South of Union Square
Menu
Address
Share
Near 466 Grand Street
Posts & Stories
(71)
Harry De Jur Playhouse
Post
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.
Bialystoker Synagogue
Post
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.
Where New Yorkers Work
Story
Where do you usually work? We asked this question to our Urban Archive community and mapped their answers. Take a look!
Where the Children Played: Jewish Immigrant Kids of New York and Their Games
Story
The history of organized outdoor play for children in New York goes back over 100 years, reflecting the social and cultural issues throughout.
Henry Street Settlement
Post
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.
Seward Park Branch, NYPL
Post
Seward Park Branch, NYPL, ca. 1977.
Leaving for Camp Vacamas
Story
Camp Vacamas, started in 1924, is a sleepaway camp originally located Upstate in the Catskills, in Kingston, N.Y. Founded by several Jewish organizations including The Forward, the name is an acronym of the East Side Vacation Camp Association. The camp is now located in West Milford, N.J. and is still called Camp Vacamas.
Public School 34
Post
Broome Street, northside, east from Willett Street. Public School No. 34 is the third building from the left, June 6, 1930.
St. Augustine's Chapel
Post
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.
Bialystoker Synagogue
Post
The Bialystoker Synagogue, 1930.
Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church
Post
Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church, 213 Stanton Street, ca. 1973. The Church of Our Lady of Sorrows is located in an area once known as Kleindeutschland, Little Germany. Established in 1867, it ministered to the large number of German Catholics who migrated to New York in the late 19th century. The church, designed by Henry Engelbert, was built with a combination of Victorian, Byzantine, and Romanesque architectural styles and completed in 1868. By the early 1910s, much of the German population on the Lower East Side had moved uptown. In their place were multitudes of newly-arrived Italian immigrants, and then later, Hispanic. Despite these shifts in neighborhood demographic, the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows had adapted to its surroundings to serve the changing congregations. By 2000, masses were offered in Spanish and English; the church today is also known as Nuestra Señora de los Dolores.
148 Rivington Street
Post
Streit’s Matzos factory at the corner of Suffolk and Rivington Streets. The Streit family produced matzo at this location from 1925 to June 2015.
372 Grand Street
Post
Brick tenement with pitched roof and single dormer at No. 372 Grand Street, ca. 1902. The corner building, which may have dated to the 1850s was then listed as No. 374 Grand. The ground floor storefront provided a variety of wares, including stoves, radiators, and cookware.
2020 Wrap Up: UA Team Faves
Story
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.
155 Rivington Street
Post
Adolf Mandel Bank, Rivington Street. February 16, 1912. Local pick-pockets started a rumor that the bank’s safe was insecure, in order to spark a run on the bank, and then to rob concerned customers who had made withdrawals. Nearly a thousand people waited on Rivington Street to access their deposits.
Loew's Delancey Theatre
Post
Loew's Delancey Theater, 140-146 Delancey Street. In 1911, tenement buildings with Jewish storefronts were demolished to make way for the Loew’s Theater, which opened in 1912 and remained in operation until 1977.
Amalgamated Dwellings
Post
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.
122 Suffolk Street
Post
The southeast corner of Suffolk and Rivington Streets, 1910. Rivington Street is named after James Rivington. A "supposed" Loyalist who wrote a Loyalist newspaper, the New York Gazetteer, later The Royal Gazette, Rivington was covertly part of the Culper Spy Ring, which supplied George Washington with information.
Seward Park
Post
“Street Scene - Lower East Side, 1898. From intersection of Hester and Suffolk Sts. Hester St. at Right; Cart at Left on Norfolk; Sussex in Background; Clearance for Seward Park.”
Young Israel Synagogue
Post
Just five months after the 1929 stock market crash that signaled the start of the Great Depression, thousands lined up to get matzoh for Passover, an alternative, according to the Forward, to a breadline. A headline on the front page the same day described a “Matzoh Riot” as up to 5,000 people stood in the cold outside a Lower East Side synagogue, then, frozen and furious, tried to break into the synagogue’s basement. Four local beat cops had to call for back-up to help quell the uprising.
375 Grand Street
Post
Corn Exchange Bank and Trust Company branch, 1931. This branch was completed in February 1931, replacing a branch in an older building at the northwest corner of Grand and Norfolk Streets. The Corn Exchange Bank, founded in 1853, merged with the Chemical Bank in 1954 and, through a series of further mergers, has since been folded into the holdings of JPMorgan Chase.
