J O E L SCHWARTZ'S major reinterpretation

of urban development in New York City ex­

amines Robert Moses's role in shaping the
city and demonstrates for the first time that
Moses's personal and ruthless crusade to re­
develop New York's neighborhoods was actu­
ally sustained by his alliance with liberal city
groups.
After World War II, New York City
forged ahead with urban renewal made possi­
ble by Title I of the Housing Act of 1949.
While Title I was meant to help big cities re­
place slums with middle-class housing, New
York instead used the program to replace
housing for the poor with high-rent apart­
ments, medical centers, and university cam­
puses. When Title I became synonymous with
callous relocation and "Negro removal," New
Yorkers blamed Robert Moses, the legendary
construction czar. While many concluded
that Moses's high-handed ways were behind
much that went wrong with their city, few
could explain how he operated in a town fa­
mous for its feisty neighborhoods, liberal pol­
itics, and pioneer interracialism.
From exhaustive research in previously
unexamined archives, Schwartz demonstrates
the extent to which Moses was abetted by lib­
eral city leaders. He describes how insiders'
deals for choice Title I sites emerged from the
old ambitions of neighborhood civic groups
and public housing advocates, and argues
that urban liberals had long been prepared to
sacrifice working-class neighborhoods for the
city efficient. He explodes the myth of neigh­
borhood resistance to Moses in Greenwich
Village, the Upper West Side, and Morning­
T H E
New York
A P P R O A C H
Urban Life and Urban Landscape Series
Zane L. Miller and Henry D. Shapiro, General Editors

Cincinnati, Queen City of the West: 1819-1838

Daniel Aaron
Fragments of Cities: The New American Downtowns and
Neighborhoods
Larry Bennett
Cincinnati Observed: Architecture and History
John Clubbe
Suburb in the City: Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, 1850-1990
David R. Contosta
Building Chicago: Suburban Developers and the Creation of a
Divided Metropolis
Ann Durkin Keating
Silent City on a Hill: Landscapes of Memory and Boston's
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Blanche Linden-Ward
Plague of Strangers: Social Groups and the Origins of City
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Alan I Marcus
Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago: Workers on the
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Dominic A. Pacyjja
Hopedale: From Commune to Company Town, 1840—1920
Edward K. Spann
Washing "The Great Unwashed": Public Baths in Urban
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Marilyn Thornton Williams
 T H E

A P P R O A C H

Robert Moses, Urban Liberals, and

Redevelopment of the Inner City

Joel Schwartz

Ohio State University Press

Columbus
Copyright © 1993 by the Ohio State University Press.
All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schwartz, Joel.
The New York approach : Robert Moses, urban liberals, and
redevelopment of the inner city / Joel Schwartz.
p. cm. — (Urban life and urban landscape series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8142-0587-9 (cloth : alk. paper). — ISBN 0-8142-0588-7
(paper : alk. paper)
1. Urban renewal—New York (N.Y.)—History—20th century.
2. Moses, Robert, 1888-1981. 3. Inner cities—New York (N.Y.)—
History—20th century. 4. Real estate development—New York
(N.Y.)—History—20th century. I. Title. II. Series.
HT177.N5S39 1992
307.3'416'097471—dc20 92-18509
CIP

Text and jacket design by Bruce Gore, Gore Studio, Inc.

Type set in Galliard by Tseng Information Systems, Durham, NC.
Printed by Braun-Brumfield, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI.

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library
Resources. ®

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is dedicated to the memory of my parents,
Murray Schwartz and Rose Meinhardt Schwartz
Contents

List ofIllustrations ix

List ofMaps xi

List of Tables xiii

Preface xv

1. Traditions 1

2. Redevelopment and Public Housing 25

3. The Redevelopment Front 61

4. Stuyvesant Town 84

5. The Redevelopment Machine 108

6. Centers and Fringes 144

7. Maneuver and Collaboration 170

8. Room for Modern Medicine 204

9. Blue-Collar Blight 229

10. Full Exposure 261

The Power Broker and His Clients 295

List of Abbreviations 307

Notes 311

Index 365

Illustration;

Public improvements cut swaths through the tenements

of the Lower East Side, 1908 14

Creating the IRT subway and a new Greenwich Village,

c. 1914 18

Reclaiming Allen Street on the Lower East Side, 1927 28

Bankers and business socialists start the reclamation

of the Lower East Side, 1930 29

The International Style for Chrystie-Forsyth, 1932 30

Knickerbocker Village on the Lower East Side, 1934 35

Reformers launch the New York City Housing

Authority, 1934 39

Slum clearance at Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 1935 43

Marking Corlears Hook for slum clearance, 1939 44

Stuyvesant Town unveiled by the architects, 1943 95

Holden, McLaughlin & Associates' proposed

redevelopment of East Harlem, 1943 102

The liberal coalition that built Cooperative Village

on the Lower East Side, 1953 136

Corlears Hook redeveloped, c. 1954 178

Opening-day ceremonies of the Morningside Gardens

Title I, June 20, 1957 197

Medicine for the modern city, c. 1949 217

Washington Square Southeast, 1954 265

IX

I LLUSTR AT IONS

The Manhattantown site partly cleared, c. 1955 267

East Harlem slum clearance, 1957

275

Proposed Lincoln Square Title I, 1955

279

The force behind Moses's last Title I victory on the

Lower East Side, 1957 293

Map;

The City Beautiful's "Engineer's Routes," 1899 10

The liberal city's redevelopment potential, 1940 76

Redevelopment of the Lower East Side, 1934-1958 114

Redevelopment of upper Manhattan, 1937-1958 116

Redevelopment of northern Brooklyn, 1937-1958 118

Attempts to modernize Greenwich Village, 1949-1953 140

Plans for postwar Greenwich Village, 1946 148

Morningside Heights, Inc., 1957 154

Downtown Brooklyn: From jungle to civic center 240

The transformation of Lincoln Square 284

XI
New York City Housing Authority members, the
La Guardia years, 1934-1942 40
New York City Housing Authority projects, the
La Guardia years, 1935-1942 59
New York City Housing Authority members, the
Moses years, 1942-1958 113
The Title I Program, 1949-1957: Projects proposed,
realized, and rejected 175
Job clearance along the East River, 1945-1955 238

Xlll
 *refac<

New York differs markedly from most other American

cities in having a liberal intelligentsia that has periodi­
cally aligned itself with popular demands. The city has a
strong union tradition, and it has been virtually unique
in the extent to which residential renters as an interest
group have influenced public policy.
Norman I. Fainstein and Susan S. Fainstein, "The Politics
of Urban Development: New York Since 1945"

Urban redevelopment was the most important public policy under­

taken by New York after World War II. It transformed the city,
physically and morally. With local subsidies, backed by millions in
federal funds from Title I of the Housing Act of 1949, the city
leveled huge sections of Manhattan and Brooklyn to make room
for middle-income housing. By 1959, sixteen Title I projects, built
or near completion, had replaced tenements occupied by 100,000
low-income people, nearly 40 percent of them black and Hispanic.
Bold towers on broad plazas housed the professionals who worked
in the city's skyscrapers, medical centers, and universities. They were
middle-class outposts in the struggle to make districts such as the
Upper West Side white and secure. They bore the hopes of a gen­
eration of liberals, who believed they could save New York. With
Title I, the city that led the nation in racial decency would lead it in
the fine art of "Negro removal."'
For years, New Yorkers refused to face the moral paradox of
liberal policy that left social wounds. Redevelopment's supporters
claimed that New York's special problems, its miles of tenement
slums and daunting property costs, required ruthless measures and
some inconvenience. They said that New York's liberalism, the tradi­
tion of government responsibility for the downtrodden, guaranteed
that redevelopment would not work hardship on the poor. When it

