The Downtown Community House at 105-107 Washington Street is a six-story, five-bay
red brick
A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...
building that is among the last vestiges of the Lower West Side of Manhattan's former life as an ethnic neighborhood known as “ Little Syria.” From the time of its establishment, the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association, housed in the Downtown Community House beginning in 1926, was a pioneering organization that served the local immigrant population as a
settlement house
The settlement movement was a reformist social movement that began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in United Kingdom and the United States. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity and s ...
and continued to provide services for the area well after the community house became defunct. Built in 1925 with philanthropic funds from William H. Childs, the founder of the
Bon Ami
Bon Ami () is a brand of scouring powder sold by the Bon Ami Company of Kansas City, Missouri. Since its inception in the late 19th century, the brand's advertising campaigns have gained particular notice.
History
19th century
The original ...
household cleaner company, the Downtown Community House was designed by John F. Jackson, architect of over 70
Y.M.C.A.
YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...
buildings and community centers, and through its
Colonial Revival
The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture.
The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archi ...
style speaks to an underlying desire for the neighborhood's immigrant population to become Americanized and associate themselves with the country's foundations. In recent years, a collection of historic preservationists and Arab-American activists have lobbied the
Landmarks Preservation Commission
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...
and its chairman Robert Tierney to designate the building as a city landmark.
Early history
The community house located at 105-107 Washington Street was completed in 1926; prior to its construction, the lot was separated in two, with two early residential buildings (as Kate Reggev has speculated, perhaps a single-family house with both front and rear buildings) constructed sometime prior to 1822. One of 107 Washington Street's early residents was Samuel Healy, a money broker, who had an office nearby on
Greenwich Street
Greenwich Street is a north–south street in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan. It extends from the intersection of Ninth Avenue (Manhattan), Ninth Avenue and Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District, Manhat ...
. By the 1860s, both tenements were boarding houses used by
Irish immigrants
The Irish diaspora ( ga, Diaspóra na nGael) refers to ethnic Irish people and their descendants who live outside the island of Ireland.
The phenomenon of migration from Ireland is recorded since the Early Middle Ages,Flechner and Meeder, The ...
and sailors from the nearby piers, and No. 105 had a saloon on the ground floor. The area, because of its proximity to the wharves, was often recorded as the scene of fights, shootings, and other crimes; an inspection of No. 105 Washington Street in 1894 described it as a “five-story front and four-story rear tenement... The Inspector found the houses to be dirty, poorly ventilated, and the stairways considerably worn.” By 1896, both structures were condemned by the
Board of Health
Local boards or local boards of health were local authorities in urban areas of England and Wales from 1848 to 1894. They were formed in response to cholera epidemics and were given powers to control sewers, clean the streets, regulate environment ...
, and the tenements were vacated until 1897 when they were remodeled and considered fit for human habitation. Residents, including recently arrived Syrian immigrants, returned to the tenements and the storefronts continued to be occupied to serve the local community – the ground floor of 107 Washington Street had an Italian restaurant called Ferrintino Signorgro's in 1908. In 1920, the two tenements were purchased by a realty corporation from Mrs. Schroen of
Reno, Nevada
Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...
, who had the property in her family for over fifty years. In 1925, the property was purchased for the construction of the Downtown Community House to contain the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association.
Opening
The Bowling Green Neighborhood Association was formed in 1915 as an affiliate of the New York Milk Committee and had its first residence at the Bowling Green Community House at 45
West Street
The Joe DiMaggio Highway, commonly called the West Side Highway and formerly the Miller Highway, is a mostly surface section of New York State Route 9A (NY 9A), running from West 72nd Street along the Hudson River to the southern t ...
. At its inception, it was primarily devoted to children's work, but over time also created services for adults, with a focus on education and health; the Association had a medical and dental clinic and sponsored folk dances, fund-raisers for special holidays, and English classes for over fourteen nationalities in hopes of working to “weld together the peoples of the many nations in the
Bowling Green
A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls.
Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep on ...
neighborhood,” according to news articles from 1922 to 1925. The Association described the neighborhood in 1922 as having an
infant mortality
Infant mortality is the death of young children under the age of 1. This death toll is measured by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the probability of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births. The under-five morta ...
rate that was twice the rate of the average of all of New York City and a death rate of tuberculosis that was four times the average in New York; they described the area as “the first, cheapest, and most convenient home for a motley immigration of Italians, Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Syrians, Slavs and Poles.” In the late 1910s and early 1920s, Bowling Green Neighborhood Association was one of the only health clinics or dispensaries serving the downtown Manhattan residential community.
The Bowling Green Association also published annual reports of both the current conditions and of their successes in “
Wall Street
Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...
’s backyard,” announcing a decrease in infant mortality rates in Bowling Green by two-thirds between 1910 and 1924, a decline in the death rate in the area by 1923 of 14.5%, and the daily attendance of 400 people to their playground. The Association's Health Center, equipped with four doctors and a part-time dentist, carried out pioneering medical studies, documenting the eating habits and improved health of the neighborhood's children when given adequate nutritional options, treating thousands of patients. In 1919, the Health Center had provided 1,801 physicians visits, 4,579 nurses visits, and had an annual attendance of 3,447; infant mortality was reduced from 321 to 175 per thousand.
In 1917, after the publication of their second annual report, which received a special recommendation from the Mayor and other city officials, the Police Commissioner at the time, Arthur Woods, said that the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association had, “in the brief space of two years... developed a successful model program for community organization... that can, with profit, be studied by other social forces.” Their 1918 experimental study, in which three meals a day were provided to neighborhood immigrant children for a period of six months, aimed to instruct parents in the proper nutrition and feeding of children. These significant accomplishments, in particular the nutrition study, were well known in New York and often published in newspapers and medical and health journals, as well as Henry Collin Brown's ''Valentine’s City of New York: A Guidebook''.
Along with medical concerns, sanitary living conditions were also of the utmost importance to the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association. Workers at the Downtown Community House were constantly on the lookout for unsanitary or unacceptable housing conditions, which they would subsequently report to the social worker in charge of building incidents; he would then notify the owner or agency of the building before informing the government agency of the situation. Two weeks after the complaint was recorded, the
social worker
Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...
would follow up on the case and send a letter to the head of the appropriate municipal department if the requested improvements were not made. This ultimately resulted in a complete housing survey of the area and significant improvements in housing in the neighborhood, sometimes to the point of buildings being torn down or completely remodeled.
In 1925, after years of campaigning for donations of money, toys, and food from the wealthy who worked on nearby Wall Street, William H. Childs, the founder of the Bon Ami powdered cleaner company, made a $250,000 donation to the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association with the promise of other Wall Street investors to double their annual donations to the cause. William Hamlin Childs (1857-1928), a native of
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...
, earned his fortune in the soap and
detergent
A detergent is a surfactant or a mixture of surfactants with cleansing properties when in dilute solutions. There are a large variety of detergents, a common family being the alkylbenzene sulfonates, which are soap-like compounds that are more ...
industry at the turn of the 20th century. His father, owner of a
grist mill
A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the Mill (grinding), grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist i ...
in
Manchester, Connecticut
Manchester is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town had a total population of 59,713. The urban center of the town is the Manchester census-designated place, with a population of 36,379 at the 202 ...
, had leased the mill to John T. Robertson, a scientist who was experimenting with feldspar ground into a powder and mixing it with
liquid soap
Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are used a ...
to produce a gentle cleaning agent he called ''Bon Ami''. Taking advantage of the prospering market of store-bought soap by
housewives
A housewife (also known as a homemaker or a stay-at-home mother/mom/mum) is a woman whose role is running or managing her family's home—housekeeping, which includes caring for her children; cleaning and maintaining the home; making, buying a ...
at the turn of the 20th century, William H. Childs and his cousin formed ''Childs and Childs'' and became the exclusive sales agents for Bon Ami, which by the 1890s was packaged in paper and stamped with the company logo, a yellow chick. By
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, Bon Ami was being sold in powder form in cardboard cans throughout the globe, from
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
to
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. Even during the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, the cleaner continued to do well on the stock market, never reducing or failing to pay a dividend on the
New York Stock Market
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
. In the past thirty years, the powdered white cleanser, often used for cleaning kitchen sinks and bathtubs, has continued to fare well.
