188 Second Avenue; 190 Second Avenue; 300 East 12th Street | Block : 453 | Lot #8

Building Date : 1903
Original Use : Residential/Commercial

Original Owner : David Perelman
Original Architect : Bernstein & Bernstein

Description & Building Alterations

This six-story new law brick tenement was erected in 1903 for stores and 20 families. It was designed by architect Bernstein & Bernstein. The first story used to be occupied by Café Royal from 1908 until 1952, one of the most popular social venues for Yiddish theater performers, as well as other Jewish writers, celebrities, and characters during that time. Paul Muni, Jack Benny, David Sarnoff, Fannie Hurst, Eddie Cantor, Will Durant, Carl Van Vechen, and Sarah Adler were all Café Royal habitués.

The building shares many similar elements with other works by Bernstein & Bernstein. Like many other new law tenements, it sits on a corner lot. Its current facade features a curving, projecting bracketed cornice with a garlanded frieze, a chamfered corner, terra-cotta panels, beltcourses, window lintels with keystones, triangular and segmental-arched pediments, decorated panels beneath fourth-story windows, brick quoins, elaborate window surrounds, and a molded cornice above the first floor. The rounded window pediments connect the third and fourth floor windows in continuous enframements. The storefront has been reconfigured and refaced.

Block : 453 / Lot : 008 / Building Date : 1903 / Original Owner : David Perelman / Original Use : Residential/Commercial / Original Architect : Bernstein & Bernstein

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What does a building mean to someone who lives there? A person who lives on the block? In the neighborhood? In the city? This site presents a wealth of historic information gained from GVSHP’s architectural research survey about the buildings located in the East Village.

The site explores the area generally considered today as the East Village: from a northern border of 14th Street to a southern border of Houston Street, Avenue D in the east to 4th Avenue/the Bowery to the west. You can explore the information about the blocks and buildings featured here in two ways.

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