East Village/Lower East Side Manhattan the Historic Districts Council Is New York’S Citywide Advocate for Historic Buildings and Neighborhoods

Home , Christodora House, Henry Street Settlement, Kehila Kedosha Janina, Middle Collegiate Church, New York Marble Cemetery, Orchard Street

A Guide to Historic New York City Neighborhoods

East Village/Lower East Side Manhattan The Historic Districts Council is New York’s citywide advocate for historic buildings and neighborhoods. The Six to Celebrate program annually identifies six historic New York City neighborhoods that merit preservation as priorities for HDC’s advocacy and consultation over a yearlong period.

The six, chosen from applications submitted by community organizations, are selected on the basis of the architectural and historic merit of the area, the level of threat to the neighborhood, the strength and willingness of the local advocates, and the potential for HDC’s preservation support to be meaningful. HDC works with these neighborhood partners to set and reach preservation goals through strategic planning, advocacy, outreach, programs and publicity.

The core belief of the Historic Districts Council is that preservation and enhancement of New York City’s historic resources—its neighborhoods, buildings, parks and public spaces—are central to the continued success of the city. The Historic Districts Council works to ensure the preservation of these resources and uphold the New York City Landmarks Law and to further the preservation ethic. This mission is accomplished through ongoing programs of assistance to more than 500 community and neighborhood groups and through public-policy initiatives, publications, educational outreach and sponsorship of community events.

Six to Celebrate is generously supported by The New York Community Trust.

Additional support for Six to Celebrate is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and by public funds from the New York City Depart- ment of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York City Councilmembers Margaret Chin, Inez Dickens, Daniel Garodnick, Vincent Gentile, Sara Gonzalez, Stephen Levin and Rosie Mendez.

Cover: 47 Orchard Street (site #14) Guide design: Lost In Brooklyn Studio Guide design: Lost In Brooklyn A Brief History

amous worldwide as home to waves of immigrants arriving in New York City, the East Vil- lage / Lower East Side is one of the most culturally significant sections of the city. While Fmuch new development has taken place, including luxury residential high-rises built to take advantage of the neighborhood’s relatively new caché, its built environment offers rich reminders of its storied past.

Historically, the Lower East Side extended from East 14th Street south to Fulton and Franklin Streets, and from the East River west to Broadway and Pearl Street. Today, the regarded boundaries of the East Village and Lower East Side extend roughly from East 14th Street to the Bowery to the East River, with Houston Street as their north-south divider. Nicholas Bayard III, a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant (director-general of New Netherland), named the street for his son-in-law, William Houstoun, a member of the Continental Congress. The Bowery, one of Manhattan’s oldest streets, runs through both neighborhoods. Please see the Historic Districts Council’s 2011 Six to Celebrate Bowery brochure to explore this historic thoroughfare. The East Village became its own entity in the 1960s, when Greenwich Village bohemians moved east for affordable housing and established the East Village art, music and theater scenes. The main thoroughfare through this artists’ haven was St. Mark’s Place, a strip of funky shops, tattoo parlors and cheap eats that still evokes this period in the neighborhood’s history.

The area’s architecture reflects its early development, with extant examples of early-19th-century rowhouses, religious structures, theaters, schools, libraries, banks and settlement houses. The major character-defining building type is the tenement, a multi-family dwelling that typically consists of five or six stories with four apartments per floor. Originally, as many as 10 people occupied each roughly 300-square-foot apartment. Lacking light, air and privies, these crowded, slum-like conditions led to the passing of regulatory legislation. Though few adhered to it, the first law passed in 1867 requiring the installation of fire escapes and outdoor privies. In 1879, the Tenement House Act required that new tenements center shafts to allow in more light and air. In 1901, the New York State Tenement House Act refined this concept with required inner courtyards and shared bathing facilities. Due to their larger size, these were built on multiple or corner lots. Thus, tenements built before 1879 are referred to as “pre-law,” between 1879 and 1901 as “Old Law,” and after 1901 as “New Law.” Exterior ornament speaks of the tenement’s construction date: pre-law were quite austere, Old Law often included multi-colored brick and carved sandstone figures, and New Law were influenced by the Beaux-Arts style, with oval and arched windows, classical ornament and projecting bays.

