19 Gramercy Park South
19 Gramercy Park South, also known as 86
History
The house was built in 1845 by William Samuel Johnson, a Whig politician, and then had the address 86 Irving Place.[1][2] Johnson sold the property to Horace Brooks, who added a fifth story and constructed a stable on the unused southern part of the property.[2] The census of 1880 shows a number of different people living at the address, suggesting that it had been converted into apartments by that time.[3]
In 1887, this modest property was expanded and altered by noted architect Stanford White[4] at the cost of $130,000[2] into a mansion with an interior marble staircase and a ballroom on the top floor where Mamie Fish gave elaborate parties for New York society.[5] The building was also re-numbered 19 Gramercy Park, an address which had not existed prior to that time.[2]
The Fish family left for their new 78th Street home in 1898, and the building was broken up into small apartments;
The building was rescued from decay in 1931 by noted
Sonnenberg died in 1978, and the house was auctioned to Baron
Rooms
The mansion in its current incarnation has 37 rooms, 18,000 square feet (1,700 m2) of space, a separate caretaker's apartment, numerous bedrooms, bathrooms, guest suites, and sitting rooms, a drawing room, a library, two kitchens, a wine cellar and the ballroom on the top floor, which had been renovated by Tyler.[2]
In popular culture
- 19 Gramercy Park plays a central role in the 1970 illustrated novel Time and Again by American author Jack Finney. The main character, an advertising artist, travels back in time from 1970s New York City to January 1882, and rents a room at 19 Gramercy Park, which is a boarding house in the novel. It is described as "a plain three-story brownstone with white-painted window frames and a short flight of scrubbed stone steps with a black wrought-iron railing."
- In Danny Randgrew up here as a child.
References
- ^ Landmarks Preservation Commission
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Schoeneman, Deborah and Netburn, Deborah. "After Pining for It, Investor Jarecki Gets 19 Gramercy Park" Archived 2010-05-19 at the Wayback Machine The New York Observer (December 24, 2000)
- ^ a b c Gray, Christopher "Streetscapes/19 Gramercy Park South; An 1880s House That Asks, 'What's In a Name?'" The New York Times (February 20, 2000)
- ^ For the possibility that Sidney V. Stratton was the architect and not White, see Gray, Christopher "Streetscapes/19 Gramercy Park South; An 1880s House That Asks, 'What's In a Name?'" The New York Times (February 20, 2000)
- ^ OCLC 40227695pp.48-49
- ISBN 978-0-8129-3107-5.
- ISBN 978-1-60354-055-1. (Reprinted by Scholarly Press, 1976; often referred to as WPA Guide to New York City.), p.196
External links
Media related to 19 Gramercy Park South - 86 Irving Place at Wikimedia Commons- Sonnenberg Mansion interior photographs at the New-York Historical Society.
