It is both a national and a New York City historic district, and consists of row houses and associated buildings designed by three architectural firms and built in 1891–93 by developer David H. King Jr.

[2] The townhouses in his new project, which were originally called the "King Model Houses", were intended for upper-middle-class whites,[7] and featured modern amenities, dark woodwork,[3] and views of City College.

King sold very few houses and the development failed, with Equitable Life Assurance Society, which had financed the project, foreclosing on almost all the units in 1895, during an economic depression.

[3] By this time, Harlem was being abandoned by white New Yorkers, yet the company would not sell the King houses to blacks, and so they sat empty until 1919–20, when they were finally made available to African Americans[3] for $8,000 each.

Some of the units were turned into rooming houses, but generally they attracted both leaders of the black community and upwardly-mobile professionals, or "strivers", who gave the district its colloquial name.