33 St. Mark’s Place Building Date : 1833/1873 alt. Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Thomas E. Davis/Cook & Weiler Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This lot was was acquired from the Stuyvesant family by Thomas E. Davis, who sold larger lots of Federal row houses to meet the demand for homes “above Bleecker.” No. 33 St. Mark’s Place was built in 1833 as a three story row house and extended to five stories in 1873 (as per tax records). This change was most likely an alteration rather than a new building. This building once housed the Manic-Panic punk-rock clothing store. It also held “Ray’s Occult Books,” featured in the movie Ghostbusters. The building is nearly unrecognizable today, as the white paint has been stripped from the natural brick exterior and a staircase has been built, among other changes. Poet Anne Waldman and her husband, the writer and published Lewis Warsh lived in this building from 1966 until 1969. Poet Anne Waldman was the Poetry Project’s first secretary in 1966, editor of the in-house magazine The World, and director of the Poetry Project, a position she held until 1978. Warsh was also part of the community of writers centered around the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church.

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.

116 Second Avenue; 48 East 7th Street Building Date : 1845-46, 1884-86 (alt) Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Samuel Perry (1845-46), H. Ludemann (1884-86) Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This five-story tenement shares Lot 7 with the building at 48 ½ East 7th Street. A low brick extension connects these two structures; the extension has a sign that reads “Via Della Pace.” Originally built to three-and-a-half stories in 1845-46, the tenement was raised to five stories in 1884-86. The present facades feature hooded brownstone window lintels, sills and banding, a projecting chimney on the north facade with decorative brownstone and brick details, metal stoops and historic wood doors. The historic molded cornice is visible above part of the storefronts. The roof cornice has been removed. The fluted cast-iron column is visible within the northwest storefront window.

135-137 Second Avenue William Schickel, 1883-84 In the 1840’s, this area became known as “Kleindeutschland” (Little Germany) for its large number of German immigrants. The Ottendorfer Library (now a branch of the New York Public Library) and German Dispensary (later renamed the Stuyvesant Polyclinic) were funded by German-American philanthropists Anna and Oswald Ottendorfer to uplift the minds and bodies of their fellow German-Americans. The buildings include Italian Renaissance Revival and Queen Anne-style details, with red brick, terra-cotta trim, arched windows and symbolic ornament: urns and books on the library and busts of famous physicians and scientists on the dispensary. By the end of the 19th century, Kleindeutschland began to diminish as Germans moved uptown to Yorkville and other immigrants moved in. This decline quickened after the 1904 General Slocum disaster, a paddle boat accident that claimed the lives of over 1,000 German parishioners of St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Library is a designated New York City Individual and Interior Landmark, and listed on the State and National Register; the German Dispensary is a New York City Individual and listed on the State and National Register.

96 Second Avenue Building Date : 1845, 1916 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : George B. Weeks (1845), Bernard Barth (1916) Original Architect : Unknown (1845), Henry M. Entlich (1916) Description & Building Alterations This four-story row house was originally built in 1845, and major alterations occurred in 1879 and 1916. The present Arts & Crafts-style facade was installed in 1916 during alterations designed by Henry M. Entlich, along with the two-story storefront. It features patterned brickwork, header brick lintels and a stepped parapet with stone coping blocks. The second story show windows are divided by fluted columns, with a paneled and molded crown above. The original stoop was removed in 1879.

213 Second Avenue Building Date : 1865 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : George Kruster Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations Likely built in 1865, this 5-story corner lot brick building has since been stuccoed and painted, obscuring much of the original detailing. The sills are still evident and the cornice is intact

9 East 7th Street; 53-61 Cooper Square Building Date : 1867 Original Use : Commercial Original Owner : Metropolitan Savings Bank Original Architect : Carl Pfeiffer Description & Building Alterations This New York City Landmark building, constructed in 1867 and designated a landmark in 1969, is an impressive marble work of the Italianate and French Second Empire style. It remains a significant presence on the corner of Third Avenue and East Seventh Street. Originally constructed for the Metropolitan Savings Bank by architect Carl Pfeiffer, the structure is considered one of the earliest examples of fireproof construction in the city, prompting the Superintendent of Buildings to remark at the time of its construction that “it is one of the handsomest and most thoroughly constructed buildings in the city, and a perfect model in its precaution against fire.” The building’s four-and-a-half story facade is constructed entirely of elaborately articulated marble, with decorative band courses at each floor, extensive rustication and quoinwork, ornamental entablatures and braces, and ceremonial Corinthian columns and pediments framing the entry. The building’s final floor is in a distinctive and delicately-articulated Mansard roof supported by a decorative marble cornice, creating a sophisticated Second Empire profile on the streetscape. In 1937, the building was sold to the First Ukrainian Assembly of God and has seen continuous ecclesiastical use since, primarily by the First Ukrainian Evangelical

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.

78-80 St. Marks Place Building Date : 1845 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : William Bollman Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations Originally constructed as two separate houses in 1845, the three-and-a-half-story and four-story buildings were combined at an unknown date. Its is said that Leon Totsky lived in the house at No. 80 in 1917, at which point he contributed to the magazine Novy Mir, run by Nikolai Bukharin and Alexandra Kollontai. The magazine was published across the street at No. 77. In 1931 the building at 78 St. Mark’s Place became occupied for institutional purposes and later a restaurant. From 1917 until 1964, a music club called Jazz Gallery, owned by brothers Joe and Iggy Termini, opened at this site. The brothers also owned the Five Spot at 5 Cooper Square. Thelonious Monk Quartet, the John Coltrane Quartet, and Lord Buckley all performed at this venue. Starting from around the 1960s part of the building was used as a theater. Howard Otway owned the houses in 1966, when he worked with architect Miller Breslin to convert them into Theater 80. Theatre 80 premiered Clark Gesner’s Your a Good Man, Charlie Brown in 1967, and played it until 1971, when Otway made the theater a revival movie house with double features of old Hollywood films showing every day. The revival theater closed in 1994, and then this building was occupied by the Pearl Theater Company, founded in 1984, which stayed here until 2009. Outside the theater there is a mini-Off-Broadway Walk of Fame, consisting of hand-prints, footprints and signatures from some celebrated 20th-century actors and actresses. The original facades – including lintels, sills, and cornices of these two buildings remain. No. 78 retains its stoop and multi-paned sash, and No. 80 has a one-story brick extension with glass block windows.

189 Second Avenue, Harrison G. Wiseman, 1925-26 This part of Second Avenue was once referred to as the “Yiddish Rialto” for its many theaters catering to Jewish immigrants, for whom theater was a popular form of entertainment and an important cultural institution. The Moorish Revival structure was built for Brooklyn lawyer and civic leader Louis N. Jaffe to house the Yiddish Art Theater company, which ultimately only held four seasons here. Subsequently, it functioned as a Yiddish playhouse and theater until being converted to a cinema in 1988. The Former Yiddish Art Theater is a designated New York City Individual and Interior Landmark and listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places.

144 Second Avenue Building Date : 1914-15 Original Use : Commercial Original Owner : Philip & Benjamin Menschel Original Architect : Louis A. Sheinart Description & Building Alterations This three-story brick building was originally erected between 1914 and 1915 as a movie theater with office space, designed by architect Louis A. Sheinart. In 1928, the building was converted to retail and office use. It was part of the Yiddish Theater District/Jewish Rialto during the early 20th century, and has housed the Ukrainian restaurant Veselka since 1954. The west rusticated stone facade features a bracketed thin cornice above the storefront’s segmental-arched window opening, framed by festive garland decorations. The north facade features patterned brickwork, simple rectangular window sills, and glass brick on top of the storefront.

Electric Circus, 23 St. Marks Place. These three buildings were constructed as separate row houses in the 1830s. At their completion, they would have looked much like their neighbor across the street, the Daniel Le Roy House at 20 St. Marks Place. In the 1870s nos. 19 and 21 became the headquarters of the Arion Society, a German music club, reflecting the new immigrant community in the neighborhood. In the late 1880s, all three were purchased by brewery magnate George Erhet, who turned them into Arlington Hall, a venue of community halls and ballrooms. In 1920, the properties were purchased by the Polish National Home, Polski Dom Narodwy, and served in a similar function for the Polish community. In the 1950's a nightclub called "The Dom" opened in the basement level. Advertised as "a groovy get-together place of the neighborhood cats and chicks who dig dancing and Polish food at Avenue A prices," the Dom enjoyed patrons such as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and other Beats. In 1966, Andy Warhol rented the upper level as a psychedelic performance space. Their house band: Velvet Underground. By then the Dom was losing popularity. In its final hurrah, the basement became a nightclub once again, boasting the "chic bohemian" Electric Circus. Famously, a bomb was set off on the dance floor in 1970, which injured dozens of patrons. The nightclub was never able to return to its heyday of the 1950s and 1960s, and it closed in 1971.

Building Date: 1848 Original Use: Residential Original Owner: Thomas F. Woodruff Original Architect: Unknown Description & Building Alterations This four-story with basement building was originally erected in 1848 as a Greek Revival-style row house. The present facade features bracketed iron cornice, molded window lintels, footed sills, the entrance flanked by engaged simple pilasters supporting an entablature.

124 East 4th Street Building Date : 1899 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : August Ruff Original Architect : Kurtzer & Rohl Description & Building Alterations This six-story and basement tenement, built in 1899, was originally designed by Kurtzer & Rohl and owned by August Ruff. At a cost of $20,000, it was to be occupied by 24 families with stores in the basement. The facade features a bracketed cornice, elaborate entrance enframements with a curved door hood and carvings, window lintels, and beltcourses. The window lintels are pedimented on the second and fourth stories’ outermost bays.

Street scene of Third Avenue at East 13th Street, ca. 1935. At left, on the west side of the avenue, is the Variety Theatre, one of New York's earliest motion-picture houses. The building dated to about 1897, and was likely altered to house a conventional theater around 1914. The Variety screened short films, “photo plays,” second-run features, and, later, adult films, before it was closed by the health department in 1989 — illicit activities were not uncommon. From 1991-2004, the Variety operated as a live theater venue. Despite preservation efforts by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, the old theater was demolished in 2005. The tall building in the background, at right, is 200 East 16th Street, a 20-story Art Deco apartment building completed in 1930.

The oldest surviving WPA Retail Market building in New York City is in fact the East Village’s First Avenue Retail Market, which dates to 1938 (the very first to open was what came to be known as “La Marqueta” under the Park Avenue viaduct between 111th and 116th Street in East Harlem, then an Italian-American neighborhood from which LaGuardia was elected to the State Assembly and Congress; little of that original structure still exists due to demolition, fires, and alterations). In 1937, architects Albert W. Lewis and John D. Churchill were commissioned by the Department of Markets to design several of these indoor market buildings, including the new Fulton Fish Market Complex, the Gansevoort Market, the Bronx Terminal Market, and the First Avenue Retail Market. The First Avenue Market was opened by LaGuardia himself in 1938 on First Avenue between East 9th and 10th Streets. It was constructed in an L-shaped design that spanned numbers 155-157 1st Avenue and numbers 230-240 East 10th Street. Historic photos show a bustling neighborhood market that sold cheese (a 1947 New Yorker article states that the cheese vendor sold 300 varieties!), vegetables, and likely everything in, until its closure in 1965. In 1986, Theater for the New City (TNC) purchased this 30,000-square-foot former market building with the help of Bess Myerson, Ruth Messinger, and David Dinkins. TNC converted the market building into a vibrant community arts center, where they remain to this day. This transformation was a critical factor in the cultural and commercial revitalization of the surrounding East Village neighborhood. When the Theater for the New City purchased the former First Avenue Retail Market building, there was a stipulation that they had to still share part of the space with the Sanitation Department, which had been occupying the building since the Market closed in 1965. TNC didn’t have enough money to complete the four theaters, dance space, cafe, administrative offices, and rehearsal spaces, but put on shows regardless, creating interim theaters. Co-founders Crystal Field and George Bartenieff completed TNC’s home with $2 million they had raised. The City, however, retained the air rights to the building, and in 2001, a 16-story residential tower was erected above the theater. Despite this construction, though, TNC remains an important East Village institution that echos the community sentiment and necessity of the former First Avenue Retail Market, and is the oldest remaining intact Retail Market from this transformative LaGuardia/WPA project.

44 Stuyvesant Street ca. 1927 On January 31, 1795, Nicholas William Stuyvesant, descendent of Director-General Petrus Stuyvesant, married Catherine Livingston Reade, herself a descendant of New York royalty of sorts (the family name can be found on streets in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn). While clearly this was a significant date for these two early New Yorkers, why should we care over two centuries later? Because that marriage led to the construction of what is today the oldest residence in Manhattan, 44 Stuyvesant Street. Nicholas built 44 Stuyvesant Street for his wife and what would end up being a very, very large family. Walking down the unusually angled Stuyvesant Street today, this subtly elegant early Federal building may seem to fold seamlessly into the streetscape. However, if you were to stand across the street and turn the clock back to 1795, you would see the surrounding buildings disappear one by one, and the street grid as we know it dissolve in place of a completely different configuration. You would recognize but one structure: No. 44, the oldest building in the Village and the oldest structure in Manhattan continuously used for residential purposes. The land upon which 44 Stuyvesant Street was built was part of the original farm of Petrus Stuyvesant, Director-General of the West India Company in New Netherlands. Almost a century and a half before Nicholas and Catherine started their life together, Petrus Stuyvesant purchased two adjacent “boweries” (rooted in the old Dutch word for “farm”) from the West India Company on March 12, 1651. On November 30, 1787, a lane was cut between the two sections, running true east-west. The path became Stuyvesant Street, the only street preserved from the period when the Stuyvesants owned a huge swath of land within and beyond today’s East Village (roughly between Fourth Avenue, the East River, East 5th Street, and East 20th Street). The Stuyvesant street grid squared with the points of the compass: the streets running north-south were named for the female members of the family, and those bisecting them were named for the male members of the family. When Nicholas Stuyvesant built 44 Stuyvesant Street, it was a free-standing structure at the southwest corner of Stuyvesant Street and the no-longer-extant Judith Street. Nicholas and Catherine lived here together for twenty-three years, raising six sons and three daughters, just as the generations that followed them would raise their own families. When Nicholas’ mother, Margaret Livingston, passed away in 1818, Nicholas and Catherine moved into the Bowery house where she had lived. Nicholas had inherited the building upon the death of his father, Petrus Stuyvesant. After moving, he and Catherine rented out their former home at 44 Stuyvesant Street for the rest of their lives. It was during this period, in 1832, that the parlor floor of the house was remodeled in the later Federal style. In 1861, the rows of Anglo-Italianate homes that today fill in and form the rest of the St. Mark’s Historic District and ‘Renwick Triangle’ were finally developed. No. 44 Stuyvesant Street’s historical significance is amplified all the more by its important place in New York City landmarks history. After the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission began to identify and protect significant buildings and districts in the city in 1965, this was one of the first buildings, within one of the first districts, to be formally recognized. No. 44 Stuyvesant Street was designated as part of the St. Mark’s Historic District on January 14, 1969, almost one hundred seventy-five years after its original date of construction. Today, 44 Stuyvesant Street is one of two remaining houses from the early generations of the Stuyvesant family (along with the Stuyvesant Fish House at 21 Stuyvesant Street, built-in 1803 by Petrus Stuyvesant and similarly rich in architectural integrity and historical associations). Along with the Jumel Mansion and the Dyckman Farmhouse in Upper Manhattan, this is the only surviving residential building from the 18th century in Manhattan, and the only one “which has been solely used for residential use, successfully retaining …its original plan (which is two rooms off the hall) and its many architectural elements.” It also reflects the early building traditions in the area, displaying original Flemish-bond brickwork, splayed lintels, and a brownstone basement. Furthermore, 44 Stuyvesant Street showcases a 20th-century artist’s studio window, emblematic of the cultural and demographic shifts that took place in the East Village at that time, and the architectural features that defined it.