The East Village contains three New York City historic districts: St. Mark’s Historic District and Extension, East Village / Lower East Side Historic District and East 10th Street Historic District. The latter two were designated in 2012 after a robust advocacy and outreach effort by community groups and preservationists. A section of the Lower East Side is a National Register of Historic Places District. There are currently no locally designated historic districts in the Lower East Side.

1 — Historic Districts Council — East Village / Lower East Side 1. FORMER YIDDISH ART THEATER J X D 189 Second Avenue Harrison G. Wiseman, 1925–26 This part of Second Avenue was once referred to as the “Yid- dish 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 ulti- mately only held four seasons here. Subsequently, it functioned as a Yiddish playhouse and theater until being converted to a cinema in 1988.

2. ST. MARK’S HISTORIC DISTRICT 2a. ST. MARK’S CHURCH IN-THE-BOWERY J Q X 131 East 10th Street John McComb, Jr., 1795–99 Steeple: Ithiel Towne and Martin E. Thomp- son, 1828; Portico: attributed to James Bogardus, 1854; Parish hall: John C. Tucker, 1835; Parish hall addition: James Renwick, Jr., 1861 2b. 21 STUYVESANT STREET J Q 1803–04 44 STUYVESANT STREET Q 1795

LEGEND OF DESIGNATIONS National Historic Landmark: F National Register of Historic Places—District: H National Register of Historic Places—Property: J New York City Historic District: Q New York City Individual Landmark: X New York City Interior Landmark: D

2 — Historic Districts Council — East Village / Lower East Side 2c. 112–128 EAST 10TH STREET AND 23–35 STUYVESANT STREET Q Attributed: James Renwick, Jr., 1861 The St. Mark’s Historic District encompasses portions of East 10th Street and Stuyvesant Street between Second and Third Avenues, as well as the campus of St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, Manhattan’s oldest site of worship. Stuyvesant Street was originally a lane separating two farms purchased in 1651 by Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Am- sterdam. In 1787–93, Peter’s great-grandson, Petrus, laid out Stuyvesant Street and donated the land and funds for St. Mark’s Church. Located on the site of a 1660 chapel, under which Peter Stuyvesant and his de- scendants were buried, the present structure has a Georgian fieldstone body, Greek Revival steeple and Italianate cast-iron portico. The district’s rowhouses date to the mid 19th century, constructed in elegant variations of the Italianate and Greek Revival styles. Referred to as “Renwick Tri- angle,” 112–118 East 10th Street (bottom) and 23–25 Stuyvesant Street were designed by famed church architect James Renwick, Jr. The oldest houses on the street are 21 and 44 Stuyvesant Street (top), which Petrus built for his daughter Elizabeth and son Nicholas, respectively. When the City mandated a street grid adhering to Manhattan’s axis, St. Mark’s petitioned to keep Stuyvesant Street’s due east-west configuration because of its burial ground location. Thus, small triangles were created where Stuyvesant Street abuts East 9th Street, East 10th Street and Third Avenue.

3. OTTENDORFER LIBRARY J X D AND FORMER GERMAN DISPENSARY J X 135–137 Second Avenue William Schickel, 1883–84 In the 1840s, 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, Kleindeutsch- land began to diminish as Germans moved uptown to Yorkville and other immigrants moved

3 — Historic Districts Council — East Village / Lower East Side 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 (see site # 8b).

4. FORMER ST. MARK’S MEMORIAL CHAPEL X 288 East 10th Street James Renwick, Jr. and W. H. Russell, 1882–83 Occupied since 1925 by the Saint Nicholas of Myra Ortho- dox Church, this building was donated by Rutherford Stuyves- ant as a branch of the Mission Society of St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery. The brick building with terra-cotta trim, which displays a blend of the Renaissance Revival and Gothic Revival styles, was the work of renowned church architect James Ren- wick, Jr., who also designed St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Grace Church. Its graceful and varied massing culminates in a square bell tower capped with a pyramidal roof and copper cross.

