CONEY ISLAND
SURF AVENUE TWO

This 197-unit building for the elderly is owned and operated by the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged. It was commissioned by the Urban Development Corporation (acting as developer) about the same time as the other Surf Avenue project, just a few blocks east. Its 1.3-acre site is smaller and more limiting than that of the previous scheme.

The main part of the building is a simple double-loaded tower of 19 stories. Just below this, it begins to edge outward with a single-loaded corridor, terminating toward the ground with the lower, four-story element—all in a Z-shape plan.

Shared balcony areas are located on every floor of the high element, taking into account the extensive socializing which active, elderly tenants like.

The scheme can, and probably will, be expanded along 36th Street (drawing), with an extension of the finished low element rising up to another, identical tower. This would further enclose a generous north courtyard which has been provided in the first phase.

The principal outdoor areas are, however, on the Surf Avenue side. A terrace, elevated slightly above the street, will be screened-off from it by

a brick wall that enhances the street line. Immediately inside the terrace, a large cafeteria is placed on the ground level of the four-story element, readily accessible to both project and neighborhood residents. A library, crafts room, and various social service facilities have also been provided. Thus, in a working sense, the building will be a real asset for the surrounding community, in no way reinforcing the isolation which often aggravates the aged.

Like all the projects explained here, this one makes the most of our deranged dependence on high density, which has been, until recently, solely economic in motive. But, given the realities (and the ruts) of agency procedure, Hoberman & Wasserman have modulated density requirements in the direction of human scale, and they have shown that high density, by design, is really preferable to the scatter-shot stunts which our low and moderate income citizens have had to settle for in years past.

This straight-forward approach may not seem all that revolutionary; yet that is its strength. It is, at least, a reflection of a scale of values, a careful edging toward answers about what values public housing must ultimately express.

—WILLIAM MARLIN

EAST 36 STREET

## FACTS AND FIGURES

Housing Project for the Urban Development Corporation of New York, Coney Island, Site 5/6. Architect: Hoberman & Wasserman. Engineers: Robert Rosenwasser (structural); Barrett Associates (mechanical). Landscape Architect: Nicholas Quennell. Building area: 384,000 sq. ft. (residential); 8,000 sq. ft. (day care); 57,000 sq. ft. (garage). Cost: $11,600,000.

29 STREET

FORUM-NOVEMBER-1972