Along with a thousand or so yentas from the Lower East Side I attended last night's Community Board 3 riot -- ahem, meeting -- discussing the EDC's plan to build low income housing on a huge block of land on Delancey Street near the entrance of the Williamsburg bridge. Going in I knew this was going to get nasty. The crowd was pretty sharply divided between beret-and-dreds-wearing-old-school LES activists looking for social justice and 70 year-old rabbis (and the women who love them) looking to protect their property values. Mayhem ensued...
The arguments were pretty much what you'd expect. The advocates talked about affordable housing for New Yorkers, racial justice, etc. One fellow called all the white people in the audience racists and was booed off the stage. The Jews, meanwhile, argued that the area was becoming revitalized despite the presence of a huge amount of public housing and that this project was a huge step backwards. Meanwhile, the board members tried to maintain control as the crowd shouted down any opinions it didn't like.
I'm firmly on the free market side. New York's housing policies simply make no sense. While the private sector revitalizes neighborhood after neighborhood through investment in market rate housing, the city and state governments continue pouring money into the socialist fantasy of public housing. Just look at Harlem: Central Harlem is undergoing a radical transformation into a middle-class mixed ethnic neighborhood because the housing stock allows it. Meanwhile, the Eastern portion of Harlem buttressed by housing projects on First avenue remains a backward, segregated, and undesirable area -- and will forever.
The LES is in the same situation. The Grand Street corridor, and the entire area from Pitt to the Bowery are being revitalized by mostly private money while the dense projects east of Pitt remain a high-crime segregated poor ghetto.
The economics of the situation are just shocking. While the rest of the country (and the world) realizes the negative effects of price controls, New York continues to rely on government to solve supply problems. During the community board meeting it was particularly noticeable that no one on either side debated the idea that the public should be developing this land. Instead, the debate was solely on which protected group should get the spoils of the decision. Imagine if all of Manhattan had been developed this way; the very diversity in the city everyone claims to love would never have developed.
This is essentially a political problem. Just today the Times reported again on the slow, natural deregulation of housing in the city but hidden in the article is the astounding statement that "Michael R. Bloomberg announced a $3 billion plan last year to repair, preserve and build 65,000 units of housing for poor and moderate-income residents, reversing City Hall's decade-long retreat from public investment in housing." Don't we have a deficit in this city? Aren't we living on the most valuable real estate on the planet? Isn't it a little unrealistic to expect poor people to be able to afford Manhattan apartments while hard-working educated professionals are forced into the outer boroughs?
Our former mayor, for all his faults, had been moving in the right direction on this issue. Googling the property in question I found this press release from last year describing Giuliani's plans to open the same sites to private development. I guess Bloomberg's better at politics than economics.
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Only "educated professionals" deserve to live in Manhattan? Wow... that's a pretty classist insinuation.
I also wonder how the rich, rich, rich landlords of Manhattan real estate contribute in any positive way to reduce the debt of the city. Do you see any connection there? Most of the landlords in the city live out on the Island anyway.
Not everyone on Grand Street is Jewish we also have one Mexican, 2 Irish and a Swede .
I was also at the meeting and there were many different types of people representing Seward Park Co-op, not just Jews. The biggest differences I noticed between the two sides was that the people from Seward live in the neighborhood, while the LES "Activists" don't. People who were booed off the stage were either people who went way over their alloted time to speak or the guy in dreads who started talking about how the "Rich Jews" were trying to keep him down.
For those of you who know nothing about Seward Park Co-op the vast majority of the inhabitants are low and middle income. Don't let these "activists" turn it into a battle between rich and poor. It's not.
This is not about property values, this is about people who care about the place where they live. A place that already has way more then it's fair share of low income housing, a place that is finally turning into a neighborhood where you don't have to be scared to raise your kids.
For the record:
-No one "deserves" to live in Manhattan. That's my whole point; it's expensive to live here and the government shouldn't be picking favorites.
-What do owners give to the city? How about the 18% real estate tax increase while regulated rents went up 2%.
-No, not everyone from Seward is Jewish. I was trying to paint a picture. I am yet to meet the Swede though.
Just for the record, regulated rents went up 4.5% for a one-year lease and 7.5% for a two-year lease.
Ya, Iff'n ja want to meet ME, Yergan, I will be at the corner of Grand and Columbia at 4pm Saturday. I'm the blonde with the Yammie as
a disquise. Yumpin Yuhimminie!
Maybe the previous mayor actually wasn't interested all that much in solving the homeless problem in New York City, and this one is. There's a long and actually pretty decent record in this city of government-supported housing in New York. There's also a history of other not-for-profit development, which is how the Grand Street Houses got there in the first place. This history is instructive, because it is one of the reasons New York -- and Manhattan -- has remained relatively diverse compared to most other large cities in the nation.
indeed, the government-supported, public housing record in new york city IS pretty instructive, but for the exact opposite reason of the one you state: it has served to isolate and "ghetto-ize" low income people, and not at all diversify the island of manhattan. in neighborhoods where there once stood blocks and blocks of tenements that could cater to families of all income levels, there now stand highrise projects. projects prohibit neighborhood change and diversification. have you read "the power broker"?
