People - Columbia Connection
Topic: General
The main architects and planners for Radburn were Clarence Stein (1882-1975)and Henry Wright (1878 - 1936). Stein was educated at the Ethical Culture Workmans School in NYC, founded by Felix Adler. Ethical Culture is a non-dogmatic, non-religious belief system. Adler was involved in tenement housing for NY State, and also on the advisory board of the City Housing Corporation which created Radburn and other developments like Sunnyside Gardens in Queens. A thread that runs through Stein's life is Columbia University, possibly because it was a major university in New York City?
Here's all the Columbia connections:
Clarence Stein enrolled at Columbia for 1903 - 04.
Aline MacMahon Stein (wife) was a Barnard College graduate.
Alexander Bing, head of the City Housing Corporation, was a Columbia graduate, as was Lewis Mumford and Robert Kohn, part of the Regional Planning Association of America.
Raymond Unwin, who was the architect of the first garden cities in England (Letchworth and Welwyn) taught at Columbia in 1936.

General Introduction to Radburn
Topic: General
Radburn is a portion of Fair Lawn New Jersey, about 16 miles form New York City. It was planned as a "Garden City" in 1927 by the City Housing Corporation, which was responsible for Sunnyside Gardens in Queens. The primary architects for the Radburn project were Clarence Stein and Henry Wright. Stein had seen some of the garden cities in England and wanted to design a city for the motor age. The City Housing Corporation included Felix Adler (founder of Ethical Culture movement) and Eleanor Roosevelt on the board. Major elements to Radburn's design were (1) superblocks (2) separation of road functions (3) central greens.