common lands to establish an academy for the education of the children of the township, these lands were then situated in the old Ninth ward of the city of New York and caused considerable controversy with the city. A legislative act caused the land to be sold, the proceeds to be placed in the hands of various trustees, who paid $3,500 to the trustees of the “Hamilton School.” The exact date of the establishment of it is in doubt, but references show it to be prior to 1820. Valentine’s Manual shows the Hamilton free school to be located at 181st street and Fort Washington avenue, the teacher then (1852) being Hosea B. Perkins, who died in 1903, the trustees being Isaac Dyckman, Tunis Ryer and John P. Dodge. This school was the predecessor of the present school system on Washington Heights.

Public School 52 in 1905 Postcard

In 1858, when the population of Manhattan Island was about 750,000, the Tubby Hook school—now Public School 52—was formally opened, the land upon which it stands being given to the city by the late Isaac Dyckman, on condition that a school be erected thereon. Until recent years only the first floor was used.

In 1903 a change was made in the building, which measured 40 by 70 feet, with classrooms about 16 square feet, the census of the old red school being less than 150, an addition of twenty-five square feet was added, the class rooms enlarged, the top floor occupied, giving more room, making the census of the school at the present time about 300, including about two dozen in the kindergarten. At the same time that the addition was made the old familiar brick walls were given a coat of paint and the “old red school” became a rich cream in color. It is only within the last few years that the old time stoves were replaced by steam heat.

John B. Mcdonald: "The Man Who Dug the Subway."

It is questionable if any school in greater New York can show a list of well known graduates that are more respected in the community, among the alumni being the Rev. William J. Cummings and two brothers, John and Frederick; Lieut. Samuel K Allen, a graduate of West Point; his brother, Ethan Allen; J. Crawford McCreery, a partner of the dry goods firm; Samuel Isham, the artist and author; also his brothers, William and Charles; Dr. Norton Denslow and William Wallace Denslow, the well known illustrator and cartoonist; Elijah Cutts, late Senator from Minnesota; Joseph Keppler, artist and editor of Puck; Counsellor William Flitner and brothers, Walter and Charles; and William S. Hartt, director of the Tropical Fruit Growers Association. The old school also furnished some civil war heroes, such as Col. Charles N. Swift and Thomas C. Wright, both of whom rose from the ranks during the war; Col. Cornelius Schermerhorn, John Whalen, first Corporation Counsel of Greater New York and at present the president of Bank of Washington Heights; Blake Wales and his brother Alexander, Corporation Counsel of Binghamton in 1908; Robert Veitch and his son Charles of Dyckman Street; Theodore and Benjamin Barringer, both physicians, Former Alderman John J. McDonald, Andrew Thompson, one of the active members of the Stock Exchange; his brother William, and last but not least John B. McDonald, “the man who dug the subway,” and who died a week ago.”

-

Not long ago I received an email from MyInwood.net reader Cherie Magee with an inquiry into the Johnson Ironworks, once located on Inwood’s Spuyten Duyvil. It seems Cherie had inherited some old family photographs along with a generations old story about an ancestor who may have worked at the ironworks.

Johnson foundry in 1923.

She wrote:

“I was doing some research on the Isaac Johnson Foundry and your website came up. Terrific site! Thanks for all your information. I am trying to find out if there are any records about the foundry and its employees. I think my Great-Great Grandfather may have worked there.”

Cherie soon forwarded the photos she believes are images of foundry employees taken somewhere in the area around the ironworks. She’s hoping someone reading this post might provide a valuable clue to help put her photos into perspective. A true reader challenge.

She wrote:

Timothy Sweeney

“I was always told that my Great-Great Grandfather worked at a foundry in Spuyten Duyvil and that one of his daughters – my Great Grandmother, worked for the Delafield family – also in Spuyten Duyvil. I have found them living there in the 1890 and 1900 census.

My mother dug through some old family photos and there are several terrific photos of my Great-Great Grandfather, Timothy Sweeney. One of the photos was taken with 11 other workers. The photo is entitled “The Corporation” and three of the other workers are named as well. They are all holding pick axes. The Isaac G. Johnson Foundry is the only foundry I found in that immediate area, so I am wondering if there are any records still around that might confirm his employment at this foundry. Someone also mentioned to me that New Yorkers (in particular apparently) referred to their local governors as Corporations…so I was wondering if that could apply here. Could these men in the photo perhaps have been foremen and were jokingly being called the Corporation? I don’t imagine there would have been a lot of formal type photos of laborers.”

"The Corporation"

“I have also included a few other photos – Timothy Sweeney (my Great-Great Granpa) and Dan Hayes, his son-in-law. They are the same two in the photo by the railroad tracks. Could the tracks have been by the Foundry? The next two I have no idea where Dan is – but the stone-walls certainly look like someplace in that area. The last two photos – I was wondering if they could have been taken at the Miramar Pool. Do you have any other photos of the pool to compare these with? Unfortunately, none of these photos are dated.”

Dan Hayes

Dan Hayes

Dan Hayes and Grandpa Timothy Sweeney.

Site presumably near the old Johnson Ironworks.

Swimming area presumably near the old Johnson Ironworks.

Being interested in the Johnson Ironworks, Cherie’s request immediately caught my eye. While I was able to rule out the Miramar pool as the location in one of the photos, the trail ended there.

That’s where you the reader come in: If anyone has any information, photos, records or even old family histories of the Johnson Ironworks, I encourage you to write in. The foundry once had a workforce of some 1,200 men, so I imagine there are some historical treasures still floating about.

For more information on Inwood’s old Johnson Ironworks, click here.

"Portrait of a Monster," by Inwood resident Cole Thompson and co-author Lisa Pulitzer.

