211 East 2nd Street; 211-213 East 2nd Street | Block : 384 | Lot #7502

Description & Building Alterations

No. 211 East 2nd Street was originally built in 1900 and was described as a six-story storage warehouse constructed with “rooms on one floor for caretaker and stalls for horses in cellar.” It replaced an earlier building, though no records indicate its use. In 2001, the building was converted from commercial storage to residential use and it currently contains six condo units.

No. 213 East 2^nd Street is also a residential built 2005-06 as an alteration per the permit: “Reconstruction of building demolished in 1978 using the existing foundations and remaining walls.” Its predecessor was a four-story old law tenement with a store on the ground floor. A four-story rear building with four apartments was demolished in 1961.

Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.), founded by activists Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, utilized the former building at 213 East 2nd Street for eight months until being evicted in July 1971. S.T.A.R. was a way that Johnson and Rivera were able to keep homeless gay and transgender youth off the street, where they might face the threat of violence. Johnson referred to anyone brought into the house as “children” or “youth,” while she bore the title “Queen Mother.” The group was formed following a sit-in at New York University’s Weinstein Hall at 5 University Place, organized in response to the school’s rescinding of permission for gay dances in the dorm’s basement space as well as more generally against discriminatory practices by the University against gay and trans students and community members.

These buildings were formerly lots 10 (211 East 2nd Street) and 11 (213 East 2nd Street) but have since been re-numbered 7502.