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John D. Cogan was a little known Manhattan
coachbuilder, who
had started his career in the trade working for Rothschild & Co.
Following
their failure he took a job as superintendent of the automobile body
department
of the Jandorf Automobile Co., which at the time was New York City’s
largest
dealer in used automobiles and coachwork.
Following a late 1913 downsizing of the
Jandorf Co., Cogan went
out on his own, establishing the John D. Cogan Co. in a modern 6-story
brick garage,
at 214-216 West 65th street, that formerly housed the service dept. of
Manhattan’s Renault Freres Selling Branch.
The construction of the building was
well-covered in the
Automobile trades, a mid-1908 issue of Automobile Topics reporting:
“New Building Will Greatly Enlarge Renault
Facilities
“Early in March Paul Lacroix, General
Manager Renault Freres
Selling Branch, will take possession of the fine new six story
building, No.
214-216 West 65th Street, a structure especially built for the sole use
of the
Renault garage spare parts and repair shops and Renault Taxicab
Department. The
garage will be for the use of owners of Renault cars exclusively. Mr.
Lacroix
states that it will be as complete in every detail as any of the
Renault Paris
garages and will be conducted on similar lines with French workmen. The
spare
parts department will be as perfect and complete and as carefully
conducted as
the repair department is, by skilled French mechanics from the Renault
factory
at Billancourt, France.”
The August 1908 issue of The Commercial
Vehicle provided more
details of the Taxicab department:
“Renault Freres, of Paris, evidently
foreseeing this state
of affairs last winter, built a large brick garage
at 214 West Sixty-fifth street, for the private
cars and
taximeter cabs of the American selling branch. Although Renault cabs
are more extensively
used for public services in Paris, London and Berlin than any other
make, it
was only late this spring that the American branch undertook the
operation of a
cab service in New York on a limited scale. This service has now been
taken
over by the Motor Taximeter Cab Company, recently incorporated, with
$150,000
capital stock, and fifty more Renault cabs have been ordered. These are
of two
models, two-cylinder cars of 8-10-horsepower and four-cylinder
10-14-horsepower, which have stood the test of three years' work in the
French
capital successfully. Paul Lacroix, manager of the American branch,
announces
that a similar service with Renault cabs is to be started soon in
Chicago by
the recently incorporated Auto Taxicab Company, which has ordered fifty
machines. The Renault factory in France, which employs 2,600 workmen
and build
4,500 cars a year, has lately taken an order for 1,000 cabs for a new
company
formed in Paris, and another for 500 for a new London operating
company.”
Another article in the same issue provided
information on
the Motor Taximeter Cab Co.:
“A company has been incorporated for
$150,000 under the name
of the Motor Taximeter Cab Co. to operate a service with Renault
taxicabs in
New York city. Heretofore the Renault Freres Selling Branch has been
conducting
a limited service with eight Renault machines operated from its new
garage at
214 West Sixty fifth street The new organization is to take up and
extend this
business having ordered fifty more cabs. The cabs will be operated from
the
Renault garage and from stands at Hotel Lafavette and Cafe des Beaux
Arts.”
Renault Freres abandoned their Manhattan service
garage in late 1913, relocating it to Long Island City. The September
24, 1913
Horseless Age reporting:
“Long
Island City, N.Y. - Renault Freres Automobile Co. has leased the entire
ground floor of the Galvin building on the Boulevard and Thirteenth
avenue. It will be used as a service station.”
The ‘Week’s
Incorporations’
column of the December 11, 1913 issue of Motor World reported on the
founding of the John D. Cogan Co.:
“New York, N.Y.; John D. Cogan Co., under
New York laws;
authorized capital: $1,000, to deal in automobile bodies. Corporators:
Frank H.
Twyeffort, 286 St. Johns place, Brooklyn; Charles E. Healy, 722 St.
Nicholas
avenue, New York; Ernest J. Ellenwood, 34 Maple street, Brooklyn.”
The January 1914 issue of the Hub provided
more details as
follows:
“JOHN D. COGAN
EMBARKS IN BUSINESS
“John D. Cogan, until recently
superintendent of the Jandorf
Automobile Co., New York, has leased the property at 214 and 216 West
Sixty-fifth street where he will carry on a general automobile business
and
build automobile bodies for all chassis. There will also be a used car
department
and tire department. Prior to his connection with the Jandorf Company
Mr. Cogan
was with the firm of Rothschild & Co., New York City.”
Frank H. Twyeffort, Charles E. Healy and
Ernest J. Ellenwood
were all well-known Manhattan attorneys who were already financially
involved in
a number of auto-related firms which included the Republic Motor Co. of
New
York, Republic Motor Co. of Massachusetts, Columb Tyres Import Co., and
the Columbia
Tire Import Co.
Although it is possible Cogan remained in
business for a
short time, no further information about the firm, or its namesake, was
forthcoming and no known coachwork survives.
Later occupants of the ‘Renault Garage’, as
the property was
called at the time, included the West Sixty Fifth Street Garage
Company, formed
by Thomas B. Wheeler during 1916, and the New Taxicab Auto Co., which
occupied
the premises during 1917-1918.
The building was raised in the early 1980s
to make way for
the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of
Music and Art and the Performing Arts.
© 2012 Mark Theobald - Coachbuilt.com
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