Ratner's
Post
Ratner’s was a famous Jewish kosher dairy restaurant, founded in 1905 by Jacob Harmatz and his brother-in-law Alex Ratner. The pair supposedly flipped a coin to decide whose name would be on the sign. Originally located on Pitt Street, Ratner’s moved to 138 Delancey Street in 1918. Until 1975, Ratner’s was a 24-hour establishment and therefore part of the late-night city scene popular with Jewish performers, actors, musicians, and gangsters. Ratner’s remained in the Harmatz family until its closure in 2002.
225 Henry Street
Post
Dilapidated buildings at 223, 225, 227, and 229 Henry Street, ca. 1976. By the 1970s, many buildings in this part of the Lower East Side had been abandoned as the neighborhood developed a reputation for drugs and crime. Today, Henry Street is notable for stretches of tenement architecture which have survived recent development in the area.
Jewish Middleweight Champ Herbie Kronowitz Threw A "Shtaysl" in The Forward
Story
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
Post
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.
Henry Street Settlement
Post
"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
Post
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.
203 Henry Street
Post
Youths sit on the stoop of the former Congregation Makower of Polen, 203 Henry Street; ca. 1978.
6 Columbia Street
Post
"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).
90-94 Sheriff Street
Post
Nos. 90-94 Sheriff Street, unknown date. By the mid-1960s, the tenement buildings pictured had been razed for the development of the Masaryk Towers, six middle-income housing cooperatives built under the auspices of New York's Mitchell-Lama Housing Program. The towers — named for Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia — opened in 1967. In recent years, the Masaryk board of directors has come under fire for restricting access to a de-mapped stretch of Rivington Street running through the development.
De Witt Memorial Church
Post
Rivington Street, north side, at Columbia Street. The view shows the De Witt Memorial Church at No. 280 Rivington Street, between Columbia and Cannon Streets. These buildings were reported to be over congested with 1 building having 98 people in 62 rooms!
St. Mary's Church
Post
Church of St. Mary, 440 Grand Street, ca. 1978. Established in 1826 to serve Irish immigrants living in the Lower East Side, the Church of St. Mary is the third oldest Catholic parish in New York City. The building, erected in 1832-33, was later expanded in 1871 by the renowned ecclesiastical architect Patrick Charles Keely. Before the sanctuary was completed, the parish held services in a former Presbyterian church on Sheriff Street. The original section of the building is the second oldest Roman Catholic structure to exist in the city, after St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, which was built in 1815.
148 Rivington Street
Post
My Archive Spring 2019 "My friend Ellen Retter is standing in front of Streit's grocery store on Rivington Street. I took this photo of her on December 19, 2013. Ellen was my dearest friend. I had been visiting her at her apartment on Grand Street, and we stopped to shop at Streit's before she walked me to the #21 bus stop on Houston Street. Ellen passed away suddenly on October 31, 2018. This is the only photo that I have of her, and I cherish it." —Phyllis Klein
3-5 Corlears Street
Post
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.
Congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagodol
Post
“Congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagadol.” The Gothic Revival Norfolk Street Baptist Church, built 1850, was purchased in 1885 by the Orthodox Jewish Congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagodol. After over 120 years of continuous use, the synagogue closed in 2007, due to a dwindling congregation and deterioration of the structure. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999, but today remains abandoned.
135 Ridge Street
Post
135 Ridge Street, at the southwest corner of Stanton Street. J. Leskowitz, a clothier and tailor, had his shop on the ground floor, while surgeon and dentist Dr. S. Jaeger had his practice on the second floor.
