Clarence Stein
In Clarence Stein’s youth American cities were often overcrowded, dirty and congested. As a pioneer community architect Stein offered Americans an alternative vision of the urban landscape.
The son of a wealthy casket manufacturer, Clarence Stein was born in Rochester, Monroe County, on June 19, 1882. The family moved to New York City when Clarence was eight. He attended the Ethical Culture Society’s experimental Workingmen’s School, where creativity and play were important parts of the learning experience and students were encouraged to improve their communities.
Before he could enter college Clarence spent time recovering from a nervous breakdown. His experience may have made him more sympathetic to the stress millions of people suffered in overcrowded, congested cities. Making urban life less stressful by making cities more open and less crowded became his priority.
After attending classes at Columbia University, Stein studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in France. Back in the U.S., he joined the architectural firm of Bertram Goodhue in 1911. He helped design an entire mining town in New Mexico, as well as individual buildings. After serving in the Army Corps of Engineers during World
War I, Stein started his own firm. He was influenced by the British “garden city” movement, which favored the construction of uncrowded communities with plenty of green space where residents could spend leisure time together. In discussions with colleagues at home and abroad, Stein worked to adapt the garden city ideal to 20th century needs.
During the 1920s, Stein worked in both the public and private sector. He was a co-founder of the Regional Planning Association of America, and was appointed chairman of New York State’s Housing & Regional Planning Commission. In both roles, he promoted planned community development as an alternative to haphazard urban growth. With private financing, Stein and his colleague Henry Wright developed the Sunnyside Gardens housing project in Queens as a small-scale model of a planned garden city. Their goal was to provide quality housing that working- class people could afford, while investors accepted an upper limit to their profits.
Following the success of Sunnyside Gardens, Stein and Wright experimented on a larger scale in Radburn, New Jersey, twelve miles from New York City. Radburn was planned as a town for the automobile age. It had separate paths for cars and pedestrians and “superblocks” of houses that faced open park spaces, while their back yards faced the streets. The project became the basis for the “Radburn Idea,” inspiring garden city plans across the country.
During the 1930s, Stein worked as a planning consultant for the federal government’s Resettlement Administration. He had ambitious plans to build government-funded garden cities across the country, but due to budget limitations only three were built. Stein continued to promote his ideas in the documentary film The City (1939) and his book Towards New Towns for America (1951). He received a gold medal for lifetime achievement from the American Institute of Architects in 1956. After his death on February 7, 1975, Sunnyside Gardens and Radburn were included in the National Register of Historic Places. They continue to be studied and debated today as models for urban living.
To learn more the community and history of one of Stein’s successful communities visit the Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance online at http:// sunnysidegardens.us/history.