Michael Bernstein's 1900 330 East 4th Street

photograph by Carole Teller

The neighborhood of East 4th Street between Avenues C and D in the first half of the 19th century earned the name the Dry Dock District for the shipbuilding industry centered along the East River from about Grand Street to East 12th Street.  In the late 1830s, the 4th Street block was lined with handsome Greek Revival homes.

As the century drew to a close, however, those once private residences were being converted to rooming houses or razed to be replaced with tenements.  The 22-foot-wide house at 330 East 4th Street was purchased by developer John Katzman in 1899.  He hired architect Michael Bernstein to design a tenement building on the site.  Completed the following year, the structure cost Katzman $20,000 to erect, or about $771,000 in 2026 terms.

Michael Bernstein was well-known to developers for his tenement designs--often blending incongruous historical styles with conspicuous results.  (Tenement buildings designs, in general, were often over the top, their facades splashed with extravagant ornamentation that disguised the bare bones accommodations inside.)  

The five-story structure was faced in yellow brick and trimmed in stone.  Whimsical wrought iron railings that protected the areaway and and stoop led to the tall entrance.  The doorway frame and the arched first-floor window lintels were intricately carved with Renaissance Revival-style designs.

The first floor openings were originally adorned with Renaissance inspired carvings (painted in 1940).  Light-hearted hand-wrought ironwork ran along the stoop and areaway.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Bernstein blended several styles for the upper floors--triangular Renaissance pediments, Queen Anne-style spandrels of dog-tooth brickwork, and neo-Classical swags along the fascia below the cornice.

No. 330 East 4th Street was a double-flat, meaning there were two apartments per floor.  The ten original tenants were middle class, like the Weiner family, whose young adult son was looking for work in 1901.  His advertisement in the New-York Tribune on April 4 read:  "Young Man, 22, of neat appearance, with 3 years' experience as office salesman, where there is chance of advancement.  J. Weiner, 330 East 4th-st."

The unmarried Susie Hachfelder exemplified the progressive young females of the early 20th century.  Even though women did not yet have the right to vote, Hachfelder was highly involved in politics.  She was a member of the Progressive Party and on September 3, 1912, The New York Times reported that she would be attending the Progressive Party Convention in Syracuse.

Gynecologist Dr. Herman Lorber's apartment and medical office was in the building as early as 1913.  Born in Austria in 1880, he was educated at the Gymnasium in Austria and at City College.  He graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in 1903 and did graduate work in Vienna and Berlin.  (Lillian Wald, of the Henry Street Settlement house, "loaned him money to get to Vienna for medical study," recalled The New York Times decades later.  "He repaid her by accepting some of her poverty-stricken protégés without fee.")

Since 1906, Lorber had been on the visiting staff of Beth Israel Hospital.  He treated East Village residents from his office here for years.  But he would not remain.  When he died on January 30, 1958, he was living at 77 Park Avenue.  He did not survive to see the release of Adam Barnett's book, Doctor Harry: The Story of Dr. Herman Lorber four months later.  In reviewing the book, Meyer Berger began, "This little volume tells the story of Herman Lorber, an immigrant boy who rose out of East Side poverty to wide practice in surgery.  It follows his steady climb from an East Fourth Street tenement to the quiet dignity of Gramercy Park."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

As Susie Hachfelder had been, resident Isidor Wagner was driven and dynamic.  In July 1914, the private bank of Adolph Mandel was closed by the State Superintendent of Banks.  The depositors, many of the German immigrants, lost their savings.  On August 25, The Evening World reported that protestors marched from the shuttered bank to the Criminal Courts Building.  "A majority of the marchers were woman carrying or leading babies and children."  In front of the group was Isidor Wagner holding a banner that read:

We, the depositors of Mandel's bank, are marching to District-Attorney Whitman.  He should help us obtain our money.

At the Criminal Courts Building, five protestors, led by Wagner and Sarah Kritz, a widow, were admitted inside.  They were taken by a policeman to the District Attorney's office.  The Evening World reported, "After hearing that most of the depositors were in actual need of their money," District Attorney Groehl telephoned to the State Superintendent "who said that arrangements are being made by which the partial payments to depositors will be made next Monday."  The article said that the news placated the committee "and the parade moved back to the east side and disbanded."

The Turbin family lived here in 1931 when law school graduate Joseph G. Turbin applied for admission to the bar.  His extended family would be in the sights of the Federal Government within a few years.  In 1941, the Special Committee on Un-American Activities compiled a list of voters who registered as Communists.  Among them were Marion, Molly, Pauline and Sam Turbin, all living at 330 East 4th Street.  Two years later, Pauline Turbin's name was filed with the office of the Board of Elections as a nominee for the position as County Committeeman.

In November 1952, the Children's Aid Society's Sloane Center on East 6th Street held a contest for neighborhood children.  In connection with Cat Week, prizes were awarded in seven categories: longest tail, loudest meow, best trained, cleanest, most unusual, sleepiest looking, and the longest whiskers.  Eight-year-old resident Gloria Zaretz took away the prize for cleanest cat "for her short-haired brown tabby named 'Rory,'" reported The New York Times.

