The 1827 Joseph Benedict House - 263 Henry Street

 

The subtle change of brick color testifies to the addition of the upper floors.

The Dutch Rutgers clan first settled in Albany, but moved to New York in the 18th century.  Henry Rutgers was related to the Lispenard family by marriage.  He established a large estate on which, in 1798, he erected a Presbyterian church, known as "the kirk on Rutgers Farm."  According to The Sun decades later, "On, July 27, 1799, Rutgers on his own grounds paraded the militia before President Washington, Gov. Clinton and visiting Indian chiefs, and thereafter he was Col. Rutgers.  Gilbert Stuart painted Washington’s portrait at that time, and it was a prized possession of the Rutgers mansion.”

Streets were laid out on the sprawling Rutgers Farm in the first years of the 19th century.  Rutgers left his mark on the map, naming Rutgers Street where his mansion stood.  It intersected Henry Street, named for himself.  There were also Catherine Street, named for Catherine Rutgers, and Bancker Street, named for Rutgers's son-in-law.  (The street which divided the Rutgers estate from the De Lancey farm was given the name Division Street.)

The former Rutgers Farm became a high-toned residential neighborhood.  In 1827, a two-and-a-half-story, Federal style home was erected at 263 Henry Street.  Faced in red brick, the 24-foot wide residence would have had a handsome Federal style entrance with columns and sidelights (similar to the surviving example next door at 265), and dormers at the attic level.

The family of Joseph Benedict lived here at least from the mid-1830s through 1841.  He was a clerk in the Post Office on Nassau Street.  Mercy King, the widow of John A. King, occupied the house in 1853 and '54, followed by another widow, Hannah Ashford.  Living with her was her adult son, John A. Ashford, Jr.  Hannah died here on July 15, 1861 at the age of 69.  Her funeral was held in the parlor at 2:00 on July 17, and she was interred in Greenwood Cemetery.

There would be another funeral here less than a year later.  Charles H. and Caroline M. Smith next moved into the house and had a baby, Charles, Jr. on December 13, 1861.  The boy died four months later and his funeral was held on May 4, 1862.

The house continued to be leased to a succession of well-heeled tenants.  Emily Thompson, the widow of Andrew Thompson, lived here in 1864-65, and Henry Donald, a stevedore, occupied the house from 1867 through 1869.

No. 263 Henry Street was sold in June 1870 for $13,500 (about $325,000 in 2024).  It was purchased by Mary A. McEntee, who leased it to Nelson and Lydia A. Bush.  Nelson was the proprietor of an "eatinghouse," or restaurant at 166 Nassau Street.  

Nelson Bush joined his father's business in 1873, the same year the Bushes took in a boarder.  Jeremiah Hitchcock, a saddler, lived with the family from about 1873 through 1878.  

The Bush family moved to Wilson Street in Brooklyn in 1880.  That year George Graham and his wife purchased 263 Henry Street.  In May, they hired architect Gage Inslee to enlarge the property.  His plans said the dwelling would "be raised to four stories, also a four-story brick extension on rear."  The renovations cost the Grahams about $72,300 in today's money.  Inslee gave the openings fanciful brownstone lintels with vining, incised carvings.  The parlor floor windows were additionally embellished with diminutive molded cornices above the lintels.  Sandwiched between the lintel and cornice of the entrance was a fancifully carved Queen Anne panel with a sunburst and volutes.  A modern neo-Grec cornice crowned the design.

The renovations resulted in modern, Queen Anne fencing contrasted to the openwork Federal newels.

George Graham died at the age of 64 on August 26, 1890.  His funeral was held here three days later followed by a requiem mass at St. Theresa's Church, on Rutgers Street.

It appears that Graham's widow moved soon afterward.  She was living in Iceland, New Jersey in July 1898 when she hired architect Max Muller to erect an interior wall.  By now the Henry Street neighborhood had significantly changed--from one of aristocratic families to mostly Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.  Before long she would have a most celebrated tenant.

Rabbi Jacob Joseph was described by The New York Times as "the highest official in the orthodox Jewish religion in the United States."  Born in Russia, he was the head of the Congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagodai at 64 Norfolk and had written several books.  In 1894 he suffered a stroke, but continued to work.  Then in 1898 (the year Mrs. Graham had the wall installed), he had a relapse, which left him paralyzed.

