Morningside Gardens, Residential cooperative in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, US.
Morningside Gardens is a residential cooperative in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, made up of six 21-story apartment buildings arranged around shared open spaces. The complex has around 980 homes in various floor plans, built in a post-war modernist style with a clear, functional layout.
The project started in 1954, led by banker David Rockefeller and Columbia University president Grayson Kirk, as a response to the housing shortage that followed World War II. It was designed to offer middle-income families a stable place to live in Manhattan at a time when affordable housing in the city was difficult to find.
Morningside Gardens was designed from the start to bring together people from different backgrounds and professions, and that mix has shaped the character of the place ever since. The proximity to Columbia University means many residents have ties to academic life, which gives the community a particular tone.
This is a private residential cooperative, so the shared spaces inside are reserved for residents and their guests. Walking around the perimeter gives a good sense of the building arrangement and the open areas between them.
Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and author Samuel R. Delany both lived here at different points in their lives, drawn by the community's mixed character rather than its prestige. Few housing cooperatives of that era can point to such a range of notable residents from different fields.
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