East 10th Street Historic District and Christodora House

East 10th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B
143 Avenue B, Henry C. Pelton, 1928

The 26 buildings on the north side of Tompkins Square Park comprise the East 10th Street Historic District. The City opened the park in 1834 to stimulate development in the area, but the Panic of 1837 delayed construction around the square until the late 1840’s. Though some were modernized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these rowhouses were some of the city’s first to employ the Italianate style. Later, as the population swelled, tenements were constructed on some of the lots and rowhouses were converted into multi-family dwellings. Newer buildings include the Old Law tenements at numbers 321 and 323 and the Tompkins Square Branch of the New York Public Library. On the east side of Tompkins Square is Christodora House, an Art Deco settlement house converted into condominiums in 1986, sparking one of the East Village’s first anti-gentrification protests, in which participants chanted the famous line: “Die, yuppie scum!”

The Christodora House is a listed on the State and National Register of Historic places. 143 Avenue B is listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places.

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