A round-up of our favorite pics of your dads on Urban Archive.

City Lodging House, 23rd Street and First Avenue ca. 1895. Attempting to address homelessness, The Municipal Lodging and House Act, passed in 1886, encouraged the city to operate lodging houses for those left with other recourse, In 1893, another type of housing emerged which gave men a place to stay so long as they performed labor, such as chopping wood or other similar tasks. This house, located at 398-400 First Avenue, gave a night's stay to almost 2,000 men, women, and children from March 17 through 23rd, as reported in Charities, a "Weekly Review of Local and General Philanthropy."

Cooper-Hewitt House, Gramercy Park, June 1925. In 1848, Peter Cooper left his longtime residence at Fourth Avenue and 28th Street (then a busy industrial area and slaughterhouse district), for a new mansion in the Gramercy Park neighborhood. Cooper shared his 35-room residence with his extended family, including son-in-law and future Mayor of New York City Abram Hewitt. Hewitt had befriended Cooper’s son Edward Cooper — himself the city’s 83rd Mayor — while traveling abroad in Europe. The Cooper-Hewitt bond was cemented when both me survived the capsizing of their return ship off of Cape May. Hewitt would go on to marry Edward’s sister, Sarah Cooper. Hewitt’s family continued to reside at 9 Lexington Avenue after Peter Cooper’s 1883 death, and even enlisted Gramercy Park neighbor Stanford White to design updates to the structure. The building was eventually replaced by a 13-story apartment building, completed in 1951.

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

New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital. October 7, 1911. The hospital at Second Avenue and 20th Street opened in May, 1894, with a reception attended by friends and benefactors of the institution. The New York Times described the new facilities: “Physicians who have visited the great hospitals of Europe pronounce the new building as second to none In Its equipments for advanced medical work,” also noting that “the baby incubator, in which there was a baby, was a source of great interest.” The hospital closed in 1963, when it was rendered obsolete by the newly-completed Bellevue Hospital. The building was demolished and its site was converted to a playground for the Simon Baruch Junior High School.

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.

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.

326 East 18th Street ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1853 STYLE: Italianate No. 326 is the Western most house of a charming row of three brick Italianate residences. This low-lying, two story row is set far back from the street behind exceptionally deep front yards, a great rarity in Manhattan. This row recalls a time when the area east of Third Avenue was just beginning to be developed.

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.

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.

Samuel Tilden House ARCHITECT: Vaux & Radford DATE: 1881-84 STYLE: Victorian Gothic This building is a fine example of conservative Victorian Gothic architecture. It displays a wealth of unusual details and varicolored stones. It was once the home of an American distinguished both in the realm of politics and the world of culture and scholarship.

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.

My Archive Spring 2019 "Swings in a playground in Stuyvesant Town." —Stephen Silverman

Stuyvesant Fish House, 19 Gramercy Park South; March, 1909. In 1845, the politician and Whig Party official Samuel Johnson, built a four-story townhouse at 86 Irving Place, just south of the newly-developed Gramercy Park (the fifth floor would added by its next owner, paper merchant Horace Brooks). Just as developer Samuel Ruggles intended, Gramercy Park became a fashionable address in the latter 19th century, and attracted a set of socially prominent residents. In 1887, the house was purchased by Stuyvesant and Mamie Fish, the son of Secretary of State and New York governor Hamilton Fish. Mamie, a renowned hostess in possession of biting wit, immediately set about brining the townhouse up to her standards. The first order of business was a change of address, to the more desirable 19 Gramercy Park South. Next, the Fishes hired architect Stanford White, himself a Gramercy Park resident, to lead a thorough redesign of the interior — including a top-floor ballroom. The spectacular results were described by Brendan Gill, writing in The New Yorker in 1979, as "Unquestionably, the greatest house remaining in private hands in New York." (Some sources, including the Times' Christopher Gray insist that another architect, Sidney V. Stratton, was responsible for the redesign.) Mamie Fish, however, had her sights set on even greater things: the Fishes decamped for a new uptown mansion, also designed by White, in 1898. During the 20th century, the publicist and art collector Benjamin Sonnenberg lived at No. 19 for nearly 50 years.

