Monday, March 6, 2023

The historic 137 2nd Ave. — the former Stuyvesant Polyclinic — is now for sale

The landmarked building constructed in the 1880s at 137 Second Ave. between St. Mark's Place and Ninth Street can now be yours for just over $22.5 million.

In 2019, the three-level (plus) space became the headquarters of the female-focused co-working club The Wing. Per reports at the time, "the HQ is intended to riff off the building's original details, such as existing terracotta tile floors, decorative pillars, moldings and skylights."

According to Curbed, who first reported on this availability, "The Wing's furniture is still in the building and can be included in the sale."

Here's what you get via the Cushman & Wakefield listing:
The Property features 50’ of frontage along 2nd Avenue and is located steps from New York's most iconic destinations and landmarks. The Property is currently configured as a state-of-the-art, turnkey, elevator commercial building that will be delivered vacant, making it a rare blank canvas opportunity for future purchasers. 

Its previous tenant retrofitted every inch of the space into pristine, Class A office space with excellent ceiling heights, abundant light and air, ample outdoor space, and flexible floor layouts. The Property also benefits from its flexible zoning allowing residential, commercial, mixed-use, recreational or community facilities. 
This wide array of potential uses makes this a perfect opportunity for a future townhouse or residential redevelopment, or a future headquarters for an office user as well as a wide array of other users including religious organizations, governments, family offices, foundations, doctors ...
A future townhouse!

The neo-Italian Renaissance brick building is the former German Dispensary, which opened in 1884. (In 1905 it became the Stuyvesant Polyclinic.) 

Here's more about the building from 2008 New York Times feature:
Like the branch library next door, the Second Avenue building of the German Dispensary was the gift of Anna and Oswald Ottendorfer, who ran the German newspaper New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung. That journal had great influence in Little Germany, on the Lower East Side around First and Second Avenues below 14th Street. The 1886 edition of Appleton's Dictionary of New York described an area in which "lager-beer shops are numerous, and nearly all the signs are of German names."
And... 
In more recent years — until its sale [in 2008] — the old dispensary building was part of Cabrini Medical Center. Although hospitals are notoriously hard on historic architecture, the interior of the Schickel building was remarkably intact, if run-down, with intricate stairway ironwork and door enframements, red marble wainscoting and a highly colored tile floor. 
In 2008, a British consulting firm bought the building for $13 million. Following the sale, the firm hired architects David Mayerfield Associates to restore both the interior and exterior. 

Per a feature at Daytonian in Manhattan
When dropped ceilings in the main hall were removed, the 1884 skylights, blacked out in World War II, were rediscovered. Similarly, stained-glass panels in the ceiling of the staircase were uncovered. The colorful encaustic tile floors had been covered over with concrete which was meticulously scraped away. 
The building was designated a New York City Landmark in 1976. Learn more about No. 137's history and architecture at Off the Grid here.

14 comments:

Simon E said...

For me, living downtown in the eighties, living on $816.50 a month take home, the Stuyvesant Polyclinic was where I went for medical attention.

NOTORIOUS said...

The interior is gorgeous. I'll turn the key - be right in!

Anonymous said...

Another bit of the Lower East Side's notorious history, concerning the death of the man who was responsible for fixing the 1919 World Series is found here:

"The Death of Arnold Rothstein Part II"
https://infamousnewyork.com/tag/stuyvesant-polyclinic/

Anonymous said...

Now that’s a beautiful building! Didn’t realize it had also gotten tagged up like this. So sad to see. I wish there was anything being done about that scourge.

Anonymous said...

Hello Condos

VH McKenzie said...

That is a stunningly gorgeous interior - wow.
The Wing's furniture, tho - trash.

Anonymous said...

Landmarked building, so unlikely.

Anonymous said...

If only the number of people who want to live here was also frozen in time…

Anonymous said...

The Polyclinic was such a godsend to this neighborhood in the 1970s and 80s, when no one had much money but needed medical care anyway. Such a loss when it closed. Same with the St. Mark's Dental Clinic, offering good and very low-cost care.

Carol from East 5th Street said...

Sounds like the building should also be landmarked for the wonderfully restored interior.Unfortunately our Landmark Preservation Commission is now closely linked with real estate and developers so that is unlikely to happen.
Hope good people buy the building.








Anonymous said...

Hello!! The first three words in the post are "the landmarked building"

Anonymous said...

Just because the exterior of a building is landmarked doesn't mean the interior is as well, that's a separate designation from an exterior or facade landmarking.

Carol from East 5th Street said...

Thank you Anonymous March 7th at 8:31 PM for calling that out. I should have been more specific that I was commenting on landmarking the interior.

Anonymous said...

I worked here during 2018-2019 when What If Innovation rented the building. An amazing place.