Christodora House is a historic building located at 143
Avenue B in the
East Village/
Alphabet City neighborhoods of
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
. It was designed by architect
Henry C. Pelton (architect of
Riverside Church
Riverside Church is an interdenominational church in the Morningside Heights, Manhattan, Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The church is associated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the Un ...
) in the American Perpendicular Style and constructed in 1928 as a
settlement house
The settlement movement was a reformist social movement that began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in the United Kingdom and the United States. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity an ...
for low-income and immigrant residents, providing food, shelter, and educational and health services.
Description
The building, as originally conceived, included a gym, swimming pool, music school and theater. It was financed by Mr and Mrs Arthur Curtiss James, at a cost of over $1 million.
Initially, the 16 stories of the building housed a music school, a pool and gymnasium, a library, clubhouses, workshops, offices, and two kitchens. These spaces were on the lower five floors of the building, and open to the public and settlement members. One floor housed the settlement workers, and the top nine floors were rented out as residences to provide income for the work of the settlement. The opening of the building was widely covered in the newspapers of the day. The building, particularly its height and style, were intended to be seen as symbolic and inspiring: towering, modern, up to date, airy, clean and fireproof, its character representing the best in the character of the neighborhood. Today, the building hosts a diverse group of residences. Many are groups or organizations active in the community, such as The East Village Community Coalition, which has an office in the building.
The swimming pool and gymnasium can no longer be used. Zoning for these facilities stipulated "community access," and the facilities cannot be modified to provide the disabled access mandated by law.
History
:The difficulties operating a settlement community and a "residential" community created complications for the Christodora Board of Managers. These financial burdens, coupled with the expansion of public housing, led the building to be sold via condemnation to the City of New York in 1948 for $1.6 million. The city planned to house delinquent boys in the building, operated by the Department of Welfare. However, for reasons which remain unclear the building remained empty or underutilized through 1956.
In the mid-1960s, a variety of unsanctioned community activities took place in the lower floors of the buildings. Police raided and closed the building in 1969. Use of the space continued. Stories from this period include that the national headquarters of the Black Panthers was housed in the building, and that it was used as the setting for several pornographic films. The city sold the property for $62,500 in 1975.
By 1986, the building had been sold numerous times, and began to be converted into condominiums. For many area residents, this was the first sign of
gentrification
Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...
.
On March 20, 1986, Christodora House was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
The August 7, 1988
Tompkins Square Park Riot, provoked partially by the area's gentrification, spilled over into Christodora House. Rioters chanted "Die Yuppie Scum" in reference to the supposed "yuppie scum" residents of the building. The front doors were smashed and rioters ransacked the lobby of the building.
Notable residents
Famous past or present residents include
Walter Tandy Murch
Walter Tandy Murch (August 17, 1907 – December 11, 1967) was a Painting, painter whose still life paintings of machine parts, brick fragments, clocks, broken dolls, hovering light bulbs and glowing lemons are an unusual combination of Realism ( ...
,
Iggy Pop
James Newell Osterberg Jr. (born April 21, 1947), known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, musician, songwriter, actor and radio broadcaster. He was the vocalist and lyricist of proto-punk band the Stooges, who were formed in 1 ...
,
Vincent D'Onofrio
Vincent Philip D'Onofrio (; born June 30, 1959) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his supporting and leading roles in both film and television. He has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.
His roles include Private Leona ...
,
Freedy Johnston
Freedy Johnston (born Frederic John Fatzer in 1961) is an American singer-songwriter based in New York City.
Originally from Kinsley, Kansas, Johnston's songs are often about troubled loners, and cover topics like heartbreak, alienation, an ...
,
Marisa Monte
Marisa de Azevedo Monte (; born 1 July 1967) is a Brazilian singer, composer, instrumentalist, and producer of Brazilian popular music and samba. As of 2011, she had sold 10 million albums worldwide and has won numerous national and internat ...
,
George Pendle
George Pendle (born 1976) is a British author and journalist.
He was educated at Stowe School and St Peter's College, Oxford.
After working at ''The Times'' as a writer and commissioning editor from 1997 to 2001, Pendle wrote his first book, p ...
,
Andres Levin,
Douglas Rushkoff
Douglas Mark Rushkoff (born February 18, 1961) is an American media theorist, writer, columnist, lecturer, graphic novelist, and documentarian. He is best known for his association with the early cyberpunk culture and his advocacy of open-source ...
, and
Michael Rosen
Michael Wayne Rosen (born 7 May 1946) is an English children's author, poet, presenter, political columnist, broadcaster, activist, and academic, who is a professor of children's literature in the Department of Educational Studies at Goldsmiths ...
.
Hedge fund
A hedge fund is a Pooling (resource management), pooled investment fund that holds Market liquidity, liquid assets and that makes use of complex trader (finance), trading and risk management techniques to aim to improve investment performance and ...
manager
Brian Kim owned and lived in an apartment at Christodora House.
[ He was indicted and arrested in 2009, and accused of stealing $435,000 from the Christodora House condo association in 2008.] He fled to Hong Kong in 2011, but was apprehended and sent back to the U.S. In 2012, he admitted to the theft.
See also
*
References
Further reading
*
{{National Register of Historic Places in New York
Residential buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan
East Village, Manhattan
Alphabet City, Manhattan
Residential buildings completed in 1928
Settlement houses in New York City
Residential skyscrapers in Manhattan