My History House #2- Update on 153 Whitehall Boulevard

Two people connected with 153 Whitehall Boulevard have responded to the article, "My History House #2." They are Bev Murphy and Bob Tynan. People in town have always said everyone is related to everyone else, and for this house it's certainly true.

After her friends told her about my article featuring 153 Whitehall Boulevard, Bev Murphy contacted me from Georgia with her addition to the story. She and her husband, Jim, were former owners of the home from 1977 to 1995. Mrs. Murphy also sent this to the current homeowners, Maria and Robert:

"I’m enclosing information/history about our former home at 153 Whitehall Boulevard. I read your article about previous owners and found it to be so interesting. My family knew nothing of the history. Great idea to combine history of ownerships into a folder for historians, the archives and of course for future owners...

"My husband and I grew up in Garden City. Jim lived at 57 Harvard Street and I at 55 Osborne Road. Jim's grandparents lived in Garden City as well, at 148 Brixton Road, sometime in the 1920s.

"Jim and I both graduated from the high school, as did our three children. We were married in 1962 at St. Joseph's Church and lived in Puerto Rico for two and a half years right after marriage. He built the first steel structure building in Puerto Rico.

"Jim worked for the George A. Fuller Construction Co. for 34 years, retiring as Senior Vice President. He was the project manager on the General Motors Building in New York City, the National Headquarters of the Episcopal Church, renovated Hunter College, renovated the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center and the rebuilding of the Hartford Civic Centre. He was part of construction management teams in Saudi Arabia, Amman, Jordan and Cairo, Egypt.

"After returning to Garden City from Puerto Rico with our son, Jimmy, we bought a house in 1964 at 11 Wellington Road, south of the tracks. Christy and Suzanne were born shortly after.

"It was a wonderful area to bring up children. The kids could ride their bikes to the [Garden City] Pool, to Adelphi College for sports events, to the neighborhood Nassau Boulevard stores and sleigh ride on the hills of the Garden City Country Club. Everyone knew everyone else, and it was an oasis of kids, friendships and a feeling of complete safety.

"While living on Wellington Road, I became one of the original owners of the Pear Tree, a small gift store on Nassau Boulevard. Within time, it has successfully made a transition to Seventh Street where it is still a successful business today.

"We bought 153 Whitehall after approaching Ellie and Lloyd  Hall in the old Gristedes [food store] on Seventh Street. I was familiar with their home since I attended many parties there as a young girl. Their son, Tom, and I were good friends. We were so happy when we signed the contract six months later in l977.  

"The old coal burner was still in the furnace room loaded with coal in the bin. I had never seen coal before. Next to it was the original huge old oil burner pumping away. We updated it seven years later. The radiators were in each room throughout the house. I wanted to replace them, but they were still there when we moved. I called them my 'vintage' heaters.

"Several years after moving in, my brother visited from Atlanta. I told him that we were going to enclose the portico under our master bedroom out of necessity, because it was so cold in the bedroom in the winter months. He suggested that we extend the construction from under the bedroom around to the back of the house where it met the kitchen, all one room with lots of windows and three exterior doors. That’s exactly what we did. We chose sliding glass doors throughout the extended room, eliminating the thought of wooden doors that I felt was unsightly.

"A small bar with a refrigerator was included in the corner of the large room, and we selected wood flooring to extend the feeling of openness, and it served us well. We used it as one room with several seating areas. One half used for TV, and the other for reading and quiet time. I called it our 'garden room,' but others called it the 'party room.' Painting it white brought the vivid colors of the outside into the room. Today, I think it’s divided into two rooms. Andrew Raskopf from Garden City was our contractor.

"There was a maid’s room with a full bath adjacent to the kitchen. We demolished it, and included the space as our large eating area ...with the new addition. We gutted and renovated the half bath.

"The large brick patio with a sitting wall was built off the new sun room and we used it constantly when entertaining through the years.

"Mary Dietrich lived behind us on Brompton Road. She offered her services in landscaping the yard. We enlarged the front entrance brick landing, and included a curved brick front path with a black metal garden gate by the step-down near the sidewalk. I proceeded then to gradually plant perennials across the whole front of our property next to the sidewalk at the suggestion of Barbara Hester, who still lives on Kensington Road. Jim and I planted every plant, shrub and tree on the property. I think the Crepe Myrtle tree at that step-down is still there. I brought that up from North Carolina in the back seat of my car in 198l, after dropping Jimmy off at college. At that time, not many from the North had seen a Crepe Myrtle. I hadn’t.

"The metal railings by the front door are the original railings. We reinstalled them when changing the front steps.

"The Halls never had to replace the roof in the 22 years they lived there and neither did we...All the bathrooms were modernized in 1985 and I understand the McLaughlins modernized them later again.

"Behind the tiles in the master bathroom we found old Herald Tribune newspapers, dated in the 1920s. We stuffed them back into the walls behind our new tiles, for posterity.

