Beverley Loraine Greene
Beverley Loraine Greene was an accomplished architect who worked during the World War II era and afterward. She is believed to be the first licensed Black female architect in the United States.
Her work spanned two decades and began with the Ida B. Wells housing project on the South Side of Chicago. Later on, after a move to New York City, she designed buildings for New York University, Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Arkansas, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Headquarters in Paris.
Beverley Loraine Greene: Early Life and Education
Beverley Loraine Greene was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 4, 1915. She was an only child. Her father James was a mailman from Texas and her mother, Vera, was a homemaker.
In 1932 Beverley enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and studied architecture. In 1936 she graduated with her Bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering. She was the first Black female to graduate from the school’s program.
Beverley chose to continue her education at the University of Illinois right after graduating. She enrolled in a master’s program in City Planning and Housing and graduated the following year.
Within a few years, she began working with the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA). One of her first designs was for the CHA’s Ida B. Wells housing project on the South Side of Chicago.
The proposed residential project aimed to address the housing shortage for the South Side’s Black families. Beverley worked alongside other Black drafters and designers in the CHA to open Ida B. Wells Homes in 1941.
Beverley was officially licensed as an architect by the state of Illinois on December 28, 1942. She was 26 years old.
Beverley Loraine Greene: New York and Beyond
In 1944 Beverley applied for an architect position with Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in New York City. The company was planning to build a large housing complex in Lower Manhattan, and Beverley’s previous experience with housing projects made her a good candidate for the job.
At some point after applying for the architect position with MetLife, Beverley learned that the housing project, called Stuyvesant Town, would not be accepting Black residents, and she was sure that this would bar her from the job. It did not, much to her surprise, she was the first architect hired for the Stuyvesant Town project.
As it turned out, Beverley worked for MetLife for only a few days. The story goes that Beverley headed over to Columbia University shortly after arriving in New York, looking for information on graduate degree night classes.
Beverley not only qualified for the degree program, but the department offered her a scholarship as well. Now enrolled as a full-time student, Beverley completed her Master’s degree in engineering the following year.
After graduating from Columbia, Beverley chose to stay in New York and worked for several various architecture firms over the next few years. She also served as a member of the Council for the Advancement of the Negro in Architecture (CANA).
While working for the architect Edward Durrel Stone, Beverley helped design the theater for the University of Arkansas’ Fine Arts Center as well as a portion of the Arts Complex for Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.
Arguably her most productive years were spent working under famed Hungarian architect Marcel Breuer. It was under Breuer that she completed several of her more famous projects, including work on the NYU University Heights campus in the Bronx and the Secretariat and Conference Hall for the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
Beverley Lorraine Greene: Work for the Black Community
During her tenure with Breuer, Beverley completed several of her own projects within the Black community in New York. Dr. C. B. Powell, the owner of the New York Amsterdam News, commissioned Beverley to renovate a building in Central Harlem in the early 1950s.
In 1953, she transformed the two-story building into the Unity Funeral Home, which became an important Harlem landmark, even hosting a two-day wake for Malcolm X after his assassination in 1965.
In 1955, Beverley worked to redesign the church sanctuary for the Christian Reformation Church, also located in Harlem.
Tragically, Beverley died only a few years later on August 26, 1957, at the age of 41. Her cause of death remains unclear, but some speculate that it may have been a pulmonary embolism. Her memorial service was held at Unity Funeral Home, the Harlem funeral home that she had helped to build.
Beverley Loraine Greene: Legacy
Throughout her short life, Beverley was an advocate for the community as well as for her sex. Beverley was consistently active in organizations such as CANA, advocating for the Black community, and other grassroots organizations grooming women and girls for leadership.
She encouraged women to study architecture, saying in an interview, “I wish young women would think about this field.”
Interestingly, Beverley didn’t consider herself a victim of discrimination or unfair policies against Blacks, although she did feel that being a woman had made advances in the architecture field more difficult.
She remained optimistic about the future opportunities that postwar America might bring for both Blacks and women, saying in a 1945 interview that “Negro women in the postwar world will have a fertile field in architecture. I wish some others would try it.”
Beverley’s involvement with the Ida B. Wells Homes housing project also offers an interesting look into why the fight for diversity and inclusion has historically been necessary and remains an essential issue today.
Even though South Side Chicago desperately needed more low-income housing for Black families, the initial designs for the project were rejected by the federal government. It wasn’t until several Black civic organizations lobbied the city government for several years that the CHA finally designated the land for the housing project.
This is a potent reminder of why it is important to have Blacks in positions of authority to help voice the needs and concerns of the Black community.