The apartments were built between 1885-86, around the same time Pratt began drafting his tentative plans for the institute. The Astral was a settlement house locate din Greenpoint that was built to house his employees, who worked at the Astral Oil.

The students for the institute who worked here taught at the kindergarten, where the children of the workers were taught for free. The students and some select faculty from the institute were also involved in the running of the Astral Apartments. They looked to enforce rules that governed the lives of the workers, along the lines of Pratt's moral improvement philosophies.