East 11th Street.

190 Second Avenue; 300 East 12th Street Building Date : 1903 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : David Perelman Original Architect : Bernstein & Bernstein Description & Building Alterations This six-story new law brick tenement was erected in 1903 for stores and 20 families. It was designed by architect Bernstein & Bernstein. The first story used to be occupied by Café Royal from 1908 until 1952, one of the most popular social venues for Yiddish theater performers, as well as other Jewish writers, celebrities, and characters during that time. Paul Muni, Jack Benny, David Sarnoff, Fannie Hurst, Eddie Cantor, Will Durant, Carl Van Vechen, and Sarah Adler were all Café Royal habitués. The building shares many similar elements with other works by Bernstein & Bernstein. Like many other new law tenements, it sits on a corner lot. Its current facade features a curving, projecting bracketed cornice with a garlanded frieze, a chamfered corner, terra-cotta panels, beltcourses, window lintels with keystones, triangular and segmental-arched pediments, decorated panels beneath fourth-story windows, brick quoins, elaborate window surrounds, and a molded cornice above the first floor. The rounded window pediments connect the third and fourth floor windows in continuous enframements. The storefront has been reconfigured and refaced.

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.

236 East 14th Street ca. 1941 There is an unexpectedly grand treat on the south side of this busy thoroughfare between 3rd and 2nd Avenues. The entire row of New Law tenements at 226-240 East 14th Street were built in 1902 to the designs of the architectural firm of Sass & Smallheiser. These red brick buildings with terra cotta details employ a rich Renaissance Revival style. The outer-bay, second floor bowed windows are surrounded by detailed ionic columns and topped with a fluted frieze. The four recessed bays on the second floor have arched enframements with exaggerated keystones. The second floor also has recessed belt courses of white brick, a popular feature of Renaissance Revival tenement design. The windows on the third through fifth floors have either splayed lintels or full enframements all in classically inspired motifs, and the fourth floor has windows topped with curved pediments. The sixth floor, like the second, has recessed belt courses in white brick. The pressed-metal cornice follows the curve of the projecting bays and acts as a lintel for the sixth floor windows. Though the cornice has been removed from 236, and 238-240 was painted, these buildings are still in remarkable condition.

Manhattan: 11th Street (East) - 4th Avenue.

400 East 9th Street; 146-148 First Avenue Building Date : 1851 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : James Wood Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations Block 5 is comprised of three buildings erected together along with lots 7 and 8 in 1851. The buildings are four-stories along First Avenue and 9th Street with a two-story portion at the rear along 9th Street. Most historic details have been removed or stripped, including a cornice on the west facade. Simple rectangular window lintels and sills still remain.

German Hospital, ca. 1905 The German Hospital and Dispensary was founded in 1857 and opened their first facility that same year at 132 Canal Street. They moved between a number of locations downtown, settling for sometime at the William Schickel-designed building on Second Avenue, next to the Ottendorfer Library. In 1905 the hospital which had operated a location uptown for a few decades, moved their entire facility to East 77th Street location. The hospital building seen here was completed in 1900 and has since been demolished.

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.

12th Street Cinema, ca. 1975. The theatre at 189 Second Avenue was the once a part of the Jewish Rialto that lined Second Avenue; more than two dozen theatres lined that street between Houston and 14th Street. Funded by Russian-born lawyer Louis Nathaniel Jaffe and created for the theatre company of actor Maurice Schwartz (called Mr. Second Avenue), the theatre was designed by Harrison G. Wiseman. Completed in 1926, the Yiddish Art Theatre only produced two seasons of work in the Moorish-influenced building, owing to problems between Jaffe and Schwartz. Between 1929 and 1936 various Jewish folk theatre companies produced shows there. In March of 1936 the Depression-era WPA Theatre Project took over the venue. By the 1940s a nightclub had opened in the basement, a gay supper club that was, in fact, a front for the mob. The venue showcased live performances into the 1970s. Since 1991 the building has been the Village East Cinema.

Moishe's Bakery, date unknown. Opened in the mid 1970s in a storefront that had been a bakery for decades, Moishe's Bakery has been providing kosher delights for more than four decades. Established by Moishe Perl, whose father worked in the baking business after coming to America from a Nazi concentration camp, the shop was well placed in the neighborhood where a substantial Jewish, Ukrainian and Polish communities resided. Today the menu remains the same as when the shop opened, with hamantaschen, rugelach, mandelbrot, sugar kichels and chocolate babka offered to the ever-changing East Village neighbors and those who travel from all over the city for sweets.

110 First Avenue Building Date : 1841-1843 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : E. Davis Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This building was likely three-and-a-half stories tall with a peaked roof when it was constructed in 1841-43. It was later raised to five stories. A new storefront designed by architect Julius Kastner was installed in 1895. The second-story windows were bricked up at that time. The present facade has been modified since then. Most historic details, like the window lintels, sills, and the cornice have been stripped.

Luchow's Restaurant ca. 1975 Luchow’s was a German restaurant/beer garden. It opened in 1882 at 110 East 14th Street at a time when the East Village was known as “Little Germany”, or Kleindeutschland. The restaurant would expand over the years in size and prominence, eventually occupying a space eight times as large as the original venue. In its heydey, Luchow’s was the place to see and be seen if you were a part of the music, theater, or literary crowd. It imported 70,000 half-barrels of beer a year, a daily consumption of 24,000 liters. Famous diners include Theodore Roosevelt, Diamond Jim Brady, Oscar Hammerstein, John Barrymore, Arturo Caruso, Sigmund Romberg, Lillian Russell, O. Henry, Theodore Dreiser, Thomas Wolfe, and Edgar Lee Masters. Luchow’s was the first restaurant in the city to get its liquor license following Prohibition’s repeal in 1933. Union Square lost much of its luster and Luchow’s moved to midtown in the early 1980s. The Palace restaurant and disco opened in Luchow’s former space, followed by a gay bar. But a 1992 fire led to the building’s demolition in 1995, despite efforts to landmark the Victorian building. NYU bought the site and locals were hopeful when plans were announced to revive Luchow’s with a ground-floor “Gay 90’s”-themed restaurant with a (less warmly-received) 600-bed dorm atop it. In the end, the dorm was built, but the restaurant was never revived.

Vegetable vendor, ca. 1970.

Man pulling piano outside No. 37 St. Marks Place, ca. 1980.

Veselka (Ukrainian for “rainbow”) was established in 1954 at the intersection of Second Avenue and 9th Street, by Ukrainian immigrant Wolodymyr Darmochwal. It was originally a candy shop and newsstand. At the time, the East Village was home to one of the largest expat Ukrainian communities in the world. Veselka evolved as the neighborhood did; it became a hangout not only for Ukrainian immigrants but also for the bohemian counterculture that flocked to the East Village in the 1960s. Veselka survives today, in its original location. In the late 1980s, it became a 24-hour establishment.

215 East 10th Street Building Date : 1891 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Fay Stacom Original Architect : Charles Rentz Description & Building Alterations The two tenements at 213 and 215 East 10th Street were erected together in 1891. They were designed by architect Charles Rentz, who also designed Webster Hall. The two buildings share identical facade elements despite being different building heights. No. 215 is six stories high and features a bracketed cornice with a paneled frieze, floral decorated window surrounds at the fifth and sixth stories, balconettes at the fifth story with cubic carvings beneath, molded arches at the fourth story, figural keystones, ornate panels, and quoins flanking the side windows of the second and third stories. There is a molded cornice above the first story, acanthus ornaments over the second-floor windows, masks at the keystones of the segmental-arched windows of the third floor, and cherubs in the spandrels of the arched windows of the fourth floor. The entrance is flanked by incised pilasters with lion head carvings at the top supporting a molded entablature.

156 First Avenue Building Date : 1898 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Tobias Krakouer Original Architect : George Frederick Pelham Description & Building Alterations Originally built in 1898, this six-story brick dumbbell tenement building on 156 First Avenue was built in the same project as 158 and 160 First Avenue. It served and continues to serve as space for a store and apartments. The three buildings share identical facade. No. 156 features bracketed cornice with decorative frieze, round-arched window openings with brick lintels and key stones at third and sixth stories, slightly projecting brick piers through fifth and sixth stories, ornamented panels, elaborate bracketed window lintels with molding or triangular pediments at second and fourth stories, beltcourses. There is a molded cornice above the storefront, and metal pilasters with attached columns flanking the main entry.

24 St. Mark’s Place Building Date : 1903 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Braverman, Silverson & Louden Original Architect : Sass & Smallheiser Description & Building Alterations This six-story brick tenement was constructed in 1903 by Sass & Smallheiser for Braverman, Silverson and Louden. It features splayed lintels with scrolled keystones above the windows and stone surrounds at the second story. The historic cornice was removed sometime after the 1980s tax photo was taken. In the 19th century, 24 St. Mark’s Place housed the offices of the Children’s Aid Society. Between 1853 and 1929, more than 150,000 abandoned, abused and orphaned children were rescued from the streets and slums of New York City and taken by train to start new lives with families on farms across the country. In just a five-month period over the winter of 1875, the Children’s Aid Society’s five Manhattan lodging sites provided lodging for 68,982 needy, and served about 277,200 meals.

71 First Avenue Building Date : 1882 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : George Roll Original Architect : Julius Boekell Description & Building Alterations This five-story old law tenement was erected in 1882, designed by architect Julius Boekell, along with the buildings at Nos. 67, 69 First Avenue and 129 East 4th Street. The building features a bracketed cornice in Queen Anne-style. The window lintels and sills appear to have been stripped. The site was formerly occupied by a three-story flat-roofed building known as Nos. 67-71 First Avenue, home to Roland G. Mitchell & Co.’s paraffine candle manufacturing company. The building burned down in 1882, and “the disaster \[was] little regretted, as the manufactory has been a nuisance to the noses of the inhabitants of the Seventeenth Ward for a decade” (see New York Times article at sidebar).

Jefferson Theater, 212 E. 14th Street. For much of the twentieth century, this piece of real estate with a small front along 14th Street and a large space along 13th Street housed a theater and offices. Erected in 1912 and opened in 1913 as the B.F. Keith’s vaudeville theater, the building was designed by George Keister. Keister’s other New York works include the Astor, Belasco, Earl Carroll, and Selwyn theatres. The narrow theater entrance at 214 East 14th Street was nestled between two tenements with the bulk of the building (the theater’s auditorium) located on 13th Street side of the property. As vaudeville died out and film became popular, the theater was re-branded as the RKO Jefferson Theatre. The Jefferson operated into the late 1970s as a theater, when it was closed for good. It stood empty for decades and was finally demolished in 2000, creating the empty lot many East Villagers are familiar with today (2017).

Did you know that this eight-story Arts & Crafts style loft building designed by Robinson & Potter now known as “The Petersfield,” was once known as the “The Fish Building” due to its direct connection to the area’s Dutch-colonial history? This building’s name comes from Stuyvesant Fish, who constructed the building and was a direct descendant of the last Dutch colonial governor Peter Stuyvesant. The loft building was converted to residences in 1986 and was named The Petersfield after the name given to the original home of Peter Stuyvesant, which was located nearby. This and surrounding blocks were part of the original Stuyvesant Farm. Click here to read more.

Now that school is back in session and summer weather is having its last hurrahs, we’re all either living by the bell or remembering the days when we did. So many schools in our neighborhoods have come and gone over the decades, while others have stuck around. While all these schools served the function of educating young people, many also delight passersby with their architecture. So while there are many beautiful schools out there, this post is dedicated to the forgotten ones that went out of session and never went back in — school buildings that remain, but have been put to new and different uses.

15 St. Marks Place, ca. 1970. The business seen here on St. Marks Place is Paul McGregor Haircutters. Before finding fame as a stylist, McGregor had worked as a longshoreman, sandhog, and truck driver. He opened his shop in 1965 and within a decade was well-known for having invented the shag haircut, which he famously gave to actress Jane Fonda. After moving on from hair styling, McGregor transformed this location into the world’s smallest roller-skating disco, a bar called McGregor’s Garage, and finally BoyBar, a gay nightclub well known for its drag scene.

109 Third Avenue | Block : 469 | Lot #7501 Building Date : 1837 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : William Stone Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations Formerly two separate lots, the buildings at 109 Third Avenue have been combined as Lot 7501. The smaller of the two, owned by William Stone, was constructed as a Federal style row house with three full floors and an attic level with dormer windows in 1837. Now heavily altered, little remains of the Federal details, but the fourth floor windows give a hint of the dormers that were once there. The second and third floors were originally two bays wide with shuttered windows. These two buildings have been combined and house the flagship store for Kiehl’s Since 1851. Founder John Kiehl started his career as an employee at Englehardt & Huber Apothecary at the corner of Third Avenue and East 13th Street. Englehardt and Huber were the store’s second owners, and had purchased it from German immigrant Louis Brunswick. Brunswick has started selling herbs and oils at his Brusnwick Apotheke in 1851. John Kiehl began working at the apothecary when he was approximately 20 years old, and in 1921, his apprentice Irving Moskovitz took over the store. In 1959, Moskovitz (now using the surname Morse) was running the store and Kiehl’s was moved next door to 109 Third Avenue. In 1961, Morse’s son began operating Kiehl’s and revamped the brand into what it is today.

Often overshadowed by the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the General Slocum steamboat disaster on June 15, 1904, was nonetheless the deadliest New York City disaster prior to September 11, 2001. The official number of deceased was 1021 people: mostly women and children. The legacy of this disaster not only includes the tremendous loss of life but the reshaping of an entire New York City neighborhood, Kleindeutschland. Already losing community members to Yorkville and the outer boroughs by the turn of the 20th century, the Slocum disaster accelerated the exodus of Germans from Little Germany and ushered in the more diverse immigrant communities that settled on the Lower East Side.

