Jose Francisco de Navarro

(March 21, 1823 - February 3, 1909)

José Francisco de Navarro was born in San Sebastián, Spain, on 21 March 1823, the son of Nicolás Navarro and María Fernanda de Arzac. He was baptized the following day in the parish church of San Vicente Mártir, and his family connections traced back to the distinguished Arzac line and to the naval traditions of the Basque coast. Trained as a naval cadet in his youth, he left Spain in his teens for Havana, Cuba, where he pursued technical studies at the University of Havana while working in a mechanical workshop. For a time he taught courses there before trying his fortune abroad. After a brief stay in Baltimore in 1840, he returned to Cuba, but by the mid-1850s he had resettled permanently in New York City, then a capital of commerce and industry.

In 1857 Navarro married Ellen Amelia Dykers, daughter of banker and railroad executive John Hudson Dykers. Their family would grow into one of prominence, and through their son Antonio Fernando, Navarro became father-in-law to the celebrated actress Mary Anderson. His marriage anchored him in New York financial circles, and by 1859 he was connected with the new Equitable Life Assurance Society. Though Henry Baldwin Hyde is recognized as the company's founder, Navarro served on its board and remained involved in the insurance sector for many years.

During the 1860s he widened his business scope to shipping and trade. He organized the United States & Brazil Mail Steamship Company, one of the first subsidized lines carrying mail between New York and South America, and created the Commercial Warehouse Company to support its operations. The collapse of that firm in 1874 caused him considerable losses, but Navarro demonstrated resilience by backing new ventures. Among these was his financial support of Simon Ingersoll's rock-drill enterprise, which evolved into the Ingersoll Rock Drill Company and eventually into Ingersoll-Rand.

Navarro was equally influential in the field of urban transport. In the late 1870s he financed the struggling Gilbert Elevated Railway Company, securing the capital that allowed the Sixth Avenue elevated line to be built. The road opened in 1878 and formed the backbone of Manhattan's early rapid-transit system. His name also appeared in connection with Thomas Alva Edison's earliest electric-light ventures. In 1879 he sat on the board of the Edison Electric Light Company, and in 1882 he joined Edison and a circle of investors to form the Edison Spanish Colonial Light Company, intended to bring electric lighting to Havana, San Juan, and other cities in Spain's colonies.

The Navarro Apartments/Spanish Flats

Real estate became his most visible legacy in New York. Beginning in 1882 Navarro assembled an entire block at Seventh Avenue and 59th Street across from Central Park and built the Central Park Apartments, they soon became known as the Navarro Flats or, sometimes, the Spanish Flats. Designed largely by Hubert, Pirrson & Company, the eight massive buildings were among the earliest fireproof luxury apartment complexes in the city. They symbolized a new era of urban living, even if the financial burden forced Navarro to relinquish them within a few years.

In the 1890s Navarro invested heavily in the emerging Portland cement industry, playing a role in the rise of the Atlas Portland Cement Company, which soon became one of the largest producers in the world. Atlas cement supplied the material for many of the monumental public works of the early twentieth century, and Navarro's early support helped make such growth possible.

José Francisco de Navarro remained active in business into his later years, respected as one of the notable immigrant entrepreneurs of nineteenth-century New York. He died at his Manhattan home on 3 February 1909. Funeral services were held in the city, and he was entombed in the mausoleum of the Dykers family, his wife's kin, at Calvary Cemetery in Queens.