Center for Jewish History

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A complex of three buildings housing the American Jewish Historical Society. The westernmost structure was built in 1946. It was designed by Gustave W. Wandelmaier for the American Institute for the Blind as a 4-story office building. It was later rebuilt as a 7-story structure and joined internally with 20 W. 17th Street. It has a limestone ground floor with granite bases on the three piers. The upper floors are clad in beige brick, with four bays of large square windows.

The central building, 20 West 17th, spans through the block to 16th Street. It rises 12 stories on the north side (three on the south end), and was completed in 1911, designed by Schwartz & Gross as a store-and-loft building. It has a 2-story limestone base, with the same granite bases on the piers as next door. It is three bays wide, with large show windows at the base (which is topped by a dentiled cornice), and paired windows at the upper floors, each separated by a green metal mullion. The brick spandrels have projecting square panels and escutcheons at the center of each bay. At the 10th floor each bay has a segmental-arch with a large keystone. Above the arches are foliate carvings and escutcheons at the piers. The outer piers have larger stone escutcheons. The top two floors have brick pilasters between each of the windows, with another pair of large escutcheons at the top of the outer piers. The facade is topped by a white roof cornice. The 3-story 16th Street facade is clad in red brick, with five widely-spaced bays on the west, and three closer bays at the forward-projecting east section. Stone bands runs across the top and bottom of the ground floor, which has stone lintels on the windows. The windows of the upper floors have splayed brick lintels with keystones. The middle bay of the west section has the main entrance, round-arched between Ionic columns and topped by a triangular pediment. The 2nd-story window above the pediment is framed in stone as well. At the roof there is a dentiled stone cornice, surmounted by a stone parapet with balustrades above each window bay.

The easternmost building at 18 West 17th was originally a 1-story brick driveway and loading dock structure built in 1960s. It was expanded in 1997 with additional floors, and then again in 2004, bringing its height to 12 floors to match the central building next door. There is a garage door in the limestone ground floor; the upper floors are clad in beige brick with two bays of large square windows up to the 10th floor, where the windows are round-arched. The top two floors have separated pairs of windows in both bays.

This last building was designed to be used as storage space for the Center for Jewish History, housing some 100 million archival documents and 500,000 library volumes using shelving units on rollers. The rest of the space also houses the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the Leo Baeck Institute, the Yeshiva University Museum, and the American Jewish Historical Society.