118 East 10th St: Where one of the U.S.'s greatest architects found his passion
- Stanford White, a partner in the renowned firm McKim, Mead and White, lived here as a young man
In a crime that gripped the nation, the architect was murdered by millionaire Harry Thaw.
Have you ever passed by an interesting residential building in New York City and wanted to know more about its history? In this series, Brick Underground teams up with Tom Miller, creator of Daytonian in Manhattan, a blog about Manhattan buildings and other historic architecture. Each week, we run an excerpt from the Daytonian’s archives with a link to the full article.
In 1861, Richard Grant White moved his family into a newly built house at 186 Tenth St. (renumbered 118 East 10th St. in 1867). It sat upon a triangular parcel of land purchased from the Stuyvesant family in 1854.
Like its neighbors, the rusticated brownstone basement and first floor of the house sat below four stories of red brick trimmed in sandstone. The tall, arched windows of the second floor were connected by a stone bandcourse. Each of the architrave frames of the upper openings were treated slightly differently.
Born in 1822, Richard Grant White was a globally recognized Shakespearean scholar. By the time he purchased the Tenth Street house, he was the musical critic for The Courier and Enquirer, and the author of several published books.
Grant married Alexina Black Mease on October 16th, 1850. The couple had two sons, Richard Mansfield, born in 1851, and Stanford, born in 1853.
The parlor of the East 10th Street house was most likely the scene of lively artistic discussions. Among Richard G. White's acquaintances were Louis Comfort Tiffany, Frederick Law Olmsted, and John LaFarge. It may have been those gatherings that sparked young Stanford White's interest in architecture.
With no formal training, he became an apprentice in the office of Henry Hobson Richardson in 1871 at the age of 18. But the young man's playboy lifestyle was a concern to his parents. Mary Cummings, in her Saving Sin City, says Stanford White and his friends "preferred the company of models and chorus girls to that of dowagers and debutantes.”
In 1879, he joined Charles Follen McKim and William Rutherford Mead to form McKim, Mead and White, which became a premier American architectural firm, known for its numerous civic, residential, and commercial buildings.
A shocking footnote
In the summer 1906, White was murdered by millionaire Harry Thaw at a cabaret on top of Madison Square Garden. Thaw was enraged over White’s relationship with his young wife, Evelyn Nesbit, an actress. Thaw’s murder trial gripped the nation.
From the exterior, the house where one of the world's greatest Shakespearean scholars and one of America's greatest architects lived for decades is little changed since 1861.
For more on this building and its inhabitants, check out the full article.
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