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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital ARCHITECT: William Schickel DATE: 1883-84 STYLE: Neo-Italian Renaissance This building is an exceptionally handsome building designed in a modified version of the neo-Italian Renaissance style. The extensive and imaginative use of molded terra cotta on the facade was innovative when the building was constructed. The ornament is especially Interesting for its series of portrait busts depicting famous physicians and scientists.

To celebrate the New Year, Urban Archive is looking at an eclectic mix of some of the oldest parts of our city.

133 Second Avenue Building Date : 1912 alt. Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Samuel Augenblick Co. Original Architect : H. W. Levitan Description & Building Alterations Before becoming known as a hotspot for counterculture, St. Marks Place was one of the most elite streets in the entire city when it was first built up in the 1830s by developer Thomas E. Davis. This corner building was constructed in the place of a large mansion that was sold after its first decade to Eugene Keteltas, whose family kept the mansion in the family for as long as it lasted. In 1912, after the last Keteltas has passed, a permit was filed to replace the mansion with a movie theater. Various newspaper articles claim that before its destruction, the mansion was the last remaining grand private dwelling in the neighborhood, and the final holdout from Second Avenue’s original glory days. The present building was constructed between 1912-1913 as a movie theater, offices and shops. Over the course of its life, the theater was once was home to the Negro Ensemble Company, launching such actors as Phylicia Rashad, Laurence Fishburne, and Angela Bassett.

Beginning in the mid 19th century, Germans began steadily immigrating to the United States of America. By 1855, New York City had the third-highest population of Germans of any city in the world. As with many recent immigrants, New York's Germans banded together to form a neighborhood called Kleindeutschland or little Germany.

New York City has three public library systems: the New York Public Library (in Manhattan, The Bronx and Staten Island), the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Borough Public Library. The reason for these independent systems was due to their origins prior to the 1898 consolidation of the five boroughs. The City of New York’s first free circulating library was established in 1878, even though multiple bills were passed by the New York Legislature for such a public service beginning in the 1830s. Over those decades, private libraries served as research facilities for scholars and students, but none were open to the general public. In 1880, the New York Free Circulating Library (NYFCL) was established, operating out of several rooms at 36 Bond Street and funded by private donors. The NYFCL was formally incorporated in 1884, and its first building opened at 135 Second Avenue (site 1). Between 1884 and 1901, 11 branches were built, consisting of 1.6 million volumes. In 1901, steel baron Andrew Carnegie retired and devoted his energy and wealth to the development of libraries throughout the English-speaking world, including New York City. This would forever change the institution. The New York Public Library (NYPL) was formed in 1895 with the consolidation of three private corporations: the Astor Library (founded by John Jacob Astor in 1849), the Lenox Library (founded by James Lenox in 1870) and The Tilden Trust (a fund established in 1886 by former New York Governor Samuel J. Tilden). The NYFCL also joined this consolidation in 1901 in order to benefit from Carnegie’s gift of $5.2 million for 67 library branches to be built between 1901 and 1929 (56 are still standing). Carnegie’s only stipulation was that the city acquire the sites and establish building maintenance plans. To design the buildings, the NYPL organized a committee of architects: Charles F. McKim, Walter Cook and John M. Carrère. In order to stylistically link the branches and save money, the committee decided on a uniform scale, interior layout, character and materials palette for the buildings. Construction for the main branch, a grand building in the heart of Manhattan, began in 1901. The NYPL became and remains one of the leading research institutions in the world. Queens’ first public library was established in Flushing in 1858, and became a free circulating library in 1869. In 1901, the borough’s independent libraries merged to become the Queens Borough Library, and were eventually housed in Carnegie- funded buildings. The system acquired its current name, the Queens Borough Public Library (QBPL), in 1907. Brooklyn’s first free public library was that of the Pratt Institute, which opened in 1888. In 1892, the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) was created through state legislation, and in 1901, Carnegie signed a contract for the construction of libraries in Brooklyn. Both the QBPL and the BPL were established as independent corporations with trustees appointed by the mayor and civil service staff. In the broad sense, New York City’s library systems are one of its finest resources. In the local sense, its branches function as community anchors, both for the services they provide and for their architectural contributions to each neighborhood’s sense of place. While this brochure focuses on the origins of the city’s public library systems and offers a glimpse at some of its early extant branches, there are over 200 public libraries across the five boroughs, as well as private and institutional libraries that are also well worth visiting.