Phipps Garden Apartments was built by Phipps Houses, a philanthropic organization of the Phipps family to build model tenements for working-class families. It is located on 39th Avenue between 50th and 52nd Streets in Woodside, Queens, adjacent to Sunnyside Gardens Park and the Sunnyside Yard. Designed by Clarence Stein, the architect with Henry Wright of Sunnyside Gardens, it was completed in 1931. The stylish brick buildings feature intricate brick work and curved steel fire escapes. The buildings enclose a landscaped courtyard by landscape architect Marjorie Sewell Cautley. A second group of buildings was built between the first units and the railroad tracks in the late 1930s. Originally, there was a children's playground across the street, also designed by Cautley, but Phipps closed it