San Juan Hill Rediscovered: Amsterdam Houses, Before and After

Architectural historian Jessica Larson will explore what previously existed on the site that is now occupied by the New York City Housing Authority’s Amsterdam Houses, as well as the history of the housing project’s development. In the first decades of the 20th century, the area that is today’s Lincoln Square was a neighborhood called San Juan Hill. Between roughly 1900 and 1920, this was the most populated Black neighborhood in Manhattan. We will discuss the architecture of the Black built environment prior to Amsterdam Houses and the housing precedents that led to its creation.