47 2nd Avenue Building Date : 1867 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Michael McGovern Original Architect : John O'Neil Description & Building Alterations No. 45 & 47 Second Avenue were constructed together as pre-law tenements on a single tax lot in 1867. This pair of two tenements feature the stone window lintels and sills, cornice supported by modillions and beltcourses. “The earliest tenements were constructed before there was any substantial regulation of this type of housing. The first law that governed the actual physical form of tenements was not passed until 1879 and is known as the ‘old law.’ Thus, the first wave of tenements erected in New York City… are ‘pre-law’ tenements.” – Andrew Dolkart, The South Village: A Proposal for Historic District Designation.

87-89 Second Avenue; 239-241 East 5th Street Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Isaac Sohlinger Original Architect : John C. Watson Description & Building Alterations This six-story new law tenement was built in 1910 and designed by architect John C. Watson for owner Isaac Sohinger.

Warren Weaver Hall, ca. 1975. Upon its completion in 1965, the New York Times described New York University’s Warren Weaver Hall as “the largest mathematics and teaching center in the world.” Designed by the firm Warner, Burns, Toan and Lunde; Weaver Hall replaced “light manufacturing buildings” on Mercer, West 3rd and 4th Streets, and the former 15th Precinct police station at No. 251 Mercer.

640 Broadway ca. 1949 While it’s certainly the most famous Empire State Building, the skyscraping structure on the corner of 34th Street and 5th Avenue was not actually the first “Empire State Building.” That title belonged to a somewhat more terrestrial, but still extant, building at the corner of Bleecker Street and Broadway. In the mid-late 19th century, a six-story brick and stone structure sat on a 25′ x 300′ footprint at 640 Broadway between Bleecker and Crosby Streets. The ground floor was home to the Empire State Bank, with manufacturers located in the lofts above. In November 1895, a fire later determined to be arson, burned the building to the ground. The fire ended the Empire State Bank, which applied to the Supreme Court for dissolution on February 18, 1896. The owner immediately moved to rebuild. He hired architects De Lemos and Cordes, who that same year designed the Siegel-Cooper Building (now part of the Ladies’ Mile Historic District), and would go on to design Macy’s Herald Square. Opening in 1897, the new building at 640 Broadway helped transform this neighborhood (designated the NoHo Historic District in 1999). At the time, the area was transitioning from 5-6 story loft buildings to taller buildings, such as the Bayard Condict Building located directly across the street from 640 Broadway at 65 Bleecker Street. In honor of his former tenant, owner B. Lichtenstein named 640 Broadway the Empire State Building. This was more than 30 years prior to the development of its more famous namesake. When the “original” Empire State Building opened it housed dozens of manufacturing companies employing hundreds of young women. Fires broke out in the building in 1904, 1909, 1919, and 1921, but miraculously no one was killed. Dramatic rescue stories were reported in the Sun and Times. With the advent of its taller and more famous cousin uptown, it became less and less common to refer to 640 Broadway as “The Empire State Building.” On top of that, during the 1940s and 50s, the neighborhood in which 640 Broadway was located went into a precipitous decline. Many of the once grand hotels in the area became flophouses and shooting galleries; some even collapsed. By the 1960s, the building had taken on an entirely different character. In 1965 the offices of the protest group May 2nd Movement were located in the building. This group provided legal counseling to those seeking to avoid the Vietnam War draft. In 1971 the building housed the offices of the Law Commune, who successfully defended the Black Panthers against 156 counts of bombing, arson, attempted murder, and other crimes. They also defended Abbie Hoffman following his September 5, 1973 arrest for selling $36,000 worth of cocaine with a street value of $500,000. When arrested, he gave his address as “640 Broadway in Greenwich Village”. Hoffman skipped bail and underwent plastic surgery. After six years in hiding, sometimes dressing as an Orthodox Jew, Hoffman surrendered and was sentenced to three years, of which he served one year.

St. Michael's as viewed from Jersey Alley, ca. 1975.

Men and boys outside the entrance to 30 Lafayette Place (now No. 417 Lafayette Street), measuring cracks in the stoop of No. 28, August 8, 1901. Between 1897 and 1904, the city undertook twin projects connecting Lafayette Place to Elm Street, while building the IRT East Side Line (which later became the Lexington Avenue Line) by the cut and cover method. The man at right holds a measuring tape to the protruding stoop of No. 28 Lafayette Place, then a residential dwelling with a lower-floor storefront. The stoop and Greek Revival ornamentation were removed in 1911, during a street-widening project. Other such "encroachments" were removed along the block.

Catholics make up over twenty percent of the population of the United States. However, there was a time when the novelty of a Roman Catholic cathedral in the country made it a tourist destination and an artist's subject. St. Patrick's on Mott Street below Houston was one of such churches.

The NoHo Historic District was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on June 29, 1999, with the NoHo East Historic District designated in 2003 and expansions to the original district boundaries approved in 2008. This virtual walking tour features 25 buildings within the approximately 130-building original NoHo Historic District, in celebration of its 25th anniversary. The highlighted buildings represent the range of construction periods and array of building types, styles, and uses that occur throughout the district. We encourage you to explore this fascinating stretch of Manhattan virtually, or to use this tour as a jumping-off point as you take your own walk through the historic district! The three-part tour is organized by phases of development, based upon the same categories found within the LPC NoHo Designation Report. Part III includes buildings constructed from the 1890s to 1910s: The Booming Nineties a) 611-621 Broadway, The Cable Building b) 65-69 Bleecker Street, The Bayard-Condict Building c) 696-702 Broadway d) 34-36 Cooper Square, "Village Voice" Post-Consolidation Growth e) 756-770 Broadway, Wanamaker's Department Store Annex f) 684 Broadway (aka 2 Great Jones Street) g) 740-744 Broadway (aka 2 Astor Place) \-- To return to Part II of the tour, click here. To revert back to Part I of the tour, click here.

"200-208 Bowery, west side, between Spring and Prince Streets, 134." The Federal style building at no. 206 (with the Barber sign) dates, along with its neighbor, to the 1810s. Once a pair amongst many Federal style buildings on the Bowery, most have been demolished and replaced or altered beyond recognition. No. 206 was constructed with a shop space on the first floor and residential space upstairs for the merchant's family. The ground floor retail space has seen a variety of businesses over its more than 200 years, including a shoe store, thread and needle shop, dentist, engraving business, and an umbrella store. At some point in the late 19th century, the upstairs space became one of many lodging houses on the Bowery, catering to " street salesmen and clerks, whose small wages will not admit of better quarters.” At some point in the 20th century no. 204 had its peaked roof and dormers converted into an additional floor. Today no. 206 remains as evidence of the early architectural of the neighborhood and houses a restaurant supply store.

Germania Hall (with the flags), ca. 1870. Germania Hall (or Assembly Rooms) was a brick building, constructed in the mid 1860s, that hosted gatherings of the local German immigrant population beginning in 1874. In the 1870s and 1880s political and social clubs held meetings here and a second floor theatre presented ethnic performances (including German, Yiddish, Italian, Polish and French). Later the visitors to the building became seedier, with gambling its main business. During the 20th century the former Assembly Hall building served as a low-cost lodging house and a mixed-use factory. It was demolished in 2006 for a new residential building.

Former Germania Bank building, ca. 1975. In 1966, the Germania Bank Building was sold to Jay Maisel, a commercial photographer. Maisel maintained his residence and studio there until February, 2015, when the building sold for $55 million. During Maisel’s residence, the grand, mysterious building’s exterior became a magnet for graffiti artists and a well known Bowery landmark. After the 2015 sale, decades of graffiti, grime, and character were stripped from the facade as the building was prepared for commercial renovation.

69 Second Avenue; 89 East 4th Street Building Date : 1887 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : August Schaifer Original Architect : Julius Kastner Description & Building Alterations This six story brick, stone, and terra cotta old law tenement was constructed in circa 1887. The Queen Anne style building features projecting window sills in continuous stone bands; elaborate terra cotta spandrel panels; a center window at the third story recessed behind segmental arch with brick pilasters, scrolled keystone, and bracketed crown; bracketed window lintels; terra cotta panels in relief; and bracketed roof cornice.

Schermerhorn Building ca. 1979 Built in 1888, the Schermerhorn Building's six stories were impressively tall for the time and its massing is, as the designation report states, “unusually imposing.” And although six-story buildings are a dime a dozen today, there is indeed something still very impressive and commanding about the Schermerhorn Building. The dark brown brick piers and ornamental sandstone corners combine to create a real heft at the ground level, and all the trappings of its Romanesque Revival style convey a solidness and strength. But it is also a brilliantly balanced building – the very solid and weighty ground level lifts upward toward arched windows that terminate high above Lafayette on the fourth floor, where its dark brown brick becomes a lighter, tan color. And all over the building, whimsical and playful ornamentation save the building from feeling too serious or foreboding. And it’s no wonder that the building is designed so expertly – its architect, Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, also designed The Dakota Apartments and the Plaza Hotel, two other revered New York City landmarks.

Bowery Mission ARCHITECT: William Jose DATE: 1876 The Bowery Mission is significant for its 103-year history as the home of the Bowery Mission, a religious-based organization that has fed, housed and cared for countless homeless men on the Lower East Side for more than 130 years. It is constructed with red brick and has four bays of windows with incised stone lintels and sills at the third through fifth stories. The ground floor has three arch-headed openings with keystone lintels, a bracketed cornice and stone banding.

"First milestone ('1 mile to City Hall'), Bowery and Prince Street, 1897." In 1769 the city’s Common Council installed 14 milestones radiating away from City Hall (then at Wall and Nassau Streets). Additional markers were erected in 1812 and 1822. It is unknown from which batch this milestone dates. (The photographic notes refer to it as the 'first.') This location at Prince Street was likely not its first home, as the milestones had to be moved after the new City Hall opened in 1811. Though a number of milestones can still be found on the streets (and a couple more can be seen in NYC museums), this milestone has been lost to history.

St. Michael's Russian Catholic Byzantine Church, ca. 1970-1990. The "Gothic Gingerbread" style building was constructed in 1859 as the Chancery Office for nearby St. Patrick's Cathedral (now Old St. Patrick's). The building was designed by James Renwick, Jr. and William Rodrigue, the architects who quickly after would go on to create the new larger St. Patrick's uptown. The building became a small chapel called St. Michael's for some time. In 1936 it became St. Michael's Russian Catholic Byzantine Church. The small church has served the modest but devoted Russian Catholic community. It is the last Russian Catholic parish in New York City, and only one of four in the entire country.

215 Bowery Charles Kinkel 1872 This limestone-faced building was built for the New Amsterdam Savings Bank in 1872, which failed by 1876. It then became Germania Bank, reflective of the large German population near this area at the end of the 19th century. This building was constructed on an irregularly narrow lot, and the heavy stonework and quoins enhance its narrow façade.

Grand Central Hotel ca. 1870 On August 3rd in 1973, what was once one of the largest and most elegant hotels in the country collapsed onto Broadway, killing four and injuring many. The eight-story, 400-room Grand Central Hotel opened in 1870 and was built in the Second Empire style by architect Henry Engelbert for carpet manufacturer Elias S. Higgins. Located at 667-77 Broadway (near Bond Street, south of West 3rd Street), it was one of the largest hotels in the United States when it was built and was lavishly furnished. In the late 19th century, the hotel with its restaurants and grand spaces became a hub of New York society. As the 20th century progressed, the hotel’s name was changed to the Broadway Central, and its luster faded. By the 1960s and after changes in ownership, the building came to be used as a welfare hotel. Complaints from residents and neighbors about crime, drug use, and prostitution in the building, as well as deteriorating and unhygienic conditions, spurred the State to investigate and penalize the owners. Re-branded as The University Hotel by the early 1970s, the hotel attempted to salvage its image. But by the summer of 1973 bigger problems than image would reveal themselves. Residents reported to the City that cracks had formed throughout the hotel and several structural walls had begun bowing outward. Years of neglect and un-reported interior renovation work had taken its toll on the hundred year old structure. Early on August 3rd, hotel patrons began hearing what they described as “’bongs,’ ‘tings,’ and ‘groans,’ and other noises,” and seeing falling plasterwork throughout the building. By the late afternoon most of the over 300 hotel guests had evacuated, when at about 5:10 P.M. a huge section of the building abruptly collapsed, spilling a huge pile of rubble down on to Broadway. As firemen sifted through the rubble – more than twenty feet high in some places — four bodies were found. The remaining sections of the hotel were demolished and removed. Also lost on the Mercer Street side of the building were six popular off-Broadway theaters that composed the Mercer Arts center. Mercer Arts Center is featured on the HBO show Vinyl. The live theaters on the Mercer Street side were run by Sy and Cynthia Kaback. It was Steina and Woody Vasulka who rented the kitchen of the Center for shows starting on June 15, 1971 before moving to Wooster and Broome streets and finally locating The Kitchen to 512 West 19th Street, where it still is today. Housing for NYU Law School students was eventually built on the site and remains today.

Colonnade Row ca. 1913 These four houses survive from a row of nine Greek Revival marble-fronted residences that, at the time of their completion, were among the grandest dwellings in New York and were occupied by members of New York’s leading families. Erected, and possibly designed, by the developer Seth Greer and named for the Marquis de Lafayette’s estate in France, the row is unified by the use of a Corinthian colonnade that was once crowned by a continuous band of anthemia (now visible only at No. 434). The buildings began to deteriorate in the post-Civil War era as the wealthy moved out of this neighborhood, and the houses were subdivided into apartments and commercial spaces. The row now contains apartments, restaurants, and theaters. From the "Guide to New York City Landmarks", courtesy of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

58 East 4th Street Building Date : 1888 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : John D. Karst, Jr. Original Architect : Alexander I. Finkle Description & Building Alterations No. 58 East 4th Street is an Old Law Tenement, constructed in 1888. In its early years, a saloon operated out of the ground floor. This brick, terra cotta, and granite German Renaissance Revival building has retained most of its historic character, including elaborate spandrels, projecting brick piers with Corinthian-style capitals, granite columns on the second story, and a top broken pediment with an eagle figure.

Donald Judd House and Museum, 101 Spring Street, ca. 2000. The five-story cast iron building at the corner of Spring and Mercer Streets was designed by architect Nicholas Whyte and completed in 1870. In 1968, Missouri-born artist Donald Judd purchased the building for $68,000, having outgrown his previous workspace. For Judd, it was the first building he ever owned. He configured the space into a residence, studio, and gallery. At 101 Spring Street, Judd developed his concept of "permanent installations" in response to what he viewed as the inadequacy of temporary gallery and museum exhibitions. In his 1989 essay, ‘101 Spring Street,’ Judd wrote: “I spent a great deal of time placing the art and a great deal designing the renovation in accordance. Everything from the first was intended to be thoroughly considered and to be permanent.” Judd passed away in January of 1994, leaving behind a foundation in his name which, over the last decade, sold off $23 million worth of art from its collection to fund the restoration of 101 Spring Street. Today, the works and interior design at 101 Spring Street remain as installed by Judd.

