WAYBACK MACHINE: Where Was Corcoran's Roost?

James 'Paddy' Corcoran is a fabled character in pre‒Tudor City lore. He made his name during New York's Civil War Draft Riots ‒ as one of the profiteering rioters ‒ and went on to rule the neighborhood until the post-War prosperity of the 1870s over-ruled him. Now there is some new intelligence as to the actual location of where he lived.

Corcoran's Roost, as the house was known, was located at 317 E. 40th Street. He had squatted there around 1850 and over time, built it up ‒ the house was given a street number long after it was constructed. It was a plain brick structure, three stories high.

The New York Sun ran an article in October, 1891, entitled Corcoran and His Roost: A Favorite Hanging-out Place for the East Side Roughs. The reporter visited the site accompanied by a policeman; even in 1891, it was still a rough address. There the reporter met James's son, Tommy Corcoran, who, seeing the policeman, invited him inside.

He took the reporter though the house and showed him perhaps the filthiest, most rickety building that stands on Manhattan Island. The ceilings seemed to be trying to scrape acquaintance with the floors; the walls were dirty and cracked; everything was covered with filth; the only colors visible were dirty gray and dirty black; in every corner and cranny, the refuse of months had accumulated, while the odor from the stable and the stench from the yard mingled freely with the air in the rooms. Several of the rooms contained nothing but chairs, and looked like meeting places. . .

Here lives James Corcoran, the owner, his wife, his three sons, his two daughters and some of the men that work in the stable. The reporter saw Corcoran, but there was such a vicious look on his old face, and he looked so grim as he fingered an iron rod that the reporter decided against questioning him. Tommy evidently suspected something, for he pushed his father into a room and slammed the door shut. Then the reporter went out into the open air and left Tommy standing on the steps of Corcoran's Roost, scowling viciously. The policeman said:

"There's a pretty tough crowd that hangs out there. They don't do much besides 'rushing the growler' [getting drunk] and fighting amongst themselves. As long as they leave respectable people alone, it's best not to interfere with them. The sooner they all kill one another, the better it will be."

 

And there's a bonus, a drawing of Corcoran. It's not much of an image, but judge for yourself:

 

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Some time later, just before his death in 1900, Corcoran stated "I have been forty-eight years at that house," and we don't doubt him for a moment.

CONFIDENTIAL: the Fake Tudor City

From Tudor City Service, circa 1934

The above, from an issue of Tudor City Service (later renamed Tudor City View). Apparently, the colony had gotten some bad press from a business that sounded like it was part of Tudor City, although it was not. Of course, there was no municipal law against this, so it was just a warning. And warnings are like promises, ready to be broken.

Today, a look at three places that failed to be part of the colony. On the left, a matchbook cover plugging a barroom called The Jefferson Grill in Tudor City. The address was 226 E. 42nd Street, in a building next door to the Daily News, not authentic Tudor City. [The reverse touted its sibling, Yankee Diner, in Jamaica, Queens.] Nice try, though.

 

A more common usage can be seen at the bottom right of this photo. The TUDOR 5 AND 10 was a novelty shop specializing in inexpensive merchandise. 

Then there was the case of April 16, 1942, when a car careens out control after hitting an El pillar on Third Avenue, and bursts into flame. Two injured, one slain. Weegee was the only photographer there, and the resulting photo is known as "Joy of Living," after the movie title on the marquee.

 The theater was originally called the Tuxedo, then changed to the Tudor around 1930, an homage to Tudor City on Third Avenue and 41st Street.

Confidential: PULP FICTION Edition

Today, a look at the Murder of the Clergyman's Mistress, a 1931 detective novel wherein Tudor City makes a cameo appearance.

The book opens with the discovery of two dead bodies ‒ a clergyman and his mistress ‒ in a dinghy in the East River. [The novel is loosely based on the sensational Hall-Mills murders of 1922, whose principals were known in the tabloids as "the Minister and the Choir Singer."] Enter Thatcher Colt, who is the New York City Police Commissioner and, not incidentally, an excellent amateur sleuth. 

Tudor City is introduced early on when the bodies are found:

Later, Thatcher Colt sniffs around Tudor City for clues: 

The "real estate troubadours singing their most plaintive ballads" is a snarky reference to Tudor City's ubiquitous advertising campaigns at the time.

In the end, Thatcher Colt solves the mystery. The clergyman killed his mistress ‒ and then his other mistress killed the clergyman. 

Confidential: MURDER ON SLAUGHTER HOUSE ROW

This edition of our Confidential series recounts the sensational story of a policeman who murdered a nurse, dumped her body behind Prospect Tower, and then shot himself.

Daily News, July 5, 1946

The bizarre story, a tabloid sensation, begins in the early morning hours of Independence Day, 1946. Patrolman Mariano Abello and his supervising sergeant are making their nightly rounds. At 5:00 AM, the sergeant visits Hotel Tudor for a routine check, following up on a recent series of hold-ups. He goes in alone, telling Abello to wait in the car. When the sergeant returns fifteen minutes later, Abello and the car are gone.

Around 5:30 AM, a bus driver spots an abandoned patrol car with a flat tire near a "lonely, ill-lighted sidewalk under the Tudor City bluff on Slaughter House Row" [today the site of Ralph Bunche Park]. Patrolman Abello is standing near the car, and several feet away is the body of a woman, who has been strangled to death. Abello tells the bus driver to guard the body while he goes to the police station.

Instead, he commandeers a passing car at gunpoint and orders the driver to take him to the Bronx, telling him "I'm in a hell of a mess." Abello manages to hide out for eight hours until he is cornered by a phalanx of detectives. Rather than surrender, he shoots himself in the head. He is sent to the hospital in critical condition, with little chance of survival, and lapses into a coma.

It's all rather hard to imagine, since Abello is a model cop, on the force for ten years with a "spotless record for sobriety and conduct." He's 35, handsome, happily married. Not much is known about the victim, Catherine Miller, a 42-year-old divorcee. She's been living in New York for about a year, working as a secretary, a clerk and a practical nurse. She has no fixed address, storing her clothing in a locker at Grand Central. She has been arrested several times for intoxication, and the autopsy shows she had been drinking on the night of her death.

There is no evidence that the pair knew each other, and thus there is no motive for

the killing. The mystery deepens. Abello remains in a coma, the days pass, and then reports surface that Abello and Miller were in the same bar that fateful night ‒ Louis' on E. 31st St. Miller was a regular there, while Abello dropped in for reasons unknown. No witnesses saw them together that night, but regulars said the cop and the nurse did in fact know each other.

The story fades away in the press. By August, Abello is out of his coma, and, miraculously improved, appears for his arraignment in Homicide Court on the charge of first-degree murder. The trial begins in May, 1947. The most damning testimony comes from the driver of the abducted car, who states that Abello told him, "Drinking is bad. I just killed a woman. She was a slut."

The defense does not have much of a case, and Abello never takes the stand. He is ultimately convicted of second degree murder, and sentenced to 20 years to life in Sing Sing.

Daily News, May 17, 1947. Abello's wife awaiting the verdict.

What exactly happened the night of the murder remains a mystery to this day.

CONFIDENTIAL: Death by 'Skylarking'

Daily News front page detail, September 23, 1929,

This installment of our Confidential series, a walk on Tudor City's wilder side, recounts the sudden death of Allen Weir, society figure and Manor resident.

New York Times front page detail.

Weir was born to a prominent family in Wilmington, Delaware. After graduating from Annapolis naval academy, he moves to Manhattan in 1927, renting an apartment in The Manor.

Independently wealthy ‒ the owner of a yacht and two automobiles ‒ he socializes with a high-flying crowd, and is considered quite a catch. His status is enhanced after his brother marries a du Pont heiress.

Then, in the early hours of Sunday, Sept. 22, 1929, Weir returns home after a night out with two buddies. They had been drinking ‒ despite Prohibition being the law of the land, liquor was easy to come by in Manhattan ‒ and were in "high spirits." Pouring nightcaps, they begin 'skylarking' around the apartment, period slang for 'horsing around.'

Weir leaps up on the sill of an open window, nearly losing his balance. His pals rush to steady him, but he topples out the window, falling into a rear courtyard to his death. He is 26 years old.

Headlines from the Asbury Park Press, Brooklyn Times-Union, and Jackson Clarion-Ledger.