St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery was constructed 1795-99 and designed by John McComb. In 1807 the tower designed by Town was added, consisting of four massive elegant pedestals with minimal Greek detail. The top pedestal has a clock face on each facet. In 1828 the crowning jewel was added in the form of a pyramid spire, designed by Town and Martin Thompson which terminates in a ball and cross finial.

77-81 First Avenue Building Date : 1957 Original Use : Commercial Original Owner : Merit Central Corp. Original Architect : Herbert Tannenbaum Description & Building Alterations This one-story retail store was built in 1957 by the Merit Central Corp. The storefront has been altered as various stores have occupied the building.

6 St. Mark’s Place Building Date : 1831 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Thomas E. Davis/Daniel Rogers Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This heavily-altered 4-story building started out as part of the row house development that Thomas E. Davis’ began in 1831. The first three floors have been added to, bringing out the front facade of the building and facing it with a red brick storefront topped with arched transom windows and an iron balustrade on the third-floor terrace. The facade is obscured by large retail signs. The upper floors of the building have been stuccoed and the attic level extended to create a full fourth floor. In the early 20th century, this building was the home of The Modern School, an anti-capitalist and anarchist institution dedicated to “provide education to the working classes from a liberating, class-conscious perspective”. Famed academic and anarchist thinker Emma Goldman was a founder of the institution, and lived nearby on East 13th Street. In 1979, Bruce Mailman opened the New St. Mark’s Baths at this site. They were closed by the New York City Health Department in 1985.

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.

208 East 13th Street, Manhattan (1901, Charles Rentz) From 1903 to 1913, this tenement was the home of the anarchist and revolutionary Emma Goldman (1869-1940), a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). Goldman wrote and lectured in support of women’s rights, birth control, free speech, sexual freedom and labor unions. Beginning in 1906, she published a monthly periodical from this residence entitled Mother Earth, in which she and other radical thinkers and artists expressed their ideas. Her lectures, given all over the country, drew large crowds, and her activism led to multiple arrests, the last of which would be for her anti-draft activism at the beginning of the United States’ involvement in World War I. She and her long-time partner and fellow-anarchist, Alexander Berkman, were imprisoned for two years. After her release from prison in 1919, the federal government, under the Anarchist Exclusion Act, deported Goldman and 248 others, including Berkman, back to Russia. She continued to write and support her causes, spending time in England, Canada, France and Spain before she died in 1940 in Toronto, Canada. Photo by Village Preservation

132-144 Second Avenue, showing Ukrainian businesses and organizations along the avenue at the intersection of 9th Street, ca. 1975. No. 138 Second Avenue is one of just a handful of fine Federal row houses left in the neighborhood. Its bottom floor is occupied by Fresco, a gelato store. The shop is owned and run by Anna, Ilias, and Vanessa Iliopoulos– three siblings who grew up in South Africa and Greece. They considered opening their business in Cyprus or Dubai, but eventually found their way to the East Village of Manhattan. Both they and their customers consider that a very good (and yummy!) thing.

St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery, ca. 1979. The land on which this 1799 church sits was once farmland owned by the Dutch West India Company. In 1651, Peter Stuyvesant, Director General of New Netherland, purchased the farm or "bouwerie," and constructed a chapel. When Stuyvesant died in 1672, he was buried under the chapel (he remains are still interred here). A descendant sold the old chapel and its land to the Episcopal Church under the condition that a new structure be erected. The cornerstone of the late Georgian style church was laid in 1795 and the fieldstone building was consecrated in 1799. Its architect, John McComb Jr., was the designer of a number of iconic late 18th and early 19th century landmarks, including Gracie Mansion, City Hall, Hamilton Grange, and Castle Clinton. At the turn of the 19th century Alexander Hamilton assisting in the legal efforts to recognize St. Mark's Church as the first American Episcopal parish autonomous of the 1697-founded Trinity Church. In 1828 a Greek Revival steeple was added to the building, with renovated columns, a new parish house, a Sunday school, and a cast- and wrought iron fence all completed in the 1830s. Later, a cast iron portico (attributed to cast iron innovator James Bogardus) was constructed. While the parish had long been engaged in charity work, the 20th century saw the community expand their social justice and cultural efforts, hosting multicultural religious leaders, dance, poetry, and art events, and work training programs. Following a devastating fire in 1978, the community and local preservationists banned together to form the Citizens to Save St Mark's. Through advocacy, financial support, and the physical labors of the Preservation Youth Project, the building restoration was completed in 1986.

Shoppers and Carriages Outside Wanamakers, 1898. The cast iron building, that became Wanamakers Department Store in 1896, survived for 94 years. Despite the intense blaze that destroyed the interior of the building in 1956, the cast iron facade seen here remained standing and had to be dismantled.

93 St. Marks Place ca. 1916 Since 1896, the Little Missionary Day Nursery has been serving the families of the Lower East Side and the East Village, providing care and education for the young children of this area. It was founded by Sara Curry, who dedicated her life to the care of the neighborhood’s impoverished children and their families. Sara Curry (c. 1863-1940) was known locally as The Little Missionary due to both her diminutive stature and her work with the impoverished families of the Lower East Side. She came to New York City from Utica New York in 1896. She started her nursery in two rooms she rented at 204 Avenue C, providing local working parents a place to bring their children where they would be fed and looked after. But her work wasn’t restricted to just the nursery. She took it upon herself to go into people’s homes and help residents improve their living quarters and aid those who were sick. By 1898 she had moved her nursery to 365 East 10th Street, and her work began to receive attention by the press. With that increased awareness by the public, financial assistance came by way of several wealthy philanthropists. With the aid of these philanthropists, Sara was able to incorporate the school and purchase the house at 93 St. Mark’s Place as a permanent home for the school. Additionally, one of the benefactors donated his home as a summer retreat for sick mothers and their children. An article in 1908 in Harper’s Weekly described the scope of the work of the school and breadth of services: Here are a few things done during 1907: children received at the Nursery. more than 28,000; poor families visited, 16,000; sick persons nursed, 10,000; families provided with Thanksgiving dinners, 624 (which amounted to 3800 individuals); children and sick mothers received at the summer home at Netherwood, New Jersey, 2423. There were also nightly meetings for girls, boys, mothers, and fathers. All of these services were conducted with the aim to “restore dejected families to moral and physical health and teach them self-support and self-respect” as described in that same article in Harper’s Weekly. Sara retired from the school in 1940 and her adopted daughter, Anna Almasy, took over managing the school. Sara died that same year. Well over a century after it’s founding, the Little Missionary Day Nursery, still located at 93 St. Mark’s Place, continues Sara’s tradition of serving the community.

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.

Ottendorfer Library (at left) and Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital (at right), date unknown. The Ottendorfer Library and Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital are a pair of neo-Italian Renaissance buildings constructed between 1883 and 1884. Designed by German-born architect William Schickel, the brick facades are highly ornamented in terra cotta. The structures were funded by the philanthropist Oswald Ottendorfer, publisher of Staats-Zeitung, the city's largest German-language newspaper. (Schickel also designed the newspaper's building on Park Row, now demolished.) The building at left became the Ottendorfer Library, the second branch of the New York Free Circulating Library, later to become part of the New York Public Library. Today it remains a branch of that institution, the oldest library in the city to occupy its original building. The white building at right, originally called the Ottendorfer Clinic, was the larger, more showy of the pair, with busts of both classical and modern figures related to medicine.

98 Third Avenue Building Date : 1839 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Caleb Bartlett Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations Lot 31 is occupied by a mixed-use four-story building, built as a single-family residence in 1839 for Caleb Bartlett. The facade is similar to those belonging to nos. 92-96, except this building has a double window with a shared lintel and sill at the top story. A 1872 alteration permit indicates that the building had been utilized as a dwelling with a ground floor store and would become a three-family dwelling with a new storefront.

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.

6th Street Synagogue ca. 1970 Now known as the Community Synagogue Max D. Raiskin Center, it was previously the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Mark. This highly‐intact Renaissance Revival‐style building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building has several periods of cultural significance: 1847, when it was constructed as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Matthew for Dutch, German and English Lutherans; 1857, when it became home to the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Mark, established to serve the East Village’s burgeoning German‐American community; 1904, when nearly 1,000 of its congregants were lost in the General Slocum Ferry disaster, one of the most devastating tragedies in New York City history; and 1940, when the church was converted to a synagogue, reflecting the neighborhood’s transition to the world’s largest Jewish community. Significantly, the building has not only directly served Germans and Jews, but also played a pivotal role in the transformation of the neighborhood from Kleindeutschland to the Jewish Lower East Side. The General Slocum disaster was regarded as the worst in naval history until the Titanic, and the worst in New York City history until September 11th. As its victims were nearly all women and children, among the major social impacts of the disaster was the migration of the remaining residents to outlying neighborhoods, like the Upper East Side. With the fleeing of the German population, a Jewish Lower East Side emerged. The Community Synagogue was quite literally at the center of this transition. Architecturally, the design is a unique example of the use of the Renaissance Revival style on an ecclesiastical building; in 1847, the style was more commonly used for commercial and residential structures. The use of the style lent this modestly‐scaled church an air of nobility and stature that is still evident today, as the building is virtually unchanged since the time of its construction in the mid-19th century. The Community Synagogue Max D. Raiskin Center is the first and only building ever to occupy this East Village lot. It is the earliest of all the buildings on this architecturally diverse and intact historic block, of which GVSHP and our allies in 2012 secured historic district (landmark) status, securing our 2010 goal of landmark status for not just this building but approximately 325 surrounding buildings. The building’s distinctive architectural style, its direct connection to two of the East Village’s most influential immigrant groups – Germans and Jews – and its role in the General Slocum disaster all made this vital East Village structure an obvious candidate for protection.

50 & 52 Third Avenue | Block : 556-1 | Lot #26 Building Date : Mid-19th c./1991 alt. Original Use : Commercial/Residential Original Owner : Unknown Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This three-story conjoined building was once two separate buildings. Today there are still two separate storefronts. The buildings were likely constructed in the 19th century, but their facades have been given a complete 20th century makeover. From the late 19th century until sometime in the 1960’s, a store called Sig Klein’s Fat Men’s Shop existed in the northern storefront. As evidenced by the tax photo, around the 1930’s and 40’s Stuyvesant Loan Office was housed in the southern storefront.

92 Second Avenue Building Date : 1903-04 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Saul Wallenstein Original Architect : Horenburger & Straub Description & Building Alterations This six-story, Renaissance Revival-style new law tenement building was erected in 1903-04 with stores in the cellar and on the first floor with apartments for 22 families. The facade features curved side bays, molded window enframements with bracketed window sills, and pedimented, scrolled, and splayed lintels. Other features include terra-cotta beltcourses and a bracketed roof cornice decorated with festoons.

109 First Avenue Building Date : 1852 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : James Sparrow Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This five-story brick tenement was originally built in 1852 as a house and was probably altered into a tenement before 1887. Its owner, James Sparrow, also owned the adjacent building at No. 111 First Avenue. Most historic details on the facade have been stripped, including the cornice, after multiple alterations through time.

On December 1, 1917, the Evening Post wrote: “The tide of Jewish immigration to this country had begun in 1883, following the first of the Russian massacres, and the question was what to do with refugees who were swarming to the United States as a Promised Land. Always a seer far into the future, \[Henry Marcus] Leipziger… was asked to take charge” of the Hebrew Technical Institute, “the first manual training school of a public nature in New York.” This school, housed in a complex of buildings located around the triangular intersection of 9th and Stuyvesant Streets, was the site of life-changing education for children and adults of all religions, nationalities, and backgrounds The Hebrew Technical Institute grew rapidly to occupy three buildings on this triangular block. The oldest of these buildings is 225 East 9th Street, which was originally built in 1891 for the Baron de Hirsch Trade School, a charitable organization established in the 19th century to help poor Jews from Eastern Europe escape poverty and violence in Eastern Europe and settle in the New World. Some time between 1899 and 1901 the Hebrew Technical Institute (a separate group with a related mission) took over 225 East 9th Street and built 34 Stuyvesant Street as an addition to 225 East 9th Street, at the same time raising the older building from four to six stories, and altering its facade from the neo-Romanesque style building we see in the 1893 image to the Beaux-Arts style building we see today. No. 34 Stuyvesant Street was built in a similar Beaux-Arts style. The newest of the buildings, 28 Stuyvesant Street, dates to some time prior to 1914, and is a 6- story neo-Renaissance style building. The building sits on the asymmetrical lot, whose shape is created by Stuyvesant Street cutting through the block. The first story features tall arched windows. The windows on the second and third floors are separated by a decorative panel and the second and fifth-floor windows feature a continuous sill. The entryway is flanked by engaged columns and topped with an arched pediment. In 1914, The Real Estate Record and Builders Guide announced that the architects were drawing up plans for the site as an addition to 34 Stuyvesant Street. The Hebrew Technical Institute was founded in 1884 and operated on 9th and Stuyvesant Street until 1939. A non-sectarian school, it was one of the first technical schools in the United States. The United Hebrew Charities, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, and the Hebrew Free School came together to found the Hebrew Technical Institute in November 1883. It officially began its life as a vocational school on January 4, 1884, and provided training in mechanical drawing, woodwork, metalwork, instrument making, electricity and auto mechanics for students between the ages of 14 and 17. After completing two years at the school, students could specialize in wood-working, pattern making, metalworking, instrument making, mechanical drawing, architectural drawing, wood carving, free-hand drawing, applied electricity, printing, textiles, automotive mechanics, aeronautics, ceramics, leatherwork, and much more. When the Institute was one year old, Dr. Edgar Starr Barney joined the staff as a teacher of engineering and math, then in 1887, he became the principal of the school, a post he held until his death in 1938 – that’s 51 years. When Barney died, “more than 20,000 volumes, including a separate collection of rare technical books…were donated by the executors of his estate, \[and] constitute the building’s library.” After 55 years of operation, the Hebrew Technical Institute closed in 1939. The building at 28 Stuyvesant was taken over by NYU and was used as a site for Industrial Arts education. NYU named the building the Barney Building, after Dr. Barney, to keep the legacy of the building’s history alive through its name. The buildings’ impressive unified architectural style and historical connection to immigration, Jewish history, and educational innovation warrants recognition and preservation. Currently lacking in landmark protections, these and many surrounding buildings could be torn down at any time.

