East River Houses

This article is about the public housing project in East Harlem. For the housing cooperative on the Lower East Side, see Cooperative_Village § East_River_Housing_Corporation.

East River Houses
NYCHA Property
Interactive map of East River Houses
Country	United States
State	New York
City	New York City
Borough	Manhattan
Area
• Total	10.69 acres (4.33 ha)
Population
• Total	2,020 [1]
Zip Code	10029

East River Houses are a public housing project that is part of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). The housing complex is located between 102nd to 105th Street and between 1st Avenue and the FDR Drive in the Spanish Harlem portion of the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It contains 10 separate buildings. ^[2] Building I has 11 floors, Buildings II, III, ^{[Note 1]} IV ^{[Note 1]} , and V have 10 floors, and Buildings III, ^{[Note 2]} IV ^{[Note 2]} , VI, VII, VIII, IX, and X have 6 floors.

History

The groundbreaking ceremony for the $6.8 million low-rent housing complex—the fourth public housing project in Manhattan—was held on March 2, 1940 and attended by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Borough President Stanley M. Isaacs, Congressman Vito Marcantonio, and Nathan Straus from the United States Housing Authority. ^[3] The first tenants began moving into the housing complex in April 1941; ^[4] the project was completed in May 1941. ^[1] The firm of Voorhees, Walker, Foley & Smith served as the chief architect of the East River Houses, with C. W. Schlusing and Alfred Easton Poor serving as associates. ^{[5] [6]}

Playground 103 in December 2025

Located on a superblock formed by the elimination of two streets, it was the first housing project to be coordinated with the design of the East River Drive. ^[6] The diagonal arrangement of the buildings on the site was selected a result of a requirement to provide a 46,000-square-foot (4,300 m²) park to be turned over to the city with room to include an approach to a proposed footbridge to Wards Island. ^[7] The East River Houses was the first public housing project in New York City to include high-rise towers and set the precedent for the design of subsequent NYCHA housing complexes. ^{[8] [9]} It was also the first multiracial housing project in New York City, with the effort for desegregation led by Marcantonio. ^[10]

Construction of the playground adjacent to the site began in December 1941 by the Works Progress Administration and was completed in November 1942; ^{[11] [12]} it was later renamed "Playground 103" in 1998. ^[13] The Wards Island Bridge opened adjacent to the site in 1951, which provided pedestrian access to additional recreational facilities located on Wards Island. ^[14] The access provided by the footbridge later became a concern to residents of the East River Houses as patients from the Manhattan Psychiatric Center walked across the bridge from Wards Island and passed through the housing complex. ^[15]

21st century

A $6.5 million renovation of Playground 103 was completed in 2019. ^[16]

After flooding from Hurricane Sandy damaged the East River Houses, funding was provided by FEMA to repair and restore eight of the buildings; this work included the installation of rooftop back-up power generators, the replacement of sump pumps and the removal of hazardous materials and was completed in 2023. ^{[Note 3] [17] [18]}

In 2023, the intersection of 1st Avenue and 105th Street at the northwest corner of the complex was renamed after DJ Kay Slay, ^{[2] [19]} who was raised in the East River Houses. ^[20]

See also

• New York City Housing Authority

Notes

1. Taller Part of the Building Only
2. Shorter Part of the Building Only
3. Buildings II and VII were excluded.

References

1. "NYCHA Development Data Book 2025" (PDF). New York City Housing Authority. p. 41. Retrieved 2025-10-21.
2. "East River Houses" (PDF). New York City Housing Authority. Retrieved 2025-10-20.
3. "Housing Project in 1st Ave. Started; La Guardia and Isaacs Break Ground for East River Houses With Silver Tools". The New York Times. 1940-03-03. Retrieved 2025-11-06.
4. "East River Houses Gets First Tenants". The New York Times. 1941-03-31. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
5. East River Houses: Public Housing in East Harlem. New York City Housing Authority. July 1941. p. 17. Retrieved 2025-12-04– via HathiTrust.
6. Stern, Robert A. M.; Gilmartin, Patrick; Mellins, Thomas (1987). New York 1930: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Two World Wars . New York: Rizzoli. p. 452. ISBN   978-0-8478-3096-1. OCLC   13860977.
7. "East River Houses: A High Density Housing Project". Pencil Points. Vol. XXI, no. 9. September 1940. p. 557. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
8. Plunz, Richard (1990). A History of Housing in New York City. Columbia University Press. pp. 243–245. ISBN   9780231062978 . Retrieved 2026-01-10– via Google Books.
9. Bloom, Nicholas Dagen; Lasner, Matthew Gordon, eds. (2016). Affordable Housing in New York. Princeton University Press. p. 102. ISBN   9780691207056 . Retrieved 2026-01-10– via Google Books.
10. Bell, Christopher (2013). East Harlem Remembered. McFarland & Company. p. 50. ISBN   978-0-7864-6808-9 . Retrieved 2026-01-01– via Google Books.
11. "Work Begins Today On 3 Playgrounds". The New York Times. 1941-12-01. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
12. "Big Playground Opens". The New York Times. 1942-11-25. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
13. "Playground 103 CIII". New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
14. "Wards Island Footbridge and Park Open". The New York Times. 1951-05-19. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
15. Carvajal, Doreen (1995-01-08). "Wards I. Bridge: History of Problems". The New York Times. Retrieved 2026-01-10.
16. "NYC Parks Cuts Ribbon On $6.5 Million Transformation Of East Harlem's Playground 103" (Press release). New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. 2019-04-11. Retrieved 2026-01-11.
17. "RTR-East River" (PDF). New York City Housing Authority. pp. 1–2. Retrieved 2025-10-23.
18. "NYCHA Sandy Restoration at East River Houses is Complete". Forte Construction Corp. 2023-04-24. Retrieved 2025-12-04.
19. Local Laws for the Year 2023 (Local Law). New York City Council. § 10. Retrieved 2025-12-04.
20. Lewis, Miles (2022-04-27). "A Tribute to the New York Legend DJ Kay Slay". Ebony. Retrieved 2025-12-04.

Further reading

• "East River Houses: A High Density Housing Project". Pencil Points. Vol. XXI, no. 9. September 1940. pp. 555–566.
• East River Houses: Public Housing in East Harlem. New York City Housing Authority. July 1941.
• Ballon, Hilary (2016). "Queensbridge Houses and East River Houses". In Bloom, Nicholas Dagen; Lasner, Matthew Gordon (eds.). Affordable housing in New York: the people, places, and policies that transformed a city. Princeton ; Oxford: Princeton University Press. pp. 99–103. doi:10.1515/9780691207056-017. ISBN   978-0-691-20705-6.