16-18 Second Avenue | Block : 442 | Lot #7

Building Date : 1900
Original Use : Residential/Commercial

Original Owner : Leopold Kaufmann
Original Architect : Schneider & Herter

Description & Building Alterations

This seven-story brick tenement building was built in 1900 by owner Leopold Kaufmann and designed by architects Schneider & Herter. It was originally occupied by 30 families, five per floor beginning on the second floor. The first floor was occupied by stores, and it still is today.

The facade features decorative brickwork, including window enframements with flanking pilasters on the third floor and triangular pediments on the fifth floor windows, round-arched window openings at the seventh floor, and darker stone beltcourses.

Known as the Cube Building, No. 16-18 Second Avenue is now a 22-unit cooperative for formerly homeless families developed by the Cooper Square Committee in 1989. Prior, it was an abandoned Department of Housing Preservation and Development-owned building. The project serves as the first nation-wide example of a cooperative housing venture for homeless families.

Block : 442 / Lot : 007 / Building Date : 1900 / Original Owner : Leopold Kaufmann / Original Use : Residential/Commercial / Original Architect : Schneider & Herter

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What is the Building Blocks Project

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.

Pick a block. Maybe it’s yours, or perhaps it is just your favorite place to shop, grab a bite, or just people watch. Then explore the buildings that make up that block. Or take one of the many guided tours on the site, curated by a collection of organizations and experts from the neighborhood. See how they experience the neighborhood. Then tell us what the neighborhood means to you. The site’s comments section allows you to open a dialogue with others who feel just as passionately as you do about the East Village.