According to Scott D. Seligman in his The Chief Rabbi's Funeral: 

Despite the astronomical salary he had been paid during his early years in America, he had never managed to amass a nest egg, and in the 1890s he was forced to relocate to a more modest home at 263 Henry Street.  By 1901 he was not only paralyzed but nearly penniless.

On the evening of July 28, 1902, according to The New York Times, "his family gathered about his bedside.  When he died his son and his married daughters were present."  The article said, "As soon as the death became known crowds began to gather in front of the house.  Nearly a thousand persons were there, and prayers were offered for the rabbi."

About 50,000 mourners accompanied the rabbi's coffin from the house.  Salvation magazine reported, "Seldom before, not even during the meat riot, had so many thousands of people thronged the streets.  Never had a man so well beloved by the Orthodox Jews died in this country."  The article said, "From the door of the Chief Rabbi's humble home at 263 Henry Street, to the gateway of the Temple Rodolph Shalom Cemetery, in Cypress Hills, L. I., the route of the funeral line was one continuous path of mourning."

But it did not go smoothly.  Antisemitic sentiment was strong, and as the procession with the unpainted pine coffin passed the Hoe factory on Grand Street, workers hissed and jeered from the windows.  One employee recounted seeing his coworkers, "throw water and missiles down onto the surging crowds of mourners.  At last, he saw the hose turned on the streets," as reported by The New York Times.

A riot broke out.  The 300 policemen detailed for the event were overwhelmed, and their response, at least according to some witnesses, was focused on the mourners rather than the instigators.  On August 2, 1902, The New York Times headlined an article, "Police Denounced by Jews In Mass Meeting," and reported that 3,000 people had crammed into Cooper Union "to protest against the conduct of the policemen and factory workers who participated in Wednesday's rioting."

A community leader angrily protested, "The men in the factory insulted us wantonly.  Then the police, who should have protected us, clubbed us into insensibility."  A lawyer, Abraham D. Levy, headed a committee to bring charges "against the officers who had clubbed the mourners in the funeral procession," said The Times.  

The 1880 lintel is a spectacular example.

Mrs. Joseph Fine founded the Hebrew Day Nursery in the house in 1904.  Born in Poland in 1860, she was the daughter of Rabbi Joshua Seigel and "a prominent worker in various Jewish welfare organizations," according to The Sun.  She was a director of the Home of the Daughters of Jacob, of the Harlem Daughters of Israel, and of the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School.

The Hebrew Day Nursery allowed mothers to work during the day.  It continued its work here after Mrs. Fine's death on March 28, 1919.  

On the afternoon of July 7, 1925, a fire broke out on the stairway between the second and third floors.  The New York Evening Post reported, "The dozen children who occupied the Hebrew Day Nursery at 263 Henry street yesterday are unharmed today...Teachers and nurses removed their charges to the street while the flames were extinguished."  The damage was limited to $200 (just under $3,500 today).

Lillian D. Wald founded the Henry Street Settlement in 1893 and two years later Jacob Schiff purchased the house at 265 Henry Street for the organization.  In 1935, the Settlement acquired 263 Henry Street and opened the Workers' Education Center, sponsored by the Works Progress Administration.  In her 2020 The House on Henry Street, Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier explains it, "served 150 students, most of them from the Lower East Side: unemployed cooks, clerks, laborers, stonecutters, shipping clerks, garment workers, and more."

A poster advertised an "information study group" here.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The house was renovated twice--in 1942 and 1994.  The first resulted in classrooms in the basement, first and third floors, with one apartment each on the second and fourth floors.  The last remodeling changed the basement and parlor floor classrooms to office space.

photographs by the author

The Neighborhood Playhouse -- No. 466 Grand Street

Sisters Irene and Alice Lewisohn were unmarried, wealthy and refined in 1905.  The young Jewish women became involved with Lillian D. Wald’s Henry Street Settlement as volunteers in club activities.  Wald, along with another nurse, Mary M. Brewster, had established the organization on the Lower East Side to provide social services and nursing to the impoverished residents.  Their work, heavily funded by the generosity of banker Jacob Schiff who also donated a building, had branched out to include club activities like crafts, music, drama and painting.

