City and Suburban Homes Company's First Avenue Estate Historic District

Thirteen six-story brick tenements fill a full Manhattan block between First and York Avenues and East 64th and 65th Streets. The City and Suburban Homes Company built them between 1898 and 1915 as model housing for working people. James E. Ware & Son designed eleven of the buildings, and Philip Ohm, the company's chief architect, designed the last two. All are faced in light yellow or tan brick, rise to a common cornice line, and carry limited Beaux-Arts ornament such as cartouches, garlands and brackets, mostly at the entrances. Their planning mattered more than their decoration. Combining several standard 25-foot lots allowed large central, side and rear courts, so every apartment had windows, light and air. Halls were fireproofed, and apartments had running water, water closets and radiators, which speculator-built tenements generally lacked. The company paid investors a limited dividend, and vacancies were rare. The district retains a high degree of integrity and the earliest surviving buildings of the company, which makes it a record of New York's housing reform movement.