The ensuing police investigation ultimately pronounces Weir's death accidental, exacerbated by the fact that he was "heavily intoxicated" at the time of the fall. The Daily News spelled it out in its inimitable style:

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During Prohibition, liquor was easy to find in Tudor City. See our earlier post here.

CONFIDENTIAL: Tudor City's Most Sensational Crime

This episode of our Confidential series looks at the most sensational crime ever committed in the colony ‒ the notorious 1985 triple slaying in a Tudor Tower studio apartment.

George Senty

Three bodies are discovered in the apartment the morning of January 3, 1985. The victims are George Senty, 62, a freelance photographer and tenant of the apartment; Piroska Lantos, 29, a fashion model with whom Senty was obsessed; and Agnes Gramiss, 37, Piroska's roommate. All three are Hungarian.

Senty, a Budapest native, emigrated to New York in 1957 and opened a photo studio. He readily adapts to American ways, and by the '70s is sporting designer jeans and gold neck chains. He's quite the ladies' man, despite a perpetual cash-flow problem.

When visiting Budapest, he drives a Lincoln Continental and claims to be a famous fashion photographer. Everyone believes him, but in fact, his New York studio is barely scraping by. By 1984, he's decidedly on the downswing, mired in debt, and reduced to selling his cameras.

Piroska Lantos, photographed by Senty

Enter Piroska Lantos, Hungary's top model. For years, Senty has been urging her to come to New York, where he'll make her a star. He's hopelessly infatuated with her. In March 1984, she finally accepts his offer, even agreeing to move in with him. Expecting a chic penthouse, she finds a Tudor City studio apartment instead. Her wannabe boyfriend, truth be told, is a complete fraud. 

She moves out, signs with Legends modeling agency and walks the runway for Ungaro, Carolina Herrera, and Guy LaRoche, among others.

Senty continues to pursue her, growing ever more obsessed. He morosely tells friends "she is a star and I am a nobody," and threatens suicide. He believes that her roommate, Agnes Gramiss, dislikes him and is turning Piroska against him. He's convinced the women are having an affair.

It all finally comes to a head on New Year's Day, 1985. After taking the women out to dinner, he invites them to his apartment for a champagne toast. He serves the champagne, then goes into the bathroom, pulls a chrome-plated 32-caliber snubnose revolver out of the hamper, and shoots both women dead. Then he kills himself with four shots to the chest.

The story was so shocking that it even made the front page of the New York Times. Over at the Daily News, Piroska's face held page one for two days running, above. [The Goetz headline refers to Bernie Goetz, the infamous subway vigilante who had shot four teenagers the preceding week.]

The community was stunned. The News ran a how-could-it-happen-here story, above.

For the definitive, in-depth account of the crime, check out Patricia Morrisroe's excellent New York magazine piece, "Obsession," here.

Confidential: THE CELLULOID KID

This entry in our Confidential Series ‒ spotlighting the enclave's less savory side ‒ concerns The Celluloid Kid, a long-sought jewel thief finally captured in 1936 in the lobby of No 5.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle headline, May 8, 1936.

The Daily News' version of the story, below:

The Celluloid Kid, long sought by police for his ingenious burglaries, was betrayed into their hands yesterday by the telltale prints of his clever fingers.

He was arrested at 5:20 P.M. in the lobby of 5 Prospect Place, Tudor City, because tenants thought he was acting suspiciously and he could give detectives no respectable references. The name he gave, Albert Lloyd, of the Hotel Wellington, meant nothing. But the fingerprints told the story ‒ he was the long-sought Celluloid Kid.

He got his nickname, police said, because he is a master at opening doors with strips of celluloid six inches long and two and a half inches wide. Several such strips were found on him. 

In Lloyd's hotel room in Manhattan was found a valise with $5,000 worth of jewelry, another containing $200 worth of heroin and 50 hypodermic needles.

Although he has been wanted for many years in New York, Montreal and Philadelphia ‒ where it is said his total loot must have been well over $100,000 ‒ he was elusive as he is skillful, police said. His last arrest was in 1926. He was convicted, and served two years in Sing Sing for an $80,000 Park Avenue gem theft.