The Lewisohn women were highly interested in the stage.  Alice had been trained in acting and Irene had studied “expressive gesture.”  They brought this focus to Henry Street and initially formed a dramatic dance group which performed in festivals.  The New York Times noted in 1915 “During the last eight years, the festival groups of the Henry Street Settlement have presented seasonal festivals and pantomimes in the gymnasium.”  They hoped to bring pride and self worth to the impoverished youngsters through creative expression.

In 1912 the women organized the Dramatic Club, presenting cutting edge plays such as The Shepard by Olive Tilford Dargan, and The Silver Box by John Galsworthy at Clinton Hall.  The New York Times noted, “These productions reached a point where the development of the players, the interest of the audiences, and the response of the neighborhood seemed to demand the direction of [a] playhouse.”

On October 4, 1913, the Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide reported that the Board of Examiners had approved plans for “Neighborhood Hall,” a 300-seat auditorium designed by Harry Creighton Ingalls and E. F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr.  The Lewisohn sisters funded the $60,000 project, located at 466 through 470 Grand Street.   Although construction did not begin until April 1914, it was nearly completed on January 25, 1915 when The New York Times described the structure.

The architecture of the playhouse was determined largely by the character of the original buildings in its neighborhood.  The exterior is distinctly Georgian and the interior, while based on Georgian principles, is not intended to represent any particular style or period.  The façade is of light red brick with marble trimmings.  The third story, which sets back from the street, is of stucco.  The entrance doors are green and the shutters of the windows green.

While it was nice to think that Ingalls & Hoffman were inspired in their neo-Georgian style by the “original buildings in the neighborhood,” it was more likely simply architectural fashion that directed them.  Neo-Georgian structures had been appearing throughout the city for several years and, as a matter of fact, the architects had designed the similar Little Theatre on West 44th Street in 1912.  And The New York Times admitted later, “It is not unlike Winthrop Ames’s Little Theatre both as to the Colonial architecture of its facade and the size and shape of its auditorium.”

The Lewisohn sisters intended their theater to follow the “Little Theater” movement, which focused on experimental plays and intimate spaces—making the audience nearly a part of the drama.  They were also highly involved in the design, introducing innovations that outshone even the Broadway theaters.  Among these was the rear of the stage, constructed as a quarter-dome.  It enabled realistic sky effects with no angles.

The New York Times was impressed with the multi-purpose third floor, which it deemed “distinctive.”  

Across the front runs a large rehearsal room, which will be used for occasional dances as well as for regular class work.  This room can be divided by sliding doors into two huge dressing rooms, one of which in turn can be further subdivide by movable screens into as many dressing rooms as area required.  Besides these, there are two individual dressing rooms.

The Neighborhood Playhouse would present “plays new to New York audiences.”  Weekends were devoted to children’s programs, including the seasonal festivals, pantomime ballets and “fairy plays.”  The New York Times advised, “On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays the offerings will consist of moving pictures, playlets, camera talks, folk songs and dances, illustrated fairy tales, marionettes and music, running continuously from 1:30 P.M. to 11 P.M. o’clock.”  The price of admission was set at 5 and 10 cents during the week, and 25 and 50 cents on weekends.

The theater opened on February 12, 1915 with Jephtha’s Daughter, written especially for the occasion.  Temperance: A Monthly Journal of the Church Temperance Society, said the play was “woven out of the traditions of the neighborhood.”   The journal pointed out that the neighborhood residents and children were greatly involved. 

For, while the tiny new theatre is complete in every detail of mechanical equipment, costumes, properties, music, orchestration, and acting are all attributable to the Henry street festival groups and dramatic clubs which from now on will be known as the Neighborhood Players.

Tiny comrades pulled threads to make the fringe, costume designers and makers,  fashioners of jewelry, painters and composers, musicians and seamstresses, producers and directors all contributed in varying degrees.

The Sun mentioned after opening night, “One of the interesting features of the production lay in the fact that the costumes and properties, designed by Esther Peck, were made by classes of the Neighborhood Playhouse

.

Neighborhood girls act in Jephtha's Daughter on opening night in costumes by Esther Peck -- The Survey, June 3 1916 (copyright expired)

Critics were most impressed with the domed stage that evening.  The New York Times reported the next morning “The use of the back wall of the stage, its white surface bathed in blue light, made a wrinkle-less sky far superior to scores of skies professional stages of Broadway have shown.”

