First Houses is a public housing project in Manhattan in New York City. The project consists of 122 3- and 4-room apartments in 8 four- and five-story buildings, and is located on the south side of East 3rd Street between 1st Avenue and Avenue A and the east side of Avenue A between East 2nd Street and East 3rd Street. First Houses take their name from their distinction of being arguably the first public housing units constructed in the United St...
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First Houses is a public housing project in Manhattan in New York City. The project consists of 122 3- and 4-room apartments in 8 four- and five-story buildings, and is located on the south side of East 3rd Street between 1st Avenue and Avenue A and the east side of Avenue A between East 2nd Street and East 3rd Street. First Houses take their name from their distinction of being arguably the first public housing units constructed in the United States, opening for the first tenants on December 3, 1935. Victorian-era tenements existed on the site before they were cleared to build the project.
The project was planned as a gut rehab, with every third tenement building torn down to provide extra light and air, but architect Frederick Ackerman and his engineers soon discovered that the 19th century tenements were too fragile to be reconstructed. So they were torn down and First Houses was built from scratch, employing re-used bricks and dozens of workers on relief paid for by the federal...
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