First Houses

The row of eight brick buildings you see before you, bordering Avenue A and East Third Street, marks the birthplace of public housing in the United States. Completed in nineteen thirty-five, this project was the first endeavor of the newly formed New York City Housing Authority. Its creation represented a radical shift in how the city addressed the squalor of nineteenth-century tenements, moving away from private neglect toward government-led construction of safe, clean, and modern living spaces for working-class families.