Sunnyside Gardens Is Closer To Historic District Status
BY LINDA J. WILSON

Sunnyside Gardens is the first demonstration of the planning and architectural principles established by the Regional Planning Association of America, a New York City-based group of reform-minded architects, planners and others organized by Stein in 1923.

The City Planning Commission has to hold hearings and the City Council must take a vote, but barring any unexpected snags from either of these two events, Sunnyside Gardens is almost certain to become Queens' largest historic district, probably well before the end of the year.

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on June 26 unanimously approved landmark status for Sunnyside Gardens, creating the borough's largest historic district and bringing the total number of properties that earned landmark status during Fiscal Year 2007 to 1,160. This figure represents the highest number of sites designated in a single year since Fiscal Year 1990, when 2,315 buildings received landmark status, only two of which were located outside Manhattan. Of the structures designated this fiscal year, 1,114 are outside of Manhattan. Prior to the vote by the commission, the Douglaston Historic District, created in 1997 with 600 homes, was Queens' largest historic district. The Jackson Heights Historic District, which was designated in 1993 with 538 structures, will now be the borough's third largest district.

"The city of New York has reached a major milestone today with the addition of Sunnyside Gardens to its growing roster of historic districts and landmarks," Commission Chairman Robert B. Tierney said. "We have brought the number of designations this fiscal year to heights we have not seen in nearly 20 years. This achievement, which comes at a time of tremendous growth and change in New York City, is the result of Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg's commitment to preserving our architectural and historic treasures in every borough for future generations while moving the city forward."

With 624 architecturally and culturally distinctive residential buildings, Sunnyside Gardens is significant as an example of affordable housing with generous amounts of open space. A low-rise, low-density collection of brick-faced buildings arranged around 12 courtyards, Sunnyside Gardens was constructed on 16 blocks between 1924 and 1928 in response to a severe shortage of well-constructed affordable housing in New York City after World War I. With buildings only covering roughly 28 percent of the land purchased for development, Sunnyside Gardens was the first American adaptation of Englishman Ebenezer Howard's garden city concept. Designed by Henry Wright and Clarence Stein, a reformminded architect who helped design Temple Emanu-El and St. Bartholomew's Church in Manhattan, the massive development sought to combine elements of rural and urban living.

"After months of working with community groups like the Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance, Borough President [Helen] Marshall, City Councilmember [Eric] Gioia, Assemblymember [Margaret] Markey and other preservation groups, I am proud to announce that Sunnyside Gardens will now be protected for generations to come," Tierney said. "Sunnyside Gardens proved that visually interesting, high-quality housing with generous amounts of open space could be built at a low cost. Queens is blessed with many other architectural treasures, and the agency is working closely with elected officials, residents and civic groups and to ensure that more of them receive landmark designation."

On April 17 Queens Director of Planning and Development Irving Poy appeared before the commission and testified for Marshall that much had been said, both in favor and against the proposed landmarking of Sunnyside Gardens. "Anything affecting homes and property is bound to elicit strong responses," he noted. While Marshall was most definitely in support of the landmarking of Sunnyside Gardens as a historic district, "Some of the concerns that have been raised must be addressed to assure that the requirements are not too onerous for the property owners," Poy added. He called on the commission to work with the community to clarify and explain what designation as a historic district would mean for Sunnyside Gardens, and how the process works.

Despite a favorable reception by the LPC and support from Marshall, Gioia, Markey and other elected officials, the plan for making Sunnyside Gardens a historic district encountered considerable opposition during the four years since it was first proposed. Some residents of the 16-block enclave protested a plan that, they felt, would result in unreasonable restrictions on their decisions regarding their properties and "requirements too onerous for the property owners". Others expressed fears that landmarking the complex would result in higher costs for housing, not only in the Gardens, but also in adjacent areas. Exchanges of letters to the editor in the Gazette and other newspapers gave ample airing of the views of those on both sides of the issue. Those in favor of the plan prevailed, and Sunnyside Gardens became an official New York City historic district.

Sunnyside Gardens is the first demonstration of the planning and architectural principles established by the Regional Planning Association of America, a New York Citybased group of reform-minded architects, planners and others organized by Stein in 1923 to develop new solutions to overcrowded slums and related problems. The RPAA believed that high-quality, well-planned housing forms the basis of a strong community. To that end, the group generated new financing mechanisms and planning and design approaches at Sunnyside Gardens that were later replicated at its developments in Radburn in New Jersey and Chatham Village in Pittsburgh.

When it was completed, Sunnyside Gardens provided apartments and single and multi-family houses for purchase or rent for more than 1,200 families, as well as 6 acres of common gardens and a 3-1/2-acre park, the largest privately held park in the city. The district also includes the Phipps Garden Apartment buildings, two courtyard apartment buildings constructed in 1931 and 1932 and in 1935 that are faced with decorative brick.

Many of Sunnyside's original residents included mechanics, chauffeurs, municipal employees, tradesmen, teachers, trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke, and several writers. In the 1940s, it drew many families and fine and performing artists, including such well-known figures as Perry Como, actress Judy Holliday and painter Raphael Soyer,

The Landmarks Preservation Commission is the mayoral agency responsible for protecting and preserving New York City's architecturally, historically and culturally significant buildings and sites.

Since its creation in 1965, the LPC has granted landmark status to more than 24,000 buildings, including 1,161 individual landmarks, 108 interior landmarks, nine scenic landmarks and 88 historic districts in all five boroughs. Under the law, the commission must be comprised of at least three architects, a historian, a realtor, a planner or landscape architect, as well as a representative of each borough. There are 11 commissioners, all of whom are appointed by the mayor for staggered threeyear terms.

The Landmarks Law requires that to be designated, a potential landmark must be at least 30 years old and must possess "a special character or special historical or aesthetic interest or value as part of the development, heritage, or cultural characteristics of the city, state, or nation".