Neighborhood Playhouse ARCHITECT: Ingalls & Hoffman DATE: 1913-15 STYLE: Neo-Georgian The Neighborhood Playhouse was constructed in 1913-15 by sisters Alice and Irene Lewisohn as part of the Henry Street Settlement. A theatrical group by the same name founded by Lewisohn sisters was located here from 1915 to 1927. One of the city’s early “little theaters,” it was an experimental theater that presented innovative drama, song, and dance. The redbrick neo-Georgian style facade was designed by the architectural firm of Ingalls & Hoffman.

This building is one of the four surviving fieldstone religious structures built in the late Federal era in lower Manhattan. The fieldstone was quarried from Mount Pitt, a hill that once stood at the present corner of Pitt and Grand Streets. Bialystoker Synagogue, originally the Willett Street Methodist Episcopal Church, has a richly hued interior with statuary and paintings. A concealed corridor discovered during renovations in the 1990’s led to speculation that the building was a safe house on the Underground Railroad. The building is a New York City Individual Landmarks and is listed on the State and Nation Register of Historic Places.

Henry Street Settlement ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1827 STYLE: Federal This handsome Federal three-story townhouse with basement retains much of its original appearance, including its original doorway and iron railing in front. The building is a good example of Federal architecture. Its fine doorway is complete with leaded glass sidelights and transom. The door frame with its iconic colonnettes supports a wood transom-bar embellished with moldings.

Broome Street, northside, east from Willett Street. Public School No. 34 is the third building from the left, June 6, 1930.

This small church shows its architectural kinship to the nearby Sea and Land Church in that both, though basically Georgian, boast Gothic windows, a sophistication derived from English precedent, perhaps from the Battey Langley's books. Small stones were used here as at Saint Paul's Chapel, and, although ashlar quoins were omitted, the window openings have been reinforced with brick frames. The spire was apparently not completed above the stonework, as the wooden spire would seem to date from a much later period.

The Bialystoker Synagogue, 1930.

2020 sure has been a whirlwind! Here are some interesting facts, stories, and images from throughout the five boroughs that we dug up along the way.

The Amalgamated Dwellings, one of the oldest housing cooperatives in the United States, was the second cooperative sponsored by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, after the successful Amalgamated Cooperative Apartments in the Bronx. The six-story Art Deco building with 236 apartments was designed by the architects Springsteen & Goldhammer and was completed in 1930 at the site of a former printing plant. The building covered one city block, with a protected garden in the center.

In the first half of the 20th century, Jewish boxers were some of the most famous and feared athletes in the country.

Henry Street Settlement, ca. 1978. The Henry Street Settlement was established by nurse and progressive reformer Lillian Ward as the Nurses Settlement in 1893. It was an on the ground organization that aimed to bring social services and healthcare programming to the families, and particularly the children, of the surrounding immigrant neighborhood. Renamed the Henry Street Settlement, Wald moved into 265 Henry Street (at center) in 1895 after the building was gifted to the organization by Jewish philanthropist, Jacob Schiff. The Federal Style townhouse was constructed in 1827. After the turn of the century the Settlement began occupying additional buildings on Henry Street, including no. 267, its neighbor to the east. In the first decade of the 20th century they opened one of the earliest playgrounds in the city in the backyard of their Henry Street property, funded the salary of the first school nurse in a NYC public school (prompting the city to create nursing positions), and created summer camps. The organization's interest in arts programming began in earnest in the 1910s and it has remained as considerable focus into the 21st century. In 1938 the Settlement began leasing 263 Henry Street (also built ca.1827) and in 1949 they purchased it. The series of three early 19th century buildings that make up the main offices of the settlement house look from the exterior to be separate, but as they were acquired the interior walls were removed to create more usable space. They retain the look of an early 19th century streetscape in an neighborhood that later crowded with tenements. The buildings were designated NYC landmarks in 1966 and have undergone extensive restorations to preserve their architectural history, inside and out.

"On a rainy March morning in 1893, the life of a young nurse named Lillian Wald changed forever. Wald was giving a lesson in bed-making at a school on the Lower East Side when a young girl appeared and hurriedly requested that Wald attend to her sick mother. Following the girl over broken roadways, 'dirty mattresses,' and 'heaps of refuse'; passing 'reeking' tenement houses… Wald finally arrived at the crowded apartment where a woman had hemorrhaged during childbirth. Seeing the woman’s 'wretched' and 'pitiful' state and providing aid to a family with nowhere else to turn had a profound effect on Wald. 'Within a half an hour' of coming to this woman’s assistance, Wald later wrote, she had determined that she would move to the Lower East Side. Within six months Wald and her fellow nurse Mary Brewster had rented an apartment on Jefferson Street and begun a mission to provide health care to their new community. In 1895 Wald and her nurses’ settlement moved into a house on Henry Street purchased for her by philanthropist Jacob Schiff. The organization, taking its name from its new address, would become known as the Henry Street Settlement." For more on Henry Street and other 'settlements' in New York City, check out this article by Ralph da Costa Nunez and Ethan G. Sribnick in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