"When we took the wallpaper off the walls in the dining room in the early 1980s, to my surprise, there was an oil mural on all four walls. I was told that in much earlier years artwork was done instead of wallpaper. We did not destroy it and it remained under our wallpaper.

"We took out our double hung windows on the driveway side of the dining room and replaced them with bow casement windows with a larger opening. It gave the illusion of a wider room. I also took out the chandelier to enhance the size of the room.

"Most of my wonderful neighbors aren’t there anymore. Lucille Till across the street was a joy. We both attended the Cathedral of the Incarnation, where my Mom was a Sunday school teacher for 30 years. Betty Von Herbulis lived next to Lucille and she watched our kids play ball in the street. It was a first, according to her. She would remind us often that kids didn’t play in the street before we arrived.

"I remember teaching Tom Halikias and Peter Gall how to dance. We cleaned out my son’s bedroom, turned up the music and practiced dancing in preparation for the Junior Prom in l980. I can still hear the Community Church clock tower bells and the kids playing flashlight tag in all the neighbors’ backyards. There was the sound of cicadas in the summertime when the windows were open, the fire truck sirens, and of course, the familiar toots of the Merillon Avenue trains.

"I remember vividly not wanting to fix the squeaky floorboards in our front hall stairway. They drove everyone crazy but those squeaks would tell us exactly when our kids came home at night from their dates. We never had them fixed! Those were the sounds we remember, from the 70s, 80s and 90s, and I presume those are the sounds you’ll still hear today.

"There was the Stutzmans across the street, the Nesslers next door and the Alzners on the corner- great neighbors and friends who we still connect with today. We always cut through our backyard to Brompton Road to meet up with long time residents who loved to stop and talk. We'd take a walk around the block when it snowed. We would stop in for a drink with old high school neighbors in the summertime or walk to the high school for a Saturday football game. These are our wonderful memories.

"Here's a funny story. In the mid 1980s, my daughter Christy was applying for a job in Maryland. She was being interviewed by a nice gentleman. He asked where she was from and she told him New York. Then he asked where in New York. She told him Garden City. Then he asked where in Garden City did she live and she told him 153 Whitehall Boulevard. In her words, 'he almost flew across his desk,' when he yelled, 'That's my house!' It was Tom Hall- She was hired! [Tom Hall was the son of the third owners, Eleanor and Lloyd Hall, who lived in the house from 1955- 1977.]

"Sally and Terry McLaughlin bought our house in 1995. We were so happy that our house would be passed down to a familiar family, just like the Halls to the Murphys - another generation of Garden City history. (Sally’s parents actually bought the house I grew up in, on Osborne Road. What are the odds of that? Her mom, Sistie, and my Jim graduated from high school together.)

"Every time we visit Garden City from Atlanta, we drive north on Nassau Boulevard, stop at the German deli near Cambridge Avenue to buy our most favorite roast beef on a roll. We picture Luigi in the shoemaker’s window and visualize the old ice cream parlor where every kid from the neighborhood bought his or her cones and candy in the 70s and early 80s. On one corner of Cambridge Avenue was the old five and ten cent store and Szeckley’s Pharmacy was on the other. Dr. Szeckley knew every case of tonsillitis and poison ivy in the area. If you had an emergency you could call his home on Euston Road, and he’d open the pharmacy.

"As we cross over the Garden City line, we can see the large beautiful trees that grace the town. We drive over the familiar Garden City railroad tracks, turn right on Stewart Avenue to the Community Church, then left onto Whitehall. There it is...153 Whitehall Boulevard...just as we remember it! After 19 years, it’s still home to us."

Reader Bob Tynan had a comment on Betty Ulsh, who was related to the first homeowners of 153 Whitehall Boulevard.

Betty Joyce Weekes Ulsh was daughter-in-law to the original homeowners from 1928 who were Charles Walter and Harriet G. Ulsh. She was the wife of William G. Ulsh, Charles and Harriet's son. Betty and her husband lived at 12 Hamilton Place in Garden City for a number of years, after they were married.

Bob Tynan remarked that Betty Weekes Ulsh grew up at 78 Wyatt Road, in a family with three brothers. Her youngest brother, Robert, went to Garden City High School with Beverly Bush Murphy.

As it turns out, Bev and her husband bought the same Whitehall Boulevard house with her husband, Jim in 1977, almost 50 years later.

"Bob was one year older than I. Great guy. Bob Tynan who gave you this information, is the brother of Bill Tynan...Bill was older than Bob...Bill was the best man in our wedding...Six degrees of separation..." Bev Murphy said.

The "My History House" series will be published about every two weeks. For your pre-1930 house to be researched, or if you have any information about any houses already covered, contact vilage historian Suzie Alvey at 326-1720, suziealvey@gmail.com or historian@gardencityny.net.

If anyone has any old books, photos, phone books, yearbooks or papers relating to anything in Garden City, please call Alvey. She can scan or photograph the items, while you keep the original, or you can donate it. This will be extremely helpful to the archives at the Garden City Public Library and the Garden City Historical Society.

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