The Daily News this weekend provided a link to a great online photography exhibit. The Laguardia Wagner Archives (part of Laguardia Community College) has put online a bunch of old negatives from the New York City Housing Authority archives, including this shot of 1777 Bergen Street before it was razed to build the Kingsborough Houses in 1941. The most interesting take-away for us was being reminded that the impetus for building the same public housing projects that we tend to consider such eyesores and epicenters of crime and poverty was a true desire to improve the conditions of the city’s worst-off citizens.
New York Transformed: 1939-1967 [Laguardia Wagner Archives]
NY Before the Projects [NY Daily News]