Sunnyside Gardens is a community within Sunnyside, a neighborhood in the

New York City borough New York City is composed of five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. Each borough is coextensive with a respective county of New York State, making New York City the largest U.S. municipality situated in mult ...

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

. The area was the first development in the United States patterned after the ideas of the

garden city movement The garden city movement was a 20th century urban planning movement promoting satellite communities surrounding the central city and separated with greenbelts. These Garden Cities would contain proportionate areas of residences, industry, and ...

initiated in England in the first decades of the twentieth century by

Ebenezer Howard Sir Ebenezer Howard (29 January 1850 – 1 May 1928) was an English urban planner and founder of the garden city movement, known for his publication ''To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform'' (1898), the description of a utopian city in whic ...

and

Raymond Unwin Sir Raymond Unwin (2 November 1863 – 29 June 1940) was a prominent and influential English engineer, architect and town planner, with an emphasis on improvements in working class housing. Early years Raymond Unwin was born in Rotherham, York ...

, specifically

Hampstead Garden Suburb Hampstead Garden Suburb is an elevated suburb of London, north of Hampstead, west of Highgate and east of Golders Green. It is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations. It is an example of early twentie ...

and

Letchworth Garden City Letchworth Garden City, commonly known as Letchworth, is a town in the North Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. It is noted for being the first garden city. The population at the time of the 2011 census was 33,249. Letchworth ...

. Covering between

Queens Boulevard Queens Boulevard is a major thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Queens connecting Midtown Manhattan, via the Queensboro Bridge, to Jamaica. It is long and forms part of New York State Route 25. Queens Boulevard runs northwest to s ...

and

Sunnyside Yard Sunnyside Yard is a large coach yard, a railroad yard for passenger cars, in Sunnyside, Queens in New York City. Description The yard is owned by Amtrak and is also used by New Jersey Transit. The shared tracks of the Long Island Rail Road (LIR ...

, Sunnyside Gardens was constructed between 1924 and 1928 by the City Housing Corporation, founded by developer Alexander Bing, and architects Clarence Stein and Henry Wright. The project grew out of discussions in the early 1920s about housing and planning;

Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a w ...

was a leading participant. It is among the first planned communities in the U.S. Sunnyside Gardens is listed as a historic district on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

. The

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...

has also designated it as an official city landmark district.

Description

Sunnyside Gardens was built between 1924 and 1928, roughly taking up 16 blocks, with more than 600 buildings. It has 12 courts, which are known as Carolin Gardens, Colonial Court, Hamilton Court, Hamilton Court Apartments, Harrison Place, Jefferson Court, Lincoln Court, Madison Court North and South, Monroe Court Apartments, Phipps Garden Apartments I, Phipps Garden Apartments II, Roosevelt Court, Washington Court, and the Wilson Court. Sunnyside Gardens is in the northwestern part of Queens. Clarence Stein and Henry Wright served as the primary architects and planners for this development ( Frederick L. Ackerman designed some of the mews houses), and the landscape architect was Marjorie Sewell Cautley.Community and Library History

Queens Public Library The Queens Public Library (QPL), also known as the Queens Borough Public Library and Queens Library (QL), is the public library for the borough of Queens, and one of three public library systems serving New York City. It is one of the largest li ...

. Accessed February 14, 2008. Sunnyside Gardens includes one-, two-, and three-family homes, and a few apartment buildings, all made of Hudson brick. Each private residence has a small front garden facing the street and a private garden in the rear. The rental units in the two- and three-family houses enjoy private terraces overlooking the gardens. There are two configurations: the courtyard condition and the mews condition; at the edges of the community some homes simply line the street, with a common walkway running the length of the row. Homes in the courtyard blocks enclose an inner courtyard that was designated a common, landscaped but not used for recreation. Each homeowner actually owned, and paid taxes on, the part of the common in the block and lot, even if it was not used. The mews houses face a common front court and back on alleys; each mews house also has a private rear yard. This model allowed for denser residential development, while also providing ample open/green-space amenities. As an amenity for the residents, the City Housing Corporation reserved lots on the northern edge of the development (abutting the Sunnyside Yard) for one of only two private parks in the city, the other being Gramercy Park.

History

The area was the first development in the United States patterned after the ideas of the

initiated in England in the first decades of the twentieth century by

and

, specifically

and

. Covering 77 acres between

and the Sunnyside Railroad Yards, Sunnyside Gardens was constructed between 1924 and 1928 by the City Housing Corporation, founded by developer Alexander Bing, and architects Clarence Stein and Henry Wright. The project grew out of discussions in the early 1920s about housing and planning; social critic

and economist

Richard T. Ely Richard Theodore Ely (April 13, 1854 – October 4, 1943) was an American economist, author, and leader of the Progressive movement who called for more government intervention to reform what they perceived as the injustices of capitalism, especial ...

were leading participants. In the early years of the Great Depression, nearly 60 percent of the residents lost their homes to foreclosure. Those difficult years saw organized resistance by residents who forcefully resisted efforts by city marshals to evict families. The character of Sunnyside Gardens was protected by 40-year easements which protected the integrity of the courtyards and common walkways and controlled changes to the exterior of every property, extending to even paint color. Those covenants lapsed in the mid-1960s, and some homeowners rushed to claim their property, erecting fences into the middle of some courtyards. In response, in 1974 the Department of City Planning designated Sunnyside Gardens a special planned community preservation district, together with

Fresh Meadows Fresh Meadows is a neighborhood in the northeastern section of the New York City borough of Queens. Fresh Meadows used to be part of the broader town of Flushing and is bordered to the north by the Horace Harding Expressway; to the west by Po ...

Parkchester Parkchester is a planned community and neighborhood originally developed by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and located in the central Bronx, New York City. The immediate surrounding area also takes its name from the complex. Its boundari ...

, and the

Harlem River Houses The Harlem River Houses is a New York City Housing Authority public housing complex between 151st Street, 153rd Street, Macombs Place, and the Harlem River Drive in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The complex, which cov ...

. With that designation came rules protecting the inner courts and landscaping, and prohibiting driveways and curbcuts, rear sheds, and additions.

Landmark designations

The Sunnyside Gardens Historic District is a national historic district that includes 66 contributing buildings and 12 contributing sites. See also: It was listed on the

in 1984 and as a city historic district in 2007. In 2003, a grassroots movement started to request designation as a New York City Historic District, in response to lack of protection for the historic character of the homes in the neighborhood. The campaign was contentious and garnered publicity in major news outlets, including WNYC and the New York Times. On April 17, 2007, the

(NYCLPC) held a public hearing on the neighborhood, which was controversial, with 60 people speaking in favor and 25 against the designation. This was documented on New York Public Radio in a segment called "Cloud Over Sunnyside?". On June 26, 2007, the NYCLPC voted to designate the community. The designation prevents most major work from being done without consultation with the NYCLPC.

References

External links

A Fact Sheet for Residents from the NYC Department of City Planning, Queens Office dated June 2002July 23, 2003 Article about Landmarks MeetingQueens Buzz Sunnyside Queens cultural web magazine
{{Queens Neighborhoods in Queens, New York Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Queens, New York New York City designated historic districts New York City Designated Landmarks in Queens, New York Historic districts in Queens, New York Planned communities in the United States Sunnyside, Queens