Houses Archives - Page 103 of 125

Thomas Bliss House, Longmeadow, Mass

September 3, 2023July 7, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Thomas Bliss House on Longmeadow Street, on May 5, 1910. Image courtesy of the Longmeadow Historical Society, Emerson Collection.

The house in 2023:

This house is so old that it was actually built in Springfield, years before Longmeadow became a separate town. It is one of many historic 18th century homes still standing in Longmeadow, and although its exact date of construction is uncertain, it was built sometime between 1714 and 1758 for Thomas Bliss, on the opposite side of the street. When Bliss died in 1758, his son Henry sold it to Nathaniel Ely, who operated a tavern out of here. It was used as a tavern until 1833 , and was later moved across the street to its present location.

One of the subsequent owners was Dr. Lester Noble, a dentist who played a role in the high-profile 1849 murder of Dr. George Parkman. Along with fellow Longmeadow dentist Dr. Nathan Keep, Noble used dental records to identify Parkman’s badly mutilated body, making it one of the first trials to use dental evidence. Dr. Noble died a few years before the first photo was taken in 1910. At this point, the house was owned by Cora M. Page, and it featured a porch on the front and side, along with several outbuildings behind it. The porch is partially gone now, as are the barns/sheds in the background, but the historic house is still standing, and at possibly 300 years old it is one of the oldest buildings in Longmeadow.

Smith Platt House, Springfield, Mass

July 5, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Smith Platt House on Sumner Avenue in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2016:

Located next to the Lathrop House at the corner of Sumner Avenue and Washington Road, this house was built in 1893 for Smith H. Platt, a Methodist preacher, physician, and author. He was born in Connecticut and spent much of his life in New York City, but by the 1890s he was living here in Springfield and practicing medicine in an office in the house. He wrote several books, including an anti-slavery novel in 1859 entitled The Martyrs, and the Fugitive; or a Narrative of the Captivity, Sufferings, and Death of an African Family, and the Slavery and Escape of Their Son. Much later in life, in 1895, he published The Secrets of Health; or How Not to Be Sick and How to Get Well From Sickness, which provides somewhat dubious remedies for nearly every condition, including taking a teaspoon of turpentine before meals to treat cancer, drinking hydrogen peroxide to treat gangrene, and taking warm baths to treat insanity.

By the 1910 census, Platt was 81 years old and he was living here with his daughter Belle, her husband Leander W. White, and their two sons, Harrison and Gardner. He died two years later, and the White family remained here for many years. Leander was a banker, who by the 1920s was serving as vice president of Chicopee National Bank. Belle, like her father, was a physician, but she died relatively young in the 1920s. Leander and his two sons were still living in this house when the first photo was taken, and he died about 10 years later in 1949. Today, the house is still standing, and along with the surrounding houses it is virtually unchanged from the first photo. Like the rest of the neighborhood, it is part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

William May House, Springfield, Mass

July 5, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The William May House on Sumner Avenue in Springfield, on April 8, 1911. Image courtesy of the Longmeadow Historical Society, Emerson Collection.

The house in 2016:

This house on Sumner Avenue in Springfield’s Forest Park neighborhood was built in 1911, around the time that the first photo was taken. It was built as a two-family home, with Springfield Public Market executives William May and Herman Isenberg each owning half of it. May was the president of the grocery store, and in 1920 he was living here with his wife Helen, their daughter Hilda, and an Irish servant named Catherine O’Connor. Isenberg was the treasurer of the company, and he was a German immigrant who lived here with his wife Ida, their children Alice and Joel, and a cousin.

By the 1940 census, both families were still living here, but William and Ida both died sometime between 1930 and 1940. Herman, 64 ears old at this point, was listed as the company president, and his 29 year old son Joel was still living here and working as a manager in the store. The two men were each listed as earning over $5,000 per year, which was the highest income category on the census, equivalent to over $85,000 today. They also employed three servants who earned between $350 and $780 per year, or about $6,000 to $13,000 today.

