#JewelryGeography NoMad Jewelry Walking Tour
with Jewelry Historian Anna Rasche
NYC’s earliest jewelry district was downtown, centered around Maiden Lane and John Street. But for reasons of finance and fashion it crept ever northward, and for a time around the turn of the twentieth century, many fine jewelry stores and workshops were located in the NoMad area. This tour highlights a few of the many businesses that sprung up around 5th Avenue
and Broadway.
1.
233 5th Avenue: Pickslay & Co. (Active c. 1891–1930s)
From 1904–1911, the building now occupied by the Museum of Sex was home to Pickslay & Co., founded in 1891 by British immigrant Charles Pickslay (who was quite religious and probably would not have approved of this museum).
Pickslay actually started his business out of spite––for a long time he was employed by jeweler Theodore B. Starr. In 1896, Starr gave Pickslay a Christmas bonus, then later claimed the bonus was in error, and deducted it from his salary without notice. Litigation ensued. Pickslay was found in the right, and he left T.B. Starr to set up his own business.
Pickslay & Co. was operated with partner Alfred P. Hinton. They offered “a choice stock of diamonds, jewelry, watches and silverware” and “gave special attention to the artistic remounting of family jewels.”
What sort of jewels did they produce? To get an idea, we need look no further than the “Lost & Found” section of the New York Times:
LOST –– Friday evening, an oval cluster diamond brooch. 59 small diamonds in platinum mounting. Reward for return to Pickslay & Co.
LOST –– Monday night at Metropolitan Opera House or between there and 5th Avenue & 52nd Street. A chain bracelet with diamond bars. Liberal reward for return to Pickslay & Co.
LOST –– On Friday evening, August 5th between 161 Madison Avenue and East 34th Street. A heavy carved gold ring, set with two colored and one white diamond. A reward of $50.00 and no questions asked if returned to Pickslay & Co.
LOST –– $10.00 reward and no questions asked for the return of a fob, lost last Monday evening: initials I.G.M. on seal. Return to Pickslay & Co.
LOST –– A pearl and diamond cluster ring, on Monday October 29th in Siegel-Cooper’s manicure parlor. A reward of $25.00 will be paid for the return of the same to Pickslay & Co. and no questions asked.
2.
1126 Broadway/206 5th Avenue: Theodore B. Starr (Active c. 1877–1924)
Built of Brick & Brownstone by the architect R.S. Peabody, who was proud enough of this commission to use it in his advertising, this building was wholly occupied by the jewelry and art store of Theodore B. Starr, founded 1877. The shop had two frontages, on Broadway and on 5th Avenue, facing Madison Square Park.
Starr initially partnered with Herman Marcus, of the famous Marcus & Co., and branched out on his own when Marcus went to work for Tiffany & Co. for a stint.
Starr advertised as offering fine diamonds and other precious stones, rare pearls, choice stone cameos and intaglios, rich gold jewelry, watches, fine clocks, bronzes, polished brass goods, objects of art, and the silverware of Gorham Manufacturing Company.
In the cellar was a workshop and packing room. The first floor was a sales room and office for jewelry. Second floor was silverware. Third floor statuary, artwork, and french clocks. And fourth floor a workroom, along with a few small apartments.
What was it like to shop for jewelry at T.B. Starr? A June 1897 issue of Vogue describes the experience of a bride shopping for her wedding jewels:
“At this season of weddings and roses one of the pleasant duties devolving upon the bride-elect is making her own selection of the gifts from the groom or from her parents. This can be made particularly agreeable by appropriate surroundings and the special arrangements for the proper display of such jewels...In a small room at Theodore B. Starr’s, (there are) mirrors lining three sides...brilliant with reflections from electric light.”
“Here tiaras of diamonds, necklaces of pearls, strings of opals and pearls, sapphires and diamonds are found in prodigal profusion. The fortunate prospective recipient of such gifts here examines them, bewildered in the effort to make a choice. Such an occasion particularly appeals to all women...This happy circumstance of an approaching wedding and receiving of much-coveted jewels.”
The company remained at this location until 1911, when the northward migration of fashionable retail prompted this statement:
“We are one of the largest houses which have remained in the lower 5th Avenue section, but find ourselves forced to move to the new shopping center.”
They moved to the southwest corner of 5th Avenue and 47th Street, the gateway to today’s diamond district. (At the time, the building was owned by Driecer Realty Co….)
3.
1128 Broadway: Jacob Dreicer & Co. (Active c. 1868–1926)
The Dreicer family were high-end jewelers in addition to real estate developers. In 1884 they opened their first retail location in Manhattan (they already had a summer shop at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs), right next T.B. Starr at 1128 Broadway. They operated out of this location until 1892.
T.B. Starr came from an old, established colonial family, but Jacob and Gittel Dreicer, the husband and wife who founded the company, were Jewish immigrants who arrived from Minsk in the late 1860s. Upon arrival, the couple (who had some knowledge of the jewelry industry from their home country) sold a pair of diamond earrings Gittlel had received from her father on her wedding day, and thus Jacob Dreicer & Co. was established––though their rise to genteel store-front proprietors was not immediate.