For much of the past year while writing histories of Northern Manhattan, and co-hosting History night at the Indian Road Cafe, I’ve also been working on a true crime book based on the case of Joran van der Sloot. Van der Sloot, you might remember, remains a suspect in the May 30, 2005 disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway as well as May 30, 2010 murder of Stephany Flores in Lima, Peru.

For this project I spent part of last summer in Lima, spending time with Peruvian police and getting to know the most recent victim’s family. The research paid off. Peruvian investigators took a shine to myself and co-author Lisa Pulitzer and gave us full access to the investigation. (That’s right, she’s a real Pulitzer)

On July 5th, our book, titled Portrait of a Monster will finally be released.

So far, the book is getting wonderful reviews; Publisher’s Weekly calls it “…well-detailed…disturbing and haunting…” The New York Post also gave the book extensive coverage over the weekend.

My newest creation, I also co-authored a New York Times #1 bestseller on the Scott and Laci Peterson case with former Court TV host Catherine Crier, is available for purchase on Amazon. It contains exclusive details which may surprise even those who have carefully followed the case.

I hope you’ll pick up a copy through Amazon or your favorite bookstore. I would also be honored to sign copies for anyone who’s interested. Most of my devoted readers know where to find me, but you can always send me a message through the website.

Thank you for your continued support.  -Cole

Boats moored in Inwood Hill basin, 1935

During the 1920’s and 30’s an intrepid group of amphibious New Yorkers thumbed their noses at urban living, and high city rents, and took to dwelling in houseboat colonies along the perimeter of the Island of Manhattan.

Two of those colonies, consisting of a ragtag group of artists, electricians and even police officers, were right here in Inwood. One was located on the shore of the Harlem River near 207th Street, while the other was in a boat basin once located at the foot of Inwood Hill along the Spuyten Duyvil.

Like today, there was an east versus west of Broadway debate concerning who had the better digs. House-boaters east of Broadway, along the Harlem River, insisted they had better boats, hook-ups to electricity, city water and other public works as well as easy access to the local shopping district. Conversely, the Inwood Hill homesteaders, who lacked all modern amenities, including gas, water and electricity, considered their plot of shore, shaded by the famous Inwood Tulip, not far from the Inwood Pottery Works, to be the most tranquil and awe inspiring location in all of Manhattan.

Inwood Hill Boat Basin, 1935.

While some of the houseboats in both colonies were no longer seaworthy, their owners having long forsaken aquatic adventures, most were active sailing vessels whose owners lived for the summer months and life on the water. According to a May 24, 1923 account, published in the New York Evening Post which focused primarily on the Inwood Hill colony: “They seem to know that it will not be long before they will be able to forget the boredom of winter and slip away through Spuyten Duyvil into the broad Hudson, or down the Harlem for any one of a thousand places.

The land-bound houseboats, the half-and-halfs, and the floating ones are all alike, though, in feeling the meaning of the spring season. Most of them have already had fresh coats of paint; some are getting theirs now. They look as new as if they had never seen another spring, trim and neat as some old-time sailing craft just from the dry-dock and ready for her owner-master to sail her away across the seas.

Even if the houseboats do wander around five or six months out of the year they are more closely related to the house branch of their family tree than to the boat,” the article continued. Many had gardens, dogs and cats, and access to the old Cold Spring, a reliable source of pure ice cold water that once quenched the thirst of Lenape Indians who previously inhabited the region.

“Of course there are other houseboat colonies around Manhattan. There is a large one down the Harlem only a little way from Inwood with handsomer boats, perhaps, or more pretentious ones that are to be seen along the little cove, but what they lack is Inwood, a perfect background, majestic and colorful.”

What follows is a description of both Inwood houseboat colonies as seen through the eyes of Eleanor Booth Simmons, who, time and time again, turned her reporting to an Inwood that now exists in all but a few fading memories.

The Evening Post
July 10, 1920
By Eleanor Booth Simmons

The Evening Post, July 10, 1920

It was a king of ancient times, wasn’t it, who could be healed grievous illness from which he suffered only by wearing the shirt of an absolutely happy man? And when his courtiers had scoured the land and found the happy man, he had no shirt. Well, I have seen a happy man, right here in Manhattan, and he had a shirt. He was wearing no collar when I met him, but that was merely because he didn’t want to be bothered. He pointed out that this was one reason he was happier than a millionaire; the millionaire had to “dress tight,” as he expressed it, while he could be loose and of comfortable attire.

Houseboat in Harlem River at 204th Street, 1925.

A happy man, you will say incredulously, here in Manhattan with the housing problem to contend with? That is the point. He has no housing problem. He beats the landlord by living all the year round in a houseboat, for the privilege of mooring which on the Harlem River he pays the city $60 a year.

And he has a garden to boot, stretching up the shore back of his boat, in which he raises all the vegetables consumed by his family of a wife and three sons and himself. There is food for the spirit here, too: and my happy man, albeit a cabinet-maker employed in a shop near his boat, has poetry in his soul. He was a seaman before he became a cabinet-maker, and absorbed something of the mystery of the deep.

“There’s nothing so secret as the sea in its ways,” he told me, “but nothing that will talk to you like the sea when you know it. The water talks to me at night when the comes up the Harlem, and this houseboat, that rests on land at low tide, rises and floats with the waves all around it. It has a pontoon bottom and floats like a steamship. It’s mighty pretty then, sitting here on the front deck like, and looking at the lights across the Harlem. Some folks may be coming along that bridge and looking down here will say, ‘What a poor little place!’ but I wouldn’t change with the happiest of them. I wouldn’t.”

