First Houses- 29, 31, 33-35, 37, 39 and 41 Avenue A: 112-114, 118-120, 124-126, 130-132 and 136-138 East 3rd Street

History and architecture

First Houses," the municipal housing project located on Avenue A, between Second and Third Streets, and along Third Street, was begun early in 1935 and com-pleted in mid-1936. Approval for the project was granted by Mayor LaGuardia on November 21, 1934. Consisting of eight four- and five-story brick buildings laid out in an L-shaped plan around an inner landscaped courtyard, its relatively small size and unpretentious appearance belie its historical and architectural importance. This was the first housing project undertaken by the recently established New York City Housing Authority, and the first public, low-income housing project in the nation. It began as a rehabilitation program, an experiment by the City in partial demolition of existing tenements on the site, in cooperation with the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) in a "work-relief" program.

First Houses was also significant as the first municipally sponsored and operated project which endeavored to deal with the acute and long-standing problems of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the area of the greatest concentra-tion of slums in the City. It was originally planned for 122 families, with an average monthly rental of $6.05 per room, which included all basic amenities. Eligibility was determined in part by a family income of no more than five times the rent. The only other existing project on the Lower East Side was Knickerbocker Village, a twelve-story, two building model housing project for middle-income tenants erected by the Fred F. French Company and financed by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). The average rent of $12.50 per room was far too high, in the middle of the Depression, for low-income residents of the neighborhood.

First Houses was a bold innovation in planning which began as an experiment in partial demolition of existing tenements on the site. It was originally planned to raze every third house, in order to open up the block to air and light, and then to remodel the remaining houses. This practice had been successful in England and had been recommended in 1920 by Clarence Stein, Chairman of Governor Smith's Reconstruction Committee, as a practical and economical way to deal with urban renewal on the Lower East Side.

Furthermore, in order to comply with the terms of Federal financing, First Houses had to be a slum renovation project. Demolition of the existing tenements on the site began on March 1, 1935, in accordance with plans submitted to the City's Department of Buildings on February 11. As work proceeded, it became apparent that the mid-19th century buildings left standing, structurally deficient from the outset, were dangerously weakened by the removal of the adjoining tenements.

As a result, five of the present buildings were entirely rebuilt from the ground up, and the remaining three were almost entirely new throughout, reinforced by structural steel for center support of all spans and for main staircases. New twenty-year roofs were installed, walls were made soundproof, and doors were fireproofed. The reuse of bricks from demolished buildings on this and other sites provided a saving in construction costs and was a source of income for the Authority for several years.