Housing the City: Public and Private Initiatives in Harlem, Mid-19th Century to the Present Master ClassIn-Person
Friday, May 15, 2026
9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m
Our partner, Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art & Storytelling, is hosting this event.
New York’s housing crisis is widely known, particularly as it impacts low- and middle-income residents; what is lesser known is the role that New Yorkers have played in the development of decent housing across a broad economic spectrum for over one hundred and fifty years. Beginning with the regulation of tenement design and construction shortly after the Civil War and continuing through current government-subsidized, privately developed affordable housing, New Yorkers have innovated ways of maintaining the city’s economic diversity. As part of this master class, we will start with an illustrated lecture, followed by a walking tour of key houses and properties in the area.
N.Y. HISTORY, SOCIAL STUDIES, GOVERNMENT
Thomas Mellins
Thomas Mellins is an educator, author, and exhibition curator with an expertise on the architecture and culture of New York City. He has taught at Columbia University, the City University of New York, the New School, and the University of Texas at Austin’s UTNY program; in 1999, he was designated a Centennial Historian of New York City. Mellins is the co-author, with Robert A.M. Stern and others, of three award-winning volumes in a book series on the architecture and urbanism of New York City: New York 1880, New York 1930, and New York 1960. His curation of the New York Public Library’s exhibition, Celebrating 100 Years, became the most heavily attended show in the library’s history. He has also curated numerous exhibitions for the Museum of the City of New York, including The American Style: Colonial Revival and the Modern Metropolis and Campaigning for President: New York and the Presidential Election.