300 East 4th Street; 49-51 Avenue C | Block : 386 | Lot #36

Description & Building Alterations

No. 300 East 4^th Street has been used by various houses of worship since its construction in 1888 when it was owned by the Mission Church of the Holy Cross and maintained as a church and a school. The parish house was owned by the Presbyterian St. John the Baptist Foundation from 1911 to 1941, and then became a Ukrainian church, and then was purchased by the Rabbinical School of Yeshiva Ch’San Sofer, and then was altered into apartments. The building has a Gothic entryway with a pointed-arch doorway with a projecting gabled enframement. There are two narrow lancets with stone voussoirs above the entryway. It also features heavy stone lintels and transom bars, gables and crenellated parapets along the roofline, and metal tie-rod ends that appear as crosses.

A 1935 photograph and description of the five-story brick building archived by the New York Public Library states that in 1937 the “Holy Cross House” was vacant and for sale. A building alteration permit in 1969 shows numerous changes proposed for the interior, including the addition of stairways, toilets and showers, and an increase in dormitories. The permit states the building was to be occupied by the N.Y.S. Addiction Services Agency as a therapeutic community, and was still owned by Yeshivas Ch’San Sofer. Today, the building is a privately owned, elevator apartment building with twenty residential units.