![]() The houses are placed at a fifteen-degree angle to the streets to orient the buildings toward the sun. Unfortunately, the school is in a rather dull neoclassic style which adds little to the architectural interest of the group. Gaynor Junior High School, a park, and a playground. ![]() Three blocks have six apartment houses each, the other has two houses the new William J. The buildings, occupying only about 30 per cent of the gross area, are grouped into four super-blocks, formed by closing two through streets to traffic. Together with a landscaped park and numerous playgrounds, the project covers twenty five gross acres, formerly twelve slum blocks. Built at a cost of about $12,800,000, the development includes twenty apartment houses, four stories high, accommodating 1,622 low-income families (about six thousand persons). Williamsburg Houses, Scholes Street to Maujer Street, Leonard Street to Bushwick Avenue, is the largest slum-clearance and low-rent housing project completed under the Federal Housing program (1939). The 1939 WPA Guide to New York City had this to say: The total project cost was $12,912,600, which approximates a total cost of $2,258 a room and $7,961 a family-dwelling unit.” The entire development, including land and miscellaneous costs, was fully financed with P.W.A. This construction cost is equal to $1,523 a room and $5,363 an apartment unit. The structures were completed at a construction cost of approximately $8,708,228, or 57 cents a cubic foot, for a total of 15,230,100 cubic feet. The 20.2-acre site, including a half-acre donation by the city, cost $3,745,722. The total actual rent averages $8.47 a room per month, which includes all charges for heat, hot and cold water, and electricity for light, cooking, and refrigeration. The average shelter rent, which includes cold water only, is computed on the basis of $6.52 a room per month. The development was first tenanted on September 30, 1937. Within the project 49 stores and shops have been leased on private individuals. All rooms open on landscaped courts and park areas. Approximately 3 percent of the 1,622 apartment units are 2-room, 47 percent 3-room, 46 percent 4-room, and 4 percent 5-room units. seven craft rooms, and a nursery school occupying 5,700 square feet. These structures, covering about 32 percent of the 20.2 acre site, are set at a slight angle from true north and south giving each building a maximum of recreation space, ventilation, sunlights, and the benefit of prevailing summer breezes.Įach building has a full basement providing space for individual laundries and drying rooms, nurseries, social units, and craft rooms. The 5,719 rooms which make up the Williamsburg project are located in 20 fireproof, 4-story walk-up apartment buildings. ![]() This project occupies 20.2 acres and supplants twelve of the most blighted and congested slum blocks in Greater New York City. It provides homes for 1,622 families in the low-wage brackets. “Williamsburg Houses, the ‘city-within-a-city’ slum-clearance project, erected in the heart of the historic Williamsburg section of the borough of Brooklyn, city of New York, is one of the largest low-rent housing projects undertaken in the United States. The official PWA history, published in 1939, described the project in detail: New York City was the unchallenged leader in the creation of public housing in the United States, beginning in the 1920s, and the New Deal allowed the city to continue to built high-quality public housing that has stood the test of time. The Williamsburg Houses were opened in 1937, one of three huge public housing projects in New York City funded by the Public Works Administration (PWA), along with First Houses and Harlem River Houses in Manhattan.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |