Ottendorfer Public Library and Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital | |
New York City Landmark No. 0924, 0969, 1168
| |
Location | 135 and 137 2nd Avenue, Manhattan, New York |
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Coordinates | 40°43′47″N 73°59′15″W / 40.72972°N 73.98750°W |
Built | 1883-84 |
Architect | William Schickel |
Architectural style | Late Victorian Queen Anne Italian Renaissance Revival |
NRHP reference No. | 79001607[1] |
NYCL No. | 0924, 0969, 1168 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | July 22, 1979 |
Designated NYCL | Hospital: November 9, 1976 Library: September 20, 1977 Library interior: August 11, 1981 |
The Ottendorfer Public Library and Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital are a pair of historic buildings at 135 and 137 Second Avenue in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The buildings house the Ottendorfer Branch of the New York Public Library, as well as the women's workspace The Wing within the former Stuyvesant Polyclinic hospital.
The buildings were jointly designed by German-born architect William Schickel in the neo-Italian Renaissance style. Both structures are three stories tall with a facade of Philadelphia pressed brick facades ornamented in terracotta. The hospital building features terracotta busts of several notable medical professionals.
The structures were erected in 1883–84 following a donation by philanthropists Oswald Ottendorfer and Anna Ottendorfer. The library was the second branch of the New York Free Circulating Library, while the hospital was affiliated with the German Hospital uptown, now Lenox Hill Hospital. Both structures served the Little Germany enclave of Lower Manhattan. The hospital was sold in 1906 to another medical charity, the German Polyklinik; the name was changed to Stuyvesant Polyclinic in the 1910s. The buildings were restored numerous times in their history. The structures received three separate New York City landmark designations in 1976, 1977, and 1981, and were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.