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The Boulevard Gardens Apartments, in Woodside, Queens, New York City, is a 960-unit apartment opened in June 1935, during the Great Depression. The buildings are located at 54th Street and 31st Avenue.〔 They were designed by architect Theodore H. Englehardt for the Cord Meyer Development Corporation; the design was based on an apartment complex Elgelhardt designed in Forest Hills.〔 ==Low-income housing== The housing project had ten units which housed 96 families each,〔 960 families in all. The buildings were low-rent model tenements〔 with an average rental price of $11 a room. They were completed with a Federal loan of $3,450,000 from the Public Works Administration in Woodside, Queens. Boulevard Gardens was only one of seven housing developments funded by the PWA through private companies. Despite the success of the program, future funding went only to public housing authorities. By September 1935 the builders, Boulevard Gardens Housing Corporation, reported that all of the units were leased.〔 The Dick-Meyer Corporation built a block front of fourteen stores adjacent to the apartments. They were entirely rented by October 1935. The 3,000 inhabitants of the development had easy access to twenty-seven retail stores, a 300 car garage, and a movie theater.〔 In October 1935 John Volpe, president of the Lower East Side Public Housing Conference, wrote a letter to the editor of the ''New York Times''. He contended that the slum problem was only partially solved by government assistance to projects like Knickerbocker Village, Boulevard Gardens, and Hillside, Queens. The low income group was unable to afford the rent as the prices were not low enough. He offered the example of a New York City Housing Authority project on East 3rd Street (Manhattan). These dwellings were most attractive and were much less expensive. In May 1936 the majority of the families in the larger buildings paid between $35 and $50 per month for rent. A ruling by the New York State Board of Housing cautioned the Boulevard Gardens Housing Corporation to reserve their accommodations for low income families. Management was advised to gradually eliminate tenants whose annual family incomes exceeded five times their annual rentals. Eleven other housing projects were affected by the action. State board data indicated that 3.8% of families residing at the Boulevard Gardens Apartments had annual incomes of $4,000 or more. Dwight L. Hoopingarner, associate director of the Public Works Administration housing division, reported a waiting list of 5,000 families for vacancies at Boulevard Gardens on July 29, 1936.〔 Boulevard Gardens was assessed a property tax of $3,635,000 for 1937, an increase of $660,000 from the previous year. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Boulevard Gardens Apartments」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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