Harry De Jur Playhouse, 466 Grand Street, ca. 1979. This three-story Georgian Revival red brick structure, constructed between 1912 and 1915, was built as a theatre space for the Henry Street Settlement. Designed by architects Harry C. Ingalls and F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr., it was named for Harry De Jur, who had attended the settlement's programs as a child and was on the board as an adult. Initially created to provide the dense immigrant community of the Lower East Side with a local playhouse, the experimental theatre (along with Providence Playhouse and Washington Square Players) became an important venue in the foundation of modern American dramatic theater.

"22 to 4 (left to right) Columbia Street, east side, south from Broome (left), to but not including Grand (right) Streets, June 6, 1930." Meyer Lansky lived with his parents in an apartment in No. 6 (second building from right) in the early 1920s. It was while they lived here that the teenaged Lansky became acquainted with his (also infamous) friends Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel (who lived at 36 Columbia Street) and Charlie “Lucky” Luciano ( who lived at 265 East 10th Street).

3-5 Corlears Street, March 4, 1937. This building at the corner of Corlears and Monroe Streets housed trolley cars. In 1956, the building was demolished for the development of the Corlears Hook Houses. Corlears Hook was the name for the part of the Van Corlears bowerie (farm) in Dutch times that jutted out into the East River.

Entrance to 294 East Broadway, March 30, 1937.

Children at play on Water Street and Jackson Street across from Corlears Hook Park, 1938. These buildings would soon be demolished ahead of the construction of the Vladek Houses, a New York City Housing Authority development. Construction on the Vladek houses, named for NYCHA board member Baruch Charney Vladeck, stated in September, 1939 and was completed in November, 1940.

At the intersection of Grand (right) and Henry (left) at Columbia Streets. The frame structure shown directly at the apex, is A.N. Gilbert's Drug Store. The Spire shown on the left, is that of All Saints Free Church (Episcopal), April 1929.

546-556 Grand Street, 1932. No. 550 is the three-story, wood-frame building with a brick front at center. Between 1914 and 1920, the (later) infamous mobster Meyer Lansky lived with his parents in two different apartments on this block. In 1914 they moved into a third floor apartment at 546 Grand Street (at left) and in 1917 they moved a few doors down into an apartment at no. 552 (just to the right of the short building).

⁣621 Water Street is a red-brick Renaissance style building that originally served as Gouverner Hospital. Constructed in stages beginning in 1897, it features unusual curved walls intended to help prevent the accumulation of dirt and germs, and wrap around balconies that provided access to fresh air for tuberculosis patients.⁣ ​​⁣ ​​The building became outdated and was abandoned in the 1960s. It remained vacant and under threat of demolition until 1991, when it was then purchased and rehabilitated by non-profit Community Access thanks to support from HPD. In 1994, it re-opened as Gouverneur Court, an affordable assisted living residence that continues to serve over 120 vulnerable New Yorkers!⁣ These photos from 1991 and 1993 by HPD photographer Larry Racioppo capture it before and during renovation. ​​

Among its important qualities, Saint Augustine’s Chapel is a fine example of the small, masonry parish church. It displays an unusual and interesting feature in the introduction of Gothic windows into a building which, in general, adheres to the Georgian tradition of architecture. This church served for many years as the very attractive Chapel for a small section of the urban community.

Bialystoker Synagogue, ca, 1977. The fieldstone Methodist Episcopal Church was built in 1826, using Manhattan schist from a quarry on nearby Pitt Street. Founded by a group of Jews who came from town of Białystok in present-day Poland, the congregation purchased the building at 7 Willett Street in 1907.

“Mikveh of the Lower East Side, 311-313 East Broadway. Originally Young Men's Benevolent Association.” 311-313 East Broadway has variously been home to: Wall Street broker James E. Betts (1842); an illegal “gambling house,” raided by police (1842); the Young Men’s Benevolent Association, a Jewish community organization who commissioned its current, eclectic designed building (1899-1914); the Arnold Toynbee House, later renamed the Grand Street Settlement (1918-1936); and the Mikvah of Lower East Side, a Jewish ritual bath house (1941-present). Today, a plaque reading “ritualarium” marks the entrance to the mikvah.

511 Grand Street ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1827-28 STYLE: Federal 511 Grand Street House was constructed by real estate investors Henry Barclay and James Lent Along with its neighbor 513 Grand Street it is a rare surviving example of the Federal style in Manhattan. It retains its original 2½-story height, peaked roof with dormers and side entrance. It is three-bays wide due to the irregular shape of the lot. The house since the 1840s has continuously housed both residential tenants and businesses reflecting its location on Grand Street a major east-west thoroughfare.