Policemen Colony Members

His is not the only houseboat in this little sheltered nook on the Harlem, at 207th Street east of Tenth Avenue. At least fourteen of them are moored there, each with its little garden of flowers and vegetables , and each is occupied winter and summer. They have city water, gas and electricity, and their snug little coal-houses filled against the winter. My happy man assured me that there was never the shadow of trouble among them.

“There’s a policeman living in the boat next to mine,” he said, “and a police inspector in one of the others. But we never need ‘em though,” he added magnanimously; “we’re all good friends with ‘em.”

Houseboat Colony by 208th Street & Harlem River, 1933.

This is one of two houseboat colonies to be reached by 207th Street. The other may be termed the colony de luxe, for the boats are handsomer, there are some artists and such among the occupants, and the surroundings—the winding inlet of the old Spuyten Duyvil, and the vista of the Ship Canal in front, and the background of climbing cliffs hidden in splendid oaks and tulip trees—are as beautiful as could well be imagined. On the other hand, it is further away from the conveniences, and the house-boaters have to depend on kerosene for lighting or generate their own electricity. But they have the most delicious water in the world, cold and clear, from the springs that are everywhere in the cliffs above.

Finding the Happy Man

It was a hot, breathless Sunday when I started out in search of the houseboat colonies. From the Dyckman Street station of the Seventh Avenue subway I wandered north a little way, and found myself in a yard filled with Street Cleaning Department wagons, where two dogs with their foreheads wrinkled with responsibility to the city government made invidious remarks about me, and a good-natured man with a cat on his knees told me to keep on the right around the end of the bridge that spans the Harlem River at this point, and I’d find the houseboats. I did so, and there, looking at his corn and potatoes, with his wife and some visitors from downtown, was my happy man.

Further along the row of boats was Mr. Callahan, another old resident, who was cultivating the geraniums in his brilliant flowerbeds. In front of the boats the reeds, which at high tide are quite covered, waved in the slow breeze. There was a good smell of salt water and fish in the air. The inhabitants can cast their lines from their front porches and catch perch and other small fish, and clams are plentiful. Across the winding Harlem, a little way to the south, rose the buildings of New York University and the Hall of Fame, and all the opposite shore was beautiful with trees and stately red brick institutional buildings.

Harlem River at Dyckman Street, 1937.

The happy man showed me through his houseboat and pointed out the various conveniences. The front room, opening off the porch, was a fair-sized sitting and dining room. Back of this were comfortable bedrooms, which were large enough to hold big beds and bureaus and so on and there was a bathroom with a good tub. A furnace heats the place in the winter, and I was told that even in the coldest weather it was snug as could be.

No More Houseboats Welcome

Its present owner paid $2,000 for this boat several years ago. Now, of course, it is worth more. They say there’s a long waiting list of people anxious to buy into the colony, but it’s a restricted suburb. The residents are determined not to be crowded, and they say there is no more room for any more boats. However, a couple of new boats are being built there now. It is the Dock Department to which one must apply for a permit to enter the colony, but, according to my happy man, he and his neighbors are dead set against anyone else coming in.

Inwood Park boat basin, 1920's.

To reach the houseboats that lie below the Ship Canal I walked along 207th Street, across Broadway, to Seaman Avenue, followed the winding road up the hill and found four or five people working away around a little old house half hidden in the woods, carpentering and beating cushions, and a lady in a cretonne artist’s apron, Mrs. Alma (sic) Voorhees, came to answer my questions about where the houseboats were.

May Waldis in center

An active brown curly dog welcomed me at the first one, the Roanoke II, and its mistress, Mrs. May Waldis, who is a swimmer of note and has no end of cups and medals won in diving and swimming contests at Sheepshead Bay and the Sportsman’s Shows, and so on, took me inside and told me proudly how her husband had built every bit of the boat—and he is not a builder by trade, but an electrician. It is quite a palace of a boat, all brown and white outside, with Colonial-looking pillars, which are really water tanks.

Inside the walls are prettily paneled and the living room, the bedrooms and the kitchen and bathroom are as perfectly fitted up and as roomy as a nice apartment. And everywhere outside is the lapping water, and when Mrs. Waldis feels like a swim she can just dive of her front porch. Yet the Waldises are willing to sell this boat because Mr. Waldis, who is Virginia born, longs for the South again. Mrs. Waldis isn’t keen about parting with the snug little craft her husband built, but she is resigned. There is another fine houseboat there for sale—the “June”—for the owners, who are Swedes, want to go back to the old country.

Boats moored in Spuyten Duyvil Creek in Inwood Park, 1935.

Interested in reading more on life inside Inwood’s former houseboat colonies? Click here to read the story of Bill Isecke’s strange childhood growing up on the Harlem River near 207th Street during the late 1940s and mid-1950s – on a derelict cabin cruiser, berthed in a forgotten boatyard.  This incredible oral history was collected by New York Wanderer Ben Feldman.

Miramar Pool Ad, The Herald Statesman, July 22, 1932

As the dog days of summer approached, generations of children in Inwood, and around the City, looked forward to one thing only…The Miramar Saltwater Pool.

Built in the 1920′s, the massive facility was located on 207th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues. Photos, dating as early as 1927, show a large outdoor pool just west of the University Heights Bridge.

Miramar Saltwater Pool, Inwood, 1933

A later, 1937 photo of the Dyckman Street Ferry Terminal at Tubby Hook, shows a billboard advertising the Miramar, presumably for the benefit of sun starved New Jersey tourists.

By the early 1970′s the Miramar was demolished, but the memories live on….

MyInwood.net reader Ken Hollerbach was born in Inwood in 1947. Ken lived on 549 Isham Street, attended Good Shepherd, and spent many a summer day lounging at the Miramar.
Ken kindly shared his memories; keeping them alive for future generations.

