LaGuardia And Public Housing

Audio is a segment from the Laguardia/Wagner Archives concentrating on LaGuardia's housing record. The tenement conditions on Cherry Street are mentioned in a passage from Jacob Riis. The First Houses on East 3rd Street and Avenue A were the first housing projects built entirely with public funds. Knickerbocker holds that "first" distinction for a "partially" public funded housing project. The beginning of the slide show has images from a LaGuardia visit to PS 147 on Henry and Scammel Streets in the 1940's. Parents were evidently protesting a loss of services at the school. Eventually the school was torn down in the early 1960's and replaced by PS 134. Marty B went to PS 147 in the 6th grade because there was a gifted program available there that wasn't available at PS 177. As mentioned before 147 was the school that the famous Epstein twins went to. There are also images of the original Madison House. This settlement house was raised when the LaGuardia Projects were built in the late 1950's. It would then combine with Hamilton House.