Two weeks later George P. Baker, a drama professor at Harvard University, arrived in New York specifically to inspect the stage.  The New York Times reported on February 28, 1915, “Mr. Baker was greatly interested in the modern stage with which the theatre is equipped, and particularly with its modification of the sky dome…As it stands, it is a more effective sky than any other that shimmers in a Broadway playhouse.”

Neighborhood women with wicker baby carriages gather to chat outside the playhouse in 1917 --from the collection of the Library of Congress

The meager admission price and the cost of productions were highly out of balance.  On June 3, 1916 The Survey noted “The Neighborhood Playhouse is, of course, not self-supporting…As a matter of information the Neighborhood Playhouse incurs a deficit of something like $10,000 a year.”   But the magazine was optimistic, saying the shortfall “will be less with successive years.”   The screening of motion pictures helped greatly in closing deficit.

The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger explained the financial dynamics in two sentences.  “Financial worries, the festering sore of every dramatic or art center in the country, never developed in the case of the Playhouse.  The Lewisohn girls endowed it.”

The building offered more to the neighborhood than the theater.  Recreation reminded readers in 1916:

But the auditorium—even with such a roster of presentations—presents only a part of the Playhouse activities.  On the roof is a playground, sunny and pure above the varied smells of Grand Street, where many happy days are spent by the children of the crowded neighborhood.  A spacious room, which may be divided into two by the use of rolling partitions, is regularly used for the dancing classes and dramatic groups, working not only for production, but for the joy of the thing.  Classes in designing, poster-drawing, stage sets and properties under skilled direction provide costumes, settings and properties for performances as a result of delightful hours spent in learning the craft.

Additional funds came from leasing the auditorium.  In February 1916 it was the scene of meetings of The Woman’s Peace Party, during which the members wrote a telegram to the congressmen of the district that read, “We urge you to vote against war preparations at this session of Congress.  Such preparations are unnecessary, extravagant and dangerous to democracy.  They will forever destroy America’s hope of starting a plan of world union which will end war.”

Later that year members of the Industrial New York Woman Suffrage Party held a nighttime garden party on the roof.  The New York Times reported, “there were songs about labor and woman suffrage, led by Mrs. Laura Elliot.  The entertainment closed with dancing and refreshments.”

from the collection of the New York Public Library

While these women’s groups attempted to change history, the Lewisohn sisters continued to search for new works.  On November 14 that year the season opened with a new play by George Bernard Shaw, Great Catherine.  Two other so-far unstaged plays, The Inca of Perusalem and Lord Dunsany’s The Queen’s Enemies were scheduled for later that season.

The success of the venue was such that in 1917 the Lewisohn sisters purchased the abutting 8 Pitt Street.  The Record and Guide reported on March 10 that Ingalls & Hoffman had been brought back to design the “alteration and addition” to the Playhouse.  The resulting expansion housed additional dressing rooms, classrooms, studios and rehearsal space.

By now the list of famous guest stars that had appeared with the local players was impressive.  Among them were Ellen Terry, Gertrude Kingston, Ethel Barrymore, Emanuel and Hedwig Reicher, David Bispham and Eric Blind.  Despite the fame of the headliners, the audiences in the packed house continued to be charged the same admission.

Cutting-edge playwrights also made their mark on the Neighborhood Playhouse.  Several of Lord Dunsany’s plays premiered here.  In 1917 playwright Constance D’Arcy Mackay noted in her The Little Theatre in the United States that the Neighborhood Players had staged the first production of his A Night at the Inn, “termed by many critics the greatest one-act play written by any author in the last ten years.”

Earlier that year, in January, trouble came when police raided a Sunday performance and arrested Bessie Kaplan, the treasurer, for violating the Sabbath law.  The law prohibited Sunday entertainments “which are serious interruptions of the repose and religious liberty of the community.”  (The law did not take into account the fact that the Jewish Sabbath was on Saturday, not Sunday; and that the majority of the neighborhood residents were Jewish.)  On January 30 Lillian Wald and one of the Lewisohn sisters appeared before Magistrate Breen in the Essex Market Court.