“I remember those summer days at Miramar; a whole day of fun in the sun for only a buck. They gave you a locker key attached to an elastic strap that you wore around your ankle. The men’s lockers were in the basement, it was always cold and damp down there on the concrete floor. There were also several showers that you had to use before going up to the pool, and then when you went upstairs there was a passage on the side of the building where more showers, like a giant bidet, would finish the job of rinsing you from above and below.

Miramar Saltwater Pool, Inwood, 1956

I remember there was a wonderful slide and a high diving board (and two smaller ones) that seemed awfully high to a ten year old. At the shallow end of the pool, there was a “boardwalk” of painted plywood where you could stretch out in the sun.

Miramar pool medal

If you dared to, you could use the “beach” adjacent to the pool. It was the dirtiest sand I ever saw; it was full of soot and would get so hot in the sun that you couldn’t walk across it barefoot.

Miramar Ad, New York Post, May 28, 1948

There was a snack bar/lunch room that overlooked the pool where you could take a break from the sun and enjoy a coke (in a bottle). My mom always packed a sandwich for my brother and me, usually PB&J, and we sure needed the energy after playing “Creature from the Black Lagoon” for hours.

It claimed to be ‘the World’s Largest, Outdoor, Saltwater Pool’ though I doubt that it was the largest. It sure was salty too, which made it a lot easier for us to float and swim. The first time I ever swam in fresh water, I nearly drowned because I didn’t have the buoyancy I was used to in Miramar.
At the end of the day we were usually exhausted and dragged ourselves the four blocks back to Isham Street.

Sunburned and red eyed from the salt, we still couldn’t wait to do it all again the next day.”
Thanks again to Ken Hollerbach for bringing the Miramar back to life. I encourage other readers to share their Inwood memories and photos.

To read more Inwood history, click here.

Nugents Bar, 1979

There was a time not so long ago when Inwood had a thriving bar scene.  Up, down and between Dyckman Street and 207th, there were some 100, mainly Irish, bars. While a few bars, The Piper’s Kilt, The Liffy, Irish Eyes, as well as a few others still remain, most disappeared as the demographics of the neighborhood changed in the 1960′s and 70′s.  In his tome to the neighborhood, “The Inwood Book,” John F. McMullen paid tribute to the taverns and pubs of  his generation in a poem entitled, “The Bars.”  What follows is McMullen’s poem accompanied by a series of photographs and advertisements of the Inwood nightlife of McMullen’s generation.  I hope this post sparks more memories and generates more photographs from an Inwood bar scene of not so long ago.

The Bars
Reprinted with the permission of John F. McMullen-aka “JohnMac The Bard.”

I grew up in an Irish/Jewish neighborhood.
The Jewish lads went to school and studied;
the Irish went to the bars.

To be sure, many of us also went to school
and played sports and went out with girls
(no sex, though).
But we went to the bars
underage
after games
after dates
after softball games
before and after dances
to watch the Sunday football game
and for every other damn reason.

The Broadstone
the Willow Tree, Erin’s Isle
Chambers’, McSherry’s, the Inwood Lounge
Doc Fiddler’s, Cassidy’s, Jimmy Ryan’s, Keenan’s Corner
Dolan’s, The Pig n’ Whistle, Freehill’s, Terminal, Old
Shilling
Markey’s, McGolderick’s, Carmor, Rooney’s, Grippo’s,
Minogue’s.
Well, you get the idea.

We knew the bartenders by name.
George Lynch, Pat Gallagher, “Sunshine,” Georgie Costello,
Chris, Fred, Tommy, Mara, Dan, John, Joe, Kathy-in-Erin’s
and they all bought back. “The next one’s on me, Mac”
(and you never leave after a buyback).

We hung out there
we talked
we laughed
we sang
we sometimes fought
…and we drank.

But we didn’t just drink in the bars
we drank in the park
we drank at parties
we drank at football games
we drank at dances (from a hidden flask).

Many slowed down as they grew up
many stopped altogether
and some were stopped only by the grave.

“The drink” was a macho factor.
If you told a fellow he had diabetes,
he’d stop taking sugar.
If you told some of my friends that they shouldn’t drink, they’d say
“What do you mean? I can hold my liquor.”

They planned to drink until they died
and they did.

I still think we had more fun
than the Jewish guys
(unless they were getting laid).

Burnside Pub 1978- 4742 Broadway Near Dyckman- Heights-Inwood Newspaper

Burnside Pub

Burnside Pub, Broadway Between Dyckman and Thayer

Garry Owens, Corner of Dyckman and Vermilyea

Hedgehog Inn, Academy and Broadway

HedgeHog Inn

Melody Lounge 1974- Heights Inwood Newspaper

Wigwam Inn, 75 Sherman Avenue, 1960

Archie's Pub ad, Heights-Inwood, July 7, 1976

Donemay Pub ad, Heights-Inwood, March 28, 1979

Donemay New Years-1979, Heights-Inwood newspaper

Fort Tryon Seafood, Heights-Inwood, July 7, 1976

Salt and Pepper, Heights-Inwood, March 28, 1979

The Last Stop, The Washington Heights Citizen & The Inwood News, March, 1990

The Last Stop, The Washington Heights Citizen & The Inwood News, May 1990

The Last Stop, The Washington Heights Citizen & The Inwood News, May, 1990

The Last Stop, The Washington Heights Citizen & The Inwood News, Sept., 1990

The Melody Lounge, Heights-Inwood, April 29, 1981

The Melody Lounge, Heights-Inwood, July 7, 1976

Melody Lounge 1974- Heights Inwood Newspaper

Keenan's, 1979

Hitching Post 1975 Heights-Inwood Newspaper

Garry Owen, 1979

Emerald Tavern, 1979

Donemay Pub Broadway and 213th 1980 - Heights Inwood News

Again, thank you to John F. McMullen for sharing his poem. “The Inwood Book” can be purchased on Amazon. Also a special thanks to Claire Anne Gray of the Piper’s Kilt for providing the wonderful vintage photographs.

