MacDougal-Sullivan Garden Historic District
This small enclave planned around a private central garden became a prototype for related developments of the 1920s. In 1920 the Hearth and Home Corporation purchased 22 deteriorated Greek Revival Row Houses, built between 1844 and 1850. It commissioned a rehabilitation from the architects Francis Y. Joannes and Maxwell Hyde who removed the stoops and gave the two street facades a Colonial Revival appearance, as well as communal backyards. The development served as a model for several other redevelopment projects in the South Village in the 1920’s and 30’s, where older buildings (often tenements) were joined together to create communal spaces and more “modern” appearances for their buildings. This was in many ways reflective of the changes in the neighborhood in the inter-war years: foreign immigration had subsided, but the area was increasingly of interest to Americans of a creative or bohemian bent. Older housing, such as rowhouses and tenements were considered by some obsolete. However, this communal style of redevelopment reflected a valuing of the neighborhood’s quaint features, even as landlords and new residents sought modern amenities and collectively enjoyed light, air, and open space.
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