Louis Berger & Co. tenement house blueprints collection

Collection — Box: small col. 54, Folder: 1

Identifier: Col-1100

Content Description

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This collection contains four blueprints designed by Louis Berger & Co. for the Tenement House Department of the City of New York. While the exact street address of the tenement house in the blueprints is currently unknown, it likely would have been built in Ridgewood, Queens, as that is where Louis Berger & Co. designed most of their projects.

The blueprints are organized in the number order of the designs. Blueprint No. 1 features the exterior of the tenement house. Blueprint No. 2 features the first-floor plan. Blueprint No. 3 features second and third floor plans. Blueprint No. 4 features the cellar plan and plumbing.

All of the blueprints include very detailed drawings with a scale at the bottom for reference. The back of each blueprint includes a stamp designating that it is intended for the Tenement House Department of the City of New York, the date it was received, the design number, and the sheet number. There is also a stamp signifying Louis Berger & Co. as the designer.

Dates

Creation: October 17, 1905

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research.

Biographical Note

Louis Berger was born in Rheinpfalz, Germany, in 1875. He immigrated to the United States in 1880. For his education, he studied architecture at the Pratt Institute and apprenticed to the architectural firm Carrere and Hastings in New York City. He moved to Ridgewood, Queens, New York, in 1892, which is where he opened his architectural firm, Louis Berger & Co., in 1895.

Louis Berger & Co. was an active architectural firm in Ridgewood, Queens, from 1895 to 1930. It was responsible for the designs of a majority of the row homes and tenement housing in Ridgewood, totaling over 5000 buildings.