Cooperative Village - East River Housing Corporation

The East River Housing Corporation was one of the first developments of the newly formed United Housing Foundation and was financially sponsored by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. A mortgage loan was insured by the Federal Housing and Home Finance Agency. Construction work was begun in November 1953 and completed in 1956. The cooperative has 1,672 apartments in four 20- and 21-story towers on an open lot facing the East River.

The project was designed by George W. Springsteen and his new associate, Herman J. Jessor, who would go on to design many other UHF projects, including Co-op City. The buildings followed the "towers in a park" concept introduced to the U.S. in the late 1930s by the Castle Village towers in Hudson Heights in upper Manhattan. The Castle Village layout, with cross-shaped towers placed diagonally to the cardinal directions optimized to give each apartment a maximum view, was used by most post-war social and affordable housing in New York City. Springsteen's derivation, used already at Hillman Houses, connects three of these towers side by side. The East River towers also share the reinforced concrete construction and red brick facade with Castle Village. At the time of construction the 21 story towers were the highest reinforced concrete buildings in the U.S.

Each of the four East River houses is named after a labor leader:

• Morris Hillquit, a co-founder of the Socialist Party of America
• Morris Sigman, president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU)
• The Erlich-Alter Building, named after Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter, leaders of the Polish Bund
• Benjamin Schlesinger, three-time president of the ILGWU