295 East 8th Street; 295-297 East 8th Street | Block : 391 | Lot #1

Description & Building Alterations

This building was constructed for the Children’s Aid Society as the Tompkins Square Lodging House for Boys and Industrial School. It was designed by Calvert Vaux and George K. Radford. The society used the building to house and educate “destitute” children, most of whom worked in the newspaper and bootblack trades. The Society was founded by Charles Loring Brace in 1853 and endowed by Mrs. Robert L. Stuart, who commissioned Vaux and Radford to design twelve Children’s Aid Society buildings between 1879 and 1892. This was the third. In 1910 the society ceased housing children but continued to use the building for instruction. In 1925 the Children’s Aid Society sold the building to a Jewish day school, The East Side Hebrew Institute, Talmud Torah Darch Moam, which remained in the building until 1975.

The building at no. 295 East 8th Street is designed in a Victorian Gothic style and is considered the finest surviving example of architect Calvert Vaux’s work for the Children’s Aid Society. It features rust-colored brick with matching terra cotta ornament, as well as a varied roofline with dormers, chimneys, and a corner tower. This building was designated as a New York City Landmark in 2000.