xv
PREFACE

became clear that redevelopment proceeded on the backs of the poor

and produced a city more divided than before by income and race,
the casuistry took more sophisticated turns. Policy experts pinned
redevelopment's adverse effects on forces they said that no one could
have foreseen. They blamed Title I's excesses on Robert Moses, the
man who decreed the projects that destroyed neighborhoods. And
they blamed Title I's inequities on structural forces of global magni­
tude that brought economic change to New York, along with other
"world cities." Those troubled by Negro removal could point to
Moses or to modern society.
I have no illusions about Moses's impact on the city. Growing
up in Queens, near empty fields that filled with Moses's housing
projects, parks, and expressways, I saw Moses transform New York
long before I read Robert A. Caro's The Power Broker (1974). Ac­
cording to Caro, Moses was the brilliant public servant appointed
by Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia to expedite public works during
the depression. By the time La Guardia retired in 1945, Moses con­
trolled enough resources as chief planner, highway builder, and city
construction coordinator to dictate the city's postwar reconstruc­
tion. With a loyal claque of construction firms, building tradesmen,
and Tammany stalwarts, he wielded incredible power.2
When Moses extended his fiat to Title I, the consequences in­
cluded the wanton destruction of neighborhoods, notably at Man­
hattantown on the Upper West Side. Title I of the Housing Act
of 1949 earmarked federal money for local redevelopment authori­
ties that made public decisions in conformity with established city
plans. Congress particularly expected local authorities to condemn
blighted districts and relocate tenants before sites were auctioned to
private sponsors. But, as Caro revealed, Moses did Title I his way.
Behind closed doors, he handed choice locations to redevelopers,
allowed them to occupy sites at their leisure, and encouraged them to
build luxury high-rises without regard for city plans. At Manhattan-
town, Moses allowed redevelopers with Tammany ties to squeeze
rent from the black occupants of condemned tenements. Manhattan-
town showed Moses's consort with the powerful, his contempt for
the helpless, and his racism.
Caro accompanied the story of Moses's tyranny with an account
of liberalism's innocence and redemption. Hearing rumors of tenant
despair on the Manhattantown site, liberals investigated the shock­
ing facts and tried to expose them in the newspapers. But editors
refused to believe that Moses could do wrong. Manhattantown left
liberals wondering how slum clearance had gone awry, and with
xvi
 PREFACE

a distaste for Title I. Some stuck by redevelopment, found decent

Title I projects, and applauded efforts at humane relocation. Most,
however, broke from Moses, claiming that he had betrayed their
trust. Caro depicted liberals as being ignorant of Moses's tyranny,
yet courageous and dogged once light dawned. Nevertheless, they
were anguished bystanders during the most crucial time in the city's
history.
Caro's account left unanswered questions. How could a con­
summate villain have had his measures adopted in the first place
or tolerated for so long by the city that worshiped Fiorello La
Guardia? How could a city celebrated for vibrant neighborhoods
allow their ravaging? Where was the powerful left wing? Where
were the strong unions? And where was the city's intelligentsia? The
Fainsteins pointed to these liberal elements to explain why the city
foreclosed on Moses-style redevelopment in the 1960s. But where
were these feisty people in the 1930s or, for that matter, in 1943,
when Moses fashioned the prototype for bulldozer redevelopment—
middle-income Stuyvesant Town? Supporters of this Metropolitan
Life Insurance Company project included corporate interests, real
estate boosters, and a good many civic reformers, who welcomed the
company's reconstruction of a tenement district along modern lines.
But decisive support also came from the city's left wing, who chose
to ignore the destruction of a blue-collar neighborhood.
The creation of Stuyvesant Town, the first example of Moses-
style redevelopment, rested on broad consensus about the lengths
the city had to go to rebuild itself. This included agreement on the
removal of low-income groups to make room for the valued middle
class; acceptance of confidential arrangements for redevelopment
sites, whether sponsors were Tammany stalwarts or social reformers;
elaborate subsidies for sponsors, including the expectation that they
would profit from the rents of condemned tenements; and spon­
sor responsibility for tenant relocation. The last element linked slum
clearance with the projects of the New York City Housing Authority,
because municipal officials understood that although private spon­
sors were responsible for relocation, they could call upon the city's
public housing to absorb the refugees. Redevelopment gave legal
authority and large public subsidies to private realtors to uproot low-
income people. The policy had profound implications for a city that
instinctively sided with the less fortunate. Proponents expected that
public agencies would somewhere, somehow, right the inequities.
With a faith that decent people would implement decent plans, New
York liberals embraced redevelopment. Because Title I drew upon

xvu
PREFACE

the full resources of the liberal city, it made sense to call the process
that Moses headed the "New York approach."
This book traces the origins of the New York approach back to
the Progressive Era, when municipal reformers first recognized the
need for inner-city renewal and the related question of rehousing the
poor. That recognition pitted municipal priorities against the resi­
dential needs of the working class, a weighing of values that struck
a blow against the tenements of the poor. Chapter 1 follows the
struggle of reformers, from Jacob Riis to Mary K. Simkhovitch, for
low-rent housing that often swept low-income tenants aside in favor
of the reliably employed. This flagrant mistargeting soon became
calculated policy. It explains why thefirstattempts at public housing
on the Lower East Side in the 1920s resembled middle-income re­
developments and were seized upon by local realtors for that reason.
With boosters beating the drums for improvements, it was not dif­
ficult for Robert Moses, by the late 1930s, to shape the La Guardia
administration's confidential understandings with private investors
in order to clear slums.
On the eve of World War II, urban liberals had put redevelop­
ment high on the municipal agenda, but political opinion, turned
rancorous by the left wing, rejected the subsidies that private inves­
tors said they needed to make it work. The war made New York
the world capital, the cynosure of all that was progressive and cos­
mopolitan. The city would need an appropriate backdrop for this
political role, and Moses stood ready to clear tenements. But the war,
which opened vast possibilities for government initiatives in urban
redevelopment, entrenched 1930s ideas about government controls,
people's rights, and racial equality. Private investors, led by bankers
and insurance executives with impeccable ties to such institutions as
the Riverside Church and the Urban League, were unnerved by the
grass-roots power. As much as they sought to welcome the United
Nations to the sidewalks of New York, they would not risk their
money on social ventures. But the war had stiffened the liberal city's
resolve against public subsidy to reconstruction unless projects were
"nondiscriminatory."
The moral dilemma that was peculiarly New York's forced Moses
to search for redevelopment partners of a different sort. He found
them not only among Tammany stalwarts, but also among reform
Democrats, who upheld the New Deal and still spoke about the
homeless "third of a nation." Staunch support came from the pro­
gressive needle unions, whose Jewish socialists yearned to build
decent lives for their brethren and to domesticate Communist
XVlll
 PREFACE

troublemakers. Moses found others among university and hospital

administrators, who guided institutions of reason and healing, hired
people on merit, and pledged to create a city open to all. No one
as yet had reason to label their internal barriers institutional racism.
But everyone recognized that with this choice of Title I sponsorship,
public subsidies meant to enlarge the city's middle-class housing
supply were earmarked for the homes of the well-instituted few.
Moral self-assurance, along with Moses's hunger for power,
molded the quiet deals that completed the New York approach. With
the language of modern city planning, sponsors privately arranged
the transformation of neighborhoods, calculated what they regarded
as acceptable limits on black and working-class removals, and pressed
their schemes on Moses. They believed they could bulldoze and re­
build on progressive terms, only to discover that Moses took their
proposals as points of departure for grandiose programs. In Green­
wich Village, at Manhattantown, and on Morningside Heights,
many swallowed their doubts, closed their eyes to mass removals,
and stood by what Moses said was the greater good. They came
to regard critics as destructive naysayers or, worse, as Communist
agitators who sought to exploit the shortcomings of decent urban
programs. By the early 1950s,Title I had become a litmus test for the
political mainstream, a way for liberals to identify those who cared
about saving the inner city.
The moral complacency was sustained by an elaborate system of
denials about relocation. These involved two sorts of assumptions:
first, that Title I refugees would "self-relocate," that they would
find their own housing; and, second, that many, perhaps a third,
perhaps even half, would find their way into Housing Authority
projects. Both assumptions rested on New York's special qualities:
its "open" housing market, its commitment to public housing, and
its legal and social practice of pursuing interracial harmony. For each
Title I project, Moses concocted Rube Goldberg—like explanations
of where site tenants would go; such explanations remained con­
vincing as long as the city's social engineering was convincing. The
circle of believers included many of Moses's liberal critics, who could
not deny what Moses promised without denying what New York
stood for.
The New York approach also depended on collaboration with
planners whose broad views (and personal gains) coincided with
Moses's agenda. Although his intimidation of the City Planning
Commission was whispered about in professional circles, the ready
compliance of key members, who supported superblocks, bulldozer
xix
PREFACE

