Queensbridge Houses, also known simply as Queensbridge or QB, is a public housing development in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, New York City. Owned by the New York City Housing Authority, the development contains 96 buildings and 3,142 units accommodating approximately 7,000 people in two separate complexes (North and South). The complex opened in 1939Griffin, Allie. "Learn About the History of Queensbridge Houses, New Book Released", LIC Post, October 17, 2019. Accessed February 19, 2021. "Queensbridge Houses has 3,142 apartments and nearly 7,000 residents, making it the largest public housing development in North America. The development opened in 1939 next to the Queensboro Bridge along the East River in what was at the time a largely manufacturing area." and is the largest housing project in North America.Barry, Dan. "Don't Tell Him the Projects Are Hopeless", The New York Times, March 12, 2005. Accessed February 19, 2021. "UP, up, up it rises, this elevator redolent of urine, groaning toward the rooftop of another tired building in the Queensbridge public housing development, the largest in Queens, in New York, in North America."
Queensbridge is located in Queens Community District 1, and its ZIP Code is 11101.Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), Queens Community District 1. Accessed August 19, 2022. "Queens CB 1 represents the neighborhoods of Astoria, Old Astoria, Long Island City, Queensbridge, Ditmars, Ravenswood, Garden Bay and Woodside. From the Queens borough Bridge and Queens Plaza to the Grand Central parkway and LaGuardia Airport approximately 250,000 people (2010 Census figure) choose to make our district their home."
Structures Queensbridge, the largest of 26 public housing developments in Queens, is located between Vernon Boulevard, which runs along the East River, and 21st Street. It is immediately south of the Ravenswood power plant and just north of the Queensboro Bridge, for which the complex is named. The complex is the largest housing project in North America. The development is separated into two complexes, the North Houses on 40th Avenue and the South Houses on 41st Avenue. The namesake station of the New York City Subway's IND 63rd Street Line () is on the eastern side of the complex on 21st Street.
Buildings
The 96-unit, six-story buildings are distinctive due to their shape of two Y's connecting at the base. This shape was used as the architects hoped it would give residents more access to privacy and sunlight than the traditional cross-shape.Preiser, Wolfgang F. E.; Varady, David P.; and Russell, Francis P. Future Visions of Urban Public Housing: An International Forum, November 17-20, 1994, p. 249. Routledge, 2017. . Accessed January 1, 2019. "The Y-shaped buildings in the Queensbridge project in New York caught the sunlight and provided apartments with privacy but were arranged in a disorienting." The design was said to be cost-efficient, and they reduced the cost even further by using elevators that only stopped at the 1st, 3rd, and 5th floors. Political pressure to keep costs down was a key reason for the use of cheap designs. W.F.R. Ballard, Henry S. Churchill, Frederick G. Frost, and Burnett Turner designed Queensbridge."Queensbridge, NYC: Inside America’s Largest Public Housing Project", Untapped Cities, July 1, 2013.
In many aspects, the buildings of Queensbridge are very similar to most government-built housing projects of the era. They are a worn grayish brown which now suffers noticeable deterioration and weathering. Each building is painted red to about four feet up from the ground, giving a united feel to the entire complex as a uniform red "layer" is always close, throughout the complex. On each of the corners in Queensbridge, the New York City Housing Authority has posted signs indicating the project's name and management: "Queensbridge North (or South) NYCHA." These signs come in several varieties depending on their age. The oldest signs, erected in the early nineties, are simply orange and blue, with the newer signs featuring graphics, like those of many other projects.
Access to buildings in the complex is by key or via an intercom system. The halls of Queensbridge's buildings are comparable to most municipal buildings, and are dilapidated and lined with worn light blue tiles. Apartments are painted white and are fairly small, even by New York City standards. Elevators have been rebuilt and now stop at floors 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 and kitchens have been completely renovated and now have frost-free refrigerators. Three thousand bathrooms were renovated with new tubs, toilets, vanities, floor tile and lighting in 2000. This followed a renovation in 1986 when 1,000 of the bathrooms were renovated by Arc Plumbing.
Amenities
The original plans included some basic amenities, like a central shopping center, a nursery and six inner courtyards for play. In the 1950s, there were also three playschool rooms, a library, a community center with an auditorium where shows were put on, a gymnasium with a wooden floor that doubled as a wooden-wheels roller skating rink, activity rooms downstairs, and a cafeteria upstairs where the playschool children ate their lunches. Some of the downstairs activities included tap dancing, ballet, art, playing the recorder and singing, pool, knock hockey and table tennis, as well as Girl Scout and Boy Scout meetings. Residents enjoyed concerts during the hot summer months in the square central shopping area, and the Fresh Air Fund sent children on trips out to the Peekskill mountains.
The buildings in the complex are divided by a series of paths and small lawns. Also in the complex are several basketball courts and play areas lined with benches. Across Vernon Boulevard lies Queensbridge Park, the primary place of recreation for tenants of the project. There was also a smaller park placed conveniently right under the Queensboro Bridge called "Baby Park". Baby Park was closed due to debris falling from the bridge during maintenance work in the late 2000s. Baby Park was replaced by a new playground for the same age range, between 40th-41st Avenues, within Queensbridge Park itself.
