Public School 64, 1920. Constructed between 1904 and 1906 to the designs of BOE architect C.B.J. Snyder, the French Renaissance Revival style building adheres to Snyder's usual H shaped design. When opened the school could hold 2,500 students and later had an annex constructed to accommodate a larger student body. As the populations of the East Village and Lower East Side declined in the 1970s and in the midst of the city's financial crisis, the school was closed in 1977. Soon after closing the building became the home of a number of non-profits, including Adopt-A-Building (which trained and empowered residents of blighted neighborhoods to improve their own buildings) and CHARAS (a neighborhood center that fostered community-based urban ecology, arts and culture). After two decades of successful reactivation of the school space, the building was sold by the Giuliani administration to a developer in 1998. The groups were evicted in 2001. For the last 15 years, the building has continued to deteriorate. The school was landmarked in 2006 and various plans have been suggested for its redevelopment, including as dormitories, which most of the local community vehemently opposes. In the fall of 2017 current mayor De Blasio stated that the city wished to buy back the property, but the future of the building is unknown.

545 East 11th Street ca. 1930 One of the East Village’s few individually designated New York City landmarks is a distinctive Gothic Revival church at 545 East 11th Street. The building, today known as Father’s Heart Church, has been a distinctive presence in the East Village for more than 140 years. Its name and the nature of its congregants have changed over time, but its mission of spirituality and service has been consistent through the years. The Father’s Heart Church was constructed between 1867 and 1868 as the Methodist Episcopal Chapel by the New York City Sunday School and Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, an organization that provided religious services as well as housing, food and clothing. Its construction was funded by the sale of the Dry Dock Mission at East 9th Street & Avenue B, with donations and pledges totaling $25,000. The Methodist Episcopal Chapel was an early project of the architectural firm of William Field and Son who would go on to design a number of notable buildings including the Hastings Building (1870) at 134-40 Grand Street in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District Expansion and worker housing financed by housing reformer and philanthropist Alfred Treadway White. The Home (1876) and Tower (1888) Buildings and the Workingmen’s Cottages (1879) in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn had indoor toilets and running water in the apartments, open stairways for better ventilation and playgrounds as well as libraries – all marked improvements from the living conditions in tenement buildings. Throughout its history the church has served the spiritual and social needs of its congregants and the community. In 1868, the Chapel established the Cornell Reading Room (Sound familiar? No, not that Cornell but close…) which offered “intellectual instruction and amusement for persons of both sexes, above fourteen years of age, who live in that overcrowded and poverty-stricken locality. Supplied with books, magazines, newspapers, stereoscopes, soetropes, and other parlor amusements,” according to the New York Times, March 27, 1869. The Reading Room was funded by William Wiggins Cornell, President of the City Sunday School and Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church of New York. Cornell, with his brother John Black Cornell, operated one of the largest cast iron construction firms in the city, J. B. & W. W. Cornell & Co. You’ve probably walked by one of their many foundry marks on buildings they worked on throughout the city. Cornell is also the namesake of the Cornell College (1855) in Mount Vernon, Iowa, not Cornell University (1865), in Ithaca, New York which was founded by his distant cousin Ezra Cornell, of Western Union. In addition to the Reading Room the Church sent local children to the country and had a medical dispensary. Dispensaries were the 19th century equivalent of today’s health clinic that offers free and low cost medical care. The Stuyvesant Polyclinic at 137 Second Avenue was another medical dispensary in the area. As it expanded its services, the Church grew and evolved. In 1874 a small rear addition was added to house a school. Twenty five years later the Church bought the neighboring tenement building at 543 East 11th Street and renovated both buildings. The architectural firm of Louis E. Jallade & Joel D. Barber completed the work which included converting the tenement for classroom use and changing the façade of the church by remodeling the door in the Colonial Revival style, adding brick quoins and a stone lintel as well as moving the door from the center to the western bay where it remains today. Following the completion of the renovations, in 1901 the church was renamed the People’s Home Church and Settlement. In addition to a sanctuary, the buildings housed a kindergarten, nursery, gymnasium, public baths and classrooms. The Church primarily served a German population but also had a large Italian Mission and services were offered in both languages. The Methodist Episcopal Church closed the church in 1930 and it became a Russian church in 1931. In 1941 the Church and the tenement were sold to the Russian Ukrainian & Polish Pentecostal Church, the first Slavic Pentecostal Church in the United States. The Russian Ukrainian & Polish Pentecostal Church was established in 1919 by Ivan Efimovicha Voronaeff a Russian-born minster who converted from the Baptist faith to Pentecostalism. Before acquiring the buildings at 543-545 East 11th Street, the Church used the facilities of the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church at 737 6th Street, between Avenues C & D. The Emmanuel Presbyterian Church remains at the same location, but its stunning High Victorian Gothic building (1874) was demolished and replaced by a Brutalist style building in 1970. By 1983, the Ukrainian and Polish speaking congregants had formed separate churches and the building was renamed the Evangelical Christian Church. In 1998, the Evangelical Church merged with The Father’s ...

