97 2nd Avenue

East Village | built 1903

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.

1863
Dr. James Knight leases his home at 97 Second Avenue as the first hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled
On this lot stood the home of James Knight, a young physician from Maryland. When a society was organized in 1863 to found an orthopaedic hospital, he leased the house to it for $1,200 a year, furnished with 28 beds and a conservatory for making braces. The institution stayed until 1870 and later became the Hospital for Special Surgery.
Source: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
1863
May 1
A four-year-old boy with a paralyzed leg becomes the first patient in Dr. Knight's house hospital
An earlier house on this site became a hospital when it admitted its first patient on May 1, 1863: a four-year-old boy from a destitute family, whose left leg had been paralyzed since he was 18 months old. Knight lived in the building as resident physician with his wife, who ran the household, and their daughter, who volunteered as a teacher. His first report counted 66 patients for May, ten of them kept in beds.
Source: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
1903
Sass & Smallheiser design a six-story Renaissance Revival tenement for the lot in 1903
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The present building was designed in 1903 by Sass & Smallheiser for the owners Braveman, Silverson & Sandow, who put stores on the ground floor. It is brick and terra cotta, with a multi-story oriel, quoins, and window sills that run in continuous bands.
Source: buildingblocks.villagepreservation.org

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