I cannot believe what is going on with the Lower East Side. I have been living here all of my life in a housing project located out here. Do you think it is fair to judge us by saying its unrealistic for poor people to live out here while hard working proffesionals have to settle for the outskirts? What makes you think my people that live in the housing projects out here aren't proffesional? Just because we are poor doesn't mean we do not have access to proffesions that are offered to us in this society. We have been here for years. Our diversity in cultures run threw here. My people are poor. We can't afford these high rents they are raising out here. So does that mean we should just move? NO, we are here to stay. This is our home. How dare you say that crime is high in our home? Yes, there are some knucklehead teenagers out here that don't know how to deal with their anger,but what do you say about the suberbian kids who get into the same kind of trouble, sometimes even worse? It's not fair to judge my people. We have lived here all of our lives and we will continue to be here. If folks can't find a home because "WE POOR PROJECT FOLKS" are in the way, then by all means, stay where you are. I love my neighborhood, and I wish we had people to stand up for our rights. People like you are changing our neighborhood without acknowledging our presence. Instead you just wish that we would just dissapear and get out of the Lower and move to some crummy areas in the Bronx or Brooklyn. OH wait, no you guys are taking over those neighborhoods too with high rents. Its not fair, and if you cannot deal with us living here, GET THE HELL OUT AND STAY OUT! THIS IS OUR NEIGHBORHOOD!!! We diversified the Lower East Side, WE made the name that it has. We are the ones that have been living here for years. YEARS!!! STAY OUT AND LEAVE US POOR FOLKS ALONE!!!!!!
I cannot believe what is going on with the Lower East Side. I have been living here all of my life in a housing project located out here. Do you think it is fair to judge us by saying its unrealistic for poor people to live out here while hard working proffesionals have to settle for the outskirts? What makes you think my people that live in the housing projects out here aren't proffesional? Just because we are poor doesn't mean we do not have access to proffesions that are offered to us in this society. We have been here for years. Our diversity in cultures run threw here. My people are poor. We can't afford these high rents they are raising out here. So does that mean we should just move? NO, we are here to stay. This is our home. How dare you say that crime is high in our home? Yes, there are some knucklehead teenagers out here that don't know how to deal with their anger,but what do you say about the suberbian kids who get into the same kind of trouble, sometimes even worse? It's not fair to judge my people. We have lived here all of our lives and we will continue to be here. If folks can't find a home because "WE POOR PROJECT FOLKS" are in the way, then by all means, stay where you are. I love my neighborhood, and I wish we had people to stand up for our rights. People like you are changing our neighborhood without acknowledging our presence. Instead you just with that we would just dissapear and get out of the Lower and move to some crummy areas in the Bronx or Brooklyn. OH wait, no you guys are taking over those neighborhoods too with high rents. Its not fair, and if you cannot deal with us living here, GET THE HELL OUT AND STAY OUT! THIS IS OUR NEIGHBORHOOD!!!
I cannot believe what is going on with the Lower East Side. I have been living here all of my life in a housing project located out here. Do you think it is fair to judge us by saying its unrealistic for poor people to live out here while hard working proffesionals have to settle for the outskirts? What makes you think my people that live in the housing projects out here aren't proffesional? Just because we are poor doesn't mean we do not have access to proffesions that are offered to us in this society. We have been here for years. Our diversity in cultures run threw here. My people are poor. We can't afford these high rents they are raising out here. So does that mean we should just move? NO, we are here to stay. This is our home. How dare you say that crime is high in our home? Yes, there are some knucklehead teenagers out here that don't know how to deal with their anger,but what do you say about the suberbian kids who get into the same kind of trouble, sometimes even worse? It's not fair to judge my people. We have lived here all of our lives and we will continue to be here. If folks can't find a home because "WE POOR PROJECT FOLKS" are in the way, then by all means, stay where you are. I love my neighborhood, and I wish we had people to stand up for our rights. People like you are changing our neighborhood without acknowledging our presence. Instead you just with that we would just dissapear and get out of the Lower and move to some crummy areas in the Bronx or Brooklyn. OH wait, no you guys are taking over those neighborhoods too with high rents. Its not fair, and if you cannot deal with us living here, GET THE HELL OUT AND STAY OUT! THIS IS OUR NEIGHBORHOOD!!!
What is the rent of the apartments in the lower east side, FDR Drive?
this is not a communist country
this is not a communist country
Mark my word… I will find a way to tear down those post war housing projects for the sake of the character of this great country. People should have an incentive go out and be the best that they can be. If one can live in one of the most desirable places on earth practically for free, at the expense of others, then what is there to motivate that person to go out and make something of themselves? We are a hard working people because we have to be, were not communistic. We rely on God for substance not the government. Let’s continue to be a hard working, God-reliant people. I WILL FIND A WAY TO DEMOLISH THOSE PROJECTS..
We are writing to let you know about our new organization called "THE U.S.FLAG IS FOR THE BENEFIT OF HUMANITY"
We are working on project called"ALLEN STREET PROJECT" to revive the economy of the lower east side.
ALLEN STREET PROJECT's
* Open-air library
* Open-air museum
* Garden
* Playground for prayer for women who have died
of breast cancer, and also to support all women
with breast cancer.
we need your help, thank you, very much and we hope we hear from you soon, God bless all of you
sincerly,bill kurzyna
