The Avenue

87 2nd Avenue | also 89 2nd Avenue, 239 East 5th Street | East Village | built 1910

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

1910
Isaac Sohnger completes The Avenue apartment house
Developer Isaac Sohnger completes The Avenue in 1910 at the northwest corner of Second Avenue and East 5th Street. John C. Watson designs the six-story Colonial Revival building, with its residential entrance on East 5th Street and five stores on the ground floor. Its windows have limestone lintels with scrolled keystones and nine-pane upper sashes.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1981
July 19
Jack Henry Abbott fatally stabs Binibon Café worker Richard Adan
On July 19, 1981, Jack Henry Abbott has breakfast at the Binibon Café, one of the stores on the ground floor. Abbott, recently released from prison, had formed a relationship with author Norman Mailer while incarcerated. He fatally stabs Richard Adan, a 22-year-old who works at the café, and is caught a few weeks later in Louisiana.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1989
Tri Video becomes the Finyl Vinyl record store
A storefront on the East 5th Street side opens as Tri Video in October 1987 and is renamed Finyl Vinyl by 1989. In 1991 its owner Rob Cohen tells The New York Times that vinyl is in his blood. Earlier ground-floor tenants included a Lofts candy shop, a jewelry shop, and a dairy store.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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