The popularity of Childs’ product made him a wealthy man in New York City, and he constructed a red brick and limestone Flemish Revival home in well-to-do
Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Prospect Park is an urban park in Brooklyn, New York City. The park is situated between the neighborhoods of Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Flatbush, and Windsor Terrace, and is adjacent to the Brooklyn Museum, Gran ...
(Architect: William B. Tubby, 1901). It also enabled him to devote much of his free time and income to philanthropic pursuits; he was director and a significant contributor to the Beekman Street Hospital in New York City, chairman of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charity, President of the Battery Park Association, and Vice President of the Park Association of New York City. Through these charitable foundations and his reputation among wealthy New Yorkers, Childs was able to secure the promise of other Wall Street investors to double their annual donations for the construction of the Downtown Community House. With these pledges from Wall Street in 1925, the Neighborhood Association was able to extend its bounding limits to provide services to an estimated 10,000 people speaking twenty-five different languages as well as move to a new, larger space at 105-107 Washington Street, purchased in March 1925.
The new Downtown Community House, designed by architect John F. Jackson, opened on May 5, 1926 with two pageants, a play by children in local public schools explaining the development of New York from
Henry Hudson
Henry Hudson ( 1565 – disappeared 23 June 1611) was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the northeastern United States.
In 1607 and 160 ...
’s discovery in 1609 through the opening of the community house, and a speech by Mayor Jimmy Walker. Patriotism and a feeling of pride in America and its history were apparent, and as Mayor Walker said, the Community House was “turning back the Bolsheviki, helping God and man, and making the Stars and Stripes brighter than ever.” Housing the first public library in Downtown Manhattan with an initial collection of 1,000 books, the building also contained clinics, a milk dispensary, assembly hall, cooking school, gymnasium, and a Roosevelt Memorial Nursery with furniture small enough for infants. Within the first year of its opening, the workers of the community house made over 10,570 visits, ranging from medical appointments, to the upkeep and maintenance of the local tenements, to assistance with obtaining working papers.
In the years following its opening, the Downtown Community House provided a wide range of medical, social, and occupational opportunities, including musicals, a drama club, classes in scientific housekeeping, and Christmas activities for the neighborhood children with music, dances,
Christmas trees
A Christmas tree is a decorated tree, usually an evergreen conifer, such as a spruce, pine or fir, or an artificial tree of similar appearance, associated with the celebration of Christmas. The custom was further developed in early modern G ...
, and food baskets donated by wealthy sponsors and Wall Street corporations. In 1929, the Neighborhood Association conducted an occupational survey of the area's female population, discovering that over two-thirds of the 788 women surveyed were found to be scrubwomen, most over the age of 30, who worked long hours overnight in nearby office buildings on Wall Street at a wage of 50 cents per hour; the results of the survey were then used to establish free summer vacation camps for Lower Manhattan working women. The medical center continued to be a vital resource to the community, providing over 1,500 schoolchildren with dental care in 1926 and 1,400 in 1928; in only one month in 1930, 1,041 visits to 535 people were made, with a total attendance of 3,774 at the health center. Community activities during the Great Depression included plays directed by out-of-work locals, giving the unemployed men “something to work on during their enforced idleness.”
In 1930, after the death of the Association's president Chellis A. Austin, Guy Emerson, the vice president of Bankers Trust Co., was elected president. That same year, though, the Association's surveys showed a significant increase in skyscraper construction in the area, ultimately resulting in an 8 to 10% decrease in the area's population, and in 1940, the dramatic changes in the structure of the downtown communities, especially the decreasing population, led to the consolidation of the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association/Downtown Community House with the Beekman Street Hospital, today known as
New York Downtown Hospital
NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital is a nonprofit, acute care, teaching hospital in New York City and is the only hospital in Lower Manhattan south of Greenwich Village. It is part of the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System and one ...
. In 1945, the Beekman-Downtown Hospital sold the property to Nathan Wilson for $183,000, with the proceeds of the sale, according to Kate Reggev, most likely used to establish an endowment or reserve fund for the Beekman-Downtown Hospital Building.