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Tudor City's first front-page headline in the Daily News, January 12, 1933.

The Tudor City wife was Mrs. Garnet McCabe, a housewife, and the slain husband was Evert McCabe, a wealthy executive. They were residents of The Woodstock. See our earlier post for the full story here.

As was the News' style at the time, the front page photos are unrelated to the headline (It was not until the 1940s that the big-headline-big-photo layout became the paper's signature). On this particular front page, the top photos concern singer Libby Holman's premature baby. Below them, Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Chevalier, on the brink of divorce, and a picture made at the funeral of a murdered child.

Confidential: 'MAD DOG' COLL Hails a Taxi

From our Confidential files, we've dug out the Nov. 19, 1937 edition of the Inquiring Fotographer, a long-running Daily News column that posed the same question to random folks on the street.

On this day, the question was asked of taxi drivers: "Who was the most famous person you ever drove in your cab?"  One answer caught our eye.

Vincent Coll was a murderous Irish mobster, dubbed 'Mad Dog' after killing a five-year-old child caught in the crossfire of a gang war. Coll had a short, violent life, bumped off in a drugstore phone booth by never-identified assailants in 1932, aged 24. What he was doing in Tudor City before hailing the cab is lost to history.

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More questions and answers from the Inquiring Fotographer coming soon. . .

CONFIDENTIAL: "Lady Raffles" Edition

Daily News headline, July 30,1937

This edition of our Confidential series ‒ a walk on Tudor City's wilder side ‒ tells the tale of Eleanor Campbell, Manor resident, sun worshiper, and jewel thief.


Her 10-day-long crime wave begins after she steals a passkey from The Manor's telephone switchboard room and robs six apartments. Detectives are called in to investigate, and spot her exiting an apartment (not her own), clad in a thin robe and bathing suit.

She darts up to the roof's sundeck. When the detectives arrive, she's sunbathing and apparently mending a handkerchief. In fact, the passkey is hidden in the hankie. The detectives are wise to her ruse. "That's the first time I've ever seen anybody sew with a door key" one comments dryly. Caught red-handed, Eleanor confesses to the thefts. "OK, I guess that's that," says she.

But once at the police station, she changes her tune, stating "This is a case of mistaken identity." Her attorney chimes in that the charges are "all wet." Nonetheless, she's specifically charged with the theft of a diamond pin, valued at $100. The tabloids have fun with the story, dubbing her "Lady Raffles" (after the fictional gentleman thief, Raffles, played in the movies by Ronald Colman).

The pin is later recovered from a nearby pawn shop, so the owner declines to press charges, and the case is dismissed. Eleanor gets off with a stern admonition from the magistrate: "You had better try to correct your ways, or you will go to one of the women's prisons."

Below, Eleanor arriving at court with her lawyer. Photo and caption from the Daily News.

Miss Eleanor Campbell, 26, her eyes shielded by sunglasses, is taken into Criminal Courts Building yesterday. The attractive blonde is accused of being a 'Lady Raffles' who robbed six tenants in the Tudor City apartment house where she makes her home. She was held in $500 bail for hearing next Friday.(NEWS foto)

CONFIDENTIAL: Riot at Corcoran's Roost

This edition of our Confidential series, examining the area's more unsavory moments, goes back in time to the night of September 10, 1899, when a riot breaks out at Corcoran's Roost.

Corcoran's Roost is the lair of Paddy Corcoran, leader of the Rag Gang, who terrorizes the area in the 1860s‒1870s, when it was known as Goat Hill. The exact location of The Roost is a matter of debate. Both Prospect Tower and Tudor Tower lay claim to the honor, but we believe it roosted on First Avenue, between 39th and 40th Streets ‒ currently, the site of the rising Richard Meier building.

The Times reports the melee the following day. It begins when "a gang of toughs opposed to Negroes" attacks a black passerby. A local cop intercedes, is overwhelmed, and calls for reinforcements. "Neighbors take a hand in the fight" and soon there are "bricks flying through the air" and "many sore heads." (Paddy Corcoran himself is not involved in the fray. In 1899, he is 81 and long retired.)

The full Times story, below.