5. PUBLIC BATHS 5a. FORMER FREE PUBLIC BATHS OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK X 538 East 11th Street Arnold Brunner, 1904–05 5b. FORMER FREE PUBLIC BATHS OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 133 Allen Street York & Sawyer, 1905 5a During the 19th century, social reformers argued that the lack of bathing facilities was contributing to high mortality rates and that cleanliness would promote good citizenship in the growing immigrant population. The New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor opened the first public bathhouse at 141 Mott Street in 1852. The movement gained traction in the 1890s, and 14 City-funded bathhouses opened between 1901 and 1914. 5b The East 11th Street and Allen Street municipal bathhouses were both designed with limestone, Renaissance Revival façades. Though they now function as a photography studio and a church, respectively, their ornamental details— fish and tridents in the cartouches on East 11th Street and scallop shells in the terra-cotta medallions on Allen Street—hint at their former aquatic functions.

4 — Historic Districts Council — East Village / Lower East Side 6a. EAST 10TH STREET HISTORIC DISTRICT Q East 10th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B 6b. CHRISTODORA HOUSE J 143 Avenue B Henry C. Pelton, 1928 The 26 buildings on the north side of Tompkins Square Park comprise the East 10th Street Historic District. The City opened the park in 1834 to stimulate development in the area, 6a but the Panic of 1837 delayed construction around the square until the late 1840s. Though some were modernized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these rowhouses were some of the city’s first to employ the Italianate style. Later, as the population swelled, tenements were constructed on some of the lots and rowhouses were converted into multi-family dwellings. Newer buildings include the Old Law tenements at numbers 321 and 323 and the Tompkins Square Branch of the New York Public Library (see site # 12a). On the east side of Tompkins Square is Christodora House, an Art Deco settlement house 6b converted into condominiums in 1986, sparking one of the East Vil- lage’s first anti-gentrification protests, in which participants chanted the famous line “Die, yuppie scum!”

5 — Historic Districts Council — East Village / Lower East Side 7. TOMPKINS SQUARE PARK East 7th Street to East 10th Street, Avenue A to Avenue B 1834 Named for Daniel D. Tompkins, governor of New York (1807–17) and vice president under James Monroe (1817– 25), this park has a long history as a political gathering place. In 1857, immigrants protested unemployment and food short- ages. In 1863, it hosted deadly Draft Riots prompted by the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1874, thousands of workers protested unfair conditions in the Tompkins Square Riot. In 1877, the National Guard sparred with 5,000 gatherers for Photo: C. Ratcliffe Communist revolutionary speeches. More recently, the park was host to protests against the Vietnam War and for women’s rights in the 1960s. By the 1980s, the park had become an epicenter of crime and illegal drug use. In August 1988, after police attempted to clear the park of homeless encampments, a riot broke out and 44 were injured. In 1991, the police department evicted the park’s roughly 150 residents in an early morning raid and closed down the park. As the area has gentrified, this peaceful nook, with its glorious elm trees, recreation facilities and diverse array of festivals, seems a far cry from its tense past.

8. EAST 7TH STREET BETWEEN AVENUE A AND FIRST AVENUE Q This block is part of the East Village / Lower East Side Historic District, and contains examples of pre- law, Old Law and New Law tenements in different styles. Numbers 116–122 (Joseph Ohmeis, 1862–63) (far left) and 123–129 (Samuel Bessey and Thomas E. Tripler, 1861), two sets of four pre- law tenements on either side of the street, were built by developers on land leased by the Astor family. Number 122 has a well- preserved storefront, with wood-frame show windows and cast-iron piers and columns. Number 121, built in 1843–45, offers a striking example of a converted rowhouse, which was transformed into the First Hungarian Reformed Church in 1903–04 after designs by Frederick Ebeling. Next door, numbers 117 and 111 are New Law tenements designed by Bernstein & Bernstein in the Renaissance Revival style in 1907 and 1901, respectively. Up the block, past the ornate Saint Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr Roman Catholic Church (Arthur Arctander, 1899–1901) (above right), which was the center of the area’s Polish Roman Catholic community until the mid 20th century, numbers 95–97 (Kurtzer & Rohl, 1891) and 97½–99 (Schneider & Herter, 1891) are Old Law tenements built in the Queen Anne style.

