Manhattan 1903: 11th Avenue – 35th Street (West) Image ID: 710656B

From the back of the print:

“426 Eleventh Avenue, east side, north from West 35th Street, showing the rear of a five-story tenement after a conflagration that cost 25 lives. Today (1937) upon this site stands Macys factory, a twelve-story structure, at the N.E. corner of 35th Street. October 1st, 1903.” (This date is incorrect. It was November 1st, 1903.)

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?710656F

The New York Times writes about the fire the next day:

It was reported across the country and the tenement was given the name “the house of all nations” as it was covered in other newspapers.

Other goings on at this address (before it was demolished) included this grizzly event from 1906. Within the Times article we are informed that the head and thighs are still missing, despite the discovery of all other body parts …

VICTIM’S BROTHER HELD IN “GULDENSUPPE” CASE; Blood Stains in the Flat Where the Turks Lived. BOY SAW THE MISSING HEAD Ten-Year-Old Brother Says He Watched Tashjian, the Prisoner, Wrapping it in a Newspaper.

The west side’s “Guldensuppe” murder was, to the satisfaction of the police, cleared up yesterday when they arrested for the crime Marhar Markarian, a Turk of 426 Eleventh Avenue, who worked as a wood polisher and carver. His victim, the police feel certain, was his own brother, Aram Tashjian, whom he stabbed to death and then beheaded and dismembered between 7 o’clock and midnight Saturday night.

426 Eleventh Avenue today:

• October 8, 2011
• EAGLE EYE VIEWS
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