Neighborhood House, 98 Fourth Avenue

History and architecture

This handsome building is one of the finest in the City. It is an integral part of a picturesque group of buildings, all designed in similar style, that form part of the Grace Church complex, and it is a part of the terminal vista obtained by looking west on 11th Street toward Fourth Avenue. In New York, few structures remain which provide such terminal features: Grand Central Station at the head of Park Avenue, the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue at the end of Fast 82nd Street, and the New York Public Library at the end of East 41st Street are some of the notable examples which come to mind.

The Grace Church complex is located on a portion of the old Brevoort Farm. The Brevoorts were an old Knickerbocker family, established in the City since 1673. The farm wee bounded roughly by the area between 9th to 13th Streets and Fourth to Sixth Avenues, The existence today of a long block, running from 10th to 12th Streets, between Broadway end Fourth Avenue, is due entirely to the stubbornness of Henry Brevoort. When the City attempted to cut through 11th Street, in accordance with the Commissioners' Plan off` 1807, he refused to vacate or remove his old farmhouse, which stood on the west aide of Fourth Avenue in the line of 11th Street. Successive ordinances were passed to no avail -- and so the effort to cut through the property was finally abandoned. Tn the last analysis, we owe the closed vista where 11th street meets Fourth Avenue to Henry Brevoort.

Grace Church and its Rectory on Broadway were designed in gothic Revival style by architect James Renwick, Jr, Once New York's most fashionable church, it served a large congregation of well-to-do parishioners upon completion in 1846. By the 1370s and early eighties. however, the social cultural needs of the parish and of the neighborhood had changed, and Dr. Henry C. Potter, who served as rector from 1868 to 1884, recognized the need for providing new facilities.

No. 98 Fourth Avenue, Neighborhood House, is one of a group of three buildings (Nos. 92, 94-96 and 98) belonging to Grace Church. Completed in 1907, it was the gift of banker George S. Bowdoin to Grace Church. The architects were the firm of Renwick, Aspinwall & Tucker, successors of James Renwick, Jr. Despite the date of this building, it accords well with the earlier Gothic style buildings, Grace Memorial House, No. 94-96, adjoining it to the south and Clergy House, No.

92. Neighborhood. House served with Grace Memorial House (Huntington House) when it reopened in 1927 to house low-salaried young women and female students. It is a tribute to Grace Church that these three buildings, although constructed at different dates, harmonize so well with each other. These buildings bear testimony to the intelligent control exercised by Grace Church over architectural design for some sixty years, thus achieving a remarkably coherent group of buildings on Fourth Avenue which harmonize perfectly with the older ones on Broadway.

As a notable part of the City's architectural heritage, this fine group of buildings lends great distinction to the area.