Despite the change of hands of the building, 105-107 Washington Street remained a resource in the neighborhood as a pioneering recreation and health center. In 1936, it became the Recreation & Training School or the Recreation Center for the Adult Physically Handicapped, sponsored by the
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
. It was the first center devoted to the recreation and athletics of handicapped adults in the United States, “helping ts usersto overcome their so-called ‘inferiority complex’” and it offered classes in play leadership and techniques for “social adjustment” through community recreation such as arts and crafts, swimming, dancing, puppetry, sports, and story-telling. In 1943, the “modern six-story structure” formerly housing the Downtown Community House reopened as the
War Shipping Administration
The War Shipping Administration (WSA) was a World War II emergency war agency of the US government, tasked to purchase and operate the civilian shipping tonnage the United States needed for fighting the war. Both shipbuilding under the Maritime Co ...
and United Service, a government office for medical services for merchant seamen about to ship out or for those who would need recuperation after their return. In 1946, the WPA relinquished the property, and in the 1950s, it served as the headquarters of Local 88 of the
International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots
The International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots or MM&P is a United States labor union representing licensed mariners.
MM&P represents licensed deck officers on U.S.- flag commercial vessels sailing offshore, on the inland waterways a ...
, a
longshoremen
A stevedore (), also called a longshoreman, a docker or a dockworker, is a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships, trucks, trains or airplanes.
After the shipping container revolution of the 1960s, the number o ...
union local chapter. It most recently housed the True Buddha Diamond Temple, but today stands vacant.
Architect
The Downtown Community House was built with Childs’ funds for a total cost of $300,000 ($50,000 more than Childs’ original gift) by John F. Jackson (1867-1948), an architect who completed over 70
Y.M.C.A.
YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...
buildings and neighborhood houses over the course of his career. Born in
New Brunswick, Canada
New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and F ...
in 1867, Jackson moved to
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...
to complete his apprenticeship at the firm of
Green & Wicks
Green & Wicks was an architectural firm of Buffalo, New York.
Practice
Edward Brodhead Green was an 1878 graduate of Cornell University's College of Architecture, and designed a number of buildings which made up Cornell's Agriculture Quadrangle ...
before moving to New York in 1901. He was a partner in two New York firms, Jackson, Rosencrans & Canfield and Jackson & Rosencrans before practicing alone in New York beginning in the 1920s and finally moving to
Passaic, New Jersey
Passaic ( or ) is a city in Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city had a total population of 70,537, ranking as the 16th largest municipality in New Jersey and an increase of 656 from the 69,78 ...
six years before his death.
Jackson designed numerous Young Men's Christian Association buildings in New York including the Prospect Park Branch (1925), the Highland Park Branch (1925), and the Harlem 135th Street Branch (1918), as well as other community and youth centers in New York City, such as the Boys Club of New York at 321 East 111th Street (1926) and the Seaman's Branch of the Y.M.C.A. in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
(1921, not extant). Jackson's contributions extended beyond New York City as the architect of the Y.M.C.A. in
Rochester
Rochester may refer to:
Places Australia
* Rochester, Victoria
Canada
* Rochester, Alberta
United Kingdom
*Rochester, Kent
** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area
** History of Rochester, Kent
** HM Prison ...
Watertown Watertown may refer to:
Places in China
In China, a water town is a type of ancient scenic town known for its waterways.
Places in the United States
*Watertown, Connecticut, a New England town
**Watertown (CDP), Connecticut, the central village ...
(not extant), New York;
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
(1908) and
Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...
(1911), Canada; and
Jersey City
Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.Passaic
Passaic ( or ) is a city in Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city had a total population of 70,537, ranking as the 16th largest municipality in New Jersey and an increase of 656 from the 69,7 ...
(1924), New Jersey. Several of his plans, sketches, and drawings for these buildings were published in national architectural magazines; in 1922, '' The American Architect and the Architectural Review'' described his sketches for the proposed Y.M.C.A. building in Jersey City as “showing a finely developed artistic ability.” While describing a building of a grander scale and a larger budget than the Downtown Community House, the same sense of massing and design seen through the articulation of the different floors, the
Flemish bond
Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and Mortar (masonry), mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called ''Course (architecture), courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall.
Bricks ...
and
limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
ornamentation, and the influence of
Greek Revival
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...
detailing at the Y.M.C.A. in Jersey City is also seen at 105-107 Washington Street; from it, one also gets a sense of the original interiors that which might have existed at the Downtown Community House.