Lillian testified that the shows were solely charitable and philanthropic and told the judge that the theater was not for profit, “but shows a deficit of some $12000 to $16,000 a year.”  The New York Times reported, “Miss Lewisohn testified to the character of the play and the playhouse.  Miss Lewisohn stated that she and her sister had in the past paid the deficit.”

It was not until March 2 that the magistrate made his decision.   Breen announced that the Playhouse could continue to give performances on Sunday, saying “that neither the repose nor the religious liberty of the community in question was in any way interrupted.”

The year 1919 started out badly and ended well for the Neighborhood Playhouse.  One of the students in Irene Lewisohn’s dance class was 13-year-old Rose Batkin.   That spring, jewelry and purses began disappearing from the coat room.  In an effort to trap the thief, Irene and another instructor, Mabel Moore, planted a purse in Mabel’s coat.   Through amateur covert surveillance, they watched Rose handle the coat, after which the purse disappeared.

Irene Lewisohn questioned Rose, and then visited her mother, “in the true interests of the child,” as Irene worded it.  Irene soon found that apples do not fall far from trees.

Jennie Batkin sued Irene for $10,000 in damages for slanderous statements, saying, “Miss Lewisohn called her daughter a thief and accused her of stealing the purse.”  The case went to court on May 31.  Jennie Batkin’s scheme to make quick money backfired.  That afternoon The Evening World reported “Miss Irene Lewisohn, society woman and banker’s daughter…was to-day awarded a judgement [sic] of $108.45 against Mrs. Jennie Batkin.”  The court found that Irene had not made public accusations and there was no slander.  Mrs. Batkin was, therefore, forced to pay Irene’s legal bills.

Later that year Lord Dunsany sailed from England to see his work performed in the little theater.  On October 17, 1919 The New York Times reported “Lord Dunsany last night visited the Neighborhood Playhouse in Grand Street the scene of the first presentation of a Dunsany play in America, and was the centre of an interested and excited audience which saw ‘The Queen’s Enemies' and 'A Night at an Inn,’ played again in the playwright’s honor.”

Alice Lewisohn (right) played the title role in Lord Dunsany's The Queen's Enemies --from the collection of the New York Public Library

The newspaper reminded readers that the first Dunsany play ever produced in America, The Glittering Gate had been performed here nearly five years earlier.  “Dunsany, who has seen his plays acted only upon rare occasions, was apparently vastly delighted by the experience, and paid tribute to the Neighborhood Players in speech in which he said that ‘A Night at an Inn,’ as acted by them was a far more powerful play than he had imagined it.”

On October 11, 1920 the auditorium was the scene of a far less joyful event.  A memorial service for the Henry Settlement’s greatest benefactor, Jacob H. Schiff, was held here.  More than 400 people crowded into the little theater.  Among the speakers, of course, was Lillian Wald.  She told “of the effort and expense to which he had gone in establishing the settlement and of the great amount of energy he expended in trying to broaden its scope so that the boys and girls of New York might be aided in learning and in having a proper place to study.”

In 1925 the Playhouse made a social and political statement about a hot topic—censorship—with its production of Grand Street Follies.  The New York Times critic Stark Young on June 21 described, “A clean-up committee drawn from society, ex-choruses, plumbers and professional vice-hunters, looks into the dark evil that may lurk in Movies, Roadhouses, Restoration Drama, War Plays, Opera and all golden pleasure.  The personnel of censoring committees comes in of satire, the whole scheme is laid open, blown into the air, danced from bright toes, laughed at, spanked and presented with its diploma of asininity.”

At the very height of its popularity, the Neighborhood Playhouse stopped presenting plays.  The New York Times deemed, “It was, in a way, killed by its own success.”   On September 21, 1938 the newspaper added, “Its successor, the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, still goes on, influencing our drama less directly but probably just as powerfully.”

Throughout the next decades the Neighborhood Playhouse building would continue to house the performing arts.  In 1948 it became home to the dance company and school founded by Alwin Nikolais.  It remained here until 1970.  Later it became the New Federal Theatre.  The Playhouse has come full circle and is today the Abrons Arts Center, the performing and visual arts program of the Henry Street Settlement.

photographs by the author

The Henry Street Settlement House -- 265 Henry Street

Above the exquisite doorway and molded metal lintel was applied to the original stone one -- photo by Alice Lum

In 1827, Henry Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side was undergoing rapid development.  Brick-clad, Federal-style homes were erected for the city’s well-to-do merchant class.   No. 265 Henry Street was completed that year, one of a row of elegant residences boasting costly touches.  At No. 265 these included Flemish-bond brickwork above a brownstone basement, an elaborate door frame with fluted Ionic colonnettes and intricate iron cage newels.

