Lenox Hill Neighborhood House's Storied History
Lenox Hill Neighborhood House was originally founded in 1894 as a free kindergarten for immigrants and is among the oldest settlement houses in the nation. At its core, the work has not changed since our founding—we still educate children, feed hungry neighbors, care for the elderly, advocate for vulnerable individuals and provide critical, comprehensive services to immigrants and low-income New Yorkers, helping them to gain the skills they need to strengthen themselves today and build a better community for tomorrow.
Neighborhood House Milestone Anniversaries:
In celebration of our 125th Anniversary in 2019, and in collaboration with an historian working with our archival collection (housed at the Hunter College Libraries), we constructed a special history book highlighting our 125 years of service to the community. Click here to read the book.
As part of our 130th Anniversary celebrations in 2024, we presented “130 for 130” — 130 stories of joy, impact and community, representing a cross-section of the thousands of lives transformed by our work. Click here to check out our 130 for 130 project.
“A settlement, like a pebble dropped in the sea of humanity, causes opportunities to circle outward as far as the eye can reach.” - Mary Wells, Lenox Hill Neighborhood House’s First Head Worker from 1894-1898
Click here for Mary Wells’ obituary from The New York Times in 1951.
What is a settlement house? The Settlement House movement took hold in major cities in the United States in the late 19th to early 20th centuries as immigrants began arriving in greater numbers. Community workers lived in Settlement Houses established in poor, crowded urban neighborhoods and worked with local residents to provide educational and recreational services including English language and job training, arts programming, health care, youth programs and much more.