Queensbridge, Queens

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Queensbridge Houses is the largest public housing development in the United States. Located in Long Island City in Queens, Queensbridge opened in 1939. The 3,142 unit complex is the country's largest such housing project and is owned by the New York City Housing Authority. The complex is located in Community Board 1.

1 Location
2 Buildings
3 Amenities and parks
4 Music
5 Other Famous Queensbridges Residents
6 Sources

[edit] Location

Long Island City is located in the northwestern part of the New York City borough of Queens. The Queensbridge Houses, the largest of Queens' twenty-two developments, is located between Vernon Boulevard and 21st Street, immediately south of KeySpan's Ravenswood power plant. Queensbridge gets its name from the Queensboro (59th Street) Bridge, which is just south of the complex. The development is separated into two complexes, the North Houses on 40th Avenue and the South Houses on 41st Avenue.

Subway commuters will recognize the complex's name from its 21st Street–Queensbridge station along the F</pre> train' route. The entrance to the station is on the eastern side of the complex on 21st Street. Queensbridge is the only housing complex in New York to have a subway station named after it.

[edit] Buildings

The 200 unit six-story buildings are distinctive due to their shape - two Y's connecting at the base. This shape was used as the architects hoped it would give residents more access to sunlight than the traditional cross-shape. The design was said to be cost-efficient, and they reduced the cost even further by using elevators that only stopped at the 1st, 3rd and 5th floors. Political pressure to keep costs down was a key reason for the use of cheap designs.

In many aspects the buildings of Queensbridge are very similar to most government-built housing projects of the era. They are a worn grayish brown which now suffers noticeable deterioration and weathering. Each building is painted red to about four feet up from the ground, giving a united feel to the entire complex because a uniform red "layer" is always close, throughout the complex.

On each of the corners in Queensbridge, the New York City Housing Authority has posted signs indicating the project's name and management: "Queensbridge North (or South) Houses NYCHA." These signs come in several varieties depending on their age. The oldest signs, erected in the early nineties, are simply orange and blue, with the newer signs featuring graphics, like those of many other projects.

Access to buildings in the complex is by key or via a new intercom system. The halls of Queensbridge’s buildings are comparable to most municipal buildings, and are dilapidated and lined with worn light blue tiles. Apartments are painted white and are fairly small, even by New York City standards.

Within the last few years, the elevators have been rebuilt and now stop at floors 1-2-3-4-5 and kitchens have been completely renovated and now have frost-free refrigerators. Three thousand bathrooms were renovated with new tubs, toilets, vanities, floor tile and lighting in 2000. This followed a renovation in 1986 when 1000 of the bathrooms were renovated by Arc Plumbing, a firm for which the salesman to NYCHA was John Gotti.

During the 1950s, the management changed the racial balance of Queensbridge by transferring all families whose income was more than $3,000/year, a majority of whom were Caucasian, to middle-income housing projects, and replacing most of these tenants with African American and Latino families. A good result of this was that more African American and Latino families who needed safe and sanitary housing got it, but on the bad side the children fought with each other, race against race. By the 1960s, the project was predominantly African American.

[edit] Amenities and parks

As a result of the 1937 Wagner Act, Congress would only approve funds for public housing if the housing was unattractive to middle-class families who would otherwise buy or rent homes in the private housing market. The original plans nonetheless included some basic amenities, like a central shopping center, a nursery and six inner courtyards for play. In the 1950s, there were also three playschool rooms, a library, a community center with an auditorium where shows were put on, a gymnasium with a wooden floor that doubled as a wooden-wheels roller skating rink, activity rooms downstairs, and a cafeteria upstairs where the playschool children ate their lunches. Some of the downstairs activities included tap dancing, ballet, art, playing the recorder and singing, pool, knock hockey and table tennis, as well as Girl Scout and Boy Scout meetings.

The buildings in the complex are divided by a series of paths and small lawns. Also in the complex are several basketball courts and play areas lined with benches. Across Vernon Boulevard lies Queensbridge Park, which has a fully-lit baseball diamond, running paths, lawns and areas for picnicking. That park, home to the Queensbridge Little League, is the primary place of recreation for tenants of the project. Queensbridge Park is the venue for numerous summer-time live concerts with music ranging from R&B to Latin.

During the 1950s, Queensbridge Park was called "River Park," after the East River that runs next to it.

[edit] Music

For more details on this topic, see Nas and Ill Will Records Present QB's Finest.

Queensbridge has historically proved to be a hotbed of hip-hop musical talent. Marlon “Marley Marl” Williams was the first in a long succession of acclaimed rappers from “The Bridge,” which became one of the most prolific rap-producing neighborhoods in the country. Marl, MC Shan, Roxanne Shanté, Nas, Blaq Poet, SwerveG, The Bravehearts, Mobb Deep, Cormega, Nature, Big Noyd, Blitz, Tragedy Khadafi, Lakey The Kid, DJ Hot Day(of PHD), and Kiam "Capone" Holley of the rap duo Capone-N-Noreaga, were all once residents of the Queensbridge Housing Projects. With regards to the Queensbridge music scene, an XXL columnist writes: "Since the 1980s, New York City’s Queensbridge Housing Projects has been documented perhaps better than any other geographic location. Starting with super producer Marley Marl’s dominant Juice Crew in the ’80s all the way through ’90s mainstays like Nas, Cormega and Capone, the Bridge has produced the highest per-capita talent of any ’hood."

[edit] Other Famous Queensbridges Residents

Other notable former residents of Queensbridge include:

Ron Artest, player for the NBA team Sacramento Kings

[edit] Sources

“Queensbridge, New York, N.Y.,” Architectural Forum 72 (Jan. 1940), pp. 13-15.
Samantha Henry, “A Good Rap: Residents of the Queensbridge Houses Make Their Claim To Fame,” Newsday, August 5, 2001.
New York City Housing Authority, “Factsheet”, April 19, 2004. [1]
Ron Artest: The Next MC Outta Queensbridge?
Gail Radford, “The Federal Government and Housing During the Great Depression” in John F. Bauman, ed., From Tenements to the *Taylor Homes: In Search of an Urban Housing Policy in Twentieth Century America (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylania State University Press, 2000), pp. 102-120.