In the years just prior to the Civil War, Alderman Thomas W. Adams lived in the house.   He was seriously ill at the start of his last term, which ended with his retirement on December 31, 1859.  At 2:00 on the afternoon of January 3, 1860, a group of citizens assembled at the Henry Street house.  The New York Times reported, “Mr. Wm. L. Ely, on their behalf, presented to Mr. Adams an elegant gold watch, with hunting-case, gold chains, pencil-case and key, all costing $363.”  The gifts represented a substantial testimonial worth about $7,000 today.

Ely told Adams that the assembled citizens, “desire me to say, and I cheerfully and heartily indorse the sentiment, that they have tried you, both as a friend and a Democrat, and never found you wanting.  Your course has been consistent with right and with the principles of Democracy, and as such is approved.  This testimonial is presented by friends who claim a place in your memory.”

An emotional Thomas Adams told the crowd:

I never have allowed myself to stoop to anything low or contemptible in the eyes of the public to subserve party ends, and as I am under many obligations to you, gentlemen, for attending to my interests at the last election, when I lay sick and disabled, and not able to attend to my own, receive my kind respects and my wishes through life for your future prosperity and happiness.  I accept this token of respect to me as a private citizen, which I am now, and wish you all a happy new year.

Following his acceptance speech, Adams invited the group into another room “where refreshments were bounteously provided.”

Charles W. Moores was next to move into No. 265 Henry Street.  When Union soldier Charles T. Jenkins of Company D of the 40^th Regiment Ohio Volunteers died in New York on Thursday, April 3, 1863, the Moores family offered their parlor for his funeral.  Only four months later, on August 27, Charles’ son William was drafted into the conflict.

William Moores would survive the Civil War and rise to the position of Dean of the Board of Directors of the Empire City Savings Bank.  When the Seventh Regiment staged a gala reception two decades later, on February 22, 1881, The New York Times noted, “The gentlemen wore the regulation evening dress, and the members of the regiment were only distinguishable from the civilians by their handsome regimental pins which they displayed upon the lapels of their vests.  Among those present were…A. H. T. Timpson and William Moores, two of the oldest members of the regiment, with their wives.”

By 1893, the Henry Street neighborhood was no longer the stylish enclave it had been during the Civil War.  Wealthy residents had moved away and tenement houses crowded with impoverished immigrants had replaced many of the homes.   That year Lillian Wald, a young graduate nurse from the New York Training School for Nurses, began teaching a class in home nursing and hygiene to immigrant women in the neighborhood.

One morning a little girl appeared, saying her mother could not attend the class because she was ill.  Wald followed the girl to her squalid tenement room.  She later wrote that she traveled “over broken roadways…between tall, reeking houses…across a court where open and unscreened closets were promiscuously used by men and women, up into a rear tenement, by slimy steps…and finally into the sickroom.”  She said, “that morning’s experience was a baptism of fire.  Deserted were the laboratory and academic work of college.  I never returned to them.”

With her friend, Mary Brewster, Lillian Wald established the Visiting Nurses Service using donated funds.  By January 1894 the pair had visited more than 125 families.  In the spring of 1895, German-Jewish banker Jacob Schiff purchased 265 Henry Street to be used by fledgling organization.

The attic was raised to a full third floor, its windows being carefully matched, and a modest but architecturally-appropriate cornice installed.  Soon there were eleven residents in the house, including nurse Lavinia Dock, an ardent suffragist, feminist and union organizer.  A diverse group, the women lived and worked together, rising for the 7:30 breakfast followed by a meeting to discuss the day’s schedule and to address any problems or difficult situations.  The nurses went into the field, returning for lunch most often, and teaching in the afternoons. 

A cooking class, the Good Times Club, cost five cents per week and was a favorite in the neighborhood.  Immigrants could learn English here and study rooms were provided.  The residents of the area showed their gratitude however they could.

