Roosevelt Terrace
35-31 85th Street | also 35-11 85th Street | Jackson Heights | built 1954
Open on the map2 entries
The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1952
Riverbank Realty Corp. puts Roosevelt Terrace on the site of a Jackson Heights playground
Riverbank Realty Corp. filed plans in 1952 for Roosevelt Terrace, a group of nine-story apartment buildings by Philip Birnbaum, and the complex was completed in 1954. It took almost the whole block between 85th and 86th Streets from 35th to 37th Avenue, ground that had been a playground. The Landmarks Preservation Commission notes that post-war building in Jackson Heights typically filled open land that had served residents as a golf course, tennis courts and other shared amenities.
“This project was built on the site of a playground.”
- 1954
Roosevelt Terrace sets its buildings on the diagonal, abandoning the block's rectangular lots
The Landmarks Preservation Commission notes that Roosevelt Terrace looks at first out of scale with its neighborhood, yet continues the block planning of the earlier garden apartments: a group of related buildings filling most of a block and part of the next. In the International Style manner, the buildings are set diagonally rather than on rectangular lots, so there is no line between inner block and street wall. Open space and park areas around them take the place of the shared central garden of the 1920s complexes, and the garages lie beneath the gardens.
“Characteristic of the International Style, however, is the siting of the buildings on the diagonal…”
Nearby
- Roosevelt Terrace35-51 85th Street | 1 entry
- Roosevelt Terrace35-11 85th Street | 1 entry
- Belvedere Gardens East35-16 85th Street | 1 entry
- 35-25 86th Street3 entries
- 35-23 86th Street3 entries
- 35-33 86th Street3 entries