Give her an Academy Award...and a 2BR in a landmarked building on the LES
Looking Backward to See Forward
Few buildings on the Lower East Side are as noteworthy as the Forward Building, located at 173-175 East Broadway on the southeastern edge of Seward Park near Rutgers Street.
Before the building, there was The Jewish Daily Forward. Known in Yiddish as the Forverts, the newspaper supported the prevailing themes and ideas of the time by Jewish, American, and international socialist and trade union movements. The paper, founded in April 1897, reported on a variety of affairs, offering practical guidance for newly arrived immigrants while covering labor disputes and community life. Abraham Cahan, who became editor-in-chief in 1903, remained the paper’s defining voice until his death in 1951.
As the newspaper’s readership and influence expanded, so did its physical presence on East Broadway. The Forward Association, the organization behind the Forverts, first acquired 175 East Broadway in 1906. Four years later, it purchased the adjoining property at 173 East Broadway, assembling a larger site from which to support its broadening operations.
With the two parcels under common ownership, the Association commissioned architect George A. Boehm, later president of the Westchester County Society of Architects, to design a permanent headquarters. Plans were filed for a ten-story brick-and-stone store-and-loft building at an estimated construction cost of $200,000 (roughly $6.9 million in today’s dollars). In 1912, the Forward Building opened its doors and became the permanent home of the Forverts during the height of its influence and circulation.
Designed in the Beaux-Arts style and clad in cream-and-tan terra cotta, the building integrated the newspaper’s ideals into the decor itself. Specifically, relief portraits of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Ferdinand Lassalle, and Karl Liebknecht were incorporated into the façade above the second story. Toward the crown, just beneath the clock, the word Vorwärts appears in Yiddish. This defining feature remains to this day.
Over time, the building became more than the newspaper’s home. It housed labor, political, educational, and civic organizations, including the Butchers’ Union Local 509, the Jewish Socialist Verband, the Naturalization Aid League, and the Workmen’s Circle within the building. In 1918, labor organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn convened the first conference of the Workers Liberty Defense Union there. For more than six decades, “Yiddish newspaper row” maintained its function and its prominence.
Following the postwar period, as Yiddish language use declined, The Forward launched an English-language edition, before selling the building in 1974 and moving to 33 East Broadway (not its current address). Ownership passed to the Lau family, which retained the property for roughly three decades, with a Chinese church occupying the space. During this time, the building achieved landmark status for being “a beacon symbolizing socialism and labor” for the Lower East Side.
In 2004, an entity called 173 Associates purchased the landmarked building as part of a redevelopment effort, converting it to a condominium consisting of four commercial units and 30 residential units.
This is where I chime back in to say, “I have walked by this building for as long as I have been in New York. But, I have never been inside.”
Shall we take a peek?
While we’re at it — especially since we’ve all gotten points for sitting through a history lesson — how about a little bit of Page Six, by which I mean: How about a celebrity crib?
Among the building’s residents was Academy Award-winning actress Tatum O’Neal, one of the original post-conversion purchasers. Public records show that O’Neal owned Unit M, a two-bedroom unit that retained several historic elements, including an original decorative plaster ceiling dome with a sunburst centerpiece and stained-glass windows. Let’s have a look:
Recorded Sale Price: $1,715,000
Date of Sale: January 17, 2013
Bedrooms / Bathrooms: 2 BR / 2 BA
Approx. Size: 1435 SF
The Landmarks Preservation Commission described the Forward Building as a “beacon,” and more than a century after its construction — and 40 years on from its landmark designation — that description still feels apt.
In a neighborhood increasingly shaped by new development, the 173-175 East Broadway offers a rare and tangible connection to what came before. Herein lies the enduring lesson: we must look backward in order to look Forward.