I encourage all readers to share their own memories of Inwood’s bar scene of old by using the comment box below. If you have any photos you would like to share please let me know. I will be happy to add them to this post.

Dyckman Street facing West in 1904. Inwood's first apartment buildings, the Solano and Monida, are on the right. Source- Museum of the City of NY.

During the mid to late 1800′s, Inwood was a quiet, pastoral environ with cows crossing dirt roads–in fact there were very few roads to speak of.  Perhaps the old neighborhood might be best summed up in the words of Robert Perkins, who, during the retirement ceremony for the Reverend George Shipman Payson, pastor of the Mount Washington Presbyterian Church,  described  Inwood just prior to the turn of the 20th century as “a veritable wilderness, isolated from the rest of our city. There were no means of communication with the exception of a dilapidated branch of the New York Central, which ran an occasional train between Spuyten Duyvil and West 30th Street, provided the fireman or conductor were not otherwise engaged. There was no post office, no telegraph station, no telephone, no electric light—absolutely none of the modern conveniences enjoyed by a rural town. The nearest drugstore, the nearest market and the nearest doctor was two or three miles away.”

Inwood Valley in 1894

And while  Inwood, then often called “Inwood-on-the-Hudson” or simply the “Dyckman tract,”remained a veritable wilderness, the development of the area had been under consideration for decades.  In fact, as evidenced in an 1879 map (seen below), the entire area had already been carved up into streets, blocks and lots.  Of course the streets existed only on paper.  In reality, Inwood remained much as it had for centuries. There were wild meadows east of Broadway, which, at the time, was still unpaved and little more than an impassable muddy rut when it rained.

Inwood Map from 1879. Note that grids are in place and streets are named even though very few streets actually existed.

Still, very early on, downtown real estate speculators  realized the eventual potential of the area as downtown began its northern ascent.

Beginning in the late 1860′s the Dyckman family began auctioning off lots of land which were quickly gobbled up by speculators in a series of booms, downturns and false starts; many doubting the true value of a nearly inaccessible region so far north.

But by the turn of the century development was virtually guaranteed with the announcement that an elevated subway line (today’s One train) would soon pass through the region.  Once again a flurry of real estate transactions began, but again the boom petered out, mainly because the newly developed Washington Heights had yet to be fully populated.  Were downtown tenants willing to relocate this far north?  Many in the real estate field doubted it; at least for the moment.

Numerous investors knew that the area had potential, but developers were simply not willing to take the expensive and risky undertaking of building a proper apartment house in such an undeveloped area.  There were no shops,  no restaurants, in fact residents would have to slog though streets of mud when the subway did finally arrive. If the modern development of the area was to take place, Inwood would need a pioneering developer to take the lead, and, despite the naysayers, developer Michael McCormick did just that.

Broadway and 207th in 1910, Source- Museum of the City of NY.

In 1904 McCormick began construction of the Solano and Monida apartments.  The large columned buildings were constructed on the northeast corner of Broadway and Dyckman Street and can still be seen today.  Advertising “Country Quiet and Clean Air in the City,” McCormick had no trouble filling his buildings. Early news clipping and obituaries show that the early residents were mostly middle class professionals; doctors, lawyers and the like.  What more, the rent was much cheaper than downtown and before long a fully operational subway station opened just blocks away.

Dyckman Street Station in 1906, Source: NYHS

Dyckman Street Station in Spring, 2011

207th Street Station in 1906. Note the horses playing in the wildflower strewn meadow.

With undeveloped land becoming scarce and rents increasing in Washington Heights, other developers  followed McCormick’s lead.  Soon the entire Dyckman tract was a flurry of construction activity.  New buildings began sprouting up all over the neighborhood.  By 1906 New York newspapers began advertising the Hanover Court Apartments located on Sherman Avenue.  Soon thereafter the Hazel Court Apartments, the first building in Inwood to install elevators, was constructed on 207th and Post Avenue.

McCormick’s visionary experiment had been an absolute success.  The development of modern Inwood had begun.  The frenzy would prove so great that many developers had long waiting lists for apartments that had yet to be built. From there on out, the neighborhood would never be the same.

Author’s note: The below two articles, one from 1912 and the other from 1915, trace the first real estate building boom in modern Inwood. I found both incredibly helpful in attempting understand how and why modern Inwood came into being seemingly overnight. Where ever possible I have attempted to add photos of the still standing buildings mentioned in the articles.

The Sun, Headline, Sunday, August 25, 1912

Just beyond the brow of Fort George Hill, in the hollow between historic old Inwood Hill and the Harlem River, a colony of new homes is being erected for the tenancy of those who find rents in the middle West Side beyond their purses. For two years the upbuilding has been in progress, and now it looks as if the predictions of real estate men made for the Dyckman Valley ten years ago are in a fair way of being realized. In any direction one may cast his eyes will be seen the shells of apartment houses being rushed to completion to meet applications for accommodations in that section. When not seen one may hear the chut of the hoisting engine or the steady rap of the carpenter’s hammers on new structures. Everywhere can be seen and felt signs of steady development. From Fort George Hill one may get an idea of the extent of the operations in this valley in the last few years. Dotting the undulating surface, which only three years back was corn-fields and cabbage patches are today apartment houses.

