Life In A Landmark: Pioneering Public Housing Site Shows Its Age

McQueen thinks only of trying to make it up the stairs as he slowly shuffles to his fourth floor apartment. There are no elevators here and he concentrates as he swings his legs on step after step, cradling his crutches in one hand and the railing in the next, slightly wheezing. A veteran of the Cold War (he guarded missiles in Washington state), he now is engaged in a different kind of fight: a 15-year battle against the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) over a perpetual leak coming through his kitchen ceiling.

McQueen has lived in First Houses since October 24, 1994. The man living in what became his apartment moved into another on the first floor that was originally meant for McQueen. McQueen was instead moved to the fourth floor apartment, where the reason for the previous tenants' move became immediately apparent. “He’d requested to be moved out, for the same reason,” McQueen says, “the leak.”

The feeling among some residents in First Houses falls somewhere between pride and worry about the historic landmark that they call home. Lashawna Kelly, who lives in another of the eight buildings comprising First Houses, is fighting her own battles against leaks and cheap, falling doors. Violet Campbell wages war almost daily against the mice that try to creep through the cracks in her deteriorating kitchen floors, while Israel Alvarado tries to contain the mold that hides behind the tiles in his mother’s bathroom. And then there’s McQueen, whose 15-year ordeal has taken a toll on his kitchen and patience.

A rich history

First Houses opened in 1935 to great fanfare. Thousands of New Yorkers lined the streets to celebrate the hopeful demise of dank, rat-infested tenements. The Houses were completely new apartment buildings and were to represent the embodiment of the American dream: affordable and decent housing for all. Mrs. Roosevelt dedicated the new development, with Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia standing by her side, the newly built First Houses cheerfully in the background.

Andrew Berman, Executive Director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP), believes that the First Houses are one of the most important and significant landmarks in the city. “They are such an important forerunner of building type that so affected New York City that there are few places that I can think of that are more significant landmarks as they relate to the life of New Yorkers,” he says.

As public housing multiplied from the 1930s through the 1960s, many housing authorities around the country became fiscally insolvent and were mismanaged. “New York City was lucky,” Bach says. “New York has the largest public housing program in the country. One out of every fourteen units is located here in New York. Compared to many other large cities, New York’s public housing has been relatively well-managed by NYCHA.”

When they first opened, the First Houses stood in stark contrast to the tenement buildings that were previously on the same land. According to the First Houses landmark designation report, new residents would have been thrilled that there were new indoor bathrooms, electric refrigerators, gleaming wood floors and even a community laundry room for each building—with electric washing machines. Between 3,000 and 4,000 applicants competed for the only 122 apartments, not a surprise for a city reeling from the Great Depression.