Park West Village (New York City, New York)

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Built in 1961 by Webb & Knapp as middle-income housing. Designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill, the complex originally consisted of 7 red-brick apartment buildings of 16-20 stories - four slabs oriented east-west in the superblock between 97th & 100th Street, between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West, and three smaller, north-south oriented buildings to the west of Columbus Avenue.

Park West Village was one of the city’s most controversial urban renewal projects and was known initially as Manhattantown and then West Park Apartments. It took more than a decade to complete, as scandals relating to its development resulted in a major reconsideration of “slum clearance” programs in the 1960s. Luckily, the subsequent renaissance of the Upper West Side, north of 86th Street, made the enclave more desirable and much more popular.

Prior to 1950, the site had been occupied by tenements, garages and apartment buildings, many of which had become single-room-occupancy (S.R.O.) operations. Newer residential buildings have since joined the original seven, and the site also houses a school, a church, and a library/health center.

www.upperwestsidehistory.org/blogs/park-west-village-hi...