Our New Center for Community Opens Fall 2013
Contact us with questions about capital contributions and naming opportunities.
Regarding the apartments at 101 Avenue D, please contact Dermot Company at 212-262-1220.
About the Building
The Lower Eastside Girls Club Center for Community, New York City's first and only Girls Club facility, is currently under construction on Avenue D between 7th and 8th Streets in Manhattan. 78 units of mixed income housing above the Girls Club are being developed by Dermot, through NYC's Department of Housing Preservation & Development.
We expect to open the doors to the new 30,000 sq foot Girls Club in fall 2013. This sustainably built "green" state-of-the-art building will enable us to triple our program capacity to over 1500 girls per week. When the doors open to our new building, girls will enter a new world filled with hope, imagination and possibility for the future.
This year, the LESGC embarks on a partnership that adds significant reach and resources to our organization: The Tyra Banks TZONE. The TZONE will be the entry portal for youth participants to Girls Club programs and will be our national training center.
We are expanding our successful entrepreneurial social venture businesses, The Sweet Things Baking Company and Community Café, with the construction of a Culinary Education Center and commercial kitchen. These programs offer job training and opportunities for teenage girls and neighborhood women. The kitchen will also serve as a classroom for nutrition education and meet in-house food service needs. A courtyard filled with flowers, an outdoor fountain designed by artist Kiki Smith, and café tables will provide a unique oasis for dining and quiet events.
In the Fair Trade Gift Shop and Book Store, items from cooperatives around the world share shelf space with girl-made crafts and artwork. Our public market space will be a home for our Farmers Market Center, simultaneously supporting New York State farmers and our community's health.
Our Technology Core / IT Center is the epicenter of all technology-related programs and equipment. The tech core will be fully accessible to LESGC members and their families and will be home to a domed planetarium, computer stations with free wireless Internet access, digital photography, filmmaking and editing equipment, digital sound and music stations.
The Library & Academic Support Center is the site for after-school tutoring, book clubs and quiet activities - offered daily by educational staff and trained volunteers.
Program development offices, conference and training rooms share space with the Counseling, Career and Leadership Center where girls can meet with social workers, career counselors, and college advisors. Ongoing leadership development and civic engagement programs take place here.
The Health and Wellness Center, a multipurpose facility for healthcare and physical activities, will include dance, yoga, drumming, fencing, meditation and stress reduction programs, sports activities and more. Nurse practitioners, nutritionists, and physical fitness instructors will be available for counseling and training. Educational classes and events for families and new parents will also take place here.
Large light-filled art studios will be used for painting, drawing and other materials arts classes. A book arts center with working printing press will also be available to members.
A Science and Environmental Education Center will open onto a working “green roof” where girls will grow flowers and herbs for the café and demonstrate a variety of alternative energy products.
A portion of this new facility will be devoted to public programming and the arts. The “Girls Out Loud” Internet Radio Station is the site for live programming, podcasting, and digital journalism activities. Simultaneously, girls will be taking their digital film, photography and IT courses, while school classes and the general public participate in film festivals and screening events in the Screening Room. The Art + Community Gallery, site of LESGC’s teen curatorial training programs, will act as a venue for a wide range of art exhibitions.
The Lower Eastside Girls Club Center for Community will be the first center of its kind in New York City—offering free and creative programs and opportunities to girls and their families for years to come.
