New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-07-25
CUSTODIAN LOSES
CITY HALL HOME
DesoIate and III, Ryan
Prepares TO Go Before
WreCkerS Arrive.

With plaster torn from the walls
and with practically all the furniture
gone from the rooms where he has
lived with his family in the City Hall
for seven years. there's nothing left
for John Sylvester Ryan 20 do but get
out.
The old custodian. who has made
sucii hard fight to stay in the City
Hall. will be removed on stretcher
this afternoon. and tonight the build
ing will be without a custodian for the
first time in wellnigh century.
Ryan has struggled hard to remain.
His ideas OH the subject, ever since
Borough President Marks said he must
give up his apartment to the Art Com
mission, are we'll known. The old man
still felt the same way about it last
night. He said the only reason he wa
going was because he knew If he did
not he would be forcibly taken out.
He was pretty sick last night, SICK
' at heart as we'll as in body. Ever since
o o'clock in the evening the furniture
movers had been in and out Of tie
place. slamming and banging things
about. and removing each familiar
chair or table or bookcase from the
place where it had stood so long. IL
hurts the aged TO see this, and Rvan.
who IS an Ill man anyway, felt Il
deeply.
He and his wife will get into an az
tomobile this afternoon and 20 stra ght
to Freeport, where one of his married
sons. VI. ". Ryan, lives. The other
members of the family who have been
living in the City Hall. Joe and Willie.
and the two daughters. Annie ani
Molly, will begin housekeeping in a
home they own up on the West Side.
They do not expect their father aud
mother to be with them for several
months. II is their idea to have Mr.
Ryan remain on Long Island. where he
can recover his health in the open air.
"Yes, it seems funny for US to have
to get out of here" said Joe Ryan last
night. You wouldn't think that q
public building could be a home, but
this one is to us. 1t seems just like
breaking up everything. Fathers so
i'll and mothers just as sick as she can
be. She's had two strokes since all
this business began"
While the wreckers have been tear
ing away the plaster Ryan has been
lying in one of the rooms overlooking
the fountain. His own former bed
room is Uttered with plaster and
broken wood. Mixed with the wreck
age left by the workmen were the dirt
and rummage Of moving last night.
1orn newspapers, tattered books, a
broken chair leg and a piece of an
old overcoat were in one heap on the
bare floor. Half yard away a little
washstapd stood alone, as though it
! had been stranded on an ocean beach.
What makes Ryan so bitter about
moving out of the City Hall is his
/ firm belief that he has a real right
there. He says one dark night he
risked his life TO put out fire in Mr..
McAneny's office; he claims nc gave
New York its high pressure firefighting
system; he asserts that when the City
Mayor Gaynor's funeral he stumbled
against coil of wire and fractured
+ one Of his toes so badly that blood
eventually amputated.
"Tve stayed here, and I've worked
I hard, and I've looked after the city's
property conscientiously. I've been in
the city service twenty-five years, too.
/ The only thanks | get for all my SER
vice is when | get i'll to lose my job
and TO have the walls of my room
pulled down over my head"
The old custodian was notified early
in the year that his term of office
would soon end. The time was set for
June /. and proposition was made
| TO allow him $50 per month for house
| rent il he would get out of the City
! Hall by April /. He overstsyed his
/ leave. but Ms he was so i'll the Borough
President allowed him to remain. Ten
day ago, however. ne was told he
would have TO leave on the 25th.