clearance, and arterial highways, was often overlooked. As a mat­

ter of course, commissioners failed to disqualify themselves from
voting on projects in which they were vitally interested. Moreover,
they supported the conventional wisdom that the central city no
longer was fit for manufacturing, but was congenial to services and
the knowledge sector. To make room for hospitals and universities,
they shoved aside lofts and warehouses as well as the tenements
that housed their workers. Those sickened by Negro removal had
in reality sealed the fate of Negroes' jobs and, all things considered,
their future in the city.
This observation throws light on the academically fashionable
view that Title I was an instrument of pervasive structural forces
and of "capitalist planning" on a global scale. Conservative, free-
market students of international finance and Marxist critics of capi­
talist regimes were nearly unanimous in agreeing that bourgeoning
world trade, the advent of multinational corporations, and growth
in global credit and monetary flows had led to the postwar restruc­
turing of urban life. With case studies that included ritual mention
of the Rockefellers and world trade centers, Marxists argued that
New York underwent postindustrial transformation when financial
leaders conveyed global capitalism's requirements to their servants
in city government. With the economic forces behind the transfor­
mation understood, the details of the process became insignificant.
It hardly mattered which liberal programs cleared away tenements
and factories, whose removal was inevitable in any case; nor was it
worth dwelling on the decisions of municipal bureaucrats or even
titans such as Moses, who walked through preordained roles.3
This viewpoint may seem plausible, until the search is made for
capitalist blueprints and evidence that grand designs were carried
out in specifics. The evidence reveals capitalist timidity and disarray,
visions of a transformed city based on airy metaphors rather than on
calculated projections, and spotty blueprints that proved little more
than booster nonsense. Redevelopers sought space for universities
and medical centers without the slightest idea of how many graduates
or hospital beds the new urban system required. With few estimates
of institutional demand, but eager to build neighborhood bastions,
planners leaped into the unknown. A generation later, theoreticians
would pontificate about postindustrial change.
What follows is less a history of redevelopment than an account
of how it was accepted by liberal New York. Although the roots of
redevelopment go back to the Progressive Era, I explain how Moses

xx
 PREFACE

took control of public housing and redevelopment with the active

support, if not the outright collaboration, of New Yorkers who were
otherwise considered his most rabid critics. I focus on a relative
handful of projects that were mileposts in that achievement: Stuy­
vesant Town, which set the pattern for Moses's relationship with
sponsors; Manhattantown, Morningside, Corlears Hook, and Wash­
ington Square Southeast, which showed the depths of his depen­
dence on liberal communities; and Lincoln Square, which marked
the final triumph of the New York approach. I found it necessary to
reach beyond oral history to Title Fs paper trail, which proved easier
to follow than I expected. Moses regularly filed copies of his corre­
spondence in the Central Park Arsenal, the Triborough Bridge and
Tunnel Authority, and elsewhere. After Moses's death, his legates
worked to cleanse the record, and large gaps bear witness to their
loyalty. But they were frustrated by multiple copies and, from scat­
tered locations, the documentary record can be reconstituted. With
this record, we can penetrate the amnesia about the more ambiguous
details of the period before 1953, when liberals still admired many
things Moses did. We can recall liberals' evasions and compromises
as well as their dreams and gallant stands. We can remind ourselves
of the political environment in which redevelopment was born and
without which few tenements would have been cleared. The story is
not glorious, but it is about New York.

One of the pleasures of finishing a book is the chance to thank

many friends who helped along the way. My research and writing
was made possible by grants of Released Time awarded by the Com­
mittee on Separately Budgeted Research of Montclair State College
and a research grant from the Rockefeller Archive Center. I also
want to express appreciation to the University Seminars at Colum­
bia University for assistance in the preparation of the manuscript for
publication. Material drawn from this work was first presented to
the University Seminar on the City.
Colleagues in urban history and planning were patient with my
arguments and offered helpful suggestions. They include Eugenie
Ladner Birch, Madeline L. Cohen, Deborah S. Gardner, Arnold
Hirsch, Peter Marcuse, John T. Metzger, Deborah Dash Moore, Don
Parson, Jon A. Peterson, Elliott Sclar, and Marc A. Weiss. Charles W.
Bourne gave generous access to the housing files at the Field Foun­
dation. Kenneth Wray, executive director of the United Housing
Foundation, and Allen L. Thurgood, executive director of Coordi­

xxi
PREFACE

nated Housing Services, opened materials relating to the history of

the cooperative movement. Thomas Kessner shared the results of his
work on Mayor La Guardia.
I owe a special debt to Commissioner Idelio Gracia-Pena, Ken­
neth Cobb, and Evelyn Gonzalez of the Municipal Archives and
Records Center; to Laura Rosen and Robert Bernstein of the Tri­
borough Bridge and Tunnel Authority; and to Richard K. Lieber­
man, director of the La Guardia and Wagner Archives of La Guardia
Community College. I was also aided by the professionalism of the
following archivists and librarians: Darwin H. Stapleton, Harold
Oakhill, and Thomas E. Rosenbaum of the Rockefeller Archive Cen­
ter; Janet S. Parks of the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library,
Columbia University; Judith Johnson of the Lincoln Center for the
Performing Arts; Beverly Robertson of Empire Blue Cross-Blue
Shield; Tom Frusciano and Terry Taylor of the New York Univer­
sity Archives; Dorothy Swanson of the Tamiment Collections, New
York University; Corinne H. Rieder, Secretary of Columbia Univer­
sity, and Sara Vos of the President's Office; Barbara Chartin of the
Downtown Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University; Elizabeth
White of the Brooklyn Public Library; Michael Rissinger and Eric
Meyerhoff of the New York University Medical Center; Barbara J.
Niss of the Mount Sinai Medical Center; Patricia Proscino Lusk of
the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, Philadelphia; Diane Stoker
of the Barnard College Library; Monica Blank of the La Guardia
and Wagner Archives; David Ment and Bette Weneck of Teach­
ers College Library; Paul A. Byrnes of the Burke Library, Union
Theological Seminary; Marek Web of the YIVO Institute for Jewish
Research; Robert B. Colasacco of the Ford Foundation; Peter L.
Steere of the University of Arizona; and Kevin Prendergast of Mont­
clair State College. I remain responsible for any errors of fact and
interpretation.
I want to take the opportunity to thank old friends from the Uni­
versity of Chicago: John E. Hopper and Thomas L. Philpott, who
aided my progress as a graduate student; Kenneth T. Jackson, who
made the Columbia University Seminar on the City a second intel­
lectual home; and Richard C. Wade, who introduced the excitement
of urban history in a seminar many summers ago.
Susan C. Goscinski provided indispensable help at Montdair
State College.
Cartographer Thomas Nast produced a splendid series of maps.
Alex Holzman and Lynne M. Bonenberger of the Ohio State
University Press were encouraging and patient at every turn. William
xxn
 PREFACE

Issel gave the manuscript helpful criticism that reflected his com­
parable work on San Francisco. Anita Samen watched my syntax
and untangled my sentences, while preserving my voice. This book
would never have materialized, however, had Zane L. Miller and
his colleague, Henry D. Shapiro, not taken a chance on an idea and
given it every possible support. I know that Zane Miller has not
agreed with all of my arguments—far from it; but he has used his
editorial gifts to provide them a decent hearing. For that I am deeply
grateful.
I owe my greatest debt to my family. My daughter, Marjorie, and
my son, David, have lived with redevelopment and nodded at my
impromptu lectures about "projects" during our trips around Man­
hattan. Bonnie Fox Schwartz was patient with all this and more; she
is my chief editor and remains my wife.

xxin
TRADITIONS

I had something to do with the early days of city plan­

ning.
Mary K. Simkhovitch

E a r l y in the twentieth century, New York reformers advocated

the physical reconstruction of the city that would break through
nineteenth-century traditions. As progressives, they accused their
forebears of an unwarranted faith in limited government and private
ownership. They said that the Gilded Age had refused to face the
problem of poverty, except in stark Calvinist terms, which meant the
almshouse or the penitentiary. They disparaged the older generation
as mugwump liberals, sentimental dabblers in municipal reform who
had no concept of what American cities might achieve when gov­
ernment, enlightened business, and active citizens worked together.
They expected new, energizing ideas to propel a vast reconstruction.
The rebuilders focused on old New York, the tangle of 50­
foot streets, sweatshops, and disease-ridden residences below Canal
Street, and particularly Five Points, a netherworld of saloons, rook­
eries, and dumbbell tenements that was home to thousands. Grim
reminders of nineteenth-century greed, rookeries were mansions and
warehouses that before the Civil War had been subdivided into airless
barracks to exploit immigrants' desperation for shelter. Dumbbell
tenements were so named because of their shape; the narrow "waist"
of each tenement created a sliver airshaft that builders claimed ven­
tilated the inside rooms of buildings that were put up one next to
another. Largely unregulated by law, builders covered Manhattan's
TRADITIONS

