The New York City Housing Authority was founded in 1934. Today it owns approximately 178,895 apartments. Before NYCHA, low and middle-income housing was constructed and operated by private entities, including philanthropists and worker's unions. This collection highlights some of the unique affordable housing projects built prior to NYCHA.

Phipps Garden Apartments, 1932. The Phipps Garden site had been set aside for development by the City Housing Corporation, a limited-dividend company responsible for the construction of the adjacent Sunnyside Gardens community between 1924-1928. Remaining lots were sold off, including the future Phipps Garden site — two square blocks between 50th (then Fitting) and 52nd Streets (Dickson), north of 39th Avenue (Middleberg) — which was purchased by the Society of Phipps Houses, a “model tenement group.” Henry Phipps, a steel magnate, envisioned a development for “white collar clerical workers” and hired Clarence Stein, the Sunnyside Gardens architect, to design the complex. Phipps Garden is a notable early example of “superblock” architecture; the developer was allowed to close 51st Street (Stone) to accommodate a larger building. The first Phipps building was constructed between 1931-2, with a second building added in 1935. In 2007, the Landmarks Preservation Commission included Phipps Garden in the Sunnyside Gardens Historic District.

Phipps Garden Apartments, 1932. The Phipps Garden building is notable for architect Clarence Stein’s use of decorative brick in the facade, inspired by German and Dutch housing developments of the 1920s.

The names of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick are well known in New York City and beyond for Carnegie Hall and for the Frick Collection. Though the institutions built by these two steel magnates are important to the city’s cultural identity, the organization built by their lesser known (but just as wealthy) associate, Henry Phipps, has had and continues to have, a more material effect on the lives of New Yorkers. His legacy, Phipps Houses, is the oldest non-profit developer of affordable housing, erecting its first buildings in 1906 and actively developing and managing properties today.