However prolific he was as a designer of community houses, Jackson's abilities were by no means limited to this form. He also designed the Calvary Baptist Church in
Clifton, New Jersey
Clifton is a city in Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Criss-crossed by several major highways, the city is a regional commercial hub for North Jersey and is a bedroom suburb of New York City in the New York Metropolitan Area. As ...
(1924), the Methodist Church in
Westfield, New Jersey
Westfield is a town in Union County, New Jersey, United States, located southwest of Manhattan. As of the 2010 United States census, the town's population was 30,316,East Brookfield, Massachusetts. Jackson was also involved in residential architecture in New Jersey; he designed several homes in Passaic, including that of William H. Carey (1920), Judge W.W. Watson (1920), and Charles L. Denison (1920), all of which had images and plans published in '' American Architect''. The architectural style of both his civic structures and his private residences was typically a mixture of Colonial Revival and Italian Renaissance details and ornament using red brick and limestone accents.
Colonial Revival style
The Colonial Revival was a nationalistic architectural style that was popular in the United States from the end of the 19th century through the 1930s. Attempting to emulate and recall the designs of America's early history, the Colonial Revival stemmed from the restorations of the mid-19th century at
Independence Hall
Independence Hall is a historic civic building in Philadelphia, where both the United States Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were debated and adopted by America's Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Fa ...
,
Mount Vernon
Mount Vernon is an American landmark and former plantation of Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States George Washington and his wife, Martha. The estate is on ...
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
and Neoclassical architecture of the East Coast and England, roughly from 1720 to 1840, as well as
Greek Revival
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...
influences, with defining characteristics such as symmetrical wood
clapboard
Clapboard (), also called bevel siding, lap siding, and weatherboard, with regional variation in the definition of these terms, is wooden siding of a building in the form of horizontal boards, often overlapping.
''Clapboard'' in modern Americ ...
or Flemish-bond brick facades with elaborate front doors, crown or broken
pediment
Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape.
Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds.
A pedimen ...
entrances,
fanlight
A fanlight is a form of lunette window, often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, and is sometimes hinged to a transom. Th ...
s,
Palladian windows
A Venetian window (also known as a Serlian window) is a large tripartite window which is a key element in Palladian architecture. Although Sebastiano Serlio (1475–1554) did not invent it, the window features largely in the work of the Italian a ...
,
gabled
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...
or
mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...
s, Classical-inspired details such as swag reliefs and urns, and
dormer
A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window.
Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable space ...
windows.
Patriotism played an important part both in the rediscovery of these buildings and in their subsequent emulation across the nation, in particular around the turn of the 20th century when the United States was experiencing a dramatic increase in immigrant population and desired to clarify and express American identity. Moreover, after the emotionally devastating
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the country was in need of a renewed sense of comfort, manifesting itself architecturally in the Colonial Revival, which evoked the past and was “not meant to overwhelm but to welcome.” Architectural magazines from the time also looked back to Colonial America for “inspiration for modern builders” and examined Colonial-era structures in each month's publication, believing there to be an inherent honesty and truth in this style that evoked the memories of the American past.
Although predominantly seen in residential buildings, Colonial Revival style became increasingly used throughout the United States for civic structures that served the poor, deprived, or newly arrived.
Fiske Kimball
Sidney Fiske Kimball (1888 – 1955) was an American architect, architectural historian and museum director. A pioneer in the field of historic preservation, architectural preservation in the United States, he played a leading part in the re ...
, in a 1919 article on social centers in ''Architectural Record'', suggested that community centers “do not have a standardized form of organization” because of their wide range of activities, but the Colonial Revival was a popular option for many of these centers partially because of the wide variety of decorative options and arrangements made possible by the style. More importantly, though, Colonial Revival was common for community and neighborhood houses precisely because of the way it physically expressed nationalistic and patriotic feelings to the nation's newcomers.
In the early 20th century when ethnic tensions ran high due to high immigration rates, most neighborhood, settlement, and community houses had a program of Americanization to assimilate users into American society. Architecture began to play an important part in the educational programs at many of these settlement houses, with classes on local history using prints and images of
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam ( nl, Nieuw Amsterdam, or ) was a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''factory'' gave rise ...
and old New York. Tours were given to immigrant children of Colonial landmarks in New York, such as the
Dyckman House
The Dyckman House, now the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, is the oldest remaining farmhouse on Manhattan island, a vestige of New York City's rural past. The Dutch Colonial-style farmhouse was built by William Dyckman, c.1785, and was originally par ...