6 — Historic Districts Council — East Village / Lower East Side 9a. MIDDLE COLLEGIATE CHURCH Q 112–114 Second Avenue Samuel B. Reed, 1891–92 WOMEN’S PRISON ASSOCIATION/ ISAAC T. HOPPER HOUSE J Q X 110 Second Avenue 1837–38 9b. FORMER ST. MARK’S EVANGELICAL J LUTHERAN CHURCH 9a 323–327 East 6th Street 1847 Middle Collegiate Church stands out both for its graceful 130-foot spire and for the uni- form color and rich texture of its Indiana limestone, Gothic Revival façades. The red brick and brownstone, Greek Revival rowhouse next door was originally one of four built for wealthy mer- chant Ralph Mead. In 1874, it was purchased by the Women’s Prison Association, established in 1845 by Isaac Tatem Hopper and his daughter Abigail Hopper Gibbons, Quaker abolitionists and prison reform advocates. Still in operation, it is considered the world’s oldest halfway house for girls and women released from prison. Walk east on East 6th Street to the former St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (converted to the Sixth Street Community Synagogue in 1940). One of the largest German churches in Kleindeutschland, a plaque commemorates the many congregants lost in the General Slocum steamboat disaster of 1904, the deadliest event in New York’s history before the attacks of September 11, 2001.

10. SECOND AVENUE BETWEEN EAST 7TH STREET AND EAST 2ND STREET Q 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 (Ralph H. Segal, 1928) (left) and 72 (Landsman & Smith, 1928–29), fanciful, terra-cotta-clad commercial buildings; number 57 (George F. Pelham, 1903), a nine-story New Law tenement that straddled the line between tenement and apartment building; number 43 (Frederick Ebeling, 1907), the avenue’s first of- fice building; and number 32 (Alfred Hopkins, 1917-19), 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 (David M. Oltarsh and H. Craig Severance, 1926–27)

7 — Historic Districts Council — East Village / Lower East Side (right), the Yiddish Public Theater that later served briefly as CBGB’s Second Avenue Theater, and 66 East 4th Street (built in 1832–33 and altered in 1871 by Kinkel & Klemt), 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.

11. NEW YORK MARBLE CEMETERY J X Second Avenue between East 2nd Street and East 3rd Street Est. 1831 NEW YORK CITY MARBLE CEMETERY J Q X 52–74 East 2nd Street Est. 1832 New York Marble Cemetery and New York City Marble Cem- etery were Manhattan’s first and second public, non-sectarian burial grounds. Respectively, they contain 156 and 256 under- ground vaults made of Tuckahoe Marble, hence their matching monikers. While marble tablets with vault numbers and owners’ names are affixed to the surrounding stone walls in both, only NYC Marble permitted markers and monuments above ground. The vaults belong to prominent politicians, merchants and members of some of the city’s oldest families. President James Monroe was interred in NYC Marble from his death in 1831 until being moved to Richmond, Virginia, in 1858. NY Marble’s last interment was in 1937, but NYC Marble’s vaults remain open to family members. Both cemeteries are open to the public on designated days (check their websites) and are visible through iron gates (NY Marble’s gate is located between 41 and 43 Second Avenue). Across the street from NYC Marble, note the limestone façade of Olivet Memorial Church, designed in the Gothic Revival style by J. C. Cady & Company in 1891.

