Sunnyside Gardens was built from 1924 to 1928, with Phipps Garden Apartments added in 1931 and 1935. Its builders were inspired by the English Garden City movement of Ebenezer Howard and Raymond Unwin. Architects Clarence S. Stein, Henry Wright, and Frederick Lee Ackerman worked with Landscape Architect Marjorie S. Cautley. Their philosophical colleague, the urban critic Lewis Mumford became one of the first residents. The real estate developers were philanthropic idealists, too, and included Alexander Bing, William Sloane Coffin, Felix Adler, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Reserving unusually large areas for open space and minimizing construction costs, the designers created homes affordable to working people by combining rows of one- to three-family private houses with co-op and rental apartment buildings, arranging these around common gardens and parks, and placing stores and garages on the periphery of the neighborhood.

 

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