Are there any original Levittown houses left?

Are there any original Levittown houses left?

Short answer: Probably not. Long answer: The homes have all been altered, expanded or rebuilt since the first house went up 70 years ago, according to the Levittown Historical Society. Levittown began as the first modern suburb in the United States.

Why was Levittown famous from the start?

Levittown was the first truly mass-produced suburb and is widely regarded as the archetype for postwar suburbs throughout the country. William Levitt, who assumed control of Levitt & Sons in 1954, is considered the father of modern suburbia in the United States.

Is Levittown segregated?

William J. Levitt refused to sell Levittown homes to people of color, and the FHA, upon authorizing loans for the construction of Levittowns, included racial covenants in each deed, making each Levittown a segregated community.

Who usually bought a home in a Levittown?

Bill Levitt only sold houses to white buyers, excluding African Americans from buying houses in his communities even after. By 1953, the 70,000 people who lived in Levittown constituted the largest community in the United States with no black residents.

What did a Levittown home look like?

Levittown in Long Island, New York, is widely recognized as the first modern American suburb. It had swimming pools, shopping centers, and backyards. Each home looked the same in Levittown — they were all built in the Cape Cod-style and featured the same floorplan. They each cost around $7,000.

Why were Levittown homes so affordable?

Levittown’s very existence, in fact, owes to a rare act of American socialism: the 1948 Housing Bill, which loosened billions of dollars in credit and gave every American the chance to get one of those five-percent-down, 30-year mortgages in the first place.

What was true about a home in Levittown suburb?

Every house in Levittown was identical. The Levitt family called it “the best house in the US.” At first, all the homes were built in the same style, and some residents even admitted to walking into the wrong house at times because they couldn’t tell them apart.

Why was Levittown so attractive to American families?

Levittown became a symbol of the movement to the suburbs in the years after WWII. In contrast to that of the central cities life in suburbia became attractive to many American families because the suburbs seemed to be dominated by a larger, safer, and more private homes.

Is Levittown still all white?

Today Levittown has changed, but only a little. While the community has more minority residents than ever, it remains overwhelmingly white — 97.37 percent in the 1990 census.

What happened to Levittown?

In 1948, Shelley v. Kraemer struck down these racially restrictive housing covenants, as they violated the 14th Amendment, and the Levittown clause was eliminated. Even with this ruling, the area remained overwhelmingly segregated until 1954 after the Brown v. Board of Education cases.

Why do Levittown houses not have basements?

Without digging a basement, construction time and labor costs were cut, allowing the company to build as many as 40 houses a day, and sell them at a working class price. Skipping the basement was necessary.

How much did a house in Levittown cost?

Available only to World War II veterans and their families–and only white veterans at that–the first Levittown house cost $6,990 with nearly no money down. Levitt built 17,447 houses in the next four years.