Lincoln Houses (officially Abraham Lincoln Houses) is a New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) public housing development in East Harlem (also known as El Barrio), Manhattan, New York City. It occupies approximately 12.67 acres in the area roughly bounded by East 133rd and 135th Streets, with buildings fronting Madison Avenue, Park Avenue, and Fifth Avenue (addresses include 60 East 135th Street and various others along those corridors).1

Background and Naming

The development is named after Abraham Lincoln, the 16th U.S. President. It reflects NYCHA’s practice of honoring prominent American figures in its postwar housing projects. A notable feature is the bronze sculpture Lincoln and Child (also called Lincoln and Boy) by sculptor Charles Keck, which was dedicated on February 12, 1949 (Lincoln’s birthday) at one of the development’s playgrounds near Madison Avenue and 133rd Street. The unveiling was a community event with speakers addressing themes of equality, opportunity, and the importance of public housing.2

Planning and Construction

Lincoln Houses was developed in the late 1940s as part of the broader postwar expansion of public housing in New York City. This era saw NYCHA rapidly building large-scale projects to replace overcrowded, substandard tenement slums in neighborhoods like Harlem and East Harlem, which had significant working-class and minority populations. Construction aligned with federal and city efforts to address the housing shortage following the Great Depression and World War II.

The complex was completed and opened on December 29, 1948. It consists of 14 buildings (with heights ranging from 6 to 14 stories, most commonly described as 14-story high-rises) containing 1,282 apartments.3 It was designed in the prevalent “tower-in-the-park” style, featuring tall red-brick buildings set amid open green spaces, playgrounds, tree-lined pathways, and recreational areas intended to provide light, air, and a sense of community.4

Evolution and Community Life

In its early decades, Lincoln Houses offered modern amenities and improved living conditions compared to the old-law tenements it replaced. It primarily housed working-class families, reflecting the demographic shifts in Harlem and East Harlem (initially many African American residents, with increasing Puerto Rican and Latino families over time).

Like many NYCHA developments, it faced challenges from the 1970s onward, including deferred maintenance, economic shifts in the neighborhood, and issues related to concentrated poverty and crime. In the early 2000s, for example, law enforcement conducted major operations targeting drug gangs operating in the development.

The site has remained an anchor for community life and activism. Residents have used its multipurpose rooms and spaces for organizing around affordable housing policy, rezoning, and local issues. The open areas and playgrounds continue to serve families, and the development is visible to commuters on the Metro-North tracks.

21st Century and Current Status

In recent years, NYCHA has undertaken targeted capital improvements at Lincoln Houses, including upgrades to mechanical systems such as vacuum pumps, condensate pumps, domestic hot water systems, sump pumps, and flood protection measures, along with related piping, lighting, and interior work.1 These efforts address aging infrastructure and resiliency needs.

There has also been community discussion and advocacy (including petitions) to potentially rename the development after figures like civil rights activist Ella Baker to better reflect Harlem’s Black history and resident heritage.

Lincoln Houses remains an active NYCHA conventional public housing development, continuing to provide affordable homes in a historically vibrant but challenged neighborhood. It exemplifies the mid-20th-century vision of public housing as a tool for social uplift, as well as the ongoing realities of maintenance and adaptation in large-scale urban housing projects.

Note: This is distinct from Lincoln Towers, a separate, privately developed (later co-op) apartment complex on the Upper West Side associated with the Lincoln Square/ Lincoln Center urban renewal projects.

Overview

• Location: East Harlem/Upper Harlem, between E. 132nd & E. 135th Streets and Fifth & Park Avenues. 1
• Type: NYCHA public‑housing development, federally funded “conventional” project (not a wartime temporary project). 1
• Buildings: 14 red‑brick residential buildings, 6–14 stories tall.
• Size & apartments: About 1,280+ apartments on roughly 11–13 acres (NYCHA and city docs give 1,283–1,286 units on ~12.7 acres). 2
• Completion: December 29, 1948; NYCHA marked the development’s 60th anniversary on December 29, 2008. 2