Academy of Music, 1909. The Academy of Music opera house, opened in October 1854 with a production of Vincenzo Bellini’s ""Norma."" That opera house was destroyed in a May, 1866 fire. (The building pictured above is the second Academy, opened in February 1867). In 1887, the Academy of Music, no longer able to compete with the popular Metropolitan Opera uptown, was sold and to a theatrical venue. Pictured above in 1909, the marquee advertises a production of “Brewster’s Millions” starring Edward Abeles. The building was demolished in 1926. Today its site is occupied by the Consolidated Edison headquarters, a 24-story Beaux Arts skyscraper.

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).

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.

129 East 19th Street ca. 1904 Son of the author Frances Hopkinson Smith, F. Berkley Smith (1868-1931) resided and worked at this charming Gothic Revival row house near Gramercy Park, at 129 East 19th Street. Smith was an architect and practiced that profession until 1896, when he turned his attention to painting. Built originally as a stable in 1860-1861, the house still stands today under landmark protection.

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

Consolidated Edison Company Building ARCHITECT: Henry Hardenbergh DATE: 1910-14 STYLE: Classical Revival, Renaissance The Con Edison Building was constructed in stages between 1910 and 1929 for the Consolidated Gas Company, the predecessor to Consolidated Edison. Hardenbergh’s eighteen-story, classically-inspired facades feature giant segmental arches and double-story porticos at the base and rusticated limestone piers balanced by strong horizontal moldings at the upper stories and are enlivened by a rich blend of Classical Revival and Renaissance motifs.

George Bellows house (center). Ca. 1915. The painter George Bellows, known for his realist depictions of boxing matches, New York City scenes, and portraiture, purchased this Greek Revival townhouse in 1910. He renovated the building’s top floor, raising the ceiling and adding large windows to provide light for his studio.

Epiphany Branch, NYPL, 1916. Opened in 1907 and designed by the firm that worked on a large number of Carnegie libraries in New York City, Carrère and Hastings, the Epiphany Library actually dates back to the 1880s. The library was founded by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York as a part of the Cathedral Library Association in 1887. (The unique name of the branch is understandable given the religious origins of the institution.) The new Carnegie building opened in 1907 and underwent a large renovation by the WPA in 1939. In the late 1960s the community successfully blocked plans for its demolition. Originally a four bay building, as seen in this early photograph, the building had a fifth bay, set back from the street, added during substantial work in the 1980s. The addition included a new front door, which was handicap accessible, and the original door was converted into a window.

The Players ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1845 The porch of this building represents the epitome of refinement and elegance and that this handsome addition brought a new gaiety to New York City. This building was remodeled from a Gothic Revival townhouse. The very distinguished front porch of the Players with its handsome iron railings and gorgeous wrought iron lamps is the work of Stanford White.

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.

Old Stuyvesant High School 345 E. 15th Street, Manhattan 1907 Founded in 1904 and constructed between 1905 and 1907, the (former) Stuyvesant High School was one of the first high schools built after the creation of a citywide system of public secondary education. Designed by C.B.J. Snyder, the school’s innovative H-plan allowed more natural light and air into the classrooms than older designs. Featuring a distinctive façade in the Beaux-Arts style, the building was designated a New York City Landmark in 1997 and today is home to the Institute for Collaborative Education, the High School for Health Professions and Human Services and P.S. 226.

Scheffel Hall ARCHITECT: Weber & Drosser DATE: 1894-95 STYLE: German Renaissance Revival The (former) Scheffel Hall, dating from 1894-95, is a significant reminder of the German-American community known as Kleindeutschland which flourished on the Lower East Side in the last half of the nineteenth century. Scheffel Hall’s unusual and flamboyant facade, designed by the architectural firm of Weber & Drosser after the modeled of the famous Friedrichsbau at Heidelberg Castle, is one of the few examples of the German Renaissance Revival style in New York.

Beth Israel Hospital, April 4, 1929. When Beth Israel’s new, 500-bed facility opened in 1929, the thirteen-story building was the world’s tallest hospital.

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.

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.