Wayback Machine: THE 42ND STREET TUNNEL DISASTER, 1878

The 42nd Street tunnel, circa 1920, before the arrival of  Fred French and Tudor City. View looks west down 42nd Street from First Avenue.

Today, the Wayback Machine travels back in time to a hot summer afternoon in 1878, when construction of a tunnel on 42nd Street ‒ in the same spot as the current Tudor City Bridge ‒ is underway.

Prior to the tunnel, 42nd Street crosstown traffic has to go up and over Prospect Hill, the bluff that's now home to Tudor City. In 1875, the city passes legislation to remedy the situation, and a cut is made, resulting in a 50-foot drop from the top of the bluff to 42nd Street. A tunnel to reconnect Prospect Place while accommodating crosstown traffic is commissioned. A contractor is hired, one Jeremiah R. Byron, who agrees to build a 40-foot high, 200-foot long tunnel for the sum of $19,000.

Once work gets underway, the locals are skeptical. The New York Times reports that Byron's inferior construction is "so well known among the residents as to have been the subject of daily remark and complaint. Wagers had been made that the tunnel would fall within a specific time."

New York Times, June 30, 1878

And fall it does, on Saturday, June 29, 1878. Two sections of the tunnel are complete, and not long after workmen remove the center frames, a "tremulous report was heard," and the archway collapses. A local, 60-year-old Thomas Joyce, dies in the accident, buried alive. The Times explains how he came to be there:

"Many of the neighboring residents had formed the habit during the recent warm weather of lounging within the tunnel to read newspapers and otherwise enjoy its cool shade and the refreshing breezes that were drawn through it from the river."

When Joyce's mangled body is exhumed, it is "smashed and battered so frightfully as to make more than one of the workers faint. . . He had in his pockets nothing but two keys and two rosaries." The tragedy worsens the next day when another local, Patrick Lynch, is found dead in the wreckage.

On July 12th, the official investigation by the Coroner's Office finds the contractor guilty, citing inferior mason work, specifically not enough cement in the mortar. The contractor is censured, along with the Public Works inspector, who was offsite at the time of the collapse.

Rebuilding commences, and, unbelievably, the tunnel collapses again on October 21. There is no loss of life this time. The tunnel is finally completed in 1880 and remains in operation for over seventy years, replaced in 1952 by the current bridge.

More tunnel pix from an earlier post here.

CONFIDENTIAL: Peg Entwistle, the Hollywood Sign Girl

Returning to our Confidential series, we turn to resident Peg Entwistle, forever remembered as the "Hollywood Sign Girl." Hers is a sad story.

Born Millicent Lillian Entwistle, she's known
onstage as Peg, and to her friends as Babs.

Born in Wales in 1908, Peg comes to New York with her father in 1913. She dreams of being a stage actress, and makes her Broadway debut at the age of 17. She has talent, and is soon invited to join the prestigious Theatre Guild, touring the country doing repertory.

A young Bette Davis sees Peg perform in Boston in 1926, and later says "the reason I wanted to go into theater was because of an actress named Peg Entwistle. She looked just like me. A whole new world opened up to me."

Peg's personal life is not as charmed. She marries an alcoholic actor and discovers he has an ex-wife, a son, and overdue alimony and child support. He runs through her money. She divorces him.

In 1931, returning to New York after an extended stint on the road, Peg rents an apartment in Tudor City, which she shares with her best friend. Peg's name is on the lease.

Then Hollywood calls in the person of David O. Selznick, who offers her a term contract at RKO Studios. She much prefers the stage to the flickers, but the money is so tempting that she breaks an existing Broadway agreement ‒ burning some serious bridges ‒ and decamps to Hollywood. RKO eventually assigns her a small part in a forgettable picture, Thirteen Women. Shortly after the picture wraps, she's fired by RKO, part of company-wide cutbacks necessitated by the Depression.

Devastated, on September 16, 1932, Peg heads for the Hollywood Sign. At the time, it was the Hollywoodland Sign, erected to advertise a real estate development. The flimsy sign is constantly in need of repair, so workmen leave ladders in place behind each letter. Peg climbs up to the top of the 'H' and jumps off. She leaves a note behind:

I am afraid I'm a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E.

Her body is discovered two days later in a ravine 100 feet below the sign. She is 24 years old.

