Space and
Community at Sunnyside
Part
2. Design and Development
Sunnyside Gardens site plan
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The City Housing Corporation was established in February
1924 to develop model neighborhoods and towns based on the garden city
principles forwarded by the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA). Alexander Bing, a reform-minded realtor from Manhattan, spearheaded
the creation of CHC, and with the help of his colleagues at the RPAA,
set out to find an appropriate development site for a trial project.
New York City had voted to exempt new housing developments from
real estate taxes during 1923 and 1924, so Bing had incentive to begin
work quickly. After a brief
search, Bing purchased 77 acres of land on lots 154 and 155 in the First
Ward of Queens, and immediately commissioned RPAA members Clarence Stein
and Henry Wright to come up with development plans.
Stein, an architect, and Wright, a landscape designer,
created a plan for 1200 moderately priced units on 28% of the site, leaving
the remaining land for community open space. Rowhouses, which constitute
most of the structures in the development, were built close to the sidewalk
to allow more space for common courts behind the buildings. In addition
to the courts, the plan created small private gardens in the rear of each
house, as well as a three-and-a-half acre private park for recreational
uses.
Stein and Wright’s design also called for the development
of eight apartment houses, including four 30-unit cooperatives, three
70-unit rentals, and Phipps Houses, an Art Deco building demonstrating
the latest in garden apartment aesthetics. Managed by a non-profit housing
development corporation, Phipps Houses, finally built in 1931, provided
an alternative model to cooperative living in Sunnyside Gardens.
| "In new communities
that have been planned as social units, with visible coherence in
the architecture, with a sufficient number of local meeting rooms
for group activities, as in Sunnyside Gardens... a robust political
life, with effective collective action and a sense of renewed public
responsibility, has swiftly grown up."
Urbanist Lewis Mumford, a longtime Sunnyside Gardens
resident.
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Members of the RPAA hailed Stein and Wright’s plan
for Sunnyside Gardens as a “democratic” design which would encourage its
middle class residents to adopt the cooperative values and behavioral
patterns of more wholesome, pastoral communities.
The attempt to create a microcosm of cooperative
village life within New York City did not, however, entail the creation
of low-income housing. While
Bing made a strong effort to keep the cost of units down, houses in Sunnyside
Gardens generally sold for around $2000 more than speculatively built
housing in the immediately surrounding neighborhoods.
Nevertheless, the first generation of middle class buyers attracted
to Sunnyside Gardens did use the community gardens and public spaces for
just the kinds of cooperative, progressive community activities envisioned
by the RPAA.
In order to ensure that its social and political
objectives remained intact, CHC drew up a series of covenants and easements
which placed restrictions on everything from common court access to house
painting. These legal agreements were drafted over the course of the neighborhood’s
development, which lasted from 1924 to 1928.
The final Declaration of Easements and Restrictions,
signed in March 1926, not only reserved the central courts “for the common
benefit of the property owners in each of said respective blocks,” but
also stipulated that:
"[N]o garage of any kind or nature....no fences,
hedges, outbuildings, clothes poles or lines, radio poles or lines,
signs or awnings shall be erected.....[N]o changes, alterations or additions
of any kind shall be made to the porches or exterior of any building
on said premises, including exterior painting in any different color
than at present, without written consent of said Trustees."
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"Some resented
the fact that they had to paint their windows yellow and their doors
green. I painted my windows white. I said, 'white on
brick is terrific, why can't we have white? Why is it that
stupid yellow? And green.' But the thing is the green
came out because it was predominantly Irish, and the Irish like
green!"
Longtime
Sunnyside resident
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With the exception of several “light easements,”
as well as easements protecting the mews, the restrictions imposed by
the CHC were scheduled to expire on January 1, 1966, approximately forty
years after going into effect. Banks and insurance companies, apparently
concerned about perpetual easements on properties for which they were
providing mortgages, required this arrangement.
The CHC’s Declaration of Easements and Restrictions
also established a five member board of trustees to oversee the maintenance
and use of the neighborhood’s common gardens, streets and parks, financed
through annual fees paid by residents.
Court associations were also created to look after individual common
courts. This arrangement fell apart during the 1930s when Sunnyside
Gardens residents staged a rent and mortgage strike and CHC declared bankruptcy;
a new group, the United Trustees, stepped in however, assuming most of
the responsibilities held by the original trustees. The management
of the private park, supported by membership dues from those residents
willing to join, also shifted during the 1930s from the original trustees
to a new organization called the Sunnyside Gardens Civic Association.
In spite of the financial and managerial difficulties
of the 1930s, Sunnyside Gardens met many of the expectations of its designers
and developers. For the first twenty years or so, the covenants and easements
facilitated a sense of community unusual in New York, and gave residents
an opportunity to live at near-suburban densities in the middle of the
city. During the 1950s, even as the park and many of the common courts
began to fall into disrepair, many Sunnyside Gardeners nevertheless attempted
to extend the life of the easements, fearing that their expiration would
signal the end of the community. This effort resulted in the extension
of easements by 54 of 60 homeowners on Hamilton Court, but did not convince
the majority of residents to renew their commitment to the RPAA’s principles.
Thus in 1966, Sunnyside Gardeners enthusiastically began renovating, fencing,
and curb cutting en masse.
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