406 East 14th Street; 413 East 13th Street Building Date : 1894-96 (No. 406), 1945 (No. 413) Original Use : Institutional Original Owner : Church of the Immaculate Conception Original Architect : Barney & Chapman (No. 406), Eggers & Higgins (No. 413) Description & Building Alterations Two buildings currently stand on this lot, both originally built and owned by the Church of Immaculate Conception. No. 406 East 14th Street, the former Grace Chapel, was designed by architect Barney & Chapman and erected in 1894 in stone and Roman brick. The mission closed in 1943, after which the complex was bought by Immaculate Conception, which had lost its 1858 Gothic Revival church during the construction of Stuyvesant Town. This building is a great example of Gothic Eclectic architecture and as such was designated as a New York City landmark in 1966 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The church consists of three major sections, a free-standing tower with clean-cut profile at center, a church section with a steep gable facing the street and an attached intimate round chapel, and two wings of three and a half stories with peaked roofs. According to the Office for Metropolitan History, the four-story building at No. 413 East 13th Street was built in 1945 as a convent and school. It features brick facing, simple window enframements, crosses at the top of the side bays, an inscription on top of the first floor, and projecting brickwork at the first and second stories.

Two storefronts on East 21st Street: Frank J Baker, Plumber; and a kosher meat and poultry shop. June 28, 1926.

Here at Urban Archive, we often focus our stories on the city streets and the public-facing architecture of the city. However, being stuck inside our apartments has given us a new appreciation for interiors so we thought we'd take a look at a diverse array of New York's interiors over the years. This particular story dives inside the homes and lives of New York's elite at the turn of the century and what their interiors meant to them.

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.

Stuyvesant Apartments, December 18, 1936. Completed in 1870, the Stuyvesant Apartments are considered New York’s first apartment building for middle-class residents (as opposed to tenement dwellings). The Victorian Gothic building was designed by Richard Morris Hunt, the celebrated architect who designed the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Fifth Avenue facade, and numerous private residences. Annual rent at the Stuyvesant Apartments was between $1,000-1,800, and tenants included the landscape architect Calvert Vaux, and Elizabeth B. Custer, the widow of General George Custer. The apartment house concept took off; soon, similar developments were planned throughout the city. The Stuyvesant, however, was demolished in 1958, making way for a new — what else — apartment building.

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.

Any opera lover in New York knows one of the best places to hear an aria (or a couple dozen) is at the Metropolitan Opera. But many may not know about its contentious beginnings! It was at 39th and Broadway where one of the greatest Gilded Age dramas played out. And it wasn't on stage!

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.

Snowstorm on Avenue A, ca. 1888. This is possibly the aftermath of Great Blizzard of 1888, a March snowstorm that lasted three days and froze transport across the Northeast. In New York City, frozen and broken telephone and telegraph lines created hazardous conditions, with exposed wires and infrastructure (poles, etc.) obstructing street and sidewalk traffic, as seen above. The building at far left (with Meltzer Bros. beer advertisement) is likely 225 Avenue A at the southwest corner of 14th Street. In the background at center is the 14th Street station of the Second Avenue El, which ran over First Avenue between Houston and 23rd Streets.

"The Tweed Ring was more than a Democratic Party scandal. William 'Boss' Tweed, leader of Tammany Hall — Manhattan's county Democratic organization — was chief architect of the scheme that embezzled millions of dollars of public funds between 1868 and 1871. Yet, Republicans also deserve a fair share of the blame... A clique of officeholders, the so-called Tammany Republicans, openly joined with the Tweed Ring during its climb to power. As early as 1868, newspapers reported 'a nice little arrangement.' The group was 'doing their best to defeat our Mayor and reelect the regular Tammany incumbent,' complained the New York Tribune. 'Perhaps this is the very way to promote Gen. Grant’s election. Do they expect to nominate him in Tammany Hall?'" For more on Tammany Hall and the Tammany Republicans, check out this article by Jeff Broxmeyer in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