Bialystoker Center and Home for the Aged
Post
Bialystoker Center and Home for the Aged, 228 East Broadway, ca. 1970. Designed by architect Harry Hurwit and built between 1929 and 1931 in the Art Deco style, the Bialystoker Center and Home for the Aged is the best known landsmanshaft— or immigrant hometown association, in the city. Bialystok, a Polish industrial city, was the hometown of a large population of Jewish immigrants to the Lower East Side. The community established a number of mutual benefit societies and a synagogue beginning in the 1860s. In the aftermath of the devastation of World War I, the a new Bialystoker group was organized to assist in foreign aid to Europe. In the 1920s the Center developed into an umbrella agency and meeting place for all of the Bialystoker groups, while also shifting focus to supporting Jewish communities within the city. Plans for a home for the aged necessitated a new building and the cornerstone for the stylized Art Deco struture was laid in 1929. The Bialystoker Home for Aged closed its doors in 2011 and has been empty since. (Though there was a massive effort in early 2017 to rescue and rehome the memorial plaques, religious books, and other sacred objects from the building.) The building and the plots on either side were sold together in 2016 and are being developed in to condos.
Adath Israel Synagogue
Post
Man on the steps in front of 205 East Broadway. The tenement buildings at 201-203 East Broadway (at right) were home to the Adath Israel Synagogue and United Hebrew Community Jewish burial society, both established in 1901.
Hebrew Institute
Post
197 East Broadway, ca. 1977. In 1889 the Educational Alliance was established as settlement house serving the Jewish immigrant population of the Lower East Side (though open to all races and creeds). It was the joint effort of the Aguilar Free Library Society, Hebrew Free Loan Association, and the Young Men's Hebrew Association. Their services included English language classes, educational citizenship classes, a theatre, an art school and recreational rooftop garden. Their headquarters were constructed in 1891 at 197 East Broadway. The Romanesque Revival building designed by Brunner and Tron was the central of all activity. An early supporter of the organization is Isidor Straus, philanthropist and co-owner of Macy's Department Store. He is named the president of the board in 1893 when a new board is convened following the YMHA departure from the partnership. When Straus dies in the sinking of the Titanic, the Educational Alliance is bequeathed $100,000 from his will. In the 20th century the Alliance Art School would see a number of its students go on to renown in the art world, including sculptors Chaim Gross and Concetta Scaravaglione, and painter Peter Bloom. By the 1950s, like many of the settlements houses that had survived, the Alliance shifted away from being volunteer run and introduced social services operated by trained professionals. Their later 20th century social services included running a Head Start group and Operation Street Corner, a program aimed at curbing teenage delinquency. Today the Educational Alliance continues to run its services and programs from its 1891 building.
Lower East Side
Post
Bundled to keep warm, this woman stands with a pile of Forward and other newspapers to sell on the Lower East Side. Selling newspapers was not just a job for the “newsies,” street-smart, impoverished child laborers who hawked them on the streets. It was a rough-and- tumble game, with vendors zealously guarding their territory. East Broadway was hub for Yiddish papers, though they were widely sold throughout the City.
294 East Broadway
Post
Entrance to 294 East Broadway, March 30, 1937.
28 Essex Street
Post
Push carts at the corner of Essex and Hester Streets, ca. 1900. The store at the near corner, with “\[wines] & liquors” awning visible, is No. 28 Essex Street. Shortly after the turn of the century, this corner was cleared for the construction of P.S. 62, an intermediate school. Two decades later, that building was torn down to facilitate subway excavation. The campus was relocated to the former site of the Ludlow Street Jail.
Congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagodol
Post
East side of Norfolk Street, viewed from Essex Street, late 1960s. Beth Hamedrash Hagodol, at center left, was still holding services, though its attendance had begun to diminish. The synagogue was the only building on this block of Norfolk Street not razed for Seward Park Urban Renewal.
Hester Street Fair Lot
Post
“Street scene of peddlers and street vendors on Hester Street on the Lower East Side in 1898.” At the turn of the century, Hester Street was known for its open-air push cart market, one of many hubs for Lower East Side vendors. The tenement buildings in this photo — likely on the North side of Hester Street, near Norfolk and Suffolk Streets — were soon demolished to make way for the campus of the P.S. 62 intermediate school, which opened in 1905.
684 Water Street
Post
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.
Loew's Delancey Theatre
Post
The building shown is the Loew's Delancey Theater, a motion-picture house. September 25, 1936 showings include “My American Wife,” a comedy starring Francis Lederer and Ann Sothern, and “Yours for the Asking,” with George Raft and Dolores Costello.
155 Rivington Street
Post
Run on Adolf Mandel's Bank, February 16, 1912.
