Downtown Community House

The Downtown Community House at 105-107 Washington Street is a six-story, five-bay red brick building that is among the last vestiges of the Lower West Side of Manhattan’s former life as an ethnic neighborhood known as “Little Syria.” From the time of its establishment, the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association, housed in the Downtown Community House beginning in 1926, was a pioneering organization that served the local immigrant population as a settlement house and continued to provide services for the area well after the community house became defunct. Built in 1925 with philanthropic funds from William H. Childs, the founder of the Bon Ami household cleaner company, the Downtown Community House was designed by John F. Jackson, architect of over 70 Y.M.C.A. buildings and community centers, and through its Colonial Revival style speaks to an underlying desire for the neighborhood’s immigrant population to become Americanized and associate themselves with the country’s foundations. In recent years, a collection of historic preservationists and Arab-American activists have lobbied the Landmarks Preservation Commission and its Chairman Robert Tierney to designate the building as a city landmark.

109 Washington Street

109 Washington Street is a five-story tenement on the Lower West Side of Manhattan in New York City, within the area once known as Little Syria. Due to demolitions connected to the construction of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and the World Trade Center, it stands as the last tenement on a portion of lower Washington Street that has been estimated by Kate Reggev to have contained around 50 tenements. After September 11, 2001, its proximity to the World Trade Center site made it the subject of some media attention, including a nationally syndicated radio story about the experiences of its residents on the day of the attack. In recent years, community officials, activists, and preservationists have advocated for its designation as a landmark as part of a mini-historical district with the connected buildings of St. George's Syrian Catholic Church and the Downtown Community House.

Previous structures

Federal Office Building (New York City)

The Federal Office Building in New York City, also known as U.S. Appraisers' Warehouse, was built between 1892-99. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. It is a ten story Romanesque style building bounded by Christopher, Greenwich, Barrow, and Washington Streets, about four blocks west of Sheridan Square. Architect Willoughby J. Edbrooke left his successful Chicago practice on being named supervising architect of the Treasury Department in 1891. He died before the completion of the building, but his influence and the influence of the Chicago School of Architecture is evident. The building now houses apartments and is called The Archive, after a former tenant of the building the National Archives.

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