East Village/Lower East Side Historic District

One of Manhattan's most notably diverse neighborhoods, this district is comprised of roughly 325 buildings located along Second Avenue and the adjacent side streets from East 2nd to East 7th Streets. When economic growth pushed residential construction northwards in the 1830s, fashionable row houses were constructed along Second Avenue, many in the Greek Revival style. Developers, such as the merchants Elisha Peck and Anson G. Phelps, were responsible for the many speculatively built houses along the lower end of the avenue; Peck and Phelps also developed the once-stylish Albion Place, as the row of uniform town houses on East 4th Street between Second Avenue and the Bowery was then known. By the 1850s, immigrant populations began to move into the area, and wealthier residents moved uptown to less crowded and commercial districts. The older row houses were converted into multiple dwellings and some were eventually replaced by tenements, predominantly designed in the then popular Italianate style.

Many early immigrants to the area were of German heritage, and the district evolved into a distinct ethnic community during the 1840s and 1850s, called Kleindeutschland (Little Germany). This community had a rich social life that centered on East 4th Street and included benevolent and self-help organizations such as the New York Turn Verein and the Aschenbroedel Verein. In the later nineteenth century, the cosmopolitan character of the neighborhood remained a constant, as a significant number of Eastern European Jews moved into the neighborhood, establishing their own cultural institutions such as Congregation Adas Yisroel Anshe Mezeritz on East 6th Street (1910). Polish and Hungarian immigrants further diversified the neighborhood, and the construction of tenements continued until the Great Depression.

During the mid-twentieth century, the area experienced an influx of Latin American and Caribbean immigrants. At the same time, a migration of artists and bohemians from Greenwich Village, seeking less expensive lodgings, established the area as a hotbed of social activism and art, and gave the district its current name—the East Village.

Today this vibrant neighborhood illustrates the story of the American immigration experience and continues its legacy as an important cultural center. ©2014