232 East Broadway
Post
Jewish heritage mural, Lower East Side, ca. 1978. The mural, which reads "Our Strength Is Our Heritage, Our Heritage Is Our Life," was painted in 1973 by local artists in association with the CITYArts group. It became a source of controversy in November, 2016, when a developer painted over the mural without consulting community groups, citing danger posed by loose paint and masonry falling from the wall.
Congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagodol
Post
Norfolk Street Baptist Church ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1850 STYLE: Gothic Revival Striking in profile, this smooth-faced stone Synagogue is an interesting example of modified Gothic Revival architecture. Raised on a platform of steps above the street, the recessed center section of the symmetrical facade is flanked by square towers pierced by coupled pointed arched windows that light the side vestibules. The dominant feature of this structure is the main, double entrance door with over-door panel joining it to the tall tripartite arched window, surmounted by a pedimented roof, affixed with the Star of David.
Seward Park Branch, NYPL
Post
Park Row Building ARCHITECT: R. H. Robertson DATE: 1896-99 STYLE: Skyscraper The 30-story, 391-foot Park Row Building was the tallest building in New York City and one of the tallest structures in the world between 1899, the year of its completion, and 1908. It is one of several surviving late nineteenth-century buildings that formed Newspaper Row, the center of newspaper publishing in New York City from the 1840s to the 1920s. Among its many tenants, the building housed the offices of the Associated Press news agency, as well as the headquarters of August Belmont’s Interborough Rapid Transit Company. The great height and irregular plan of this building led to the use of innovative construction techniques including a pile and steel-grillage foundation, a Roehling concrete floor system for fireproofing, and Sprague Electric elevators to transport the thousands of people using the building each day.
The War on Pushcarts
Story
In the 1930s, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, one of New York's most powerful mayors, launched a war against an enemy that was ubiquitous on New York's streets: Pushcarts.
155 Rivington Street
Post
155 Rivington Street ca. 1915
372 Grand Street
Post
Northeast corner of Norfolk and Grand Streets, October 12, 1931. The corner building, No. 372 Grand Street, and the adjoining three-story structures at Nos. 50 and 50½ Norfolk Street are flanked by the two grand entrances to the Manufacturers Trust Co. bank (formerly State Street bank).
527 Grand Street
Post
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.
550 Grand Street
Post
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).
193 Stanton Street
Post
Apartment building at 193-197 Stanton Street. Storefronts include a “pocket billiards” parlor, plumbing supply shop, and “J Leskowitz, Mfr. of Mohair, Alpaca & Tropical Suits.”
From Abandoned Tuberculosis Hospital to Supportive Housing
Story
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.
Lillian Wald and the Hall of Great Americans
Story
There are many distinguished people featured in the Hall of Fame of Great Americans at Bronx Community College. One who stands apart as a true community leader is Lillian Wald, the nurse, activist, and author renowned for establishing the Henry Street Settlement (HSS) and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY).
Congregation Morgan Abraham
Post
Congregation Morgan Abraham, ca. 1985. Built circa 1845 and originally constructed for the First Methodist Protestant Church, the Greek Revival building was occupied by a second church before it became a synagogue by the start of the 20th century. The first Jewish community to use the house of worship was the First Congregation Galiz Duckler Mogen Abaraham in 1905. They were a congregation of immigrants from Galicia, a historic region near modern day Poland and Ukraine. The synagogue later was called simply Congregation Morgan Abraham. Still standing and functioning as a house of worship in the early 1970s, it was the only synagogue in the city without indoor plumbing. The front wall of the building collapsed in 1989 and the building was soon after demolished.
Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center
Post
A rendering of C.B.J. Snyder’s Public School 160 at the corner of Suffolk and Rivington Streets.
St. Augustine's Chapel
Post
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
Post
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.
Delancey Approach to the Williamsburg Bridge
Post
Delancey Approach to the Williamsburg Bridge ca. 1919 Linking Manhattan and Brooklyn, the Williamsburg Bridge opened in 1903. The first person to cross it was Wally Owen in his fifty-six horsepower Speedster. Owen's round trip was clocked at six minutes and fifty seconds; several policemen wandering about on the bridge barely escaped injury. The bridge was dubbed the Jews' Highway by the press because it opened rural Williamsburg to Jewish immigrants seeking to escape the crowded Lower East Side.
