Preservation

For the first four decades, Sunnyside Gardens was methodically preserved as part of its design. Just as its planners laid unsightly utility lines underground, they supplied deeds for new homes with 40-year restricted covenants, which forbade changes without the approval of trustees, many elected from the homeowners associations. These covenants kept garden space open and fostered an awareness of architectural qualities worth preserving. Two groups of mews courts with shared front gardens were protected by permanent easements. Houses enjoyed private yards in front and back, while most properties also included a portion of the adjoining garden court. View original plans for four blocks below.

The first year’s construction (1924, later named Colonial Court) arranged houses and apartment buildings on only 28% of the land and reserved a large space on the interior of the block for shared gardens and a playground. On one side of 47th (Carolin) Street, where the full depth of the block wasn’t purchased for development, private yards were linked by common walkways.
This plan for Lincoln and Washington Courts (1926), from 44th (Locust) to 46th (Bliss) Streets, shows Sunnyside’s predominent design for homes and gardens. Dark green indicates the three shared garden courts in these blocks, light green the private gardens in front and back of each house. Set at varied distances from the street, houses were built with flat or gabled roofs and porches in front or back, some open and some enclosed.
A second-floor snapshot presents the original landscaping after a few year’s growth. Private back yards, each with its whirligig clothes line, are delineated by hedges. Outside the hedgerow, walkways surround attractions in the shared interior: A bench sits at the end of the border garden beyond the young children’s play area with swings, slide, and distinctive white gazebo. This is the center court of three in Washington Court, finished in 1926. Photo by Louis Raschke, courtesy of Agatha Raschke.
In 1926 and 1927, in addition to central garden courts, many houses at the west and east sides of the neighborhood offered shared gardens (shown in dark green) that brought residents from the street to their front doors. This is the plan for Jefferson Court (1926-27) between 48th (Gosman) and 49th (Heiser) Streets. Light green shows the private gardens on two sides of every house.

Changes Appear

Beginning in 1964-68, as 40-year covenants expired on individual properties, some homeowners overtook garden spaces by installing driveways or fencing off portions of the open courts to enlarge their private yards. Still, the great majority of neighbors adhered to the original ideal of open space, in two homeowners associations by renewing covenants and in others by tacit agreements to maintain the common courts. Responding to the loss of protective covenants, New York City amended its Zoning Resolution in 1974 to name Sunnyside Gardens a Special Planned Community Preservation District. This law addressed the need to limit the size of buildings and protect open space. Fencing of open commons, building enlargements, sheds, curb cuts and parking in yards were all effectively curtailed by requiring a Special Permit from the City Planning Commission.

Today

Sunnyside Gardens, including Phipps Garden Apartments, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. In 1991, the neighborhood was named a National Planning Landmark. Beyond these honors, designation as a New York City Historic District in 2007 empowers the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to regulate the exteriors of buildings. The LPC’s Homeowner’s Guide for making changes is available here.

Preservation Awards

The Sunnyside Gardens Historic Preservation Award celebrates significant contributions in restoration and advocacy on behalf of the Historic District. The award was inspired by Celia Levine, who rebuilt her rear porch at 39-24 49th Street along original lines in the late 1980s. Award recipients to date are Dan Allen, Anna Bridge, Marlyn Molloy, and the Historic Districts Council.

Celia Levine helped to instill a renewed appreciation for historic architectural features following Sunnyside Gardens’ elevation to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Photo by Herbert Reynolds (2003).
Wooden rear porches were amenities on most two-family houses. Celia Levine replaced hers on 49th Street when the original porch wore out. Photo by JFA Associates.
To be precise, the original Levine porch of 1927 had 3 panels (not wainscoting) below windows with 8 panes (not 10), as evidenced in this 1930 snapshot by I.E. or Sonya Cohen when they lived in the house. Courtesy of John Cohen.
Anna Bridge restored her front porch in Colonial Court to its original appearance in 2009. Photo by JFA Associates.
The Preservation Award certificate given in 2011 on the 40th anniversary of the Historic Districts Council.
In 2012, Dan Allen contributed his skills as a preservation architect toward the renewal of the Park House (1926), applying a grant from the Historic Preservation Grants Program of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, a grant from the City Ventures Fund of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, and a loan from the Queens Historic Properties Fund, a joint venture of the Queens Historical Society and the Conservancy. The Park House is home to the family of the Park manager. Photo by JFA Associates.
In his preservation work on the Park House, Dan Allen studied historic images from our Digital Archive. This is a blow-up from a wide view of the Park, made in the early 1930s from a window in the Community Garage Building, almost 250 feet away. Another vintage shot appears on the History page.
Historically, the Park House displayed kaleidoscopic colors on its slate roof and, at the time of this photo, the deep greeen trim common to park structures across New York City. This view from the lower playground in the mid 1950s also includes the Park shed of its era, sporting more of a shamrock green. Courtesy of Rev. Michael Moran.

