Knickerbocker Village (West) (New York City, New York)

 apartment complex  Add category

www.kvny.com/

Knickerbocker Village History, from knickvill.com/en/index.php
During the late nineteen twenties and early thirties the development of large apartment complexes began in New York City. Knickerbocker Village was among the first to be developed. The block on which it was built was a notorious slum. Fred F. French, a real estate magnate known for his expansive lifestyle, constructed Tudor City, a multi-building complex at 42nd Street and First Avenue in the nineteen twenties. He followed that with Knickerbocker Village. Construction began in 1933 and was completed in 1934. He also gave New York City one of its most beautiful office buildings, the Art Deco Tower at 45th Street and 5th Avenue known as "The French Building". Many of the early residents were socialists and the complex was a hotbed of tenant activism at the time. Hand in hand with activism, tenants also organized clubs around various interests and there was a strong social element in the complex. Newsletters of the period announced to the residents activities as diverse as a camera club, a fencing club and meetings of the American Labor Party. The Pioneer Women and Hadassah met here as well.

During the nineteen forties and fifties, the complex was home to Julius & Ethel Rosenberg. Some of the following families lived there: Aaronson, Babits, Bayer, Bellel, Brokowsky, Bueller, Dolinko, Heiger, Hyman, Karney, Katz, Kuperstein, Leibowitz, Miller,
Nathanson, Needle, Schefflin, Shue, Silverstein, Simmons, Sosinsky, Shue, Leder, Hanana, Cohen, Farber, Tobey, and Pelly.
Peter Dans, who grew up in the area where the Smith Projects were built, wrote an excellent book about the area called Life On The Lower East Side
www.amazon.com/Life-Lower-East-Side-Photographs/dp/1568...


my blog dbellel.blogspot.com has numerous posts about knickedrbocker village
specifically these postings
dbellel.blogspot.com/2007/01/boys-of-summer-47-years-la...
dbellel.blogspot.com/2007/01/walk-is-as-good-as-hit.htm...
dbellel.blogspot.com/2007/01/coleman-oval-history.html