25-by-100 foot lots with some 20,000 dumbbells and spread wood-
framed variations around Brooklyn's Navy Yard and in Williamsburg.
In 1900, the greater city, which included Manhattan, Brooklyn, and
the outer boroughs, had some 83,000 of these cheap structures.
Reformers, who argued for the scientific arrangement of modern
municipalities, condemned the tenement districts that choked the
city's commercial arteries and smothered hundreds of thousands in
airless rooms. Nevertheless, traditional ideas about private rights
sabotaged dire public need.1
By the early 1920s, reformers had thrust aside the intellectual
limits on what the city could do. They had challenged urban poverty
with a liberal ideology for state action and the constitutional au­
thority to back government's new mission. Their social analysis of
lower-class communities established norms for residential decency,
while their economic research showed the subsidies needed to make
standard housing available to the poor. Their theories about the
relationships among the central business district, the factory zone,
and the residential neighborhood provided the basis for the science
of city planning. But intellectual breakthroughs detached reform
from accountability. Social analysis of lower-class neighborhoods
allowed upper-class reformers to speak for the poor with consum­
mate authority. Municipal efforts were unleashed without any cor­
responding increase in lower-class power to influence policies. City
planning tested the legitimacy of working-class neighborhoods and
sanctioned their removal in the name of economic progress. The self-
confident, activist state, which saw no reason to accommodate the
"little people" in its plans, would prove fundamental to the New
York approach.

Public Needs, Private Acts

Nineteenth-century traditions about private property had long

shaped the way that New York redeveloped land. Even with the
JefFersonian reverence for limited government and private rights,
local government had great authority to seize property in the inter­
est of general welfare. Before the Civil War, many cities used the
police power, the state's inherent right to remove threats to pub­
lic safety, but the ultimate instrument of public will was the power
of eminent domain to force the sale of private property for pub­
lic purpose. New York State used this authority and delegated it to
municipalities and to corporations that served the public purpose.
 TRADITIONS

With this primal force, New York City built the Croton Aqueduct,
laid out and widened boulevards (including several that struck at
the Five Points slum), allowed elevated railroads to take easements
along major uptown routes, and conferred power to the East River
(Brooklyn) Bridge's projectors, who reshaped downtown. With au­
dacious power, Boss William M. Tweed, like his Parisian contem­
porary, Baron Haussmann, planned a viaduct railroad through the
heart of the city that would displace thousands.2
The privatism that progressives attacked in 1900 was the un­
fortunate legacy of the Tweed Ring and the depression of 1873.
The viaduct railroad scheme fell victim to the scandals that over­
took Tweed. In the hard times that followed, fiscal conservatives
attacked public works as confiscation of property, imposed comp­
trollers' vetoes on expensive projects, and subjected improvements to
special assessments (which put costs on local property owners). State
judges reread the law of eminent domain to enlarge claims made by
property owners against "injurious" public works, particularly the
cinder-spewing elevateds. As self-appointed guardians, judges dis­
allowed the taking of property beyond what was absolutely necessary
to accomplish public objectives. By the 1890s, they had thrown out
vague rationales of "public interest" in favor of the rigid formula of
"public use" and asserted their prerogative to second-guess the legis­
lature's claims. State court of appeals decisions such as the landmark
In reJacobs struck down attempts to regulate economic activities and
sharply curtailed state efforts to tax and spend.3
Restrictions became ironclad when the U.S. Supreme Court's
Monongahela decision (1893) imposed on local governments the
Fifth Amendment's ban on taking private property without "just
compensation." The Court proclaimed that the monetary assess­
ment, including the property's profit-making potential, was the
province of judges, not lawmakers. Cities could not condemn prop­
erty except for clear public use, which prohibited, for instance,
construction of low-rent municipal housing, which the courts de­
nounced as narrow "class legislation." Cities that ventured ahead
faced daunting costs, because Monongahela mandated condemnation
awards based on what judges determined was fair market value, not
what reformers argued was worthless slums. Plans for efficient, low-
cost housing could be stymied by the exorbitant demands of holdout
owners. For a generation, Monongahela symbolized the outrageous
protection that American law gave to private property.4
In a fundamental way, however, advocates of municipal action
counted on another of privatism's legacies—that victims of public
TRADITIONS

works were the responsibility of private charity. That attitude was set
down in the early nineteenth century, when municipal government
adopted common law notions that gave property owners virtual
supreme rights to acquire and dispose of real estate. Property trans­
actions were the inviolable realm of landlords and tenants, and most
rentals were based on month-to-month oral understandings rather
than written leases. But whether by lease or handshake, landlords re­
mained in control, thanks to "summary proceedings" codified by the
state legislature, which allowed them to obtain from a city magistrate
quick judgments of illegal occupancy and orders for eviction. The
municipal corporation relied on the same private law to speed pub­
lic improvements. Whether the city widened a street or condemned
hundreds of acres to use for a park, municipal attorneys employed
summary proceedings to evict occupants without obligation to re­
house them. Like any other landlord, the city left evictions to sher­
iff's marshals, who carried occupants and their furnishings to the
sidewalk. Occasionally the marshals contacted the churches or relief
societies to provide aid. But people mostly relocated themselves.5
Although the potential for abuse was enormous, it was mitigated
by everyday custom. Early attempts by the municipality to take prop­
erty to use for public streets resulted in spirited litigation by owners
determined to wrest compromises in the form of damage awards.
Those who owned property or had access to municipal officers found
ways to cushion confiscations. Artisans had less influence, but their
protests, championed by politicians, could sometimes delay clear­
ance. Careful adjustments, moreover, preceded dramatic removals.
Opposition to property seizures and construction gangs for the
Croton Aqueduct raged in Westchester, where country squires saw
the city as an interloper. But no protests occurred in Manhattan,
where Croton water was vital to Gotham's progress and Tammany
had spread the profits from laying street mains.6
Dislocations that accompanied the construction of Central Park
in the 1850s reveal how authorities finessed pushing people aside.
The park required the city's largest removal up to that time—a squat­
ter settlement with an estimated 5,000 inhabitants. The first stage
leveled "Seneca Village," the sarcastic name given to a population
of whites and mulattoes. Observers said the villagers lived peacefully
by their own quaint customs and were tended by an Episcopal vicar.
When acreage was condemned for reservoir grounds in 1856, the
missionaries eased a peaceful departure. Three years later, there was
no sympathy for the bone boilers who occupied shacks near West
59th Street. Journalists cheered when this obnoxious den was scat­
 TRADITIONS

tered by police deployed in military array. But this show offeree was
the exception. Progress was uninterrupted when public works were
given unassailable claims as community necessities. The political sys­
tem, particularly the clubs that operated on the ward level and de­
pended on real estate deals, helped placate resentments. On occasion,
religion was dolloped to the disgruntled. The result was startling.
Riot-prone New Yorkers used rocks and barrel staves against blacks,
abolitionists, Irish Catholics, doctors, and draft enrollers, but they
never fought to protect their homes.7