155 Rivington Street
Story
Welcome to 155 Rivington Street. Before you climb the stairs, step back and take a look at its elegant facade. Think of all the people that have passed through this space over its 117-year history. From horse and buggies, through prohibition, and the great depression, this building has seen a lot.
Mikveh of the Lower East Side
Post
“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.
Seward Park Branch, NYPL
Post
The Seward Park branch of The New York Public Library on Manhattan’s Lower East Side can trace its roots back to 1886, when the Aguilar Free Library Society founded it. The branch, which opened its doors at its current location on November 11, 1909, is located at the eastern edge of the park for which it is named. The four-story, red brick Renaissance Revival building was one of 65 NYPL branches built with funds from Andrew Carnegie, and it boasts high ceilings and arched windows designed by the firm Babb, Cook & Welch.
511 Grand Street
Post
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.
174 Delancey Street
Post
174 Delancey Street, viewed from the Williamsburg Bridge. Detail of upper stories.
The Forward's News (and Jews) on The Bowery
Story
After the 1929 stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression, selling apples became a popular way to help now-unemployed New Yorkers eke out a living.
185 East Broadway
Post
East Broadway, ca. 1980. Signs mark a diverse set of storefront shops and offices. From left: Mobile Crisis Unit of Gouverneur Hospital (No. 185); West Lake Noodle Co. Inc, Sun Trading Co. (No. 183); E.Bway Kosher Bakery (No. 181).
Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center
Post
Public School 160, ca. 1920. Designed by C.B.J. Snyder in 1898, 107 Suffolk Street was home to P.S. 160 until its closure in 1976. The Dutch Neo-Gothic building was completed in 1898. Today the building houses the Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center whose mission is to nurture and develop Puerto Rican and Latino arts in the Lower East Side.
Photos & Audio
(406)
Harry De Jur Playhouse
Women with babies in front of \The Playhouse of Henry Street Settlement" on Grand Street between Pitt and Willet Streets
Harry De Jur Playhouse
466 Grand St, New York, NY
464 Grand Street
Front view of signs on building at 464 Grand Street on the corner of Grand and Pitt Streets, New York.
Harry De Jur Playhouse
\[Harry De Jur Playhouse.]
2 Pitt Street
Sign above doorways states, \Congregation Wlodawer Gemilas Chessed" at 2 Pitt Street
Harry De Jur Playhouse
\[Looking across Grand Street from Dry Dock Savings Bank to Harry De Jur Playhouse.]
8 Pitt Street
Music School of the Henry Street Settlement sign at 8 Pitt Street, New York.
464 Grand Street
Side view of signs on building at 464 Grand Street on the corner of Grand and Pitt Streets, New York.
Bialystoker Synagogue
Bialystoker Synagogue
Bialystoker Synagogue
\[Bialystoker Synagogue, 7-13 Bialystoker Place/Willett Street.] Originally Willett Street Methodist Episcopal Church.
Bialystoker Synagogue
Bialystoker Synagogue
Iron works establishment at 26 Willet Street, New York.
Bialystoker Synagogue
Congregation Ansher Bialystok at 7 Willet Street \[also known as 7–11 Bialystoker Place] between Grand and Broome Streets, New York.
Bialystoker Synagogue
\[Bialystoker Synagogue, 7-13 Bialystoker Place/Willett Street.] Originally Willett Street Methodist Episcopal Church.
Bialystoker Synagogue
\[Bialystoker Synagogue, 7-13 Bialystoker Place/Willett Street.] Originally Willett Street Methodist Episcopal Church.
Lower East Side
A group of nine elderly Jewish New Yorkers prepare to light a menorah to celebrate the sixth night of Hanukkah in a modest synagogue, probably in a nursing home. (ca 1930s, New York City, probably Lower East Side)
Lower East Side
Photograph taken from the back depicting a peddler standing beneath a large umbrella and scales on his pushcart, and the bustle of the people shopping. Also visible in the background are Yiddish letters on a sign advertising smoked fish and herring. (Lower East Side, New York, c. 1920s)
Lower East Side
Grounds For Play. East Side kiddies playing checkers on a hot afternoon. From Yiddish: Children playing on the streets in the Jewish neighborhood in New York. (Lower East Side, New York, n.d.)
