69 First Avenue | Block : 446 | Lot #35

Building Date : 1882
Original Use : Residential/Commercial

Original Owner : George Roll
Original Architect : Julius Boekell

Description & Building Alterations

This five-story old law tenement was erected in 1882, designed by architect Julius Boekell, along with the building next to it at Nos. 67, 71 First Avenue and 129 East 4th Street.

The building features a bracketed cornice in Queen Anne-style. The window lintels and sills appear to have been stripped and the ground floor has been altered.

The site was formerly occupied by a three-story flat-roofed building known as Nos. 67-71 First Avenue, home to Roland G. Mitchell & Co.’s paraffine candle manufacturing company. The building burned down in 1882, and “the disaster [was] little regretted, as the manufactory has been a nuisance to the noses of the inhabitants of the Seventeenth Ward for a decade” (see New York Times article at sidebar).

Block : 446 / Lot : 035 / Building Date : 1882 / Original Owner : George Roll / Original Use : Residential/Commercial / Original Architect : Julius Boekell

Do you know this building? Please share your own stories or photos of this building here!

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.