Grain Collective's Harborview Terrace Project Turns Public Housing Grounds into a Community Space

For years, a stretch of pavement on the north side of Harborview Terrace, a public housing project owned by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), sat largely untouched. In the eyes of many, the space stood as a missed opportunity in a neighborhood where outdoor space is scarce and residents span generations, from young families to seniors who have called the complex home for decades. Grain Collective, a landscape architecture, urban planning, and community engagement firm, has completed a $3.8 million transformation that delivers more than 33,000 square feet of reimagined outdoor space across the 377-unit residential campus, shaped throughout by resident input. Funded through The Pershing Square Foundation, the project also marks a departure from how open space improvements are typically delivered in New York City public housing: by operating as a public-private partnership outside the city’s standard capital budget and procurement process.

The newly completed work is the second phase of a broader campus overhaul. In 2023, a first renovation added a basketball court, pickleball court, ping-pong tables, seating, planting areas, and murals across 20,000 square feet. This latest phase, guided by Grain Collective’s Connected Communities framework, extends that investment across four sites spanning both sides of West 55th Street. “Every element of this project reflects what residents told us they wanted and needed in their community,” said Runit Chhaya, founding principal of Grain Collective. “From the very first conversations to the ribbon-cutting, Harborview Terrace residents were the designers of their own neighborhood. That is what the Connected Communities framework is built to do.”

The centerpiece of the new phase is an intergenerational plaza on the north side of the campus, featuring water play equipment, planters and seating, a pyramidal climbing structure, and a multi-use lawn with stepped seating and a stage for community programming. Nearby, a renovated fitness area offers accessible equipment for all ages, while a side yard next to the on-site older adult center has been converted into dedicated space for both active and passive recreation for senior residents.

On the campus’s south side, an existing community garden gained additional planters and seating to make it more functional, and new murals by artist Laura Alvarez, funded by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the award-winning restaurant Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi, run throughout the site.