Randolph Houses

Much like their surrounding West Harlem neighborhood, the Randolph Houses have a rich history. Multiple owners and varying levels of neglect had left an entire block of late 19th-century tenement buildings largely vacant. The limestone, brick, and brownstone façades had been stripped of ornament, patched haphazardly, and painted, while the interiors deteriorated. By the early 2000s, many of the buildings were emptied and slated for demolition, but following their listing on the National Register of Historic Places, New York City issued a Request for Proposals for redevelopment of the buildings as affordable and public housing.

The West 114th Street historic district, as listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is comprised of 37 buildings (the 36 residential buildings of Randolph Houses and one school). The five-story residential buildings in the district are classified as Old Law tenement buildings, built in seven phases from 1895 to 1899, and designed by Neville & Bagge and John P. Leo and Kerby & Co. Old Law Tenements are quite difficult to redesign due to constraints on light and air imposed by the lot sizing and coverage.

The redesign strategy was to merge the individual lots into two larger zoning lots and create three contiguous buildings from the 36 independent ones. Eleven buildings were combined to create Building A, while another eleven were combined to create Building B. The remaining buildings would become Building C during phase II of the project. Each new building was internally connecting with a five-foot-wide interior corridor. To provide common, accessible entry to each building, the ground floor was lowered and elevators were added at central lobbies. The historic façade of each building was meticulously cleaned and repaired, and new cast-iron window surrounds, windows, and doors were installed. Existing cornices were repaired, and new sheet-metal replicas were installed where originals had long been missing. The interior spaces were gut-renovated and converted into 168 units of affordable and public housing, in addition to 3,000 square feet of community space including a library, computer rooms, communal spaces, and an outdoor terrace.

The project, which combined state and federal historic preservation tax credits with low-income housing tax credits and other city financing, serves as a model for the preservation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings for affordable housing and for creative solutions for improving public housing. The rehabilitation of the Randolph Houses maintains the 19th-century New York streetscape while introducing standards of modern living. Phase I of the project was completed in 2016; phase II was completed in 2018 for a total of 355,000 square feet.

AWARDS:
2017 Excellence in Historic Preservation Awards by the Preservation League of New York State
2017 Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award from the New York Landmarks Conservancy
2018 New York State Historic Preservation Award from the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation