Watch a recording of our illustrated webinar "Yorkville: Housing Laboratory" exploring Yorkville’s history as a testing ground for affordable and progressive housing schemes by historian Lucie Levine  Lucie Levine held on February 18, 2025.

Yorkville, with its rich immigrant history, is a repository of “Model Tenements” and forward-thinking experiments in workers’ housing. The “French Flats” and “Light Court Tenements,” which were first built in Yorkville later proliferated throughout the city. The earliest examples of these forms, many of which still stand in Yorkville, offer tangible evidence of the history and evolution of affordable housing in New York City. They also serve as a valuable lesson in addressing the city's current affordable housing crisis.

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Lucie Levine is the Preservation Advocacy and Community Outreach Manager at the Historic Districts Council. She's also the founder of the historical tour and event company, Archive on Parade.

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