image via streeteasy.com
When the Fourteenth Street Church was erected at the southwest corner of Second Avenue and 14th Street in 1851, it sat "in the centre of wealth and fashion," as worded by The New York Times. That was no longer the case in 1910 and on January 7, The Sun titled an article, "An East Side Church To Quit" and reported that the trustees would be selling the property.
from the collection of the New-York Historical Society
With the vintage structure unoccupied, Rev. Charles Stelzle, who had once been a machinist, "opened a Sunday evening forum in the old church," reported The New York Times. "The success of the innovation was immediate, and Labor Temple was organized, with Mr. Stelzle as its first director." Labor Temple offered educational services for workers, clubs "of all sorts and purposes" were initiated, and an employment bureau was opened. "Labor Temple became the centre of the life of the neighborhood," said The New York Times.
The former church was regularly the venue for lectures and discussions on political, labor and civic issues. On February 29, 1912, for instance, Arthur J. Howard lectured on "Political and Industrial Australia." It was, nevertheless, still operated by the Presbyterian Church, with Sunday services "applied to the daily life of its congregation." Sermon topics included "Religion and Labor," "The Strength of Capitalism," and "The Ethics of Propaganda." The services were conducted in several languages to cater to the area's diverse demographics.
In 1924, Rev. Thomas Guthrie Speers, chairman of the Labor Temple Committee, determined that the corner property was valuable. He proposed a business building with "ample quarters for Labor Temple" on the site. A committee composed of businessmen was formed and the well-known architect Emery Roth was given the task of creating a multi-use
structure on the site.
Roth's expertise was apartment buildings. Dan Everett Waid, who used his first initial professionally, was known for office buildings. (He had recently designed the annex to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company building on Madison Square, and was, as well, the president of the American Institute of Architects.) Roth and Waid had no professional connection, but it is clear that Roth consulted Waid on this project. Although the latter's name does not appear in any documentation, Roth included Waid's name in the base of a 14th Street pilaster.
image courtesy Robyn Roth-Moise
The cornerstone was laid on April 4, 1925 "above the clang of surface cars and the thunder of elevated trains to a crowd of 300 passers-by, unemployed and supporters of the Labor Temple," as reported by The New York Times. In his address, Rev. Edmund B. Chaffee stressed, "there would be no change in the policy of the temple."
Completed in November 1925 at a cost of $750,000 (about $13.4 million in 2026), Roth's Italian Renaissance Revival design included a two-story limestone base with full-height elliptical arches. Stores along the sidewalk and professional offices on the second floor provided retail income. They prompted The New York Times to comment that the Labor Temple would get "its new and enlarged quarters rent free."
Faux balconies above the third floor and Florentine-inspired arches at the seventh enhanced the Renaissance motif. An arched corbel table ran below the minimal cornice.
Inside, on the ground floor was a large auditorium, a meeting room and office "for the use of labor organizations." In the basement was a gymnasium. On the second floor was a chapel that could accommodate 150 persons, and a music room. The third and fourth floors contained clubrooms and classrooms, the employment bureau, the director's office, and the "living and dining room for the staff of Labor Temple," according to The Times. Living quarters for the resident workers occupied the sixth floor and the director's apartment was in the penthouse, along with a "sunny playroom" for neighborhood children. It opened onto a roof playground.
On November 9, 1925. The New York Times reported, "Labor and the Church joined hands last night in the dedication of the new six-story Labor Temple Building at Fourteenth Street and Second Avenue, where educational classes, community activities and religious worship will be conducted."
For Edward Hale Everett, the oldest employee of the Labor Temple, the opening of the structure would come just in time. Since the its inception, Everett had played Santa Claus for the organization's Christmas Eve children's party. When he was not wearing his false beard and red suit, he taught neighborhood children carpentering.
On October 27, 1925, two weeks before the dedication, he was operating the elevator for the workmen who were bringing furniture up the elevator and placing it into various spaces. Suddenly, he stopped answering the elevator bell. Alarmed, Rev. Chaffee went to the basement and opened the elevator door. "Eddie had dropped dead with his hand still clutching the control level," said The New York Times.
"Eddie" Everett's funeral was held in the chapel on October 30. The New York Times said, "Out on the street the boys that Eddie had taught carpentering and the little girls to whom he had given dolls lined up to wait. And when the body was borne out, they waved their hands and called out: 'Good-bye, Eddie! Good-bye, Santa Clause!'"
Interestingly, Emery Roth was called back twice to make renovations--in 1927 and in 1930. What changes were made is unclear, but it was most likely during one of those remodelings that the rather incongruous, projecting Second Avenue entrance was installed.
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The auditorium immediately became a favorite space for political and labor gatherings. The night after the dedication, defeated Socialist candidate for mayor, Norman Thomas, spoke here. He blamed his loss to James J. Walker on "indifferent and unintelligent voting."
