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Blake Tenements Architecturally and aesthetically valuable to the city are Daniel Blake’s Tenements dating from 1760-1772. One of the few examples in Charleston of English bond brickwork, this early double house has spacious dimensions and is distinguished for the beautifully executed woodwork in principal rooms and for its notable wrought iron steps and porch railings. Located on historic Court House Square, the building helps complete the character of the entire area, and it takes on added significance as the western boundary of a proposed courthouse park. The building covers the entire width of the lot with a barrel vaulted pedestrian passage at ground level extending down the center of the building from the street to the yard at the rear. There are, on both sides of the passage, service entrances to the basement of each dwelling as well as windows for ventilation. The two south rooms in the basement probably served as kitchens; each has a large open fireplace. On the south front of the building the brickwork is laid in Flemish bond; the sides and rear are laid in English bond. The floor plans of the two dwellings mirror each other and repeat on all three floors, consisting of a large south room, then a stair hall the full width of the building, and then a north room not quite as deep as the front room. Listed in the National Register August 25, 1970.
Storm Clouds - Chinatown - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa As storm clouds approach, the sun washes over the city showering its splendor onto the urban landscape like a brilliant star projecting its last bits of light into the vast universe. I love the light on the buildings in this section of Chinatown before a storm. This particular view overlooks the tenements that face the Forsyth Market under the Manhattan Bridge where produce and other food is sold daily in a sprawling open air market. ---
Sunday Morning on Orchard Street - Lower East Side - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa On cold city mornings, birds pepper the bone-white sky with movement. And through the haze left over by clouds caught in the scuffle between autumn and winter, the wind rushes through the streets like the ghosts of yesterday's thoughts. ---
The Empire State Building and Little Italy - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa One of my favorite views of the Empire State Building is from a vantage point in lower Manhattan. My breath is momentarily taken away every time I come across the Empire State Building's spire jutting out in the distance framed by the Little Italy's architecture. Little Italy is a small area in downtown Manhattan. Currently inhabiting a tiny section of Mulberry Street between Broome and Canal Streets the area recalls a rich history of immigration. Many late 19th century and early 20th century tenements still line the streets and what is left of the area emanates a tremendous amount of history. Immigrants from Italy first settled in the neighborhood called Five Points in the 1850s, finally spreading north into what is now referred to as Little Italy in the 1880s. The Five Points neighborhood was New York’s original and most notorious slum. Located a few blocks below Canal at Baxter Street the neighborhood teemed with gangs, prostitutes, and criminals. A target for reformers of all stripes and an embarrassment to civic planners, the dark and airless tenements of the Five Points were finally demolished in an early urban renewal effort and in their place rose newer buildings which still stand today (and can be seen in this photo). Little Italy has lately been colonized by Chinatown in its southern parts and its northern reaches now host upscale boutiques, bars and restaurants. The remnants of the original Little Italy can be found around Mulberry Street and Mott Street. Some interesting film trivia: key scenes from The Godfather were filmed in Little Italy. These include the christening scene, in which Coppola’s family members acted as extras, and the set representing the interior of the Genco Olive Oil company, which was built on the fourth floor of an old loft building at 128 Mott Street, at the corner of Hester Street. ---
Density - Above Chinatown - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa There are streets that, for me, fill in the image of New York City that exists in my mind. I have spoken about this before in older posts. Everyone seems to have their own image of New York City that, for them, represents so much more than just the geographical spot that New York City inhabits on any sort of map. These streets are the embodiment of a core concept that has defined New York City for many decades. The sheer density of people that grace these streets with their presence seem to imbue streets like these with the weight of their aspirations. New York City has always been a destination for those seeking a generalized concept of a better life. As an economic lighthouse and representation of (the steadily crumbling, nearly non-existent concept of) the American Dream, New York City has attracted people from all over the world especially during the last century. I grew up the child of an immigrant to the United States. My mother's family fled Eastern Europe after World War II. They (including her) were victims of the war, concentration camp and labor camp survivors who carried with them mental scars so deep that it took years for them to gain even a small modicum of a foothold here. I have always felt disconnected from her experience though. My mother who wanted her children to blend in rather than stick out as she did when she immigrated here, did her best to give me and my brothers a fairly normal American childhood where we grew up in Queens. It wasn't until a decade ago when I started to ask her about her own immigration story after starting to delve into my own fascination with the history of New York City that I started to understand the gravity of what it means to come to a place like New York City with little more than a massive amount of dreams. And so, shortly after moving to the Lower East Side from elsewhere in Manhattan I came across this street (the one in this photo) since it sits in a neighborhood that borders the Lower East Side and Chinatown and it felt as if I could finally understand what it must have been like for my mother