Friday, June 3, 2022 – A PLANNED COMMUNITY CAME TOGETHER IN JACKSON HEIGHTS
FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 2022
The 692nd Edition
CELEBRATING THE
BUILDINGS
OF
JACKSON HEIGHTS
from
“SOCIAL AND BUSINESS REFERENCES REQUIRED”
JACKSON HEIGHTS, QUEENS
Jackson Heights is an early-20th-century neighborhood in central Queens, composed of low-rise garden apartments and houses as well as institutional and commercial buildings. It was the first and remains the largest garden-apartment community in the United States— the product of both the early 20th-century model tenement and the Garden City movements. Starting in the late 19th century, poor living conditions in city slums resulted in reform efforts to improve urban housing. As a result, light, ventilation and open green space became key pieces in the design of new developments. This is particularly evident in Jackson Heights.
Queens grew rapidly in the early 20th century, beginning with the opening of the Queensboro Bridge in 1909 and accelerated by the arrival of the elevated subway in 1917. These transportation routes established fast, direct connections between Jackson Heights and Manhattan and the thriving industrial area of Long Island City. Beginning in 1910 the Queensboro Corporation started developing former farmland into an idyllic residential alternative to crowded Manhattan. Development continued until 1950, by which time all of the vacant land in the area was built up.
The Queensboro Corporation required that builders and developers not otherwise affiliated with the corporation adhere to strict design requirements. The picturesque residences were designed in Georgian, Tudor, Gothic, Italian Renaissance and Spanish Romanesque styles. Decorative brickwork, loggias and slate roofs are quintessential design elements found in the architecture. Institutional and commercial buildings were produced to match the residential. The continuity of design throughout Jackson Heights is its most defining feature, but the community is home to many other innovations, including some of the first purpose-built cooperatives in New York City for the middle class. The first passenger-operated elevator in the world debuted here in 1922. Most importantly, Jackson Heights was the first community in the United States where green space was provided as part of the architecture—a “garden city.”
The development of Jackson Heights reversed many of the traditional architectural and planning concepts of the time. Entire city blocks were designed as a whole, as opposed to developing lots individually. Additionally, only 40% of each block was built up, leaving the remaining 60% for open green space. By contrast, it was commonplace in Manhattan to build as densely as 90% on a block, to reap as much profit as possible. In Jackson Heights, structures were typically built around the perimeter of a city block, and they enclosed landscaped gardens at the center, giving the buildings the name of “garden apartments.” Apartments had views of both the street and the interior courtyard, allowing light and breezes in and creating a sense of openness.
Jackson Heights was designated as a New York City historic district in 1993, and an extension of those boundaries, which would meet those of the 1998 National Register Historic District, is currently being sought. This would include buildings that, due to the restrictions placed upon them by the Queensboro Corporation, possess the same quality design, materials and scale of the earliest buildings creating historic Jackson Heights.
ENGLISH GARDEN HOMES
33–18 to 33–44 83rd Street
Alfred H. Eccles
1928
Along 83rd Street there are 13 English Garden homes, each three stories high. The houses in the middle have slate mansard roofs, while those on the ends have front facing gabled roofs with side-facing dormers. All of these structures have continuous brick band courses under the second-story windows and feature cast-stone window boxes with brick brackets under the first-floor windows.
HILLCREST COURT
70–35 Broadway
S. L. Malkind
1926
This six story apartment building has its primary entrance on Broadway, making it the only structure in the historic area located on that thoroughfare. Hillcrest Court is on an unusual triangular lot and features five towers, each connected by a recessed wing located in the middle of the building. Highlights include brickwork that simulates quoins and colonnaded loggias that top the Broadway towers.
SPANISH TOWER HOMES
34–30 to 34–52 75th Street
J. Case & Peter Schreiner
1927
The Spanish Tower Homes include 10 three- and four-story detached tan brick houses. The first floors of these dwellings have no windows and instead feature French doors that open on to wrought-iron balconettes. Some windows on upper floors have original wood shutters, and the corner houses feature fourth-floor loggias. These houses have shared driveways with detached garages in the rear.
THE TOWERS
33–15 to 33–51 80th Street and 33–16 to 33–52 81st Street
Andrew J. Thomas
1924
The Towers are composed of eight freestanding U-shape buildings, four on 80th Street and four on 81st Street. The buildings are placed back-to-back and enclose an interior garden that is accessed by gated entrances located between the buildings. The yellow-brick apartment design is inspired by Italian Romanesque and Renaissance architecture; highlights include red-tile roofs, arcaded sixth-story loggias and tower belvederes.
WASHINGTON PLAZA
73–12 35th Avenue
Sylvan Breine
1940
Washington Plaza consists of seven buildings: six, six story apartment buildings and a single-story gatehouse. These Art Deco buildings are red brick and feature decorative geometric banding and round-cornered fire escapes. The most intriguing part of this apartment complex is Washington Plaza Park, designed by the architect in 1941. The .54-acre park begins behind the gatehouse, where a path divides to surround a cascading pool before leading to a separate pool at the top of the complex. Stepped paths surround each pool and are accompanied by many gardens. Some of the plantings found in the park include silver birch, flowering crabapple and white dogwood trees, rhododendrons, red and pink azalea, roses, forsythia, pink mountain laurel and hydrangea. There is also an herb garden of basil, parsley, chive, dill and rosemary.
FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
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THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Built to house the 1939 New York City World’s Fair Pavilion by Aymar Embury III, one of Robert Moses’ favorite designers in a modern classical style. After the first fair, the building housed the General Assembly of the newly formed United Nations, from 1946 to 1950.The building was again used, during the 1964 World’s Fair, to house the New York City Pavilion, and finally in 1972 the building was given to the Queens Museum of Arts and Culture, which is currently called the Queens Museum. ED LITCHER
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