THEN

Despite the significant alterations at the street-level storefronts and the addition of fire escapes, the upper stories of this Connecticut stone tenement retain all their architectural details. Built in 1880-81 and designed by New York born architect John McIntyre, this four-story building was part of an original pair. The east side of Second Avenue, between East 81st and East 82nd Streets, was composed of four pairs of rowhouses, of varying heights but similar details, and all with storefronts at the ground-level, forming a very cohesive streetscape that is becoming rare on the large avenues of the Upper East Side. Now with three-story staggered rooftop addition, the building has been home to Comic Strip Live since 1976, and, apart from a brief time in the 1960s where “Quasar Color TVs” were sold at an appliance store, 1568 Second Avenue has been home for clubs, bars, and restaurants for decades. Lindefield’s Restaurant served the community there in the 1920s, in 1931 an illegal beer garden, Brauhall, was raided by prohibition agents. Even after the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment, ending the prohibition era, the place continued to be raided for illegal activities; in 1934, forty-one men were arrested at 1568 Second Avenue for gambling. In the 1940s the building was home to Dunne’s Shamrock Bar, and if illegal activities were taking place there, they were never discovered.