225 East 10th Street Building Date : Before 1853, 1967 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Unknown (Before 1853), Gas Light Realty Corp. (1960-64) Original Architect : Unknown (Before 1853), M. Martin Elkind (1960-64) Description & Building Alterations This five-story residential building was altered from two four-story with basement tenements originally on the lot. During an alteration in 1916, the entrances to the two tenements at 225-227 East 10th Street were moved to the basement. It was not until 1960 that the two buildings were combined into one, from an alteration designed by M. Martin Elkind. The present facade features a plain brick surface. Most of the historical elements were lost after the renovation.

New York City abounds with tales of ghosts, and with each retelling, we breathe new life into these stories. In the grand Halloween tradition, join us as we venture into the most haunted sites of our city.

182 First Avenue; 401-403 East 11th Street Building Date : 1866-67 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Martin Miller Original Architect : Julius Boekell Description & Building Alterations Currently two buildings stand on this lot. The five-story brick tenement at 182 First Avenue was built in 1866-67 for stores and 8 families, designed by architect Julius Boekell. Its present facade features a bracketed cornice, segmental-arched window openings with molded lintels and footed sills. Windows have been added and altered at the two center bays on the front facade. The first story has also been altered and filled in with brick. The two-story extension at 403 East 11th Street was originally erected in 1866-67 as a one-story store, and was altered into a five-story tenement around the turn of the century.

Germania Theatre, ca. 1895. The Germania Theatre pictured in this photo actually began life as the Church of St. Ann’s, which makes sense given the ecclesiastical design of the building. It was built at some point in the mid-19th century and later became a factory before it was ultimately converted to a theater. The Germania opened in September 1894, though the building had been used as a theatre previously. It did not survive long after, however, as it closed in 1903 to make way for the construction of the Wanamaker Building.

127 First Avenue Building Date : 1855 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Joseph Wood Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This five-story tenement building was originally erected in 1855. The present facade features bracketed cornice with paneled cornice, molded window lintels and sills with brackets. The window sills at second story have been strippe

"Peter Cooper became one of New York’s prominent millionaires, yet he still saw himself as a master craftsman, 'A Mechanic of New York.' However, education was paramount on Cooper’s agenda. With the fortune Cooper had amassed from his glue business, ironworks, his patent inventions and his real estate holdings Cooper invested his money in The Cooper Union, commonly called at that time, Cooper Institute. It would be the crowning glory of his life. The cornerstone was laid in 1854.He erected an imposing six-story Italianate building between Third and Fourth Avenue at Astor Place. To support the floors and make the building fireproof the rolled structural iron beams were produced at the Cooper Hewitt & Company ironworks. These iron beams would make possible the building of future skyscrapers... Cooper Union was the first free institute to provide adult education in the fields of engineering, architecture and science for young men and women who qualified regardless of race, religion, sex or social status. It is acknowledged that although Cooper Union was Peter Cooper’s vision, it was Abram Hewitt’s brain that made it possible because he oversaw the construction of the building and served as Cooper Union’s president for over forty years." For more on Peter Cooper and Cooper Union, check out this article by Polly Guérin in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

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."

216-222 Second Avenue; 301-309 East 13th Street Building Date : 1856/1890-1893 alt. Original Use : Institutional Original Owner : New York Eye and Ear Infirmary Original Architect : Unknown/Robert Williams Gibson (alt.) Description & Building Alterations The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary was founded in 1820, originally located at 83 Park Row. It is the oldest specialized hospital in the Western Hemisphere and the third-oldest hospital in New York City after the New York Hospital and Bellevue. In its first year, the hospital attempted the first surgery to restore sight to the blind. The infirmary built a four-story Italianate building faced in brownstone at this site in 1856, and remodeled and enlarged the site between 1890 and 1893. This expanded building was designed in a Richardsonian Romanesque style by Robert Williams Gibson. The base is rusticated in rock-face stone with arched windows and deep reveals, and the building has a high arched entryway on Second Avenue. It features golden brick with sills, lintels, courses of rough stone, recesses and projections, transom bars, and clustered blind arches. Alterations include an additional building in 1900, an additional story in 1908, the extension of the rear elevation in 1909, and the addition of a wooden gravity tank on the roof in 1924. The building is six stories in height and is clad in buff brick with limestone classical details and a quarry-cut stone block base. This base unites the upper story sections and features round arched windows and round arched entries on both the Second Avenue elevation and the East 13th Street elevation. There are quarry-cut stone belt courses at the upper stories, round arches above the fifth story windows, and paired windows at the attic or sixth story.

103-107 East 7th Street Building Date : 1900-01 Original Use : Religious Institution Original Owner : St. Stanislaus B. & M. Church Original Architect : Arthur Arctander Description & Building Alterations This two-story with tower, Gothic Revival-style church was built in 1900-01 for the St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr Church. It was designed by the church’s architect Arthur Arctander. The Roman Catholic Church of St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr, founded in 1873, is the church of the oldest Polish Roman Catholic congregation in Manhattan. In 1999 and 2001, Polish president Lech Walesa visited this church. The brick church features a tripartite facade divided by engaged pilasters. Three pointed arced entrances are found at the first story and Gothic arched stained-glass windows are found at the second story. The squared bell tower features a thin steeple, stone finials, and pinnacles at the roof line. A cornerstone on the western corner of the church reads “A.D. 1900.”

51 First Avenue Building Date : 1869 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : J. Gessenes Original Architect : Louis Burger Description & Building Alterations This five-story pre-law tenement was built in 1869 and designed by Louis Burger of Bruno W. Berger & Son, who also designed the buildings at Nos. 53, 55 and 57 First Avenue, for owner J. Gessenes. The facade features projecting beltcourses, window lintels and sills, and a bracketed cornice.

170 Second Avenue Building Date : 1929 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Saul Birns Original Architect : Segal & Sohn Description & Building Alterations This 15-story brick building, known as the Peter Stuyvesant Apartments, was constructed in 1927 by architects Segal & Sohn for owner Saul Birns, a prominent property-owner in the East Village. It was intended to serve as tenements and stores, and was originally leased to a Woolworth store and an opulent branch of the Bank of United States, which failed a year later. A replacement tenant was not found until 1933, when the ground floor was leased to Ratner’s dairy restaurant. Prior to construction, The New York Historical Society was located on this lot in a two-story building designed by Mettam & Burke from 1857 until 1908, when it moved to its current Central Park West location. The present building features window surrounds at the third, sixth, and thirteenth to fifteenth stories, molded banding, engaged piers, decorative panels beneath the roof line, and roping details at the building’s corners. The recessed point-arched window opening with spandrels and floral details on the north facade appears to be a former entrance.

131 First Avenue Building Date : mid 19th century/1939 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : unknown/Aron L. Frankel Original Architect : unknown/S. Pollack Description & Building Alterations This one-story brick commercial building was originally a five-story mid 19th century tenement (a flower and fruit stand constructed in 1901 adjoining the building on the north side). In 1939 the upper stories of the tenement were demolished leaving the cellar and first floor and the one-story store space was extended to cover the entire lot. The storefront was partially replaced in 1963 due to a fire.

96 St. Marks Place, 1980. Led Zeppelin immortalized the twin tenements at 96 and 98 St. Mark’s Place between First Avenue and Avenue A for the cover of their album Physical Graffiti. The cover featured the two buildings (with the fourth floors removed to make them fit the square shape of the album cover) with the windows cut out to reveal the letters of the album title printed on the inner sleeve, or, if the sleeve was reversed, a series of images of different characters seeming to occupy the building, including lead-singer Robert Plant in drag. The buildings earn double notoriety in rock and roll history as the place where Keith Richards meets Mick Jagger in the video for ‘Waiting on a Friend’ (the two end up meeting the rest of the band and playing in the bar just a few doors down at 132 First Avenue and St. Mark’s, now known as V Bar). 96 and 98 St. Mark’s Place’s place in popular cultural history is now noted by the presence of a used clothing store in the basement called Physical Graffiti. These old-law or ‘dumbbell’ tenements were constructed in 1890.

Variety Theatre ca. 2005 The Variety Photoplays Theater on 3rd Avenue between 13thand 14th Streets was never a grand movie palace like the RKO Keith’s, the Loew’s Kings, or the Loew’s Paradise, but for its 90 years of existence it played a notable supporting role in the East Village theater scene as the neighborhood transformed around it. Though its earliest history is somewhat sketchy, it seems that the original building that housed the Variety Theater at 110 3rd Avenue was constructed as early as 1897. Only 25 feet wide and just under 100 feet deep, it was most likely a store or residence that was altered to convert the space into a two story theater in 1914. As the moving picture craze swept the city in the early twentieth century, nickelodeon theaters sprung up all around the city to cash in and bring the new medium to the masses. While the Union Square area had served as home to the center of legitimate theater in New York in the late 19th century, as the twentieth century progressed that center moved north, and the neighboring East Village area became a center of ethnic theater and popular theater, movie houses, nickelodeons, and dance halls. The uses of other nearby sites such as Webster Hall, the Yiddish Art Theater, and the Academy of Music/Palladium on 14th Street all reflect this. The Variety seated 450 and as the Times notes, “first presented groups of two-reelers, collections of individual features, each 15 or 20 minutes long. This was at a period when the feature-length film was still uncommon and films in general were generally considered low-culture — ”photo plays” or not.” In 1930 a balcony, new lobby, and art deco renovations to the original 1923 marquee sign were made by architects Boak and Paris. Because of its limited size, the Variety never attracted the best first-run films, and by the late 1960s, the Variety — like many other struggling theaters in New York — turned to blue movies to help keep it afloat. By the 1970s and 1980s, the theater screened a somewhat unpredictable mélange of B and/or C-grade films as well as soft and hardcore pornography. The theater space also became a meeting place for gay men. A writer for the Bright Lights Film Journal described the scene when he visited the Variety in 1984: “Upon entering the auditorium, I saw the movie was playing upside-down. This lasted a good fifteen minutes. Nobody complained or perhaps even noticed… It was like stepping into a time capsule. I noticed four large globe-like lighting fixtures that had somehow survived the decades. The walls were an unremarkable (patched) plaster, but the ceiling was special, composed of patterned pressed tin. There was a single modest balcony. My main memory was of patrons moving about the theater in a constant bustle and streaming into and out of the toilets oddly situated down front below the screen and surely a distraction for anyone trying to watch the film. The room was filled with the continual rustlings and creakings of people on the move. It was more like a mass happening than a movie screening, and in fact I have no recollection of the film at all.” As the cinematic quality of the films shown at the Variety declined during the 1970s and 80s, so did the reputation of the surrounding East Village neighborhood. The Variety Theater was even featured in the film Taxi Driver. You can read more about Taxi Driver filming locations which happen to be just down the block from the Variety in a previous Off the Grid post. The Variety ended its run as a movie theater in 1989 when it was closed by the city’s health department, but later reopened in 1991 as a live off-Broadway theater. It ran for more than a decade as the Variety Arts Theater until 2004 when it was closed and demolished in 2005 to make room for a 21-story condominium tower.

99 Second Avenue Building Date : 1853-54, altered 1871 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Charles J. Knight or William Trusslow (1853), Louis Kappas (1871) Original Architect : Unknown (1853), Julius Boekell (1871) Description & Building Alterations This building was constructed in 1854 for owner Charles J. Knight or William Trusslow. It was altered by having the attic story built out into a full story in 1871.

11 St. Mark’s Place Building Date : 1885 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : John Kreusser Original Architect : Julius Kastner Description & Building Alterations This six story old law tenement was constructed in 1885 by Julius Kastner for John Kreusser. The cornice is highly decorative and has been painted in multiple colors. The windows at the third and fifth stories feature hooded lintels while the second story features windows with splayed lintels.

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.

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.

104 Second Avenue, ca. 1974 This eight-story tenement was built in 1901, designed by architect Michael Bernstein, who also designed many other buildings in the East Village. The two tenements at No. 104 and No. 106 Second Avenue were built at the same time, but they are to be read as one large structure. The building features a tripartite vertical configuration and rounded corner at the intersection of Second Avenue and East 6th Street. The first and second stories are covered with rusticated limestone, with a round-arched entry enframed by molded archivolts and pilasters. The upper stories feature red brick and terra-cotta details, including window enframements with garland and foliate sculptural elements, broken pediments, and scroll keystones. The cornice has been removed and covered by metal panels. The storefronts have been reconfigured or infilled.

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.

United States Post Office, Station D (Peter Cooper Station), August 12, 1937. Though the Village isn’t known for having too many stand-out post office buildings (many are small offices located within other buildings scattered throughout the neighborhood), Cooper Station is an exception. Located at 93 Fourth Avenue, on the northeast corner of 11th Street, the building was designed by William Dewey Foster and constructed in 1936-37 as part of the W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration) to combat the Great Depression. Foster was responsible for designing structures in both New York City and Washington D.C., including ten post offices in New York City and its immediate suburbs. Cooper Station was designed in the Classical Revival style and its most dramatic feature is the curve of the facade at the irregular corner of the site. Further highlighting the curve of this building is the two-story colonnade comprised of six receded Doric columns which delineate the corner bays.

October, the month when we mark Columbus Day, is also Italian-American Heritage and Culture Month. That combined with the recent celebrations around the 125th anniversary of Veniero’s inspires a closer look at the East Village’s own historic Little Italy, centered around First Avenue near the beloved pastry shop and cafe. While not nearly as famous or intact as similar districts around Mulberry Street or Bleecker and Carmine Street in the South Village, if you look closely, or know where to dig, vestiges of the East Village’s once-thriving Italian community are all around.

324 East 5th Street; 113 East 4th Street Building Date : 1893 Original Use : Public School Original Owner : The City of New York Original Architect : C. B. J. Snyder Description & Building Alterations This through-block lot consists of a five-story building which fronts East 4th Street and was erected in 1893 by the City as an addition to the Fifth Street public school, designed by architect C. B. J. Snyder, the New York City Superintendent of School Buildings from 1891 to 1923. The preexisting building was constructed in 1871 and fronted East 5th Street. This building was later demolished and a parking lot is currently in its place. Located on the south side of the lot, it went through major internal alterations in 1948 and 1950. The 1948 alteration involved creating living quarters for women and children. The building currently serves as the Manhattan School for Career Development. Before the construction of the school building, the site was formerly occupied by tenements. The Dutch Colonial style, light-colored red brick building features a unique design by Snyder. It has a square plan and a pitched roof with Dutch gables. The windows are surrounded by terra-cotta trim and bands span the facade. The same material is utilized as coping on the gables. The main staircase is composed of white glazed brick with rounded corners, wrought-iron banisters, and a skylight. The fifth-floor classrooms also have skylights. The third floor holds a 120-seat auditorium and print and wood shops. The original doorjambs, doorframes, and window sashes were solid oak and the ceilings were pressed tin.