1. Planning & “slum clearance” in the 1940s

• NYCHA was created in 1934 under Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia to replace overcrowded tenements with modern low‑rent housing.
• By the mid‑1940s, East Harlem was targeted for one of these new projects. The LaGuardia mayoral archives list a dedicated file, “Housing Projects: Abraham Lincoln Houses (32)” dated 1944–1945, showing the site was being planned before World War II ended. 3
• In 1944, the City acquired land at Fifth Avenue & E. 135th Street for a playground “as part of the adjacent Abraham Lincoln Houses” site assembly. This land was transferred to Parks in 1946 and named the Abraham Lincoln Houses Playground. 4

A 1945 article in The Crisis magazine described “Lincoln Houses” as a new East Harlem development to be built soon after the war, with 6 six‑story and 8 fourteen‑story buildings, 1,286 apartments and space for around 5,000 residents—essentially the plan that was later built. 5

Like other NYCHA projects of that era, this was framed as “slum clearance”: clearing pre‑1900 tenements and small shops to build a modern, planned complex.

2. Design and construction (1945–1948)

Architects and style

• The project was designed for NYCHA by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), one of the leading modernist firms of the mid‑20th century. 6
• SOM’s Louis Skidmore later described Abraham Lincoln Houses as one of the firm’s major New York wartime housing projects. 7
• Historical notes credit Black architect Vertner Tandy (the first licensed African‑American architect in NY State) as helping design the Abraham Lincoln Houses in collaboration with SOM, making it part of the early story of Black architects in major public works. 8
• A profile of SOM architect Natalie de Blois also cites Abraham Lincoln Houses among the New York projects she designed or worked on, indicating it was an early SOM team effort. 9

Architecturally, it’s a classic tower‑in‑the‑park layout:

• 14 red‑brick towers, 6 and 14 stories, arranged with large open areas, lawns, internal paths and playgrounds, and relatively low building coverage compared to the old tenement grid. 1

Opening

• The complex was completed on December 29, 1948, and NYCHA celebrated its 60th anniversary on December 29, 2008, confirming that completion date. 2
• It consists of about 1,283–1,286 apartments on just over 11 acres, intended to house roughly 3,000 residents. 2
• A contemporary study of nearby Riverton Houses noted that Riverton and Abraham Lincoln Houses together would add around 8,500 residents to the 135th Street area, with large numbers of Black applicants, reflecting the postwar growth of Harlem’s Black middle and working classes. 10

3. Naming, statue, and playground

Honoring Abraham Lincoln

• The development is officially President Abraham Lincoln Houses, named for the 16th U.S. president, associated with preserving the Union and issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. 2

“Lincoln and Child” statue (1949)

• In the central courtyard sits “Abraham Lincoln and Child” (also known as “Lincoln and Boy”), a bronze statue by sculptor Charles Keck.
• It was unveiled on Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, 1949, in a public ceremony at the center of the project. 11
• Coverage in the Baltimore Afro‑American reported that the dedication explicitly linked the statue to both Harlem’s “slum clearance” and the freeing of enslaved people, and quoted NYCHA chair Thomas Farrell saying Lincoln would have preferred his statue in a public recreation area rather than “marble halls among the great.” 11

The statue symbolically connects public housing for Black and working‑class New Yorkers with Lincoln’s legacy of emancipation.

Abraham Lincoln Playground

• On the southeast corner of Fifth Ave & E. 135th St, the Abraham Lincoln Playground serves Lincoln Houses and the wider neighborhood. 12
• The land was acquired in 1944 as part of the housing project and transferred to Parks in 1946; originally named Abraham Lincoln Houses Playground, it was shortened to Lincoln Playground in 1985 and later renovated. 4
• In the 2010s, it received a $9+ million redesign under the city’s Community Parks Initiative, adding a new comfort station, spray shower, mini‑pool, adult fitness area, and upgraded basketball courts. 13

4. Life at Lincoln Houses: from optimism to hardship (1950s–1980s)

In the 1950s, Lincoln Houses represented modern housing compared to the cold‑water tenements it replaced: elevators, central heat, separate bedrooms, landscaped open space, and on‑site recreation. 1951 images in the Library of Congress show the new towers surrounding the Lincoln statue. 14

Over the next decades, as New York City lost manufacturing jobs and disinvested in public services, Lincoln Houses — like many NYCHA developments — began to suffer from:

• Under‑maintenance and deferred repairs
• Crime and safety concerns
• A growing reputation for deteriorating conditions

A NYCHA staff profile from the 2010s notes that when the worker first started at Abraham Lincoln Houses, residents called it “Stinkin’ Lincoln,” a nickname reflecting long‑standing frustration with conditions there. 15