"The Bowery, north from Rivington Street, showing a bread line extending to the Salvation Army Memorial Hotel No. 223 -225 Bowery, ca. 1932." The Salvation Army Memorial Hotel, the final destination for the men waiting on this bread line, moved into the 10-story building, known as Booth House in 1913. From this location they provided a variety of service to the changing lower Manhattan populations over the 101 years they occupied the building. For the first decade and half the Army location largely served the vagrant population that lived and passed through the Bowery, but as the Great Depression took hold, the Army realized they could no longer function only by handing out meal tickets. The needy population was growing exponentially to include out of work men from common laborers to white collar workers. Knowing that food was one of the most important needs, by 1931 the Army location at Bowery started collecting unserved food from local restaurants to serve in a makeshift dining hall in the basement. This photograph depicts the lines for that service.

The Lower East Side, traditionally an immigrant, working-class neighborhood with a rich Jewish history, has in recent years experienced rapid gentrification. Despite A LOT of changes, many of the neighborhood's diverse local landmarks have survived into the 21st century.

A group of Hasidic rabbis were among those who turned out to greet the President for the dedication of Sara Delano Roosevelt Park on the Lower East Side.

ca. 1890 Construction on the six tenements that would become known as the Mott Street Barracks began in the 1850s. Begun by stonemason Martin Walsh, a recent Irish immigrant, the tenements would become one of the most notorious in the city. Each floor had two small apartments. These apartments, in turn, were made up of three rooms, with only one window. Moreover, these windows were overshadowed in all the back apartments by the construction of a second set of structures, directly behind the street-facing tenements. (the photo depicts the narrow alley between the two.) The dark, cramped corridors and apartments of the Mott Street Barracks soon became home to a host of pests, rodents, and disease. The lodgings didn't have plumbing so the waste and outhouses were emptied in the cellar. Filth and refuse crowded the entrances and ground. The child mortality rate at Mott Street was so high that Riis claimed that one in three children died. Moreover, the barracks were no stranger to violent crime. Robberies were fairly common and a series of murders and gang fights secured Mott Street's notoriety beyond its filthy conditions. Following a series of increasingly irate complaints by the health department, Mott Street's owner repainted the tenements and added a new cornice, but the changes were skin deep. Otherwise, the buildings remained the same. In 1896, the Health Department seized the buildings, offering one dollar in compensation. Initially razing the back buildings, it soon became clear that there was no improving the barracks, and the entirety of the tenements was demolished.

The movie theatre at 141 East Houston Street that closed in early 2018 after a run of 17 years of showing independent and foreign films, actually has a history that dates back to the 19th century. The original building was constructed sometime in the first half of the 19th century (likely the late 1830s) and was occupied for many decades by German Evangelical Mission Church (though it had been built for a Dutch Reformed Church). In the early 1900s, it was converted into the Houston Athletic Club, a prize fight club. In 1909 it became the Houston Hippodrome, which presented moving pictures and Yiddish vaudeville shows. Renovated in 1916-1917, the venue reopened as a motion picture house called the Sunshine Theatre. That venue survived until 1945. Purchased by a local hardware salesman, the theatre was used as a warehouse until 1994 when it was sold again. In 1998 the art house film company Landmark partnered with the building's leaseholder. (He had originally wanted to open a concert venue but the liquor license had been rejected.) The building underwent a massive three-year, $12 million renovation. The new theatre opened on December 21, 2001. While the theatre once again became a beloved neighborhood landmark and was doing well financially, they were beholden to the building's owners. Sold for $31.5 million in 2017, the 25-year lease (begun in 1994) was coming up for renewal and the theatre could not consider the market rate rent for the space. Sadly and much to the disappointment of neighbors and movie lovers, the theatre went dark once again. The building is to be demolished and replaced by a nine-story office building.

26 Second Avenue Building Date : 1850-59 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Frederick Johnson Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations Three buildings currently exist on this lot, with one in the front and two in the rear. The current building in the front part of the lot is a six-story tenement, with its sixth floor added between 1889 and 1906. The two rear buildings each have five stories. The first building on this lot was built between 1841 and 1843. By 1846, a stable was also present on the lot and remained until 1850, when it was replaced by a second house built between 1850 and 1852. Two five-story tenements existed after 1859 in the front and rear of the lot, likely altered from the two three-story houses on site before 1859. Two stores have occupied the first floor of the front building since at least 1906. The building’s facade retains the historic cornice and two pilasters framing the entrance doorway in addition to two pilasters, one on each side of the storefront. The storefront has been altered with pull-down security gates. The window lintels have also been removed. In 1947, the storefront was converted into a launderette. Since then, it has been converted back into two stores.

Fourteenth Ward Industrial School of the Children’s Aid Society (Astor Memorial Building) ARCHITECT: Vaux & Radford DATE: 1888-89 STYLE: Victorian Gothic The Fourteenth Ward Industrial School, often referred to as the Astor Memorial School is an example of Victorian Gothic architecture, it was designed by the architectural firm of Vaux & Radford. The building was donated by John Jacob Astor as a memorial to his wife, a longtime supporter of the activities of the Children’s Aid Society, and that it remains a worthy symbol of the work of the Children’s Aid Society.

Tredwell House, September 1, 1937. Constructed in 1832, the three-story brick town house was once part of a row of six similar homes. It was built by Joseph Brewster and was likely designed from the pages of a pattern book such as ones created by the architect Minard Lafever. The home is an excellent example of the transition of style from Federal to Greek Revival at this time in Manhattan. Brewster lived in the home until 1835, when it was purchased by Seabury Tredwell, a hardware importer, whose business was located near the South Street Seaport. The Tredwell family owned the home for nearly the next century. Gertrude Tredwell, the final of eight siblings, was born (1840) and died (1933) in the house. Following Gertrude's death, George Chapman, a family cousin, turned the home into a museum. The house was designated a NYC Landmark, one of the first 20 designations in 1965. Today the museum features a collection of more than 3000 items, most of which belonged to the Tredwell family, and include furniture, decorations, lighting, household, personal and sewing accessories, family photographs, books, ephemera, works of art, costumes, and textiles. The plasterwork in the house is considered by many to be the most important extant example of a pre-Civil War residential interior in the United States.

Walking through the neighborhood now often referred to as NoLita (north of Little Italy), one can’t help but be struck by a four-story building on Mott Street which seems much more impressive than its modest height would imply. The stepped roof and carved foliate detail above and below the windows give the impression of a grand private residence, or at least the headquarters of some noble institution. But as most New Yorkers know, this is an old immigrant quarter, and the carving above the entrance which says “Fourteenth Ward Industrial School” gives away the building’s much less ostentatious origins. This story is adapted from a Village Preservation blog, which can be viewed here.

347-349 Bowery | Block : 459 | Lot #1 Building Date : 2016 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : 347 Bowery, LLC Co. Urban Muse Mgmt. Original Architect : Selldorf Architects Description & Building Alterations In 2014, the former Salvation Army Building on this block was demolished to make way for this 13 story residential building for developer Urban Muse designed by Selldorf Architects. The building is pre-cast concrete with balconies on the southwest corner. The tallest part of the apartment building is set back from the street with a two-story section extending to the sidewalk. The Salvation Army Building at 347-349 Bowery was constructed in two sections. The northernmost section was built first, in 1922, and was designed by the architect William S. Gregory who incorporated the organization’s initials in terra cotta on the facade. The brick portion on the corner was built in 1950. The record shows Salvation Army as the architect of the 1950 addition without specifying names.

New York Dispensary, ca. 1915. The New York Dispensary, a philanthropic institution providing medical care for poor New Yorkers, built a new facility on Spring Street in 1912, on the site of a former coal yard. The dispensary, founded in 1790, had been displaced from locations further downtown twice in the previous four years: first, by the 1908 construction of the Centre Street Loop of the BMT Nassau Street Line (today’s J/Z subway); then for the expansion of courthouse facilities at Worth Street.

“If you’ve never heard of Pfaff’s saloon, or its coterie of Bohemian artists, that’s not surprising. More than 150 years have elapsed since this scene’s heyday, and time moves in mysterious — sometimes heedless — ways. History is not a meritocracy... To be precise, Pfaff’s (pronounced fafs) was beneath where the shoe store is now. It was an underground saloon in every sense of the word. There’s still a hatchway in the Broadway sidewalk, just as there was in the nineteenth century. It provides entry into the store’s basement, a long, narrow space, lit by electric bulbs and piled high with boxes of shoes. During the 1850s, it was dim, gaslit, and packed with artists. Pfaff’s saloon was the site of an incredibly important cultural movement, the meeting place of America’s first Bohemians. Their leader, Henry Clapp Jr., was editor of the hugely influential Saturday Press. Clapp deserves credit as the person who brought Bohemianism to America, both the word and the way of life. He was joined by a struggling experimental poet, well into middle age, yet still living at home in Brooklyn with his mother, Walt Whitman.” For more on Pfaff's, check out this exclusive by Justin Martin in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

You would never guess that the building pictured at 190 Bowery is now a single-family residence. The former Germania Bank building was built in 1898-1899 by Robert Maynicke for its namesake, which served the middle class German residents who populated the area along and to the east of the Bowery, north of Division Street. The building functioned as a bank until the mid-1960s, when photographer Jay Maisel purchased it for $102,000. Maisel moved into the six-story, 72-room, 35,000-square foot building and continues to live there today with his wife and daughter, leading Wendy Goodman of New York magazine to declare 190 Bowery “maybe the greatest real-estate coup of all time.”

Bayard-Condict Building The only New York building designed by Louis Sullivan, it represents an executed portion of a much larger building heh ad once planned for a trust and savings bank in the Midwest. The terra-cotta cornice, with its supporting angels, was an extremely interesting solution of the problem of how to handle the top of a building- a question which was of great concern to the architects of the 1880s and 1890s.

Aftermath of a fire in a six-story East 4th Street tenement, March 8, 1918. Under the headline "Fire Chief Buried Under Stair Ablaze," the New York Times reported 10 serious injuries to residents and firefighters following a blaze started "when an oil stove was accidentally overturned by the sudden opening of a door."

The Bowery is Manhattan's oldest street, predating European settlement.  It was the widest road on the island for a time, which made it a natural thoroughfare for manufacturing, industry and other development. By 1813, it was so well established within the growing city that it was made official, and the name “Bowery” was forever marked in the record books.

Manhattan Sign Company, 101 Mercer Street, 1932. The oldest building in the Soho Cast Iron Historic District, the Federal style brick house at 101 Mercer Street (aka 107 Spring Street) was built between 1806-1808. Though the original brickwork has since been covered by stucco — and at one point by clapboards, as shown in this photo — some window and lintel details persist. By the 1860s, the lower floor had been converted to a saloon. Above, signage for the Manhattan Sign Company remains, while advertisements for a store and basement to to let indicate that the company had closed or relocated.

Bond Street Savings Bank ARCHITECT: Henry Engelbert DATE: 1873-74 STYLE: Cast-iron, French Second Empire The Bouwerie Lane Theater is a fine example of cast-iron construction. The elaborate detail of the facades is a notable expression of French Second Empire architecture. It is a an example of the skillful treatment of disproportionate elements. The wealth of ornament detail, with plastic, almost sculptured effect, makes this building an unusually fine example of this type of construction.

New York City Marble Cemetery, ca. 1970-1990. The New York City Marble Cemetery (not to be confused with the NY Marble Cemetery around the corner) is a burial ground established in 1831. It was the second non-sectarian cemetery in the city (the first was its similarly named neighbor). All of the burials are contained within underground vaults made of marble. After a long series of yellow fever outbreaks, the city banned earthen burials in 1830 and the two Marble Cemeteries were founded with the plan that all burials would be these well-sealed marble vaults. Former President James Monroe died in New York on July 4, 1831 and was buried in the family vault of his son-in-law in the New York City Marble Cemetery. In 1858 his remains were disinterred and moved to Virginia, where they are now situated within a large Gothic Revival style cast iron cage, referred to locally as "The Birdcage".

John Althouse warehouses, Greene Street, March 28, 1947. A six-story brick and cast iron warehouse completed in 1884 for John Althouse, on the site of the Althouse Iron Works, an 1850s-era foundry. During the Civil War, the Althouse property served as a barracks for the 40th New York Volunteers. The warehouse was designed by William Ewan Worthen, who built an adjacent storage property at No. 146 Greene Street for Althouse in 1877.

Astor Library ARCHITECT: Alexander Saeltzer; Griffith Thomas DATE: 1849-69 STYLE: Northern Italian Renaissance The Library is a three-story brick and stone building with basement and attic story. This structure has special value because each of the three portions of its development has been carefully maintained and constituted a source of stylistic influence over a wide area. Modifications, for the most part, have been few. The Library is developed in a symmetrical plan in an early Renaissance manner. Most of the architectural details of the building stem from North Italian Renaissance work of the first half of the 15th century.

Building Date: 1899 Original Use: Residential/Commercial Original Owner: Abraham Silverson Original Architect: Schneider & Herter Description & Building Alterations This six-story gray brick old law tenement was constructed in 1899 by owner Abraham Silverson, designed by Schneider & Herter. The Renaissance Revival facade features terra cotta window enframements, lintels, curved piers, a door hood for entrance enframements, modillioned cornice, and terra cotta ornamental panels. The original storefront has been altered and infilled. Part of the historic cornice above the ground floor remains.

313-315 Bowery | Block : 457 | Lot #5 Building Date : 1878/1934 alt. Original Use : Residential & Commercial Original Owner : Jacob Weeks (1878); Unknown (1934) Original Architect : J. Correja (1878); Scacchetti & Siegel (1934) Description & Building Alterations This building was originally constructed as two Old Law tenements in 1878. The 1934 architects Scacchetti & Siegel demolished the top two floors of each tenement and combined the buildings by removing the interior walls to create a four-story, four-bay lodging house with a yellow brick Art Deco facade that still exists today. The building was used as the infamous 20th Century flophouse known as the Palace Bar & Hotel, which lodged 500 indigent men. In 1969 Hilly Kristal, manager of the Village Vanguard jazz club, opened a club here called Hilly’s on the Bowery. In 1973, he changed the name to the famous rock club CBGB – “Country, Blue Grass, and Blues” – which remained until 2006. This site launched the careers of The Ramones, Talking Heads, Blondie, and many others. In 2013, the former location of CBGB was added to the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Bowery Historic District. The other half of the building, No. 313, housed Kristal, a record store, art gallery, second performance space, and store called CBGB Fashions. After closing, No. 315 became a John Varvatos boutique and No. 313 became Morrison Hotel, a music photography gallery.

The Triboro Barber School, 264 Bowery, ca. 1925.

Columbia Hall/"Paresis Hall" (former location), 32 Cooper Square ca. 1919 James T. (Biff) Ellison (a gangster affiliated with the Five Points Gang) opened Columbia Hall, better known as Paresis Hall, in the 1890s in the building that is still standing at 32 Cooper Square. He apparently made no attempt to disguise the establishment as anything other than what it was, a 'fairy resort', where male prostitutes waited tables, performed, and offered sex to patrons. For the men who frequented Paresis Hall, it was not the degenerate resort that tourists and reformers saw. It offered them an important social center and provided a sense of community and support.

45 East 3rd Street Building Date : 1841, 1881 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : John Valentine (1841), Charles J. F. Lohst (1881) Original Architect : Unknown (1841), A. Schappel (1881) Description & Building Alterations This three-story building was originally built as a Greek Revival-style row house in 1841. During alterations in 1881, the current Queen Anne-style cornice and new window lintels were installed. The existing facade features a wood door frame with side lights and transom, door hood, molded window lintels and a historic bracketed cornice with pediment.

