54 East 1st Street | Block : 443 | Lot #50

Building Date : 1899
Original Use : Residential/Commercial

Original Owner : Lippman and Friedman
Original Architect : Michael Bernstein

Description & Building Alterations

This seven-story brick old law tenement was built in 1899 by owners Lippman and Friedman and designed by architect Michael Bernstein. It was designed to be occupied by 18 families with a store in the basement.

The white brick facade is decorated by a bracketed cornice, frieze, projecting brickwork framing the windows and terra cotta lintels. The existing ground-floor cornice was likely added after 1940, since no cornice on the first floor is visible on the historic tax record photograph.

In 1937, the interior was altered to incorporate new bathrooms.

Block : 443 / Lot : 050 / Building Date : 1899 / Original Owner : Lippman and Friedman / Original Use : Residential/Commercial / Original Architect : Michael Bernstein

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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.