8 — Historic Districts Council — East Village / Lower East Side 12. NOTED LOWER EAST SIDE SYNAGOGUES 12a. FORMER CONGREGATION ANSHE CHESED X 172–176 Norfolk Street

Alexander Saeltzer, 1849–50 12a 12b 12b. FORMER CONGREGATION RODEPH SHOLOM 8–10 Clinton Street 1853 12c. KEHILA KEDOSHA JANINA SYNAGOGUE J X 280 Broome Street Sydney Daub, 1927–28 12c 12d 12d. FORMER ELDRIDGE STREET SYNAGOGUE H J X 12 Eldridge Street Herter Brothers, 1886–87 Anshe Chesed and Rodeph Sholom are respectively the oldest and second oldest surviving synagogue buildings in the city, and some of the oldest in the country. Both were constructed for German Jewish congregations in German architectural styles: Gothic Revival and Rundbo- genstil (“round-arch style”), and feature red brick, central staircases and symmetrical façades with recessed central sections and square towers. Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue is the only Greek Synagogue in New York and the only synagogue of Romaniote Jews in the Western Hemisphere. The Eldridge Street Synagogue was America’s first major house of worship built by Eastern European Orthodox Jews. The yellow brick building features Moorish and Roman- esque details and rich ornament. At its peak in the early 20th century, the synagogue hosted as many as 1,000 worshippers at services, but was forced to close in the mid 20th century when the area’s Jewish population began to dwindle. In 1986, the Eldridge Street Project funded a large-scale restoration of the building, which was repurposed as a museum.

9 — Historic Districts Council — East Village / Lower East Side 13. CARNEGIE LIBRARIES 13a. TOMPKINS SQUARE BRANCH Q X 331 East 10th Street McKim, Mead & White, 1904 13b. RIVINGTON BRANCH 13a 13b 61–63 Rivington Street McKim, Mead & White, 1905 13c. SEWARD PARK BRANCH X 192 East Broadway Babb, Cook & Welch, 1909 13d. CHATHAM SQUARE BRANCH H X 33 East Broadway McKim, Mead & White, 1903 13c 13d Businessman Andrew Carnegie funded the construction of 67 libraries in New York City between 1901 and 1929, and commissioned prominent architects to design them. Of the 57 still standing, four are located in the East Village and Lower East Side. Three of these were designed by McKim, Mead & White in the Classical Revival style: the Rivington, Chatham Square and Tompkins Square Branches. The Rivington Branch was the first library in the city to incorporate an open-air rooftop reading room, a feature that others soon copied. The Chatham Square and Tompkins Square Branches are grander, with arched window openings, columns and fanciful carvings. The Seward Park Branch was designed by the same architects responsible for Carnegie’s mansion on Fifth Avenue, and the two red brick and limestone, Renaissance Revival buildings bear a striking resemblance.

14. ORCHARD STREET BETWEEN DELANCEY STREET AND CANAL STREET H Named for a grove of fruit trees on the DeLancey estate that comprised much of this area, Orchard Street is character- ized by its tenements and history as a commercial thoroughfare, hosting many prosperous shops and street vendors. The five-story pre-law tenement at number 97 (left) was built in 1863–64 by an unknown architect. It is estimated that roughly 7,500 people from 25 countries resided in the building until it was sealed due to non-compliance with City housing codes in 1935. The building was purchased by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in 1988 to interpret the history of immi-

10 — Historic Districts Council — East Village / Lower East Side gration to the area and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994. The six-story, red brick, Queen-Anne-style Old Law tenements at numbers 14–16 and 47 (Herter Brothers, 1887) feature fanciful cornices and terra-cotta Stars of David.

15. FORMER JARMULOWSKY BANK H X 54–58 Canal Street Rouse & Goldstone, 1912; redesign: William F. Coates, 1933 Sender Jarmulowsky, an immigrant financier, established a bank in an existing building on this site in 1873, but replaced it with this 12-story Beaux-Arts tower in 1912. The building features a rusticated limestone base, terra cotta ornament and, until the 1990s, a domed temple-like cupola on top, which was a defining element of the Lower East Side skyline. The bank served neighborhood residents until it was forced to close in 1914 after being unable to meet patrons’ withdrawal demands at the outbreak of World War I. As federal insurance for banks did not exist yet, the economic burden of its closure fell on depositors, and a riot broke out in the street.

