Principal Court 01 of 09
Washington Court
Eighty-six row houses arranged in eight rows frame three shared garden courts within one full Sunnyside Gardens block.
Plan and composition
How the Court Is Organized
Washington Court follows the perimeter-block pattern used at Hamilton, Lincoln and Roosevelt Courts. Its rows meet the street like traditional row houses, while changes in row length, setback, roof form and height keep the streetwall varied.
Through-block paths divide the long street-facing rows after groups of roughly six to thirteen houses. Several end houses turn toward these paths, making the pedestrian passages part of the architecture rather than leftover space.
Landscape and circulation
Gardens, Paths and Shared Space
Three interior garden courts were formed by three paired sets of rows. Four through-block paths connect the surrounding streets to the central gardens and to the path behind the avenue-facing houses.
The LPC report records that portions of the common gardens and paths had been incorporated into private yards by the time of designation. Even with those changes, the original relationship among houses, paths and shared green space remains legible.
What makes it distinctive. Washington Court balances a conventional street edge with a private shared landscape. From the sidewalk it reads as a sequence of brick rows; inside, the paths reveal the garden-court plan that organized daily life behind them.