Alfred T. White Tower and Home and Riverside Apartment Buildings records

Alfred T. White (1846-1921) was one of Brooklyn's most prominent philanthropists and a civil engineer by trade. In 1876, White oversaw the building of the Tower and Home Apartments on Hicks and Baltic Streets, the first low-rent housing project in the United States. The apartment units, which featured a central garden and exterior iron staircases, were designed by White with the architectural firm William Field & Son. White also built his own dwellings around the perimeter of the property so that the interior half of his land could be used for gardens and recreational purposes. Another of White's low-rent housing projects, the Riverside Apartments on Furman, Columbia, and Joralemon Streets, was built in 1890. Though low in rent, White's housing projects proved to be a great financial success. In 1935, White's heirs and new owners of the apartments modernized all units, adding bathrooms, a central heating plant, electric lights, gas ranges, and refrigerators.