Harlem River Houses

History and architecture

Harlem River Houses, the first federally-funded, federally-built, and federally-owned housing project in New York City, was begun early in 1936 and completed in 1937. It was an example of the early collaboration between the New York City Housing Authority and the Federal Government. Consisting of three separate groups of four and five-story buildings, the project was "a recognition in brick and mortar of the special and urgent needs of Harlem."

A shortage of urban housing, especially at affordable prices, was intensified by the Depression of the 1930s. Under the Hoover administration, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) had been established in 1932 with the purpose of advancing funds to limited-dividend corporations to enable them to construct housing. Knickerbocker Village, a middle-income project on the Lower East Side, was financed in this way. Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the powers of the RFC were transferred n 1933 to the Housing Division of the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works (PWA), making possible the extension of loans to limited-dividend corporations for financing new construction, for the rehabilitation of low-cost housing, and for slum-clearance; the agency could make grants and loans to duly-established public bodies, such as city and state housing authorities, for the same purpose:and it could buy, condemn, sell, or lease property to develop new projects itself.

Thus, the Roosevelt Administration recognized that low-income housing was a responsibility of government--despite bitter complaints by the building and real-estate interests that the government was encroaching on their domain. Government officials, such as PWA Administrator Harold L. Ickes, effectively argued that private industry could not afford to build housing at affordable rents for the low-income sector.

New York City, through the jurisdiction of the New York City Housing Authority, had already begun its own experiment in low-cost housing in 1935 with the construction of First Houses--a designated New York City Landmark--financed through Housing Authority bonds, it used relief labor paid for through the Federal Government's "work-relief" program.