Con Edison Building ca. 1983 Though situated on the north side of 14th Street, the tower of the Consolidated Edison Building looms over the East Village to its south and has served as neighborhood place marker for decades. The complex of buildings including the tower we see today actually took almost two decades to arrive at its final form. By the turn of the twentieth century, the headquarters of the Consolidated Gas Company (an earlier iteration of what we know today as Consolidated Edison—Con Ed) was based in a warren of buildings on Irving Place near East 15th Street. When it was decided to consolidate into a single new building, the company tasked architect Henry Hardenbergh with creating a new design. The new 12-story structure on Irving Place between East 14th and 15th Streets was completed in 1911. The company soon realized it would require additional office space, and with the purchase of addition lots on the block, expanded the building to the north and south and increased its height to 19 stories. As the report notes, “because the original twelve story section at the center of the building had not been framed to carry the weight of seven additional stories, a complicated system of trusses was designed to off-load the weight of the upper floors above the old wing onto the newer portions for the building.” An innovative exterior lighting plan was also included (see image below), but was discontinued by the 1920s. It was in the 1920s when the need for expansion came again. This time, the company gave the commission for the additions to the noted firm of Warren & Wetmore, who also designed Grand Central Terminal and Pier 54 on the Hudson. With the acquisition of more land on the block to the east, the expanded building and clock tower that we see today was begun in 1926 and not completed until 1929. Warren & Wetmore looked to the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus in Turkey for inspiration for the distinctive tower top. Throughout the new building design, imagery of urns, fire, and light are present, and was meant to reflect the company’s purpose, as well as serve as a memorial to the service and sacrifice of company workers during the First World War.

Bryant's Minstrel Hall, Later Tony Pastor's New Fourteenth Street Theatre, was the first tenant of Tammany Hall, which was dedicated on July 4, 1868. Audiences flocked there to enjoy the best in entertainment at what became the most famous vaudeville house of the eighties and nineties. It would later be renamed yet again as the Olympic Theatre

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.

A & P, Great American and Pacific Tea Company ca. 1936 Begun on Vesey Street in 1859 as a tea and coffee importer, the Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company grew into the world’s largest chain store. In 1937, there were 119 A & P’s in Manhattan and 15,500 stores nationwide. The store in Abbott’s photograph occupied the ground floor of a tenement one block east of Gramercy Park. As the window indicates, most of the store’s products were nationally advertised brands. A comparison of the image with Abbott’s photographs of ethnic groceries documents a dramatic change in modern American life. Today the store is a plumbing supply outlet.

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.

410-414 East 13th Street Building Date : 1907 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : S. Wanderman & Sons Original Architect : Henry G. Harris Description & Building Alterations This six-story brick new law tenement was erected at the same time as the three buildings at 416-426 East 13th Street. It was also designed by the same architect, Henry G. Harris, who gave these buildings similar facade designs and elements. This six-bay wide building, originally for stores and 34 families, features elaborate window surrounds with pilasters and triangular pediments, splayed lintels with keystones, and rectangular sills with ornaments. The lintels at the sixth story have been stripped and the roof cornice has been removed. Before the present building was constructed, the lot held a wagon factory.

Pretzel vendor at First Avenue and 14th Street, under the Second Avenue elevated station, ca. 1935.

"Healy’s Cafe at the corner of 18th Street and Irving Place, March 1909. The 1829 building was originally the Porter Hotel and has been home to a tavern since at least 1864. In 1899, the bar was purchased by Tom and Jon Healy, who opened Healy’s Cafe, a regular haunt of the short story author O. Henry, who lived nearby. Henry is said to have written some of his stories in the establishment, though these tales are likely apocryphal. Now known as Pete's Tavern, the restaurant has officially been in business for more 150 years. It even survived prohibition, when a flower shop served as a front for its clandestine business.

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.”

Stuyvesant High School ARCHITECT: C. B. J. Snyder DATE: 1905-07 STYLE: Beaux-Arts The (former) Stuyvesant High School was built in 1905-07 as Manhattan’s first “manual training” public school for boys, one of the educational reforms brought about by William H. Maxwell, first Superintendent of Schools following the consolidation of Greater New York in 1898. The five-story building was designed by Superintendent of School Buildings C.B.J. Snyder in a Beaux-Arts style, with distinctive classically-inspired and Secessionist detail, and has an H-plan organized around light courts at the sides. The main facade on East 15th Street, clad in tan brick and limestone, is dominated by a pedimented entrance pavilion, flanked by three bays of windows on each side, while the East 16th Street facade, of red brick above a limestone base, has more restrained ornamental detail.