121 East 7th Street Building Date : 1843-45/1903 alt. Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Hungarian Reformed Church Original Architect : Frederick Ebeling Description & Building Alterations This three-story with basement building was constructed in 1843-45 as a row house. In 1903, it was altered into the Gothic Revival First Hungarian Reformed Church and its rectory by architect Fred Ebeling. In 1904 the front facade was extended to the street line and the bell tower was added. The building was sold to the Christian Orthodox Catholic Church of the Eastern Confession in North America in 1916, and to the Church of St. Peter & St. Paul Russian Orthodox Church in 1935. It was then purchased by St. Mary’s American Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in 1961. The three-bay wide church is clad in an artificial stone surface as the result of a 1961 alteration. The building features a short central bell tower with a Slavic cross covered by a hipped roof above a fourth story window, round arched openings at the first story, pointed arched openings at the second and third stories, and a decorative painted transom over the center entrance.

For much of New York's history, its Easter Parade was one of the most important parts of the Easter holiday. Starting in the 1880s, it quickly became one of the social events of the season.

Hancock Building, 1978. Built in 1897 by the firm of Marsh, Israels & Harder, the Hancock Building was the home of Hammacher & Schlemmer beginning in 1904. The city's first hardware store, established in 1848 in a building on the Bowery, moved into this new structure after its small local storefront boomed into national company and popular mail order catalog. The seven-story building has Romanesque details such as the arched windows on the top floor. It also features Beaux-Arts decoration, like the elegant scrolled detail above the entrance and Ionic pilasters (columns projected from the facade) on the middle stories of the building. The hardware company moved once more to a larger location out of necessity in 1926. (The new location was 147 East 57th, which remains the flagship store today.) Today the building looks very much the same as it did in this 1970s photograph.

27 Third Avenue | Block : 464 | Lot #3 Building Date : Circa 1850 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Unknown Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations 25 Third Avenue was constructed in 1829 for William Butler, and 27 Third Avenue was constructed in 1831 for Piere Hall. Both were originally built as residences above ground-floor shops. By 1914, both buildings were six-stories tall and only used for commercial purposes. In 1936, the upper floors of both buildings were removed and the remaining one-story structures were joined along with 3 St. Mark’s Place.

Louis N. Jaffe Art Theater (Yiddish Art Theater/Yiddish Folks Theater) ARCHITECT: Harrison G. Wiseman DATE: 1925-26 STYLE: Moorish Revival The Jaffe Art Theater is one of the most tangible reminders of the heyday of Yiddish theater in New York City in the early twentieth century. The Moorish Revival design of the cast-stone front portion of the theater building incorporates Alhambraic motifs and Judaic references, but also reflects contemporary architectural trends of the 1920s, including the search for an appropriate stylistic expression for synagogues and other Jewish institutions, the interest in contrast between areas of blank wall surface and concentrated areas of flat decoration, and the use of “exotic” styles for theaters. The interior design reflects contemporary architectural trends of the 1920s, including the search for an appropriate stylistic expression for synagogues and other Jewish institutions, and the use of exotic styles for theaters. The theater presented the work of many of the most important figures of the twentieth-century Yiddish and English-language stages, including actors, directors, writers, and designers.

My Archive Summer 2019 "I was living on East 3rd Street and Avenue B in the summer of 1987. I was meeting some friends at Broadway and 8th Street so I was zigzagging around the East Village streets to get there, heading north and west. I saw the hydrant gushing on East 4th Street and got a shot of the neighbors cooling off on that hot summer day.” —Meredith Marciano

128 East 10th Street; 37 Stuyvesant Street Building Date : 1861 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : James Sinclair Original Architect : James Renwick, Jr. Description & Building Alterations Situated at the prow, or point, of the triangular piece of land formed by Stuyvesant and East 10th Streets, this beautifully preserved four-and-a-half-story Anglo-Italianate townhouse was built in conjunction with the surrounding houses as part of the disposal of the Stuyvesant family estate surrounding St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery. The most prominent feature of this house is the wall that faces the prow of the block, distinctive from the rest of the houses in that it is faced in stone, rather than brick, with decorative quoinwork and a large, ornamented bay window in the center of the ground and parlor floors. Like its neighbors, the house also displays a rusticated light-colored stone ground floor with vermiculated keystones and cornerstones and corbeled entablatures over the entry doors. The parlor floor is higher than the others in the Italianate tradition of the piano nobile or “grand floor,” and the upper floors of the facade are red brick with light stone window surrounds. This is the only house of the group to have retained the original ironwork handrails and balconies. The original owner of this lot was Mathias Banta, the developer. Elizabeth Stuyvesant Fish willed that her estate, which included the land upon which this group of town houses is built, be divided equally amongst her four children, and the property was subsequently sold to Mathias Banta in 1858 for development on the condition that no “dangerous, noxious or offensive establishments whatsoever, nor any houses generally known as tenement house” be erected there. Banta subdivided the property into the present lots and listed the properties for sale in the newspapers. The lots were sold within a few months, and construction on the triangular piece of land encompassing nos. 23 through 35 Stuyvesant Street and 112 through 128 East 10th Street began in 1859. The architecture has been attributed to architect James Renwick Jr. The five-story buildings at 112-128 East 10th Street have parlor floors covered in rusticated brownstone with vermiculated panels at the bottom. The segmental-arched doorways have carved brackets and hold double doors, but the stoops are low and narrow. Each building is faced in red brick set off by Italianate-style stone window enframements from the second through fifth floors. They are part of the St. Mark’s Historic District, designated in 1969.

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.

Built in 1919, this 6-story office building between 2nd and 3rd Avenue originally housed the Cloakmakers Local 48 of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. In New York in the early 20th century, nearly all-female garment workers were Jewish or Italian, and while they often worked closely together, there were also separate organizations and entities catering to differences of language and culture. The dramatic relief marble carvings on the building depicting workers’ struggle against exploitation are believed to be the work of poet and sculptor Onorio Ruotolo. In the 1920s, after Mussolini’s takeover of Italy, the Center was a hub of anti-Fascist organizing in New York.

Veselka, ca. 1980. Established in 1954 in a small storefront—as a candy shop and newsstand— Veselka was founded by Ukrainian refugees Wlodymyr and Olha Darmochwal. The new business was named for the Ukrainian word for rainbow. In 1966 the owners took over an adjacent space on 9th Street, allowing for a full luncheonette. A family-run business, even still, Veselka has long been a curious mix of old world traditions and the modern social milieu of the East Village. They began offering 24 hour service in 1990 and expanded in size in 1996. Pierogi and borscht for everyone, whenever you want!

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.

German- American Shooting Society Clubhouse, ca. 1975. Emblazoned with an eagle, crossed guns, and a symbolic target and the words Einigkeit Macht Stark (“unity is strength”), the German Renaissance Revival building recalls a time when this neighborhood was Kleindeutschland or “Little Germany.” The German-America Shooting Society was likely established in the late 1830s or 1840s, as part of German immigrant support of the German revolutions of that era and the nativist milieu present in the city at the time. The 1888 building is four-and-a-half-stories tall, with a steep mansard roof, ornate dormers, and German-inspired terra cotta decorative elements. Designed by William C. Frohne, his first major New York commission, the building was crafted with a small shooting gallery in the basement (though most of the shooting happened at a space in Queens), a saloon, lodge rooms, and a bowling alley. Despite opening in the era where German-Americans were moving away from the old neighborhood, the building still housed meetings for 24 militia groups. Later in the 20th century, it was occupied by subsequent ethnic communities that made the East Village their home, serving as a Polish community center from 1943 until 1962 and a Ukrainian Culture Center in the 1960s. Today the landmark building is a yoga studio.

323-327 East 6th Street Building Date : 1847 Original Use : Religious Institution Original Owner : German St. Matthew's Evangelical Lutheran Church Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This one-story Greek Revival-style church was erected in 1847 by the German St. Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. Ten years later the building became St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. The church was originally constructed in response to the growing German population in the downtown area in the 19th century. Today, it is one of the earliest Renaissance Revival churches in New York. It features an entrance enframement with a denticulated pediment, a pressed-metal cornice, molded window lintels and sills, and engaged pilasters flanking the building. In June of 1904, the church organized a picnic for 1,300 people, mostly wives and children of German immigrant workingmen. The picnickers boarded the excursion steamer the General Slocum, and the boat departed from the East Third Street pier. As the boat moved up the river to the Long Island North Shore, a fire started in the lamp room below the main deck, setting the boat on fire and killing nearly everyone on it. The building was transferred to its current owner, the Community Synagogue Center, an Orthodox congregation formed by a group led by business leader Saul Birns, in 1940. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Place

Ottendorfer Library The library was built in 1883-4 by Oswald Ottendorfer, a wealthy German newspaper magnate, along with the adjoining Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital. These buildings are both representative of Kleindeutschland, or “Little Germany,” a German immigrant community that existed in what is now the East Village and Lower East Side back in the late 19th/ early 20th century. In the 1977 designation report, the Ottendorfer Library is described as follows: The Ottendorfer Library is the oldest branch library in Manhattan and one of the earliest buildings in the city constructed specifically as a public library. Designed in 1883-1884 by the German-born architect William Schickel, it is a particularly interesting example of late Victorian architecture exhibiting elements of both the neo-Italian Renaissance and the Queen Anne styles. Built in conjunction with the German Dispensary, now the Stuyvesant Poly-clinic, next door, the library was the gift of Anna and Oswald Ottendorfer, German-American philanthropists who concerned themselves with the welfare of the German population centered on the Lower East Side in the mid to late 19th century. The juxtaposition of the library and the clinic building is by no means coincidental. Rather it reflects the 19th-century philosophy, particularly influential in Germany, of developing the individual both physically and mentally. Ottendorfer’s desire was to help to uplift both the body and the mind of his fellow Germans in the United States (“dem Korpen und dem Geisten zu helfen”). Today the library still functions as one of the oldest branches of the New York Public Library and serves as a reminder of the enduring architectural legacy of Kleindeutschland, which is still visible around the East Village.

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

231 East 10th Street Building Date : 1889 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Adam Happel Original Architect : William Graul Description & Building Alterations This five-story brick tenement was originally erected in 1889 for 20 families, designed by architect William Graul. The present facade features a red brick surface with some stone pieces, window lintels with segmental arches, carved keystones and neo-Grec details at the first story, decorated panels, brick piers with plain capitals, and entry portico with columns supporting a bracketed door hood. The original cornice was removed prior to the 1980s.

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.

112-114 Second Avenue Building Date : 1892 Original Use : Religious Institution Original Owner : Collegiate Reformed Dutch Church Original Architect : Samuel B. Reed Description & Building Alterations This three-to-five-story Gothic Revival-style church was built in 1892 by architect Samuel B. Reed for the Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. The present-day Middle Collegiate Church is constructed entirely from Indiana limestone. Its facade is three bays wide, featuring a gabled three-story central bay, a 130-foot hexagonal limestone spire on the five-story tower of the northern bay, and another hexagonal limestone spire on the four-story southern bay. Other features include a peaked entry vestibule with a pointed-arched main entrance, pointed-arched window openings, and elaborate stained-glass windows which are possibly made by Tiffany. The highest tower has a bell cast in Amsterdam that was installed in the church’s previous Nassau Street location, where it rang when the Declaration of Independence was signed. It was installed at its present location in 1949, and rings at every presidential inauguration and death. It is located in the East Village/Lower East Side Historic District, designated in 2012.

25 St. Mark’s Place Building Date : 1832 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Thomas E. Davis Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations According to tax assessment records, this building was constructed in 1832-33 by Thomas E. Davis as a Federal style rowhouse. Davis was a prolific real estate developer and purchased property on the south and north sides of Eighth Street in 1831. The property was originally part of Peter Stuyvesant’s Bouwerie. Davis named the block after nearby St. Mark’s church and developed homes on large lots to attract New Yorkers of wealth. The house features a plain facade and an arched Gibbs doorway surround with squarish blocks that interrupt the surrounding bands. Doorway surround, window lintels and sills are now painted black. In 1882 and again in 1888, the building, now owned by Nicholas Schultz, was expanded and used as multiple family dwelling.

The church tower was built in 1847 and the nave in 1870 to the designs of renowned architect Napoleon LeBrun. At the time of demolition in 2005 to make way for NYU’s Founder’s Hall, it was one of the only structures in all of New York City to have served what had been the city’s three main religions – it was originally a Protestant Church, later became the first home of Temple Beth El synagogue, and served as an Armenian National Shrine for the Roman Catholic Church. The demolished rectory (blue brick building) dated to the 1840’s.

McSorley’s Old Ale House is the oldest “Irish tavern” in New York City, though its claim to have been established in 1854 is questionable. Immigration records show that founding proprietor John McSorley arrived in New York in 1851, but city records indicate that the site on East Seventh Street was vacant through 1858, with a two-story building recorded in 1861 and the present five-story structure in 1865. It is, however, possible that the purported 1854 tavern was an unrecorded building (ad hoc frame house “shanties” were not uncommon at the time).

174 – 176 First Avenue Building Date : 1840-41 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : E. Townsend Original Architect : Unknown The two buildings on this lot were originally erected in 1840-41, along with the buildings at nos. 172 and 178 First Avenue. No. 174, a three story and basement structure, features a bracketed cornice with paneled frieze, hooded window lintels with moldings, and footed sills. The first and basement levels have been reconfigured to accommodate additional retail. No. 176, opened in 1904 as Caffè Pugliese by Paolo DeRobertis, an immigrant from Puglia in Apuli, was probably raised to the current height around the turn of the century. The five-story structure features a projecting bracketed cornice with decorated frieze and simplified window lintels and sills. The first floor housed DeRobertis Pasticceria & Caffe, which represents the Italian immigrant population in the early 20th Century.

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.

The Brittany Hotel ca. 1922 The Brittany dates to 1929, and was built as an apartment hotel. It was consciously and respectfully built in the Gothic Revival style in deference to the magnificent Grace Church across the street — one of New York’s great Gothic landmarks designed by one of America’s most prominent architect’s, James Renwick.

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.

307 East 9th Street, ca. 1970s.

113 First Avenue; 86-88 East 7th Street Building Date : 1852 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : James Sparrow Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This five-story brick tenement was originally built in 1852 as a house and probably altered into a tenement before 1887. The present facade features a simple molded cornice, molded lintels and rectangular sills. The original storefront was altered in 1887.