Lower East Side
Scene picturing pedestrians shopping at street vendors. Lower East Side, New York, c. 1930s-1940s
Lower East Side
woman peddler smiles and points at camera while man in cap looks over her merchandise. (Lower East Side, c. 1920s)
Lower East Side
Lower East Side
Lower East Side
A Seven-cent Lodging House in the Bowery. Men in bunk bed hammocks.
Lower East Side
woman selling apples and man bending over apples as if selecting one to purchase. (New York, NY, 1930)
Lower East Side
News vendor, 1930s
294 East Broadway
East Broadway, no. 294; Changing New York Between Scammel and Gouverneur Streets.
32 Willet Street
Herbie Kronowitz of Coney Island
452 Grand Street
Dairy and fancy groceries store at 452 Grand Street, New York.
450 Grand Street
Men in front of candy shop at 450 Grand Street, New York.
34 Pitt Street
Sign: \East Side Skylight
26 Pitt Street
Yiddish sign on fire escape for Congregation Ohev Israel Ashe Mezshivish at 26 Pitt Street, New York.
500 Grand Street
Fruit and vegetable shop at 500 Grand Street, New York.
494 Grand Street
Meyer London's matzoh shop at 494 Grand Street, New York.
25 Willett St
Jewish beggar in tattered clothes at Willet Street between Broome and Grand Streets, New York.
Public School 34
Public School 34
Manhattan: Sheriff Street - Delancey Street Sheriff Street, west side, south from Delancey, to and including Grand Streets, showing P.S. No. 34 (prior to 1931), at the N.W. corner of Broome Street. This school bears No. 106 of the latter street. July 1, 1930. P. L. Sperr.
FDNY Engine 15
Home of Daughters of Jacob
Home of Daughters of Jacob, East B'way.
144 Broome Street
Manhattan: Broome Street - Ridge Street Broome Street, north side at Ridge Street, showing mainly the Seventh Presbyterian Church at the N.E. corner. On the oposite corner (N.W.) is Public School 92. Two of the views show portions of the latter feature and are in a westward direction. View No. 3 is eastward and eliminates the school. May 7, 1939 Views: 1-2-3 756 D2 VIEW 1- NEG. # 3332 756 D2 VIEW 2- NEG. # 3333 756 D2 VIEW 3- NEG. # 3334 P. L. Sperr
144 Broome Street
Manhattan: Broome Street - Ridge Street (1) 144-134 Broome Street, at and adjoining the N.E. corner of Ridge Street. The view also shows 44-52 Ridge Street, east side, from Broome to but not including the south side of Delancey Street, which is the starting point of the East River Bridge. The building in the foreground is the Seventh Presbyterian Church. June 12, 1931. Built in 1838 P. L. Sperr. (2) The same. April 1929. Hotel Hatfield & 7th Pres Ch cor Broome & Ridge Sts Eugene L. Armbruster Collection.
144 Broome Street
Manhattan: Broome Street - Ridge Street Broome Street,South ^North? East corner of Ridge Street, showing the Ukrainian-Russian-American,All Saints Church. The building said to have been a R.C.Church. Hotel Hatfield is located at #48 Ridge Street. ^Possibly the 8th Presbyt Ch January 19th,1941. Beecher Ogden, Grand Central Terminal. Credit line Imperative. NEG # 3335
17 Pitt Street
Yiddish signs advertising Mutual Aid Society and Daily religious services at 17 Pitt Street, New York.
Mikveh of the Lower East Side
\[Mikveh of the Lower East Side, 311-313 East Broadway.] Originally Young Men's Benevolent Association.
29 Attorney Street
Yiddish writing school at 29 Attorney Street, New York.
37 Attorney Street
The Sunshine Social Club, window sign in Hebrew and English, at 37 Attorney Street, New York.
11 Attorney Street
Sign for Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol DeSephardim synagogue at 11 Attorney Street, New York.
34 Attorney Street
Advertisement to sell chometz (leavened bread) by Rabbi Dublinsky placed over another sign at 34 Attorney Street, New York.
St. Mary's Church
Manhattan 44, St. Mary's Church, Grand St. & Attorney St; Jerry Spearman, Photographer
48 Attorney Street
Congregation Adath Yeshurun Kaminitz-Podolsk at 48 Attorney Street, New York.
434 Grand Street
The Sanders Association, a boy's club at 434 Grand Street, New York.
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service
Open Map