19 East 54th Street, originally the Minnie E. Young House, is a commercial building in the

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildin ...

neighborhood of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It is along

54th Street 54th Street is a two-mile-long (3.2 km), one-way street traveling west to east across Midtown Manhattan. Notable places, west to east Twelfth Avenue *The route begins at Twelfth Avenue (New York Route 9A). Opposite the intersection is the New ...

's northern sidewalk between

Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Stre ...

and

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

. The building was designed by Philip Hiss and H. Hobart Weekes of the firm Hiss and Weekes. It was constructed between 1899 and 1900 as a private residence for Minnie Edith Arents Young. The house was designed as a palazzo in the Italian Renaissance Revival style. The 54th Street facade was designed as a four-story structure with a rusticated first story and decorated windows on the upper stories. Because 19 East 54th Street was wider than other houses in the area, the architectural details were designed to be more imposing. The penthouse at the fifth and sixth stories is recessed from the street. The interior was ornately outfitted with a

coffered ceiling A coffer (or coffering) in architecture is a series of sunken panels in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault. A series of these sunken panels was often used as decoration for a ceiling or a vault, also c ...

, a stained-glass conservatory, and staircases with oak paneling. Young commissioned the house after her uncle Lewis Ginter, the founder of the

American Tobacco Company The American Tobacco Company was a tobacco company founded in 1890 by J. B. Duke through a merger between a number of U.S. tobacco manufacturers including Allen and Ginter and Goodwin & Company. The company was one of the original 12 members of ...

, died in 1897 and left her a large bequest. Young leased the home to "Lucille" Lady Duff Gordon in 1920. The house was subsequently occupied by antiques trader Arthur S. Vernay from 1925 to 1943, then by the

English-Speaking Union The English-Speaking Union (ESU) is an international educational membership organistation. Founded by the journalist Sir Evelyn Wrench in 1918, it aims to bring together and empower people of different languages and cultures, by building skill ...

until 1956. Hairdresser Mr. Kenneth operated a salon in the building from 1963 until 1990, when the house's interior was severely damaged by fire. The building was then renovated and has served as Bank Audi's U.S. headquarters since 1993. The

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...

designated 19 East 54th Street as an official landmark in 2016.

Site

The Minnie E. Young House is at 19 East 54th Street in the

neighborhood of

. It is on the north side of

between

to the east and

to the west. The

land lot In real estate, a lot or plot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner(s). A plot is essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property (meaning practically the same thing) in ...

covers with a

frontage Frontage is the boundary between a plot of land or a building and the road onto which the plot or building fronts. Frontage may also refer to the full length of this boundary. This length is considered especially important for certain types of ...

of on 54th Street and a depth of . Nearby sites include the William H. Moore House at 4 East 54th Street and the Aeolian Building to the west; the

St. Regis New York The St. Regis New York is a historic luxury hotel at 2 East 55th Street, at the southeast corner with Fifth Avenue, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The hotel was originally developed by John Jacob Astor IV and was comp ...

hotel to the northwest;

550 Madison Avenue 550 Madison Avenue (formerly known as the Sony Tower, Sony Plaza, and AT&T Building) is a postmodern skyscraper at Madison Avenue between 55th and 56th Streets in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Philip Johnson ...

one block north; the

DuMont Building The DuMont Building (also known as 515 Madison Avenue) is a 532-foot (162 m) high, 42-story building located at 53rd Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan.Paley Park one block south. Fifth Avenue between 42nd Street and Central Park South (59th Street) was relatively undeveloped through the late 19th century. The surrounding area was once part of the common lands of the city of New York. The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 established Manhattan's

street grid In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogona ...

with lots measuring deep and wide. Upscale residences were constructed around Fifth Avenue following the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. The block of East 54th Street from Fifth to Madison Avenues was only sporadically developed until the late 1870s, and it had brownstone residences by 1886. Residents of the block included developer

William Earl Dodge Stokes William Earle Dodge Stokes (May 22, 1852 – May 18, 1926) was an American multimillionaire responsible for developing much of New York City, New York's Upper West Side. Early life Stokes was born in New York City on May 22, 1852. He was th ...