, with the intention of moralizing the newcomers: “the very walls of the old Dutch house were said to present ‘our young citizens...
ith a
The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometres, is the longest line of crags in North Germany.
Geography
Location
The Ith is immediatel ...
living history of honest and upright life.’” This need to Americanize immigrants and provide them with a strong set of ethics extended beyond the programmatic schedules of these centers into the architectural language through the use of the Colonial Revival. By referencing forms, materials, and shapes from Colonial era in combination with showing the immigrants true “American” architecture, the aim was to visually articulate and define America and inform the newcomers of American history and patriotism. The Colonial Revival style was thus a physical expression as well as a physical extension of the assimilation process that occurred inside its doors.
While building styles were quite diverse in New York City in the 1880s through the 1930s, the Colonial Revival style was favored in particular for community and neighborhood houses, such as the well-known
University Settlement House
The University Settlement Society of New York is an American organization which provides educational and social services to immigrants and low-income families, located at 184 Eldridge Street (corner of Eldridge and Rivington Streets) on the Lowe ...
Delano & Aldrich
Delano & Aldrich was an American Beaux-Arts architectural firm based in New York City. Many of its clients were among the wealthiest and most powerful families in the state. Founded in 1903, the firm operated as a partnership until 1935, when Ald ...
). The University Settlement House, originally known as the Neighborhood Guild, is a six-story, red brick building with a prominent entrance flanked by two
Corinthian Corinthian or Corinthians may refer to:
*Several Pauline epistles, books of the New Testament of the Bible:
**First Epistle to the Corinthians
**Second Epistle to the Corinthians
**Third Epistle to the Corinthians (Orthodox)
*A demonym relating to ...
columns and a limestone base,
belt course
A belt course, also called a string course or sill course, is a continuous row or layer of stones or brick set in a wall. Set in line with window sills, it helps to make the horizontal line of the sills visually more prominent. Set between the f ...
s, inset plaques, and projecting window lintels. The tall arched windows on the second floor diminish in size to smaller windows on the upper stories, with a final band of arched windows on the sixth floor capped with a Greek Revival cornice. The Greenwich House, a settlement house founded in the
West Village
The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City.
The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, 14th Street (Manhattan ...
in 1901, served the needs of its largely Italian community in its Colonial Revival seven-story, red brick building with painted shutters, a steep gabled roof, and dormer windows. Other community houses designed in the Colonial Revival style are found throughout the country in particular in urban areas, including the Chicago Orphan Asylum Building (later the
Parkway Community House
A parkway is a landscaped thoroughfare.''"parkway."''Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (14 Apr. 2007). The term is particularly used for a roadway in a park or ...
; Chicago,
Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge
Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge was a successful architecture firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, operating between 1886 and 1915, with extensive commissions in monumental civic, religious, and collegiate architecture in the spirit and style of Henry ...
, 1898-1899) and the
William Hale House
The William Hale House is a historic house at 5 Hale Street in Dover, New Hampshire. Built in 1806, it is one of the few early houses in southeastern New Hampshire for which the architect is known with certainty. It is also the only definitivel ...
(Chicago, Argyle Robinson, 1908), as well as other red brick and limestone trim community and youth centers such as the Philadelphia University House (1907) and South Bay Union in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
.
Design
The five-bay, six-story red brick building at 105-107 Washington Street was designed in the Colonial Revival style with a granite base, limestone first floor, limestone window
lintels
A lintel or lintol is a type of beam (a horizontal structural element) that spans openings such as portals, doors, windows and fireplaces. It can be a decorative architectural element, or a combined ornamented structural item. In the case of ...
with projecting
keystones
A keystone (or capstone) is the wedge-shaped stone at the apex of a masonry arch or typically round-shaped one at the apex of a vault. In both cases it is the final piece placed during construction and locks all the stones into position, allo ...
