Webster Hall

When you stand before the red brick facade of Webster Hall, you are looking at a survivor of the nineteenth century that was built in eighteen eighty-six by a Polish immigrant named Charles Goldstein. Goldstein operated the space as a hall for hire, living on the ground floor with his family while the rooms above became an essential gathering spot for the city's burgeoning labor unions and immigrant organizations. Its early reputation was forged not by glamour, but by the urgent, smoke-filled meetings of garment workers and socialists who used these floors to organize for their rights.