331 East 10th Street Building Date : 1904 Original Use : Institutional Original Owner : New York Public Library Original Architect : McKim, Mead & White Description & Building Alterations The Tompkins Square Branch of the New York Public Library is one of the earliest branches commissioned by Andrew Carnegie. It was designed by the nationally known firm, McKim, Mead & White, who was responsible for many classically influenced buildings in New York City and twelve other Carnegie branch libraries. Andrew Carnegie funded 67 local libraries in New York City, most of which were designed by the city’s top architecture firms. McKim, Mead and White designed thirteen libraries. This building was designated a New York City Landmark in May of 1998. Constructed in 1904 in the Classical Revival Style, the building’s three story, three-bay wide limestone and granite facade features rusticated piers from the ground level to the cornice, which consists of dentils and an ornamented frieze. Each story is separated by a belt course. On the second level, the windows are topped with decorated tympanums and surrounded with rounded arches that are repeated on the ground level. At the center of the tympanums is the seal of the City of New York , flanked by colophones of the Aldine Press of Venice and the Christophe Plantin Press of Antwerp.

540 East 13th Street | Block : 406 | Lot #24 Building Date : 1923 Original Use : Commercial Original Owner : Louis Levey Original Architect : Morris Whinston Description & Building Alterations The current building was constructed in 1923 by architect Morris Whinston as a one-story laundry, according to the Office for Metropolitan History. A 1915 photograph reveals that an earlier laundry building existed here previously.

746 East 9th Street. Service Builders Supply is visible.

Christodora House ca. 1929 Christodora House was constructed in 1928 as a settlement house for low- income and immigrant residents, providing food, shelter, and educational and health services. It was founded by Christina Isobel MaColl and Sarah Carson to care for “the physical, social, intellectual, and spiritual development of the people in the crowded portions of the city of New York, and the training of those who shall be in residence in practical methods of settlement work.” Christodora House also launched the career of social reformer Harry Lloyd Hopkins, advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt and architect of the New Deal programs. Christodora’s bold experiment in providing both housing and services in the same building was an important but challenging one. The combination presaged the mix typically found in public housing, which began in New York around the same time just blocks away at First Houses. However, in part because of the massive expansion of publicly funded public housing nearby providing similar services and housing, Christodora’s model became more and more financially burdensome, and the building was sold via condemnation to the City in 1948. The building remained abandoned or semi-utilized until 1975, when the City sold it to a private owner. After changing hands many times in the ensuing years, in 1986 work began to convert the building to high-end residences, and it became a symbol of gentrification in the neighborhood, as well as a flashpoint for resistance to it. That said, the building has housed a number of notable artists and activists in the years since its conversion, including Iggy Pop. Today the East Village Community Coalition also calls the building home.

The Eagle Pencil Company was one of the largest producers of No. 2 pencils in the early 20th century, employing thousands in New York City. In mid-1938 the company announced a 10% pay cut for all existing employees with an increased working schedule to 44 hours a week. On June 16th, 1938, 850 Eagle Pencil Workers walked out to demand a contract and restoration of the recent pay cut. The strike was recorded extensively by the Edwin Levick Studio, the leaders in the emerging spot news photography. The studio sold these photos to local newspapers around the city. The strike became well known and was even covered in the local Marxist paper, 'The Socialist Appeal,' arguing for public support for the union workers. The strike lasted seven weeks, ending on August 8th when the company agreed to welcome back all the striking employees and promised to reinstate their original pay.

“View of 18-story Christadora House from Tompkins Square, showing a game of ball being played in the park. February 29, 1929.” Designed by Henry C. Pelton, the building originally included both a settlement house, with various social services and community facilities (including an indoor swimming pool), and residential apartments to support the settlement’s activities via rental income. In 1948, no longer able to finance settlement operations, the Christadora Board of Managers sold the building to the city. It fell into disuse — or extra-legal use — for decades before being redeveloped as condominiums in the 1980s, becoming a target of the 1988 Tompkins Square Park Riot for its role in the neighborhood’s nascent gentrification.