Even in among the trees are to be seen bright red colored roofs of new apartments. Perhaps half a hundred structures have been erected there in the last two years. One firm of builders erected in that time twenty-four houses accommodating from sixty to 160 families each. The situation is the healthiest the Dyckman tract has ever experienced and there is every reason to believe that the development of the tract is now to be carried to a successful end.

In no other section of Manhattan can builders get lots near the subway as cheaply as in the Dyckman district. That is the chief reason advanced for the attention now being given to that territory. It was only logical that Washington Heights and the vacant property below that would become developed before anything in the way of consistent building operations would be seen in the Dyckman. Now the West Side is developed and the Heights have got to the point where values will not permit anything but the highest type of structure, so builders have moved along to the next section, which is the Dyckman, the only virgin country on Manhattan Island.

1911 Inwood Map, plate 49. (Source: NYPL)

Builders express the opinion that in three years this virgin land will be as well covered with buildings as the other extremity of the island. There is not much area to the Dyckman tract, and when reasoned it is the only section in the thirteen miles of Manhattan where lots suitable for apartment construction can be had for $6,000 to $10,000, the predictions for the Dyckman cannot be very much astray. The development of the valley is different to that of any other region in this big city. Before a district gets to the stage warranting apartment houses it passes through half a dozen degrees of development covering many years. First come the small house, then the dwellings and then the apartment house. The Dyckman, which up to the building of the subway was no better for traveling facilities than many of our suburbs, has not followed this slow line of development, but has stepped from pasture and farm lands into a locality of fine apartment houses.

Dyckman Land Auction, New York Tribune, November 2, 1870

All this has come about in the last half dozen years. That it did not come sooner is not because of inattention or lack of booms; for the property has been kept before the real estate public for nearly half a century by a dozen booms started to force development. But the result shows that development cannot be forced: It must come as a natural course of events. In 1868 the first attempt to exploit the Dyckman was made. The Dyckman family, which with the Ishams, owned the pleasant little valley, thought they would sell part of their farm. Taxes had been raised and like now, with extravagant officials in power, there was every reason to expect taxes would continue to climb skyward. So on October 14, 1868, the first parcel of the valley to be offered for sale since it was secured from the Indians was put up at auction in the auction rooms, which at the time were in the basement of 111 Broadway. The offering comprised about fifteen-hundred lots lying between what is now 139th street and Dyckman street.

Although most inaccessible and far from the built up section of the city, good prices were received. They ranged from $1,000 to $925 a lot. For eleven lots at the southeast corner Broadway and Dyckman street, recently bought by the Bernheim Construction Company for improvement with a big apartment house, the sum of $10,200 was paid, and the property adjoining, four lots at the southwest corner of Dyckman street and Sherman avenue, sold for $2,800. Inside lots 25 by 150 on Broadway brought $1,500, and inside lots 25 by 200 on Dyckman Street brought $800 to $925.

Dyckman Land Auction Announcement, New York Tribune, May 27, 1871

Two years later, in June of 1870, the Dyckmans, so pleased with the success of the first sale, put 900 more lots up at auction. These lots stretched from Dyckman street north to 211th street, east of Broadway. Again thee were plenty of buyers, and the bidding was satisfactory. A third sale was held that November, and the next June another part of the farm was put under the auction hammer. In this last sale nearly a thousand lots west of Broadway and between Academy and Isham streets were offered. At this sale the northwest corner of Broadway and Emerson street, a plot 100 by 100, sold for $6,900.

Four years ago the Alliance Realty Company, William H. Chesebrough’s company, paid $40,000 for this same property. Two thousand five hundred dollars bought the lot, 25 by 130, at the southwest corner of Broadway and Isham street, and inside lots on Broadway brought $1,550 to $1,850. With all this buying the biggest kind of a boom was expected to follow. But it dropped flat as soon as the Dyckman’s stopped cutting up their farm. It could not have come to a more sudden stop if it had struck a stone wall. Some attributed the short life of this boom and booms in other sections that were then in progress to the action of the railroads, which had just begun a campaign for the development of the suburbs along their respective lines.

Whether or not this was the cause for the puncture of the Dyckman boom it was some time before interest was again revived in the sunny valley lying along the west bank of the Harlem. For many years it remained in its primitive state. Travelers coming into the city on New York Central trains looked out and admired the little hollow nestled behind Inwood hill, which protected it from the cold winter blasts that sweep across the river from the north and west and contrasted it to the other end of the city. Nothing interrupted its peace except the horse car lines, later displaced by trolley, which ran up to the jumbled mass of roofs and frame structures that went to make Fort George, then a popular resort.

The houses in the valley at that time could have been counted on one’s fingers. They were chiefly farmhouses and cottages outdating by many years the civil war. They were pretty houses and their setting made ideal country places.

Subway Construction in Northern Manhattan finally makes Inwood accessable to perspective tenants. The building boom is on.

Nothing much was heard from the Dyckman tract up to ten years ago, when the boom started on the Heights. The subway had been built and was going to go clear through to Van Cortlandt Park. Seeing what was taking place on the Heights, only a mile from the Dyckman tract, a boom was set on foot. The section was on the same subway that was making the West Side the finest apartment house section in the world, and it was this line that was rapidly making the Heights a close rival of the West Side. The boom on the Heights and in the Dyckman tract was based on logical reasons, but in the latter case they were premature. At the time the evolution of the West Side from a section of private dwellings to an apartment house territory had just begun, and no substantial building could be expected in the northern sections until the supply of lots to the south had been consumed.

