Landmarks votes down Queens aluminum house project

Computer rendering of Aluminaire House at 50th Street and 39th Avenue in Queens (Inset: Jimmy Van Bramer)
Computer rendering of Aluminaire House at 50th Street and 39th Avenue in Queens (Inset: Jimmy Van Bramer)

The Landmarks Preservation Commission rejected a plan late last week to relocate the so-called Aluminaire House — the first all-metal house in America – and build an adjacent eight-unit terra cotta building in Queens’ Sunnyside Gardens Historic District.

Residents of the have fiercely opposed the proposal, which would have put the 1,200-square-foot aluminum structure on a former playground site at 50th Street and 39th Avenue in Sunnyside, as previously reported.

“The decision was a complete rejection of the Aluminaire House,” City Council member Jimmy Van Bramer told the Sunnyside Post. “It was very clear that it was not a good fit … to plop down that house in this neighborhood.”

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The Aluminaire House was once part of an exhibit at the long-shuttered Grand Central Palace hall near Grand Central Terminal. It was intended to show the advantages of building a home with industrial materials.

The commission also did not endorse the other eight units of housing that Michael Schwarting of Campani and Schwarting Architects had been tapped to design alongside the Aluminaire House. [Sunnyside Post]Mark Maurer