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Our Local Correspondents
The New Yorker, June 26, 2006 P. 54
OUR LOCAL CORRESPONDENTS about Co-op city in the Bronx… Co-op City is the largest cooperative housing project in the America, possibly in the world. Co-op City has 15,372 apartments, which house more than 60,000 people. It sits mostly on marsh land that was filled in in 1966. At one time this land was inhabited by the Siwanoy tribe of Indians. Discusses the history of the Sinawoy, including architectural records of their settlements. Tells about their violent relations with the Dutch settlers in the seventeeth century, including the slaughter of Ann Hutchinson and her family… Following the example of LeCorbusier, the designers of Co-op City combined its utilitarian high rises with many acres of landscaped green space. Land where Co-op city is now was still farmed into the 1950s. In 1960, a developer named William Zeckendorf started an amusement park called Freedomland on the site. It faltered and went bankrupt. The Bronx at that time was home to thousands of immigrant families who were eager to move out of their shabby tenement apartments. Co-op City's basic purpose was to keep middle-class people from moving to the suburbs. A nonprofit organization called the United Housing Federation designed and sponsored the project. The U.H.F. was created in the fifties by the leaders of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America to build affordable housing for union members. Most of the money came from the New York State Housing Finance Agency in the form of a loan under the state's Mitchell-Lama program designed to prevent middle class flight. Compares the complex to Soviet-style apartment buildings in Eastern Europe. The first families moved in on December 10, 1968. Jewish families made up at least three fourths of the original population. Discusses mistakes made during construction. The project was badly mismanaged. Money and materials were stolen and shoddy workmanship was permitted. When people were still moving in, it was announced that the maintenance would go up 82% in five years. The residents, or cooperators, organized a Steering Committee to fight the increases, but were defeated in court. A second and third Steering Committee were created to explore other options, including a rent strike. The strike was organized by Charlie Rosen who came from a communist/anarchist background in Eastern Europe. The strike lasted from June 1975 to July of 1976. A settlement was brokered by Mario Cuomo, then New York secretary of state. The strikers received an amnesty and the state agreed to allow the shareholders to run the co-op. Discusses the rise of the black and Hispanic population in Co-op City and debate among the residents about whether they should privatize the development.
View Article
f the June 26, 2006, issue.
Ian Frazier is a staff writer at The New Yorker. His most recent book is “Cranial Fracking,” a collection of humor pieces.
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