Dyckman Valley, Turn of the Century, Source: NYHS

So the boom petered out, and again the Dyckman tract lapsed into a state of quietness. Since then several attempts have been made to force a market for Dyckman lots, but they were all failures. The boom now on in the Dyckman is not one of speculators, but of builders, who are improving everything they hold. As soon as one house is finished another is begun, and in this manner block after block has been improved with good apartment houses.

The Charles Hensle Construction Company was the first to see that the time had come for the Dyckman, and about three years ago startled realty men by announcing it had decided to erect a six story elevator apartment in the tract.

The reputation of these builders for their shrewdness in selecting this section for their operation was the only thing that saved them from ridicule. In fact this did not save them some comment by those who thought the firm was taking a daring venture in trying an operation of this sort in the Dyckman.

Broadway and 207th in 1910, Source- Museum of the City of NY.

They bought the block on the south side of 207th street, from Sherman to Post avenue, and planned to erect on the site fifty foot apartments, which were to represent an outlay of more than $750,000. They were the first elevator structures planned for the valley. To the surprise of even the best wishers for the Dyckman, many of the apartments were rented from the plans. There are sixty apartments of from two to five rooms in this house and all but six are tenanted.

The Hensle Company gave no less attention to these than to houses they had built on the Heights. They installed kitchenettes, electric lights, gas, telephones and all the other comforts to be found in the best of houses. They rented from $8 to $10 a room without much trouble or without concessions, so it is said. When these houses were built the population of the Dyckman was not more than 500, or not much less than the tenancy of the Hazel Court. Now the population is between 3,500 and 4,000.

Inwood Valley in 1910 looking north from Fort George, notice construction boom underway, Source: NYHS.

Shortly after four fifty foot apartments were erected on Post avenue by the Post Avenue Realty Company. Each of these houses had accommodations for sixty families. T.G. Galardi bought a plot on the east side of Vermilyea avenue just north of Dyckman street and erected the Academy Hall and the Marie Antoinette apartments. They are now elevator apartment houses, built in tapestry brick with sandstone trimming and are among the most attractive houses in the section. The apartments are laid out in three, four and five room suites, renting at the lowest for $6.50 a room. The smaller apartments are the most popular and bring not less than $8 a room.

Then directly opposite is Vermilyea Hall, an apartment similar to Academy Hall, and the Marie Antoinette. Here will be found everything that makes housekeeping a comfort. There are telephones, gas, electric lights, baths and hot and cold water. All this is given for less than is demanded for equal facilities ten or fifteen minutes further south on the subway. This is explained because of the still low price of lots. An apartment house can still be built there on a plot costing the price of a single lot in almost any part of the Heights, not to speak of the territory west of Central Park. Since this start there have been any number of apartments erected. The novelty of tall buildings has worn off and they are now taken as the most natural things.

Just now thirty apartment houses are under construction or about to be started. At the northwest corner of Nagle avenue and Ogden street, facing the Dyckman street subway station, the finest elevator house yet planned for the Dyckman district is being erected by the Hensle Company. It will be of six stories and will cover a plot 100 feet on Nagle avenue and 134 feet on Arden. Every room in this house will have outside light. From it can be seen University Heights and the Hall of Fame across the Harlem, and the other side is Inwood Hill.

Besides this house, which is about 50 percent finished, the company is erecting on adjoining property on Arden street seven 50 foot apartments being erected. On the block to the north, that bounded by Dyckman and Thayer streets, Sherman and Nagle avenues, the Bernheim Construction Company is getting ready to erect ten fifty foot houses. In a few weeks it is expected that the property will be ready for the beginning of the foundation.

At the corner of Isham Street the Sherman Avenue Construction Company is building a house, which will have accommodations for forty-five families. It will be a non-elevator house and will be arranged in suites of two, three, four and five rooms. Within a few rods of this house and apartment, which is planned to give accommodation to eighty-five families, is being rushed to completion by the Dyckman Construction Company. This house is at the corner of Sherman avenue and Isham street. Two blocks below, at the corner of Sherman avenue and Academy street, this company is erecting another house. Up at Broadway and 214th street an elevator apartment is under construction by the Hazel Realty Company, builders of Hazel Realty Company, builders of Hazel Court at Sherman avenue and 207th street. It will be six stories high and will cover an area of more than six lots. This house is the furthest north of the elevator apartments so far planned of the Dyckman.

Almost every street in the lower end of the tract has received attention from builders. Most of the attention has been given to the principle streets, such as Nagle, Sherman, Post and Vermilyea avenues, Dyckman street and Broadway, which are 100 foot thoroughfares. The narrowest street in the Dyckman is no less than eighty feet in width. The valley was laid out by the city only a few years ago, and the mistakes made in street planning in the older section have been avoided here. Every street is roomy and some of them are curved.

Curved streets have been used in European cities for years and have the approval of the most eminent experts on street planning. Most of the people who are taking up residences in the Dyckman are coming from Greenwich Village and other sections of the West Side south of Fifty-ninth street. Quite a few Tenants have come from cities far distant from New York. Newlyweds favor the Dyckman, and for this reason the demand for small suites of two or three rooms is larger than for the four, five and six room apartments.

Since the first of the year M, Just & Co. have received 100 more applications for two room apartments than they could fill. Mr. Just also reports that of the 700 apartments in the Dyckman, which he has on his books, only twenty-two are for rent. These are all five room suites.

NOW WE SKIP AHEAD THREE YEARS AS THE INWOOD BUILDING BOOM IS IN FULL SWING:

Old Apartment Buildings
The Evening Post
Saturday, June 12, 1915
$2,000,000 IN NEW APARTMENTS FOR THE DYCKMAN

New York Evening Post, June 12, 1915

Never before in the history of the Dyckman, as the full end of Manhattan Island bisecting the Ship Canal, Harlem and Hudson Rivers is known has there been so much musterization in the direction of building construction as is under way at the present moment. Almost from the point where the subway trains come out of the ground of Dyckman Street up to the big power house of the Third Avenue Railroad at 218th Street there is hardly an interesting street but which has its sign that the that the station is advancing and reaching rapidly an important center of population.

