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How long did it take to build a house in Levittown?
The community grew fast. In fact, a house was built every 16 minutes in Levittown.
How many houses did Levitt crews build in one day?
By July 1948, Levitt’s specialized crews were building 36 homes a day, 18 in the morning, and 18 in the afternoon. Nothing could be left ot chance, since even a delayed shipment of nails would ruin the tight timetable.
How was Levitt able to build so many homes so quickly?
Levitt revolutionized the process of home building with remarkable planning and brilliant control procedures. These techniques made it possible to provide inexpensive, attractive single-unit housing for ordinary citizens, people who had never thought of themselves as middle class before.
How much did it cost to build a Levitt house?
About 10 miles east of New York, on a potato field in Long Island, Levitt began building rows of relatively inexpensive two-bedroom houses at breakneck speed. 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.
How was Levittown built so quickly?
Production was modeled on assembly lines in 27 steps with construction workers trained to perform one step. A house could be built in one day when effectively scheduled. This enabled quick and economical production of similar or identical homes with rapid recovery of costs.
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.
How many houses did Levitt build on Long Island?
The building company Levitt and Sons, led by William Levitt, bought land on Long Island and constructed more than 17,000 homes in 1947. The houses, despite coming in three Cape Cod models with five variations, looked almost exactly the same.
How did Levitt keep housing costs low?
They even made their own nails. The Levitts’ methods kept costs so low that in the first few years, their cookie-cutter two-bedroom houses-which featured fireplaces, radiant-heated floors, up-to-date kitchen equipment, laundry rooms and televisions-could be sold for just $7,900.
How many levittowns are there in the US?
Levittown was a post-war housing project consisting of mass-produced homes. The development consisted of more than 17,000 detached homes that were built to house thousands of veterans who returned after World War II….The Levittowns of the United States.
| Rank | Levittown Project |
|---|---|
| 10 | Essonne, France |
How many homes did Joseph Levitt build in 1947?
On July 1, 1947, Levitt, then 40, broke ground on the first of what would be 17,000 homes. He could build fast because he had broken down the construction process into 27 operations, then mustered specialized teams to repeat each operation at each building site.
What did William Levitt do for a living?
In 1929, William’s father Abraham founded a real-estate development company called Levitt & Sons. Levitt & Sons built mostly upscale housing on and around Long Island, New York, in the 1930s. William Levitt served as company president, overseeing all aspects of the company except for the designs of the homes they built,…
How did Levitt break down the construction process?
But the Levitts had a plan. They broke down the construction process into 27 separate tasks and assigned each task to a group of workers who would go from house to house repeating their specific task at each building site. Trucks would deliver parts and materials to homesites placed at 60-foot intervals.
How did Bill Levitt change American housing?
It was Bill Levitt who first brought Ford’s techniques of mass production to housing, up to then the most neglected of American industries. Until he arrived on the scene, builders were small-time operators, employing multiple subcontractors. The typical prewar builder put up fewer than five houses a year.