29 St. Mark’s Place Building Date : 1833 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Thomas E. Davis Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This property was once part of Peter Stuyvesant’s Bouwerie and purchased by real estate developer Thomas E. Davis, who developed Eighth Street into St. Mark’s Place. It was built as a single-family home of three stories in 1833 and tenementized in the 1870s. From 1856 through 1859, this building hosted the Harmonie Club, a German-Jewish singing club. By the late 19th century, the building was most likely being used as a boarding or lodging house, as many colorful incidents of various residents’ were reported during the time. In the 1930s, the building housed offices for Polish organizations and businesses. Artist-poet George Schneeman lived with his wife Katie and their family in this building from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. Schneedman was the unofficial artist-in-residence of the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, who worked often with poet-collaborators Bill Berkson and Ron Padget

5 St. Mark’s Place Building Date : 1890 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Joseph Fox Original Architect : Kurtzer & Rohl Description & Building Alterations Originally meant to be a four-family dwelling and storefront, this five-story high building was constructed by Kurtzer & Rohl for Joseph Fox in 1890. The building is four bays wide and features a variety of highly decorative window surrounds made of stone and carved brick. The bracketed cornice has been painted with multiple colors to highlight its details.

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.

118-124 3rd Avenue Building Date : Mid-19th c./1990 alt. Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Unknown Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations As seen on the 1853 map, this site was originally four lots with a manufactory at the corner lot and row houses with stores at the lots to the south and along Third Avenue. According to the Musical Instrument Makers of New York directory, Laurence P. Cummings made and sold pianos at this address from 1854 to 1856 (p. 34). All four buildings were still intact as of 1955 according to the map from that year. By the 1980’s tax photo, the northern lots still had their original 19th structures while at the southern lots, the upper stories had been removed from the houses. By 2007 all of the buildings had been reduced to single story and in 2011 they were renovated to their current appearance.

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.

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.

Clinton Hall, operated by the New York Mercantile Library, 1891. This building was formerly the Astor Opera House, site of the infamous 1849 Astor Place Riot. On the evening of May 10, 1849, a crowd some 15,000 strong gathered outside the Astor Place Opera House to protest the appearance of the English Shakespearean actor, William Charles Macready. A symbol of British aristocracy, Macready (1793-1873) had not endeared himself to Americans, most of whom he considered boorish and uncultured. In expressing its distaste for Macready, the crowd championed Edwin Forrest (1806-1872), an American-born Shakespearean actor who shared their fierce working-class determination not to be dominated by elite outsiders. Members of the crowd, primarily young males, began pelting the theater with paving stones, the debris from a nearby construction site. The stones rained down on the building and on the unarmed police called in to protect the theater and the English actor. Assault followed assault. The crowd would not be repulsed. Policemen were injured. Finally, the militia were summoned to quell the disturbance. When the echo of gunfire quieted, 23 people lay dead or dying, and over 100 were wounded, some seriously.

57 St. Mark’s Place | Block : 450 | Lot #46 Building Date : 1849-50 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : William Smith Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This four-story with basement building was originally erected in 1849-50 as a private dwelling for one family. It was used as a club house in the early 20th century, and then was turned into a church space occupied by the Holy Cross Polish National Catholic Church in the mid-20th century. Most elements of the present facade probably date from the mid-20th century or later. Features include the triangular pediment at the center roofline, and point-arched openings at first and second stories. The building also housed Club 57, a famous contemporary art venue, in the 1980s. Performers Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Jean-Michel Basquiat, RuPaul and Ann Magnuson all emerged from this club and from the Pyramid Club at 101 Avenue A.

130 Second Avenue | Block : 449 | Lot #7 Building Date : 1952 Original Use : Commercial Original Owner : Bankers Federal Savings & Loan Association Original Architect : Lester S. LaPierre Description & Building Alterations This two-story bank building was erected in 1952. There used to be a brick tenement on site, demolished in 1947.

801 Broadway, unknown date. The middle of the 19th Century saw an influx of wealthy New Yorkers moving north of Washington Square. To cater to this growing population, lavish new developments began to spring up around Union Square. Gothic Revival religious institutions such as the James Renwick-designed Grace Church and the Richard Upjohn-designed Church of the Ascension (a 2011 GVSHP Village Award winner) served as local landmarks. For the more informal daily routines of wealthy women, stately department stores became the trend. Often known as dry goods stores (to distinguish their goods from those carried in hardware and grocery stores) , these large shopping meccas also served as social gathering places where women could mingle with their peers, have lunch, and, of course, spend money. The original Macy’s store was located on 14th Street (which was landmarked in 2011) and the A.T. Stewart store was on East 10th Street and Broadway. Another important retail presence was James McCreery & Co. James McCreery & Co. Dry Goods opened its doors in 1869. Previously, Mr. James McCreery was employed by Ubsdell, Pierson & Lake, a department store located on Broadway and Grand Streets. He worked his way up to become a partner in the company. Upon Lake’s retirement in 1867, the company was renamed James McCreery & Company. He then commissioned a new store on Broadway and 11th Street that would come to be known as one of the nation’s most esteemed dry goods stores. The building was designed by architect John Kellum, known for his work in the new medium of cast-iron. His reputation stemmed in part from his design of the A.T. Stewart Department Store. The James McCreery & Co. building occupied a large lot fronted by both Broadway and 11th Street. Both facades were cast-iron from the foundry of J. B. & W. W. Cornell Ironworks. The Italianate/French Second Empire style exemplified the extravagant goods housed inside, namely the luxurious silks unavailable elsewhere. Around 1895, McCreery followed the department store trend up to “Ladies’ Mile,” 6th Avenue between 14th and 23rd Streets, when he opened his second store on 6th Avenue and 23rd Street. According to CastIronNYC.org, “McCreery sold the \[11th Street] building to the Methodist Book Concern and Missionary Society and leased back space in the lower floors; McCreery repurchased the building in 1889. James McCreery & Co. remained in the building until 1902. By 1910 the original mansard roof had been replaced….and the storefront housed Fleischman’s Restaurant.” The original mansard roof referenced here was lost to a fire on July 3, 1909 and replaced by a one story addition. The upper floors were occupied by factories that produced suits, shoes, and leather wares. In 1971, a fire begun in one of the factories destroyed the interior of the building. Thanks to the cast-iron construction, though, the façade was left unscathed but the top story was lost. The following year, the building was purchased by the Elghanayan brothers. As noted by Daytonian in Manhattan, “When their intentions to demolish the remaining shell and erect a high-rise apartment building in its place were announced, the community protested. Residents rallied along with the Friends of Cast Iron and community groups, appearing before the Board of Appeals. The Board granted variances that made renovating the existing structure to residential use economically feasible.” This project became an early example of a commercial building converted to residential use. During the adaptation, the two setback stories were added at the roof. It was renamed the Cast Iron Building. There are 144 apartments, none of which are identical. The building is currently calendared for landmark designation.

105 Second Avenue ca. 1980 Today, 105 Second Avenue is a bank. The city moves on and overtakes what used to be at a given spot pretty quickly, but maybe you know that 105 Second Avenue was the home of the legendary Fillmore East from 1968 until 1971. It’s a narrow building with a brick facade and a domed roof, which used to be adorned with a sign taller than the building that read FILLMORE EAST, and an awning with the names of bands and performers like The Doors, B.B. King, Tina Turner, The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, and The Allman Brothers, among others — the list is like an endless greatest hits of greatest hits. All were selected and curated nightly by the unparallelled Bill Graham, who owned the venue. Before it was the Fillmore East, the building was the Commodore Theater, one of many theaters on 2nd Avenue that produced Yiddish Theater, when the area was known as the Jewish Rialto. With earlier incarnations as a movie house, by the 1930s, live Yiddish drama and vaudeville appeared onstage and the theater was rented out for meetings and benefits to left-wing groups. As Yiddish theater declined, the building became a movie house before it was purchased by Bill Graham. The live music impresario renamed the building the Fillmore East, as a sister venue to his Fillmore in San Francisco, named for its original location at the intersection of Fillmore Street and Geary Boulevard.

120 East 14th Street, September 2, 1936. Irving Place, south from East 15th to 14th (where it terminates) Streets, showing prominently what was once the City Theatre.

Crowds gather for Mayor Fiorello La Guardia's remarks at the opening of the First Avenue Retail Market, 1938.

8 Third Avenue & 95 East 10th Street Building Date : 1886 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : S. Thorne & S.F. Jenkins Original Architect : James M. Farnsworth & Co. Description & Building Alterations This five-story old-law tenement still retains its original cornice, but its ground floor storefront has been altered. The quirky Stuyvesant Curiosity Shop occupied this ground floor in the 1920’s and 30’s. In the 1950’s through 1970’s a wine and liquor store occupied the 3rd Avenue and 10th Street storefronts. The building also housed the March Gallery from 1957 until 1960, which was run by Boris Lurie, a Holocaust survivor. Lurie gained national attention in 1960 as one of the founders of the NO!art movement, which stood in opposition to the popular movements of the era such as Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art.

The Asian-American and Pacific Islander community has a more than 150-year-long history in the United States, dating back to the first wave of Chinese and Japanese immigrants settling on the West Coast. And while nearby neighborhoods like Chinatown or the Lower East Side may have been much more prominent hubs for Asian-Americans, Greenwich Village and the East Village nevertheless can boast a long and impressive roster of individuals, organizations, institutions, and events located here that played an important role in the story of Asian-Americans in our city and country — especially (and unsurprisingly) in relation to civil rights and the arts. It is here that rights were won; discrimination was given a human face; innovations in painting, writing, and sculpture took place; and people gathered to confront the challenges and opportunities presented by the world around them. Here are just a few of those inspiring individuals, places, and associations:

Buildings on the west side of Fourth Avenue, below 9th Street, during construction of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line, December 10, 1902. The buildings were razed the next year, when construction began on 770 Broadway, the massive, full-block annex to the original Wanamaker department store.

Webster Hall, a run-down community center on East 11th Street, was the site of a succession of masquerade balls during the 1910s that enhanced the image of Greenwich Village as a perpetual party place. Patterned after the bacchanals staged in the art-student quarter of Paris, these costume spectacles were conceived initially as fund-raisers for local radical organizations. However, the causes they purported to support receded in importance as the balls grew rowdier, drawing many oglers and uptowners to the Village. At their peak of popularity around 1918, as many as two balls per week were being presented at what the Villagers teasingly had branded "The Devil's Playhouse."

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.

131 Second Avenue, ca. 1980. Ruby Silverstein and Harold Shepard founded Gem Spa, originally called “Gems Spa,” at 131 Second Avenue in 1957. The name “Gems” comes from a combination of the initial letters of Gladys, Etta, Miriam, and Silverstein-Shepard. In an interview in 1969 with New York Magazine, Ruby explained that the three ladies used in deriving the name were his wife, his partner’s ex-wife, and his partner’s current wife. “Spa” was a word that he said he picked up when he was overseas in the service. Open 24 hours a day/ 7 days a week, Gem Spa has long been a cultural destination in the East Village. It is said to have invented the quintessential New York drink–– egg cream! Many famous beat poets like Jack Kerouac, among others, got their egg cream-fill here in the 1950s. By the 1960s and 1970s, Gem Spa became a hippie hangout and well-known for its wide selection of underground newspapers. Long-time customer Patti Smith and the New York Dolls shot their debut album cover in front of the shop in 1973. Jean-Michel Basquiat also named one of his major works after Gems Spa in 1982. The shop is currently run by Ray Patel, an immigrant from Gujarat state in India, who bought the business in 1986. Despite change in ownership, Gem Spa continues to make the original egg cream recipe. According the New York Times, Patel learned the recipe, "including the secret stirring motions that create a frothy head resembling beaten egg whites, from the previous owner (Italian), who learned it from the first owner (Jewish)."

100 Third Avenue Building Date : 1837-39/2012 alt. Original Use : Industrial Original Owner : Ebenezer Pray Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations Formerly a four-story, 19th-century building, the facade was completely refaced and an extensive rooftop addition was built between 2009 and 2012. The now seven-story building features a metal facade. In the past this lot held many different functions. In the 1830s, it composed part of was a factory owned by Ebenezer Pray along with Lots 28 and 29. The lots were divided by 1865 and Lot 30 was used as a saloon. By 1899, it was converted into lofts and a concert hall. During the 1900s, different theater companies occupied the space: first the Comet, and then the Lyric Theater in 1936. In the 1960s-70s, it was called the Jewel Theater, known for playing all-male films. In the 1980s it was the Bijou, which played XXX fares until city officials had it closed in 1989.

108 Second Avenue Building Date : 1908, 1916 (alt) Original Use : Commercial/Institutional Original Owner : Hebrew Free Loan Association Original Architect : Max Muller (1908), Raphael Prager (1916) Description & Building Alterations This four-story with mezzanine building was originally erected in 1908 by and for the Hebrew Free Loan Association (HFLA). The present limestone facade probably dates from the 1916 alteration when a new front wall was installed. It features a granite water table, double-height Doric pilasters at base, a narrow limestone cornice with frieze above the second story, bracketed and pedimented window lintels at the third and fourth stories, and a denticulated roof cornice. The historic frieze reading “Hebrew Free Loan Association” is now covered by signage reading “Self Reliance F.C.U.”

72 St. Marks Place Building Date : 1845, 1932 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : William H. Webb(1845), Stuyvesant Neighborhood House(1932) Original Architect : Unknown(1845), Edward I. Shire & Brian Baylinson(1932) Description & Building Alterations Originally portions of lot 5 and lot 6, the current building was constructed in 1932 combining two four-story houses constructed in 1845. In 1932 the Stuyvesant Neighborhood House converted the two houses into one, based on the settlement house already located on the then Lot 6. The basement and first floor were used as janitors’ quarters and social hall, the upper floors as club rooms and the top floor as leaders’ living room. All historic features have been stripped as the facade has been heavily altered since 1932.

Grace Church ca. 1893 Completed in 1846, Grace Church in New York is one of the earliest examples of Gothic revival architecture in New York City. Designed by James Renwick, Jr. at the age of twenty three, the building and its campus hold three celebrated distinctions: New York City Landmark, National Register of Historic Places, and National Historic Landmark. Grace Church remains an active Episcopal congregation, with worship throughout the week and abundant opportunities for service and fellowship. Its landmark buildings feature designs by Renwick, a renovation and extension by Heins & La Farge, decoration by Tiffany, windows by Clayton & Bell, along with many other celebrated artisans. The Bicentennial Organ, Opus 65, one of the finest instruments in the city, was completed in September 2013 by Taylor & Boody of Staunton, VA. It's comprised of 97 ranks and over five thousand pipes. Throughout the last decade, Grace Church has undergone significant interior restoration, including the Te Deum window rising above the altar and chancel at the front of the church. In the summer of 2017, the entire expanse of the high ceiling was restored to its original condition. Taken together, this important work will ensure that Grace Church lives on as a Greenwich Village landmark for generations to come.

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.