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

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.

National Arts Club ca. 1977 Designed by Vaux and Radford for Samuel J. Tilden, the two houses now combined at this address were executed in a scholarly version of Ruskinian Gothic. They display on the exteriors a carefully modulated banding of polychromy replete with foliated sculpture and medallions containing busts of famous authors. The interiors are very rich and to our tastes gloomy, abounding in highly original foliate carvings. There is an exquisite glass dome in the westerly house.

The Players Club ca. 1935 Originally a Gothic Revival town house, this building was purchased by Edwin Booth for his home. In 1888 he made it into a clubhouse for his actor friends. At about this time Stanford White offered his services in remodeling the interior and adding the Italian Renaissance loggia and lanterns, which provide such a handsome entrance.

A new chapter in the long Black freedom struggle took shape in New York and elsewhere following World War II. African-American New Yorkers and their allies mobilized against a range of discriminatory policies and practices, including exclusion by employers and banks, whites-only housing, segregated and unequal public schools, and controversial uses of force by police. By the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act, New York had passed anti-discrimination laws in employment and housing, and activists had staged an enormous school boycott protesting segregated schools. Yet racial discrimination remained, and that year, rioting broke out in Harlem after a white policeman fatally shot African-American teenager James Powell. Activists have continued to mobilize in response to police conduct in communities of color, as well as against city schools and housing that remain divided along racial lines.

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.

Friends Meeting House, Stuyvesant Square, ca, 1900. The Friends Meeting House and Seminary in Stuyvesant Square date to 1860. In the 1820s a schism occurred within the Society of Friends in New York. When the larger Quaker community began accepting the then in-fashion focus on intense Bible study, a group led by Elias Hicks of Long Island defected. (Traditional Quaker practice places the utmost importance on the personal relationship and direct interaction between worshiper and deity.) The break off group, referred to as Hicksites, purchased land on what had formerly been Peter Stuyvesant's estate. In 1860 one of their own, Charles Bunting, designed and built the pictured the Meeting House and Seminary. The red brick buildings are a mix of Federal and Greek Revival styles, rendered in a simple and unassuming design. In the 1950s, more then a century after the split, the two Quaker sects reunited. Today, they continue to occupy these buildings. The Friends Seminary, a private day school, run here is the oldest continuously coeducational school in New York City. The school was founded in 1786 with funds from a $10,000 bequest by wealthy merchant Robert Murray (who the neighborhood Murray Hills named).

235-237 First Avenue; 350 East 14th Street Building Date : 1949 Original Use : Commercial Original Owner : First Federal Saving & Loan Association Original Architect : R.B. O'Connor & W.H. Kiham Jr. Description & Building Alterations Built in 1949, this five-story building was originally the First Federal Savings & Loan Bank, designed by R.B. O’Conner & W.H. Kiham Jr. The building housed a vault, offices, banking hall, and a store front. In 1951, two dental offices were housed in the upper floors of the building. It is five stories in height, three bays on the First Avenue elevation and five bays at the East 14th Street elevation. It is clad in brick in a Flemish stretcher bond. There are limestone classical details and belt courses above and below the top story. A limestone cornice caps the first floor. There are stone lintels with keystones at the second floor. The corner of the building is chamferred and the main entry is at that corner. The entry features a classical surround with pediment and half columns. Some of the first floor windows are arched with limestone keystones. The building no longer houses a bank; however, the name of the original tenant is carved in the limestone over the first floor.

Friends Meeting House and Seminary ARCHITECT: Charles T. Bunting DATE: 1861 These two buildings are fine brick buildings built in the style of an earlier period. They display great elegance in their simplicity and, as a pair of buildings, set off in spacious grounds, they are a positive addition to Stuyvesant Square.

