By Brendan Browne
It is hard to believe that Forest Hills Gardens was once planned to provide housing for not only the wealthy, but for working class families too.
About 100 years later its one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the country with multi-million dollar homes, some said to have bowling alleys and full-size billiards rooms.
The area, now owned by the Forest Hills Gardens Corp., was bought in 1908 by the Russell Sage Homes Foundation and was meant to be a refuge from the bustle of Manhattan for the wealthy, middle class, and poor alike.
Forest Hills Gardens “originally was for the working class to the wealthy, but in the end it became an enclave for the wealthy,” said Barry Lewis, an architectural historian.
The mission of the Sage Foundation, founded by Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage with $10 million inherited from her financier husband, was to improve living conditions for the poor.
Around the time of the industrial revolution, many in Manhattan lived in squalor as immigrants often packed into dilapidated tenement buildings.
Sage “wanted to create it as a Utopian suburb basically to civilize the urban neighborhoods, which in the 19th century were pretty grimy,” said Lewis. “The point was to relieve you from the stress of the physical claustrophobia of the city.”
The idea for a “garden” community came from 19 century Europe where people escaped from the industrial metropolises, settling on the outskirts of the cities, Lewis said. Trains made it possible for suburbanites to get to the city quickly.
The Long Island Railroad’s introduction of an electric line to Forest Hills in 1910 made it just about a 14 minute commute to Manhattan and an attractive alternative to the overcrowded city. Sage helped pay for the $40,000 train station and ensured its style would fit well the homes of Forest Hills Gardens.
Forest Hills Gardens “represents a suburb that was possible with the electric train, with a clean electric train not some smoke belching locomotive. It was just a few minutes from Manhattan and not in cramped environment,” said Lewis.
Still, the costs of the train station and designing an area filled with parks, gardens, and large yards boosted mortgage prices to a minimum monthly payment of $25. Only middle or upper class families could afford that and Sage chose to turn a profit on the land, leaving the poor across the river.
The price tag on Sage’s project started with the $2 million she paid for 142 acres of land from Cord Meyer, who owned the land known as Forest Hills. Meyer had purchased 600 acres of land from six farmers, bringing in public utilities and building 340 houses north of what is now Queens Boulevard. Some of the land he owned south of the street was sold to Sage.
Sage, in setting out to build a model community that would influence suburban areas in other major cities, hired prominent architects to perform the task.
Grosvenor Atterbury designed many of the English Tudor style homes with red tile or slate roofs. Strict restrictions were placed on new homes so as to maintain the character of the neighborhood.
Sage chose Central Park’ designer Frederick Law Olmstead to set up the winding narrow streets that were meant not only for beauty, but also to keep heavy traffic away.
The Sage Foundation also attracted Manhattan’s West Side Tennis Club to the new community, selling 10 acres to the club for $77,000. Soon a 13,500 seat tennis stadium was built and the U.S. Open tournament was held in the facility from the 1920s until 1978 when it moved to Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
The Forest Hills Gardens Corp. bought the community’s land from Sage in 1922 and has owned it ever since, keeping a tight watch over architecture and maintenance of the neighborhood. The organization does not even allow unauthorized cars to park in its neighborhoods, booting vehicles without permits.
Forest Hills Gardens is bordered by Burns Road in the north, Whitson Street in the south, 69th Avenue in the east and Union Turnpike in west.
Reach reporter Brendan Browne by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or by phone at 229-0300, Ext. 155.
