By Lisa Kava
Between West 61st and West 64th Streets, bordered by Amsterdam and West End Avenues, are 13 residential buildings with common outdoor space and playgrounds. The Amsterdam Houses were built in 1947 by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), “the largest public housing authority in North America, created in 1935 to provide affordable housing for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers.”
Alton Johnson, a former resident, recalled his childhood in the Amsterdam Houses in a poignant piece, in which he remembers watching Lincoln Center being built outside his window.
“The chatter in the projects was that the Amsterdam Houses would also be demolished to make way for new, bigger and better things,” Johnson wrote. “That has still not happened. Once all the new construction was complete, there stood Lincoln Center in all its glory, with new housing, schools and subway stops (66th Street) bordering it. But right behind, in the middle of all this newness, still stand the Amsterdam Houses.”
To honor the 75th anniversary of the housing complex, on Saturday, July 30th, from noon until 7 PM, a celebration will take place.
There will be activities for children and a special lunch for seniors (call 929-412-5985 to RSVP for the lunch). Planned activities include: balloon art, clowns, jugglers, magicians, face painting, rock climbing, basketball games, and a free photo booth. A salsa band called Los Hacheros will play music and provide entertainment. There will be refreshments and an open “food court.” The party will take place on 64th Street between Amsterdam and West End Avenues.
According to the organizers, the celebration will be a “family affair where the Amsterdam community celebrates 75 years of shared love. It will be a day full of fun, food, music, and basketball games.”
All are welcome.
Imagine that: a lovely sounding community gathering that does not shut down a large section of a major road! Sounds like a win-win to me.
But closed streets people need their very specific closed streets every weekend so they can frolic where they want to when they want to…
carlos you make a great point; if we want columbus ave closed to traffic we should move to permanently close it. a superblock from 68-72nd with shared cross-streets would be very welcomed!
Check out the superblock concept in Barcelona, it’s very interesting:
https://www.citiesforum.org/news/superblock-superilla-barcelona-a-city-redefined/
Amsterdam Houses is a superblock that was created decades ago by permanently closing streets. That’s why they have all that space instead of cars and trucks.
Amsterdam Houses, like many NYCHA complexes, have gorgeous tall trees, shaded playgrounds and basketball courts, benches, dog runs, community gardens, etc. .NYC private developers can’t come close to NYCHA when it comes to green space and land use. (OK, Lincoln Towers is a an exception!) There are plenty of issues in the housing maintenance, and need for community services – just saying I wish more of NYC dense buildings were laid out like Amst Houses. Enjoy the celebration of a beautiful space!
I really would not call the common areas of Amsterdam Houses beautiful, nor would I characterize the grounds of Lincoln Towers that way.
Well, compared to hot, noisy, and almost treeless “residential” canyons in the overbuilt UES, 8th ave in the 50s, and too many other places where it’s hard to raise kids with not enough spots to run and play, yes, places where people can live for 30-40 years, know neighbors, sit under tall trees and watch grandkids small or tall safely play seem pretty nice. I’m just talking about residential land use, not a standard of 19th century landscaping like parts of Central Park or Riverside park or upstate. (And not NYCHA maintenance nightmares.) If you haven’t spent time around the homes and buildings of long time residents of Amsterdam Houses (or Wise Towers, or Douglass Houses, or…) you might not appreciate this aspect of our public housing spaces.
I wonder why that is… you’d think that by now private developers would know how make a shaded playground or install a bench. Hmm…
are u talking about the same NYCHA the FEDS had to appoint a special overseer to fix all the dysfunction and crappy resident service going back DECADES? Ok… sounds really livable
The problem is funding and property management (plus having to address a lot of tenants with similar struggles stacked on top of each other), not design.
I have a EHV section 8 voucher looking for a one bedroom apartment
God bless America on those who have built housing which now75yrs later are still striving for those in need, congratulations 🎊
They need to replace the bldg with town homes, project bldgs were never good to begin with. No one should live on top of anyone else. That’s not peace.
Amsterdam Hs is the strongest argument for privatization of public housing in wealthy neighborhoods and use of the proceeds to pay for additional construction