Players Club, June 1925. The building that has houses the private social club, the Players Clubs (or just Players) was once Elihu Townsend's actual house. The Greek Revival townhouse was constructed in 1847 the banker, Townsend, and was purchased in 1888 by actor Edwin Booth to be the home of his passion project. Inspired by a social club for actors that he visited in London, Booth and 15 colleagues and friends (including Mark Twain and General William Tecumseh Sherman) established a social club. It was too be a place where actors "mingle \[..] with minds that influence the world." The Players is the oldest social club in New York City that remains in its original location.

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.

Palladium, ca. 1985.

"“E. 17th Street, north side, west from Third Avenue, to and across Irving Place. The low ornate structure at the right (No. 143 East) is now occupied by a Greek Orthodox Church. It was formerly Scheffel Hall, a German restaurant, owned and operated by one, William Allaire. 1938.” In 1928, the heirs of former proprietor William Allaire sold the Third Avenue beer hall to the German-American Athletic Club, while the 17th Street wing was acquired by the Greek Church of St. John the Baptist."

Empire State Building, viewed from an interior courtyard of Peter Cooper Village, September 19, 1951. City leaders, most notably Robert Moses, also encouraged middle-class, large-scale, master-planned, low-density projects. Stuyvesant Town, developed by the private company Metropolitan Life Insurance, required a massive slum clearance program paid for largely by the city. Located between 14th and 20th streets and First Avenue to Avenue C, the 80-acre site replaced the Gas House district of gas storage tanks. Planned in 1942, the first buildings opened in 1947. The buildings of Stuyvesant Town covered only 26 percent of the site and delivered 302 pp/acre. Stacking up the 8,757 apartments in 15-story buildings failed to overcome the impact of low ground coverage. The all-white residents benefited from generous apartments, private green spaces, and neighborhood retail. Sponsors carefully managed occupancy to prevent crowding. Those families lucky enough to get apartments realized that they had gotten far more than just apartments—they were living in a new, lower density urban landscape that stood apart from the city and was secured by private police. Many would stay for decades.

20th Street east of Second Avenue was in the old "gashouse district" named for the gas houses built along the East River. Berenice Abbott's photograph shows one of the remaining Con Ed tanks between First Avenue and Avenue A. Also in the distance, the Second Avenue El, which ran on First Avenue below 23rd Street.

\#345 East 15th Street, north side, showing Stuyvesant High School.

219 First Avenue; 351 East 13th Street Building Date : 1848-50/2014 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Bowen Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations While this building was originally constructed as a row house in 1849-50 for owner John Bowen, little remains of the structure except for the four story, three bay facade on First Avenue and a small part of the brick facade facing East 13th Street. In 2014, it was given a mostly new facade and a two and a half-story rooftop addition. According to tax assessment records, the original building on this site was constructed along with those on the adjacent three lots. It was home to a dry goods store in 1934.

Henry William Poor House, 1899-1901. Formerly known the Cyrus W. Field mansion, this turn of the century photo depicts 1 Lexington Avenue after renovations by the architect Stanford White (a fellow Gramercy Park resident) on behalf of its new owner, the banker Henry William Poor. Poor purchased adjacent townhouses, both previously in the Field family, in April 1899, with the intention of building a larger and more modern mansion on their site. Apparently, White was able to convince Poor to abandon his tear-down project. Instead, the architect led a comprehensive interior renovation in characteristically opulent style. Outdoors, the building’s entrance was shifted to Lexington Avenue, in order to accommodate a windowed conservatory facing the park. Poor, for whom Standard & Poor’s is named, was forced to sell the mansion and its furnishings after the 1908 failure of certain investments and the subsequent liquidation of his assets. The house was razed in 1910 to be replaced by a 12-story apartment building.

100 Third Avenue Built about 1880, the Lyric Theatre began as a restaurant and was converted into a music hall before its 1910 renovation as one of New York’s earliest motion picture houses. Originally holding 274 seats, the theater doubled its seating in 1923 in response to the growing taste for movie-going. By the 1930s, the Lyric’s clientele consisted chiefly of transients from the Bowery, a few blocks to the south, who paid ten cents to see two features (one a western), a newsreel, and a short subject.

