219 East 4th Street | Block : 400 | Lot #48

Description & Building Alterations

Like its neighbor a few doors down at No. 229, this Neo-Grec pre-law tenement was built as a pre-law tenement and stores in 1875 and designed by Charles Sturzkober (originally No. 221 East 4th Street).    The incised Neo-Grec details on the projecting lintels and sills, as well as the pressed-metal cornice, seem to indicate that it was expanded into this five-story building in the mid-1860s. That would align with the shift in the neighborhood from wealthier families into a booming immigrant neighborhood.  If that is the case, it would have been during this remodel that the partially raised basement was used for shops.  In 1937 the shops were removed, as was the raised stoop entrance.