{"nrhp_refnum":"79001602","name":"First Houses","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"E. 3rd St. and Ave. A","address_restricted":false,"city":"New York","county":"Manhattan","state":"NY","lat":40.72372187500008,"lon":-73.98554963599997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1979-12-18","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A municipal housing project of eight brick buildings on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, along East 3rd Street and Avenue A, built in 1935-36 around a landscaped courtyard.","why_significant":"It was the first public, low-income housing project in the nation and the first project of the newly created New York City Housing Authority. It began as an experiment in partial demolition and rehabilitation of existing tenements, using New Deal work-relief labor. A related lawsuit, NYCHA vs. Muller, confirmed a city housing agency's power of eminent domain.","narrative":"First Houses is a group of eight red brick apartment buildings on Manhattan's Lower East Side, arranged in an L shape around a landscaped courtyard. Built in 1935-36 to designs by Frederick L. Ackerman, it was the first public, low-income housing project in the United States and the first undertaken by the New York City Housing Authority. The project began as an experiment in tearing down parts of existing tenements and remodeling the rest, but structural weakness meant five buildings were rebuilt from the ground up and the other three were almost entirely new inside. Labor and materials came from the federal work-relief program, and a court case over two tenements on the site confirmed a city housing agency's power of eminent domain. Low buildings, open access courts and a courtyard with animal sculptures by Federal Artists Program artists gave the complex a human scale. Residents still live there today, and street-level shops serve the neighborhood.","period_of_significance":"1935-36","architect_builder":"Frederick L. Ackerman","architectural_style":"Art Deco-influenced ornament (simplified angular, stylized brick motifs)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Occupied and in good condition, altered; 126 apartments today, with eight street-level stores. Windows were changed in 1974 to accommodate air conditioners.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:39.23148-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/79001602.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79001602/452c705ca6-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79001602/452c705ca6-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Beyond My Ken","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Houses_in_winter_from_west.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Beyond My Ken</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Houses_in_winter_from_west.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75319491","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Houses","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5453085"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/manhattan/first-houses-79001602/"}