The Lester Patterson Houses or Patterson Houses is a

public housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...

development in the

Mott Haven Mott Haven is an American primarily residential neighborhood in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of the Bronx. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise, are East 149th Street to the north, the Bruckner E ...

neighborhood of

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It was named after Bronx assemblyman and judge Lester W. Patterson. It is one of the largest

New York City Housing Authority The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is a public development corporation which provides public housing in New York City, and is the largest public housing authority in North America. Created in 1934 as the first agency of its kind in the U ...

(NYCHA) complexes in the city with fifteen buildings 6 and 13-stories tall and 1,790 apartments. It spans an area of , which is located between East 138th and 145th Street and covers two main avenues,

Third Avenue Third Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare on the East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan, as well as in the center portion of the Bronx. Its southern end is at Astor Place and St. Mark's Place. It transitions into Cooper Square ...

and Morris Avenue.

Development

Construction on the Patterson Houses began in 1948 and were a part of a large push to build public housing developments in the five boroughs. It was the first low rent development completed in the Bronx since World War II and the first families moved into the development in March 1950 with priority for veterans. It was completed on December 31, 1950 and named after judge Lester Patterson (1893–1947). The development's playground was later completed in 1953, and was used by the adjacent school P.S. 13 during school hours. Tenants of the development in the 1950s were a diverse mix of people from the South, Caribbean, and Puerto Rico. They introduced each other to their cultures including food and music. Many inter-ethnic marriages resulted from the fusion of cultures. By the early 1960s, crime in NYCHA developments had risen and the agency added extra detectives to help control crime at 28 developments including Patterson. By the late 1960s, tenants felt that policing was inadequate in the development and an increase in muggings and burglaries due to drugs being found on the site and went on strike by withholding rent from the agency. NYCHA took the tenants to court and the judge sided with the agency citing state law that lack of police presence wasn't a violation that tenants could withhold rent for. This resulted in tenants paying $25,000 in back rent.

Notable residents

* Dorothy Johnson was the very first Resident to move into Patterson Projects in 1950
Allen Jones
(born 1950), author. * A.G., rapper of

Showbiz and A.G. Showbiz and A.G. (also shortened as Show and AG) is an American hip hop duo from The Bronx Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City, composed of record producer Rodney "Showbiz" Lemay (born July 7, 1969) and rapper Andre "A.G." Barnes ...

* Nathaniel "Tiny" Archibald (born 1948), former

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

player *

Oxiris Barbot Oxiris Barbot (, born ) is an American pediatrician who served as the Commissioner of Health of the City of New York from 2018 to 2020. She was then appointed to public health positions with Columbia University and the Jeffry Picower, JPB Foundat ...

, Commissioner of Health of the City of New York * Iran "The Blade" Barkley (born 1960), boxer *

Angelo Cruz Angelo "Monchito" Cruz (born September 20, 1958) is a former Puerto Rican professional basketball player. He was born in New York. Coming out of the Patterson Projects in the Bronx, "Monchito" was a New York City Playground legend by the time he ...

(born 1958), Puerto Rican professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player *

Guy Fisher Guy Thomas Fisher (born July 21, 1947) is an American convicted racketeer who was once part of " The Council", an African-American crime organization that controlled the heroin trade in Harlem from 1972 to 1983. He became the first black man to ...

(born 1947), convicted

racketeer Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. Originally and of ...

and owner of the

Apollo Theater The Apollo Theater is a music hall at 253 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is a not ...

Percee P John Percy Simon (born July 9, 1969), better known by his stage name Percee P, is an American rapper from The South Bronx, New York City. ''Unkut'' described him as the "legendary lyricist of the subterranean". Career In 2007, Percee P released ...

(born 1969), rapper *

Barry Rogers Barron W. "Barry" Rogers (May 22, 1935 – April 18, 1991) was an American jazz and salsa trombonist. Career Born in The Bronx, he descended from Polish Jews and was raised in Spanish Harlem. His family (original name: Rogenstein) possessed a ...

(1935–1991),

salsa music Salsa music is a style of Latin American music. Because most of the basic musical components predate the labeling of salsa, there have been many controversies regarding its origin. Most songs considered as salsa are primarily based on son montun ...

ian and

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...

trombonist The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...

Prince Royce Geoffrey Royce Rojas (born May 11, 1989), known professionally as Prince Royce, is an American singer. At an early age, Royce took an interest in music, and in his teenage years began experimenting with music and writing poetry. By age nineteen ...

(born 1989), Latin musical artist Mayor

References

{{Reflist}

Residential buildings in the Bronx Public housing in the Bronx Robert Moses projects Residential buildings completed in 1950 Mott Haven, Bronx

Development

Notable residents

See also

References