The Stories..
A amazing number of stories lie hidden in Seward Park. At some point, we'll post a number of them here. For now, however, if you want to learn the ones we have to tell, you'll have to go to Seward Park, find the stickers, and send us a text. Download a map of sticker locations and head out to explore. If you can't make it to the site, take a virtual tour
If you have a story to share, please send it to us. We'll include it on this page in order to share with others.
The Stories..
Place
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Story
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| Seward Park Library (192 E. Broadway) | Seward Park Library opened in 1909 as one of 65 branches built with funds given to City by Andrew Carnegie in an effort to create public libraries across the City. The branch’s origins can be traced to 1886 when the Aguilar Free Library Society opened several libraries, including what would become the Seward Park Branch. The branch provided a valuable educational resource for the scores of new immigrants who have lived in the LES from 1909 to today |
| Seward Park playground (East Broadway/Canal Street/Essex Street) | First permanent, municipally built playground in the US, opened in October 1903. Effort organized by settlement workers Lillian Wald and Charles Stover. The Park became a model for playground programming and design Named for William Henry Seward – NY Senator 1849-1861, critic of slavery, Secretary of State under Lincoln and Johnson, and who arranged for purchase of Alaska from Russia, once denounced as Seward’s folly |
| Former Jewish Daily Forward building (175 E. Broadway) | The Jewish Daily Forward was founded in 1897 by Abraham Cahan, and was the largest circulating Yiddish newspaper in the world. The building was a major center of labor organizing on LES. The paper continues to be published as an English-language weekly. The busts on the building are of Karl Marx, Frederich Engels, Ferdinand Lasalle and Wilhelm Liebknicht |
| Garden Cafeteria building (165 E. Broadway) | Open 24 hours a day in the heart of Jewish intellectual life on the LES, the cafeteria was a place to get a cheap meal and discuss socialism, anarchism, and other radical politics. People from Workman’s Circle, the Jewish Daily Forward and others all came here. Elie Wiesel was a big fan of their rice pudding. The Garden closed in 1983 and reopened as the Wing Shoon Restaurant, switching from Jewish food to Cantonese, reflecting the changes in the neighborhood. New regulars help to maintain this place as a neighborhood institution. Wing Shoon means everything comes easily. |
| 45 Canal Street | A 20-year-old Emma Goldman stayed briefly with her aunt and uncle at this address when she first came to New York in 1889. She went on to become one of the most well-known anarchist political philosophers of the 20th century. With her lover and comrade Alexander Berkman, she plotted the assassination of Henry Clay Frick. While not imprisoned for that act, she did see jail time several times for “inciting to riot” and distributing material about birth control. In 1906, she founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth. In 1917, she and Berkman were arrested for conspiring to “induce persons not to register” for the draft. After their release, they and hundreds of others were deported to Russia. Initially supportive of the Russian Revolution, she ultimately became disillusioned. She lived in England and France, participated in the Spanish Civil War, and ultimately died in Toronto in 1940. |
| Seward Park Houses (Grand St. /Essex St./East Broadway) | The United Housing Foundation (UHF), a federation of unions, cooperatives, and social welfare organizations, founded by Abraham Kazan in 1951, partnered with the City’s Slum Clearance Committee to build the Seward Park Houses, utilizing Title I federal urban renewal funds The groups had also built the Hillman Houses, Amalgamated Dwellings, and East River Houses, the first project in the country to use Title I funds. Title I allowed a city to acquire a substandard area through eminent domain and resell it to a private builder for redevelopment. The Federal Government provided funds to cities to carry out these actions The project area covered 16 acres and including 219 structures, including 138 residential buildings. All were considered to be in badly run-down to deteriorating condition. All, except the Bialystoker Home for the Aged and the Public Library at 192 E. Broadway, would be demolished for the new development. Over 1,450 families and 4,000 people would be displaced. UHF took title to the land in 1957 and the project was completed in 1962. Only 185 families who lived in the area prior to demolition moved into the 1,728 new units of middle-income housing that were created. In 1995 the shareholders voted to get rid of resale restrictions and become a full equity market rate coop. |
