What Lower Manhattan Needs

Just a few hours before accepting an award by the Urban Land Institute’s Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing, developer Jonathan Rose told me that his 186-unit, mixed-income Tapestry project along East Harlem’s 125^th Street Corridor is “a real example” of doing the right thing. “And when you do the right thing,” he said, “it makes your approvals easier and it makes your financing easier.” 

That sentiment rang true for another one of the company’s projects, too. Days later, Jonathan Rose Cos.’ architecturally handsome Via Verde complex in the South Bronx received a rave review from the New York Times, and with good reason: the face of affordable housing is transforming both physically and socially, and Via Verde and Tapestry are prime examples of that. Gone are the days of lifeless brick-and-concrete slabs; these structures are now equipped with the green features and amenities of a market-rate building, all within a price that a working- or middle-class family could afford.