El Falansterio - Puerta de Tierra, San Juan PR

City:: San Juan, PUERTO-RICO
Site Type:: Public Housing, Civic Facilities
New Deal Agencies:: Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA), Territories & Reservations
Started:: 1936
Completed:: 1937
Quality of Information:: Very Good
Site Survival:: Extant

Description

The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) built El Falansterio, a new public housing development located in Puerta de Tierra, San Juan, between 1936-1937.

PuertaDeTierra.info:

In Puerta de Tierra a neighborhood house would be built between Matías Ledesma streets, San Juan Bautista, Fernández Juncos avenue and the train track (today the exclusive lane of the Authority Metropolitan Buses); cataloged as Tenement Group Project A, today known as El Falansterio. The inauguration of El Falansterio took place on November 7, 1937 at a cost of [$580,000?] in 110,708 square meters and 216 apartments. The foundation work cost about $130,000, as there was a need to drive about 1,500 concrete piles on the site due to the nature of the land, which lies in a site previously made up of mangroves. The purpose of its construction was to move families from the suburbs of the Miranda sector in Puerta de Tierra and La Perla in San Juan.

Buildings in the complex have distinctive Deco details, and the development is still lived in today.

Source notes

Burrows, Geoff G., "The New Deal in Puerto Rico: Public Works, Public Health, and the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration, 1935-1955," 2014 dissertation. CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/315, pp. 144-145

Puerta de Tiera: (https://www.puertadetierra.info/edificios/falansterio/falansterio.htm), accessed October 20, 2017.

Site originally submitted by Brent McKee on October 22, 2017.