Forest Houses
NYCHA property
Location within New York City
Coordinates: 40°49′30″N 73°54′17″W / 40.825040°N 73.904660°W / 40.825040; -73.904660
Country United States
State New York
CityNew York City
BoroughBronx
ZIP codes
10456
Area code(s)718, 347, 929, and 917

The Forest Houses are a housing project in Morrisania, Bronx. The project consists of fifteen buildings, 9, 10 and 14-stories tall with 1,350 apartment units. It covers a 17.72-acre expanse, and is bordered by East 163rd and East 166th Streets, and Trinity and Tinton Avenues. It is owned and managed by New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA).[1]

Development

Plans for the Forest Houses began in 1949 with securing the funds from the federal government. NYCHA officials stated that the housing program is primarily a slum clearance program and they intend the finished development to provide better living conditions and a walkable community for the residents.[2] During demolition of the slums, the area was likened to a "bomb blast scene" and held a defense test on the site.[3] The development's design incorporated well-received modern features at the Carver Houses, including compact kitchens, electric ranges, and a refrigerator with freezer.[4] NYCHA publicized that the tenants would be 58% Black and 42% non-Black, most of which were Puerto Rican.[5] The Forest Houses were completed on November 12, 1956.[1]

In 2013, Forest Houses residents worked with artist Thomas Hirschhorn to a space to encourage the exchange between people, ideas and communities in the form of a pavilion.[6] Also that year, NYCHA and Mayor Bloomberg sold a portion of the development's property for the addition of a new privately owned building to offset the agency's capital needs.[7][8] The eight-story LEED-certified building was designated for low-income households earning less than 60 percent of the area median income and cost approximately $37.7 million to build.[8]

Notable residents

References

  1. 1 2 "MyNYCHA Developments Portal". my.nycha.info. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
  2. ↑ "80,000 APARTMENTS IN CITY PROJECTED; 500,000 Will Live in Public Housing Here by 1957, Local Authority Hopes". NY Times. November 20, 1949. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
  3. ↑ "AREA FOR DEFENSE TEST; It Is Housing Project Site and Resembles Bomb Blast Scene". NY Times. November 23, 1952. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
  4. ↑ "TENANTS REJOICE IN CARVER HOUSES; Aged Get First 8 Apartments in Uptown Project -- Special Features Have Big Appeal". NY Times. January 26, 1955. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
  5. ↑ Bloom, Nicholas Dagen (2014-08-04). Public Housing That Worked: New York in the Twentieth Century. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 9780812201321.
  6. ↑ "NYCHA - Forest Houses Residents To Help Build New Art Monument". www1.nyc.gov. Retrieved 2016-10-27.
  7. ↑ Bloom, Nicholas Dagen; Lasner, Matthew Gordon (2016). Affordable Housing in New York: The People, Places, and Policies That Transformed a City. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691167817.
  8. 1 2 "An Arbor In the Forest: Green Affordable Housing Development Opens In the Bronx". Observer. 2013-02-21. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Which NYC Housing Projects Have Produced the Most Famous People?Marcy Houses". Complex. Retrieved 2016-10-27.
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