Living and working here at early as 1961 were artist and sculptor Claes Oldenburg and his artist wife Coosje van Bruggen.  Born in Sweden in 1929, Oldenburg was known for his public art installations of oversized common objects.  He married Coosje in 1977.  The two often collaborated on works.

Claes Oldenburg working in his 330 East 4th Street studio in 1961.  photograph by Robert R. McElroy, from the collection of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Northeast Neighborhood Association had its offices here.  The Staten Island Advance explained on November 29, 1971 that the organization was "one of the first health projects in the United States," saying it "provides health services on the lower East Side, and is owned and operated by the community which it serves."

 

A renovation completed in 1993 resulted in a single-room-occupancy residence for the aged.  There are about seven rooms per floor in the facility.  It was likely during that remodeling that the stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to sidewalk level.  The Renaissance Revival carvings of the first floor were shaved off and the cornice replaced with a brick parapet wall.

many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post.

Tenement to Mansion - The 1901 47 East 3rd Street

 

Real estate developers Miller, Mofsenson & Brill erected a five-story apartment building at 47 and 49 East Third Street in 1901.  Designed by Michael Bernstein, its Renaissance Revival design included intricate carving around the entrance frame, which was capped with a prominent, bracketed cornice.  Bernstein contrasted the beige Roman brick of the base with four floors of red brick.  Their elaborate stone and terra cotta decorations included ornate panels, window ornaments, and faux balconies flanked with fluted columns and topped with impressive arched pediments.  A complex cornice crowned the design.

Typical of the working and lower-middle class tenants of 47 East 3rd Street were Isaac Chelsky and Abraham Bartnofsky, who both worked for the United States Condensed Milk Company.  They attached address labels to milk orders for the delivery drivers.  

Another early resident was Abraham Weise.  In the fall of 1904, an out-of-town friend visited and on September 23 Weise took him around town on a trolley car to see the sights.  The Morning Telegraph reported, "Passing Thirty-ninth street there is a sharp turn.  Weise was pointing out to his friend the Casino when the turn was made, and Weise lost his balance and fell from the car."  The would-be tour guide broke both his legs.  Later he told a reporter, "It's the first time in twelve years that I have been on Broadway.  The Bowery for me, when I get out of the hospital."

Alexander J. Barth, a barber, endeavored to better his life by becoming an attorney.  He took the Regents' examination twice--failing both times.  Frustrated, he hired a substitute to take his third test.  Unfortunately, his goal to be a lawyer would not come to be.  His subterfuge was discovered when two informants came forth.  On June 9, 1911 he confessed and was fine $100.  (It was a significant penalty for the barber, equal to about $3,500 in 2025 terms.)

Edward Barnes, who was 19 years old, lived here in 1922.  On May 14 that year, he and four cohorts, one of whom drove a taxicab, went looking for a victim.  They found one in 30-year-old Joseph Zaliski who was headed home at 1 a.m.  At the corner of East 3rd Street and Second Avenue, Barnes and two others jumped out of the cab and beat and robbed Zaliski.  The Evening World reported that they, "broke his nose and closed his eyes with blackjacks and fists and took $112 from his pocket."

Zaliski's cries were heard by an ambulance driver, known as Red.  He picked up a policeman on the street and pursued the fleeing taxicab with the ambulance's siren blaring.  When the cab pulled over, the driver said, "What's the big idea?  We don't want no ambulance."

Red replied, "No, but you're liable to want one in a minute.  Here's a load of cops want to talk to you."  Policeman Henry Hagen stepped out of the ambulance with his gun drawn.  Edward Barnes and his accomplices were arrested.

A more respectable tenant who lived here in the 1920s was J. Bolotoff.  He worked in theatrical make-up.  

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

As the 20th century drew to a close, the tenor of the East Village neighborhood changed.  Once populated with struggling immigrants, it was increasingly becoming a hip district with trendy shops and restaurants.

In 2003, Alistair and Catherine Economakis purchased 47 East Third Street.  The New York Times reported, "The building has 15 apartments, with tenants paying rents of $500 to $950 a month."  Almost immediately, the couple notified their tenants that their leases would not be renewed.  On June 26, 2005, The New York Times explained, "the couple planned to live in the building with their infant son and take over all 11,600 square feet."

The plans would result in a 60-room mansion with "five bedrooms, six bathrooms, a den, a playroom, a gym, a library, a study area, a dining room, a kitchen and a living room," said the article.  At the time, the tenants were battling the evictions.

Three years later, on December 12, 2008, The Independent reported that the nine remaining tenants, fearing they would lose in court, conceded to a buyout.  Each received $75,000 for vacating their apartments by the end of August 2009.  

In 2012, as renovations were still ongoing, the Economakis family moved into the building.  Construction of what is now a single-family home was completed in 2017. 

many thanks to reader Carole Teller for suggesting this post.

photographs by the author