The East Village has long been a richly diverse immigrant neighborhood. It has also served as a hub for cultural movements: the Beats, punk rock, bohemians, Hare-Krishna…the list goes on. Take a walk through the area that was considered the center of counterculture in New York.

83 Second Avenue Building Date : 1844-1845 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Anson Phelps Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This 5 story brick row house was constructed in circa 1844-45. The facade was rebuilt sometime after the mid 1980s. Earlier alterations included the removal of the stoop and the installations of storefronts in 1904.

66-68 East 4th Street Building Date : 1832-33/1871 alt. Original Use : Residential/Institutional Original Owner : Elisha Peck & Anson G. Phelps (1832-33) / New York Turn Verein (1871) Original Architect : Unknown (1832-33) / Kinkel & Klemt (1871) Description & Building Alterations This structure was once two separate Federal-era row houses built in 1831-32 and owned by Elisha Peck and Anson G. Phelps (evidenced by Flemish Bond, which stops short of the top floor). Originally part of a luxurious row of houses called “Albian Place,” in 1871 the buildings were combined, decoratively embellished, and raised from 3.5 to 4 stories to become Turn Hall, home of the New York Turn Verein, which comes from the German term for “gymnasium.” This is also when the building was extended through the block to 3rd Street. It features decorative window enframements and railings, elaborate brackets supporting the cornice and a central pediment with the inscription “1871.” The New York Turn Verein was a German-American socialist movement. The laying of the cornerstone in 1871 was met with great celebration with a vast audience that included the mayor of New York City. In addition to meeting spaces, the Turn Verein also utilized Turn Halle as a theater. Within its walls, A Frightful Dream and Koldunya (The Sorceress) by Abraham Goldfaden debuted in 1882. This marked the first entirely Yiddish theatrical production in American history. Koldunya (The Sorceress) featured Ukranian-born singer and actor Boris Thomashefsky, one of the Yiddish theater’s greatest stars. The Turn Verein moved out in 1898, and beginning in 1899 the property became known was known as Manhattan Lyceum Hall, an anarchist meeting hall. Speakers Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman spoke here. Beginning in November of 1905 until sometime in early 1906 (as seen in articles from the New York Times from the time) this building on East 3rd Street side housed the Orlenev Lyceum, opened by a troupe of actors from St. Petersburg headed by Pavel Orlenoff ad Alla Nazimova. heir repertory included Ibsen, Chekov and Gorsky performed in Russian. Emma Goldman is credited as being the interpreter and manager of the Lyceum and theater luminaries who came to see the troupe included Ethel and John Barrymore, Minnie Maddern Fiske, producer Henry Miller and Margaret Anglin. It was renamed Manhattan Plaza in 1938 when it was converted to a catering facility and dance hall, and then in 1954 it became a film studio known as the Biltmore Studios (later ABC Stage City). From 1969 until 2013, the Millennium Film Workshop – previously known as the Film Project – worked out of 66 East Fourth Street. It showcased the work of avant-garde filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage, Hollis Frampton, Michael Snow, Carolee Schneemann, Bruce Conner, Rudy Burckhardt, Robert Breer, and Kenneth Anger. In 1974, La MaMa opened its anex at this location, and in 2005, the City of New York sold this and seven other properties on Fourth Street between the Bowery and Second Avenue for $1 each to the Fourth Arts Block nonprofit organization, founded in 2001. The city had acquired the properties in the 1950s in anticipation of an urban renewal project that never occurred.

Germania Bank Building ARCHITECT: Robert Maynicke DATE: 1898-99 STYLE: Beaux-Arts The former Germania Bank building is a Beaux-Arts style structure prominently located on the northwest corner of the Bowery and Spring Street. Built-in 1898-99 to the designs of architect Robert Maynicke, it was the third home of the Germania Bank, which was established in 1869 by a group of local businessmen of German extraction. By 1840, more than 24,000 German immigrants and their descendants were living in New York City. Their numbers increased dramatically over the next two decades. The granite and brick building features rusticated stonework, a chamfered corner with an arched entry flanked by Tuscan columns, and multi-story pilasters. The ground floor features large arched openings with voussoirs surmounted a massive denticulated cornice. A similar cornice terminates the fifth story.

New York's first major library, the Astor Library, founded on Lafayette Street with money donated by financier John Jacob Astor. The Astor is one of three private libraries that merged to form the New York Public Library in 1895.

14th Ward Industrial School, ca. 1977. The 14th Ward Industrial School was constructed in 1888 to honor the memory and philanthropic work of Mrs. Charlotte Astor by her husband, John Jacob Astor. Long supporters of the Children’s Aid Society, this new school was to teach the impoverished children of this Italian immigrant enclave skills they would need to make their way as urban dwellers and workers. J.J. Astor commissioned Calvert Vaux to design the school. While the red brick, terra cotta, and buttresses denote a Victorian Gothic structure, Vaux added a stepped Dutch gable to top his creation. Today the former school is cooperative apartments.

58 East 4th Street, Modillioned cornice with broken pediment featuring eagle figure, ca. 1975.

56 East 1st Street Building Date : 2005 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Eric Anderson Original Architect : Craig Tooman Description & Building Alterations A six-story brick new law tenement dating to 1907 once existed on this lot. Featuring brick and stone ornamentation and a galvanized iron cornice, the building was originally occupied by 17 families and a store. The tenement was demolished in 1957 by the W.P.A. Labor Demolition Project. The existing four-story residential building serves as a two-family home. It was erected in 2005 in a modern style. The current facade consists of concrete and iron panels, in addition to tall bay windows on each floor.

Colonnade Row ca. 1929 Presenting a uniform facade to the street, this building might be best described as a "house of mansions," in that it consisted of a row of individual, privately owned town houses unified behind its superb colonnade. Unfortunately, half of these have been torn down to make way of a warehouse. We can see that New York, with such superb planning as this, once had ideals that might have rendered entire city blocks as handsome as those of Paris.

Above the display windows of Crate & Barrel, and the crowded Broadway and Houston Street sidewalks is a facade of uniquely decorative flourishes that hint at a time of transition for New York’s infrastructure. This building is a massive structure and was included within the boundaries of the NoHo Historic District. Two sculptures of classically-garbed women stand astride a massive circular window, sitting atop a pediment that reads ‘The Cable Building.’ The ‘cable’ in the building’s name refers not the kind of cable that transmits telegraph, telephone, or television, but the kind that pulls cable cars. Built from 1892 to 1894 by the Broadway & Seventh Avenue Railroad Company (later the Metropolitan Traction Company), the building was a unique example of a multi-use structure. It housed in its lower floors the machinery needed to propel much of the Broadway cable car system, with a large office building above. Four 32-foot wheels kept the network of cables in motion for as many as sixty cable cars traveling up and down Broadway from the Battery to Midtown (the cars moved by clamping on to the moving cable embedded in the street). The building was built with a steel and iron frame, with terra cotta and stone facing by the noted firm of McKim, Mead, and White. The New York Times noted “Although the large windows clearly denote a commercial space, the delicate terra cotta, light orange brick and elaborate copper cornice are characteristic of more monumental design. The sculptor J. Massey Rhind designed two colossal female figures flanking the doorway — commissioned sculpture is also unusual on commercial buildings. The Real Estate Record and Guide called the new Cable Building ”the highest achievement of the art” and remarked that, with its example, ‘no excuse remains for building cheaply or meanly on any New York City property.’” As the prediction of the demise of ‘cheaply’ or ‘meanly’ made buildings didn’t quite pan out, neither did the Metropolitan Traction Company’s hopes for business success. Less than a decade after the building and its massive steam-powered cable moving machinery were constructed, electric technology made it obsolete. In May of 1901, the final cable car trundled down Broadway and the line was electrified. A few years later in 1904, the subway system would begin opening and connecting the city. The building would stand to see the significant widening of Houston Street in the 1930s and housed many small-scale manufacturers and offices, including businesses like National Pants, Hercules Shoe Lace and the Doll Parts Manufacturing Association. By the mid-1980s after changes in ownership, the building was largely converted back to office use, and in 1989, the Angelika Film Center opened on the southwest side of the building, occupying much of the space that previously housed the cable car machinery.

Parade in front of 236 Elizabeth Street, ca. 1935.

56-58 Bleecker Street; ca. 1975.

72 Second Avenue; 91 East 4th Street Building Date : 1928-29 Original Use : Commercial Original Owner : Sirwin Realty Corp. Original Architect : Landsman & Smith Description & Building Alterations This terra cotta commercial building was erected in 1928-29 for the Industrial National Bank of New York by architects Landsman & Smith. It replaced a six-story brick tenement. The building is Romanesque Revival with Classical Revival elements. The current facade features a limestone base with Corinthian pilasters separating double-height round-arched openings on the ground floor, a bronze entrance enframement, ornate terra-cotta spandrels and colonettes on the upper stories, a balustrade parapet, and historic metal ground floor windows. The style is nearly Moorish Deco. It is part of the East Village/Lower East Side Historic District, designated in 2012.

65 Prince Street, ca. 1897. The twin Federal-style houses built at 63 and 65 Prince Street were constructed by Samuel L. Gouverneur in 1825 and 1826. Gouverneur, by marriage to Maria Hester Monroe was the son-in-law and nephew of former President James Monroe. Despite James Monroe’s impressive military and political career—two terms as President, Minister to France and to England, Envoy to Spain, Secretary of State, and author of the Monroe Doctrine— he was overwhelmed with financial difficulties following his departure from office. Monroe came to live in the corner house in 1830, where he died on the Fourth of July just one year later. Following Monroe's death in 1831, the house changed owners many times. Eventually, John H. Contoit purchased the home for $32,500 in 1873, at a time when the neighborhood had succumbed to commerce. As wealthy families moved northwards, many mansions and homes in Lower Manhattan, including this one, were taken over by business. Contoit, who was the proprietor of the pleasure garden known both as the New York Garden and Contoit’s Garden, converted the house into a small factory and the home of G. Rosenberg's Vienna and Hungarian Café and Restaurant. The advertisement for the play, The Last Stroke, on the side wall depicts the decline of this house in which a former present ended his days. In 1905, the New York Times admitted: “The old Colonial house, 63 Prince Street, where Monroe died, is falling to decay." Despite restoration and preservation efforts, the house was sold on November 12, 1919, to an unknown speculator.

Opened in 1992 and closed in 2001, the Guggenheim Soho was designed by Arata Isozaki. The museum's attendance never quite matched the 250,000 expected annual visitors and its costs eventually caused its closure.

View of Elm Street (Lafayette), looking uptown toward Houston Street with the Puck Building at right, August 18, 1900.

Old Merchant’s House Interior ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1831-32 STYLE: Greek Revival The Old Merchant’s House is characteristic of the type of large brick residence popular with well-to-do New Yorkers during the decade from 1825 to 1835. While the exterior of the house reflects late Federal architecture, the interiors are elaborately finished in the newly-introduced Greek Revival style. The important rooms in the house are unaltered and now appear exactly as they did when originally completed.

Old St. Patrick's Cathedral, door detail, ca. 1975.

New York Infirmary for Women and Children In 1857 the first female physician in America, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, established a the first hospital for women, staffed by women, and run by women called The New York Infirmary for Women and Children. It was located in the house at 58 Bleecker Street, which was originally numbered 64 Bleecker Street. Built in 1822-1823, the house was erected for James Roosevelt, great grandfather of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who lived there until his passing only ten years before Blackwell began renting there. Blackwell's hospital opened its doors on May 12, 1857, the 37th birthday of Florence Nightingale, whom Blackwell had befriended earlier in her career. The hospital was open seven days a week and provided medical care for needy women and children free of charge. The staff at first consisted of Elizabeth, director; her sister Emily Blackwell, surgeon; and Dr. Marie Zakrewska. The hospital provided practical medical instruction for women studying for their medical degree, which was unavailable elsewhere. The hospital was operated solely by a staff of women, and its opening was attended and praised by the noted abolitionist preacher Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. However, many others were not enthusiastic about this enterprise, and according to Blackwell she was told that no one would rent her a space for this purpose, that the police would shut the hospital down, that they would not be able to control the patients, and that no one would financially support such an institution. However, the hospital was able to operate and over time views on women in medicine evolved. The hospital was responsible for innovations in hygiene-critical in preventing disease and in educating the public on those benefits, such as bathing ailing patients and encouraging them to keep clean. Blackwell also launched a "Sanitary Visitor" program to visit the needy in their homes in the slums and improve hygiene. The program later expanded into the hospital’s "Out Practice Department," a precursor of the Visiting Nurse Service. The first Sanitary Visitor, Rebecca Cole, was also the second African American woman to become a doctor in America. By 1865 the trustees applied for a charter to become a medical college, the Women’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary located at 128 Second Avenue (see map entry). The hospital still exists today as New York Downtown Hospital which merged with New York Presbyterian in 2013. Prior to opening the hospital, Blackwell's had opened a series of dispensaries in several locations around the East Village to serve poor women and children in the surrounding community. The first location was opened in 1853 at 207 East 7th Street (demolished). Blackwell moved the dispensary to 36 Avenue A/136 East 3rd Street (present day 150 East 3rd Street, also demolished). In 1854, the New York Dispensary for Poor Women and Children was incorporated and the institution moved to a small house on the corner of East 15th Street and Second Avenue. In 2018 GVSHP installed a plaque at this location honoring Elizabeth Blackwell and the New York Infirmary for Women and Children (see link below).

The Skidmore House This three and a half story house was built in 1844-45 by Samuel Tredwell Skidmore, a relative of Seabury Tredwell, who lived with his family only a few doors away at 29 East 4th Street, known today as the Merchant’s House Museum. The Skidmore house and the Merchant’s House Museum are the two last surviving remnants of the once numerous and elegant early 19th century residences on this block. At the time of the Skidmore House’s completion in 1845, it was located in the midst of a very fashionable residential neighborhood. Meanwhile the area to the north was largely undeveloped. Grace Church, at 10th Street and Broadway for example, was still under construction. According to the designation report of the LPC: No. 37, built in 1844-45, is unusually impressive… a deep house, occupying a larger than usual portion of the lot. A high stoop, over a stone basement which still retains traces of rustication, leads to a handsome doorway with full entablature supported by a pair of Ionic columns, a typically Greek Revival feature. The Inner doorway, behind paneled reveals, is flanked by blocked-up sidelights, set between square pilasters. A three-paned transom crowns the doorway. Traces of a delicate carved molding, which once surrounded the transom, are still visible. Vestiges of the cap moldings, which originally surmounted the window lintels, remain above the windows of the third story. Six-over-six window sash is still in place at the third story, and the low attic windows and simple wood roof cornice, with fascia below, are likewise features of the Greek Revival style. A dramatic transformation from derelict wreck to beautifully restored landmark has continued the fascinating tale of this unique structure. In 1974 New York Times art critic John Russel called it “one of the prettiest houses in the town”. But by the 90’s the owner’s estate had left the building rotting and exposed to the elements and in disrepair. Fortunately the Landmark Preservation Commission eventually commenced a lawsuit against the owners for their failure to maintain the building, and won. The owners were ordered by the State Supreme Court to repair and restore the exterior (read more here). The building has since then undergone a full restoration.

