Tammany on 33rd Street

A short distance from Corbett's, on 33rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, in an inconspicuous townhouse, was one of the city's most notorious gambling halls, the House with the Bronze Door. With lavish interiors designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead and White, and an entrance fortified by a reclaimed 15th century bronze door, the House kept the wealthy in, and unsympathetic lawmakers out. (There were plenty of sympathetic lawmakers at the poker tables too.)

Men playing cards c. 1900. Image: LOC

Players won big and lost bigger in the House's gaming rooms, which included roulette, poker, baccarat. In case of raids, guests could escape through a secret route via an adjoining building. Owner Frank Farrell used the profits from the House with the Bronze Door to fund over 200 other illegal gambling dens throughout the city. He also used the profits to bribe members of law enforcement, most of who belonged to the Tammany Society, a corrupt political machine that controlled city and state politics for decades.

Harper's Weekly cartoon by William A. Rogers showing NYC Chief of Police "Big Bill" Devery collecting "taxes". Image and further explanation: Harp Week

Members of the Tammany Society were widely known to accept and require bribes and selectively enforce laws. Public approval of the organization fluctuated, though its powerlessness in the face of Tammany was recognized by several media outlets. With low rates of literacy, satirical cartoons reached a much wider audience than written diatribes could. It was a winning hand, and they accomplished in part, what Tammany feared the most, exposure to, and criticism from, the public. One of the most notable cartoonists was Thomas Nast of  Harper's Weekly. Throughout his years at the paper, he produced a huge number of sardonic cartoons for the heavily circulated weekly, often showing Tammany as an irate tiger destroying everything in its path.

Harper's Weekly cartoon by Thomas Nast, November 11, 1897 showing Tammany tiger mauling democracy (depicted as Columbia with a crushed ballot box by her side) in a Roman Colosseum as Boss Tweed cheers from the stands. Image: OSU

Reformists, such Reverend Charles C. Parkhurst and Jerry McAuley played huge roles in publicizing Tammany's wrongs through well-attended sermons. In 1891 Reverend Parkhurst inaugurated a campaign against Tammany Hall. He gave sermons throughout the city denouncing public officials, and made it his personal mission to shut down all gambling halls. The effort eventually succeeded with the closure of several gaming rooms throughout the city, including the House with the Bronze Door in 1908. The defeat was celebrated in person and in print, though the Tammany Society would continue to operate in some form or other for several more decades.

Reverend Charles C. Parkhurst enjoys a brief victory over Tammany in this cartoon by J.S. Pughe, printed in an 1894 edition of Puck. Image: LOC

Further Reading:
1. Dash, Mike. Satan's Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York's Trial of the Century
2. Halloran, Fiona Deans. Thomas Nast: The Father of Modern Political Cartoons
3. Gilfoyle, Timothy. A Pickpocket's Tale
4. Santé, Luc. Low Life

Saks and Gimbels on Sixth

This post also appears on Fashion Herald.

A few years before the ground broke for Penn Station, construction was underway in Herald Square for a retailer new to the city: Saks. The company, founded by Baltimore merchant Andrew Saks, chose Herald Square as the location for its first New York store in part, because of its proximity to the Sixth Avenue elevated train and rumored Penn Station. Along with Macy's and a little later, Gimbels, these major stores would soon redefine Herald Square as a retail hub of the city.

View from Greeley Square, looking north at Herald Square, around 34th Street and Broadway, 1901. Image: MCNY

The Saks building, designed by architecture firm Buchman & Fox, the same firm that would later design the World's Tower building on West 40th Street. Though Saks and Macy's were more or less neck and neck with their store construction and opening announcements, Saks still managed to open its doors just five weeks before Macy's in 1902. Unlike Macy's, a store composed of several departments, Saks in the early 1900s sold only clothing, making it not quite a true department store. Around the same time, one avenue over, Benjamin Altman was purchasing lots on Fifth and 34th to build his new store B. Altman & Co.

The completed Saks building at West 33rd Street with its competitor Macy's one block north at West 34th Street, 1902. Image: MCNY

Those two coexisted, offering consumers slightly different inventories -- Saks was an upscale clothing-based retailer, and Macy's catered to the general consumer with a large variety of merchandise-- until 1909, when another large retailer, Gimbels, joined the fray. Founded by Adam Gimbel in Vincennes, Indiana, Gimbels built its first large store in Philadelphia, PA, before constructing a New York branch just one block south of the Saks store, on Sixth Avenue between 32nd and 33rd Streets. Three large department stores in a row + public transportation = retail district.

Gimbels store at Sixth Avenue, between 32nd and 33rd Streets, 1912, thirteen years before the Gimbels Traverse was built. Image: MCNY

Model wearing a Gimbels dress, 1914. Image: LOC

Similar to Macy's, Gimbels was a large department store and family business.  Adam Gimbel had several sons, many of whom worked for the Gimbels Company: Isaac Gimbel became President in 1894, and was the driving force behind the store's expansion to the New York market; that same year, Ellis Gimbel took over Public Relations and advertising for the company. In 1921, he started the first Thanksgiving Parade in Philadelphia, PA, three years before Macy's began its iconic parade in New York City.

The company purchased Saks in 1923, and one year later, created the Saks Fifth Avenue brand, and opened its first store. The 34th Street location was kept open, and the Saks 34th brand was created. High end retail was moving farther north along Fifth Avenue, and the building's out-of-date construction (it didn't have escalators) were key factors in the decision to close the store in 1965.

Looking north from Greeley Square with the Gimbels and Saks buildings on the left, [1965]. Postcard: Anne

In 1967, discount retailer Korvette's moved into the Saks building. They "modernized" the facade, as seen below. Founded in 1947 by Eugene Ferkauf in a small store on Fifth Avenue and West 47th Street, Korvette's expanded quickly, with 2,684 stores in operation by the mid-1960s. This decade also saw a general rise in the national presence of discount retailers.

Same view as above, [1969]. Postcard: Anne

Gimbels stayed open until 1986. When it finally closed, it was cited as the store with the largest shoplifting rate of any in the country, largely because of the Gimbels Corridor. Originally built as a convenience to shoppers, the underground passageway connected the store to Penn Station a couple blocks away, and provided shoplifters with an easy escape. By the 1970s, the corridor had a horrible reputation and was the scene of more than a few gruesome crimes. This very opinionated description from a NY Post  article (are there any other kinds of NY Post articles?) pretty much sums it up: "In the midst of teeming Midtown, bare-bulb fixtures like those in mines marked a path through a Calcutta-like sprawl of diseased, predatory humanity."

After Gimbels closed, the building was renovated, and in 1989, reopened as A&S Plaza, and is now the home of JC Penney and the Manhattan Mall. Next door, the Saks building, now the Herald Center Mall, is slated for yet another makeover.