In addition to Sunday services, like any other church, the chapel was used for funerals and weddings. In October 1926, Eugene V. Debs, who had run for President five times under the Socialist Party ticket, died in Chicago. His body was brought by train to New York City and on October 22, The New York Times reported, "The body will lie in state at the Labor Temple...from 2 P.M. until 9 P.M. tomorrow."
In November 1927, Rev. Edmund B. Chaffee lobbied for $3,000 city funding to renovate the rooftop playground. Included in the plans was a "steel protective covering." He insisted, "While this will not solve the city's playground problem, it will at least do something to save the children of this section from the trucks and street cars."
As seen here in 1940, Chaffee was successful in getting his steel rooftop enclosure. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
The conviction of Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for murder on July 14, 1921 immediately caused an uproar amid the labor and immigrant communities around the country. Their arrest and conviction were viewed by many to be the result of bias against immigrants and radicals. Sacco's and Vanzetti's innocence was widely touted in periodicals and throngs across the country pleaded for a pardon or new trial.
Six years later, as their execution date was nearing, New York labor organizations mobilized. On August 15, 1927, The Daily Worker reported, "The Sacco-Vanzetti Emergency Committee will hold its fourth conference tonight, at 8 o'clock, at Labor Temple."
The nation-wide efforts to save Sacco and Vanzetti were unsuccessful and the two were electrocuted on August 23, 1927. Although Police Commissioner Joseph A. Warren banned public mourning, the Socialist Labor Party held a memorial service in Labor Temple on August 26. The New York Times reported that it "was quiet and orderly." The meeting ended with the singing of the "International."
The diversity of the neighborhood was reflected in one of the ground floor tenants, The Russian Kretchma ("Russian Tavern") here as early as 1927. Patrons were entertained by Nastia Poliakova, a "Russian gypsy singer" who was born in Moscow," the "daughter of a gypsy 'king,'" according to The New York Times. She had sung before Czar Nicholas II and after fleeing to Turkey during the Russian Revolution had sung in a Parisian nightclub, and in Berlin and Belgrade.
Barnard Bulletin, January 6, 1928 (copyright expired)
Several medical tenants occupied the second floor spaces. Among them in the 1920s and 1930s were Dr. S. A. Chernoff, a "specialist in acute and chronic diseases of men and women, skin and blood;" chiropodist Aaron Shapiro; and surgical dentist Dr. A. Brown.
According to the Daily Worker on January 19, 1941, the Labor Temple was "home of 43 unions," like the Cleaners, Dyers and Pressers Union.
Living in the building as early as 1945 was journalist and playwright Gershom Bader and his wife, Jennie. Born in Krakówm Galicia on August 21, 1868, he came to America in 1912. By the time the couple lived in Labor Temple, Bader had written several volumes on Jewish life and religion. Among his Yiddish-language plays were Der Rebe in Feyer, The Rabbi's Melody, and Di Goldene Royze. He was the honorary vice-president of the Federation of Polish Jews in America.
Gershom Bader, from The Schwadron Collection of the National Library of Israel.
Also living here at the time was Joseph Chaikin, an editor of the Jewish newspaper The Day. Born in Russia in 1885, he came to New York City in 1901 "and soon was active as an editor in the Jewish labor movement," according to The New York Times. In 1946 his Yiddish-language book Jewish Newspapers in America was published. He was a founder of the National Jewish Workers Alliance and a member of the Yiddish Writers Union.
Reverend John F. Duffy headed the Labor Temple by the mid-1940s. He gave a speech at Barnard Day Chapel in October 1946 to explain the Labor Temple's work. He told the audience that its original purpose "was to give the labor unions a place to hold their meetings and give the laborers, who up until then were not accepted in the churches of the lower east side, an opportunity to join a church." In addition to that original goal, he said, the Labor Temple hoped to demolish "the middle walls of partition which keep people from one another."
The Russian Kretchma was still going strong at the time of that speech. As Russian Orthodox Sunday approached in 1947, The New York Times noted that pascha, an Russian Easter cake, and kulich, an Easter bread with sugar icing, would be served there, as it was every year.
A renovation in 1952 created additional apartments within the building--12 each on the third through sixth floors.
Gershom and Jennie Bader still occupied their apartment here on November 12, 1953 when the playwright and journalist died at the age of 85.
A renovation completed in 1963 resulted in a restaurant and cabaret on the ground floor. The auditorium was converted to a gymnasium, but the chapel and its accessory spaces were kept intact. But then, in 1996, Stellar Management Company acquired the property and began a $500,000 renovation into residential use with retail stores.
photograph by streeteasy.com
The first floor of Emory Roth's handsome Florentine-inspired structure has been horribly vandalized. The upper floors, however, are happily intact. The former Labor Temple building survives as an important example of the architect's work and a significant page of New York City's labor history.
many thanks to reader Robyn Roth-Moise for prompting this post
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