229 East 4th Street | Block : 400 | Lot #44

Description & Building Alterations

This five-story tenement was built in 1875 and designed by F.W. Klemt.  In 1925, the building was owned by a rabbi and housed five families, with a store in the basement.  This was likely how the building had been occupied since the addition of the upper two floors.  In 1938 there was a synagogue in the partially raised basement.  That same year the stoop was removed, bringing the main entrance to what had been the basement.  It was also painted yellow at this point, the traces of which are still visible.

In 1961, Beat writer Diane Di Prima moved here. Originally the home of fellow playwright Michael McClure, the apartment was given to Di Prima while they were both working together on their project, the New York Poets Theatre, an outlet for poets to perform one-person plays. While she lived here she also published The Floating Bear with fellow poet, LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka). The Floating Bear was a Beat poetry journal that she and Jones started prior Di Prima moving into 229 East 4th Street. It was published semi-monthly and served as a creative outlet for the works of such Beat writers as William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, and Allen Ginsberg. She and Jones were arrested by the FBI on obscenity charges to the explicit nature of one of the issues. The charges did not hold up due to insufficient evidence and they were released.