at 4 East 54th and merchant

John R. Platt ''For other people named John Platt, see John Platt.'' John Rader Platt (June 29, 1918 – June 17, 1992) was an American physicist and biophysicist, professor at the University of Chicago, noted for his pioneering work on st ...

at 7 East 54th. On the next block west were the residences of

John D. Rockefeller John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He has been widely considered the wealthiest American of all time and the richest person in modern history. Rockefeller was ...

at 4 West 54th,

John D. Rockefeller Jr. John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (January 29, 1874 – May 11, 1960) was an American financier and philanthropist, and the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in ...

at 10 West 54th, and

Philip Lehman Philip Lehman (November 9, 1861 – March 21, 1947) was an American investment banker. Biography Philip Lehman was born in New York City to Emanuel Lehman (1827–1907) and Pauline Sondheim (1843–1871). Emanuel was a co-founder of the now- ...

at 7 West 54th.

Architecture

19 East 54th Street is designed in the Italian Renaissance Revival style by Philip Hiss and H. Hobart Weekes of the firm Hiss and Weekes. It is six stories tall, although only four stories are directly visible on the street. With a width of , the house is wider than other townhouses in the area, which typically measured . Russell Sturgis, writing for '' Architectural Record'' in 1900, described 19 East 54th Street as being well proportioned because its increased width allowed more imposing design features. According to Sturgis, "if one were to wish for a fairly good idea embodied in solid construction of those ''villini'' which the Florentines have been building diligently during the last twenty years, he would find it in this front."

Facade

The main facade on 54th Street is four stories tall with three

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...

of vertical openings. Below the ground story is a granite

water table The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated. T ...

with bead molding. The first story is faced with rusticated stone blocks, and it contains bronze-framed display windows on the left and right bays. The main entrance is through a

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

in the center bay, with engaged columns flanking a slightly recessed doorway. The doorway itself is set within a carved-stone frame and is topped by a

cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the fea ...

. A

balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

runs across the bottom of the second story. The windows on that story are topped by

pediments Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pediment ...

that are supported by scrolled

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

. The second-story and third-story windows are flanked by rusticated

piers Piers may refer to: * Pier, a raised structure over a body of water * Pier (architecture), an architectural support * Piers (name), a given name and surname (including lists of people with the name) * Piers baronets, two titles, in the baronetages ...

that support a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

above the third story. The fourth story has recessed panels between the windows and is topped by a large stone cornice with brackets. The fifth and sixth stories, added in 1960 and 1993 respectively, are hidden behind the fourth-floor cornice. These stories form a penthouse that is clad with parged brick and concrete. The house's west and east facades are not visible from the street.

Interior

According to the

New York City Department of City Planning The Department of City Planning (DCP) is the department of the government of New York City responsible for setting the framework of city's physical and socioeconomic planning. The department is responsible for land use and environmental review, p ...

, the house has a gross floor area of . It is one of several "American basement plan" residences on 54th Street, where the entrance is placed at ground level, rather than on a stoop slightly above ground as in other rowhouses. This type of design enabled the ground-floor reception area to have a central staircase, rather than on one side. Inside the house, a broad staircase connects the first and second stories. The interior was originally designed like Renaissance Revival

palazzos A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...

. Inside the second floor was a parlor that was a common space for guests. The third and fourth floors served as the private rooms. The interior was ornately decorated with a

, a stained-glass conservatory, and rooms with oak paneling. The rooms also had modillioned cornices. When the house was turned into the salon of hairdresser Mr. Kenneth, the interior was richly decorated throughout with flowered carpet and red-and-yellow paisley pattern fabrics. The original salon interior was a rare commercial project undertaken by the interior decorator Billy Baldwin. Mr. Kenneth's salon was redesigned in 1985 with red walls, painted clouds on the ceiling, Parts of the original interior design persisted through at least 1990, when the salon was severely damaged by fire.

History

The residence was commissioned for Minnie Edith Young (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Arents), born in 1855 and married to stockbroker Albert Young. The Youngs had three children: Albert, Lewis, and Edna. Minnie Young was a scion of the prominent Arents family in Richmond, Virginia; her uncle Lewis Ginter was the founder of the

, while her sister

Grace Arents Grace Evelyn Arents (1848 – June 20, 1926) was an heiress, Christian activist and philanthropist in Richmond, Virginia. She inherited $20 million from her uncle Lewis Ginter, a tobacco business magnate and philanthropist, and she used the ...

was a Richmond philanthropist. Minnie was widowed when Albert died in 1895. When Minnie's uncle Lewis died two years later, he left her a substantial bequest.

