Date of Construction: 1953

Architect: Eggers and Higgins

Neighborhood: Lower East Side

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Governor Alfred E. Smith Houses are located in the Two Bridges neighborhood of the Lower East Side in Manhattan.  The site is the shape of a pentagon and is bound to the north by Madison Street, to the south by South Street, to the east by Catherine Street, to the northwest by Pearl Street, and to the southwest by Wagner Place.  The Smith Houses, named after Governor Alfred E. Smith, were built as part of the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) slum clearance initiative.  Governor Smith was an enthusiastic reformer of New York in the 1920s.  He reorganized the state government and gained legislation for better housing, child welfare, better factory conditions, and better state parks.  Smith was probably such an advocate for better housing because he grew-up in a tenement house on the Lower East Side at 174 South Street.

 

Eggers and Higgins, who had experience in designing/planning other campuses such as New York University and Indiana University, were the architects of the Smith Houses.  These “tower in the park” high-rise brick buildings each contain a central slab from which four wings radiate at forty-five-degree angles.  Architects of the time legitimized the “tower in the park” concept as a progressive vision by its association with European theory, especially Le Corbusier, who was emerging as a powerful architectural figure of the postwar period.  The high-rise towers on these public housing sites typically only covered 15-20% of the site leaving the rest open for public spaces and parks.  The organization of the buildings on the site was generally arbitrary because the constraints of designing buildings in close proximity were removed. 

 

In 1943, the City Planning Commission approved the “Plan” and “Project” proposals for this housing project.  In 1948, a revised “Plan” and “Project” was submitted outlining the boundaries of the site, the closing of the streets within the site, and the widening of the streets adjoining the site.  Three new playgrounds were also proposed along the out edges of the site totaling approximately 4.64 acres.  The revised site plan shows the location of an interior service drive which will provide access to Public School 114, the project boiler plant, and the Fire Department High Pressure Service Pumping Station.  It also shows pedestrian walks, planted and paved areas, sitting and play areas, a children’s center, health and recreation centers, management and maintenance offices, and other facilities.  Two structures attached to residential buildings along St. James Place are to be provided for a supermarket and other stores.  A privately funded memorial to the former governor was constructed in the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Park along Catherine Street.

 

The Smith Houses project was built in two sections to speed completion and minimize the relocation of tenants.  Seven of the development’s twelve buildings were to be completed first as large numbers of old-law tenements were to be demolished.  The completion of other low-rent apartments in the city made it easier for NYCHA to find places for the displaced tenants to live.   Sometimes these relocated tenants came back to the site of their former home and applied for apartments in the Smith Houses complex. 

 

At the time of its construction, the Smith Houses were the largest post-war project of the Housing Authority.  As people began to move into the Smith Houses apartments there seemed to be an obvious common consensus.  Families exclaimed about, “How big the rooms are!” and, “The heat is on!”  Most families were paying less rent for apartments that were expectedly nicer than their previous home.  On the Smith Houses site, along Madison Street, lies a community center called Hamilton House (previously located on Market Street), which continued serving the community as it had for 50 years at its new location.  Within the projects boundaries along Catherine Street are Public School 126, known as the Jacob Riis School, and the Alfred E. Smith Recreation Center.