New York Evening Post, June 12, 1915

75 Sherman Avenue, Today

A casual survey of the building activity reveals the fact that there are upwards of thirty apartment structures in various stages of progress within a radius of a few blocks from the three stations of the subway at the Dyckman, 207th and 215th Streets which will represent in the aggregate an outlay of approximately $2,000,000 not counting the expenditures their builders made in acquiring the sites.

All this is doubly significant in view of the fact that it was a few brief years ago that the mere mention of the Dyckman to a real estate expert as being a good prospect for investment or speculation gave rise to a smile. The skepticism, it might be added, was not without reason, for in those days the Dyckman was a “wild” section of daisy fields, trees and some marshy ground; so rural was it in fact that on afield there soon lost the sense that he was standing on Manhattan Island.

Hazel Court: New York Evening Post, June 12, 1915

Hazel Court Apartments in 1968, Courtesy Herb Maruska.

Hazel Court on West 207th Between Sherman Avenue and Post Avenue, Today

In remarkable contrast to this picture is the present development of the section with apartment buildings of the best type in the walk-up style, a few being equipped with elevators which including the ones now under construction provide modern buildings for approximately 20,000 people. It is perhaps worthy to mention that all the completed buildings are fully tenanted having been rented in most instances before their completion and this experience is being had by the builders who are now at work to advance the Dyckman towards the goal which its present condition seemingly makes certain that of being a thickly populated district before many more years elapse.

"A later development in the Dyckman, erected by the Maze Realty Company," New York Evening Post, June 12, 1915

631-632 West 207th near Isham Street. Possibly the same building in the above photo.

As a study of the progress of a city, the Dyckman is both interesting and quickly surveyed, as from the Dyckman Street Station, which is on high ground, after one again becomes accustomed to daylight upon leaving the tunnel; almost all of the Dyckman is in view. Looking straight ahead following the elevated continuation of the subway, a maze of attractive, clean-looking buildings greet the vision which less than five years ago resembled in appearance the district to the east of Tenth Avenue over to the Harlem River and west of Seaman Avenue, from which begins the rise of Inwood Hill.

Further, to that which is now visible, as evidence of the progress of the Dyckman, there will soon be added perhaps a half-dozen more structures to the spring and summer developments as the result of recent sales of plots. And in this connection it might be added that the incentive for the almost remarkable building activity, which is spurring the builder onward, is the fact that seemingly all the space they can produce is readily rented at a scale that averages about $8 per room.

It was while the boom on Washington Heights was beginning to give its first sign of exhausting the available supply of sites for the speculative builders that the Dyckman was “discovered” as an eligible region for future operations. The Heights was pretty liberally developed with buildings, but the “boom” died out, and there were still many lots left. However, the more daring did not wait to see the exhaustion of the supply of the Heights, and they corralled many Dyckman lots to await the coming of the builder. Subsequently a mild “boom” did his the Dyckman, followed by a more violent upheaval of buying in which participated many speculators, who invested profits taken from the Heights, but still the builders held aloof, and the speculators held on to their lots, with their confidence in them somewhat shaken.

After a year or so of the operation of the subway, and the constantly increasing traffic thereon, the Dyckman had a “boom” every little while, but invariably they did nothing more than bring new blood into the district, so to speak, of investors who felt, as did their predecessors, that some day there would be demand for the lots as sites for apartments. Seemingly the hard-headed builder, slow moving even under the most diligent prodding to convince him of his opportunities, felt that the Dyckman was not yet ripe for exploitation.

"Recently completed on Sherman Avenue, near 207th Street, by Galardi & Just," New York Evening Post, June 12, 1915

About four years ago the long-expected development of the Dyckman, which then was the largest undeveloped area on Manhattan Island, set in, and what has resulted is perhaps best reflected in the fact that the one-time daisy-covered acres now house a population larger than many important towns and some cities. The buildings of today, with those, which will be ready for occupancy by August, will accommodate approximately 20,000 persons.

The first intrusion of the peaceful quiet of the Dyckman came about ten years ago, when the residents of a few country homes saw the advent of the tenement, built by the pioneer, Michael McCormick, on the north side of Dyckman Street, west of Broadway. This venture lay for a year or two in a dubious state, and with it rested the confident expectations of the Dyckman’s future. However, history need not be retold, but the fact nevertheless remains that the Dyckman is now in the position occupied by many important towns, for it has its schools, churches, theatres, and other accessories of a populous centre.

Charles Hensle, Max Just, T.G. Galardi, G.L. Lawrence and other well-known builders began the process of standardizing the values of the section acquired as a result of the early booms and the $7,000 per lot average, now prevailing, is being supported by a new crop of builders which includes the Aldus Construction Company, Loyal Building Company, Charles Flaurn, the Henry Morgenthau Company, Menkin-Kraus Construction Company, L. Becker, James Livingston, Fred F. French, B. J. Rice, Kovacs Construction Company, Smada Construction Company and the H. Berman Construction Company.

All of these now have under various degrees of construction some thirty modern buildings of the five-story type covering sites from 50 to 100 feet frontage. Reflecting the ultimate success of these operations, from an investment viewpoint, is the renting of the accommodations they will provide, which already comprehends about 50 per cent of the whole production.

Dyckman Real Estate Opportunities, New York Evening Post, December 31, 1912