Housing Improvement

From the beginning, urban redevelopment borrowed the moral au­

thority of housing reform, the movement that criticized the way
the marketplace provided shelter for the poor. It was dominated by
middle-class activists who discovered poverty, determined how far
they would go toward eradication, and shaped policies for acting in
the best interests of the poor. When the pioneer New York Associa­
tion for Improving the Condition of the Poor (AICP) encountered
the denizens of Five Points in the 1850s, members knew the poor
were stricken by lack of will, which only a few could overcome with
Scripture. While poverty increased during the late nineteenth cen­
tury, reformers continued to embrace those they considered to be
the "worthy poor," whose work habits and morality justified a tem­
porary handout. During the depression of 1873, this preference was
institutionalized by the Charity Organization Society, which used
investigations and case records to avoid giving to the shiftless. New
York reform was thereafter shaped by the resulting tautology: aid
went to carefully screened clients whose reliable character guaranteed
that this ministry would neither fail nor perturb its ministers.
Organized to battle poverty without quite reaching the poor,
housing reformers mounted a two-pronged attack against a sys­
tem of private property that was unable to build decent homes at
prices that poor people could afford, roughly $2 or $3 per room
per month. First, reformers sought tenement restrictions, chiefly fire
and sanitary codes based on the police power, that could force re­
pairs or empty overcrowded, unsanitary rookeries. Their pressure on
state lawmakers brought enactment of tenement laws in 1857,1867,
and 1879 and incremental gains. But because reformers emphasized
the menace of slums as they struggled against constitutional pro­
tections of property rights, they contributed to the public's ready
TRADITIONS

confusion of slum dwellers with slum property. In 1857, the state

legislature considered authorizing housing inspectors to keep lists
of tenements, gambling dens, and saloons. From the beginning, the
restrictive course rested on assumptions that slums were created by
the shiftless poor.8
The second, more positive, campaign was the attempt by Prot­
estant philanthropy to increase the supply of low-rent housing by
building "model" or improved tenements as an example for the pri­
vate sector. In the 1870s, Edith F. Miles, an American disciple of
English reformer Octavia Hill, used Hill's technique of intrusive
visits to collect rent and admonish behavior at the AICP model tene­
ments on Mulberry Street and the Fourth Ward's notorious Gotham
Court. Miles had no patience for those who were unable to meet her
standards and cleared the Court of "disreputable occupants," replac­
ing them with "a more decent, orderly and paying class of tenants."
She charged standard rents for spartan rooms, safe in the view that
people would pay extra for the privilege of moral surroundings.9
Edith Miles was only a dabbler compared to Brooklyn merchant
Alfred T. White, who put model tenements on a scientific, paying
basis. In 1876, White built a block of model tenements in Brook­
lyn Heights for 600 residents. Charging $1.90 to $2.50 per week
for four-room suites, his buildings netted 7 percent profit. White
soon followed with the six-story Tower Apartments, which featured
large suites that faced on balcony galleries and had indoor toilets.
Although his designs attracted national attention as boons for the
poor, the dwellings actually were occupied by clerks and well-paid
artisans. In candid moments, White was reconciled to serving the
upper working class, whose vacated homes he felt would filter down
to the poor. The result was much the same for White's Manhattan
counterpart, the Improved Dwellings Association, which built an
impressive block of tenements on East 71st Street that sheltered 208
families and returned 5 percent to investors. From the outset, the
association drew tenants from the middle class: building tradesmen,
clerks, and engineers, half of whom earned over $3 per day and could
have afforded decent nearby flats.10
When American political economists Elgin R. L. Gould and
Marcus T. Reynolds reviewed such ventures on both sides of the
Atlantic in the 1890s, they heralded the advent of model housing
on a mass scale. Reynolds went so far as to call "'philanthropy and
five per cent' . . . an accomplished fact." But most model housing
struggled to pay 3 percent, and even this depended on techniques
that business philanthropy chose not to acknowledge, such as sub­
 TRADITIONS

stantial, if hidden, municipal subsidies and sifting of the worthy

poor. England's Peabody Trust used land purchased at discount from
municipal authorities under the Artisans' Dwellings Improvement
Acts, and other trusts took advantage of cheap condemned prop­
erty made available by the Housing of the Working Class Act of
1890. Cash flow came from the rents paid by solid artisans or, in
the case of the Peabody Trust, by the "upper lower classes." The few
municipal projects, such as those in Liverpool and Glasgow, also
ended up sheltering the lower middle class. Larger ventures often
exploited lower-middle-class demand for units to offset losses on
their working-class properties. Few philanthropic trusts, in any case,
developed techniques to find tenants who really needed low-rent
housing. Most recruited haphazardly, which only eased their reliance
on preferred groups.11
By the turn of the century reformers' flight from the poor became
routine policy, exemplified by the careers of Jacob Riis and Elgin
R. L. Gould. Riis, the yellow journalist on the morals beat, made
his reputation barging into Bowery flophouses after midnight, with
flash pan held ready. His photographs of bewildered poor, published
in newspapers and in his sentimental expose, How the Other Half
Lives (1890), unnerved the genteel classes and helped launch public
investigations of the tenement evil. At the height of reform fervor,
citizens groups, led by the Charity Organization Society (COS),
drafted a restrictive attack on dumbbell tenements, which the legisla­
ture enacted as the Tenement House Law of 1901. The law required
that new tenement construction meet minimum standards for room
size and side courts and maximum (generally two-thirds) lot cover­
age. Although the 1901 legislation could not eliminate 83,000 Old
Law rookeries and dumbbells, it did impose "New Law" standards
in the outer boroughs, where speculative builders found room for
the 35-to-50-foot-wide lots that the restrictions virtually required
for a decent economic return.12
With that great victory for the restrictive cause, Riis and his
associates redoubled their efforts in scientific philanthropy. Their in­
strument was Elgin Gould, academic economist turned housing ad­
ministrator. Gould's doctoral research into the economics of model
tenements had already won national prominence when the COS,
advised by Riis and others, incorporated the City and Suburban
Homes Company and chose Gould as president. He remained until
his death in 1915, molding a philanthropic giant that sheltered thou­
sands in model tenements across New York. The company routinely
paid 4 percent to upper-class stockholders, because Gould built on
TRADITIONS

the solid English experience of screening applicants, using women

rent visitors, and expanding facilities to cover a range of rents.13
Riis admired City and Suburban's first project, the Alfred Corn­
ing Clark Buildings,fireproofstructures designed by Ernest Flagg on
West 68th Street. Tenants paid $11.40 for three rooms and $14.60
for four—at least one-third higher than comparable working-class
rents. Riis reported that occupants came from the "better class of
working people," such as mailmen, railroad workers, and other "re­
spectable mechanics." The Clark Buildings, moreover, were located
near the West Side's middle-class brownstones and borrowed on
that district's market power. A 5 percent return prompted Gould to
double City and Suburban's capitalization and erect a second block
across town on East 64th Street. Riis judged these buildings to be
"the best that can be done in fighting the slum within the city." But
he had greater hopes for Homewood, City and Suburban's bungalow
village in South Brooklyn. On a large site, restricted against facto­
ries and saloons, the company built one hundred brick-and-stucco
cottages priced at $3,100 apiece. Cooperating with life insurance
actuaries, City and Suburban offered twenty-year mortgages that re­
duced monthly charges to $25. The cost was reasonable, but the
lower middle class paid less for four-room flats in Manhattan.14
Reformers rarely paused over their failure to reach the poor, a
reluctance to face reality that bordered on the callous. In the mid­
18908, Riis and his associates goaded city officials to step up their
police campaign against tenement violations. For a time, the Board
of Health forced closure of 400 rookeries per year, a rate that sur­
passed construction of cheap dumbbells south of Canal Street. But
that pace of elimination generated a class of refugees with little other
recourse than nearby tenements orflophouses.(Riis was puzzled by
the surge in flophouse bunks, which reached 18,000 along the Bow­
ery in the late 1890s. He blamed saloons for demoralizing patrons
with cheap beer.) When the 1895 state legislature authorized the
board to pull down tenements that endangered public health, Riis
directed it against Gotham Court and others on his list of ene­
mies. "From among them we picked our lot," he gloated, "and the
department drove the tenants out."15
Riis regarded clearance of Mulberry Bend as the great triumph
of his "ten years' war" against the slum. It took nearly that long
to pass the Small Parks Act and get the city to spend the money.
But in 1895, the Bend's squalid tenements and lodging houses were
leveled to make Columbus Park, one of the new "lungs of the poor."
Thousands fled to nearby tenements, then moved again as specula­
8
 TRADITIONS

tors tore down additional rookeries to build middle-class flats facing

the park. Although Riis never questioned this displacement, he once
observed that park improvements unhoused 10,000 people. His war
necessitated front-line triage, which calculated immediate cruelties
against long-range gains. This calculation was behind his admiration
for City and Suburban's Homewood bungalows. Looking over plans
for this refuge in South Brooklyn, Riis conceded that it would bene­
fit the lower middle class. "This is as it should be," he insisted. "They
represent the graduating class, as it were, from the city crowds. . . .
Any attempt to hasten the process by taking a short cut could only
result in failure and disappointment."16

