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In a few weeks or so the wreckers will comE.They will tear down the two venerable brick and brownstone mansions that have stood hard by the First Presbyterian Church in West Twelfth Street for more than 100 years.
No. 12, nearest the churchyard, was built in 1849 for James W. Phillips, son of the Rev. William Wirt Phillips, who held the pulpit next door from 1826 to 1865. No. 14, built at the same time as a twin, except for the’interior, was the home of Charles C.Tabers, a prosperous cotton merchant.
The two buildings are the last remaining two town houses in this city of the many designed by Alexander Jackson Davis. A modest man, he conceded that the interiors of his Twelfth street designs were 'remarkable'. Even in their last stages of neglect the unpracticed eye can see that. They are lovely.
The buildings had famous tenants, too, at one time or another. Thurlow Weed, nineteenth--century war- wick--he was called that in his own day for his genius in moulding political careers--lived in No. 12 from 1866 to 1882. Most of the important men and women of his time were his guests therE.Down the street lived Gen. Windfield Scott.
Probably the chief feature of that old Weed house was the octagonal stairwell with the stained - glass skylight at tile top. The stairwell in the other house oval, but it has the same glowing dome skylight. In both dwellings you find rich stucco molding, handsome fireplaces, magnificent woods.
Just outside the old Weed study there stood, in his lifetime, a handsome willow brought from St. Helena near the grave of Napoleon. It was uprooted long ago to make play place in the churchyard for the children of the church school. Incidently, alter the old mansion come down, a new church school will rise on the spot. The Davis mansions are now a five -trap.
The most famous dweller in No. 14 was John Rogers, a nineteenth -century sculptor, a kind of Edgar Guest who worked in stone, His studio was on the second floor. It looks today pretty much as it did when he worked iii it from 1888 to 1895, turning out such groups as 'Checkers up at the Farm,' 'Fetching the Doc, tot'. A part of his work are in the church officE.Each has the Twelfth Street house address worked into it.
Though church folk dislike the idea of having the old mansion torn down, and architects in town frown on the notion, too, they know they must go. The place is sorely needed for the children. So, one by one, the master works of the great architects vanish from the city--Davis did preliminary sketches for the old tombs, worked on the old Custom House, on many hospitals and colleages. All that will remain of his dreaming on paper, when the Twelfth Street Mansions go down in rubble, will be a few villas up in the Hudson River Valley.
The two houses were not ______.
A.of the same style
B.designed by the same designer
C.the same looking from the outside
D.the same looking from the inside