Isaacs Houses

Isaacs Houses, Yorkville / East Harlem

The Stanley M. Isaacs Houses is a public housing project for those of low to moderate incomes in Yorkville located just south of the neighborhood's northern limit at 96th Street. The Isaacs Houses and the Holmes Towers borders East Harlem, which has the highest concentration of public housing in the United States. The three public housing buildings in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, completed in 1965, are 24 stories tall and contain 635 apartments. The project is located between 93rd and 95th Streets with playground & ball courts from 95th-97th street, stretching from 1st Avenue to the FDR Drive. Architects Frederick G. Frost, Jr. & Associates designed the buildings. 45 percent of the apartments in Isaacs are set aside for tenants over the age of 62. Isaacs Houses is named for Stanley M. Isaacs, who served as Manhattan Borough President under Mayor LaGuardia and later in City Council for 20 years as minority leader.

The Holmes Towers projects with two buildings, that are 25 stories tall and contain 537 apartments are located just south directly next to the Isaacs Houses. A 1973 New York Times article http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F07E1DA1231EF34BC4B51DFB4668388669EDE# detailing a murder in the projects noted that the Towers were at the time "tenanted largely by white, elderly residents." 60 percent of the apartments in Holmes Towers are set aside for tenants over the age of 62. Both developments are basically one complex totaling 5 buildings having the same Development Management Office managed by New York City Housing Authority. http://gis.nyc.gov/nycha/im/wmp.do;jsessionid=4080F81C8AFA7B489509EFF11457910E?

Both housing projects, as a whole, have been designated a "high crime zone" by the New_York_City_Police_Department's 19th precinct since the early 2000s, and are thus policed to a higher extent, especially due to the heavy socio-economic mixing of the immediate surrounding area, which includes public housing, working-class small tenement buildings, middle-class medium-size buildings, and upper-middle class to upper-class luxury buildings along 1st avenue in the area.

Further reading

The_New_York_Times Reports: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/nyregion/neighborhood-report-upper-east-side-with-affluence-all-around-little-crime-seems.html In June 2002, a 62-year-old woman was stabbed to death in her Isaacs Houses apartment. No one was arrested. The following month, a man who lived in Isaacs Houses threw himself from a 19th-floor window. The man survived, but the incidents sparked fears among residents about the overall safety of the two complexes in Yorkville

New_York_Post Reports: http://nypost.com/2007/10/05/upper-east-side-drug-thugs-are-busted/ In September 2007 Violence spilled dangerously out into the street as gang banger shoots rival with 357 caliber striking him in back and elbow.

University_of_Colorado_Boulder Reports: The Story of young Brandon Heard living in the Isaac Houses & how he met former New York Mayor Michael_Bloomberg “It’s a hell of an experience raising a child here – you need to teach your kids street smarts to keep them out of trouble and to avoid peer pressure to join gangs and do drugs.” http://www.colorado.edu/cye/sites/default/files/attached-files/Brandon%20Heard%20FINAL.pdf

The_New_York_Times Reports: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/science/earth/01garbage.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 The proximity of public housing figures prominently in a battle by Upper East Side residents to derail a city plan to reactivate a waste transfer station.

Notable residents

J.R._Writer Rapper, Songwriter


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