Charles M. Schwab House

Last updated
Charles M. Schwab House
Charles M. Schwab House.jpg
Charles M. Schwab House
General information
Architectural styleeclectic Beaux-Arts
Location Manhattan, New York City
Construction started1902
Completed1906
Demolished1948
Design and construction
Architect(s) Maurice Hébert

The Charles M. Schwab House (also called Riverside) was a 75-room mansion on Riverside Drive, between 73rd and 74th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was constructed for steel magnate Charles M. Schwab. The home was considered to be the classic example of a "white elephant", as it was built on the "wrong" side of Central Park away from the more fashionable Upper East Side. [1]

Contents

History

The home was designed by an architect with only a modest reputation, Maurice Hébert, [2] as an eclectic Beaux-Arts mixture of pink granite features that made the Vanderbilt mansions on Fifth Avenue look cramped. It combined details from three French Renaissance châteaux: Chenonceau, the exterior staircase from Blois, and Azay-le-Rideau. It took four years to build the home (1902–1906) at a cost of six million dollars. [3]

Schwab's former employer Andrew Carnegie, whose own mansion on upper Fifth Avenue later became the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, once remarked, "Have you seen that place of Charlie's? It makes mine look like a shack."[ citation needed ]

Schwab was a self-made man who became president of U.S. Steel and later founded Bethlehem Steel Company. Schwab built "Riverside" after leaving Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for New York. The large property was available because it formed half the site of the former New York Colored Orphan Asylum, one of several charitable institutions in the Bloomingdale District that gave way to large projects in Morningside Heights, such as the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Columbia University's campus. The Ansonia Hotel now occupies the orphans' Broadway frontage. The financier Jacob Schiff had bought the parcel, butominously for the social future of the Upper West SideMrs. Schiff refused to move to the "wrong" side of Central Park.

Schwab was a risk-taker and later went bankrupt in the Wall Street Crash of 1929. He died comparatively penniless ten years later in 1939, bequeathing the forlorn "Riverside" to the City as a suitably ostentatious official residence for the mayors of New York. [4] There were proposals to convert the house into the city's official mayoral residence in 1935. [5] Then-mayor Fiorello La Guardia turned it down, saying "What, me in that?" [6]

Schwab House apartment building, 74th Street Schwab House W74 jeh.jpg
Schwab House apartment building, 74th Street

La Guardia's rejection of the mansion sealed its fate, and during World War II, a Victory garden was planted in its once-landscaped grounds. Eventually the many dwellings around the home became overcrowded and Riverside Drive lost whatever affluence and wealth that had existed. By 1947 the house was empty and in 1948 it was replaced by a large, red-brick apartment complex, called the "Schwab House." [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bethlehem Steel</span> American steel company, 1857–2009

The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Until its closure in 2003, it was one of the world's largest steel-producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its success and productivity, the company was a symbol of American manufacturing leadership in the world, and its decline and ultimate liquidation in the late 20th century is similarly cited as an example of America's diminished manufacturing leadership. From its founding in 1857 through its 2003 dissolution, Bethlehem Steel's headquarters were based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the United States. Its primary steel mill manufacturing facilities were first located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and later expanded to include a major research laboratory in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and plants in Sparrows Point, Maryland, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Lackawanna, New York, and its final and largest site in Burns Harbor, Indiana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Clay Frick</span> American industrialist

Henry Clay Frick was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company and played a major role in the formation of the giant U.S. Steel manufacturing concern. He had extensive real estate holdings in Pittsburgh and throughout the state of Pennsylvania. He later built the Neoclassical Frick Mansion in Manhattan, and upon his death donated his extensive collection of old master paintings and fine furniture to create the celebrated Frick Collection and art museum. However, as a founding member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, he was also in large part responsible for the alterations to the South Fork Dam that caused its failure, leading to the catastrophic Johnstown Flood. His vehement opposition to unions also caused violent conflict, most notably in the Homestead Strike.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles M. Schwab</span> American steel magnate (1862–1939)

Charles Michael Schwab was an American steel magnate. Under his leadership, Bethlehem Steel became the second-largest steel maker in the United States, and one of the most important heavy manufacturers in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Riverside Drive (Manhattan)</span> Boulevard in Manhattan, New York

Riverside Drive is a scenic north–south boulevard in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The road runs on the west side of Upper Manhattan, generally paralleling the Hudson River and Riverside Park between 72nd Street and the vicinity of the George Washington Bridge at 181st Street. North of 96th Street, Riverside Drive is a wide divided roadway. At several locations, a serpentine service road diverges from the main road, providing access to the residential buildings. The avenue was opened in 1880, and several viaducts were completed over the subsequent decades to connect the various segments of Riverside Drive.

