The classic white picket fences, trimmed lawns, and small colonial-style houses contrast with the brick rowhouses and Gothic Revival mansions of the East End section of Newburgh. Architect and planner Henry Wright designed this community in 1917 during his tenure at the U.S. Shipping Board during WWI to house workers employed by the Newburgh Shipyards. Wright and his colleagues were among a group of architects at the time who sought to adapt the latest British planning techniques to American conditions (Colonial Terraces Web site). This movement, called the Garden City movement, originated in Britain as a reaction to urban congestion. Thus, the Garden City movement advocated separating industrial and residential land use and sought to provide people with the best of rural and urban life.

colonial terraces survey plan from 1922

     Colonial Terraces has "two intersecting 'main streets,' one terminating at small parks which lend the area a feeling of a town green at the corner of Third and Fullerton Street, remarked a professor of planning from NYU, "the way houses are placed against each other, the land shaped and planted around them, and the materials used, all show a sensitivity of design which has to be seen to be appreciated" (Poche). Suprisingly, Colonial Terraces seems to be one of Wright's "forgotten" works; very little is written about the neighborhood. In fact, we wouldn't have anything to see in this part of Newburgh if it wasn't for former State Senator Thomas C. Desmond, who purchased the property in 1920 to prevent it from deteriorating.

the homes of colonial terraces

     Sir Ebenezer Howard, the founder of the Garden City movement, describes his vision of the garden city in an 1848 article in Edinburgh Magazine:

"Air and space, wood and water, schools and churches, shrubberies and gardens, around pretty self contained cottages in a group neither too large to deprive it of country character, nor too small to diminish the probabilities of social intercourse." He continues, in his book Garden Cities of To-morrow: "... by so laying out a Garden City that, as it grows, the free gifts of Nature—fresh air, sunlight, breathing room and playing room—shall be still retained in all needed abundance."   

     In 1978, neighborhood residents formed the Colonial Terraces Association to "promote, through a spirit of cooperation in the neighborhood, the general welfare and safety of its neighbors." In December 2000, the city zoned the neighborhood as an architectural design district, which ensures that future development maintains the historic character of the original neighborhood.