61 East 11th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 61 East 11th Street by Carter Horsley

This 10-story, mid-block building at 61 East 11th Street between University Place and Broadway was erected in 1903 and has 10 co-operative apartments. 

It is not far from Union Square and the glories of Lower Fifth Avenue and is convenient to numerous restaurants. 

According to the superb, 35-page report submitted by Andrew Berman, the president of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation November 12, 2019 to Mayor de Blasio and the chairs of the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the City Planning Commission. this neo-Classical style store and loft building was erected for Thomas J. Surplus and George J. Lutz. 

The report, which can be viewed at 88_East_10th_Street_11_and_13_East_12th_Street_CEQR_letter_Village_Preservation_(6).pdf at GVSHP.org, is a very impressive document with many color photographs that details the historical importance of the area between 14th and 8th Streets in the East Village that housed many of the city's artistic and publishing luminaries. 

It noted that "in the early 20th Century the building housed furriers and other clothing manufacturers and printers." 

The area, which is centered about the magnificent Grace Episcopal Church on Broadway at 10th Century, was famed for the somewhat seedy Cedar Bar on University Place between 8th and 9th streets that was a hangout for many of the city's most famous Abstract Expressionist painters, Kalisky & Gabay, one of the neighborhood's several fine art auction houses in the middle of the 20th Century, the former Albert Hotel at 23 East 10th Street that housed Robert Louis Stevenson, Hart Crane, Thomas Wolfe, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, the Mamas and the Papas, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell and Jim Morrison, and Bradley's, a very elegant and fine jazz nightclub on University between 10th and 11th Street. 

While the architectural merit of the area that Mr. Berman's organization hopes to have designated an historic district is a bit uneven and not as elegant as Lower Fifth Avenue just to the west, its cultural and political credentials are outstanding. 

The architect of 61 East 11th Street was Henry A. Koelbe, an architect of the landmarked Hotel Earle (now the Washington Square Hotel at the northwest corner of Washington Square Park ) and Reisenweber's Cafe on West 58th Street at Columbus Circle. 

According to a June 28, 1987 article in The New York Times by John Wilson, "in 1917, five white musicians from New Orleans who called themselves the Original Dixieland Jass Band, were playing at Reisenweber's Cafe on Columbus Circle when they made what are widely considered to be the first jazz recordings. 

In its August 10, 1931 obituary of John Reisenweber, The Times noted that "today the name Reisenweber has no significance, except for its power to evoke memories of pre-prohibition gayety; fifteen years or more ago Reisenweber's was a symbol for the free-spending, amusement seeking crowds of Broadway.  John Reisenweber's restaurant became famous throughout the country, along with Shanley's, Rector's, Mouquin's and Healy's." 

"The modern cabaret began in the Eighth Avenue restaurant.  Reisenweber's was the first to offer a floor show with principals, chorus and settings, although other restaurants of the time had offered single acts.  It was the first to have a space for patrons to dance.  The beginning of the floor show brought an innovation that made Reisenweber's the most widely discussed restaurant in the city.  In 1913, Ned Wayburn staged a floor spectacle.  Expenses were so heavy that the management sought some means of meeting the increase in overhead.  After much consideration, each patron was asked to pay 25 cents couvert charge."

Bottom Line

An attractive, mid-rise, mid-block building that is missing its pediment cornice and now sports fire-escapes in the center of its face.  It is not far from the great Strand bookstore on Broadway at 12th Street and the gorgeous Grace Episcopal Church at Broadway and 10th Street.

Description

The building is missing its plain, triangular cornice that was subsequently replaced by a watertank. 

The building has a fire-escape in the middle of its façade.

Amenities

The building has an elevator and an intercom.

Apartments

The 10th floor apartment is a three-bedroom unit with a 23-foot-wide living room next to an open, 16-foot-wide dining area and a 11-foot-long enclosed and windowed kitchen.