60 First Avenue | Block : 431 | Lot #1

Description & Building Alterations

The Village View Houses were constructed in 1960. The project was originally intended to serve as low-income housing and was to be called the Franklin D. Roosevelt Houses. However, prior to the completion of the project, it was renamed and converted into middle-income cooperatives sponsored by a group of five colleges: NYU, Bank Street College of Education, Cooper Union, Mills College of Education, and the New School for Social Research.

This building was the home of two unrelated disability rights leaders—Frieda Zames (1932-2005) and Curtis Brewer (1926-1991). Zames was a professor of mathematics, and a well-known activist leader with groups including Disabled In Action. She co-wrote an historical survey of disability activism, The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation.  Her prominence was such that in 2009 the City Council named the intersection of East 4th Street and First Avenue “Frieda Zames Way.”  Curtis Brewer was a pioneering activist, a quadriplegic, and an attorney, who was responsible, among other things, for making Carnegie Hall wheelchair accessible, in or about 1975.