Samuel S. Cox Statue, 1891. Louise Lawson's sculpture of Congressman Samuel S. Cox stands eighth feet tall on an eleven-foot tall pedestal and depicts Cox gesturing towards Congress. The passionate orator stood at the triangle between Fourth Avenue and Lafayette Street, just behind the present uptown 6 train station entrance. Cox was known as the "letter-carriers' friend," championing legislation that led to paid benefits for postal employees. The statue was funded by the U.S. Postal Service workers - in fact, the monument credits mail carriers from 188 cities for their contributions. Upon the unveiling of the statue, the New York Tribune wrote: "The likeness is not a good one." The New York Times pondered if it would ever be regarded as a work of art. The Sun's Guide was more direct with its criticism, calling Lawson's work " a stiff, inartistic affair." When Lafayette Street was extended, the Cox statue was moved to Tompkins Square Park, close to Seventh Street and Avenue A. His back is positioned squarely towards the park.

97 Third Avenue. May 18, 1934. 97 Third Avenue has been run by Yuko Nose (pronounced no-ZAY) for the past five years. Before that, she had a clothing store, Air Market, in the same space for 15 years. Originally from Tokyo, Nose has lived in New York City for three decades, now calling Greenpoint home. As to why she switched from selling clothing to objets d’art, she said: “I got bored.”

72 East 7th Street Building Date : 1897 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Jos. L. Buttenwieser Original Architect : George Frederick Pelham Description & Building Alterations The six-story tenement was built in 1896-97. Designed by architect George Frederick Pelham, it was constructed as part of a row of buildings at Nos. 70-74 East 7th Street for owner Joseph L. Buttenwieser. The three buildings share a very similar facade design; many buildings within the area designed by Pelham feature identical or almost identical facades. No. 72 features a brick facade with masonry window lintels, some pedimented, some in round-arched shape, and corbelled balconettes at the fifth story window openings. The entrance is enframed in an arched opening with a mask keystone, flanked by marble Corinthian columns.

156 Second Avenue, June 25, 1934. Second Avenue showing the old five-story Stuyvesant and the new buildings occupying the site of the Baptist Mission Society, the Second Avenue Baptist Church, and the New York Historical Society. Cemented into the pavement at No. 156 Second Avenue is a Hollywood Walk of Fame–style memorial. The memorial is a tribute to Yiddish theater stars of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was put here in 1984 by the Second Avenue Deli to commemorate the Lower East Side's glorious past as the "Jewish Rialto." In the early decades of the 20th century, a vibrant Yiddish theatre scene blossomed on the Lower East Side. Centered at Second Avenue and the Bowery, New York’s “Yiddish Broadway” offered dramas, comedies, and musicals that entertained and inspired thousands. In 1984, Second Avenue Deli owner Abe Lebewohl installed, in the sidewalk outside his beloved restaurant, a memorial to honor the stars of this once-thriving Jewish theater scene. In the style of Hollywood Boulevard, Lebewohl embedded two rows of granite stars bearing the names of the best and brightest Jewish performers. Over 30 Jewish artists were memorialized in this way. There is one plaque of Abraham Goldfaden. According to his 1908 obituary in the New York Times, Goldfaden was the founder of Yiddish theater. Luckily, the Walk of Fame remained despite the Deli's closure in 2006. But now this civic tribute is deteriorating. Friends of the Abe Lebewohl Yiddish Walk of Fame is working to promote the history and culture of Yiddish Theatre and the neighborhood inspired by the granite stars first embedded in the sidewalk of Second Avenue by restauranteur Abe Lebewohl.

8th Street, at the intersection of Fourth Avenue, Astor Place, and the northern end of Lafayette Street, 1931. The building at right is the Bible House of the American Bible Society. Constructed in 1853 the six-story building occupied a full city block and included a salesroom, a modern printing facility, and a technologically advanced department for book binding. The first cast iron framed building in the city, the facility produced tens of millions of bibles in various languages. This headquarters along with the move of the New York Mercantile Library to a nearby building, attracted other publishing firms, libraries, and bookstores to the area, which became a sort of 'Book Row.' The Bible House was demolished in 1956, and signaled the beginning of the end for the literary and publishing firms in the neighborhood. It was replaced by the Cooper Union Engineering Building, which itself was replace by a 13-story new glass facade building in 2013.

Entrance to the Stuyvesant Polyclinic, ca. 1975. Designed in the neo-Italian Renaissance style by William Schickel and constructed between 1883 and 1884, the German Dispensary served the medical needs of the neighborhood's poorest citizens first as the Ottendorfer Clinic and then Deutsche Poliklinik. Temporarily renamed the Stuyvesant Polyclinic during the anti-German sentiment of the First World War, the named was permanently changed during the Second World War. A clinic remained in the building until 2006. Purchased for $13 million, it underwent a massive interior and exterior renovation, uncovering and restoring original stained glass long cemented over. Today the building is the home of the Gehl Institute, a global urban design and policy organization.

"Taken from above and across Broadway of Grace Church in the snow at 11th Street with adjacent courtyard and parish house," 1902.

Peter Cooper monument, Cooper Square, ca. 1975. This bronze statue, enthroned under a marble and granite pedestal and canopy, was designed by Augustus Saint-Gardens in collaboration with Stanford White. Completed in 1894 and unveiled in 1897, this collaborative design reflects an inspired synthesis of the two artistic disciplines characterizing the Beaux-Arts tradition. Saint-Gardens, a student at this institution offering free instruction in the sciences and art, admired its heroic founder and chose to memorialize his legacy as an American industrialist, inventor, and philanthropist. After years of wear to the bronze patina and marble from corrosion, oxidation, cracks, pigeon droppings, and vandalism, MAS led the original restoration in 1987 with a grant from Cooper Union, 20th Century Fox Foundation, and Con Edison.

McSorley's Old Ale House Shortly before the Civil War, John McSorley, an Irish Quaker from Omagh, County Tyrone, founded "McSorely's Old House at Home" at 15 East Seventh Street near Cooper Union. About 1908, McSorley changed the name to "McSorley's Old Ale House, " which was consistent with McSorley's prohibition on the sale of hard liquor. The rich, golden-brown ale sold in McSorley's came from the Fidelio Brewery on First Avenue. During the late nineteenth century, its diverse clientele included Irish and German immigrants as well as local politicians and Wall Street financiers. The back room, warmed by a fireplace and ornamented with assorted odd clocks and artifacts, was used by McSorley for philosophizing sessions with patrons as well as for on-the-house beefsteak parties during the winter months. The saloon modified its long-standing otto "Good ale, raw onions, and no ladies" in 1970 , when the New York State Supreme Court ordered its ban on women to be lifted. McSorley's remains in business today.

103 Second Avenue Building Date : 1868 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Nicholas Soebeler Original Architect : Julius Boekell Description & Building Alterations Constructed in 1868, this now five-story corner building was three separate buildings. In 1876, the roof was raised by two feet and in 1922 the buildings were combined and the corbeled brick cornice likely dated to this time.

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.

346 East 13th Street Building Date : 1903 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Isidore Gottlieb Original Architect : Sass & Smallheiser Description & Building Alterations This new-law tenement building was completed in 1903 by architects Sass & Smallheiser for owner Isidore Gottlieb. The building housed 25 families. In 1910 a water closet was added by the then-owner Aaron Gottlieb and architect Harry Zlat. In 1914 the front wall beyond the building line was removed and rebuilt behind the property line. The present building is six stories in height, six bays wide, and clad in brick with a rusticated stone clad first floor. The symmetrical front elevation has segmental and round arched openings at the fist floor with scrolled keystones and a centered entry with a portico. The portico features an entablature with modillions and is supported by columns with folliated capitals. Stone ornament in the upper floors include quoins, lintels, and sills, and thin cornices between the second and third floors, as well as the fifth and sixth floors. The sixth floor has round arched windows. Unfortunately, the cornice at the parapet has been removed

Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Arts was founded in 1859. The institution began as a night school hosting courses in architectural drafting and the applied sciences, also hosting day-time classes in the Female School of Design instructing women in then-new technologies such as photography, telegraph, and typewriting. Peter Cooper's humble beginnings inspired a pedagogical model that offered working-class men and women upward mobility, at the same time instilling a sense of social responsibility that would create highly active citizens.

59 Copper Square, ca. 1975 Completed in 1867 by the architect Carl Pfeiffer, the French Second Empire building was constructed for the Metropolitan Savings Bank. The corner plot has two impressive facades, which, given the width of Cooper Square and the open plaza across the intersection, can "be advantageously viewed at the same time," (according to the 1969 LPC designation report). In 1937 the building was sold to the First Ukrainian Evangelical Pentecostal Church, a Ukrainian-language parish. In 1960, though a merger, the church became the First Ukrainian Assembly of God, which it remains today.

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.

125 First Avenue Building Date : 1855 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Joseph Wood Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This five-story tenement building was originally erected in 1855, together with the buildings at 127 and 129 First Avenue. The present facade features bracketed cornice, molded window lintels and simple rectangular sills. The storefronts have been reconfigured multiple times during alterations in 1885, 1913, and 1942.

184 Second Avenue Building Date : 1849-50 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Abram Voorhis Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This three-bay wide, five-story tenement was originally erected in 1849-50. The front wall on the first and second floors was rebuilt during an alteration in 1919. Part of the second story was occupied by a factory in the mid-20th century. Its front portion was extended to the building line in 1953. Many of the historic details have been lost, including the bracketed cornice.

When McSorley’s Old Ale House opened its doors for business in 1854, Franklin Pierce was president, the Civil War was still a decade away, and lunch was free to patrons.

East 9th Street. Street Bridge, Wanamaker Building, 1923. Called the "Bridge of Progress" this sky bridge connected the 1862 Stewart department store building (which became a Wanamaker store in 1896) and the 1907 Wanamaker "Annex" Building between 8th and 9th Streets. These two buildings were lavish shopping destinations for the first half of the 20th century. In 1954 the store closed and the older north building was set to be demolished but the interior and sky bridge were first destroyed by a fire 1956.

Middle Collegiate Church ca. 1926 This three-to-five-story Gothic Revival-style church was built in 1891-92, by the Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. The Middle Collegiate Church is constructed entirely from Indiana limestone. Its facade is three bays wide, featuring a gabled three-story central bay, a 130-foot hexagonal limestone spire on the five-story tower of the northern bay, and another hexagonal limestone spire on the four-story southern bay. Other features include a peaked entry vestibule with pointed-arched main entrance, pointed-arched window openings, elaborate stained-glass windows which are possibly made by Tiffany, and a rusticated limestone surface.

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.”

87-91 Third Avenue | Block : 468 | Lot #1 Building Date : 1902 Original Use : Industrial Original Owner : A.C. Gale & Company Original Architect : Ballantyne & Evans Architects Description & Building Alterations Sitting on three lots on the northeast corner of Third Avenue and East 12th Street, this 5-story brick and terra cotta building combined two Pre-Law tenements located at 91 and 89 Third Avenue with a new building at 87 Third Avenue in 1902. The original two tenements and their land were originally owned by A.C. Gale & Company, as stated in the tax assessment records, and owned by the trustees of the Hamilton Fish Estate by 1902, when they were leased to Trow’s Directory Printing and Book Binding Company. Since Hamilton Fish owned the lots before buildings were erected, it is possible that his estate owned them all along. This new, large factory space was adjacent, and possibly even adjoined to, the existing factory for Trow’s Directory Printing and Book Binding Company at 201-213 East 12th Street. Within the newly expanded factory and office space, the company was able to print and bind its directories for an ever-growing city. It likely occupied these two buildings until the mid-1950s when the Third Avenue portion was converted into apartments and shops and the East 12th Street building was leased out to another industrial manufacturer. For more information about directories and their role in early New York City history, click on the NYPL Direct Me NYC link on the side of the page… The newly conjoined three buildings on Third Avenue were originally 5-stories tall and designed in the English Neo-Classical style by Myron E. Evans of Ballantyne & Evans Architects. Today, the brick building contrasts the white terra-cotta details such as the quoins and the classically inspired splayed lintels. The original entrance to the building on East 12th Street features a triangular pediment and classical columns. Originally, the building had a cornice in the Greek style with block modillions and dentils. The sixth floor was likely added in the mid-1980s. In 2014 this building and its adjoining one at 87-91 Third Avenue were restored and the owners, the Manocherian Brothers and the architects of the restoration, Thomas Fenniman, Christopher Rome and Karl Vinge of Thomas A. Fenniman, Architect were recipients of a 2015 Village award by GVSHP for this restoration.

April 17th kicks off NYC's Immigrant Heritage Week as the day when Ellis Island set its record for processing immigrants. In celebration of this day and the many different ethnic immigrant groups that have come to the Lower East Side / East Village over the years we will walk in their footsteps and see what they saw with the Urban Archive app as our guide. On this walk, we will explore the sites together and meet with some of the local business owners whose paths brought them to the Village, creating the landscape we see today.

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.

McSorley's Old Ale House ca. 1978 When McSorley’s Old Ale House supposedly opened its doors for business in 1854, Franklin Pierce was president, the Civil War was still a decade away, and lunch was free to patrons. The only significant change to the motley customers happened in 1970 when McSorley’s was forced by the courts to admit women. After that, the motto was amended from “Good Ale, Raw Onions, and No Ladies” to “good Ale and Raw Onions.” McSorley’s, in every other way, has not changed. When pictures were put on the wall sin the 1800s, they stayed there, even as other items were added in the intervening years. The souvenirs helped draw tourists and visitors to McSorley’s even more than the ale and onions with saltine crackers. On permanent display, today you can find everything from theater and sports memorabilia to the chair of Peter Cooper, the founder of Cooper Union, a mug that Cooper engraved with an ice pick, and flags, cartoons, clipping, and photographs. McSorley’s has had a very diverse crowd, and it has attracted numerous celebrities, artists, political figures, and more. Four presidents, including Lincoln and Clinton, have stopped in for a drink at the bar; Brendan Behan had a favorite seat by the fire; John Sloan painted pictures of the bar at least four times (one of which is in the Whitney Museum’s permanent collection); e.e. cummings has a poem about McSorley’s; and New Yorker columnist Joseph Mitchell wrote a famous article about the ale house in 1940 called “The Old House at Home.” Countless other notables have stopped in over the years, and some continue to do so today.

63 Fourth Avenue Building Date: Mid-19th c./1927 alt. Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Unknown Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations Lot 13 is a modern style building with a light panel design. Although the current building’s construction date is unknown, an alteration permit indicates it was used as a store and dwelling in 1927. Permits issued in 1954 and 1955 suggest that the building mainly consisted of stores and showrooms.

105 Second Avenue, ca. 1985. In 1968, the rock promoter Bill Graham bought a run-down movie theater built in the 1920s as a Yiddish theater, and renamed it the Fillmore East, after his Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. In its short-lived existence, Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead, Miles Davis, Joe Cocker, Crosby Stills, Nash & Young, Derek & the Dominos, King Crimson, Jefferson Airplane, Led Zeppelin, and Frank Zappa all played the venue, and dozens of live albums were recorded there. After a few other incarnations, the theater was gutted and it became apartments. The lobby is now an Apple Bank.

