The Terrace Village public housing was one of the earliest public housing projects in the city, initiated under the "New Deal" to combat the Great Depression and provide affordable housing for working families.
On Oct. 9, 1940, President Roosevelt dedicated Terrace Village, described at the time as the nation’s second-largest public housing project. In front of a crowd of nearly 30,000.. The President praised “intelligent and sympathetic cooperation between the Federal Government and the local agencies …” He then handed a key to what was described as the nation’s 100,000th low-rent housing unit to Lester and Pearl Churchfield, the wife of a 26-year-old mill worker whose family of 5 had previously been crowded into a dilapidated single-room apartment.
Addison Terrace and its companion projects Terrace Village I & II and Alequippa Terrace, were designed as complete communities, featuring swimming pools, athletic grounds, and community centers. In later decades, Addison Terrace and other public housing developments struggled to maintain that vision, for a variety of complex reasons.
