[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 134 (Thursday, December 7, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2129]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




IN RECOGNITION OF THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF FIRST HOUSES, THE BIRTHPLACE 
                 OF PUBLIC HOUSING IN THE UNITED STATES

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                        HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, December 6, 2006

  Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to First 
Houses, the first public housing development in the United States. This 
year, the New York City Housing Authority is celebrating the 70th 
anniversary of First Houses and the worthy ideals which it symbolizes.
  By creating the New York City Housing Authority seven decades ago, 
the leaders of our Nation's greatest metropolis launched an ambitious 
initiative to improve the lives of America's least privileged members 
by providing affordable housing that met high standards of sanitation, 
health and safety. The first fruit of that noble undertaking, the 
watershed First Houses development, was created by rehabilitating a 
series of tenements built in 1846.
  For the first time in American history, First Houses proved that 
government could provide a practical remedy to the shortage of decent 
affordable housing confronting citizens of low and moderate incomes. By 
removing every third building of those original tenements to expand 
light, air, and open space, combining backyards, and constructing a 
welcoming common courtyard and recreational area, those visionary civic 
leaders created in First Houses a vibrant and livable public housing 
development that became a model for the Nation.
  In a tribute to the momentous achievement marked by the opening of 
First Houses, the inaugural celebration of the complex was attended by 
two great New Yorkers and great Americans, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt 
and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
  Today, the approximately 174 authorized residents of First Houses 
live in eight attractive four- and five-story buildings located on 1.23 
acres of land lying between East 2nd and East 3rd Streets and Avenue A 
and First Avenue on Manhattan's Lower East Side in New York's 
Fourteenth Congressional District, which I am privileged to represent 
in this House.
  Indeed, as is fitting for New York, traditionally a beacon of 
progressive ideals of social reform, First Houses also marked the first 
housing initiative of the newly founded New York City Housing Authority 
(NYCHA), the oldest public housing agency in the continent of North 
America. Throughout its history, the NYCHA has also been the largest 
public housing authority on the continent. Today it administers 344 
public housing developments containing 2,686 buildings housing 
approximately 412,281 authorized residents in 179,025 different 
apartments. Today, more than one in twenty New Yorkers lives in public 
housing managed by the NYCHA, enough to constitute the population of 
the Nation's 44th largest city.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the 
historic 70th anniversary of First Houses, in congratulating Mayor 
Michael Bloomberg and New York City Housing Authority Chairman Tino 
Hernandez for their dedication to maintaining and expanding New York 
City's affordable housing, and in recognizing the tremendous 
contributions to the people of the city of New York and our Nation made 
by the hard-working men and women of the New York City Housing 
Authority throughout its proud 70-year history.

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