| Seward Park Extension Renewal Area (Essex St/Delancey St/Willett St/Grand St.) | An urban renewal area adjacent to the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area. In December 1958, the City adopted a resolution finding the area to be substandard, and started the planning process. The project covered 14 city blocks (~29 acres). The original plan was to build 1400 units of new middle-income housing, financed through the Mitchell-Lama program. This plan was never implemented. The plans were revised to include parking lots in the corner of the area due to concerns over building the Lower Manhattan Expressway, that was shown to cross the site 2100 occupied apartments housing 7,122 people were to be displaced. Close to 80% of families were low income. The City began to relocate residents in April of 1966; residents were promised that they would be given new housing on the site. They began demolishing buildings in 1967 In June 1974, The New York City Housing Authority completed construction on 360 units of public housing. The area ended up including 600 apartments built by St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, 360 public housing apartments, 156 apartments for the elderly by the Chinatown Planning Council, and 124 by the United Jewish Council. Planning for the vacant parcels continues to this day. Plans have include middle income housing, affordable housing, market rate condos, artists lofts, elderly housing, and shopping centers. The most recent plan included 400 units of low and moderate-income housing, 400,000 SF of retail space, and 66,000 SF of community facility space. The plan was pulled, and the sites remain undeveloped – representing the largest undeveloped sites in Manhattan. If you have an idea of what should be developed on these sites email kickingoverthetraces@gmail.com or text 718-968-5729 and share it with us |
| 384 Grand Street Housing | Senior housing built by the Chinese Planning Council (CPC) in the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area. CPC purchased the land from the City in 1984 for $13,000. Along with the Hong Ning Senior Citizen apartment building, they provide housing for over 300 low-income seniors |
| Hong Ning Senior Housing (50 Norfolk St) | Senior housing developed in the 1970s with the aid of the Chinese American Planning Council. CPC was formed in 1965 to provide services to families. The organization provides child, youth, and senior services, serving over 6,000 people daily through 50 various programs throughout NYC |
| Seward Park Extension Housing | Housing built by the New York City Housing Authority in the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area. The two 23-story buildings (one at Essex and Broome, and one at Broome and Ridge) were completed in 1973 and provided housing for 833 low income residents in 360 units. The design included a Sabbath elevator to accommodate Orthodox Jewish residents |
| Essex Street Market | This now-vacant building was one of the sites of the Essex Street Market, which opened in 1940 as part of an effort by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia to create indoor space for street merchants and reduce street congestion. In 1995 the NYCEDC commenced a $1.5 million renovation of the markets and consolidated activity into one building – the one on the northern side of Delancey. Plans for this building remain unclear. The market building is one of 7 buildings in the Seward Park Extension Area to be spared from demolition The building was the site of the 2007 installation by British artist Mike Turner and sponsored by Creative Time |
| Lower Manhattan Expressway sites | These parking lots were to be the site of an 8-lane elevated highway proposed by Robert Moses (the LOMEX expressway). The highway would connect the West Side Highway, Holland Tunnel, Manhattan Bridge, and Williamsburg Bridge. The section connecting to the Williamsburg Bridge would be I-78. Including the section in the interstate highway system would guarantee 90% federal funding for the $104 million project. The area at Suffolk and Delancey would have been interchange for exit 4. Construction of the expressway would have displaced over 1,972 families and 804 businesses. In 1963, the project was delayed so plans for the this area were revised to be parking lots or open space. The parking lots remain today. Due to concerns and protest from the affected communities, including leaders such as Jane Jacobs, the highway project was eventually killed in 1971 by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. |
| Grand Street Guild Houses (410 Grand St.) | 600 units of affordable housing built by St. Mary’s Catholic Church, funded in part by Section 8 housing vouchers. Recently, the Catholic Church has been attempting to opt out of their Section 8 contracts and move the units to market rate once current residents move out. Check out GOLES for more info on preserving affordable housing in the LES and how you can get more involved |
