[3] The complex was designated a New York City Landmark in 1975[2] and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

"[3] Sometime in 2022, the development was converted into RAD PACT Section 8 Management in a Public-private partnership between NYCHA and with the following private companies; Settlement Housing Fund Inc, West Harlem Group Assistance, L+M Builders Group, and C&C Apartment Management LLC.

The project was built by the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration at the cost of $4.5 million, a site owned by the Rockefeller family, which demanded twice the amount which Federal land acquisition guidelines would normally allow to be paid.

[3] Eventually, community protests pushed the project ahead, and the property was taken by eminent domain[3] at the price of $1 million.

[2] Historians believe that Ginsbern, who had previously worked on the design of garden apartments along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, was responsible for the project's overall layout.

[10] The primary sculptor involved in the design of the Harlem River Houses was Heinz Warneke, assisted by T. Barbarossa, F.

"[10]Another contemporary critic said of the complex: "The whole, in detailing, looks tired – as if the creative drive and the creator's pleasure, which had sailed so triumphantly through the period of general planning and design, had suddenly failed when it came to the last, completing touches.

"[14]Artist Richmond Barthé's had a public commission from the New York City's Federal Art Project for an 80-foot bas-relief in cast stone, (1939), created for the embellishment of the Harlem River Houses complex,[15] but upon completion, his work was installed at the Kingsborough Houses in Brooklyn.