The Imperial City

By the turn of the century, this detachment from the displaced, com­
bined with the vogue in urban planning known as the City Beautiful
movement, unleashed massive surgery against the slums. Expansion
of downtown commercial and wholesale districts made businessmen
impatient with the fiscal and legal constraints that protected the
nineteenth-century street grid. Mercantile leaders argued that the
city had to complete its backlog of street widenings, paving projects,
and extensions. Manhattan desperately needed north-south arteries.
City engineers proposed running Sixth Avenue south to meet West
Broadway at Franklin Street. They also favored eliminating the flop­
house district by widening Park Row to the Bowery. Municipal
consolidation with Brooklyn put construction of a second, and even
a third, East River bridge on the agenda, along with new avenues to
connect the two business centers.17
Although public works were rationalized as improving business
transport, they were encouraged by the grandeur of the City Beau­
tiful concept. The Beaux-Arts splendors of Paris and the classical
esplanades of Chicago's "White City" of 1893 inspired New Yorkers
to conjure projects that ranged from the preposterous to the merely
implausible. For central Manhattan, architect Ernest Flagg proposed
a 900-foot-wide greensward between Sixth and Seventh avenues,
from 14th Street to the Harlem River. Julius F. Harder sketched
bold diagonal avenues through the Lower East Side, and Edward P.
North proposed running straight boulevards from the Manhattan
Bridge plaza at Delancey and Norfolk streets and diagonals from the
Bowery to 23rd Street. North termed them "Engineer's Routes" that
would "be a matter of convenience to a large part of our population."
TRADITIONS

Si 1

CD CD
c j . ~ " "i r"~ir l i "u—11 1

^ OF TH£T

CITY OF NEW YORK

10

 TRADITIONS

it

ac

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!

The City Beautiful's "Engineer's Routes," 1899. Diagonals drawn through

tenement districts were planners' ideas for modern boulevards to speed traffic
and to redeem adjoining property. The map on the left accompanied Edward P.
North's essay "The Planning of Cities." George B. Post's contribution to the
same essay included monumental plazas for the Williamsburg Bridge and for a
new city hall. Reprinted from Public Improvements, November 1 and 15, 1899.

11
TRADITIONS

He also claimed they would convert a teeming district "to business

purposes, sending its inhabitants to more spacious and healthy quar­
ters elsewhere." Architect George B. Post, an associate of Jacob Riis
in tenement reform, argued for a monumental circle at the Delancey
Street plaza and radiating avenues to Union Square, Broadway, and
Park Row. For a vast space cleared between Worth and Reade streets,
he proposed a magnificent city hall that would reclaim "the tene­
ment house district and would make property valuable where it is
now cheap."18
Visionary plans were accompanied by aesthetic falderal and com­
mercial boosterism, not calculated need. When the Municipal Art
Society, spearhead of the City Beautiful, was enjoined by Mayor Seth
Low to propose a city plan, the result was a wish list of projects, none
based on what the society called "structural and transportation find­
ings." Nevertheless, the society's claims about the need for freight
terminals and commercial routes forced Mayor George B. McClel­
lan, Jr., to appoint a City Improvement Commission. Its reports,
issued in 1904 and 1907, provided another collection of gossamer
sketches for monumental plazas and magnificent miles. The commis­
sion called for the creation of bold thoroughfares: Chrystie Street
widened to connect Second Avenue with the Manhattan Bridge,
Seventh Avenue extended south through Greenwich Village to Var­
ick Street, Sixth Avenue driven south to the intersection of Cham­
bers and West streets, and the approaches of the Manhattan Bridge
lengthened to meet those from the Williamsburg.19
Even City Beautiful advocates shunned the schemes, although
their dismissals were couched in monetary rather than in human
cost. Architectural critic Herbert Croly, no enemy of civic grandeur,
agreed that New York needed diagonal thoroughfares and lauded
the commission's ideas. But he blanched at the expense, which he
estimated at several hundred million dollars. He favored practical
goals, such as the extension of Seventh Avenue through Greenwich
Village. Croly saw that the stumbling blocks continued to be the
constitutional limits on expropriation and spending and, he fumed,
selfish property owners who stood against needed change. New
York's future, Croly argued, hinged on fundamental revisions in the
state constitution.20
Reformers agreed that a new era demanded new legal authority
or, rather, maneuvering room around eminent domain. Citing Euro­
pean examples, they advocated what they called "excess condemna­
tion," the municipal sale of surplus land taken for improvements.
They noted Vienna's magnificent Ringstrasse, built from the pro­
12
 TRADITIONS

ceeds of sales of extra land condemned by the municipality, and

London's $25 million Kingsway, cut through congested slums, with
the sale of surplus land easing the burden on taxpayers. Reform­
ers argued that enlarged property condemnations could recoup the
cost of public improvements and renew neighborhoods when cities
auctioned the abutting strips to private developers. They tried to
convince legislators and judges that the idea had legitimate Ameri­
can roots. They claimed that excess condemnation had been working
quiet miracles since the 1880s, when enhanced property assessments
accompanied the completion of Central Park. The Municipal Art
Society and the City Improvement Commission cited the phenome­
nal increase in land values near Columbus Park and William H.
Seward Park. They pointed to lost opportunities, such as when the
widening of Delancey Street touched off speculative interest in com­
mercial lots, which city ownership might have exploited. George
Post argued that if the city took property 200 feet beyond the ave­
nues, the cost of his vast proposal would be "much more than met."
With excess condemnation, New York might subsidize a large por­
tion of development expense. If done right, clearance might even
become self-sustaining. But doing so meant turning renewed areas
over to commercial and residential developers, whose speculative
rents would buoy property assessments. A clever sidestep of consti­
tutional limits, excess condemnation posed grave questions about
the city's social constitution.21
Even within Monongahda limits, New York reached a scale of
public works that would have made Boss Tweed envious. On the
teeming Lower East Side, projects authorized by the Small Parks Act
created William H. Seward Park, Hamilton Fish Park, and Colum­
bus Park, and removed approximately 190 tenements and 13,300
residents (rather than the 10,000 that Riis conceded). The neigh­
borhood was endowed with enlarged public schools, including eight
new buildings, some with playgrounds, but at the loss of at least 100
more tenements. Modern boulevards, Sixth and Seventh avenues,
were driven south through Greenwich Village. Linking with Varick
Street, Seventh Avenue bisected the Village and caused the eviction
of 5,000 residents.22
Monumental bridges, built as gateways to the greater city, sub­
merged another portion of the Lower East Side. In the spring of
1901, the Williamsburg Bridge's approaches along Delancey Street
necessitated removal of some 200 tenements, leaving the district,
said an observer, "as though a cyclone had struck it." Although an
estimated 12,000 tenants were driven out, the Jewish "hegira" oc­
13
TRADITIONS

Public improvements cut swaths through the tenements of the Lower East
Side, 1908. Looking west, April 30, 1908, along the approach for the Man­
hattan Bridge, clearance of Old Law tenements reveals the interior airshaft of
a six-story dumbbell on the left. Photo 541, III, Bridges, Collections of the
Municipal Archives of the City of New York.

curred without incident thanks to what realtors claimed was the high
vacancy rate in nearby tenements. A decade later, the Manhattan
Bridge leveled even more tenements and eliminated thousands of
manufacturing jobs near Canal Street. This time, the Jewish quar­
ter staged protests that wrung pledges from politicians that tenants
could stay a few weeks rent-free. By jawboning the eviction process,
city officials avoided confrontation. On the Lower East Side alone
between 1895 and 1905, the great bridges, parks, and schools re­
moved nearly 700 tenements that provided cheap housing for about
50,000 people. Despite legal and fiscal restraints, New York had
forged the outlines of the greater city.23

