In the early 20th century, this house was rightly called the first skyscraper in Moscow. Before the corner of Tverskaya Street and the Boulevard was densely built up with high-rises, it towered over Strastnaya Square. Today, its scale is hard to assess from the narrow alley. Nevertheless, the building has retained the name of its creator and first owner and is known in Moscow as "Nirnzee House." The Moscow architect Ernest Richard Karlovich Nirnzee, a Warsaw burgher, envisioned his next income-generating building as a "bachelor's house" or "cheap apartments." It was intended for single clerks who spent most of their day at work: in the original layout, the small apartments did not have kitchens. Residents were offered meals in a restaurant on the 11th floor, on the roof, or could use the services of footmen, maids, and cooks, just like in a hotel. That is how it was organized.

After the construction was completed in 1914, the house belonged for some time to the architect himself, but with the onset of the war with Germany and subsequent German pogroms, in 1915 Nirnzee sold it to Dmitry Rubinstein, a well-known Moscow merchant with a dubious reputation. After that, the architect's trail goes cold. After the revolution, the building was nationalized and renamed the Fourth House of the Moscow Soviet. Throughout its century-long history, Nirnzee House has seen much: it housed the famous cabarets "The Bat" and "Crooked Jimmy," the studio of the Small Theater, editorial offices of newspapers and magazines such as "Nakanune," "Gudok," "Evening News," "Russia," "Lituchyeba," "Creativity," "Ogonok," "Bibliophile Almanac," and the publishing house "Sovetsky Pisatel."

Many famous writers, including S. Yesenin, V. Kataev, M. Bulgakov, and others, were published in the newspaper "Nakanune." Mikhail Bulgakov often visited this house to see the artists Moiseenko, where he met his future third wife, Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya. She recalled: "It was in '29 in February, during Maslenitsa. We met and were close. It was a quick, extraordinarily quick, at least from my side, love for a lifetime."

The famous Roof has always been the most popular part of the house. In an interview with "Moskovsky Listok" in May 1913, the architect said: "Believe it or not, I still can't get enough of the view of Moscow from here... What am I saying... Even my bricklayers climb up here on holidays and stand in silent contemplation for hours." The roof featured a café and restaurant with a beautiful view and "mountain air," as the newspapers wrote. There was an art gallery and a cinema, films were shot, football matches were held, and children from the local kindergarten played. From Tverskoy Boulevard, one can still see a beautiful majolica panel on the attic, which is an exact copy of one of A. Golovin's mosaic paintings from the facade of the "Metropol" hotel.

Today, in addition to residential apartments, the house hosts several organizations, including the editorial office of the magazine "Questions of Literature," the educational theater of GITIS, and the publishing center "Blagodarenie."