Residence

In 1899, John and Elizabeth Kearny sold two lots at 17 and 19 East 54th Street to Minnie Young. That March, Young commissioned Hiss and Weekes to design an upscale residence. The architects selected the Italian Renaissance Revival style for its classical design attributes. The house was officially completed in the next year, but it went relatively unnoticed afterward. According to a 1990 article in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', the building was last mentioned in a print publication in 1900, when the ''American Architect and Building News'' ran a picture with a caption that denoted its client as a "Mr. Young". Minnie Young initially lived in the house with her son Lewis and sister Johanna Arents, as well as a variety of servants. Minnie and Johanna's brother George Arents also lived in the house for a short time. ''The New York Times'' wrote that the servants included a "butler, cook, laundress, kitchen maid, ndparlor maid", as well as Pleasant Read, a "hallman". The house hosted events such as the wedding of Edna Young to Alfred E. Dieterich in April 1900, as well as a fundraiser of the Junior Auxiliary to the New York Diet Kitchen Association in 1913. The surrounding neighborhood rapidly became a commercial zone after World War I, and Minnie Young moved to 420 Park Avenue in 1920, though she retained ownership of the house until her death in 1933.

Mid-20th century

In November 1920, Young leased the house to Lucille Ltd. for twenty-one years. The firm, headed by dressmaker Lady Duff Gordon, catered to upper-class clients. The next month, Mott B. Schmidt filed plans to remove partitions, add rooms, and rearrange spaces in the building for $20,000. Schmidt turned the house into a showroom. By March 1921, the renovations were complete and Lucille was paying $50,000 annually in rent. A little more than one year after the lease was signed, in March 1922, Lucille's creditors forced the company into receivership. Lucille's attorney characterized the "embarrassment of the company" (as it was described in ''The New York Times'') as being partially caused by the relocation to 19 East 54th Street. Starting in 1925, the house was leased for a long term to a client represented by Augustus H. Skillin. The client in question was English antiques collector Arthur S. Vernay, whose company sold antiques and decorative artworks. Vernay bought the house outright from the estate of Minnie Young in 1933; at the time, the building was valued at about $450,000 for taxation purposes. The purchase reportedly was made for $312,500, but this value was not confirmed. During the 1930s, the Vernay gallery was used for multiple events, such as a show of English antique furniture, a needle-art show with work by artists such as former U.S. first lady

Edith Roosevelt Edith Kermit Roosevelt (née Carow; August 6, 1861 – September 30, 1948) was the second wife of President Theodore Roosevelt and the First Lady of the United States from 1901 to 1909. She also was the Second Lady of the United States in 1901. ...

, a Tibetan-artifact exhibition to benefit a children's school, and an exhibition of English clockmakers' art. The house was sold in September 1937 to Frederick Brown, who resold it to Charles S. Noyes. Though Vernay retired in 1941, the business continued to operate at 19 East 54th Street. The house was acquired by the Bank for Savings in May 1941. The building was sold in 1943 to the

(ESU) for use as that organization's United States headquarters. The purchase, conducted entirely in cash, was funded partly by a gift of $60,000 toward the organization. The purchase was intended to provide adequate space for the ESU, whose American operation was then headquartered at nearby

30 Rockefeller Plaza 30 Rockefeller Plaza (officially the Comcast Building; formerly RCA Building and GE Building) is a skyscraper that forms the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Completed in 1933, the 66 ...

. The Lawyers Title Corporation of New York insured the

property title In property law, title is an intangible construct representing a bundle of rights in (to) a piece of property in which a party may own either a legal interest or equitable interest. The rights in the bundle may be separated and held by different ...

in the purchase. The ESU's new headquarters opened in May 1944. The building had enough space for the ESU's offices, including those of the United Nations Officers Club, Committee for Overseas Children, and War Relief Workroom. In addition, the building was used for events, such as exhibits of British veterans' products, early-20th century English art, and a needlework tapestry in memory of the

Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...