Character Defining Features

Our architects planned the neighborhood as a play of symmetry and variation, most noticeably in paired front doorways on shared front stoops. This pair in Lincoln Court is a feast of symmetry, bays and nearly all windows matched (even the welcome mats), with a most distinguished variety of brick relief enclosing the doors. Photo © 2017 by JFA Associates.
Sunnyside’s bay windows are immediately recognizable. Typically, three-family homes have two second-story apartments, each with its own bay. This example in Jefferson Court omits one bay in favor of a bump-out with slate roof that enlarges a room on the first floor. Such bump-outs were used on a few houses completed in 1926 and 1927, as are brick entrances with sloping, slightly upturned roofs. Photo from the SGPA Architectural Survey directed by Nina Teng.
Sunnyside Gardens is sometimes said to consist of row houses, but our architecture is far more diverse and nuanced than a row. Note how this ensemble along 47th Street (at right) is turned to define the lane through the block to 46th Street. Each of these houses is very different, and almost every visible feature is original, except for any single-paned window you might spot. Photo by Ronald Bradford.
Houses with flat roofs are crowned by ornamented parapets that make creative use of brick colors, patterns, and relief, and these elements differ in virtually every block. Masons achieved some of their most delighting brickwork in the final year, 1928, in Harrison Place, like this jazzy riff that rounds a corner. Photo by JFA Associates.
Exclusive to construction years 1926 and 1927 are paired doorways topped by sunburst molding. The 1926 Lincoln and Washington Court model has eight rays and is depicted on Sunnyside Gardens T-shirts and tote bags. In 1927, Madison Court upped the number to twenty. Photo © 2017 by JFA Associates.
Across the neighborhood, pairs of wooden entrance porches are roofed with standing-seam copper, either peaked or shed-like. But homes on the east and west of Washington Court’s center court (as here, 1926) present unique faces to the street, their smooth stucco on the upper floor contrasting with the red brick facades everywhere else. Photo from the SGPA Architectural Survey directed by Nina Teng.
Open wooden porches of varying types were provided every year, but most striking of all were the occasional front porches in a Craftsman, or stick style in Hamilton Court (1925). The one at left squares off with the more familiar, windowed variety that counters with a twist of its own: a doorway on the side. Photo by Alfred Lowenherz, about 1984.
Two-story open wrought iron porches shelter the main entry downstairs with a balcony for the apartment upstairs. Found in front and in back of some two-family houses and on almost every three-family house, they stand aside of the lanes through the blocks from 44th to 48th Streets. This well preserved porch is in Lincoln Court (1926). Two views from the SGPA Architectural Survey directed by Nina Teng. (At right, the window directly ahead is in the house next door.)
Peaked roofs are bedecked in hues of Vermont slate that range out from the blues to rose.
For Colonial Court (1924) and continuing one more year, half attics in some two-family houses bestowed third-floor terraces that, in Hamilton and Roosevelt Courts, afford vertiginous overlooks on central gardens. This 1925 view behind the 47th Street homes in Roosevelt’s center court shows laundry poles built into the attic handrails.(Also the pergola at right, and a natural rock outcropping.) Photo for City Housing Corp.Courtesy #3600,Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections,Cornell University Library.
In Phipps’ central garden (1932), an original bench flanks a flagstone walk that meanders to the Cherry Court, Marjoire Cautley’s grove that has grown more brilliant over 80 years. The historic district’s planned open spaces and landscaping command preservation alongside our architecture. Photo by JFA Associates.
Among several kinds of original parking accommodations is this fine row of private garages belonging to the houses at the northeast corner of the neighborhood. The “stalactite” brick arrangement (a metaphor of the cave) and handsome doors are novel attractions. Photo by JFA Associates.
On its Skillman Avenue side, the 1927 Hamilton Court Apartment building incorporates storefronts accented below the shop windows with colorful tiles seen nowhere else in the Historic District.