More on East Village backhouses

Tuesday's post on backhouses — via Off the Grid — piqued our curiosity about other such buildings in the neighborhood ... (A backhouse being residential structures that are separate from and located behind other buildings facing the street.)

We already had our eye on the one here that EV Grieve reader Spike mentioned... just east off Second Avenue between First and Second Street...

Apparently the entry is through 26 Second Ave. ...

Goggla pointed out that there is one off East Fifth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue... another reader lived in one at 519 E. 12th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B. There's also one at 325 E. 10th St., which you can see here.

The rare backhouses of East 12th Street

So back in July we reported that the long-dormant pit also-known-as 427. E. 12th St. is primed for a six-story, 11-unit residence courtesy of Montreal-based architect Karl Fischer ...

Until that soulless glass coffin goes up, you have the chance to enjoy not one but two backhouses. In a post yesterday, Off The Grid — the blog of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation — wrote about the history of backhouses ... namely "residential structures which are separate from and located behind other buildings (usually, but not always, residential buildings) which face the street."

Here's a look at them via Google...

Let's go back to Off the Grid for more.

"The newly- (and temporarily-) revealed backhouses at 425 and 429 East 12th Street, between First Avenue and Avenue A, present a variation on these backhouse scenarios, one which we believe may be somewhat rare. The four-story front-buildings at 425 and 429 were both built in 1852, and appear to be very early, purpose-built tenements (i.e. they were built as tenements, not structures built as single-family homes which were converted to multi-family housing).

Off the Grid has more photos, history... as well as a street map from 1853. Find all that here.