Levittown is often incorrectly credited as the first mass-produced housing community in the nation. Over 20 years earlier, in 1922, builder William M. Greve launched a community of affordable and attractive homes on a salt marsh in Brooklyn -- Gerritsen Beach.
By September 1924, the roughly 600 houses, stick-built boxes in sets of 12 on miniature city blocks, were ready for sale. Greve sought to create homes, “on the same principle that Henry Ford had developed his automobile—on the basis of strictest economy through standardization of plans," CityLab reports. The project had a cement plant on-site to produce concrete foundation blocks, while loads of lumber, roofing, and windows were continuously delivered to each building site.
Isolated on the edge of the metropolis, linked by a single bus line, Gerritsen Beach developed a social fabric as tightly knit as its streets. It had its own Chamber of Commerce, Civic Association, and Citizens Protective Committee, a Lily of the Valley Garden Club—even its own elected “unofficials,” including a mayor and commissioners of parks and public welfare.
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