The Limits of City Planning

The tenement neighborhoods that hemmed the business district and
mocked the City Beautiful were the new constraints on metropoli­
tan improvement. Finding the right place for immigrant "colonies"
14
 TRADITIONS

became the central issue for professionals in community work and

city planning, who came to favor relocation somewhere on the out­
skirts of the metropolis. They were reformers who had an Emerso­
nian faith in rural purity, read the essays of Christian socialists on
model communities, and heard mass transit promoters claim that
suburban trains (and cheap suburban cottages) would cure working-
class discontent. But all this remained vague and sentimental until
they found scientific reasons for why the working class should leave
the central city.
The settlement professionals believed in direct democracy; they
sought to deliver their research findings to the city fathers undiluted
by cumbersome or corrupt municipal representation. As college-
educated experts in urban problems, they wanted special access to
municipal administrators whose mature horizons coincided with
their own. Progressive Era reforms made this possible by centralizing
urban power in strong mayors and plenary bodies such as the Board
of Estimate. Ambitious incumbents in Gracie Mansion saw that they
could aggrandize their power by appointing advisory bodies that
could define problems, list permissible solutions, and close off fur­
ther debate. Advisory experts naturally gravitated to their colleagues
in the settlements, who spoke so intelligently for the silent masses.
In the Progressive Era, settlement workers eclipsed ward heelers as
the legitimate voices of the downtrodden.
The settlement professionals gave shape to an urban planning ir­
revocably affected by the business district's collision with nearby im­
migrant quarters. The 1905 state census revealed the startling news
that the population in the already crowded Lower East Side had
swelled 14 percent in five years. Almost simultaneously, J. P. Mor­
gan's organization of a giant construction trust, George A. Fuller
Company, signaled a new stage of downtown land development.
Groundbreaking for the Singer Tower on lower Broadway touched
off what architectural writer Montgomery Schuyler called the "rapid
and bewildering" growth of tall buildings in the financial district.
Overnight, skyscrapers, once the romantic subjects of sketch art­
ists, took on a preternatural character and, like the thirty-six-story
Equitable Building, threw shadows uptown.24
Blocking their way were dense immigrant blocks and the social
settlements, neighborhood guilds founded, as Mary K. Simkhovitch
once described Greenwich House, "on the right spirit of democratic
simplicity & hospitality." Through the settlements passed a pioneer
generation of municipal reformers, social investigators, architects of
public housing, and city planners. George B. Ford and Benjamin C.
15
TRADITIONS

Marsh at Greenwich House, Lawrence Veiller and Henry Wright at

University Settlement, Clarence Stein and Robert D. Kohn at the
Hudson Guild, and Arthur C. Holden at Christadora all learned
firsthand the harsh realities of the immigrant quarter. Collecting
data on tenement congestion, they proposed the first scientific stan­
dards for decent residential living. They concluded that wholesome
working-class life required density limits of fifty persons per acre,
maximum sunlight and fresh air, and playgrounds and community
centers, boons for which no family should have to spend more than
20 percent of wages. By applying scientific, quantitative tests, by
borrowing, in effect, from the vogue of economic efficiency, reform­
ers accepted the real estate dictum of "highest and best use," the
greatest return on investment in urban land. Although reformers
never applied the test to their own genteel neighborhoods, they did
so on the Lower East Side, where expensive land and fifty-person
densities required rents that no immigrant household could afford.
The settlement crowd joined commercial developers, real estate bro­
kers, and professional city planners in concluding that the working
class had to give ground to capitalist expansion.25
Ambiguous loyalties were shown by Mary K. Simkhovitch's
experience in neighborhood redevelopment. As head worker of
Greenwich House, Simkhovitch took an early and abiding inter­
est in local improvement, although her reminiscences, Neighborhood
(1938), suggested an almost passive response to urban change well
underway. "We came to Greenwich House," she recalled, "as the
neighborhood was rapidly changing and the colored population di­
minishing." On another occasion she remembered when Manhattan
Borough President George McAneny (elected as a reformer in 1909)
"told us of the changes that would surely take place when the Seventh
Avenue subway would be opened." Although her commitment to
local planning meant standing with her neighbors against destruc­
tive influences, circumstances drew her to cooperate with realtors'
demands for improved apartments. The Village needed modern resi­
dences, but practical capitalists, such as her friend, Henry Morgen­
thau, Sr., despaired of rinding enough room to build on a paying
basis. Morgenthau knew that outer-borough subway stops had trans­
formed empty lots into real estate bonanzas. He proclaimed the mer­
its of the large apartment buildings enclosing garden courtyards that
his American Real Estate Company was constructing in the South
Bronx. "The very irregularity of our streets made the whole matter
difficult," was how Simkhovitch remembered Morgenthau's judg­

16
 TRADITIONS

merit against the Village. But she continued to search for improved
housing that her neighbors could afford.26
Sirnkhovitch's first venture into neighborhood improvement,
however, leveled an enclave of the poor. She recalled that as early
as 1906, Greenwich House had petitioned the city to "wipe out"
Minetta Street, Minetta Lane, and Minetta Court, which allegedly
were the location of brothels and some 2,000 blacks. Simkhovitch
started a campaign to get the city to enforce sanitary and bawdy-
house laws, but concluded that the effort was fruitless. She turned to
the common panacea, boulevard and park construction, and orga­
nized a neighborhood lobby to extend Sixth Avenue through the
Minettas. Her crusade attracted realtors and moral enforcers eager
to disperse what Pastor Edward Judson called an "unsavory crowd."
One ardent supporter favored wholesale redevelopment of Sixth Ave­
nue down to Varick Street and leveling all the Minettas. Their "cheap
property," he added, could be condemned for only $1 million.27
Although Simkhovitch saw excess condemnation as an expedi­
ent, she would not rule out wholesale extension of Sixth Avenue later
on. Proposals to ram the avenue through the Minettas were endorsed
by a civic meeting at Greenwich House in the spring of 1912, and
the area was cleared in 1914, about the same time that the IRT sub­
way was excavated through Seventh Avenue. But the outcome was
not what Simkhovitch anticipated. As she explained, "Rapid transit
lines were bringing so much new land into the market that informed
officials [including Borough President McAneny] were convinced
that even in the proximity of the new Seventh Avenue [subway] ex­
tension and the proposed Sixth Avenue extension land values would
not rise so as to prohibit new tenements. Nevertheless, the rise took
place. The Minettas were finally developed at higher rentals than our
neighbors could afford."28
Considering that most experts agreed that clearance would bring
higher, not lower, rents, Sirnkhovitch's puzzlement seems disingenu­
ous. All along, Greenwich House had worked closely with realtors
whose improvements meant higher rents than working-class families
could afford. In 1906, the settlement led the Greenwich Village Pub­
lic Service Committee, which advocated the Seventh Avenue subway
and street improvements that would displace thousands. The com­
mittee favored beautifying local boulevards by removing abandoned
trolley tracks; it also favored the idea of excess condemnation. The
committee's work was soon absorbed by the Village Improvement
Society, a consortium of local realtors and businessmen. Simkho­

17
TRADITIONS

Creating the IRT subway and a new Greenwich Village, c. 1914. Looking
south on Seventh Avenue, "cut-and-cover" excavations for the route of the
Interborough Rapid Transit sheared off commercial buildings and tenements,
displacing 5,000 residents. Village boosters expected that the Seventh Avenue
improvement, along with the southern extension of Sixth Avenue through
the Minettas, would stimulate a wave of middle-class apartment construction.
Courtesv of The New-York Historical Societv, New York Citv.

vitch provided space and secretarial help; the realtors shaped the
improvement group's demands for middle-class housing.29
Seventh Avenue proved to be a boon for property developers and
a disaster for residents. Subway extension and collateral improve­
ments cut a swath that leveled 200 buildings and displaced 5,000
people. But neighborhood boosters cheered the 100-foot-wide ave­
nue and the construction they speculated that it would stimulate.
For all intents and purposes, Greenwich House had sided with parks
and boulevards that were the leading edge of Village gentrification.
Although Simkhovitch scoffed at the likelihood of rent increases,
her settlement also benefited from rising property values. When the
Seventh Avenue improvement inflated the value of building lots that
she had purchased for Greenwich House expansion, she sold them
for enough profit to acquire new facilities elsewhere.30
18
 TRADITIONS

