151st to 153rd St., Macombs Pl. and Harlem River Dr., New York, New York. County/parish: New York.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places December 18, 1979. NRIS 79001605.
3 contributing buildings.
The Harlem River Houses is a New York City Housing Authority public housing complex between 151st Street, 153rd Street, Macombs Place, and the Harlem River Drive in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The complex covers 9 acres (3.6 ha) and was built between 1936 and 1937, opening in October 1937. It was one of the first two federally funded public housing projects in the city and was designed to provide quality housing for working-class African Americans.
Harlem River Houses consists of seven residential buildings completed in 1937, with a later adjacent expansion, Harlem River Houses II, constructed in 1965. In contemporary preservation and renovation initiatives, the two developments are often discussed together as part of the Harlem River complex.
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."
(read more...)National Park Service documentation: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75319580