Seward Park Housing Corporation is located in the triangle between Grand Street and East Broadway, and abuts the New York City public park that shares its name. The buildings, attributed to Herman Jessor as architect, share the general design of the East River Houses, with four towers facing the Lower East Side. Each of the twelve semi-attached towers has seven or eight apartments on each floor around a central stairwell and corridor.
Construction work was begun in 1957 and finished in 1959 at a total cost of $23,258,392.75.A mortgage loan from Bowery Savings Bank and pension funds of the United Hatters, Cap & Millinery Workers, International Union as well as Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators and Paperhangers of America covered $18 million, with about 25% of the costs paid as equity by the 1,728 cooperative members.
The buildings are known for their murals by Hugo Gellert in a socialist realist style. Each of the murals depicts a "progressive" hero with an associated quote:
- Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." (Declaration of Independence)
- Abraham Lincoln: "In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free." (1862 Annual Message to Congress)
- Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Freedom of Speech • Freedom to Worship • Freedom from Want • Freedom from Fear" (1941 State of the Union Address)
- Albert Einstein: "A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move towards higher levels." (1946 telegram on behalf of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists
Read more about this topic: Cooperative Village
Famous quotes containing the words park, housing and/or corporation:
“and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I’m engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.”
—Sir John Betjeman (1906–1984)
“We have been weakened in our resistance to the professional anti-Communists because we know in our hearts that our so-called democracy has excluded millions of citizens from a normal life and the normal American privileges of health, housing and education.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“What I am anxious to do is to get the best bill possible with the least amount of friction.... I wish to avoid [splitting our party]. I shall do all in my power to retain the corporation tax as it is now and also force a reduction of the [tariff] schedules. It is only when all other efforts fail that I’ll resort to headlines and force the people into this fight.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)