The Ottendorfer Public Library and Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital are a pair of historic buildings at 135 and 137 Second Avenue in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City.

The buildings house the Ottendorfer Branch of the New York Public Library, as well as the women's workspace The Wing within the former Stuyvesant Polyclinic hospital.

The buildings were jointly designed by German-born architect William Schickel in the neo-Italian Renaissance style.

The hospital was sold in 1906 to another medical charity, the German Polyklinik; the name was changed to Stuyvesant Polyclinic in the 1910s.

The structures received three separate New York City landmark designations in 1976, 1977, and 1981, and were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

[19] On May 12, 1884, Oswald Ottendorfer wrote a letter to the NYFCL's trustees detailing the proposed gift to the library.

An accompanying condition was that the reading material in German be maintained sufficiently, and German-speaking staff be in attendance.

[31][32] Schickel designed an expansion to the library in 1897, which contained a series of iron stacks with thick glass floors, surrounding a central shaft.

[36] As other immigrant groups moved to the surrounding neighborhood, the library started circulating books in other languages, such as Czech/Slovak, Chinese, French, Italian, Polish, Spanish, and Ukrainian.

[4][41] The hospital's name was changed to Stuyvesant Polyclinic following the anti-German sentiment connected with the entrance of the United States into World War I.

[44] The Ladies' Auxiliary Society of the German Polyclinic held a fundraising drive to replace the hospital building in 1929, with the goal of raising $3 million.

[50] When the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission considered the clinic for city-landmark status in 1976, a community group called the Citizens Committee to Keep the Ottendorfer Library Open requested that the library also be considered for landmark status.

The group perceived Cabrini's purchase of the clinic as a threat to the library, especially as the NYPL was facing financial problems at the time.

[54] Macrae-Gibson Architects devised a design that was evocative of the original appearance, while also adding other features such as new cables.

The NYPL also considered expanding into the Stuyvesant Polyclinic because the fire escape in front of the library was deteriorated, but this proposal was dismissed as too expensive.

At the time, Cabrini Medical Center owned both structures but rented out the library building to the NYPL for free.

[58][63] The hospital building was ultimately purchased by Lower East Side Equities who leased it to British consulting firm What If.

Christopher Gray of The New York Times characterized the exterior as "neglected and forlorn", having not been renovated since the mid-20th century.

[65] The Ottendorfer branch was closed for another set of renovations between August 2018 and March 2019; the project included adding sprinkler and alarm systems.

[66][67] Additionally, in January 2019, the women's coworking firm The Wing signed a lease for the entirety of the Stuyvesant Polyclinic for its headquarters.

[70] The Wing moved into the space in June 2019,[71] and the Cofinance Group bought 137 Second Avenue for $18 million the same month.

[72][73] After the Wing shuttered, 137 Second Avenue was placed for sale in March 2023;[74][75] it was sold for $19 million to an unidentified buyer that August.

[70][76] The buildings, on the west side of Second Avenue near St. Marks Place, were designed as a pair by German-born architect William Schickel.

[77][12] The pediment of the portico is supported by two pairs of brick piers with vermiculated blocks, topped by Corinthian capitals.

These figures are English physician William Harvey, Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, German explorer and scientist Alexander von Humboldt, French physicist Antoine Lavoisier, and German physician and author Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland.

There was a wide staircase on the north wall with a decorative wooden handrail, which turned at right angles as it went to the second and third floors.

At the top of the first floor is the German inscription Freie Bibliothek und Lesehalle (Free Library and Reading Room) as well as an egg-and-dart molding.

[29][85] A sign at the back section's entrance contained the words Zur lese Halle für Fräuen, translating to "to the women's reading room".

[14][87] The unnamed critic stated that the clinic's porch was "a very unschooled and uncouth piece of work" and that the library had an arch of the "ugly and fashionable three-centered form".

[87] The New York Times said in 1964 that, following the exodus of Little Germany and the East Village's subsequent redevelopment, the two buildings were "the last props of an era long gone", despite not having been designed for "architectural unity".