Stuart Court, Chapter Two

Prior to moving into Stuart Court, the imposing apartment house at the entrance to Monument Avenue, I decided to rent a carpet shampoo machine and do some other general cleaning while my place was still empty. I pulled up in the circular drive at the front of the building and unloaded the carpet cleaner, and before I could take off to find a parking space an elderly - but sprightly - black gentleman dashed out to my car and began lugging the machine into the building. I was alarmed, because he looked like he was a thousand years old, and told him I would carry my stuff in as soon as I found a parking space. He would have none of that, and so he hauled my things into the building.

Mark was one of several black employees at Stuart Court, and he usually worked nights and weekends. During the week, two women acted as hostesses. I quickly learned that I had entered a time warp at Stuart Court, and that many of the old women who lived there treated the staff like servants (or worse). Mark was accustomed to hauling packages inside for the residents.

There were two halves inside one unified front as far as the physical layout of the building. Basically, the building was actually two apartment towers with separate sets of elevators. All of the even-numbered apartments were in the northeast wing, while the odd-numbered apartments were in the southwest wing. The elevators were, incredibly, still hand-operated, so there were two hostesses by day. Rosa staffed my side of the building, and at night Mark handled the whole building. This arrangement probably worked fine until young folks like me moved in.

I'd come in late at night, half-lit, and ring the bell to get into the building. Eventually Mark would appear, half-asleep, to take me up to my floor. Mark told me that he was eighty-six and also worked a day job. I'm sure he was accustomed to sleeping at night at Stuart Court, with only the occasional interruption if an elderly tenant had to call an ambulance in the wee hours.

Dead on his feet, Mark would propel the elevator toward the sixth floor, usually overshooting the goal, then we'd lurch down too far, and I'd step up or jump off just to get on firm footing. I always felt bad about waking Mark up late at night, but that's just how it worked. I couldn't run up and down the stairs all the time.

It was nice having day staff available to accept packages while I was away at work. There was also a dry-cleaning service who visited the building at least once a week, and I could leave a check with Rosa for Mr. Collins, and she would place my clean garments on hooks in the mail room. At the time, I wore a lot of dry-cleaned clothing to work, and this was a real time saver.

After awhile, the old elevators were replaced with new automatic lifts, and the night porter was no longer needed. The day hostesses were kept, but residents got keys to the front door for the evenings.

As the older tenants were removed to nursing homes or cemeteries, the lifestyle at Stuart Court gradually changed. Sadly, the building was sold to a careless owner, and a few years ago this once-proud building was featured on the local news because of the poor condition of the building. The new owner did not seem to care that he possessed a piece of history designed by one of the lauded architects of luxury homes in the early half of the last century, William Lawrence Bottomley.

Below is an excerpt from a review of a book, The Architecture of William Lawrence Bottomley, by Susan Hume Frazer:
Refined country houses, gracious urban dwellings, posh Broadway cafés, exotic nightclubs, and a high-rise apartment building that, 80 years after its construction, is still considered the epitome of tony living in Manhattan, these are among the many achievements of William Lawrence Bottomley, one of the best American architects of the first half of the 20th century. During his 40-year career, Bottomley designed and executed over 180 commissions for his clients. An uncompromising perfectionist with refined taste, he oversaw virtually every facet of his projects, from interior ornamentation and decoration to the surrounding landscape design.