16. FORMER LOEW’S CANAL STREET THEATRE H X 31 Canal Street Thomas W. Lamb, 1926–27 This movie house was designed in the Spanish baroque style and originally held 2,270 seats, offering a welcome distraction and escape from daily life in the tenements until it closed in the 1960s. The glazed white terra-cotta façade, dominated by three arched faux windows in the center, is graced with rich Classical ornament in the form of wreaths, urns, griffins and foliage.

11 — Historic Districts Council — East Village / Lower East Side 17. SEWARD PARK Est. 1899 STRAUS SQUARE Intersection of East Broadway, Essex, Canal and Rutgers Streets In the late 1890s, the Outdoor Recreation League lobbied the City to clear several blocks for Seward Park, which opened in 1899. The park was named for politician William H. Seward, a strong supporter of immigrants, who in turn supported his successful campaigns for state senate, governor and U.S. senate. The City took over management of the park in 1903 and created a permanent municipal playground, the nation’s first. The park also featured a children’s farm garden and a public bathhouse, which was replaced in 1941 with a recreation building. Straus Square was originally named for patriot Henry Rutgers, whose 100-acre farm was nearby. Both Henry and Rutgers Streets and Rutgers University are also named for him. The square was a political epicenter, regularly hosting rallies and demonstrations. In 1931, the square was renamed for German Jewish philanthro- pist and advocate Nathan Straus, whose family owned Macy’s and Abraham & Straus department stores.

18. FORWARD BUILDING H X 173–175 East Broadway George A. Boehm, 1912 Located on a stretch of East Broadway once known as “Yid- dish newspaper row,” this was the headquarters for Vorwärtz, or the Jewish Daily Forward, the most widely read Yiddish newspaper in the United States. First published in 1897, it was immensely influential on the Jewish community for its support of socialist causes and for its articles offering advice on everyday struggles, making the most of America’s oppor- tunities and encouraging children’s education. The terra-cotta- clad building features medallions with faces of socialist heroes Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Karl Liebknecht and Ferdinand Lassalle above the entry; Vorwärtz in Yiddish at the building’s crown; and a clock at the parapet. The paper moved uptown in 1974 and the building was converted to condominiums in the 1990s.

12 — Historic Districts Council — East Village / Lower East Side 19. 247, 249 AND 255 EAST BROADWAY H Ca. 1837 These Greek Revival rowhouses are rare survivors of their period of construction in the early 19th century, and stand as reminders of the time before large numbers of immigrants began settling into the Lower East Side. Each house was built for a single wealthy family, as evidenced by the fancy ironwork on number 247.

20a. UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENT J 184 Eldridge Street Howells & Stokes, 1898–99; addition: DeLemos & Cordes, 1904 20b. EDUCATIONAL ALLIANCE BUILDING H 197 East Broadway Brunner & Tyron, 1889–91 20c. HENRY STREET SETTLEMENT 20a 263, 265 and 267 Henry Street (1827–34) F H J X; 269 Henry Street (Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, 1884) H; 301 Henry Street (DeYoung, Moscowitz & Rosenberg, 1962) H X; 281 East Broadway (1829) H X The Settlement House movement began in the 1880s in response 20c to worldwide urban poverty sparked by industrialization and im- migration. Settlement houses provided education, recreation, medical services and social welfare programs to residents of city slums. The Neighborhood Guild, founded in 1886 as America’s first settlement house, brought male university graduates to the Lower East Side to help and inspire the poor. The Guild changed its name to University Settlement in 1891. The Downtown Hebrew Institute was founded by Jewish philanthropists in 1889 to transform immigrants into assimilated members of their new society. Its name was changed to the Educational Alliance in 1893. The Henry Street Settlement was founded in 1893 by advocate Lillian D. Wald. While University Settlement and the Educational Alliance are each contained within one building, Henry Street Settlement occupies an assortment of smaller structures, most of which are Federal-era rowhouses. The former Engine Company No. 15, acquired in 2007, has a storied past, as the site was previously home to a brownstone dwelling converted in 1854 into the Americus Engine Company No. 6, or the “Big Six,” which William M. “Boss” Tweed used as a vehicle for his infamous political exploits. All three settlement houses are still in operation. East Village / Lower East Side