History and crime statistics Queensbridge opened in 1939. During the 1950s, the management changed the racial balance of Queensbridge by transferring all families whose income was more than $3,000/year, a majority of whom were White, to middle-income housing projects, and replacing most of these tenants with African-American and Latino families. This policy provided safe and sanitary housing to many low-income African-American and Latino families.
Queensbridge is well known for its contributions to hip hop and rap music, and has been home to some of the most influential musicians in the genre. Marley Marl Williams was the first in a long succession of acclaimed artists from "The Bridge", which came to be one of the most famous hip hop neighborhoods in the country. Its rappers and producers helped to put it on the map. The Juice Crew collective, hugely influential in the 1980s, featured among its members Queensbridge rappers MC Shan, Roxanne Shanté and Craig G.
While the Boogie Down Productions-MC Shan dispute had already put "The Bridge" on the rap map in the 1980s, the new crop of Queensbridge rappers like Nas and Mobb Deep made frequent references to the Queensbridge Houses that cemented its reputation as a dystopian vision of poverty, drugs, and violence just as New York City's problems with crack cocaine and the unprecedented carnage it had brought to places like Queensbridge reached a peak. Nas' 1994 album Illmatic, often regarded as the greatest hip-hop album of all time, concerns his experiences in Queensbridge. Other notable artists associated with the Queensbridge hip hop scene include Blaq Poet, Cormega, Tragedy Khadafi, Nature, Screwball, Capone, and Big Noyd.
Regarding the Queensbridge music scene, XXL columnist Brendan Frederick wrote:
By the 1970s, Queensbridge experienced a rise in crime with the rest of the city. During the height of the crack epidemic in 1986, Queensbridge experienced more murders than any NYCHA complex in New York City.Hallum, Mark. "Queensbridge murder ends peaceful streak in LIC public housing complex", QNS.com, May 18, 2017. Accessed July 25, 2022. "1986 alone, the public housing development, which spans six blocks north of the Queensborough Bridge, had more murders than any NYCHA complex in the city. To this day, it is one of 15 developments accounting for up to 20 percent of violent crime in public housing, according to crime statistics." However, in the 2000s, crime went down.
For many years Queensbridge has had a problem with drug dealers and drug users. An 11-month police investigation led to the arrest of 37 people during a drug bust in February 2005. Another raid in February 2009, following a seven-month investigation, resulted in 59 arrests.
Population As of 2013, Queensbridge had a total population of 6,105. The racial breakdown was 61.4% black, 2.3% white, 1.9% Asian, 1.0% American Indian and 2.4% multiracial. Hispanics and Latinos of any race were 30.1%.
By 2020, the Asian population in Queensbridge rose to 11% of the development's total population.2020 Census Results For New York City; Key Population & Housing Characteristics, Government of New York City, August 2021. Accessed August 19, 2022. This prompted calls for better social services for the community's Asian residents.; ; ; ;
Notable people
Big Noyd (born 1975), rapper, affiliated with Mobb Deep Blaq Poet (born 1969), rapper"Blaq Poet - Tha Blaqprint", HipHopDX, July 9, 2009. Accessed November 29, 2017. "When commercial artists weren’t busy riding the South’s finger snapping, Auto-Tune crooning coat tails, tight pants-wearing hipsters began to slowly take over sections of Brooklyn with their Diplo beats and overly ironic sensibilities. While the rest of the city seemingly sinks further and further into a musically mire, Queensbridge emcee Blaq Poet stands strong with his debut LP Tha Blaqprint, after over two screw-faced decades with Screwball, fighting hard in the trenches for Queens recognition and a king’s respect." Bravehearts, rap group Capone (born 1976), rapper, half of the hip-hop group Capone-N-NoreagaGolianopoulos, Thomas. "The Bridge Is OverThe Queensbridge Houses were once at the center of the rap universe. What happened to hip-hop's most storied housing project?", Complex.com, November 25, 2014. Accessed November 29, 2017. "'Each block in Queensbridge has its own mentality, its own movement. '— Capone.... Though Noreaga is from Lefrak City, Queens, his work with Queensbridge native Capone made him synonymous with QB." Cormega (born 1970), rapperNosnitsky, Andrew. "Cormega Looks Back at Queensbridge, Jail and His Return", MTV.com, September 29, 2011. Accessed November 29, 2017. "When I moved to Queensbridge that's when I knew that I knew how to rap, because my cousin had me rapping around people that was good and I stood out. So from there I started taking it real seriously." Craig G (born 1973), rapper Julie Dash (born 1952), filmmaker and writer.Buckley, Cara. "Julie Dash Made a Movie. Then Hollywood Shut Her Out.", The New York Times, November 18, 2016. Accessed January 1, 2019. "Raised in the Queensbridge Housing Project in Long Island City, Queens, Ms. Dash earned a degree in film production at City College and went on to be a fellow at the American Film Institute before beginning a master’s degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, film school in the ’70s." Lou Del Valle (born 1968), professional boxer.Katz, Michael and Raftery, Tom. "Ex-Boxing Champion Nabbed In Fatal DWI", New York Daily News, April 8, 1999. Accessed January 1, 2019. "Del Valle, who grew up in Queensbridge projects so tough his mother sent him to live with relatives in the Bronx, developed into a solid boxer."