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Landmarks50: 295 East 8th Street

295 East 8th Street
295 East 8th Street
Undated Image via Museum of the City of New York
Undated Image via Museum of the City of New York

Now home to seven apartments, 295 East 8th Street a.k.a. 127 Avenue B, opened in 1887 as the Children’s Aid Society, Tompkins Square Lodging for Boys and Industrial School.

As part of Landmarks50, the celebration of this year’s 50th Anniversary of the NYC Landmarks Law, we are taking a look at some of the many and varied individual landmarks in our neighborhood. Read more of our Landmarks50 entries here.

Landmarked in 2000, 295 East 8th Street was “one of a series of buildings in which the Children’s Aid Society sheltered and educated destitute working children, particularly newsboys and bootblacks.” according to the designation report. Designed by Calvert Vaux of the architectural firm of Vaux and Redford, in the style of High Victorian Gothic, the building is the oldest remaining property built for the use of the Children’s Aid Society. It may be the oldest remaining boarding house designed by Vaux. The land acquisition and building construction was funded by a $50,000 donation by Mrs. Robert L. Stuart, (about $1 million today according to the Daytonion).

The entrance to 295 East 8th Street, "Talmud Torah Darchei Noam" is visible above the door. 
The entrance to 295 East 8th Street, “Talmud Torah Darchei Noam” is visible above the door.

From 1887 to 1910 the building served its original purpose which was not just to house, feed, and clothe the boys, but to reform them into successful members of society. In 1910 the building ceased operations as a boarding house and was a Children’s Aid Society school until 1925. In 1925 the building was purchased by the Darchei Noam Congregation, which used the space as a Jewish social service building and Yeshiva for almost the next 50 years. The building was left vacant in 1974 until it was purchased in 1977 and developed into apartments in 1978. It was renovated again in 2003. Matt Dillon allegedly lived at 295 East 8th Street in the mid 2000’s.

Read here about the history of this Children’s Aid Society building. Read here about the building’s role in the neighborhood and its renovation and preservation.

2 responses to “Landmarks50: 295 East 8th Street

  1. I have the clipping from Harper’s magazine in 1886 entitled “Another Newsboy’s Home”, stating that this building was going to be home to “the grimy little boot-blacks and their rivals in trade, the newsboys.” It hadn’t been built yet, and was accompanied by a pen-and-ink rendering of the proposed structure.

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