Gotham firehouse and engine, 1901. Built in 1898-1899, the W. B. Chambers and Ernest Flagg-designed firehouse is a classic Beaux-Arts structure. The facade of red brick and limestone is dominated by a monumental arch. Engine Co. 33 which has been housed here since its completion, was initially established in November of 1865 at 220 Mercer Street. The building was designed to include the fire chief's “night headquarters” and in June 1899 Chief Edward F. Crocker moved in. His office was said to have "usual paintings, statuary, and hunting accoutrements." On March 25, 1911, Engine Co. 33 was one of the first responders to the nearby Triangle Factory fire. Chief Crocker retired five weeks after the fire after 27 years with the FDNY, citing his wish "to prevent, instead of fight fires. In 2001, 10 of the 14 firemen from Engine 33 that responded to the WTC never returned home. A plaque on the facade honors them. This building also has the distinction of being double landmarked, first as an individual landmark in 1968 and again as part of the NoHo Historic District Extension in 2008.

No. 142 Greene Street, ca. 1978. This cast iron-fronted commercial building was designed by German-born architect Henry Fernbach and completed in 1871. A century later, as Soho became the focus of the city's contemporary art scene, the building became home to a series of blue chip galleries, including Leo Castelli, Pace, and Sperone Westwater.

66 Second Avenue Building Date : 1926-27 Original Use : Theater Original Owner : The Oltarsh Building Company, Inc. Original Architect : David M. Oltarsh & H. Craig Severance The Classical Revival building was opened in 1927 as the Public Theatre, showing Yiddish-language productions. It was once known as Antillas Theatre, screening primarily Spanish-language movies. Phyllis Theatre occupied the building in the 1950s and 60s, featuring Off Broadway shows as well as Yiddish-language productions. Later in the 1970s and 80s it was used to hold rock and punk concerts. It was also called the Anderson Theater. There is a 1993-97 two-story addition set back from the original facade. The facade also features terra cotta beltcourses, rosettes, and a cartouche.

Mercer Hotel, ca. 1975. Commissioned by John Jacob Astor III for his office and business, the Romanesque Revival structure was completed in 1888 to the plans of architects William Schickel and Isaac E. Ditmars. Owing to its wealthy patron, the Astor Building was considerably more ornate than its industrial neighbors. This building is perhaps best known for its more recent history; in 1997 hotelier André Balazs opened the Mercer Hotel, a luxury boutique hotel of 75 rooms.

Construction on the BRT Centre Street Loop, with timbering supporting buildings along Kenmare Street, June 5, 1908. The wooden foot bridge at center is at Mulberry Street. Completed buildings in the background are on the eastern corners of Mott Street. The Centre Street Loop, approved in 1907 but never completed as planned, was designed to connect service from the Williamsburg and Brooklyn bridges, via Chambers Street. Today, some tracks are used by the BMT Nassau Street Line (J/Z trains).

7 Second Avenue | Block : 456 | Lot #29 Building Date : 1890 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : J. Stimmel Original Architect : F. Heineke Description & Building Alterations This Old Law tenement was built at the same time as its identical neighbor at 9 Second Avenue in 1890. No. 9 Second Avenue was demolished as part of the construction of 11 Second Avenue.

Something important to every community is safe in-person spaces to gather. In the early to mid-20th century, it was uncommon to find easily accessible spaces like these for people outside the status quo. Few spaces allowed for the creativity and experimentation that many individuals and groups alike wanted to express. Although there were many social movements throughout the years that allowed the outsiders of society to find each other and create culture, spaces that specifically catered to alt people began popping up more frequently in the 70s. Many of these spaces are gone today, however, there are still many that are up and running, along with many new places that foster community and creativity. When you’re alt, it can be easy to feel like no one around you supports or understands your ideals, fashion, and lifestyle. This is why alternative spaces are so important to maintain. Everyone deserves a place to unwind, make friends, and feel like themselves, and alt community spaces make the seemingly inaccessible easy to find.

26-34 East Second Street, ca. 1970s. Nos. 26, 28 and 30 (at left) are Greek Revival rowhouses constructed in the mid 1830s by builder Ephraim H. Wentworth. Built of brick and brownstone the originally two-an-a-half homes (two were later altered with a full third floor) were occupied in the early years by a well off merchant class. Despite the construction of a full third story and the additions of neo-Grec elements (no. 28) and Second Empire elements (no.30), this row remains a unique 19th century view of what this neighborhood once looked like.

By the early 20th century, as the Lower East Side grew, Second Avenue became a bustling thoroughfare, its rowhouse architecture either demolished or converted in favor of buildings hosting a mix of uses. Examples of its building types include: numbers 107 and 72, fanciful, terra-cotta-clad commercial buildings constructed in the late 1920s; number 57, a nine-story New Law tenement that straddled the line between tenement and apartment building; number 43, the avenue’s first office building; and number 32, originally a City courthouse that was converted into the Anthology Film Archives in 1979. In the early 20th century, Second Avenue became known as the “Yiddish Rialto.” In addition to the Jaffe Theater (site # 1), other significant sites include number 66, the Yiddish Public Theater that later served briefly as CBGB’s Second Avenue Theater, and 66 East 4th Street, the New York Turn Verein (German athletic and social club), where America’s first Yiddish-language theater performance is said to have taken place in 1882. Second Avenue between East 7th Street and East 2nd Street is located within the East Village/ Lower East Side Historic District boundaries.

De Vinne Press Building, ca, 1975. In 1884, owing to the success and growth of the De Vinne Press company, owner and printer Theodore Low De Vinne purchased a large plot of the corner of Lafayette (then) Place and 4th Street. De Vinne commissioned the firm of Babb, Cook, and Willard to design a functional space that would also be impressive from the outside. The resulting eight-story, red brick, Romanesque Revival building, completed in 1886) met all of the press company's wishes. Though obviously a solid industrial building, the massing was lightened by multi-story arched windows and thin brick quoins at the softly curved corner. The interior had little ornamentation and was laid out for efficient productivity. It was here that the press produced the 24-part, six-volume “Century Dictionary,” considered to be De Vinne's greatest accomplishment as a printer. De Vinne Press ceased operations in 1922 and today the red brick building is the Astor Center, an event space and wine shop.

The NoHo Historic District was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on June 29, 1999, with the NoHo East Historic District designated in 2003 and expansions to the original district boundaries approved in 2008. This virtual walking tour features 25 buildings within the approximately 130-building original NoHo Historic District, in celebration of its 25th anniversary. The highlighted buildings represent the range of construction periods and array of building types, styles, and uses that occur throughout the district. We encourage you to explore this fascinating stretch of Manhattan virtually, or to use this tour as a jumping-off point as you take your own walk through the historic district! The three-part tour is organized by phases of development, based upon the same categories found within the LPC NoHo Designation Report. Part II includes buildings constructed in the 1870s and 1880s: Cast-Iron-Fronted Buildings in NoHo (Cont'd.) a) 7-9 Bond Street b) 622-624 and 626 Broadway (aka 156-158 Crosby Street) Post-Civil War Expansion c) 10-20 Astor Place (aka 444 Lafayette Street) d) 668-674 Broadway, the Brooks Brothers Store Commercial Development in the 1880s e) 393-399 Lafayette Street (aka 21-23 East 4th Street), De Vinne Press Building f) 628-630 Broadway (aka 160-164 Crosby Street), The New York Mercantile Exchange g) 644-646 Broadway (aka 71-73 Bleecker Street) h) 9 Great Jones Street i) 687-691 Broadway (aka 250-254 Mercer Street) \-- To return to Part I of the tour, click here. To progress to Part III of the tour, click here.

Trenches for the high pressure water system along East Houston Street, between Mulberry and Mott Streets; undated photo. The Houston Street elevated station of the Third Avenue El is visible in the distance. At left, in the storefront of No. 50, is the tin shop of Niklas Hupfer. A few years earlier, in January 1894, an early-morning fire broke out in the basement of the five-story tenement building. The New York Times attributed the blaze to an errant cigar butt, and each of the building's 27 residents were fortunate to escape. Sgt. John Kellaher, on watch duty at Police Headquarters around the block, was credited with quick and decisive actions helping to avert loss of life. The buildings at left, on the north side of the street, were all demolished in late 1929, ahead of construction for the IND Sixth Avenue Line's Houston—Essex segment. IND construction led to the permanent widening of the Houston Street thoroughfare.

Police Headquarters, ca. 1900. Between 1863 and 1909, this unassuming Mulberry Street building was the headquarters for the New York City Police Department. Completed in 1862, in one of the densest areas of the city and only a few blocks from the notorious Five Points area, the building had a rich and sordid history. The New York Times noted in 1909, upon the removal of the police department to its new building on Centre Street, “No other building in the city, probably, is richer in memories than 300 Mulberry Street.” After being abandoned by the NYPD the building was used for magistrate and traffic court purposes through the mid century and razed sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The building was a backdrop for any number of 19th century historic events and political players. During the draft riots in 1863, superintendent of police, John A. Kennedy, was beaten and left near death at headquarters. In 1895 a reformer, Teddy Roosevelt, was named Police Superintendent, a brief stop on his route to the White House.

Entrance to Niblo’s Garden, 1887. Proprietor William Niblo acquired the Columbia Garden “pleasure garden” — an open-air entertainment venue — during the 1820s, renaming the premises Niblo’s Garden and introducing a theater and concert venue in 1834. The Garden covered much of the block bounded by Broadway and Houston, Crosby, and Prince Streets. In 1835, Niblo’s Theater hosted P.T. Barnum’s first exhibition and would soon introduce vaudeville programming to its entertainment lineup. In 1846, the original theater was destroyed in a fire. In another first, Niblo’s hosted what is considered the first-ever musical theater production: in 1866, “The Black Crook,” a lengthy musical comedy set in Germany, debuted to widespread condemnation. Naturally, the outcry in the press led audiences to flock to Niblo’s. The theater burned again in 1872 and was rebuilt, with funding from department store entrepreneur A.T. Stewart. Niblo’s held its final performance in 1895 and was soon demolished.

82 Second Avenue Building Date : 1841 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Elisha Peck Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations Originally built as a 3 1/2 story Greek Revival-style row house with basement and store, this now four-story with attic building was part of a row of houses at 78 to 84 Second Avenue owned by Elisha Peck. It features a planar brick facade and a molded cornice with short attic-story windows. The two-story storefront extension was installed in 1918, with the cornice and side piers on the extension’s facade. The original stoop has been removed and the window lintels have been stripped.

The original Church of the Nativity was designed in 1832 by several architects including the renowned Alexander Jackson Davis who also designed Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan, among other famous structures. Built for the Second Avenue Presbyterian Church, in 1842 it was sold to the newly formed Nativity of Our Lord parish and became the Church of the Nativity. The imposing Greek Revival building was demolished in 1970 following a fire. The second church building was designed by the firm of Genovese and Maddelene, and is imposing in its own way. The Modernist or specifically Brutalist church is constructed of brick and cinder blocks, with blocky massing and simplified religious details. It has been described by some as "starkly institutional." The church closed in July of 2015 and was deconsecrated two years later. Today it stands, graffiti covered. In early May of this year, a town hall meeting was convened to discuss potential future opportunities for former religious properties in the neighborhood.

The twelve-story Little Singer Building was designed by Ernest Flagg for the Singer sewing machine company in 1903.­­ It is located in Soho at 561-563 Broadway between Spring and Prince Streets. The intricate iron tracery on the exterior makes this one very distinctive and you’d be hard-pressed to miss it if you walked past; it’s a style unique to the time period.

659 Broadway, ca. 1980. No. 657-659 was built in the late 1860s, to designs by architect Griffith Thomas. Like other buildings along this stretch of Broadway — many of which are also attributed to Thomas — No. 657-659's large block-through lofts were used by manufacturing companies, before conversion to residential in the latter 20th century. While a fire in February 1979 caused extensive damage to Nos. 643-655 to the south, this building was relatively unscathed.

Since 1898, Engine Co. 33 has occupied this building, designed by famed New York City architects Ernest Flagg and W.B. Chambers. The stunning French Beaux-Arts styled facade immediately grabs the attention of passersby, which still features the classic red doors, central windows, and grand archways characteristic of firehouses. The building’s landmark designation report, written in 1968, says: “This utilitarian building has a flamboyance that is particularly appropriate to the function of the hazardous profession engaged in by its occupants.”

Jones Diner, ca. 1980. Perhaps the epitome of a New York greasy spoon, the Jones Diner was a neighborhood landmark for more than 60 years. Opened in 1938, it was the popular breakfast and lunch spot for the workers that toiled in the nearby buildings filled with garment shops, small factories, and machine shops. Until the diner closed in 2002 it still served a $3 breakfast meal (juice included)! After a six-year lawsuit was settled in early 2002, the diner's owners agreed to close in September of that year and the landlords agreed to waive $217,000 in rent. The building and the land became a flash point for community advocacy and historic preservation. The community (and community board) wanted the diner included in the design for a new restaurant building to be constructed for the Chelsea staple Cafeteria. Cafeteria stated they were not able to include the single story structure in their plans. A NoHo Historic District had been designated in 1999, but it would stop at Lafayette, despite the the original proposal which had the the district extending east to the Bowery. The Jones Diner would be demolished but Cafeteria did not build its restaurant. The lot would remain largely empty and under construction scaffolding with a thin concrete building rising around 2010 but remaining unfinished. The planned hotel was never completed and in 2016 a new design and construction for an 11-story condo building was undertaken.

"Bowery, west side, north from and including Prince, to and including East Houston Streets, 1934." The Federal style building seen here, with its brick facade, peaked roof, and dormers, likely dates to the early decades of the 19th century when Bowery was lined with these Federals. Though the large second story windows and dormers are no longer extant, and the Bowery facing facade is drastically altered, the bones of this original building remain, and can be seen more clearly on the Prince Street facade.

33-37 Bleecker Street, ca. 1980.

By the early 20th century, as the Lower East Side grew, Second Avenue became a bustling thoroughfare, its rowhouse architecture either demolished or converted in favor of buildings hosting a mix of uses. Examples of its building types include: numbers 107 and 72, fanciful, terra-cotta-clad commercial buildings constructed in the late 1920s; number 57, a nine-story New Law tenement that straddled the line between tenement and apartment building; number 43, the avenue’s first office building; and number 32, originally a City courthouse that was converted into the Anthology Film Archives in 1979. In the early 20th century, Second Avenue became known as the “Yiddish Rialto.” In addition to the Jaffe Theater (site # 1), other significant sites include number 66, the Yiddish Public Theater that later served briefly as CBGB’s Second Avenue Theater, and 66 East 4th Street, the New York Turn Verein (German athletic and social club), where America’s first Yiddish-language theater performance is said to have taken place in 1882. Second Avenue between East 7th Street and East 2nd Street is located within the East Village/ Lower East Side Historic District boundaries.

Robbins & Appleton Building, ca. 1980. The original 1871 Robbins & Appleton building at 1 Bond Street was destroyed in a massive fire in 1877. The six-story watch company headquarters and factory was a complete loss, but the company rehired the building's architect, Stephen D. Hatch, to rebuild the cast-iron fronted, mansard-roofed structure. The watch company moved out of the building in 1892 enacting a peculiar leaving ritual. Because they worked with gold in the manufacturing of the watches, after vacating the space, they hired a salvage firm to remove and burn all of the wood interior features. After processing the ash through a chemical wash the result was more than $65,000 in gold. The building's tenants for most of the 20th century were garment manufacturers. In the mid 1970s artists began moving into the large loft-style spaces and the building was converted to co-ops in 1989.