and for all those who came here to America with eyes full of hope. It's not that my mother settled here. But rather that it's as if this street has been steeped in a time when the world and New York City was a different place, one that held out vast amounts of heady fortune in its outstretched hands. The world has changed quite a bit since my mother first set foot here. It's harder (dare I say almost completely difficult) to come here with next to nothing and make a decent life for yourself. The hands are still held out but they are no longer outstretched for everyone. When I look at this street today, I see many of the original tenements that were standing one hundred years ago when waves of immigrants came to New York City following their own hazy image of what New York City embodied in their minds and those who traverse this street today are not so far removed from my mother who traversed the streets of New York City for many decades. It's as if, for the few minutes that I spend gazing at this street below as I often do, I am connected in a deeper way to all the dreamers that called and still call New York City their home. ---
Fragments - Overlooking Two Bridges - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa There are areas in lower Manhattan where fragments of the city's history have settled like fine dust, fragile and prone to the whims of time. Around these hallowed enclaves, newer history reaches higher towards the sky and rises from the ground borne from the dust of the city's past. This particular spot is known as Two Bridges and sits along the East River. It borders Chinatown and the Lower East Side and has long been a dwelling spot for many different immigrant communities over the years. It sits alongside the infamous and historic Five Points area where Irish, Jewish and Italian gangs battled to the death in the mid-19th century. It is currently home to a large community of Chinese immigrants and many of the buildings are tenements dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ---
#2838 - Mad River & dam behind the tenements on Main Street
From Williamsburg Bridge, Edward Hopper, 1928. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Blake Tenements

Architecturally and aesthetically valuable to the city are Daniel Blake’s Tenements dating from 1760-1772. One of the few examples in Charleston of English bond brickwork, this early double house has spacious dimensions and is distinguished for the beautifully executed woodwork in principal rooms and for its notable wrought iron steps and porch railings. Located on historic Court House Square, the building helps complete the character of the entire area, and it takes on added significance as the western boundary of a proposed courthouse park. The building covers the entire width of the lot with a barrel vaulted pedestrian passage at ground level extending down the center of the building from the street to the yard at the rear. There are, on both sides of the passage, service entrances to the basement of each dwelling as well as windows for ventilation. The two south rooms in the basement probably served as kitchens; each has a large open fireplace. On the south front of the building the brickwork is laid in Flemish bond; the sides and rear are laid in English bond. The floor plans of the two dwellings mirror each other and repeat on all three floors, consisting of a large south room, then a stair hall the full width of the building, and then a north room not quite as deep as the front room. Listed in the National Register August 25, 1970.
Blake Tenements Architecturally and aesthetically valuable to the city are Daniel Blake’s Tenements dating from 1760-1772. One of the few examples in Charleston of English bond brickwork, this early double house has spacious dimensions and is distinguished for the beautifully executed woodwork in principal rooms and for its notable wrought iron steps and porch railings. Located on historic Court House Square, the building helps complete the character of the entire area, and it takes on added significance as the western boundary of a proposed courthouse park. The building covers the entire width of the lot with a barrel vaulted pedestrian passage at ground level extending down the center of the building from the street to the yard at the rear. There are, on both sides of the passage, service entrances to the basement of each dwelling as well as windows for ventilation. The two south rooms in the basement probably served as kitchens; each has a large open fireplace. On the south front of the building the brickwork is laid in Flemish bond; the sides and rear are laid in English bond. The floor plans of the two dwellings mirror each other and repeat on all three floors, consisting of a large south room, then a stair hall the full width of the building, and then a north room not quite as deep as the front room. Listed in the National Register August 25, 1970.
Blake Tenements

Architecturally and aesthetically valuable to the city are Daniel Blake’s Tenements dating from 1760-1772. One of the few examples in Charleston of English bond brickwork, this early double house has spacious dimensions and is distinguished for the beautifully executed woodwork in principal rooms and for its notable wrought iron steps and porch railings. Located on historic Court House Square, the building helps complete the character of the entire area, and it takes on added significance as the western boundary of a proposed courthouse park. The building covers the entire width of the lot with a barrel vaulted pedestrian passage at ground level extending down the center of the building from the street to the yard at the rear. There are, on both sides of the passage, service entrances to the basement of each dwelling as well as windows for ventilation. The two south rooms in the basement probably served as kitchens; each has a large open fireplace. On the south front of the building the brickwork is laid in Flemish bond; the sides and rear are laid in English bond. The floor plans of the two dwellings mirror each other and repeat on all three floors, consisting of a large south room, then a stair hall the full width of the building, and then a north room not quite as deep as the front room. Listed in the National Register August 25, 1970.
See photo in original gallery.
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