page_title: Ottendorfer Public Library and Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital
section_title: Design
hierarchical_section_title: Ottendorfer Public Library and Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital / Design
caption_attribution_description: The former Freie Bibliothek und Lesehalle (left; now the Ottendorfer Branch of the New York Public Library) and Deutsches Dispensary (right; now Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital) on Second Avenue between St. Marks Place (8th Street) and East 9th Street in the East Village, Manhattan, New York. Both were designed by William Schickel and built in 1883-1884, at a time when there were large numbers of German immigrants in the area. The Dispensary was part of the German Hospital, which later moved uptown and lost the "German" part of its name during World War I. (It became Lenox Hill Hospital.) Both buildings are NYC landmarks: the Library was designated in 1977, and the interior in 1981; the dispensary in 1976. {Sources: AIA Guide to NYC (4th ed.), Guide to NYC Landmarks (4th ed.))
context_page_description: The Ottendorfer Public Library and Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital are a pair of historic buildings at 135 and 137 Second Avenue in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The buildings house the Ottendorfer Branch of the New York Public Library, as well as the women's workspace The Wing in the former hospital structure.
  The buildings were jointly designed by German-born architect William Schickel in the neo-Italian Renaissance style. Both structures are three stories tall with a facade of Philadelphia pressed brick facades ornamented in terracotta. The hospital building features terracotta busts of several notable medical professionals.
  The structures were erected in 1883–84 following a donation by philanthropists Oswald Ottendorfer and Anna Ottendorfer. The library was the second branch of the New York Free Circulating Library, while the hospital was affiliated with the German Hospital uptown, now Lenox Hill Hospital. Both structures served the Little Germany enclave of Lower Manhattan. The hospital was sold in 1906 to another medical charity, the German Polyklinik; the name was changed to Stuyvesant Polyclinic in the 1910s.
context_section_description: The buildings, on the west side of Second Avenue near St. Marks Place, were designed as a pair by German-born architect William Schickel. They were designed in the neo-Italian Renaissance style, with Philadelphia pressed brick facades ornamented in terracotta, a relatively new building material to New York at the time of the buildings' construction. The terracotta was manufactured by the Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Company.
  The library building at 135 Second Avenue has a frontage of 20 feet (6.1 m) along Second Avenue, while the former hospital at 137 Second Avenue has 50 feet (15 m) of frontage; both structures are 67.6 feet (20.6 m) deep. A laboratory was also attached to the hospital's rear. An annex to the library was built in subsequent years.
caption: Library (left) and hospital building (right) from across Second Avenue
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