Sunnyside Gardens Historic District

Sunnyside Gardens is a planned residential community in northwestern Queens, built between 1924 and 1935. It covers all or part of sixteen city blocks and contains 672 contributing elements, including 562 two-story brick rowhouses, ten apartment buildings, parks, a playground, garages and eleven landscaped courtyards. Most of the development is divided into nine similar courts, each with fifty to seventy rowhouses arranged symmetrically around a large interior courtyard. Twelve house types were designed for one, two or three families. The houses are built of Hudson River brick, with pitched or flat roofs and parapets and upper stories decorated in Art Deco patterns such as zig-zags and diamonds. Houses have private front and rear gardens, and London plane trees line the street curbs and courtyards. Several courts, including Hamilton, Washington and Lincoln, keep a high level of integrity, though some courtyards have been partitioned into private gardens and some porches enclosed. The district boundary follows the original community.