New Yorker on the Hudson

Rhea Irvin created the Eustace Tilley cover portrait and the New Yorker typeface, for the cover of the magazine’s first issue on February 21, 1925. Tilley appeared annually on the magazine’s cover every February until 1994.

Jackie, I think that’s one of their properties but not the house they lived in.

This is what I  have found so far.  Here is a a blurb from the NY times re a real estate transfer from the Estate of Isaac Johnson to Rea Irvin on September 6, 1930, “southeast of Palisade Avenue”

And this is kind of fun: an article about a court fight about a property owned by the Irvin’s that they rented to a famous Hollywood Actor  George Alexander Coulouris (1 October 1903 – 25 April 1989). He was an English film and stage actor. He was perhaps best known for his collaborations with Orson Welles, most notably Citizen Kane.

“Court Refuses to Evict Nine-Year Tenant To Provide House for Owner’s Daughter

Mrs. Rea Irvin, wife of the illustrator, of Newtown, Conn., learned yesterday in Bronx Municipal Court of the vagaries of the housing situation when she tried unsuccessfully to evict a tenant from her home in Spuyten Duyvil, which she wanted to give to her recently married daughter.

It was a complicated case. The trial revealed that the original tenant, a Hollywood actor, had sublet the four-room studio home to an author, who in turn sublet it for the summer to a nuclear physicist.

Mrs. Irvin originally leased a large house at 775 Kappock Street and the adjacent studio home at 777 to George Coulouris, who has maintained tenancy of the larger home although he has lived for the last several years in Hollywood. Nine years ago the actor sublet the studio home to Dr. Henry W. Wells, author and Professor of Classical and Medieval Literature at Columbia University.

Dr. Wells said he paid his rent to Mr. Coulouris, who in turn paid Mrs. Irvin. This summer, Dr. Wells said, he went to Maine to write a book. He sublet the home to Dr. Philip Fleming, scientist from Tennesse. Then, according to Abraham Wilson, Dr. Wells’ attorney, Dr. Fleming was paying Dr. Wells, who was sending money to Hollywood, whence Mr. Coulouris was forwarding the rent to Connecticut.

Mrs. Irvin told Justice Christopher McGrath that her son-in-law, John T. McConnell, had recently been discharged from the Navy and she wanted her daughter and son-in-law to have the smaller home because they had no home of their own.

Justice McGrath ruled that Dr. and Mrs. Wells were not to be evicted because they had occupied the premises for nine years with the obvious knowledge of the landlord.”

As yet the “nuclear physicist” was (more research to be done), but Mr. Henry H. Wells, lived at
lived at 777 Kappock until 1978.

”

HENRY W. WELLS, TAUGHT LITERATURE AT COLUMBIA

Dr. Henry W. Wells, retired professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University and curator of the Brander Matthews Museum there, died Wednesday in Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. He was 83 years old and lived at 777 Kappock Street in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.

Dr. Wells, who retired in 1965; was the author of more than 25 books on literature, poetry and the drama. He was member of the graduate department at Columbia for 40 years. In addition to his writings on British and American poetry, he discussed Asian literature.

His articles dealt with Sanskrit dramas and with the traditional and classical dramas of China, India and Japan. In series of studies, he suggested- analogies between Chinese poets and poets of Britain and America. He contributed to journals in India, Taiwan and Japan.

He was secretary of the American Society for Theater Research and of the United States Institute for Theater Technology and director of the Committee for Refugee Education.”

A not politically correct story concerning Rhea Irvin in Spuyten Duyvil,  and a fight between his and a neighbors dog took place in 1925, which means the 1930 property was not his primary home, or at least not originally.

The story is sad, but shows us how animals about pets have changed in the 100 years since this occurred.