West side of Broadway from Bleecker Street to Bond Street. (No. 647 is the second building from the left), date unknown. The building at no. 647 was originally the Coleman House Hotel. In the late 1850s and early 1860s, the vault of the basement housed a Rathskeller-like beer and wine cellar restaurant called Pfaff’s; it was a favorite haunt of the bohemian literary set, including Henry Clapp, Jr (editor of the Saturday Press and "King of Bohemia") and Walt Whitman. It was known as a place where men could meet other men, and it was open to women at a time when the sexes did not meet in such public company. The saloon closed in this location in 1864 though it would move to various other buildings though much of the rest of the 19th century. This building's later tenants included a hat shop and an envelope factory. Today the original building still stands with a shoe store in the first floor retail space and a newly opened cellar bar that takes inspiration from its 19th century predecessor.

"The Bowery, east side, north from and across East 1st Street. To the left appears the Empire State and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Bldg's. across the Third Avenue elevated lines which runs on the Bowery and continues northward on Third Avenue from Cooper Square, 1938." The storefront and corner signage advertise a 10 cent shave and a 15 cent haircut.

The La MaMa Theater was originally designed by August H. Blankenstein to be a musicians’ club house for the Aschenbroedel Verein, or the “Cinderella Society.” Theodore Thomas, a German-born violinist, and conductor of the New York Philharmonic, was a prominent member of the society, located at this building until 1892. Carl Bergmann, also a conductor for the New York Philharmonic, New York Symphony Orchestra conductor Walter Damrosch, and violinist Carl Fischer, were all members as well. The building underwent numerous alterations, including the removal of partitions, the addition of stairways, windows, and an elevator, and the eventual conversion in 1949 to a meatpacking plant. The present facade was added to the building in 1892 by tenement architects Kurtzer & Rohl. It was designated a New York City Landmark in March of 2009. In 1969, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, a boutique and theater started by Ellen Stewart (1919-2011), who came to New York in 1950, moved to this building. The theater, which has long history of featuring and supporting LGBTQ artists, was founded in 1961 under the name Café La MaMa. The space was renovated to create ninety-nine seat theaters on the first and second floors, rehearsal space on the third floor, and Ellen Stewart’s apartment on the fourth floor. In 1974, the company received a National Endowment for the Arts grant, which allowed it to build a 295-seat theater in the former Turn Hall (Nos. 66-68). It has put on over three thousand shows and won over sixty Obie Awards. Ellen Stewart received a MacArthur Fellowship Award in 1985. Playwrights Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, Harvey Fierstein, and Terrence McNally; directors Tom O’Horgan, Joseph Chaikin, Robert Wilson, and Richard Foreman; and actors Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Richard Dreyfuss, Bill Irwin, and Danny DeVito have all worked with La MaMa. Stewart and La Mama are considered to have an extraordinarily deep and lasting impact upon American theater, especially experimental and Off-Broadway theater. This image is from Village Preservation's East Village Building Blocks map. You can explore the map and learn more about buildings in the East Village by clicking here.

Parade in front of 236 Elizabeth Street, ca. 1935. The flag bearers are holding the American flag and the flag of the Kingdom of Italy (originally the Sardinian flag), which was used from 1861 until 1946.

6-20 East 3rd Street Building Date : 1912 Original Use : YMCA Original Owner : YMCA Original Architect : Jackson & Rosencrans Description & Building Alterations This building started as the home to the Bowery Branch YMCA and is currently used as the Department of Welfare Municipal Shelter, continuously serving the neighborhood for more than 130 years. YMCA sold the property to the City of New York in 1947. The building was constructed in 1912 and was six stories high and appears to have received a seventh floor before the 1980s.

331-333 Bowery Building Date: 1875 Original Use: Commercial Original Owner: John Wolfe Original Architect: John B. Snook Description & Building Alterations The new building permit of 1875 seen in the Real Estate Record and Builders Guide called for the construction of two buildings for stores, one five stories, and one three stories. However, the tax record from 1876 shows that two five-story buildings were constructed and they were perhaps combined through an alteration at a later time. According to a 1903 map, in that year this building had a bowling alley in the basement, a saloon, and hall on the first floor, and a cigar factory on floors 2-5. Refer to the 1903 map (link at the sidebar) for the older variant spelling “Segar”. About a decade later, the building was used as a store and loft. In the 1980s, the building housed the Kenton Hotel.

203 Bowery, between Spring and Rivington Streets, 1932.

74 East 4th Street, ca. 1977. This building was constructed in 1873 as the headquarters for the German-American professional orchestral musicians' social and benevolent association, Aschenbroedel Verein. Designed by German-born architect August H. Blankenstein, the facade of the four-story building was altered in 1892. The new facade combined the German Renaissance Revival and neo-Grec styles with German folk motifs. The musicians' society moved to Yorkville in 1892, and the building briefly became the home of Gesangverein Schillerbund, a long established German singing society. Later the structure housed assembly and dance halls, the Newsboys' Athletic Club, a laundry, and a meatpacking plant. In 1969, La Mama Experimental Theatre Club moved into the building and continues to produce theatre in a number of spaces in the building.

62 East 4th Street ca. 1982 62 East 4th Street was built in 1889, when owner Victor Eckstein hired the architect Max Schroff to design what many refer to today as the “oddest” building with an Andy Warhol past in the East Village. Its stairwell is encased in a metal grille exposed on the center of the facade. The window enframements feature different forms and decoration on each story, with an ornamented loggia on the fourth floor. The cornice is a replication. Originally, the building had a restaurant on the ground floor and meeting rooms on the second and third floors as the Metropolitan Assembly Room, which was formerly located at 64 East 4th St. Eckstein himself made his home on the fourth and fifth floors.

Schermerhorn Building ARCHITECT: Henry J. Hardenbergh DATE: 1888-89 The 376-380 Lafayette Street Building is one of the truly outstanding manufacturing buildings of the late 19th century in the City. Particular artistry is evident in its careful massing and in the color of its ornamental brick and sandstone detail. These qualities of design were unusual for a building of this type at this time. It has a distinctive arrangement of windows and it is one of the outstanding loft buildings in the City.

76 Second Avenue Building Date : 1928 Original Use : Commercial Original Owner : Ambach, Inc. Original Architect : Paul Fein Description & Building Alterations This three-story building was erected in 1928 as a cabaret and was converted into a church in 1962. The building was labeled as 3 1/2 stories on a 1916 Bromley map, and in the 1940s tax photo the building is a half-story taller than it is today. This 1/2 floor was demolished sometime between the 1940s and 1980s, when the facade was resurfaced. It is likely that at the same time, the storefront and the window openings on each floor were reconfigured.

31 Great Jones Street ca 1887 Built in 1871 and designed by architect W.E. Waring, this firehouse… wasn’t exactly a firehouse. In 1835 the Association of Fire Insurance Companies formed a group called the New York Fire Patrol. This group wasn’t responsible for extinguishing fires, but rather for salvaging valuables and minimizing the damage to the building itself once the fire had been fought. The Patrol existed before the creation of the unified fire department and continued to operate after its formation, so its functions have changed over the years. This became their Fire Patrol House No. 2. Funnily enough, the property next door at 33 Great Jones was purchased by Willcox & Gibbs Sewing Machine Company and their designer, Charles Wright, created an exact replica of the firehouse building next door. Fire Patrol No. 2 left No. 31 in 1907 for a new location (see 84 West 3rd Street, below), and now an upscale restaurant by the name of Vic’s occupies the ground floor.

73 Second Avenue Building Date: 1886 Original Use: Residential/Commercial Original Owner: Benner & Zeller Original Architect: Adam Munch Description & Building Alterations This five-story brick, stone, and terra cotta old law tenement was constructed in circa 1866. The Queen Anne style building features cast-iron columns at the first story, historic wood and glass transom window at the entryway, paneled piers, molded window lintels, decorative brick, and terra cotta spandrels, and wrought-iron fire escape. In 1924-25, the stoop was removed and the first story was lowered to sidewalk level to allow for the installation of two storefronts.

Village Preservation would like to satisfy your cravings for hauntings. Preserving the Village not only means maintaining the old buildings and historic landscapes but sometimes also the domiciles of the dearly departed. We have put together a list of some of the most haunted historical places in the Village that will hopefully facilitate both engagement with the neighborhood’s history and encounters with the otherworldly. History buffs beware, you’re in for a scare…

71 Second Avenue Building Date : 1886 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Benner & Zeller Original Architect : Adam Munch Description & Building Alterations This five story brick, stone, and terra cotta old law tenement was constructed in circa 1886. The Queen Anne style building features cast-iron columns, historic wood and glass transom window at the entryway, paneled piers, molded window lintels, decorative brick and terra cotta spandrels, and wrought-iron fire escape.

84 Second Avenue, date unknown. A survivor of a time when many storefronts had the two-story glass fronted facade seen here, 84 Second Avenue has a long and somewhat mysterious history. In the late 19th century the building was Irene Stenard's Temporary Home for Women, a boarding house for working poor women. The address became well known in 1887 when Nellie Brown (the pseudonym of investigative reporter Nellie Bly) checked into this facility before feigning insanity for the purpose of being committed to the institution on Blackwell's Island. The resulting report was published as the scandalous 'Ten Days in a Madhouse.' At some point, likely in the early 20th century, the glass storefront and wooden ornamentation at the roofline were added when it became a commercial space. For many years in the mid-century, the storefront was occupied by a shop that sold tuxedos and formal wear. In 1974 it was the venue of a brutal murder; 40-year-old seamstress Helen Sopolsky was found bludgeoned to death on the second floor. Following the event, the space was abandoned just as it was, supposedly with the fingerprinting dust still marking the furniture. The Sopolsky family is said to still own the building. Though someone it said to have lived on the top floor, the lower floors are a conspicuously empty space. As the neighborhood has revived and boomed in the last few decades, the permanently unlit and dusty 'DRESS FOR HIRE' neon sign has remained unchanged.

1 Bond Street ca. 1975 Located at 1-5 Bond Street near Broadway, the Robbins & Appleton Building is a prime example of the remarkable cast iron architecture that one can find throughout NoHo and up and down Broadway. The building is both an individual New York City landmark and included within the city’s NoHo Historic District. At street level, this building looks like many other cast-iron commercial buildings in the area, but a glance upwards reveals a striking mansard roof. Perched at the very top of the building below the central pediment is a gold clock that reflects some of the building’s history. It was in 1871 that merchants and manufacturers Henry A. Robbins and Daniel Fuller Appleton hired architect Stephen Decatur Hatch to design a new building to house their American Waltham Watch Company, which was a noted manufacturer of watches and watch cases. Located on Bond Street, this new commercial building reflected the transformation of the street from a fashionable residential enclave during the early part of the nineteenth century to a commercial and manufacturing center by the mid-to-late 1800s. Hatch’s 1871 building had a short life, as on the night of March 6, 1877 a massive fire destroyed the structure. Robbins and Appleton again sought out Hatch to create a replacement, a grand Second Empire style factory building which was constructed between 1879 and 1880. As the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission notes, “the present building, erected two years after the fire, is a stylistic variation on the \[commercial] palace theme. Although designed by the same architect in the same style with the same façade material for the same clients as the 1871 building and retaining such features as the mansard roof, the function of the new building was different. The new building was to serve as a factory with the exception of some floor space which was leased to D. Appleton & Co., the notable book publishing firm. Lush and intricate architectural embellishment was unnecessary on a utilitarian structure such as a factory. With the exception of the ground floor, roof, and shallow end pavilions which give the building its Second Empire character—unusual for this date and probably retained at the insistence of the client—the façade consists of a single window bay unit reproduced twelve times across each of the upper four floors in disciplined regularity. The bay unit is a deeply recessed one-over-one double-hung window flanked by smooth columns with simple necking and stylized capitals carrying a shouldered arch. The strength and beauty of the building lie in the strong horizontals of the cornices above each floor and the three-dimensional quality created by the deeply recessed windows.” The American Waltham Watch company left the space by the turn of the twentieth century, replaced by a variety of small-scale manufacturing and commercial firms. Converted to residential use in the late 1980s, the building stands as a majestic anchor to the architecturally eclectic Bond Street.

"Bowery, east side, north from and including East 2nd Street, 1934." The Arcade Hotel, seen here at 317 Bowery was operating as a lodging house as early as 189, though likely earlier. It would function as a low end hotel through the early decades of the 20th century, when the Bowery was home to a large transient population drawn to the area by the prospect of affordable lodging. Today the building continues to act as overnight lodging as the home of the Bowery Residents’ Committee. In the far distance of this 1934 photograph, the hazy outline of the 1930 Empire State Building is visible. Despite the vertical growth of the area north of the Bowery in the ensuing decades, the view of the Empire State Building is still possible from this location.

Puck Building ARCHITECT: Albert Wagner; Herman Wagner DATE: 1885-99 STYLE: Romanesque Revival The Puck Building, originally the home of Puck magazine, is one of the great surviving buildings from New York’s old publishing and printing district. The red-brick round-arched structure occupies the entire block bounded by East Houston, Lafayette, Mulberry and Jersey Streets, and has been one of the most prominent architectural presences in the area since its construction one hundred years ago. The style is an adaptation of the Romanesque Revival, which had reached great popularity in the 1880s.

By the early 20th century, as the Lower East Side grew, Second Avenue became a bustling thoroughfare, its rowhouse architecture either demolished or converted in favor of buildings hosting a mix of uses. Examples of its building types include: numbers 107 and 72, fanciful, terra-cotta-clad commercial buildings constructed in the late 1920s; number 57, a nine-story New Law tenement that straddled the line between tenement and apartment building; number 43, the avenue’s first office building; and number 32, originally a City courthouse that was converted into the Anthology Film Archives in 1979. In the early 20th century, Second Avenue became known as the “Yiddish Rialto.” In addition to the Jaffe Theater (site # 1), other significant sites include number 66, the Yiddish Public Theater that later served briefly as CBGB’s Second Avenue Theater, and 66 East 4th Street, the New York Turn Verein (German athletic and social club), where America’s first Yiddish-language theater performance is said to have taken place in 1882. Second Avenue between East 7th Street and East 2nd Street is located within the East Village/ Lower East Side Historic District boundaries.

While New York is now one of the safest cities in the country, it still has had its share of notorious murders, here are but a few!

Bayard Condict Building ARCHITECT: Louis Sullivan; Lyndon P. Smith DATE: 1897-99 STYLE: Terra-cotta The Bayard-Condict Building is the only building in New York City designed by Louis H. Sullivan, one of America’s greatest and most influential architects. It is the first truly modern skyscraper in New York. It expresses its structural components in the manner of the Chicago School. The vertical design is a poetic expression of Sullivan’s theory of the skyscraper as a “proud and soaring thing.” It is distinguished by Sullivan’s exuberant ornament of an organic foliate nature which complements the structural innovations of the building. The terra-cotta curtain wall was unique at that time in New York.

Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1825-26 STYLE: Federal This late Federal style institutional building was a popular type in the post-Revolutionary period. This three-story brick structure, with attic and low basement, retains a great deal of its original character. Formal in design, severely stark in appearance, the plain exterior is enhanced by a centrally located arched doorway, of great architectural beauty. This is one of the few complete late Federal period doorways in the City.

The Astor Library opened to the public in 1854, and in 1895 consolidated with the Lenox Library and the Tilden Foundation to become the New York Public Library (NYPL). During this time, its building was expanded twice, in 1859 and 1881. In 1898, the Astor Library became part of the new public library at 42nd Street. Subsequently, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society purchased the building to use it as a "receiving station, aid center, dormitory, and synagogue for thousands of newly arrived immigrants." (Christopher Gray in the New York Times) In this iteration, the stacks were removed and the interior was largely reworked by architect Benjamin Levitam. The building was sold once more, in 1965, and just as the developer who bought the structure planned for demolition, it was saved by the newly established Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Commission arranged for the producer of the New York Shakespeare Festival, Joseph Papp, to step in to purchase the building. And thus, the present-day program for the building was born. Aside from major interior reimaginations, the building's front stoop, as the 1875 photo above shows, was restored (though with considerable stylistic difference), to re-establish the connection between Lafayette Street and the building entrance.

Old Merchant’s House ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1831-32 STYLE: Federal The building has existed for 130 years in its original state, inside and out. The house is a unique document of its period; it shows with unrivaled authenticity how a prosperous merchant of the 1830’s lived. In addition, the building is a fine example of New York architecture of the late Federal period. It has been given national landmark status through its designation by the National Park Service of the U.S Department of the Interior.

57 East 4th Street Building Date : 1897-1899 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Jacob Sommer Original Architect : Sass & Smallheiser Description & Building Alterations This six story brick and stone Renaissance Revival old law tenement was constructed in 1899-1900. It features round-arch fenestration at the first story, fluted cast-iron columns, scrolled keystones, splayed lintels, continuous sills in projecting bands, segmental relieving arch above the fifth story center bays, cartouches above the fifth story end bays, Corinthian pilasters flanking fifth story windows, and a bracketed cornice.

The La MaMa Theater was originally designed by August H. Blankenstein to be a musicians’ club house for the Aschenbroedel Verein, or the “Cinderella Society.” Theodore Thomas, a German-born violinist, and conductor of the New York Philharmonic, was a prominent member of the society, located at this building until 1892. Carl Bergmann, also a conductor for the New York Philharmonic, New York Symphony Orchestra conductor Walter Damrosch, and violinist Carl Fischer, were all members as well. The building underwent numerous alterations, including the removal of partitions, the addition of stairways, windows, and an elevator, and the eventual conversion in 1949 to a meatpacking plant. The present facade was added to the building in 1892 by tenement architects Kurtzer & Rohl. It was designated a New York City Landmark in March of 2009. This image is from Village Preservation's Historic Image Archive, view more historic photos like this here.

200 East 5th Street Building Date : 1983 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Cooper Square Hospital Development Fund Original Architect : Shuman, Lichtenstein, Climan & Efron Description & Building Alterations This building was constructed in 1983 and was designed by architects Schuman, Lichtenstein, Climan & Efron. It was the former site of the Five Spot club, a divey neighborhood bar founded in the 1930s that attracted writers and artists living nearby: Williem de Kooning, Alfred Leslie, Larry Rivers, Franz Kline, Howard Kanovitz, Grace Hartigan, David Smith, Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg, and Kenneth Koch, among others. It became one of the world’s premiere jazz clubs in the 1950s, at which point it featured John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, and Billie Holiday. The club needed more space and moved to 2 St. Mark’s Place in 1962.

LaGrange Terrace (Colonnade Row), ca. 1890. LaGrange Terrace, a set of nine colonnade-fronted Greek revival townhouses, was built in the early 1830s on land owned by John Jacob Astor. At the time, Lafayette Place was a short, cobblestoned street between Great Jones and Art (later Astor Place) Streets, adjacent to the Vauxhall Gardens pleasure garden and theatre. Astor’s residences attracted member’s of New York’s upper crust: members of the Vanderbilt and Delano families owned homes, as did Washington Irving and Astor, himself. LaGrange Terrace remained a fashionable address through the 1870s, by which time the wealthiest New Yorkers had begun to decamp for parts uptown. Five of the townhouses were later demolished. While the 20th century has seen Astor’s development continue to deteriorate, the surviving houses were designated New York City Landmark in 1965.

Gerstenzang Brothers was an artificial flower factory run by Louis and Abraham Gerstenzang located at 670 Broadway. The company created flowers for millineries throughout the city as well as fruits, vegetables, and feathers. The American Gas Engineering Journal showcased the factory for its excellent use of gas. Boilers in various rooms turned rolls of cotton into ornament, steam was used to dye feathers, and gas-fed flames melted wax to coat the skin of false cherries. From a tour of the factory in 1918, a guide is quoted as saying: "We have to put the most serious-minded girls we have at the daisy table... Otherwise, they spend most of their time counting the petals mumbling, 'Loves me-loves me not."

Peace Pentagon ca. 1934 The building at 339 Lafayette Street (officially numbered 339-345) is nicknamed the Peace Pentagon for its association with many left-wing and radical activist and political organizations. It was purchased in 1968 by the War Resisters League, the oldest secular pacifist organization in the United States. They were founded in 1923 by a group of men and women opposing World War I. In 1978, the A.J. Muste Institute bought the building. For decades they provided office space for politically congenial activist organizations, including the Granny Peace Brigade, the National Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Case, the Socialist Party USA, Women's Pentagon Action, and Art for Social Change. In October 2015, the building was sold to a real estate holding company.

On June 5th, 1870 Jacob Riis arrived in New York with 40$ and a revolver. Riis was one of the millions of immigrants arriving on the shores of the United States at the end of the 19th century. Seeking a better life, the immigrants were packed into the tenements and slums of New York. In the 1880s, the Lower East Side was the most densely populated place in the world. Riis's documentation of the inhabitants of these neighborhoods would make him famous and drive a reformist movement.

77 Bleecker Street, ca. 1975.

381 Lafayette Street, date unknown. The original address of 381 Lafayette Street was 6 Lafayette Place (prior to the street being renamed in the early 20th century). The four-story, red brick building was the residence of wealthy merchant Alexander Mactier in 1939. Later the home, which once had a tall stoop, was owned by a well-known and respected surgeon, Dr. Alexander H. Stevens. As the neighborhood developed into a commercial area, the residents left and the buildings were converted into places of business. In the 1860s a Madame Ferrero sold fancy French and Italian hats to New York's wealthy ladies, and later the building was a doctor's office as well. In 1888 it was sold to The Mission of the Immaculate Virgin for the Protection of Homeless and Destitute Children. That organization erected a large neighboring residential hall at nos. 2 and 4 Lafayette Place, while no. 6 became the convent and chapel for the nuns who operated the mission home. The building underwent a renovation in 1890, adding two stories, a rear extension, and a new Northern Renaissance Revival style facade. By 1930 the large mission residence was being demolished after a decade of vacancy when most of the charity's functions were moved to Staten Island. The convent building, by now numbered 381 Lafayette Street, remained owned and used by the mission until 1965. The painted sign on the side of the building relates to its work with homeless children. The building was sold and resold in the 1960s, finally to the artist Robert Rauschenberg. No. 381 became his studio and home until his death in 2008. Today the building (which underwent a facade restoration in 2008) remains the home of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

Excavation on the newly-extended Lafayette Street, at Jones Alley, April 1, 1901. Ink annotation marks Bond Street, crossing in the foreground.

Subway Tavern, ca. 1905. The Subway Tavern was not any regular bar. Situated in a dense neighborhood, near a station of the new subway system, the tavern was created to be a moral one!? Conceived by Bishop Henry Codman Potter of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, it was meant to be a bar where "proper and gentlemanly" drinking wold occur. Staff here was empowered to monitor and guide patrons towards responsible drinking habits. Located in a former saloon (with unrestricted drinking one assumes), the Subway Tavern had a front room open to both sexes and a back room that was for men only. Patrons could have one, maybe two drinks before being cut off. Though noted in local and national news for its peculiarity, the experiment was largely a failure. The Episcopalian Church was not thrilled with their name associated with bar only a few blocks from the immorality of the Bowery. And within a year the bar was empty. (Presumably those who might have had two drinks here before moving on to a less virtuous establishment gave up the pretense and just started drinking elsewhere.) The Subway Tavern closed in 1905 and the location reopened soon after as an ‘out and out saloon,' likely making both the religious men (except for Bishop Potter) and the neighborhood imbibers much happier.

155 Wooster Street, ca. 1935. In 1968, Paula Cooper opened her first gallery in this building, becoming one of the first gallerists to open up shop downtown, in a neighborhood that would soon become synonymous with the city's contemporary art scene. Cooper's inaugural show included works by Sol LeWitt, Dan Flavin, and Donald Judd. The gallery relocated to Chelsea in 1996.

De Vinne Press Building ARCHITECT: Babb, Cook & Willard DATE: 1885-86 Solid in mass and sound in construction, the architectural elements, displayed in its two fronts, have unusual cohesion and unity in their composition. The elevations display interesting contrasts of round and segmental arch windows. Particularly handsome features of this building are the three-story high deeply recessed window arches and the corner treatment (quoins) at the rounded corner of the building. The low pitched roof expressed by a brick gable-end and round-arched attic windows is a pleasing feature of this dignified commercial brick building.

Broadway, north of Spring Street, 1898. Street scene featuring streetcars, horse-drawn carriages, cobblestones, and cast iron facades along the west side of Broadway. At left, the building with awnings and a pair of American Flags is the “Charles Broadway Rouss” building. In 1889, Rouss, a wealthy, self-made merchant, built a massive three-bay-wide building at 549-553 Broadway to house his department store. A keen self promoter, Rouss stamped his name “Charles Broadway Rouss” across the facade, between the first and second stories. Eleven years later, Rouss acquired the lot immediately to the north, and added a matching fourth bay, adopting the 555 Broadway address. “Charles Broadway Rouss” was amended to cover the facade’s full width. Indeed, when Rouss died in 1902, his death certificate bore his adopted middle name.

Germania Bank, ca. 1905. Robert Maynicke’s Renaissance Revival building, completed in 1899, was the third location of the Germania Bank, which was founded by a group of German-American businessmen in 1869.

By the early 20th century, as the Lower East Side grew, Second Avenue became a bustling thoroughfare, its rowhouse architecture either demolished or converted in favor of buildings hosting a mix of uses. Examples of its building types include: numbers 107 and 72, fanciful, terra-cotta-clad commercial buildings constructed in the late 1920s; number 57, a nine-story New Law tenement that straddled the line between tenement and apartment building; number 43, the avenue’s first office building; and number 32, originally a City courthouse that was converted into the Anthology Film Archives in 1979. In the early 20th century, Second Avenue became known as the “Yiddish Rialto.” In addition to the Jaffe Theater (site # 1), other significant sites include number 66, the Yiddish Public Theater that later served briefly as CBGB’s Second Avenue Theater, and 66 East 4th Street, the New York Turn Verein (German athletic and social club), where America’s first Yiddish-language theater performance is said to have taken place in 1882. Second Avenue between East 7th Street and East 2nd Street is located within the East Village/ Lower East Side Historic District boundaries.

Bayard-Condict Building, ca. 1970. Described in its 1974 LPC Designation Report as, "the most significant commercial building utilizing skyscraper structural techniques in New York City," the Bayard-Condict Building was both a structural and architectural modern marvel for the city. Completed in 1899, this office and loft building is the only structure constructed in New York to the designs of famed Chicago architect Louis Sullivan. Sullivan pioneered a new style of ornamentation and the idea that a building's design should reflect the structure. Here the facade can not be defined as one particular architectural style, but with his ideas on a new ornamental aesthetic, the design is organic and based on natural forms, Also the facade, entirely clad in a bright white terra cotta, has very strong verticals highlighting the steel-structural frame. The building is considered by some to be the first truly modern skyscraper in New York, completed nearly two decades before other New York architects moved on from historic precedents to build skyscrapers in the late 1920s.

77 Second Avenue Building Date : 1903 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Abraham Silverson Original Architect : George Frederick Pelham Description & Building Alterations This 6 story Renaissance Revival brick and limestone New-Law tenement was constructed in circa 1903 and originally housed 21 families over ground-floor shops. It features an ornamental wrought-iron fire escape and tapered columns at the main entryway. Other significant architectural details include coursed brickwork, molded window surrounds topped by scrolled keystones, splayed lintels and triangular or semi-circular gables, and a bracketed roof cornice with freize panels. An entryway lintel has been removed.

38 East 1st Street Building Date : 1886 Original Use : Institutional Original Owner : City of New York Board of Education Original Architect : David I. Stagg Description & Building Alterations Primary School No. 79 was constructed on this lot prior to 1886. After construction, the fourth story attic was raised so that the building would accommodate five stories. By 1944, the building was converted into manufacturing and storage space. By 1997, most of the building was converted to residential use, though the ground floor was occupied by a restaurant. The former Public School 79 at 38 East 1st Street is called out in the East Village/Lower East Side Rezoning Environmental Impact Study (EIS) and described as “designed by David I. Stagg, the Superintendent of Public School Buildings. The four-story brick building with Italianate and Gothic elements is notable for its terra-cotta and stone ornamentation. It is also a rare example of High Victorian Gothic school design in Manhattan. It has been converted into apartments and has several modern roof additions.” The modern roof additions include a recently added glass pyramid set back from the roof line. The building was converted to co-op apartments in 1994.

Entrance to the New York Marble Cemetery, ca. 1977. Founded in 1830 by wealthy merchants, the New York Marble Cemetery (not to be confused with the New York City Marble Cemetery around the corner) was the city's first non-sectarian burial place. Occupying a little green oasis in the midst of the tenements of the East Village, it is final resting place of more than 2000 New Yorkers. An outbreak of yellow fever in the 1820s and the fear associated with earthen burials, made the stone underground vaults, each the size of a small room, a welcome burial option for wealthy citizens. The cemetery has no freestanding headstones, and as such, looks more like a garden. Descendants of 19th century plot owners can still be buried here.

335-343 Bowery Building Date : 2006 Original Use : Commercial Original Owner : Three on Third Realty, LLC Original Architect : Matt Markowitz Description & Building Alterations This site was formerly occupied by the spectacular Dry Dock Savings Bank building (see New York Real Estate Brochure at sidebar), designed by Leopold Eidlitz in 1875. The building was demolished in 1954 and replaced with a garage/gas station, part of which survives on the corner (now housing a restaurant, the date “1954” is written in the building’s parapet). The current Bowery Hotel, designed by Matt Markowitz Architect, PC, was built in 2006

"No. 361 Bowery, at the S.E. corner of East 4th Street, is a frame house, 1932." In 1837, the Federal style wood-frame building at 361 Bowery was occupied by a druggist and a printer, both with the last name Crumbie (perhaps brothers or father and son). By 1841 the building was home to a grocer owned by Abraham Polhemus. Little else is known of the building. Today it no longer stands and has been replaced by a single story building that houses an Irish pub.