, stone plaques between each floor, arched window surrounds on the second floor, and a
slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...
with metal-framed dormer windows. The eagle and swag plaques above the third story windows, along with the swag relief details in the
cornice
In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...
frieze
In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
and the Flemish bond, hearken back to the early buildings of the United States. The articulation of the windows, beginning with large, arched window frames on the second floor, become smaller and less decorative on each successive story, but still employ the sense of “good proportions” and the correct “proportion of voids to solids” that Jackson described as appropriate for Y.M.C.A. community houses in a 1911 article for a Y.M.C.A. publication, '' Association Men''. The swag details, seen on other neo-Classical and Colonial Revival structures by John F. Jackson such as the Prospect Park branch Y.M.C.A., are proportionally appropriate for a six-story building, while the eagle relief in the limestone plaques in particular emphasizes the
patriotism
Patriotism is the feeling of love, devotion, and sense of attachment to one's country. This attachment can be a combination of many different feelings, language relating to one's own homeland, including ethnic, cultural, political or histor ...
evident in the Colonial Revival style.
The original windows on the building were three-over-three double-hung windows with painted white frames, with smaller two-over-two windows on the dormer windows on the sixth story. The main entrance is flanked by two fluted
pilaster
In classical architecture
Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...
s and crowned by a molded arch and a decorative cornice. On either side of the central doorway are service entrances, still retaining their original two-over-two windows, which have been painted over. The
mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...
, unique among known extant buildings by John F. Jackson, was, according to Kate Reggev, most likely chosen for its ability to function as a roof as well as provide ample ceiling heights and dormer windows on the top floor and to distinguish the building from its neo-Classically detailed, metal-corniced residential neighbors.
Reggev has suggested that the mansard roof could also have its origins in the design of Colonial Revival clubhouses in New York City. Jackson did not make any specific recommendations in terms of appropriate styles for Y.M.C.A. buildings and community houses, but he did suggest building materials that would not be “too rich in effect” to ultimately “have a club-like appearance.” Community houses, in this sense, were likened to buildings used by the social elite, even though they were in fact used by middle and lower-class citizens and immigrants; in appearance, then, they hoped to rise above their social class and evoke a wealthy lifestyle, often with its heritage and roots in early America. It is perhaps from the slate mansard roofs of turn-of-the-century clubhouses in New York that the roof on the Downtown Community House is derived: the neo-Federal “Old”
Colony Club
The Colony Club is a women-only private social club in New York City. Founded in 1903 by Florence Jaffray Harriman, wife of J. Borden Harriman, as the first social club established in New York City by and for women, it was modeled on similar ...
in New York City (now the
American Academy of Dramatic Arts
The American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) is a private performing arts conservatory with two locations, one in Manhattan and one in Los Angeles. The academy offers an associate degree in occupational studies and teaches drama and related art ...
, McKim, Mead and White, 1905-1906), with its gray slate roof and dormer windows, and the “New” Colony Club in New York (Delano & Aldrich, 1916), which had a red slate roof, could have influenced Jackson's design.
The Century Association
The Century Association is a private social, arts, and dining club in New York City, founded in 1847. Its clubhouse is located at 7 West 43rd Street near Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. It is primarily a club for men and women with distinctio ...
's 15th Street clubhouse (H.H. Richardson, 1869), although older and in the
Second Empire Style
Second Empire style, also known as the Napoleon III style, is a highly eclectic style of architecture and decorative arts, which uses elements of many different historical styles, and also made innovative use of modern materials, such as i ...
, also boasts a slate mansard roof.
The building's current state has undergone only minor alterations; it was converted to office space in 1946, but was then soon reconverted into a community house with a recreation room, lounge, reading rooms, and classrooms in 1949.Department of Buildings, New York City. Alteration Application #1682-46; Department of Buildings, New York City. Alteration Application #385-48. The exterior windows were replaced in 1965, and upon its conversion to a
Buddhist temple
A Buddhist temple or Buddhist monastery is the place of worship for Buddhists, the followers of Buddhism. They include the structures called vihara, chaitya, stupa, wat and pagoda in different regions and languages. Temples in Buddhism represen ...
in 2003, a small relief ornament of Buddha was placed on top of each keystone above the second story windows. At some point, the fluting of the pilasters of the entrance has also been painted, and the granite base and limestone ground floor have also been painted. A
terra-cotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta i ...
Chinese-style cornice was also added just above the ground floor and is in disrepair.