221 East 5th Street | Block : 461 | Lot #46

Building Date : 1896
Original Use : Residential/Commercial

Original Owner : Joseph L. Buttermeiser
Original Architect : George Frederick Pelham

Description & Building Alterations

This six-story tenement was built in 1896 by George Frederick Pelham for Joseph L. Buttenweiser. It housed 22 families over ground-floor shops. The brick, limestone, and terra cotta building features round arch fenestration at the fifth story, recessed, round-arch entryway, terra cotta band courses and spandrels, beveled lintels on the second, third, and fourth stories, molded surrounds, and blind arches above the sixth-story windows filled with sunbursts and surrounded with architraves similar to the fifth story lintels.

For more information about this building and the neighborhood, please click on the links under Additional Resources.

Block : 461 / Lot : 46 / Building Date : 1896 / Original Owner : Joseph L. Buttenmeiser / Original Use : Residential/Commercial / Original Architect : George Frederick Pelham

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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.