6-12 Lafayette Place (currently at 383 Lafayette Street). According to an 1884 article in the Times, no. 8 Lafayette (the home set back on the right) was a boarding house run by Maria Higgins. The pair of wood-frame structures survived until at least 1911 but were gone by 1916, replaced by the current 383 Lafayette Street.

Charles Broadway Rouss Building, 1938.

By the early 20th century, as the Lower East Side grew, Second Avenue became a bustling thoroughfare, its rowhouse architecture either demolished or converted in favor of buildings hosting a mix of uses. Examples of its building types include: numbers 107 and 72, fanciful, terra-cotta-clad commercial buildings constructed in the late 1920s; number 57, a nine-story New Law tenement that straddled the line between tenement and apartment building; number 43, the avenue’s first office building; and number 32, originally a City courthouse that was converted into the Anthology Film Archives in 1979. In the early 20th century, Second Avenue became known as the “Yiddish Rialto.” In addition to the Jaffe Theater (site # 1), other significant sites include number 66, the Yiddish Public Theater that later served briefly as CBGB’s Second Avenue Theater, and 66 East 4th Street, the New York Turn Verein (German athletic and social club), where America’s first Yiddish-language theater performance is said to have taken place in 1882. Second Avenue between East 7th Street and East 2nd Street is located within the East Village/ Lower East Side Historic District boundaries.

You'd assume that in two decades time these little food joints, pictured in 2001, might have disappeared. But, alas, a shop that sells 1,000 carrot 🍰 a week, a 🍕 chain owned by Albanians, and many greasy spoons ☕ are resilient. Discover the everyday culinary delights that have persisted on Broadway.

Cobblestone removal on Mott Street, between Prince and Houston Streets at an unknown date.

112 Prince Street, c. 1978. Artists Richard Haas' first mural, on the north party wall of 112 Prince Street, is called "Soho Mural." It was completed in 1975 after Haas proposed his idea to Doris Freedman, who led City Walls Inc. Haas drew from his surroundings in SoHo, a neighborhood rapidly changing due to plans of urban redevelopment and large-scale construction that disrupted the cityscape and left an abundance of exposed blank walls in the area. The mural's building, at 112 Prince Street, is now listed as part of the SoHo Cast-Iron Historic District, though this designation came after the completion of Haas' work. Haas worked with architect Hanford Yang to acquire drawings of the West facade, which he meticulously copied in oil paint onto the brick party wall of the building. Ada Louis Huxtable, renowned architecture critic for the New York Times, called the work "an exercise in art and wit and instant architecture," a year after it was painted. Her successor Paul Goldberger called Richard Haas "the great architectural muralist of our time" in 2000. Haas started a campaign to conserve his first piece of work, titled "Save 112 Prince," in 2015.

By the late-19th and early-20th century, Jewish immigrants to the United States were making big waves in the entertainment industries. Lower Second Avenue in Manhattan was the Broadway of Yiddish theater. Plays, musicals, operettas, avant-garde experimental pieces–all in Yiddish–found a home in a wide range of literary art theaters, political workers theaters, musical companies and more. Some Jewish theater stars crossed over to English-speaking Broadway and Hollywood, including Paul Muni, Edward G. Robinson and Molly Picon. Jewish artists were making in-roads in other arenas, too, especially in the burgeoning animation industry. As always, The Forward was quick to identify new trends and publish articles celebrating and explaining them to their immigrant audience. Many of the performers that appeared in the newspaper were familiar and even mispokhe (family) to Forward readers who followed them as they crossed over into mainstream English language entertainment.

View north from the northeast corner of Prince and Elm (now Lafayette) Streets, January 4, 1901.

70 East 1st Street Building Date : 1878 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Louis Minzesheimer Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This five-story brick tenement building, along with the building on lot 39, appears to have been built in a neo-Grec, Italianate Revival style. A building existed on the combined lots 39 & 40 prior to 1837, and another building was added to the lot in 1863, when the site was owned by George Neander. The buildings were likely a tenement and a store. Tax records indicate that since 1878 there has been only one building on the lot. Originally three stories, it was raised to five stories in 1879. The building features arched window lintels, but the sills have been removed. A ground floor cornice may have also been removed, though the denticulated, modillioned projecting roof cornice remains. There are also fluted pilasters flanking the entrance.

Firemen aboard a FDNY Rescue Co. 1 vehicle outside the company's first home station on Great Jones Street, ca. 1915. FDNY Rescue Companies are called upon to use specialized equipment and training in rare or especially dangerous circumstances, including rescues of FDNY personnel. Rescue No. 1 was established in March 1915, and first operated out of the Engine 33 firehouse at 42 Great Jones Street.

60-62 Second Avenue Building Date : 1897 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Philip Siegel Original Architect : Michael Bernstein Description & Building Alterations This old law tenement building was constructed in 1897 by owner Philip Siegel and designed by architect Michael Bernstein. The tenement was to be occupied by 28 families and two stores. The Renaissance Revival building features elaborate entrance enframement with granite columns, a modillioned door hood, and decorated terra-cotta window enframements. It appears that the top cornice and the stoop have been removed, and the entrance was moved to the basement level in 1958. The cornice can be seen in the 1980s tax photo in the sidebar.

Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery, 137 East Houston Street, ca. 1972. A fixture of the Jewish Lower East Side, Yonah Schimmel has been serving knishes here on Houston Street since 1890. Originally a pushcart business, Schimmel, a Romanian immigrant, opened a brick and mortar shop on the north side of Houston in the 1890s as his business flourished. In 1910 the knish shop moved into its current location at no. 137. After more than 120 years, the business is still family-owned and run. Today the shop is owned by Alex Wolfman, Yonah's great nephew. Much like a Nathan's Famous hot dog, someone once said that, "No New York politician in the last 50 years has been elected to office without having at least one photograph showing him on the Lower East Side with a knish in his face."

359-361 Bowery Building Date : 1831 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : David Baker Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations No. 359 Bowery is a four-story building with a one-story extension that houses a restaurant. The building was originally constructed in 1831 by David Baker, presumably as a 2.5-story house, and was raised to four stories in the mid- to late-19th century. The cornice and stoop of this building have been removed. Where the one-story restaurant now exists (on the corner of Bowery & East 4th Streets) formerly stood another 2.5-story house from 1831, also originally owned by Baker, that retained its original peaked roof and massing until all but its first story was demolished in the 1940s. That building housed the Old Landmark Restaurant & Bar for nearly a century.

Great Jones Alley, ca. 1980s. Great Jones Street was named for a lawyer, Samuel Jones, who donated land to the city in 1789 and stipulated that his name be attached to the resulting road. The donation allowed the city to complete 3rd Street between Broadway and Bowery. A problem arose in that another street, in the West Village, had already been named for a Jones (Samuel's brother-in-law, a Dr. Gardiner Jones). The newer street had to settle for the "great" moniker. The small alley that runs south from Great Jones Street, mid-block between Broadway and Lafayette, is called Great Jones Alley. According to rumors, the term “jonesin(g),” meaning an intense craving for a drug, can trace its inception to this small dead-end street where addicts hung out in the 1960s.

National Theatre ca. 1959 Founded as a Yiddish theater in 1912, the National Theatre was one of famed theater architect Thomas Lamb's prolific career. Seating almost 2,000 people, the National Theatre prospered for a number of years until the depression and general decline forced its closure. Like many theaters in New York, it was converted into two different cinemas in 1951. However, this didn't last long and, in 1959, the National Theater was fully demolished.

80 Second Avenue Building Date : 1841, 1881 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Elisha Peck (1841), George Roll (1881) Original Architect : Unknown (1841), Julius Boekell (1881) Description & Building Alterations Originally built as a three-story Greek Revival-style row house, this building was part of a row of houses at 78 to 84 Second Avenue owned by Elisha Peck. It was raised to full four stories in 1881. During further alterations in 1920, the stoop was removed and a two-story storefront extension was installed. The existing facade features planar brick, a bracketed roof cornice, a cornice at the second story, and side piers on the 1920 storefront extension. The details of the window lintels have been removed. The neo-Grec cornice may date to the 1881 extension.

In 1853, young Samuel L. Clemens wrote his mother in Missouri: "Well, I was out of work in St. Louis, and didn't fancy loafing in such a dry place, where there is no pleasure to be seen without paying well for it, and so I thought I might as well go to New York." It was the first time the future Mark Twain would visit, but it wouldn't be the last. New-York Historical's 2019 exhibition 'Mark Twain and the Holy Land' took a deep dive into a pivotal moment in Twain's career: the five-month cruise to Europe and the Holy Land that would inspire his bestselling travelogue 'The Innocents Abroad.' Like many good journeys, it started in New York. Check out some NYC sites that have a Twain connection.

Mother and child on East 4th Street, late 1960s.

61 Second Avenue Building Date : 1842 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Oliver Corwin Original Architect : Unknown; William Graul (1881 alt.) Description & Building Alterations This five-story, three-bay light brick building was built in 1842 as a Greek Revival-style rowhouse. The current fifth floor was added in 1881 as a part of alterations designed by William Graul. In 1921 the stoop was removed and its entrance moved to basement. The basement and parlor floor have been largely rebuilt.

Washington Square Village, an iconic Robert Moses development right across the street from the Center for Architecture. Constructed in the 1950s, Washington Square Village was initially built as a middle-class housing complex, but due to a languishing rental market it was purchased by NYU in 1964 to be used for faculty housing. Those residents who were already living in WSV were able to retain their apartments, some of whom still live there 40 years later! However, it is important to note that Jane Jacobs vehemently opposed the construction of Washington Square Village and University Village. “This is not the rebuilding of cities,” said Jacobs, “this is the sacking of cities.” Jacobs frequently spoke out against “slum clearance” and believed that “There is no logic that can be superimposed on a city; people make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans.” For Jacobs, the destruction of historic buildings and neighborhoods like Greenwich Village would irreparably harm the city and its inhabitants. Interestingly, Washington Square Village and University Village have become significant historic structures in their own right. Of particular interest are I.M. Pei and James Ingo Freed’s Silver Towers I and II, constructed in 1960 around a courtyard featuring a sculpture by Carl Nesjär and Pablo Picasso. In 2008, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission designated Washington Square Village and University Village as NYC landmarks. In 2012, NYU submitted a plan to redevelop the empty lots between the superblock’s existing buildings. In response, NYU faculty and Village Preservation formed a coalition to oppose the development; the group claimed victory in 2014. NYU immediately appealed the decision, and it remains to be seen what will happen to this once-reviled development.

East 1st Street, 1937. The photographer, Berenice Abbott, noted that these building are "Old Law Tenements." These were building constructed after the passage of the Tenement House Act of 1879, but before 1901, when the "New Law" legislation passed. The most important feature of the 1879 law was the requirement that any habitable room have cross ventilation. The builders of these structures complied by having many of the windows opening to air shafts between the buildings. These windows were called "tuberculous windows" as the aim was to combat (or at least reduce the frequency of) the spread of disease in these densely crowded buildings. Unfortunately this style of tenement was generally unsuccessful. Residents tossed garbage, dirty water, and waste into the shafts and the shafts caused fire to spread between buildings faster. The 1901 law mandated an exterior-facing windows in each room of new residences as well as bathroom facilities in each unit. The Old Law Tenements had symmetrical floor plans and tended towards architecturally fanciful facades with ornamentation, including human and animal gargoyles.

The Forward’s offices were at 175 East Broadway, just opposite Seward Park, in the heart of the Jewish Lower East Side. Naturally, local news was big news.

Schermerhorn Building, ca. 1979. The Schermerhorn Building was erected in 1888 for William C. Schermerhorn. Constructed to the plans of Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, also the architect of the Plaza Hotel and Dakota Apartment, the building was designed in a Romanesque Revival style on the site of the former Schermerhorn Mansion. The loft building was rented to a manufacturer of boys’ clothing upon its completion. The building remained in the Schermerhorn family until about 1915. In the years that followed, particularly in the 1930s, the use of the space shifted multiple times. The factory was converted into an office building in 1931, and for a short-period, also served as a dormitory and dining room operated by the City’s Department of Welfare. The building reverted back to its original use of manufacturing in 1943, and today, it remains in commercial use above the ground floor.

The Merchant’s House Museum is a historic house museum dedicated to the early 19th century domestic life of a wealthy merchant family and their servants in New York City. It is one of the finest surviving examples of the architecture of this period in the city and it is unique among house museums because the museum’s collection of over 3,000 items belonged to the Tredwell family, who lived there for almost 100 years. Most of it has never left the house! Click here for an interview with Museum docent Jackie Dinas in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

Laura Keene's Theatre ca. 1863-66 This structure was opened on November 18, 1856 and soon afterward re-christened Laura Keene's New Theatre. This name was attached to half a dozen theaters during the period from 1850 to 1870. She retired in 1863, and John Duff, who then became the manager, re-opened the house as Mrs. John Woods Olympic Theatre. After Mrs. Woods retirement in 1866 it had a checkered career and was demolished in 1880. Joseph Jefferson appeared here in the play "Our American Cousin" on its first performance on October 18, 1858.

Trench for the high pressure water system on Bowery, beneath the southbound tracks of the Third Avenue El; ca. 1905. "Men's Furnishing Goods" retailer King Brothers is visible at right, at No. 308 Bowery. Closer to the photographer at right is the infamous Kahn's Museum, a gallery of anatomical models first opened on Broadway in 1874. At left, the uptown platform of the Third Avenue El station at Houston Street is visible.

Bayard-Condict Building Doorway, 2000.

CBGB, ca. 1985. Opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal to showcase Country, BlueGrass & Blues, CBGB’s quickly became the in-place for new music. The East Village dive was a must play for the early punk and new wave bands. The Ramones, the Misfits, Television, Blondie, the B-52’s, Joan Jett, Talking Heads, and Patti Smith all got their starts there.

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by then Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin. As Floyd was arrested for supposedly using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy a pack of cigarettes, the officer knelt on the back of his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds as he lay face down on the street. Despite Mr. Floyd’s pleading with the officer stating “I can’t breathe” several times Chauvin continued to use the non-sanctioned technique to restrain and subdue the victim until he died in what culminated in an extrajudicial murder. All of this was captured on video by witnesses, security cameras at a nearby restaurant, and the body camera of J. Alexander Keung, an officer complicity standing nearby. When the news broke and the footage hit the internet, the country was distraught. At the time, the world was already reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic, in the midst of a near nationwide lockdown with many out of work or working from home. Similar to the ways in which television made the injustices of the Jim Crow South no longer ignorable to Americans around the country it was almost impossible to miss the footage of this event as it proliferated across the internet and media outlets. Yet again, another murder in the seemingly never-ending string of violence committed by police forces against communities of color. Demonstrations began the very next day in Minneapolis. They spread throughout the country and eventually the entire world. All eyes were on this moment and communities mobilized to express frustration with the endemic of police brutality as well as the judicial and societal complacency towards that violence. They also came together in solidarity, ready to confront the reality of the murder, the truth behind the systemic inequalities that allowed the murder to occur, and not just to demand change but actively engage and construct ideas of what that change can and should look like. Things were no different in SoHo, Manhattan; a place that is known to be more aligned with the retail trends of the wealthy rather than a hotbed of community activism. Despite that reality the area was reclaimed by the community and made into a center of direct action. The streets, formerly deserted, were transformed into a parade ground of demonstration and the plywood boards that secured the storefronts of shops that serve the elite were co-opted by local artists and activists to transmit messages that resonated with those concerned with improving the whole of society. Since then, former police officer Derek Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd and the three officers also present: J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas K. Lane, and Tou Thao have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder. It is important to note that this is not justice this is accountability, but it could be a step in the right direction towards preventing further injustices by police. Local artist James Hong realized what was happening and knew it was important to capture and preserve this juxtaposition on display in the midst of a community reclaiming the streets as part of a nationwide response to the murder of George Floyd. In his own words “The poignancy of Soho – the pinnacle of consumerist society – transformed into a platform of social messaging cannot be lost. This may serve as a reminder that no matter how things in society may be beautifully cloaked in delivering subliminal messages of how we should live, a raw but potent social message can subvert it- not with iPhones and high tech, but with messy paint, caulk and spray cans.” James’ actions led to this selection of ten photographs, and many others not included here, to be exhibited at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space in the fall of 2020. The plywood windows of SoHo are torn down by this point but James and Bill DiPola, director of MoRUS, had the foresight to save the very same plywood in these photos and install them as gallery walls for the pictures to hang on, in effect recreating parts of SoHo within the museum and immortalizing the conversations these boards promoted from their storefronts. They are still on display at MoRUS and will live here on the Urban Archive so that you too might tour the neighborhood during one of its most critical moments of direct action taken by a community in the 21st century.