An anecdote from famous Victorian dandy Berry Wall recalls Jacob’s humble start:
“I remember him when he began his business career...He used to come to Delmonico’s and other restaurants and offer us a new pen-knife for our old one, plus fifty cents. He was always fair dealing and soon the people from whom he had his consignments let him have pieces of jewelry on the same terms...From those beginnings he built up a wonderful business.”
After fifteen years or so doing business out of various offices, their summer branch in Saratoga Springs, and even their own apartment building on Lexington Avenue, the Dreicers opened their Manhattan frontage right here and put their charm to work.
According to the New York Herald, “While his wife tended shop over the noon hour Jacob Dreicer went to Delmoico’s for lunch. His was a delightful character. A raconteur of no mean ability, he soon struck up luncheon table friendships with some of the most substantial business men in town…as he gained the acquaintance of the men he sought he made a practice of carrying to the luncheon table a fine pearl or large emerald, nonchalantly drawing this from his pocket at the psychological moment when the courses were changed or the conversation lagged. As he appraisingly displayed the glittering babble between thumb and forefinger he could evoke admiration and comment…It was an ideal audience for the sale of an expensive luxury—particularly a rare jewel which could be displayed publicly as an addition to the diamond advertisements at the time. Around Delmonico’s tables Jacob Dreicer negotiated sales that were the start of family pearl collections later destined to take their place among the largest and most famous in America.”
Like T.B. Starr and Pickslay, Dreicer & Co. moved north towards today’s diamond district, and their final store, designed by Warren & Wetmore in 1906, still stands on the corner of 46th Street & 5th Avenue.
4.
29th Street & Broadway: The Hotel Breslin
You may know the story of Anna Delvey, the Soho grifter who conned banks and swanky hotels out of around $200,000.
Delvey’s escapades pale in comparison to the massive fraud perpetrated by Betsy Bigley, a.k.a Madame Lydia DeVere, a.k.a Mrs. Cassie Chadwick, who was arrested in December 1904 at her apartment in the Hotel Breslin––now the Ace Hotel––after swindling banks in Ohio and Boston out of approximately two million dollars. (That’s around fifty million today.) Her fraud was so massive that the Citzen’s National Bank of Oberlin Ohio, who had loaned her $800,000 folded.
The gist of the con was simple––she told bankers she was Andrew Carengie’s illegitimate daughter and provided them with forged checks signed by him to deposit.
She then used the money to travel to Europe, where she bought gems and jewelry, which she would smuggle back into the country to avoid the 60% import tax on jewelry purchased abroad, and resell them to settle just enough of her debts to keep the scam going.
But her spending was as epic as her stealing––she delighted in acquiring clothing, art, carriages, travel, and dozens of grand pianos, as well as, of course, jewelry.
In an article titled “Marvelous Cassie Chadwick,” from a November 1916 issue of McClure’s Magazine, a C.P. Connolly writes, “[Chadwick] bought jewels as she bought market-truck. If a tray of pearls or diamonds pleased her, she was as little likely to haggle over the price as if she were buying a mess of herring. She had a chest containing eight trays of diamonds and pearls. They were pledged with a New York banker at one time, and were inventoried at ninety-eight thousand dollars. She played with diamonds as a child would with beach-sand, letting them trickle through her fingers. She had a rope of pearls containing two hundred and forty pieces of exceeding brilliancy, which was valued at forty thousand dollars.”
When she was arrested at the Breslin, a media circus swarmed the recently-open hotel.
“News of the coming arrest had preceded the officers from downtown and the hotel lobby was thronged with men and women, who elbowed one another and talked in excited whispers as they tried to get near the elevator leading up beside the main dining room door.”
"A score of early diners left their tables and rushed into the hall, while guests of the hotel ran downstairs or took the elevators. From the street dozens of people were pouring into the building, and when the Marshall, followed closely by his companions, had pushed his way to the elevator it was almost impossible for any of the onlookers to move in the crowd that packed the lobby and corridors.”
Upon being informed she was arrested, Mrs. Chadwick replied “I am very nervous and ill, what shall I do, I am certainly unable to get up.” She was allowed to spend the night in her room to recover, but had no more tricks up her sleeve and died in prison a few years later.
Like Anna Delvey, she became something of a folk hero. As it was put by one of the customs agents who she hoodwinked with her smuggled European jewels, “though she defrauded the government, and swindled our magnates, at least she did not plunder the poor. Keep this charitable thought with you, rather than the remembrance of her sins.”
(From Defrauding the Government, True Tales of Smuggling from the Note-book of a Confidential Agent of the United States Treasury by William Henry Theobald.)
5.
