The Association Residence Nursing Home, also called the Association for the Relief of Respectable, Aged and

Indigent Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little

Females, is an historic building in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

built from 1881–1883 to the design of Richard Morris Hunt in the

Victorian Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style. It is located on Amsterdam Avenue between 103rd and 104th Streets on the

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, and is now a hostel run by

Hostelling International Hostelling International (HI), formerly known as International Youth Hostel Federation (IYHF), is a grouping of more than seventy National Youth Hostel Associations in over eighty countries, with over 4,000 affiliated hostels around the worl ...

. The Association was founded in 1814 to help the widows of soldiers of the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

and the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...

. An addition to the building was constructed on the south end of the property in 1907, which contained seven Tiffany windows which are now in the collection of the Morse Museum of American Art. The building was placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1975.

Association

On February 14, 1814, the Society for the Relief of Indigent Respectable Females, as it was first known, was established in New York City. The Society raised private donations, and gave clothing, small stoves, and food to elderly impoverished women "to relieve and comfort those aged females, who once enjoyed a good degree of affluence, but now reduced to poverty by the vicissitudes of Providence." It was run by women and its first directress was Ann Dominick in 1814. With the help of

John Jacob Astor John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor who made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by History of opium in China, smuggl ...

and Peter G. Stuyvesant, the Association built an asylum in 1837–38 at 226 East 20th Street and in 1845 added an infirmary. In 1881 the Association bought the lot on Amsterdam Avenue for $77,500 and construction began that fall by contractor John J. Tucker. The choice of the location was influenced by the construction of an elevated railway one block west on Ninth Avenue. The building was completed at a cost of $100,000 in 1883. At its dedication ceremony ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' stated that "the degree of comfort, almost amounting to luxury, manifest in every detail of the establishment, elicited from many visitors yesterday the remark that 'they would like to be old women'." The Association operated at the Amsterdam Avenue address until at least 1968.

Architect

Richard Morris Hunt was considered the dean of American architects. He was the first American architect trained at the

École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centur ...

in Paris. He worked with Thomas U. Walter in expanding the

United States Capitol The United States Capitol, often called The Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the seat of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, which is formally known as the United States Congress. It is located on Capitol Hill ...

and designed the base of the Statue of Liberty. Though he designed many types of buildings, he is best known for designing the homes of wealthy families such as the Astors and Vanderbilts, along Fifth Avenue in New York City and in

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New Yor ...

. He designed Biltmore for

George W. Vanderbilt George Washington Vanderbilt II (November 14, 1862 – March 6, 1914) was an art collector and member of the prominent Vanderbilt family, which amassed a huge fortune through steamboats, railroads, and various business enterprises. He commissi ...

. Hunt's first designs for the Association for the Relief of Respectable, Aged and Indigent Females was made in 1868, though the building wasn't started until 1881. In 1881 he was hired again and produced several variants based on the original plans. Fewer than twenty of the 75 Hunt designed buildings erected in New York City still survive. NYC Hostel from west

Demise and rehabilitation

Financial problems due to the longer life expectancy of residents began following World War II. Robert Moses proposed razing the building as part of an

slum clearance Slum clearance, slum eviction or slum removal is an urban renewal strategy used to transform low income settlements with poor reputation into another type of development or housing. This has long been a strategy for redeveloping urban communities; ...

project. When

Medicaid Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with healthcare costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and per ...

funds became available to nursing homes in the early 1970s, the Association planned to tear down and replace the building with a modern facility. A group of historic preservationists with ties to nearby

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

fought to preserve the building, making it into a community cause. Despite a fire during the

New York City blackout of 1977 The New York City blackout of 1977 was an electricity blackout that affected most of New York City on July 13–14, 1977. The only unaffected neighborhoods in the city were in southern Queens (including neighborhoods of the Rockaways), which ...

the preservationists prevailed and by the late 1970s, the building was acquired by the City of New York, and declared a New York City Landmark in 1983. During the 1980s the building was unoccupied as American Youth Hostels arranged neighborhood and government support for rehabilitating the building. They opened the hostel in January 1990 and with 670 beds it is now the largest hostel in North America.Hostelling International
New York - Manhattan Hostel, accessed May 25, 2011.

References

Sources

Guide to the Papers of the Association for the Relief of Respectable, Aged and Indigent Females in New York City 1813–1883, accessed May 23, 2011.

"Christmas in the Park," accessed May 23, 2011.
Landmark Preservation Commission
"Association for the Relief of Respectable, Aged Indigent Females." April 12, 1983, accessed May 23, 2011. {{National Register of Historic Places in New York Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan Infrastructure completed in 1883 New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan Youth hostelling