120 East 12th Street, ca. 1975. The parish of St. Ann's was established in 1852 in the fashionable neighborhood near Bond Street, in what is now NoHo. The church began a habit of occupying churches that had been constructed for other, earlier congregations when they moved into a sanctuary on on East 8th Street, opposite Lafayette Place. In the 1860 the congregation had outgrown their space and also wished to constructed a school. The parish purchased the plot at 120 East 12th Street, which included a building constructed in 1847 for a Christian church, which had subsequently been converted to a synagogue. St. Ann's retained the original 1847 facade but demolished the rest of the structure to build their own church and an adjacent school. Dedicated on New Year’s Day, 1871, the church was a spectacular French Gothic style church, a fitting venue for one of the wealthiest congregations in the city. Over the next century the church remained a vibrant part of the community, becoming a shrine in 1929 (they held a relic of St. Ann, a bit of her finger bone). Re-established as St. Ann’s Armenian Rite Catholic Cathedral in the early 1980s, it was one of the last churches to have traditional, pre-Vatican II, Latin masses. The Archdiocese announced their intention to close the church and sell the property in 2003 and by the following year the doors were shut. Despite the efforts of preservationists and the community, the Landmarks Preservation Commission declined to designate the building. The lot was sold in 2005 with plans drawn up for a new 26-story NYU dorm. In the end all but the facade was demolished (supposedly as a concession to the preservationists) and the new tower was constructed. In the shadow of the tower is the disembodied front of the more than century and half old church.

The Renwick, 808 Broadway, ca. 1978. Named for James Renwick, Jr., the celebrated architect of Grace Church, this mixed-use Gothic Revival building was designed by Renwick’s firm — Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell — in 1887. Renwick himself is unlikely to have been involved in the design, which features repeated arch motifs echoing the facade of Grace Church next door. Over the years, the Renwick’s tenants included a variety of clothiers and manufacturers of consumer goods, with a storefront available at street level (in recent years it has been occupied by a Halloween-themed costume store). In 1981, the building was converted for residential use.

31 St. Mark’s Place Building Date : 1833/1874 alt. Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Thomas E. Davis Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations Prolific real estate developer of St. Mark’s Place, Thomas E. Davis built this three-story row house in 1833. This stretch of Eighth Street property was purchased from Peter Stuyvesant and had recently been part of his Bouwerie before being converted into spacious homes on large lots. The brick building was tenementized in 1874 when it was enlarged to its current size. The building then housed two families per floor and was owned by J. Metcalfe. On a hot night in June 1897, a large fire broke out in this building and 18 families barely escaped with their lives. The fire started on the first floor and spread quickly via the hallway stair. Hook & Ladder No. 3 rescued many of the residents. The Old Law tenement building features a historic cornice and pedimented lintels above the second-floor windows.

88-90 Second Avenue Building Date : 1903-04 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Julius Weinstein Original Architect : Bernstein & Bernstein Description & Building Alterations This six-story new law tenement and store building was constructed in 1903-04, designed by architect Bernstein & Bernstein for owner Julius Weinstein. The building facade features pedimented, curved, and splayed window lintels, balconettes with urns, elaborate spandrels, and a bracketed cornice with swags underneath. The entrance facing Second Avenue is enclosed in an arched portico, with attached Corinthian columns, a foliated keystone, scrolled brackets, and frieze panels. The building has an ornate wrought-iron fire escape.

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.

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.

93-105 East 4th Street | Block : 446 | Lot #48 Building Date : 1929 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : 99 East 4th Street, Inc. Original Architect : Gronenberg & Leuchtag Description & Building Alterations This six-story apartment building with store space was erected in 1929. It replaced a five-story brick tenement, owned by Loew’s Theatre Inc. It was to be occupied by a store on the ground floor and dwellings above. This building features patterned and projecting brickwork, quoins enframing the windows, arched window lintels, carvings and a perforated parapet on the facade. It was originally owned by the 99 East 4th Street, Inc., which also owned a building of similar style but smaller in size at No. 74 Second Avenue on this block. Upon conversion into condominiums, it was assigned the new lot number 7502.

86 Second Avenue Building Date : 1874 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : John McCullough Original Architect : Johnathan A. Remer Description & Building Alterations This five-story Italianate tenement building was constructed in 1874 at the cross of Second Avenue and East 5th Street. The ground floor has held a cafe/restaurant since the building’s construction. The Wiener Cafe House occupied the ground level in the late 19th century (see sidebar). Its facade features a modillioned cornice, rusticated brownstone quoins at the building corners, molded galvanized-iron window lintels and bracketed sills. The storefront underwent a major alteration in 1928. A new residential entrance has been cut through the East 5th Street facade and the historic entrance with entablature on the same facade was converted into the storefront.

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.

Located in the NoHo Historic District, this full block building at 770 Broadway was built in the Renaissance Revival style and was originally home to the department store, Wanamaker’s and its warehouse when this stretch of Broadway was a bustling commercial center at the beginning of the 20th century.

125-127 East 4th Street Building Date : 1903 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Hillman & Golding Original Architect : Sass & Smallheiser Description & Building Alterations This six-story building was constructed in 1903 for stores on the first floor and dwellings on the upper floors for 28 families. Architects Sass & Smallheiser designed the building for Hillman & Golding. Its facade features projecting side bays, elaborate window enframements, ornamental beltcourses, a bracketed cornice with pediments above the side bays, and entrance enframements with a door hood. Upon conversion into condominiums, the new lot number is 7501.

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.

Community Synagogue Center, ca. 1970-1990. The Renaissance Revival style church on Sixth Street was originally built in 1847 by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Matthew. A few members of the St. Matthew's congregation organized a new church called Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Mark, which rented space in this building for a number of years. In 1858 St. Mark's had secured the funds to purchased the church for themselves. In 1904, while on a summer time outing more than 1000 members of the congregation were killed when the General Slocum steamboat caught fire. On its way to a picnic area on Long Island, the boat caught fire as it passed 90th Street and was about to enter the choppy water of the Hell Gate near Astoria. The fire quickly grew, fueled by straw, oily rags, and lamp oil. The captain was not notified until more than 10 minutes after the fire was discovered. And while he had the opportunity to run the ship aground, he chose to continue upriver which fanned the already out of control flames. The safety equipment on board, including fire hoses, safety vests and boats, were mostly useless. Many passengers attempted to jump overboard, but drowned in the choppy water, as they did not known how to swim or were hampered by heavy clothing. Though the church would remain functioning for the next few decades, the congregation was devastated. Those who survived left the area downtown known as Kleindeutschland (“Little Germany”) and moved uptown to Yorkville. In 1946 St, Mark's officially merged with and moved uptown to the Zion Church on the Upper East Side. In 1940 the church building became an Orthodox synagogue called the Community Synagogue Center. In the early 1980s the synagogue took on the activities of the East Side Hebrew Institute, and the building has since been called Community Synagogue Max D. Raiskin Center.

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.

57 First Avenue | Block : 445 | Lot #33 Building Date : 1869 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Henry Eisner Original Architect : Bruno W. Burger & Son Description & Building Alterations This five-story pre-law tenement was constructed in 1869, designed by architect Bruno W. Burger & Son for owner Henry Eisner. A new sixth floor and bulkhead floor were added in 2006 by Issac & Stern Architects. The historical cornice, window lintels and sills have been removed.

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.

Van Tassell and Kearney Auction Ring ca. 1910 Did you know that 126 East 13th Street is believed to be the last surviving horse and carriage auction mart building in New York City? It was threatened with demolition until GVSHP got the Landmark Preservation Commission to hold an emergency hearing on landmarking the building on September 7, 2006, which started the long path toward designation of the building as an official New York City Landmark. A once-common building type in New York, these marts are distinguished by their high central halls, where horses were paraded around on rings for potential buyers to review. This particular survivor also has an unusually distinguished history. It was built in 1903 by Jardine, Kent, and Jardine, one of the era’s most distinguished architectural firms. According to contemporary reports in the New York Times, in the mart’s early years “the Belmonts and the Vanderbilts and other families transacted their horse affairs” there. Later, the building was converted to a machine shop, and there according to the New York Times during World War II women were taught “assembly and inspection work, the reading of blueprints, and various mechanical aspects needed in defense industries.” Most recently, the building served as the studio of Frank Stella, one of the 20th century’s most notable and influential artists. Few buildings in New York could be said to have had such a distinguished history, intersecting with so many key phases of our city’s development and transformation.

Cooper Union This building was specially designed to house Peter Cooper's great philanthropy- a trade school for boys in New York who could not otherwise afford such specialized training. It is notable for the early use of rolled-iron sections produced by Cooper, Hewitt & Co. at Trenton Jersey- Cooper's own rolling mills. Cooper put off the completion of the school to roll beams for Astor's new library on Lafayette Street and for Harper & Brothers' publishing house on Franklin Square.

91 First Avenue Building Date : 1865-1866 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Heirs of Stephen Whitney Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This five-story with basement tenement was built in 1865-66 by the heirs of Stephen Whitney, who purchased many properties on this block in 1825. The facade features a bracketed cornice with frieze, arched window lintels, bracketed sills and a cornice above the first story. The entrance is on the first floor.

229 East 10th Street Building Date : 1889 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Charles & Aug. Ruff Original Architect : Schneider & Herter Description & Building Alterations This four-bay wide, five-story tenement was erected in 1889 and designed by architects Schneider & Herter. It was originally built for 21 families, including one in the basement. The building facade features a bracketed cornice with elevated center piece and a brick round arch and projecting pier below, elaborate foliate beltcourses and decorations, patterned brickwork, round-arched window openings at the third story with keystones, ornamented panels, and segmental-arched window openings with figural keystones at the first story. The entrance is set on a stoop, flanked by short Corinthian columns supporting a round brick arch with tiled spandrels and a bracketed door hood on top.

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…

St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery Occupying what is often described as the oldest site of continuous worship in Manhattan, this church as seen today embodies a series of additions in various styles of architecture, made over a considerable period of years. The main body of the church is basically Georgian, while the steeple is Greek Revival and the cast-iron porch is Italianate.

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.

100 East 12th Street ca. 1925 This 12-story terra cotta and brick building was completed in 1920. It was designed by Starrett & Van Vleck Architects as manufacturing lofts for the International Tailoring Company with a retail ground floor. In 1938, an adjoining 3-story building on the northeast corner of the lot was demolished by the W.P.A. and turned into a loading dock. In 1955, the dock gave way to a parking lot. Starrett and Van Vleck became known for their designs of department stores, including those buildings for Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Lord & Taylor (their first department store commission, which is now a designated New York City Landmark).

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.

19 St. Marks Avenue ca. 1942 One of the many wonderful things about the East Village is the fascinating layers of history that convey the evolution of the neighborhood. The buildings at 19-23 St. Mark’s Place are an excellent example of how the East Village has changed over time from a wealthy merchants neighborhood to a landing spot for immigrants, to the launch pad for numerous counterculture and artistic movements. Where else would one find a building which had been townhouses for wealthy families, a ballroom, a gangster hangout, a Polish wedding chapel, and a performance venue with the Velvet Underground as the house band? The buildings at 19-23 St. Marks Place have been altered over the years diluting the handsome architecture of the original designs. They were built as three separate rowhouses in the early 1830s by real estate developer Thomas E. Davis who constructed many of the homes on this block of St. Marks Place. This undated photo at left gives a sense of how impressive the buildings were. We can also see the buildings’ resemblance to two New York City Landmarks in the same block, the Hamilton-Holly House at 4 St. Marks Place (a Federal house which GVSHP helped get landmarked in 2003) and the Daniel Le Roy House at 20 St. Marks Place. These early buildings are truly a rarity and unfortunately many are often targets for development. Reflecting the changing demographics of the neighborhood in 1870, the buildings at 19 and 21 St. Marks Place were acquired by the Arion Society, a German music club, one of many that emerged in the East Village as it developed into Kleindeustchland, or Little Germany. When the Arion Society moved uptown in 1887 all three buildings were purchased by George Erhet and combined into community halls and ballrooms as Arlington Hall. Arlington Hall hosted everyone from Theodore Roosevelt, when he was a NYC Police Commissioner, to William Randolph Hearst. One of its most infamous incidents occurred on January 6, 1914 when there was a mob shootout between Jewish mobsters led by Benjamin “Dope Benny” Fein and Italian gangster Jack Sirocco’s crew. In 1920 the buildings were acquired by the Polish National Home or Polski Dom Narodowy, a community meeting hall and restaurant. The building began to transform again as the Beat Generation took root in the Village in the 1950s and 1960s. A performance space was opened in part of the basement that became a dance venue known as The Dom that attracted mostly black patrons. In an odd twist of “upstairs/downstairs” a short time later in 1966 Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey rented the upstairs space to open a psychedelic performance venue known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable with The Velvet Underground as the house band. Under new management, it reopened as the Electric Circus, a chic bohemian nightclub that drew more than 3,000 people to its opening night, according to contemporary coverage in The Village Voice. As evidence of its “boho chicness,” the interior pictured below, was designed to resemble a 1960s version of a Bedouin tent. So what happened to the Electric Circus? One could say it fell victim to the increasingly radicalized activity centered in the East Village in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In March 1970 a bomb was set off in the middle of the dance floor, injuring dozens. Though unconfirmed the bombing was attributed to the Black Panther Party. The club never regained its chic reputation and closed in 1971. In the 1980s and 1990s, the building was the All Craft Center, an addiction treatment and housing facility run by local interfaith minister Joyce Hartwell. A 1998 article from the New York Times recounted Hartwell’s unrealized plans to add a large tower to the facility in the adjoining rear lot. Not only were Hartwell’s plans unrealized, due to the group’s financial difficulties in 2000 the building was sold to a developer.

197 Second Avenue Building Date : 1878 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Jacob Schmitt Original Architect : William Jose Description & Building Alterations A pair of twin five story buildings, 199 and 197 Second Avenue were built in 1878 as French Flats designed by William Jose. The buildings each had one flat per floor, for a total of four families in each building. This class of buildings were some of the earliest types of middle-class apartment housing seen in New York City and unlike tenements, they were marketed to and attracted a wealthier clientele. Little now remains of the original detailing of this building other than the metal cornice. The brownstone facade, which has been stuccoed and painted, would have once had projecting window lintels and sills and a projecting entry surround atop a raised-stoop. The stoop was removed in 1915 and commercial space was put into the new first floor. From 1941 until 2008 the first floor was home to Jade Mountain, a Chinese restaurant that was a hallmark of the East Village. It was here that singer, songwriter, and civil rights activist Pete Seeger held his first gig, at a lunch for refugees of the Spanish Civil War, in 1941.