Her suicide is a sensation in the press.

Back in Tudor City, Peg's roommate has fallen so far behind on the rent that she is evicted. James Zeruk, Peg's biographer, reports that "most of Peg's possessions, including her furniture, wardrobe and jewelry, were held against the back rent she owed to the Tudor City management ‒ she would never recover them."

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Over time, Peg becomes a cult figure, bubbling up into the culture every now and then ‒ as the subject of a British musical, inspiring songs from Steely Dan and Dory Previn, and most recently in Lana Del Rey's Lust for Life video, shot atop the Hollywood Sign.

CONFIDENTIAL: The Jim Crow Elevator Suit

Claude Marchant photographed
by Carl Van Vechten, 1947

This edition of The Confidential examines a 1948 civil rights lawsuit that began in Tudor City. The press dubs it the "Jim Crow elevator suit," Jim Crow being shorthand for the racial segregation laws then in effect in the South.

The petitioner in the case is Claude Marchant, an up-and-coming African-American dancer. Although only 23, his résumé includes a stint in Katherine Dunham's modern dance troupe, as well as Broadway appearances in the revival of Show Boat and the calypso musical Caribbean Carnival.

In March, 1947, he visits an acquaintance who lives in No. 25. He's turned away from the passenger elevator and told to take the service car ‒ the elevator operator later says he thought Marchant was a delivery boy. When it happens again several months later, Marchant files a racial discrimination lawsuit against the French Company, owner of No. 25. In May, 1948, he wins a jury award of $1,000, the maximum award under the law.

Headline from The New York Age, an African-American newspaper founded in 1873.

The French Company appeals, and the verdict is reversed a year later by three Supreme Court judges because the original justice "frequently interfered with direct examination by counsel for the defense's witnesses and followed this by undue cross examination."

The New York Age calls the reversal a "below-the-belt blow at the whole civil rights program for the State and City of New York" and goes on to swat "swank, lily-white" Tudor City.

After the reversal, Claude Marchant forms his own dance troupe and abandons America, touring Europe for several years. One of his last sightings in print is this saucy item from the Bachelor Bits column of Jet magazine,1954.

CONFIDENTIAL: The Sad Case of Mrs. Wolcott Gibbs

This edition of The Confidential examines the sad, strange suicide of Elizabeth Crawford Gibbs, who leaped to her death from her Prospect Tower apartment on March 31, 1930.

Wolcott Gibbs in 1950

She was a newlywed, married to writer Wolcott Gibbs since August, 1929. He was 28, she was 22. Both worked at the New Yorker, she as a promotional writer, he as an up-and-coming writer/editor (the magazine itself was rather new, having started up in 1925). The couple had married rather impulsively, and she soon discovered her wry, urbane husband was actually a chainsmoking alcoholic with a depressive streak.

Days before Mrs. Gibbs' suicide, they had gone to see a Broadway hit, "Death Takes a Holiday." The play tells the story of Death coming down to earth for a three-day holiday, falling in love with a woman there, and taking her with him when he leaves. The drama supposedly fascinated Mrs. Gibbs, and several days later, she discussed it with her husband and sister over lunch in the Gibbs' apartment. Then she excused herself, went into the bedroom and jumped out the window.

The tabloid press liked the girl-ruined-by-a-play angle and ran with it. Below, sample headlines from papers around the country.

Book jacket for a collection of Gibbs' work.
Illustration by Charles Addams

However, Wolcott Gibbs biographer Thomas Vinciguerra disagrees, finding the "sees-play-kills-self" narrative rather improbable, and suggests some alternate versions. One account has the writer John O'Hara present that fateful day, talking with Gibbs and freezing Mrs. Gibbs out of the conversation, sending her over the edge. Another version says Gibbs mocked his wife's writing ability so relentlessly that it finally drove her to suicide.

                                                                                  Distraught, Wolcott Gibbs moved from No. 45 to the Village immediately after his wife's death. He remarried (again on impulse) a year later and was named drama critic of the New Yorker in 1938, remaining in that post until his death in 1958. Though overshadowed by colleagues like E.B. White and James Thurber, Gibbs was an instrumental figure in the New Yorker's early, formative years.