28-30 Avenue A | Block : 398 | Lot #2

Description & Building Alterations

Built in 1871 as Concordia Hall, this building originally functioned as a meeting place for the German community and housed three separate social societies. When it was constructed, the five-story building had an ornate Second Empire facade with three dormer windows and a central cupola. It was designed as a kitschy mid-century modern facade in contrast to the sameness of most International Modernism.

In the early 1920s, the building was converted into retail space. By 1939, the furniture store Burger-Klein had moved in, and in 1959 a fire destroyed the roof and much of the fifth floor. In the reconstruction, a new facade was put on the old building.