Stuyvesant High School Front Building, ca. 1914. This 1905 building was constructed to house Stuyvesant High School. The school, which was established in 1904 as a manual training school for boys, was originally located on East 23rd Street. In 1907, the school moved into the Snyder-built Beaux-Arts building where it remained for the next 85 years. In 1919 the school, which was cultivating a reputation for excellence in math and science, began limiting admissions based on scholastic achievement, and in 1934 they implemented an entrance exam. Though Stuyvesant High School moved out in 1992 for a larger, more modern facility in Battery Park City, this building remains an educational institution. Famous alum of this school include mathematician Paul Cohen (1950), jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk (who attended in 1935 but did not graduate), actor Tim Robbins, former United States Attorney General Eric Holder, and Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent.

Stuyvesant Pear tree, N.E. corner, 13th & 3rd. Ave. This corner was once called "Pear Tree Corner' because it was believed that the first tree planted in New York City, was the pear tree planted here in 1647 by Peter Stuyvesant, the former Dutch governor of New Amsterdam.

212 East 14th Street Building Date : 1855 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Gerard Stuyvesant Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations Like its neighboring building, 212 East 14th Street was built for Gerard Stuyvesant in 1855 and was also clad in brownstone. While most of the original Neo-Grec details have been removed, the building still retains its pressed-metal cornice. Likely built as a single family or possibly two family dwelling over ground-floor shops, by 1884 the building housed five families over shops. The front-stoop was removed as a result of the widening of East 14th Street in 1911. The small, 3-bay wide fenestration was replaced with large, single openings likely in 1935 though it is hard to date them since the windows themselves have been replaced.

231-237 Second Avenue ca. 1900-1910 U.S. Senate and The W.M. Evarts are somewhat peculiar names for apartment buildings. But these two structures were called such after William Maxwell Evarts, a distinguished 19th-century lawyer, and politician. Evarts, who lived in a brownstone on the site during the 1850s when the area was quite fashionable, was Secretary of State under Rutherford B. Hayes and a United States Senator. Though Evarts would move his family out of the brownstone, he would continue to rent it and supposedly had great affection for the building. Following Evart's death, it was demolished and the pair of apartment buildings were erected. The New Yorker reported that "none of the family had anything to do with naming the buildings that are there now." Evart's grandson stated " I suppose The U.S. Senate got its name in honor of Grandfather's last public office, but the connection seems pretty thin. It was the style in those days to give apartment buildings fancy names, and the builders must have been desperate." Adding insult to injury, he added "drab-looking places, aren't they?"

223-225 Avenue A Building Date : 1951 Original Use : Commercial Original Owner : Fleetwood Syndicate Inc. Original Architect : Charles E. Greenberg Description & Building Alterations According to the Office for Metropolitan History, the new building application for this one-story commercial building was filed in 1949 and construction was completed in 1951. The storefronts have been through various alterations. In the early 20th century, this lot housed at least two five-story buildings consisting of stores and tenements.

334-336 East 14th Street Building Date: 1869-70 Original Use: Institutional Original Owner: First German Baptist Church Original Architect: Julius Boekell Description & Building Alterations This Romanesque Revival building was originally The First German Baptist Church, and later became the Ukrainian Autocephalic Orthodox Church of St. Volodymyr (1926-1962). Since 1962, the building has been home to Congregation Tifereth Israel, Town and Village Synagogue, which was founded in 1949. The religious structure, built in 1869-70 in the Rundbogenstil style, was designated a New York City Landmark in 2014.

Saint George’s Church ARCHITECT: Blesch & Eidlit DATE: 1846-56 STYLE: Romanesque Revival, Church The Saint George’s Church is one of the great examples of Romanesque Revival architecture in New York. It has characteristics which may be identified with the sturdy Romanesque architecture of South Germany. It is notable for its excellent detail and that it makes a significant contribution to the architectural beauty of Stuyvesant Square.

Grace Chapel ARCHITECT: Barney & Chapman DATE: 1894-96 STYLE: Gothic Eclectic Among its important qualities, the Grace Chapel is a superb example of Gothic Eclectic architecture. The building possesses individual distinction and character. Along with its companion buildings, the Clergy Houses, it combines to form a notable architectural composition, adding to the prestige of the neighborhood and that the building contributes a rare charm and architectural beauty to New York City.