Bethlehem Steel Football Club (1907–1930) was one of the most successful early American soccer clubs. Known as the Bethlehem Football Club from 1907 until 1915 when it became the Bethlehem Steel Football Club, the team was sponsored by the Bethlehem Steel corporation. Bethlehem Steel FC played their home games first at East End Field in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley, then later on the grounds Bethlehem Steel built on Elizabeth Ave named Bethlehem Steel Athletic Field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gracie Mansion</span> New York City mayoral residence

Gracie Mansion is the official residence of the mayor of New York City. Built in 1799, it is located in Carl Schurz Park, at East End Avenue and 88th Street in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan. The federal-style mansion overlooks Hell Gate in the East River and consists of the original two-story house and an annex built in 1966. The original house is a New York City designated landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Joseph by the Sea High School</span> Private, coeducational school in Staten Island, New York, United States

St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School is a co-educational Catholic school in the Huguenot neighborhood of Staten Island, New York, United States. Though technically an independent school with its own board of trustees, it functions for all intents and purposes as a school of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. The school serves approximately 1,200 students in 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pittsburgh Center for the Arts</span>

The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts (PCA) is a non-profit community arts campus that offers arts education programs and contemporary art exhibitions in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Titus de Bobula</span> American architect

Titus de Bobula (1878–1961) was a Hungarian-American architect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George A. Fuller</span> American architect

George A. Fuller was an American architect often credited as being the "inventor" of modern skyscrapers and the modern contracting system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C. P. H. Gilbert</span> American architect (1861–1952)

Charles Pierrepont Henry Gilbert was an American architect of the late-19th and early-20th centuries best known for designing townhouses and mansions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taylor Stadium (Lehigh)</span>

Taylor Stadium was a stadium in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania that hosted the Lehigh University Engineers football team until 1988, when the team moved to Goodman Stadium in Bethlehem.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">930 Fifth Avenue</span> Residential skyscraper in Manhattan, New York

930 Fifth Avenue is a luxury apartment building on Fifth Avenue on the northeast corner of East 74th Street in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. The eighteen-story structure and penthouse was designed by noted architect Emery Roth and built in 1940. According to architecture critic Paul Goldberger, 930 and 875 Fifth Avenue show Roth in transition from historicist to modern Art Deco style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William A. Clark House</span> Demolished mansion in Manhattan, New York

The William A. Clark House, nicknamed "Clark's Folly", was a mansion located at 962 Fifth Avenue on the northeast corner of its intersection with East 77th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. It was demolished in 1927 and replaced with a luxury apartment building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Felix M. Warburg House</span> Historic house in Manhattan, New York

The Felix M. Warburg House is a mansion at 1109 Fifth Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The house was built from 1907 to 1908 for the German-American Jewish financier Felix M. Warburg and his family. After Warburg's death in 1937, his widow sold the mansion to a real estate developer. When plans to replace the mansion with luxury apartments fell through, ownership of the house reverted to the Warburgs, who then donated it in 1944 to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. In 1947, the Seminary opened the Jewish Museum of New York in the mansion. The house was named a New York City designated landmark in 1981 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schinasi Mansion</span> Historic house in Manhattan, New York

The Schinasi House is a 12,000-square-foot (1,100 m2), 35-room marble mansion located at 351 Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was built in 1907 for Sephardic Jewish tobacco baron Morris Schinasi. Completed in 1909 at the northeast corner of West 107th Street and Riverside Drive, the three-story, 12,000 square foot mansion was designed in neo-French-Renaissance style by William Tuthill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betts House (Yale University)</span>

Betts House, also known as the John M. Davies House or Davies Mansion, is a mansion owned by Yale University in the Prospect Hill Historic District of New Haven, Connecticut. Completed in 1868 and designed by Henry Austin, it was sold to Yale in 1972 and is now home to the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archibald Johnston (Bethlehem)</span>

Archibald Johnston was a mechanical engineer who, favored by Bethlehem Iron Company management and senior Bethlehem Steel Company president Charles M. Schwab, became president of Bethlehem Steel Company. He was subsequently appointed as first vice president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation in charge of foreign sales. While first vice president, he led a municipal consolidation campaign to create the modern city of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, from the boroughs of Bethlehem and South Bethlehem.

Metallurgical Worker and Metallurgical Science are a duo set of 1903 bronze sculptures by Jean-Léon Gérôme. The pair of works commissioned from the artist by the steel magnate Charles M. Schwab to glorify to steel industry. Schwab paid for a steel worker to travel to Paris to sit for the sculptures. The works were displayed at the industry captain's 75 room mansion on Riverside Drive New York City until its demolition in 1947. Ge was introduced to Gérôme by Maurice Herbert, the French architect who designed his French Renaissance style home, once the largest in New York City.

References

  1. "Upper West Side Story, Peter Salwen". Archived from the original on 2020-09-17. Retrieved 2010-08-19.
  2. Maurice Hébert (1861-1933), Biographies of Architects, Designers, and Builders, historicfresno.org
  3. Kathrens, Michael C. (2005). Great Houses of New York, 1880-1930. New York: Acanthus Press. p. 173. ISBN   978-0-926494-34-3.
  4. Robert, Hessen (1990). Steel Titan: The Life of Charles M. Schwab . Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press.
  5. Gray, Christopher (2010-07-08). "The Late Great Charles Schwab Mansion". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-12-29.
  6. Azzarone, S.; Rodriguez, R.F. (2022). Heaven on the Hudson: Mansions, Monuments, and Marvels of Riverside Park. Fordham University Press. p. 74. ISBN   978-1-5315-0101-3 . Retrieved October 19, 2023.
  7. "The Schwab House, New York City". EMPORIS. Archived from the original on April 14, 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)

Further reading

40°46′52″N73°59′04″W / 40.7811°N 73.9845°W / 40.7811; -73.9845