The Church of the Transfiguration/The Little Church Around the Corner
This stop is a bit tangential to Gilded Age jewelry, but it’s hard to pass up an opportunity to spend a few minutes in the lovely garden. The Church of the Transfiguration, also known as the Little Church Around the Corner, was consecrated in 1849, and its nickname has a pleasant origin story...When well-loved but not-quite-respectable actor George Holland died in 1870, his friend went to a prominent and no-longer extant church on Madison Avenue to make arrangements. The rector snobbishly refused, saying there was “a little church around the corner” where they do such things. The friend, Joe Jefferson, replied, “then God Bless the Little Church Around the Corner.” It has been a special place for actors ever since, and also a special place to brides and couples wishing to be married.
It became a famous wedding chapel throughout the country, and was so associated with matrimony that Traub Manufacturing Co., a maker of engagement rings and wedding bands from Detroit, used this church in their advertising campaigns during the 1920s.
Naturally there are interesting anecdotes about wedding rings from right here. A favorite memory of the chapel clerk was a groom who proudly showed off how he had safety-pinned his intended’s wedding ring to his vest pocket so he would not lose it before the ceremony. When the time came, the groom had a panicked look and said, “I’ve changed my vest!”
Wedding rings for both spouses was not always the tradition it is today, and in 1924 the rector of this church gave his thoughts on the matter to the New York Times, “(in the past) there does not seem to be much call...for the bride to give the bridegroom a wedding ring. Recently, however, there have been some who wanted two rings. We attribute that fact to the growth of the idea of equality between the sexes, especially political equality. I think it is rather a nice thing for the bride to give the bridegroom a ring...”
Besides giving jewelry to their grooms, the tens of thousands of brides who had happy marriages that began at this church donated jewels towards the building of the “Bride’s Altar” in memory of the church’s original rector Dr. Houghton. The church is open daily, and you can still visit it.
From religion to commerce, we go up to 32nd Street and 5th Avenue, to see what remains of the Reed & Barton building...
6.
32nd Street & 5th Avenue: The Reed & Barton Building
Architect Robert Maynicke’s 1905 skyscraper was originally known as the Reed & Barton building for the famed American silversmiths that occupied the first floor from 1905–1921.
Here we have neared the apex of gilded-age shopping architecture, and we see the frilly flagship of a store built for America’s elite clientele (though many of the frills were removed in the mid-twentieth century).
Town & Country wrote of the store’s opening, “Fifth Avenue seems rapidly becoming the rival of the famous Rue de la Paix of Paris, as a thoroughfare of magnificent shops. The opening of the new Reed & Barton Store furnishes additional proof of this statement...at the new store, in addition to sterling silver...added departments will be diamond and gold jewelry, watches, cut glass etc.”
Reed & Braton advertised “fine oriental pearl necklaces $800, diamond necklaces $450, diamond tiaras $2,700, diamond paved heart brooches $650, diamond paved watches,” as well as jewels in the shape of sunbursts, bowknots, pendants, and crosses. For bridesmaids who attended weddings at the Little Church Around the Corner, brooches and lockets of $3.00 or $4.00 were available.
7.
31 W. 31st Street: The Mercantile Building/ Workshops of McTiegue,
Manz & Co.
Where there is retail, there must be wholesale, and while all of the houses we’ve visited today certainly had their own workshops, they didn’t make everything. So our last stop will be the Mercantile Building of 31 E. 31st Street, which was erected in 1901 by Elizabeth A. Wilcox and designed by architects Israel & Harder, who were known primarily for tenement buildings. From 1904–1909, this building housed the workshops of McTiegue, Manz & Co.
Their third silent partner in the business was Sophia Bachem, the mother-in-law of Gustav Manz. McTeigue you may have heard of, as the firm McTeigue & Co. is still family-operated today. We’ve been talking about many famous names and well-known places, but now we will focus on an individual who was really an unsung hero, a silent artist behind many of the great American jewelry houses––Gustav Manz.
Why is Manz important? Simply put, he was a “jeweler’s jeweler,” meaning all of the well-heeled establishments we have visited today as well as many more, including Tiffany and Cartier, carried jewels they purchased wholesale from Gustav Manz.
Manz was born in 1865 in Germany, and when he died in New York in 1946, he was remembered as “one of the last of the master goldsmiths of New York.” His pieces are known for their wonderful carvings of animals, botanicals, and archaeological motifs, informed by the Art Nouveau jewels he saw in Paris as a young man, travels in Africa, and careful studies of animals from visits to the Bronx Zoo.
A 1909 article about his work in Arts & Decoration Magazine entitled “A Master Sculptor in Precious Metals” described his process...“His attitude toward it is that of the sculptor with his clay, for he first develops the design in wax, and when cast into platinum or gold, chisels it to the likeness of the model.”
For his creations, he was both designer and bench jeweler––which is not something T.B. Starr, Jacob Dreicer, or Charles Pickslay could say about themselves. But as it still is today, jewelry is stamped with the signature of the retailers and rarely the designers or craftspeople who bring a jewel to life.
May the story of Manz inspire us to look just a little bit closer at the beautiful things that are all around us.