Harlem River Houses
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Harlem River Houses
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Seen from Harlem River Drive walkway (2014)
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| Location | West 151st to 153rd Sts., Macombs Pl. and Harlem River Dr. Manhattan, New York City |
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| Coordinates | 40°49′33″N 73°56′12″W / 40.82583°N 73.93667°WCoordinates: 40°49′33″N 73°56′12″W / 40.82583°N 73.93667°W |
| Area | 9 acres (3.6 ha) |
| Built | 1936-37 |
| Architect | Archibald Manning Brown (chief architect), et al. |
| NRHP Reference # | 79001605 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | December 18, 1979 |
| Designated NYCL | September 23, 1975 |
The Harlem River Houses is a New York City Housing Authority public housing complex located between West 151st and West 153rd Streets and between Macombs Place and the Harlem River Drive in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The complex, which covers 9 acres (3.6 ha), was built in 1936-37 and opened in October 1937 – one of the first two housing projects in the city funded by the Federal government – with the goal of providing quality housing for working-class African Americans. It has 574 apartments.
The complex was designated a New York City Landmark in 1975 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. In 2014 the complex was designated a Special Planned Community Preservation District, a zoning category created in 1974 "to preserve and protect ... superior examples of town planning or large-scale development." The success of the project can be attributed to its formal, classically influenced design, to the project's focus on attracting a wide variety of tenants, not just the indigent, and to its "generous budget and high aspirations for quality."
As originally planned public housing in New York City was segregated. After the Harlem Riot of 1935, there was pressure to improve housing for African Americans, but no general attempts were made to desegregate public housing. The Harlem River Houses were one of two projects which, for the first time, used Federal funds to construct public housing in New York City as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s "New Deal" social program. The project was built by the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration at the cost of $4.5 million, a site owned by the Rockefeller family, which demanded twice the amount which Federal land acquisition guidelines would normally allow to be paid. Eventually, community protests pushed the project ahead, and the property was taken by eminent domain at the price of $1 million.
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