The Joseph Curran Building in Greenwich Village, originally the headquarters of the National Maritime Union, was designed by architect Albert C. Ledner, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright whose work was featured in the 1979 MoMA exhibition Transformation in Modern Architecture. Ledner’s use of scalloped, prefabricated concrete panels and porthole windows playfully evoked features of maritime architecture, breaking away from the sanitized, corporate modernism of mid-century New York. In 1973, the building was annexed to the neighboring St. Vincent’s Hospital. Beginning in 1988, it housed St. Vincent’s newly established Comprehensive HIV Center, an outpatient unit that provided compassionate care for men and women afflicted with the virus. In 2008, the hospital’s plans to demolish the building in order to erect a 392-foot tower were met with great opposition by preservation and community groups. It was only in 2011 that a new owner agreed to take over, restore this historic (and resilient) piece of modern architecture, and maintain its public function as a healthcare facility for New Yorkers.

Submitted by Evangelos Kotsioris, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design