Roosevelt Terrace

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Address: 85th Street and 35th Avenue
Neighborhood: Jackson Heights
Architect:  Birnbaum, Philip
Year: 1954
Current Status: Extant
Award:  Bronze Plaque for Apartments
Typology:  Apartment Building

While looking from the exterior like every other red brick mid-century apartment building, the award program write-up tells another story. The description claims that Roosevelt Terrace was the first building in the country to employ terraces on both facades of each apartment, offering cross-ventilation for every unit. Primary access to units is also provided by the terraces eliminating the need for some interior hallways. No surprise that the architect for this innovation was Philip Birnbaum, the prolific apartment designer, largely forgotten today but responsible for hundreds of major scale residential buildings across the city.