239 East 7th Street | Block : 377 | Lot #68

Building Date : 2005
Original Use : Residential

Original Owner : David Gelbard
Original Architect : RIP Construction Consultants

Description & Building Alterations

This is a five-story residential building constructed of red brick, concrete sidings and big studio windows in 2005. The previous building was constructed in the 1840s.

Throughout the history of the original building, it has seen many different types of tenants and owners. It was built by a lawyer, Gilbert M. Speir, as a tenement building and then bought by a German Jewish tailor. At this time, an influx of Eastern European Jews were leaving their home countries due to anti-Semitism and moving into this area. At one point, 239 E. 7^thStreet held a family of 10. In the 1970s and 80s, when the East Village was seeing a rise in crime and drug use, freelance journalist Daniel Murray purchased the building. Due to disrepair, the only way to save the building was to sell the property to a developer who converted it to a co-op, selling all three units. However, the building, again, went into decline and in 2002, it was completely renovated into what you see today.

Block : 377 / Lot : 068 / Building Date : 2005 / Original Owner : David Gelbard / Original Use : Residential / Original Architect : RIP Construction Consultants

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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.