Henry Street Settlement and Neighborhood Playhouse | |
 (2011) | |
  Henry Street Settlement | |
| Location | 263–267 Henry St., and 466 Grand Street Manhattan, New York, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 40°42′50″N73°59′7″W / 40.71389°N 73.98528°W /40.71389; -73.98528 |
| Area | 1 acre (0.40 ha) |
| Built | 1827[2] |
| Architect | 267:Buchman & Fox |
| Architectural style | Federal,Greek Revival,Colonial Revival |
| Website | henrystreet.org |
| NRHP reference No. | 74001272[1] |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | September 13, 1974[1] |
| Designated NHL | May 30, 1974 (263, 265, and 267 Henry Street and 466 Grand Street)[3] February 11, 2022 (redesignation of 265 and 267 Henry Street)[4] |
| Designated NYCL | January 18, 1966 |
TheHenry Street Settlement is a not-for-profit social service agency on theLower East Side ofManhattan,New York City that provides social services, arts programs and health care services to New Yorkers of all ages. It was founded under the nameNurses' Settlement in 1893 by progressive reformer and nurseLillian Wald.
The Settlement serves about 50,000 people each year. Clients include low-income individuals and families, survivors of domestic violence, youth ages 2 through 21, individuals with mental and physical health challenges, senior citizens, and arts and culture enthusiasts who attend performances, classes and exhibitions at Henry Street'sAbrons Arts Center.
The Settlement's administrative offices are still located in its original (c. 1832) federal row houses at 263, 265 and 267Henry Street inManhattan. Services are offered at 17 program sites throughout the area, many of them located in buildings operated by theNew York City Housing Authority.
The Settlement's buildings at 263, 265 and 267 Henry Street becameNew York City designated landmarks in 1966.[5] These buildings, along with the Neighborhood Playhouse building at 466 Grand Street, were collectively added to theNational Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1974 and designated aNational Historic Landmark in 1989.[3][6][7] The buildings at 265 and 267 Henry Street were re-added to the NRHP in 2022 under the nameLillian Wald House.[4]
In 1892,Lillian Wald, a 25-year-old nurse then enrolled in the Women's Medical College, volunteered to teach a class on home health care for immigrant women at theLouis Down-Town Sabbath and Daily School on the Lower East Side. One day, she was approached by a young girl who kept repeating "mommy ... baby ... blood". Wald gathered some sheets from her bed-making lesson and followed the child to her home, a cramped two-room tenement apartment. Inside, she found the child's mother who had recently given birth and in need of health care. The doctor tending to her had left because she could not afford to pay him.[8] This was Wald's first experience with poverty; she called the episode her "baptism by fire" and dedicated herself to bringing nursing care, and eventually education and access to the arts, to the immigrant poor on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The next year she founded theNurses' Settlement, which later changed its name to the Henry Street Settlement.[5]
Two years later, in 1895,Jacob Schiff, a banker andphilanthropist purchased theFederal style townhouse at 265 Henry Street for the new organization to use. The building was expanded upwards with an additional story to provide more space, and Schiff donated the building to the Settlement in 1903.[5] The year before, the Settlement had added new facilities, including a gymnasium at 299, 301 and 303 Henry Street.[9]
The organization expanded again in 1906, whenMorris Loeb bought the building at 267 Henry Street for it to use. ThisGreek Revival townhouse was purchased from theHebrew Technical School for Girls, which had previously employed the architectural firm ofBuchman & Fox in 1900 to redo the facade inColonial Revival style.[5]Alice P. Gannett served as Associate headworker in 1912.[10]
In 1915, theNeighborhood Playhouse, one of the first"Little Theatres", was created by the sistersAlice andIrene Lewisohn at the corner of Grand and Pitt Streets, offering classical drama for the people of the area. The theater still operates, as the Harry De Jur Playhouse.[9]
In 1927, the Henry Street Music School began operation.[11] It had its formal opening in November 1928.[12] Early supporters of this addition to the settlement includedAaron Copland andWalter Damrosch. In 1937, the school premiered the play-operaThe Second Hurricane, which featured music by Copland, libretto byEdwin Denby, direction byOrson Welles, and orchestral conduction byLehman Engel. The director at the time, Grace Spofford, initially suggested the idea of a play-opera for school performers, and was largely responsible for bringing the production together. Alumni of the music school include violinistsBerl Senofsky,Stuart Canin,Isidor Lateiner, andHelen Kwalwasser (who later became a faculty member); pianistsMartin Canin andJacob Lateiner; and singerBillie Lynn Daniel. Faculty have included violinistIvan Galamian, pianistIsabelle Vengerova, bassoonistStephen Maxym, conductorArnold Gamson, and composersPaul Creston,Roy Harris, andRobert Starer.[13]
The Settlement began leasing the townhouse at 263 Henry Street, on the other side of its original building, in 1938, using it for classrooms and residences, and in 1949 it purchased the building, which was originally built in the Federal style but had been extensively altered.[5] This combining of the three townhouse – 263, 265 and 267 – had the consequence of preserving part of the 1820s streetscape amid what later became a crowded tenement district. The block of Henry Street between Montgomery Street andGrand Street, which also includesSt. Augustine's Church, gives an impression of uptown Manhattan as it would have looked in the 1820s and 1830s. #263 Henry Street was restored in 1989 and #265 in 1992.[5]
Henry Street is known for its pioneering efforts in social service andhealth care delivery. Its innovations included the establishment of one of New York City's first off-street playgrounds (1902); funding the first public school nurse (1902); starting the Visiting Nurse Service, which became independent as theVisiting Nurse Service of New York in 1944; opening one of the nation's first mental health clinics (1946), one of the first transitional housing facilities for the homeless (1972), the firstNaturally Occurring Retirement Community (NORC) in public housing (1994) and the city's first Safe Haven shelter for homeless women (2007).
In 2018,Sylvia Bloom, a secretary atCleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton for 67 years, donated $6.24 million to the settlement's Expanded Horizons College Success Program, which helps disadvantaged students prepare for and complete college.[14]
In honor of Henry Street's 125th anniversary, American artist,KAWS, collaborated with the Settlement to hold an interactive workshop for art students from theLower East Side community.[15]
At his passing, actor and comedianJerry Stiller, bequeathed an undisclosed sum to Henry Street Settlement's Abrons Arts Center and Boys & Girls Republic, community programs that aid in the educational and artistic development of Lower Ease Side youth.[16][17]
In 2021, the New York State Historic Preservation Office approved Henry Street Settlement's headquarters at 265–267 Henry Street as an LGBT historic site. The designation is founded upon Lillian Wald's romantic and platonic relationships with the women she affectionately called "The Family" (a concept commonly used in women-run settlement houses), who provided an essential support network for her from the 1890s until her retirement in the 1930s.[18][19]
Henry Street Settlement offers:
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