. The ESU ultimately sold the building in 1956 to Henry Payson and relocated the next year to a new home on 69th Street. The sale was not finalized until 1958 because of a lawsuit over delays in the sale. Payson had initially refused to take the title because of these delays, saying that the building's entrance portico and underground vaults projected slightly into the street. The

New York Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the trial-level court of general jurisdiction in the New York State Unified Court System. (Its Appellate Division is also the highest intermediate appellate court.) It is vested with unlimited civ ...

ruled that the ESU was entitled to demand

specific performance Specific performance is an equitable remedy in the law of contract, whereby a court issues an order requiring a party to perform a specific act, such as to complete performance of the contract. It is typically available in the sale of land law, ...

; namely, Payson was obligated to take the title.

Late 20th century to present

Mr. Kenneth signed a 50-year lease in the building in 1962, backed by salon-and-beauty-supply firm Glemby Company. After Billy Baldwin renovated the interior, the salon officially opened on March 4, 1963. It had a wig boutique and special cold storage for fur coats on the first floor; drying rooms on the second floor; washing and styling rooms on the third floor; and massage rooms, steam baths, waxing chambers, whirlpool spas, and a Pilates studio on the fourth floor. Clients could have manicures and pedicures while being served lunch or tea, and a Mercedes car was on call to bring clients to the salon or take them home afterward. Some women would drop in simply for lunch, or to sit and leaf through magazines while enjoying the relaxed, club-like atmosphere. By 1985, the salon was starting to become aged. That year, it was closed for one month and the house was renovated for $1.3 million. The main room's furniture was redesigned and a pedicure room was added. Part of the main floor was subdivided for a men's division, with specially designed chairs. A ''New York Times'' article describing the 1985 renovation referred to Mr. Kenneth as an "institution". The salon burned down on May 16, 1989, when a fire arose on the third floor and ultimately destroyed the rear of the second and third floors. The fire was extinguished after four hours with the help of 125 firefighters. The damage was extensive enough to uncover large portions of the original decoration work. As a result of the fire, Kenneth Salon relocated to the Palace Hotel. Kenneth said later, "There had never been anything like he 54th Street salonbefore, and nothing like it will ever exist again." For over a year, the house sat empty and no restoration work was performed. The owner of 19 East 54th Street, Donald J. Gordon, was planning to rebuild the house, and Kenneth Salon's lease was effectively terminated. While Kenneth Salon's lease ran until 2010, a "fire or earthquake" clause allowed the owner of a severely damaged building to end a lease if they wished to demolish or rebuild it. Gordon spent $1.2 million to refurbish the interior, adding an elevator and mechanical areas to designs by

Emery Roth & Sons Emery Roth ( hu, Róth Imre, July 17, 1871 – August 20, 1948) was an American architect of Hungarian-Jewish descent who designed many of the definitive New York City hotels and apartment buildings of the 1920s and 1930s, incorporating Beaux-A ...

. The existing stories were extended to the rear and a sixth story was added. Gordon then sought a tenant who could sign a

net lease In the field of commercial real estate, especially in the United States, a net lease requires the tenant to pay, in addition to rent, some or all of the property expenses that normally would be paid by the property owner (known as the "landlord" or ...

, thereby assuming the maintenance and upkeep costs. Bank Audi leased the house by 1993; it had initially wanted to buy the house, but the owner did not want to sell it. The wide facade enabled Bank Audi to add offices and a conference room lit by large windows. In addition, the bank installed its name over the entrance portico. The bank became the InterAudi Bank in 2003. When the

(LPC) started considering buildings in Midtown for city landmark status in 2013, including the Minnie Young House, a group of development organizations wrote a report advising against a landmark designation for the house, saying it was "now isolated and lacks the context that would enhance its value". In mid-2016, the LPC proposed protecting twelve buildings in East Midtown, including 19 East 54th Street, in advance of proposed changes to the area's zoning. On November 22, 2016, the LPC designated 19 East 54th Street and ten other nearby buildings as city landmarks.

References

Citations

Sources

External links

* {{Midtown North, Manhattan 1900 establishments in New York City Houses completed in 1900 Houses in Manhattan Midtown Manhattan New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan Renaissance Revival architecture in New York City