Said one resident to the Times in 1997, ''It's like a movie, like the old black-and-white movies I would sit down and watch with my grandmother." Said another to the Times in 2000, ''This place isn't even in the 20th century."
Aside from those two New York Times articles, info on Katharine House is scarce. I found one piece of its ephemera on ebay, a 1940 memo from superintendent Mrs. D.B. Creede that spells out the rules and regulations for this "permanent residence for young Protestant, business women" who could get a room and two meals a day for $17.00.
"Make your bed neatly," wrote Mrs. Creede. "Put away shoes, clothing, underwear." As for typewriters, they "may be used in ping pong room any time and in dining room except at meal hours. Positively no typing in bedrooms." There was also something called a Dime Fund--by putting in a dime a week, a fund was created for the specific purchase and repair of "electric irons, sewing machines, and radios," and for magazine subscriptions.
Times have changed a bit since then.
New School: dorm room with bikini poster
One of the young women who found a temporary home at Katharine House was JVNY reader Karen Gehres (artist and director of Begging Naked), who was kind enough to pass along her recollections. She lived there in 1985 while a sophomore at Parsons School of Design. She recalls:
"When you walked in the place there was one of the unfriendly looking women that ran the joint. At night there was a night watchman to turn us away if we were late for curfew. If you got past the front you walked into some very unused waiting room with formal uncomfortable furniture, very retirement home feel mixed with a good dose of nunnery. There was a cafeteria that served breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The room I had was jail-cell narrow. There was a bed, I think a dresser, and a wee little sink in the corner by the door. It was not pleasant to share a bathroom with a bunch of chicks."
Karen and her mom in Union Square, during her Katharine House days
She explains, "What I remember very clearly is the place was crawling with bulimic/anorexic ballerinas from The Joffrey Ballet. It was a regular yack fest every day. They'd get maybe an apple for breakfast. I was out the door as early as I could most days and stay out as long as I could. The place got to be kinda depressing. I did make a few buddies though. One of these girls had a window that looked out onto 13th. Directly across the street was the Salvation Army. They rented rooms to girls too, but you had to share a room with at least one other girl. There were more medical students that lived there for some reason. We had the ballerinas.
One morning, I got up and they wouldn't let me leave right away. They said a girl had jumped out her window across the street at the Salvation Army place and that her body fell onto the pointed spikes of the iron fence surrounding the building. I went up to my friend's room and looked out her window and there was the poor girl still on the fence with a white sheet that someone had put over her body. It made me shudder and feel very ill. This girl was our age."
Amazingly, the Salvation Army building is still a residence for women today. The fence around it is a lot less lethal.
One morning, I got up and they wouldn't let me leave right away. They said a girl had jumped out her window across the street at the Salvation Army place and that her body fell onto the pointed spikes of the iron fence surrounding the building. I went up to my friend's room and looked out her window and there was the poor girl still on the fence with a white sheet that someone had put over her body. It made me shudder and feel very ill. This girl was our age."
Amazingly, the Salvation Army building is still a residence for women today. The fence around it is a lot less lethal.
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