63-65 Second Avenue differs from East 4th Street’s “old law” tenements in form as well as style. Its design conveys changed attitudes toward working class housing, as well as changed taste. Architect Charles B. Meyers rejected the cluttered vegetal motifs, and curving scrolls and garlands of East 4th Street’s “dumbbell” tenements, and instead designed a simple façade enlivened by incised brick with sections laid in abstract geometric patterns like diamonds or pinwheels. The new aesthetic suggested that this building was modern and functional.
63-65 Second Avenue, East 4th Street façade, 2011 Photograph by Molly Garfinkel