In the early 1960s, Joseph Eichler enlisted the help of architect Claude Oakland to design affordable housing in the Visitacion Valley. They came up with the Geneva Terrace Townhouse complex that you can see behind the park and the Geneva Towers high rise apartment building. The Townhouse complex covers 8 neighboring streets and isn’t what I think of Eichler architecture at all. They are all identical in design, they are all 2 story and 4 bedroom homes. What I absolutely loved was the repetition of the beautiful arched windows and the red-brick facade. There are bars on most everyone’s doors and windows, but all the work is very ornamental, for that reason it has a real, French Quarter, New Orleans feel.
The park in front was recently renovated, to the tune of 2.2 million dollars and is called Kelloch Velasco Park. It was filled with children and looked like a loved park.
The Geneva Towers, an 18-story twin-tower high rise apartment complex was located near the intersection of Garrison Avenue & Schwerin Street. The towers had 573 apartments with varying floor plans. The original goal of this project was to provide affordable rentals to working class professionals however the Towers eventually became subsidized housing for low-income residents.
In 1995, HUD closed the Geneva Towers which had become a hotbed for crime and was becoming prohibitively expensive to maintain and on May 16, 1998, the Geneva Towers were imploded.
According to the real estate agent in the area Townhomes in the Geneva Terrace development currently sell in the $400k-$550k price range (excruciatingly cheap for 4 bedrooms in the city). I will admit however, there was a Rolls Royce parked in front of one of them, hmmmm.
Dang blogging, making us learn stuff! 😉
Amazing how things turn around in a community. Interesting post! 🙂
It does look like New Orleans — very attractive housing development. I see why you stopped. Those high rise developments seem to have been troublesome everywhere.
I grew up right across the street from the park at 120 Kelloch Ave. At that time, the park was a vacant lot, and I spent as much time as possible playing there. It was a great neighborhood for a kid, a dog and a bike. I’m glad to see the units are still in good shape, and the park is a better bet than the lot (but I sure enjoyed my adventures!).