Burning of the Second Avenue Armory, July 1863.

Academy of Music (later Palladium), 1962. On their first US tour in 1965, the Rolling Stones played at the Academy of Music, a movie palace and music venue. In 1976, The Band played the first show under the newly named Palladium. It saw a wide range of music acts, including the Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen, The Ramones, Iggy Pop, U2, Def Leppard, P. Diddy, and Lil’ Kim. From 1985 to 1997 it was a nightclub with the same name, it’s now a dormitory for NYU students.

Unique Theatre ca. 1908 Today, we think of Times Square when we think of the theatre district, but over 100 years ago, 14th Street centered around Union Square was full of theatre houses. The photo above shows what 136 East 14th Street looked like in 1908 when it was occupied by the Theatre Unique. It’s hard to believe that for 10 cents, a person could spend the day seeing several Vaudeville acts and 10 reels of the latest movies, according to Warren G. Harris at the Cinema Treasures website. Can you guess what sits in this spot now? Although the Cinema Treasures page shows the P.C. Richards store as the current building that occupies 136 East 14th Street, it is actually this NYU dormitory constructed in 1998. Far from unique, the building covers a large portion of this stretch of 14th Street and represents the non-descript designs we’ve come to expect from NYU. Taking a look back at what stood here 100 years ago, the Theatre Unique lived up to its name in design. Though not a huge structure, the large arched entrance gave the building an imposing air. When it opened as a penny arcade in 1907, this stretch of 14th Street was no stranger to entertainment venues; since about 1870, New York’s elite came to this district to see the latest live performances. Leading up to World War I, however, legitimate theatre moved northward to 23rd Street, then 34th Street, and finally 42nd Street where it still remains. The arrival of the movies gave new life to several theatres along 14th Street, and the Theatre Unique was one of the first in the city to offer movie screenings. The opulent movie house held about 800 seats, according to Cinema Treasures. New ways of attracting patrons presented itself in the form of bright lights and illuminated signs. The 1908 book, “The Illuminating Engineer” includes a chapter entitled “Light and the Moving Picture Show” by H. Thurston Owens which goes into detail about the use of electricity to draw crowds. In 1926, the Theatre Unique was demolished for the New Academy of Music, which had previously been located across 14th Street (where the landmarked Con Edison building now stands). That structure was designed by celebrated theatre architect Thomas Lamb and seated a much larger audience of 3,600.

183-189 Second Avenue Building Date : 1925-26 Original Use : Institutional Original Owner : Louis Jaffe Original Architect : Harrison Wiseman Description & Building Alterations The Yiddish Art Theater was designed for prominent Brooklyn lawyer and Jewish community leader Louis Jaffe. The historic building was constructed as an elaborate, 1,265 seat live theater for the Yiddish Art Theater company, which was directed by Maurice Schwartz. The interior was designed in the Moorish Revival style that was popular in synagogues at the time, and included a forty-foot ornamental ceiling with a spectacular Star of David in the center that is still present today. The Yiddish Art Theater housed elaborate productions from Maurice Schwartz and his troupe, including The Tenth Commandment in 1928, which featured dances by Michel Fokine and sets by Tony-award-winning Boris Aronson. The theater showcased I.J. Singer’s Yoshe Kalb in 1932. Schwartz’s loyal following and festive, imaginative plays attracted renowned guests such as Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, George Gershwin, and former New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. The building went through several names and incarnations throughout the mid-1900s, including The Stuyvesant Theater, a film exhibition house, and a stint as the East Village landmark The Phoenix Theater. In 1930, the space was occupied by Molly Picon’s Folks Theater, named for Molly Picon, one of the greatest female stars of the Yiddish stage. In 1991, the theater was restored and converted into the Village East Cinema, and in 1993 the interior and exterior were designated as landmarks by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

East 14th Street, east of the Second Avenue El station, April 18, 1917. Despite its name, the Second Avenue El tracks ran over First Avenue between Houston and 23rd Streets.