Town House - NE Corner 75th St. and West End Avenue - Architect, Charles T. Mott, Owner, Elisha H. Talbott 1839-1923

SOME TOWN HOUSES. 

On pages 44 and 45 will be found floor  plans and engravings of some townhouses, erected on West End Avenue, New York City, N. Y. The corner house, of which we give plans, was erected for E. H. Talbott, Esq. The design is treated in the Romanesque style. The first story  is built of brownstone with faces left rough as they come from the quarry,with the exception of the door and window openings. The upper stories are built of wash brick, with trimmings of similar stone. Above this, the building is made impressive by a tower and a step pitched roof, covered with Spanish tiles. The cornice and dormer windows are of copper. Within the house, the arrangement is excellent, and the first story contains the first and second drawing-rooms, broad hall and dining-room, which can be thrown together if desired.The most striking feature of the interior is the hall and stair case. This hall is trimmed with oak. The walls are paneled the full height, and are finished with a carved cornice. The ceiling is ribbed, forming panels,which are filled in with rare bits of carving. The broad staircase is built of oak, and it has a massive carved newel with candelabrum of wrought iron and lantern of antique design. The walls and ceiling of vestibule are paneled, and the floor is laid in mosaic.The nook has a paneled divan. The drawing rooms are treated with ivory white and gold in a delicate manner.  The trimmings are carved exquisitely. The fireplace is furnished with white onyx tiles, Mexican onyx facings, and an over mantel aid in mosaic.Dining-room is trimmed with white mahogany. It has a paneled wainscoting ten feet high, and ceiling beams.The fireplace is provided with a tiled hearth, Mexican onyx facings, and a mantel with beveled plate mirror,etc. 

These apartments have parquet floors and are highly polished. The windows on this floor have transoms glazed with delicate tinted glass, shedding a pleasant light over the various apartments. The butler's pantry has a counter shelf of Italian marble with bowl. It also contains an ice box, dresser, china closets, dumb waiter, and a private stairway from basement to fourth story. The second floor contains four chambers and bathroom, and the third floor contains three chambers and bathroom. These apartments are trimmed with sycamore. The fireplaces are fitted up complete.The The bathrooms are wainscoted with Italian marble, and are furnished in the best possible manner with exposed plumbing, all nickel plated.The chambers have large closets.The fourth story contains three servant bed rooms and a billiard room. The basement contains kitchen, pantries, laundry, furnace, and other necessary apartments. Mr. CharlesT. Mott, architect, 137 Broadway, NewYork.

(Scientific American, Building Edition, March 1896, page 35)

(Real Estate Record and Builder's Guide, March 2, 1895, page 335)

Elisha Hollingsworth Talbott - 1839-1923

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    Descendants of Richard and Elizabeth (Ewen) Talbott of Poplar Knowle, West River, Anne Arundel County, Maryland - 1927

Co-founder of Railway Age Magazine and Iron Age among other publications. Organizer of the 1883 National Exposition of Railway Appliances, Opening May 24th, Chicago, Illinois. 

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 2 June 1883

(Chicago History Magazine, Winter 2010, page 51)

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The Terra Cotta Grill Room - McAlpin Hotel - The Brickbuilder March 1913

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Helen Frankenthaler - Steve Martin

When I was a temp at Abrams Books - art books - special sales department I spent some time over several days with telephone calls and faxes through one of Steve Martin's assistants trying to get his written permission to reprint one of his Helen Frankenthaler's in his current possession, from one of our being published books for a new upcoming Lear Magazine. 

By ownership apparently he had current copyright on the painting over and above copyright rights we had to publish it only in a current book on sale. Reprints in magazines had to go through us as the magazine wanted a photo of one of her works we were about to publish in a book etc. Free advertising so to speak, raising an interest in her works and in our related books. He was island hopping at that time in the Caribbean, being a reason for so much of my time being wasted etc. He was into modern art and big money investment as I understand it and read about later, investing that way in the late 80s. 

Met Helen Frankenthaler when she made a tour of our offices at 100 Fifth Ave reviewing I believe proofs of her upcoming book etc. A sweet lady.

Concerns with Garbage, Sewage in Bushwick Brooklyn and Rikers Island - Harper's Weekly 8 Sept 1894

This article in Harper's Weekly page 844, 8 Sept 1894 discusses garbage and sewage in Brooklyn before incorporation of NYC in 1898 and labeled "Scene Of The Great Garbage Dump At Red Hook, Brooklyn" - the article has nothing outwardly to do with Red Hook in the southern part of Brooklyn and not the northern part with geography and streets names (with typos) of Bushwick.

The one legitimate reference to Red Hook in the article regarding dumps, sewage and pollution, are  the visuals, one photo labeled "The Dump, Columbia and Lorraine Streets" which is in Red Hook, the other images conform more to the written article.

I can only guess that this one bleeding heart article about conditions of the poor and in Brooklyn was to a limited audience of a very tony magazine like Harper's Weekly. I can only imagine that some junior editor commuting from over the East River to Harper's offices in NYC, knew where Columbia and Lorraine was and the rest of the geography got lost on him  and thus the title. That living on and off for decades in the Big Apple a lot of the neighborhoods in the Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx are still a mystery to me as well.

The article interested me in that what it said about bathhouses being parked in the summer at the mouth of waterways filled with sewage and pollution, reminded of Philadelphia's own similar manner of giving free bathing in floating houses and more than likely docked at the mouth of similarly polluted waterways flowing into the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers in the late decades of the 19th century before permanent brick buildings were erected for the cleanliness and pleasure of the poor of the city, cities like New York and Philadelphia in the early decades of the twentieth century to replace these old obsolete, in terms of good health, floating bathhouses.

An area of Standard Oil and its tanks at what I believe is Bushwick Inlet mentioned in the article and on a peninsula of sorts with Newtown Creek, only "some hundreds of yards or from Newtown Creek",  a dividing boundary between King's County (Brooklyn) and Queens County.

Dealing with Garbage and Other issues in Brooklyn before Incorporation 


That of note in images of print below is the typo of "Briggs" for "Driggs" avenue, an area described there as a current dumping site thirty to forty feet high and its geography matching closely that of McCarran Park pool within the greater McCarren Park label on Google maps and near Bushwick Inlet. That in the end, the poor and or the common citizen benefits in the repurposing of old industrial or waste sites. 

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Removing Garbage Fruit-Dealers' District - Illustration - Harper's Weekly 13 Oct 1894

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Before and After - Trinity Place South of Thames Street - 1923 / 2011

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Cathedral of St. John the Divine - Working on an Angel - Library of Congress - no date

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