Jackson Heights invented the garden co-op, and the pre-war buildings between 34th Avenue and 37th Avenue, from 70th Street to 90th Street, are still the heart of the neighborhood. They are beautiful and they are old: plaster walls, original bathroom tile, cast-iron tubs, narrow kitchens and boards that take their buildings seriously. We renovate inside those rules, keeping what deserves to be kept and rebuilding the rest, and we are fifteen minutes away.

The housing

The historic-district garden co-ops are four-to-six-story brick buildings arranged around shared interior gardens, with large rooms, formal dining rooms, small original bathrooms and kitchens that boards usually allow to be re-planned within the wet area. Along Roosevelt Avenue and Northern Boulevard there are post-war apartment buildings and mixed-use blocks, and east toward Elmhurst and north toward Astoria you find attached brick houses and two-families with basements. Ownership is a mix of long-time residents and newer buyers restoring original details.

What we are asked to do here

  • Bathroom Remodeling: Original 1920s bathrooms in the garden co-ops, gutted and rebuilt with new waterproofing and tile chosen to suit the building's era.
  • Kitchen Remodeling: Narrow pre-war kitchens re-planned for storage and light, with new circuits added to satisfy both the board and the code.
  • Drywall and Painting: Plaster repair and full skim coats through apartments with decades of layered paint and settlement cracks, then clean paint.

Permits and building rules

The garden co-ops have well-established alteration procedures: an application to the board with our license, insurance certificate, scope and schedule, often an engineer's letter for wet-area changes, and strict work hours. Interior work does not involve the Landmarks Preservation Commission even in the historic district; only exterior changes do. DOB permits are filed by the licensed plumber or electrician when their trades are involved, and we coordinate the inspections around the building's access rules.