Tenement children play behind the Henry Street house at the turn of the century -- photograph by Jacob A. Riis, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York-- http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHAYYJJ&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

On June 8, 1902, the New-York Tribune reported, 

At the Nurses’ Settlement, No. 265 Henry-st., there is a small but good collection of brasses.  Miss Lillian D. Wald, the headworker, Miss Waters and others of the resident nurses are great admirers of foreign metals and…they often receive gifts from their Yiddish neighbors and patients.  

The article quoted Waters, “We have two brass samovars—one very old and valuable.  We use one every day, while the other is kept in readiness for company or festive occasions.  The samovar is an ideal teapot, being clean, economical, convenient and decorative."

The women of the Nurses’ Settlement were accustomed to speaking out against injustice and civil wrong.  When police allegedly over-reacted when the funeral of Rabbi Jacob Joseph erupted into a full-scale riot in the summer of 1902, one of the residents spoke out.  “Jane W. Hitchcock of 265 Henry Street, who is connected with the Mercy Settlement, declared that policemen had handled women with unnecessary force,” reported The New York Times on August 20.

Lillian Wald wrote of the myriad illnesses the nurses dealt with in the first years of the 20^th century.

There were nursing infants, many of them with the summer bowel complaint that sent infant mortality soaring during the hot months; there were children with measles, not quarantined; there were children with opthalmia, a contagious eye disease; there were children scarred with vermin bites; there were adults with typhoid; there was a case of puerperal septicemia, lying on a vermin-infested bed without sheets or pillow cases; a family consisting of a pregnant mother, a crippled child and two others living on dry bread; a young girl dying of tuberculosis amid the very conditions that had produced the disease.

In 1903, Schiff donated the house to the Settlement.  Three years later, the house next door at No. 267 was donated by another German-Jewish philanthropist, Morris Loeb.  By now the settlement had expanded its services to offer a summer camp.  Camp Henry was located upstate near Peekskill and every summer around 45 boys, “all from the Ghetto,” as described by The Sun, enjoyed fresh air and escape from the city.

Tragedy struck Camp Henry in the summer of 1905 when the assistant director, 24-year old Arthur Sobel, drowned while swimming in the lake.   On July 24, The Sun reported, “The boys of the camp and others dived into the lake hundreds of times to-day for the body, but were not successful.”

From its modest beginnings in the old house on Henry Street, Lillian Wald’s settlement had burgeoned by now.  A kindergarten had been established at 279 East Broadway (later moved to a house on Montgomery Street), additional residential space for two nurses was acquired on one floor at 52 Henry Street, dancing and gymnasium classes were conducted in the Children’s Aid Society building, and domestic science and home nursing classes were held at 226 Henry Street.  In 1905, the number of nurses had risen to twenty-four.

Operating the expanded Settlement was not inexpensive.  During the week of March 15 to 22, 1920, a fund drive sought to raise $1 million.  The Settlement, the largest visiting nurse service in the country, now had 185 nurses on staff.  In 1919, 43,946 patients received care.  An advertisement in The Survey noted that the nurses attended to 614 births in that year.  “In the entire city 4,418 little lives were watched over by the nurses during the first month of life with a loss of only 72 babies.”

When Lillian Wald retired in 1933 after four decades of service, her nursing staff had risen to 265.  They still climbed tenement stairs and rode subways to reach sick patients.  That year they would make 550,000 home visits.  Wald died in 1940 following a long illness and four years later the Settlement was reorganized.  The Visiting Nurses Service moved uptown while the Henry Street Settlement remained to focus on the needs of the immediate population.

A visiting nurse tends to an infant around 1940 -- photograph by Roy Perry, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York -- http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GHAYBX6&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

The Settlement’s administrative offices remain in the three old Federal-style homes at 263 through 267 Henry Street.  In 1966, the houses were designated individual New York City landmarks and in 1992 No. 265 was restored.  Amazingly, throughout its century of use by the Settlement, the exquisite doorway and the original ironwork of the stoop survived.  The handsome home endures not only as an rare architectural landmark, but as an important part in New York’s social history.

Close inspection of No. 265 at the center of the three Settlement houses reveals the line in the brickwork where the third floor was added -- photo by Alice Lum