5. 1990s–2010s: activism and scrutiny

Sharpton’s 2013 “sleepover”

In July 2013, Rev. Al Sharpton invited five Democratic mayoral candidates (Quinn, de Blasio, Thompson, Liu, Weiner) to spend the night at Lincoln Houses to draw attention to NYCHA conditions:

• Press accounts described “moldy walls, urine‑soaked elevators, darkened hallways,” weak water pressure, and non‑functioning air‑conditioning. 16
• City reports cited in the Village Voice noted about 3,800 open repair requests at Lincoln Houses alone at that time. 16

The event helped push NYCHA maintenance, backlog, and funding into the center of the 2013 mayoral campaign.

Federal scrutiny and resiliency funds

After Hurricane Sandy (2012), a massive $3 billion FEMA grant was directed to NYCHA developments affected by the storm. In 2019, NYCHA’s Recovery & Resiliency team announced that the program had been expanded to include smaller but necessary repairs at Lincoln Houses in Manhattan, along with Staten Island’s New Lane Area — a sign that Lincoln’s aging infrastructure was being folded into the broader resiliency and capital‑repair effort. 17

At the same time, a federal monitor was appointed under a HUD agreement to oversee NYCHA’s response to lead paint, mold, elevators, and heating systems, which affected Lincoln Houses along with the rest of the portfolio. 18

6. Recent years: boilers, parks, and “land rich” debates (2010s–2020s)

Heating system crisis

By the 2020s, Lincoln’s aging heating plant became a major issue:

• An investigative report in 2025 found that the boiler permits at Lincoln Houses had expired in January 2021 and the entire heating plant had been taken offline for replacement.
• NYCHA had to bring in temporary mobile boilers to provide heat and hot water while a new plant was built, part of a citywide scramble to replace or repair hundreds of aging boilers under HUD oversight. 18

Parks and open space improvements

• As noted above, the Abraham Lincoln Playground’s multi‑million‑dollar redesign was celebrated as a major quality‑of‑life upgrade for Lincoln residents and the surrounding community. 13

Unused development rights and future pressures

• A 2008 Manhattan Borough President report on NYCHA property identified Abraham Lincoln Houses as one of the East Harlem sites with large unused development rights — about 932,000 square feet, theoretically enough for roughly 1,100 additional housing units if fully built out. 19

This has put Lincoln Houses into periodic discussions about “infill” development or rezoning, similar to other NYCHA sites, raising questions about:

• How to fund desperately needed repairs
• Whether (and how) to build new mixed‑income housing on NYCHA land
• The impact on existing residents and neighborhood affordability

As of early 2026, those broader East Harlem planning debates are still ongoing, but no new infill towers have actually been built on the Lincoln Houses campus itself.

7. Quick timeline

• 1934: NYCHA created; LaGuardia administration begins major public‑housing push.
• 1944–1945: City assembles land for Abraham Lincoln Houses; archives show dedicated planning files. 3
• 1944–1946: Playground parcel acquired and transferred to Parks as Abraham Lincoln Houses Playground. 4
• 1945: The Crisis describes planned “Lincoln Houses” project (14 buildings, 1,286 apts, 5,002 people). 5
• Dec 29, 1948: Lincoln Houses completed (14 buildings, ~1,283–1,286 apartments). 2
• Feb 12, 1949: “Abraham Lincoln and Child” statue by Charles Keck unveiled in the project’s central recreation area. 11
• 1950s–1980s: Development ages amid citywide economic decline; maintenance and safety issues grow.
• 1985–late 1980s: Playground renamed Lincoln Playground and renovated. 20
• 2008: NYCHA marks 60th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln Houses. 2
• 2013: Sharpton’s mayoral “sleepover” at Lincoln Houses highlights poor conditions and repair backlogs. 16
• 2019: Lincoln Houses added to FEMA‑funded NYCHA Recovery & Resiliency program for smaller but needed repairs. 17
• mid‑2010s–2020s: Abraham Lincoln Playground fully redesigned; NYCHA under federal monitor; major boiler replacement at Lincoln with temporary mobile boilers brought in 2025. 13

If you tell me what you’re using this for (school project, community exhibit, personal research, etc.), I can:

• Condense this into a one‑page fact sheet, or
• Pull out key points for a poster or slideshow about the history of Lincoln Houses.