Edison Courts, is a Miami-Dade

Miami-Dade County, Florida

Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the state of Florida. As of 2010 U.S. Census, the county had a population of 2,496,435, making it the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States...

 345-unit public housing

Public housing

Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the...

 apartment complex just west of the Little Haiti (Lemon City)

Little Haiti

Little Haiti or La Petite Haïti, and traditionally known as Lemon City, is a neighborhood in Miami, Florida, United States known as a traditional center for Haitian immigrants, and Francophone culture in the city.-Lemon City, early farming days:...

 neighborhood of Miami, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

. Edison Courts is bound at the south by Nort 62nd Street/Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, at North 67th Street to the north, West Second Avenue to the east, and West Fourth Avenue to the west.

During the Great Depression, the works progress Administration (WPA) hired many local architects, contractors and workers to construct public works projects in Miami. The 345-unit low rent housing project Edison Courts, completed in 1941 and designed by the firm of Paist and Stewart with associate architects Robert Law Weed, Vladimir Virrick and E.L. Robertson, provided public housing for white people. It was similar in scale and design to Liberty Square project, opened in 1937 and designed by the same firm. Both projects were integrated in the 1960s. Edison Courts has maintained most of its historic ambience and is a wonderful example of WPA craftsmanship and design.

Edison Courts is notable as the first low rent housing project to have free hot water provided by solar water heaters. Each dwelling unit was to have on its roof a shallow glass-covered box with copper pipes running through it. The sun's rays would heat the water in the pipes to 180 degrees F, after which it would be stored in an insulated tank for bathing and clothes washing.