DeVinne Press Building ca. 1977 Home of the famous DeVinne Press, which produced such handsome books in its day, this Romanesque Revival structure, with its low gable end emphasized by the little arches rising beneath it, set a vogue for commercial and industrial buildings that proved a fine, expressive solution for the low-pitched roof. The Judge Building on Fifth Avenue followed suit, as did many others of less note.

Olympic Theatre (Laura Keene's Theatre) In remembering the 150th anniversary of the Lincoln assassination, the Merchant’s House Museum displayed a dress in the house that was worn by a member of the Tredwell family to an entertainment venue known as Laura Keene’s Theatre. In one of the pockets was a ticket from a performance there. This is how I first became aware of this lost theater, which had burned down in 1881. But first, who was Laura Keene? While her name may not be familiar to many people today, Keene was a noted actress and theater manager who happened to be onstage at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. the night that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated 150 years ago last April. She played the lead role in the play, Our American Cousin. Interestingly, that play debuted at Keene’s theater in New York in 1858. The popular Laura Keene’s Theatre was located at 622-624 Broadway, between Bleecker and Houston Streets, in present-day NoHo. The thru-block building extended to Crosby Street. 1862 Perris & Browne Map Laura Keene’s Theatre is the thru-block building at right, which faces Broadway and Crosby Streets. 1862 Perris & Browne fire insurance map. Plate 49. Source: NYPL. Replacing the theater was a six-story cast-iron building constructed in 1880-82, which is now part of the NoHo Historic District. The designation report for the historic district mentions that the theater originally opened in 1856. It is reported that Keene managed this theater until 1863, by which time her popularity had been waning. Keene hailed from England, but had been performing at various theaters up and down the East Coast of the United States. In New York, she became a theater manager at a time when only men held this position. Before and after opening a theater named after her, she appeared in a number of theaters along Broadway – stretching from present-day TriBeCa to 14th Street

236 Elizabeth Street, ca. 1935. The altar here is set up in front of what looks to be a bakery. It was perhaps erected to celebrate the feast of St. Joseph. March 19th each year is celebrated by Italian communities all over the world. The rituals include a parade and a communal meal, usually paid for and served by the wealthier citizens to the those less fortunate (at least in the old country). The food is laid out on a table or altar with religious items and photos or objects belonging to loved ones. The meals include traditional dishes such as pasta (with breadcrumbs symbolizing sawdust to recall St. Joseph's work as a carpenter), pastries, and bread baked in the shape of rings, to symbolize Jesus' crown of thorns. Note the piles of ring shaped bread in the shop's window.

Last horse-drawn street car, 1917. The last horse-drawn streetcar line, the Bleecker Street & Fulton Ferry Line, finally ended service in 1917. Lasting more than a decade after the opening of the subway, the horse-drawn cars also shared the road with electric streetcars for decades. The Bleecker Street line had been in operation since 1864, transporting passengers from the West 14th Street Ferry in Chelsea to the Fulton Ferry in the Financial District. When it closed in July 1917 it was not replaced with a trolley or bus route.

"Extra Place, north from East 1st Street, showing at the extremity of this blind alley, buildings that face on the south side of East 2nd Street, under demolition, 1938." One of the doors seen on the left of this photograph would go on to become the back door to the famed punk club CBGB's. In 1976 the Ramones shot the cover for their album, Rocket to Russia, on Extra Place, likely against the brick wall seen in this photograph.

The NoHo Historic District was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on June 29, 1999, with the NoHo East Historic District designated in 2003 and expansions to the original district boundaries approved in 2008. This virtual walking tour features 25 buildings within the approximately 130-building original NoHo Historic District, in celebration of its 25th anniversary. The highlighted buildings represent the range of construction periods and array of building types, styles, and uses that occur throughout the district. We encourage you to explore this fascinating stretch of Manhattan virtually, or to use this tour as a jumping-off point as you take your own walk through the historic district! The three-part tour is organized by phases of development, based upon the same categories found within the LPC NoHo Designation Report. Part I includes buildings constructed between the 1830s and 1850s: Urbanization Begins: The Federal and Greek Revival Period a) 428-432 Lafayette Street, Colonnade Row b) 732 Broadway, "Treffurth's" c) 381 Lafayette Street d) 2 Bond Street e) 58 Bleecker Street, the James Roosevelt House The Development of Social and Cultural Institutions f) 423-437 Lafayette Street, Astor Library (now The Public Theater) The Store and Loft Building Type in the NoHo Historic District g) 645-647 Broadway h) 635 Broadway Cast Iron-Fronted Buildings in NoHo i) 620 Broadway (aka 154 Crosby Street) \-- To progress to Part II of the tour, click here. To skip ahead to Part III of the tour, click here.

Sidewalk altar, ca. 1935.

3 East 3rd Street Building Date : 2018-19 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : 3 East 3rd Street LLC Original Architect : Barrett Architecture LLC Description & Building Alterations This seven story building was built 2018-19 replacing what was originally two early 19th century row houses. According to tax assessment records, the original building on this site was constructed in 1830 as two separate two-and-a-half-story row houses. They were extended to full three stories and combined into one building no earlier than the 1930s.

Photographs of New York City streets can show us sites and scenes that have long disappeared from the ever-changing city. Along with more permanent features like monuments and buildings, these snapshots can capture some of the most ephemeral aspects of New York: the broadsides, building signs and billboards that constantly changed with new businesses, consumer products and entertainments. From soap to Broadway shows, the street advertising in the Thomas W. Kennedy photographs in the Seaport Museum's collection can tell us a lot about what late 19th and early 20th century Manhattan was selling.

20-24 Second Avenue; 30-32 East 1st Street Building Date : 2016 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : 24 Second Avenue Owner, LLC Original Architect : RSVP Architecture Studio Description & Building Alterations In 2016, plans were filed for a new 10-story mixed use building designed by RSVP Architecture Studio. The new building replaced a gas station that was constructed in 1959. The gas station replaced a six-story bath house erected in 1895 and a five-story tenement built in 1869 (on former Lot 62).

357 Bowery Carl Pfeiffer 1870 This building is another vestige of the once large German population in the Bowery area. It is also reflective of the necessity for fire insurance in the 1870s, when fires were common and a major problem in dense urban areas like New York. This building is a smaller-scale example of insurance-company building styles of the 1870s, the design of this building having been inspired by more prominent insurance-company buildings. It was fashionable during this time, especially for insurance buildings, to possess mansard roofs, dormers, cast-iron storefronts and high basements, as this building has. The building today is completely residential and is a New York City landmark.

23-27 Second Avenue Building Date : 1855 (altered in 1913) Original Use : Residential Original Owner : William W. White Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This building was originally constructed in 1855 as three of six 4-story tenement buildings that ran from No. 29 Second Avenue to the corner of East 1st Street (No. 29 is the only one of the row that has maintained its original height and massing). In 1913, the three 4-story buildings were combined and converted to a store, moving picture theater & lofts; this is presumably the year in which the building acquired its current facade. In 1930, the first floor was being used as a museum, and in 1937 it was converted to a store with meeting rooms above. The top floor became residential in 1961, according to a Certificate of Occupancy.

By the early 20th century, as the Lower East Side grew, Second Avenue became a bustling thoroughfare, its rowhouse architecture either demolished or converted in favor of buildings hosting a mix of uses. Examples of its building types include: numbers 107 and 72, fanciful, terra-cotta-clad commercial buildings constructed in the late 1920s; number 57, a nine-story New Law tenement that straddled the line between tenement and apartment building; number 43, the avenue’s first office building; and number 32, originally a City courthouse that was converted into the Anthology Film Archives in 1979. In the early 20th century, Second Avenue became known as the “Yiddish Rialto.” In addition to the Jaffe Theater (site # 1), other significant sites include number 66, the Yiddish Public Theater that later served briefly as CBGB’s Second Avenue Theater, and 66 East 4th Street, the New York Turn Verein (German athletic and social club), where America’s first Yiddish-language theater performance is said to have taken place in 1882. Second Avenue between East 7th Street and East 2nd Street is located within the East Village/ Lower East Side Historic District boundaries.

Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral ARCHITECT: Joseph-François Mangin DATE: 1809-15 STYLE: Gothic Revival, Church Although only the shell of this building remained intact after the church was completely gutted by a fire in 1886, the original Cathedral, when completed in 1815, was one of the earliest examples of Gothic Revival architecture in the City. Some of this early Gothic work survived the restoration of 1868. Formal and severely plain in appearance, this smooth-faced windowless wall has great dignity and character in its restrained simplicity.

Building at the northeast corner of Houston and Elm (now Lafayette) Street during construction of the IRT East Side Line, October 26, 1900.

59-63 East 3rd Street Building Date : 1898 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : William Wirth (No. 61-63), William Meyers (No. 59) Original Architect : Kurtzer & Rohl (No. 61-63), Schneider and Herter (No. 59) Description & Building Alterations Two six-story tenement buildings exist on this lot. The buildings were erected together in 1898 by owner William Wirth and designed by architects Kurtzer & Rohl. No. 61-63 was to be occupied by 27 families and No. 59 was to be occupied by 22 families. The building at No. 61-63 East 3rd Street is six-bays wide, featuring decorative window enframements and arched and pedimented window lintels. The building at No. 59 East 3rd Street is four-bays wide, with beltcourses and arched and molded window lintels. The original cornices on both buildings appear to have been replaced.

Although its cornerstone was laid in 1809, St. Patrick's was not dedicated until May 1815. The War of 1812 and financial difficulties within the diocese delayed its construction. Leading citizens attending the opening ceremonies included Mayor John Ferguson and his predecessor, DeWitt Clinton. The novelty of a Roman Catholic cathedral within the United States made the original St. Patrick's on Mott Street, below Houston, a tourist destination and an artist's subject.

Construction of the Mulberry Street: IRT East Side Line, now the site of 54 Bleecker Street. Taken 11/13/01.

316 Bowery, ca. 1980. The building with the mansard roof at left is known as the Irwin Building. Constructed in 1868 for the banker Robert Irwin, by the architect Nicholas Whyte, the four-story brick and sandstone building was unabashedly Italianate in style. Planned with commercial space on the lower floors and dwellings on the upper floors, the handsome building remained a respectable location during its first decade. Irwin was forced to sell in 1878 and the building cycled through dozens of tenants and owners over the next century, serving as a hotel, warehouse, brewery, hardware store, and factory at various points. The Bowery, a sordid locale for much of the 20th century, has seen a revitalization in the last few decades. In 2004 a substantial restoration was undertaken by the owners of the Irwin Building, reinstalling slate on the mansard, rebuilding the chimneys, cleaning the brick, and replicating lost cast iron ornamentation.

Construction on the IRT East Side Line (later the IRT Lexington Avenue Line, 4/5/6 trans) on Lafayette Street, January 3, 1901. The Schermerhorn Building at the corner of Great Jones Street is just out of frame to the left. No 382 Lafayette, an 1890s steel-framed warehouse-loft building erected for Edward Judson is the building at extreme left.

561 Broadway (center), ca. 1977. The Little Singer Building is a 12-story Art Nouveau structure. Designed by Ernest Flagg for the offices and factory of the Singer Manufacturing Company, the L-shaped building was completed in 1904 (four years before its more massive sister was built further downtown). The main facade on Broadway is a charming mix of brick, steel, terra cotta, and glass rendered in red and green. It features a nine-story recessed central bay. The secondary facade at 88 Prince Street mimics the Broadway frontage. Since 1979 the building has been a co-op with 20 offices and 15 live/work units for artists.

The Bowery Mission was established in 1879 and was the third rescue mission founded in the United States and the second in New York City. Since 1895 the mission has been operated by the Christian Herald Association. The mission occupied various buildings on the Bowery in its early years before moving into a permanent home at no. 227 in 1909. The building at 227 Bowery was constructed in 1876 for an undertaker and manufacturer of coffins. When the Mission leased the building, it also commissioned work for the neo-Grec structure, including the addition of a Tudor Revival style mock half-timbered facade on the second floor. Fronted with four stained glass windows, a new Gothic Revival style chapel was installed behind the stained glass. This religious-based organization was well-known for its bread lines. Numerous photographs taken during the Depression depict these queues. Today, the long-running service agency continues to provide food, shelter, employment, and medical assistance to homeless men (while also working with women and children at other locations).

Mott Street Industrial School, ca. 1890. 256-258 Mott Street once housed the Fourteenth Ward Industrial School, also known as the Mott Street Industrial School and the Astor Memorial School. The structure was built in 1888-1889 as the Children's Aid Society. Construction of the project was funded by John Jacob Astor III, who named the school in memory of his wife, a lifelong supporter of the Children's Aid Society. The Society was founded by Charles Loring Brace. Brace, a philanthropist, noticed declining conditions in New York and decided "something must be done to meet the increasing crime and poverty among the destitute children of New York. \[The Society's] objects are to help this class, by opening Sunday meetings and Industrial Schools." The Mott Street building is the only of the Children's Aid Society buildings to be designed solely as a school: others offered accommodations as well as a few classrooms. From 1889 and 1913, 256-258 Mott Street hosted night and day classes to serve the large working-class Italian immigrant community of the neighborhood. Architects Vaux & Radford, who built a number of other buildings for the Children's Aid Society over their careers, designed the school. The four-story structure is built in the Victorian Gothic Style, complete with carved stone, terra cotta, molded and colored brick, and arches topped by Tudor roses. The crowning feature of the building's facade is its three-sided oriel. An architectural critic at the time said the school was "of real interest as works of architecture as well as monuments of a noble charity." In 1913, a larger structure was built as part of the Children's Aid Society on Elizabeth and Hester Streets. The building was leased to the New York Association for the Improvement of the Conditions of the Poor, who eventually bought the structure and renamed it the Mulberry Community Center. The new community served a variety of functions, including offering medical and dental services in addition to English classes. At a point later, the structure's interior was remodeled for industrial use. The building was subsequently converted into apartments, which still occupy the former school. 256-258 Mott Street was designated a New York City landmark in 1977 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.