The Mansion in a Sweater and Unwanted Pumpkins: The Upper West Side Is Falling

By Yvonne Vávra

I saw my first pumpkin this week, and I was not OK. Excuse me, but no. Please take it back. And what’s with the ridiculous wind? Last week, I was still slathered in sunscreen, and now I’m out here trying to keep my hair from taking off. Yeah, that’s a hard no from me. I haven’t even worn this one summer dress yet. This is all a terrible mistake. Autumn sure is delightful and so on and so forth, but absolutely no. Not yet.

It didn’t stop with the pumpkins. I saw a puffer and a furry jacket, too. They were gorgeous, so they may have been a case of “I couldn’t wait to wear this again.” Either way, that’s a lot of sudden fabric happening. Even the buildings are wearing sweaters.

I’m not lying! Well, one building was. Kind of. 266 West End Avenue, near the corner of 72nd Street, is wearing a sweater in classic beige, beautifully flattering its limestone complexion. I can’t even remember ever seeing this mansion before—it must have been hidden behind scaffolding. Or perhaps I just didn’t recognize it in its sweater.

It was certainly a distraction from my overreaction to the end of summer, because this little palace was quite the stunner. You start by marveling at the Gothic Revival-style entrance, so richly carved that your eyes don’t know what to do. So they go up, passing a baby sitting on the head of a mythical figure who looks like it’s not at all fine with the situation. Then there’s a little Juliet balcony, then another, bigger balcony, and finally your exhausted eyes land on an imposing dormer that could well be the grand portal of a medieval cathedral. This building has been an Upper West Sider since 1896, and of course I had to immediately find out all about her.

It was built for a wine importer, sold to a brewer, and then gifted to the brewer’s wife as a Christmas present in 1912. Oh, to be a brewer’s wife! But things would get more interesting later that decade. That’s when Misha Appelbaum and his wife moved in. Appelbaum, who had moved to the city from Russia, founded an organization dedicated to fighting poverty and other social injustices, and the mansion became one of its meeting places. “A new sort of relief organization which has attracted little publicity has been thriving for nearly four months in the residential section of the west side,” wrote The New York Times in April 1915. “It goes under the name of ‘The Humanitarian Cult,’ and one of its odd features lies in the fact that it has neither officers nor membership dues.” Instead, members would be put in touch with a “case of distress” and help poor New Yorkers by paying their bills.

Appelbaum put so much money into the causes of the Humanitarian Cult that he eventually got into financial trouble himself. He got divorced, remarried, and moved to 131 West 74th Street. It was from there that he and his wife were taken to the hospital on October 22, 1920, after ingesting mercuric chloride, by accident. “Mr. Appelbaum said briefly that he and his wife had taken poison by mistake. He did not volunteer further information,” reported the Times the next morning. They had each taken four seven-and-a-half-grain tablets, and the bottle on a dresser in the bedroom was labeled “poison.” Mistakes happen.

Back at West End Avenue, a decade later, Beverly West lived in the mansion, most likely together with—because what reason do we have not to believe Upper West Side lore?—her famous sister, Mae. During a tour commemorating the star’s 100th birthday in 1993, a self-proclaimed “Mae West scholar” told a New York Times reporter that Mae would never let anyone smoke there. Even the most glamorous have mundane house rules.

But enough with the distraction. It’s still too windy, Magnolia’s corner at 69th and Columbus smells like Pumpkin Spice Pudding, and am I losing it, or have you also seen snowplows driving around this week? Fortunately, I don’t have to participate in autumn yet. There are many things I can’t do. I draw a dog, and it comes out a cat. But one thing I’m good at is overthinking things until I’ve thought myself into an entirely different reality. Good thing pumpkins are orange. Because what is a pumpkin but a lumpy orange ball? So as far as I’m concerned, this is still Knicks summer.

Yvonne Vávra is a magazine writer and author of the German book 111 Gründe New York zu lieben (111 Reasons to Love New York). Born a Berliner but an aspiring Upper West Sider since the 1990s (thanks, Nora Ephron), she came to New York in 2010 and seven years later made her Upper West Side dreams come true. She’s been obsessively walking the neighborhood ever since.

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