| Hillman Houses (500, 530, 500 Grand St) | The Hillman Houses were built in 1951 by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union who also built Amalgamated Dwellings. Similar to Seward Park Houses and Amalgamated Dwellings, Hillman Houses was part of slum clearance efforts. Four city blocks were cleared to build the project. It was built as affordable cooperative apartments, but in recent years, the shareholders voted to get rid of resale restrictions and become a full equity market rate coop. The Hillman Houses were named for Sidney Hillman. Hillman was born into a Jewish rabbinical family in Russia in 1887. In 1907, Hillman fled violent anti-Semitic pogroms in his homeland and immigrated to the United States. He became involved in the American labor movement after leading his fellow workers in a successful strike in 1910. He founded the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in 1914, which grew to 138,000 members by 1919. During his Union work, he developed a form of collective bargaining known as "industrial democracy," which encouraged workers to resolve issues on the shop floor. Hillman also encouraged the participation of immigrants, and was an advisor to New York Governor Lehman and President FDR |
| Amalgamated Dwellings (Grand Street) | Amalgamated Dwellings was built by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, in 1930 – the first of similar cooperatives built on Grand Street. The project used state funding to clear “slum” areas in order to create an affordable, limited equity cooperative. The project was part of similar slum clearance efforts such as those that created Hillman Houses and Seward Park Houses. The venture was headed by Abraham Kazan, who later created the United Housing Foundation to take advantage of federal funds to build coops for working and middle class families. The group built over 30,000 coops across the City, including all those on Grand Street and Co-op City in the Bronx. Amalgamated was built as affordable cooperative apartments, but in recent years, the shareholders voted to get rid of resale restrictions and become a full equity market rate coop. |
| Paul Ramos Way (Henry Street between Grand and Montgomery) | Named for health care activist and grassroots organizer Paul Ramos who founded the Betances Health Center in 1970 to provide health care to poor residents of the Lower East Side. Paul Ramos was born in Harlem in 1941, and spent his life working in health care starting out in 1960 as an operating room technician. The Center started as a grassroots mobile health unit, operating first in an office above a pickle factory on Essex Street. In 1976, it was established as a free-standing clinic. In the early 1980’s, Paul Ramos led Betances as one of the first community health centers to focus on and develop services for those living with HIV and AIDS. The street was renamed in 2003. |
| Betances Health Center (80 Henry Street) | Named for Ramón Emeterio Betances y Alacán (1827-1898), a Puerto Rican nationalist and primary instigator of the Grito de Lares revolution. Considered the farther of the Puerto Rican independence movement. Betances was also the most renowned medical doctor and surgeon of his time in Puerto Rico, as well as a diplomat, public health administrator, poet and novelist. |
| St. Augustine's Episcopal Church (292 Henry Street) | Built in 1828 (known then as All Saints Free Church) for the city's patrician elite; today it houses the largest African American congregation of any denomination on the Lower East Side. The congregation worships in the shadow of two "Slave Galleries": haunting, box-like rooms above the balcony where African Americans were forced to sit. This rare artifact of racial segregation in New York stands as a stark, physical reminder of how and why boundaries of marginalization are drawn and contested. Edgar Allen Poe attended church here. According to the Church's website, “Boss” Tweed attended his mother’s funeral here and hid from authorities in the slave galleries |
| Henry Street Settlement (263-267 Henry St) | The Henry Street Settlement was founded in 1893 by Lillian Wald to provide services to neighborhood residents, which it still does. Everyone from President Theodore Roosevelt to Anarchist Peter Kropotkin visited the settlement. Since its founding, the Settlement has provided social services to scores of LES residents, from arts to summer camps to mental health care to job training Lillian Wald was from a rich German Jewish family, but felt strongly that one should live in the community in which one worked. She also founded a Visiting Nurse Service that provided house calls around the LES, and was an original signer on the call to form the NAACP |
| 275 E. Broadway (now middle of road at center of Pitt St) | In the center of Pitt Street lies the site of the home of Meyer London, union activist and lawyer. In 1914, London became the first elected congressman from the Socialist Party. He served until to 1922. |
