The Leaning Tower of Elmira: Did Mark Twain write at West First Street residence?

I was recently asked about a house on the northeast corner of College Avenue and West First Street. Yes, I knew the house. It is the one with the tower that leans.

I knew the house, as my future husband lived across the street in the 1990s. We spoke of it often while he lived there.

The question I was asked was, “Did Mark Twain do much of his writing there? Or what was his connection to it?”

Well, I thought the answer was an easy “no,” but I would check. Mark Twain might have known the folks that lived there.

According to the Near Westside book of houses, the three-story home has a cross-gabled roof with two chimneys. The tower on the west side represents the Italianate period, while the ornate balustrades represent the Greek Revival period.

Edward Carter built the house in 1870 at (today’s) 224 W. First St. In 1870, the address was 30 W. First St. It was a beautiful Victorian home. Edward worked at the J.H. Lyman hat store. The house next door on College Avenue (north of 224) was the stable. It was turned into a house later in time.

Edward died in 1874 and left the house to his widow and son, John. The next owner in 1896 was Henry Rosenbaum of Rosenbaum’s store on West Water Street. His family lived there until 1923. A significant estate sale was held there after Henry’s death.

The next owner was the Dixon family. Mrs. Lillian Dixon ran a gift shop in the house named the “Vogue Studio.” She would regularly go to New York City and buy furniture, dressers, tables and mirrors to sell in her store. The Vogue Studio opened for business on Jan. 19, 1924. Mrs. Dixon also advertised rooms for rent.

In 1927, the house was purchased by Thomas McInerny of the McInerny & O’Dea furniture store. McInerny added an extension soon after. McInerny also sold real estate. I found many advertisements for houses and properties with that address and phone number.

In 1934, the house was converted into apartments and club rooms. One of the tenants was the Belgian School of Music, headed by Professor Flavien Vanderveken. He was a native of Belgium and claimed he had crossed the Atlantic Ocean 95 times. Vanderveken was associated with the “first stand of violinists in the Paris Opera Orchestra,” according to the Star-Gazette in an article dated July 6, 1935. He was highly acclaimed in international music circles. The school originated on Union Place in 1932.

Over the years, the house started seeing neglect. It passed ownership many times.

The first mention of trouble was a fire in an apartment in 1971. Then another in 1975.

In October 1983, tenants complained to the city code department about the "bulging ceiling." An inspector came and “deemed it safe,” according to a Star-Gazette article the following week after the roof collapsed.

On Oct. 27, 1983, a Star-Gazette article said the roof collapsed onto a tenant, injuring him badly. The tenant claimed he “heard a creak in the bulging ceiling above him, but that ‘the house was so weird anyway, I didn’t pay attention to it.’” The tenant suffered back and neck injuries. The tenant planned to move out after the incident.

In 1991, the house suffered a roof fire.

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The last mention of the house in the Star-Gazette was on March 31, 2016. The neighbors were concerned because the house had been condemned in November 2015, and that it was home to many stray and feral cats.

In the end, I found no connection to Mark Twain, the author, that he wrote there or knew the owners. But one of the tenants, Adonis Dumas, was the steward at the Mark Twain Hotel. He probably did a lot of writing in that house.

— Elmira City Historian Diane Janowski writes a monthly history column.

This article originally appeared on Elmira Star-Gazette: Separating history from myth at the 'Leaning Tower of Elmira'