539 East 12th Street Building Date : 1845 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Joseph Stuyvesant Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations According to tax records, this modest three story brick row house was built in 1845. The bracketed cornice and parapet are unusual for this style, and both were likely added at a later date. The storefront has been altered over the years, but the entrance on the right seems to have retained a bracketed pediment.

Public School 36, 1920. Constructed in 1876 as Grammar School No. 36 and designed by David I. Stagg (whose career as a builder of schools lasted half a century), the school building on East 9th Street replaced a previous Board of Education school on the site (Ward School 21). The four-story structure with a five-story central entrance bay, Grammar School 36, later P.S. 36, remained in service to the neighborhood children until the 1970s. For three decades at the end of the 20th century it was the home of the Henry Street Settlement Day Care and Loisaida, a Latino neighborhood revitalization organization. In 2011 the former school underwent a massive interior and exterior renovation. The building had a a full fifth floor added on either side of the historic top floor bay. Today it functions as a residence for homeless young adults and youth that have aged out of the foster system, as well as a community center for the Loisaida organization.

Construction on the BMT Canarsie Line (L) at Avenue D, November 28, 1916.

601-630 East 9th Street; 143 Avenue B Building Date : 1928 Original Use : Settlement House Original Owner : Christodora House Original Architect : Henry C. Pelton Description & Building Alterations On the northeast corner of Avenue B and East 9th Street is the Christodora House, founded as the Young Women’s Settlement by Christina MacColl and Sarah Libby Carson. Built in 1928 and designed by Henry C. Pelton, the building originally served as a settlement house, a charity organization that provided housing, food, training, and health care to low-income immigrants. Its construction was funded by Mr. Arthur Curtiss James, a wealthy railroad and mining tycoon, and his wife, who served as president of Christodora’s board. The building included community spaces, a music school, an auditorium, a gymnasium, a chapel, a lounge, classrooms, and a library. On the upper floors, the building contained residential suites, a dining room, a lounge, a roof garden, and a solarium. It was the first settlement house to provide social services while making a profit, and was located on the at this site to expand the impact of settlement houses north of Houston Street. Several accounts report that George Gershwin gave his first public appearance here. The Christodora House is listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places. The building is clad in red brick, and its brick-faced steel piers are subtly raised. The two-story entryway on Avenue B showcases terra-cotta medallions and grotesques that outline the limestone enframement with fluted pilasters. At the top of the building, bands of Romanesque-inspired ornament outline the parapets. Like many of its neighbors, the building fell into disrepair in the post-World War II years and in 1969, due to extensive damage to the electrical system, the building was condemned. It sat vacant until 1975 when it was purchased at auction. In 1986, two developers converted the building into luxury condos, sparking anti-gentrification riots by residents. On August 6, 1988 for instance, upset neighbors organized a protest rally. Responding to unprovoked attacks by the police, protesters used a police barricade to smash the windows and front door of the Christodora House, vandalizing the building’s lobby.

532-542 East 12th Street Building Date : N/A Original Use : Playground Original Owner : N/A Original Architect : N/A Description & Building Alterations This large lot is the site of a playground known as Joseph C. Sauer Park. It was once home to a seven-story tenement as well as a school building that can be seen on an 1867 map. The school, designed in a classical style, at one time was called P.S. 126 and is visible in a historic photo from 1931.

"Tompkins Square Branch of the New York Public Library, ca. 1904." The history of the Tompkins Square Branch goes back to 1901, when controversial steel magnate Andrew Carnegie donated $5.2 million to the city to help build a network of branch libraries across the five boroughs. The Tompkins Square Branch was the ninth Carnegie Library built in the city and was designed in a restrained Classical Revival style by Charles McKim of the well-known firm of McKim, Mead, & White. Carnegie’s business dealings were known as very anti-labor and for the violent repression of striking workers during the Homestead strike. The library’s designation report notes that the nearby institutional buildings helped influence the siting of the library – these include P.S. 64 to the east, which was in the planning stages, the (now landmarked) public baths a block north on 11th Street, and the Boys Club Building on Avenue A and 10th Street. The library reached out to the local community from its beginning — at the time the large German population was giving way to new immigrant groups like Italians, Eastern-European Jews, and Poles. The library held one of the most extensive Polish book collections in the city, and used its specially-built community rooms for meetings and classes for the public. The New York Public Library Digital Gallery houses a great collection of English language course posters from 1920 that show the diverse communities that the library sought to serve, and continues today. Today the Tompkins Square Branch continues the tradition of community education and offers programs like picture book readings for toddlers, yoga classes, art and manga drawing workshops.

Even pencil making can be a contentious business- On June 16th, 1938, the Eagle Pencil Workers went on strike!