Abrons Arts Center
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Henry Street Settlement
and Neighborhood Playhouse |
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(2011)
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| Location | 263-267 Henry St., and 466 Grand Street Manhattan, New York City |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 40°42′50″N 73°59′7″W / 40.71389°N 73.98528°WCoordinates: 40°42′50″N 73°59′7″W / 40.71389°N 73.98528°W |
| Area | 1 acre (0.40 ha) |
| Built | 1827 |
| Architect | 267: Buchman & Fox |
| Architectural style | Federal, Greek Revival, Colonial Revival |
| NRHP Reference # | 74001272 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | September 13, 1974 |
| Designated NHL | May 30, 1974 |
| Designated NYCL | January 18, 1966 |
The Henry Street Settlement is a not-for-profit social service agency in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City that provides social services, arts programs and health care services to New Yorkers of all ages. It was founded under the name Nurses' Settlement in 1893 by progressive reformer and nurse Lillian Wald.
The Settlement serves about 50,000 people each year. Clients include low-income individuals and families, survivors of domestic violence, youngsters ages 2 through 21, individuals with mental and physical health challenges, senior citizens, and arts and culture enthusiasts who attend performances, classes and exhibitions at Henry Street’s Abrons Arts Center.
The Settlement’s administrative offices are still located in its original (c. 1832) federal row houses at 263, 265 and 267 Henry Street in Manhattan. Services are offered at 17 program sites throughout the area, many of them located in buildings operated by the New York City Housing Authority.
The Settlement's buildings at 263, 265 and 267 Henry Street were designated New York City landmarks in 1966, and these buildings, along with the Neighborhood Playhouse building at 466 Grand Street, were collectively designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989.
In 1892, Lillian Wald, a 25-year-old nurse then enrolled in the Women’s Medical College, volunteered to teach a class on home health care for immigrant women at the Louis Down-Town Sabbath and Daily School on the Lower East Side. One day, she was approached by a young girl who kept repeating "mommy ... baby ... blood". Wald gathered some sheets from her bed-making lesson and followed the child to her home, a cramped two-room tenement apartment. Inside, she found the child’s mother who had recently given birth and in need of health care. The doctor tending to her had left because she could not afford to pay him. This was Wald’s first experience with poverty; she called the episode her "baptism by fire" and dedicated herself to bringing nursing care, and eventually education and access to the arts, to the immigrant poor on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The next year she founded the Nurses' Settlement, which later changed its name to the Henry Street Settlement.
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