Today, the historic house is still a two-family building, and very little has changed on the exterior. Like the nearby Lathrop House, it is an excellent example of classical revival architecture from the turn of the last century, and it is part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

F.W. Lathrop House, Springfield, Mass

June 28, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The F.W. Lathrop House on Sumner Avenue in the Forest Park neighborhood of Springfield, on April 8, 1911. Image courtesy of the Longmeadow Historical Society, Emerson Collection.

The house in 2016:

This mansion at 188 Sumner Avenue was built in 1899 for real estate dealer Frederick W. Lathrop and his wife Flora. At the time, Forest Park was becoming a fashionable neighborhood, and many large, elegant homes were built along Sumner Avenue and other streets in the area. The photo in this earlier post shows the house on the left side of the tree-lined street in around the same time period. Lathrop died in 1917 and Flora in 1933, and since then the home has gone through a variety of uses, including as a Jewish temple, a Jewish school, an art school, and a bed and breakfast. Today, the house is a well-preserved example of Springfield’s historic mansions, and it is part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Fifth Avenue from 57th Street, New York City

June 23, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Looking north on Fifth Avenue from 57th Street in New York City, around 1910-1920. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Fifth Avenue in 2016:

These photos were taken just a block further up Fifth Avenue from the ones in the previous post, and they show Grand Avenue Plaza and the southeast corner of Central Park in the distance. On the far left side of the first photo is part of the Cornelius Vanderbilt II House, which was demolished in 1926 to build the present-day Bergdorf Goodman building. The ornate wrought-iron gates, though, were preserved, and Vanderbilt’s daughter Gertrude later donated them to Central Park, where they now stand at the Conservatory Garden. None of the other buildings in the foreground are still standing, and the only object that has remained the same is the golden equestrian statue of General Sherman, barely visible from here in the center of the Plaza.

Cornelius Vanderbilt II House, New York City

June 23, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Looking north on Fifth Avenue from 56th Street, with the Cornelius Vanderbilt II House on the left side of the street, around 1907-1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Fifth Avenue in 2016:

As explained in an earlier post, this section of Fifth Avenue was once known as Vanderbilt Row because of the number of mansions that the family built here in the late 1800s. However, none of the other mansions rivaled that of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, who was the eldest son of William Henry Vanderbilt and the grandson of family patriarch Cornelius Vanderbilt. When his grandfather died in 1877, the younger Cornelius received a $5 million inheritance, and soon after he set to work building a lavish mansion here at the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 57th Street.

When it was completed in 1883, the house consisted of just the section closest to West 57th Street, which is the side facing the camera. However, his father died two years later, leaving him in charge of the New York Central Railroad and giving him an inheritance of nearly $70 million, or close to $1.8 billion in today’s dollars. He put some of this money to use a few years later, when he decided to expand his house and ensure that no other mansion could rival it. The $3 million expansion was completed in 1893, giving the house 130 rooms and making it the largest private residence ever built in the city.

Two years later, Vanderbilt’s other famous home, The Breakers, was completed. This 125,000 square foot summer “cottage” in Newport, Rhode Island cost over $7 million, but Vanderbilt had little time to enjoy either of his two new houses. He suffered a debilitating stroke in 1896, and he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1899 at the age of 55. His widow Alice continued to live here in this house until 1926, when she sold it to developers who demolished it and built the Bergdorf Goodman building that now stands there today.

With the exception of the Plaza Hotel in the distance on the far left, none of the other buildings from the first photo are still standing. Like the Vanderbilt mansion, all of the other private homes here were demolished in the early 1900s, when this area was redeveloped into a major retail district. However, while the Vanderbilts no longer call Fifth Avenue their home, this area is certainly not devoid of millionaires. The building on the far right of the 2016 photo is the Trump Tower, the primary residence of Donald Trump, whose father was a young child living in nearby Queens when the first photo was taken.