Greenwich House's neighborhood mission also made a funda­

mental contribution to the nascent city planning movement—the
attack on tenement crowding led by Benjamin C. Marsh. The Com­
mittee on Congestion, organized in 1907 by downtown settlement
workers led by Simkhovitch and her colleague from the Henry Street
Settlement, Lillian D. Wald, heard of Marsh's charity work and hired
him as committee secretary. Brash and headstrong, Marsh proved
a genius in the propaganda campaign, which was climaxed by his
exhibition of the inside of a claustrophobic dumbbell tenement at
the American Museum of Natural History. The committee's blue-
ribbon lobby, along with Marsh's tireless agitation, forced Mayor
William J. Gaynor to appoint the New York City Commission on
the Congestion of Population to investigate and prepare "a compre­
hensive plan" to relieve crowding. Marsh was committee secretary,
but its ranks were dominated by politicians and realtors of sensible
views, such as Henry Morgenthau.31
Whereas Marsh toured European cities and returned a true be­
liever in municipal regulation of private property, the commission
already agreed with Morgenthau's way to solve congestion. He called
for "an intelligent city plan" that would disperse factories and create
"real homes" for the working class. Spokesmen for moderate change
at the City Reform Club added that the authorities should encourage
relocation of factories to Long Island, where the poor could afford
New Law tenements close to work. When reformers explained that
Manhattan was better suited for "office buildings, theatres, and the
like," Marsh sputtered that they planned to dig the Lower East Side
"up by its roots." Nevertheless, the congestion commission followed
the promise of gradual housing improvement made possible by sub­
ways and private markets in the outer boroughs. Its 1910 report
urged the city to limit the height of office towers and to encourage
"the redistribution of population from the inner city to the outlying
areas." Restrictions on skyscrapers guaranteed the continued spread
of the financial district uptown. In the economic contest between the
business district and surrounding tenement zone, the latter would
have to yield.32
The congestion commission's views were soon translated into
municipal policy by community advisory boards, which pioneered
city planning in New York. The boards were convened by reform
borough presidents, who sought allies from neighborhood preser­
vationists who worried that congestion threatened commercial and
social stability. The first board emerged from efforts by dry goods
merchants of the Fifth Avenue Association to protect their fashion
19
TRADITIONS

thoroughfare from encroachment by immigrant garment workers.

According to association investigators, "Hebrews" swarmed from
nearby lofts at lunchtime, driving away the patrons of exclusive
shops. The association tried numerous techniques to remove the an­
noyance. After the 1912 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company,
it even supported state factory laws to restrict crowding and "re­
duce the noonday congestion of the sidewalks." When this expedient
failed, the association endorsed the creation of a special zone with
restrictions on height and use within 300 feet of the avenue. The
association expected that the restrictions would "make it impos­
sible for factories to exist in the heart of New York's best shopping
section." In 1912, Manhattan Borough President McAneny named
association members to his Fifth Avenue Commission, which ad­
vised limits on cornice heights, factory occupancy, and "obnoxious
trades."33
A year later, those who favored controls along Fifth Avenue
allied with realtors and mortgage bankers concerned about runaway
construction in the financial district to create a Board of Estimate
advisory body known as the Heights of Buildings Commission.
Condemning skyscraper canyons in Wall Street and rampant manu­
facturing in midtown, the commission endorsed height, bulk, and
use protections for lower Manhattan, Fifth Avenue, and other en­
dangered districts. But in 1914 continued economic blight forced
Mayor John Purroy Mitchel to appoint a Commission on Build­
ing Districts and Restrictions to devise a system of comprehensive
zoning. Over the next two years, the commission pored over prop­
erty maps, reviewed new subway routes, and heard testimony from
mortgage lenders, dry goods magnates, and community advocates
before it drafted afive-boroughzoning plan. Adopted by the Board
of Estimate in July 1916, the comprehensive zoning ordinance was
a landmark in the planned, scientific growth of the city.34
Neighborhoods threatened by economic shifts did not need sci­
entific reasons to preempt the zoning process. The Greenwich Village
Improvement Society, organized to guide policy on Seventh Avenue,
remained the area's most energetic civic organization and the spear­
head for citizen planning across the city. In November 1913, when
Mary Simkhovitch invited civic groups to Greenwich House to trade
ideas on neighborhood activism, only a few existed, including asso­
ciations in Yorkville, Manhattan, and Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Most of
them, like the Village Improvement Society, were veritable chambers
of commerce committed to neighborhood reconstruction. When
Borough President Marcus Marks designated the Village Improve­
20
 TRADITIONS

ment Society as his Greenwich Village Commission, with Simkho­

vitch as chairwoman, Marks hailed "this new democratic movement,
which will be one of a chain covering the Borough." The commission
focused on what neighbors boasted was the "residential resurrec­
tion" of the Village. While contractors refurbished tenements into
expensive six- and seven-room apartments, the Greenwich Village
Commission trekked to the city zoning commission to plead for the
residence-only zones to ensure the safety of this investment. During
the first of innumerable occasions when locals rallied to preserve the
Village, they drew a protective cordon around Washington Square,
but not, sociologist Caroline F. Ware wrote, "its outer sections."35
Elsewhere, neighborhood groups usually ignored the needs of
the greater city. The Murray Hill Property Owners Association,
whose covenants preserved the midtown residential enclave, bristled
when a developer planned a sixteen-story office building on Madi­
son Avenue. Economic theory said the area should succumb to the
skyscraper, but the association, as the borough president's Murray
Hill Advisory Commission, got the zoning commission to restrict
Murray Hill on the maps as low-rise residential. Chelsea property
owners also refused to accept the inevitable. In late 1913, they
formed the Chelsea Neighborhood Association to do something
about the district's shabby housing. It called on the city to zone
spacious boulevards for the high-class apartments needed "to keep
Chelsea's people at home." With Seventh Avenue "cut through to
the Woolworth Building," as the Central Mercantile Exchange put
it, Chelsea would boast a business thoroughfare "second only to
Broadway." Executives of Hearn's Department Store, for their part,
lobbied the city to extend Sixth Avenue and turn it into a "pleasant
promenade" with new lighting and motor buses.36
While zoners talked about scientific findings, upper-class moral­
ism drove the process that identified neighborhood need. Convinced
that "obnoxious" trades blemished the city, the zoning commis­
sion was inclined to drive all manufacturing, not just garment lofts,
from central Manhattan. Through use and height limits (generally
one-and-one-half times street width) on Madison, Fifth, and Sixth
avenues, it would force the garment trade to move beyond Seventh
Avenue and push less valued manufacturing to the outer boroughs,
where operatives could walk to their jobs. But these moral concerns
did not apply to the Lower East Side, which zoners kept open for
business use (with a loophole that allowed 25 percent of a structure's
floor space to be used for manufacture of clothes, cigars, printing,
and furniture). Commissioners explained that manufacturing's in­
21
TRADITIONS

roads made it "almost impossible to restrict [the Lower East Side]

to exclusive residential use." Their decision perpetuated what they
attacked as the "promiscuous" mix of residences and factories. With­
out legitimacy as a manufacturing or residential district, the Lower
East Side would remain in limbo for whatever commercial expan­
sion would follow. By zoning enough office bulk for 100,000,000
white-collar workers, the commission made clear that it expected
that expansion to mean skyscrapers.37
City planners gave considerable attention to the congested dis­
tricts, only to advise their steady liquidation. The First National Con­
ference on City Planning and Congestion of Population of 1909, as
its title indicated, took planners well beyond the complacency of the
City Beautiful. But the meeting focused on measures of economic
efficiency applied to urban land use. Realtor Henry Morgenthau
articulated the favorite panacea, advising delegates that congestion
would yield only to height limits, separate zones for manufacturing
and residences, and rapid transit "to move your population away
from the center of cities." At the second national conference in 1913,
Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and others called for comprehensive
planning that coordinated the disparate economic activities of the
city. Olmsted said planners had to allocate space according to the
new functionalism, which assumed that office towers and retail stores
gave the highest rate of return, and factories and tenements gave the
lowest. The search for highest and best use convinced many planners
to shift low-income neighborhoods to peripheral sites rather than
tackle the housing problem where it existed.38
City planning's evasion widened the gap between redevelopment
and low-cost housing. Planners proclaimed broad fields for mu­
nicipal action that ended up following the dictates of the private
market and shelving low-cost projects. Professionals may have dis­
paraged the City Beautiful for the hard-nosed City Efficient, but the
exchange demanded that the working class make the real sacrifices
toward regional productivity. Confident manifestoes such as Carol
Aronovici's The Social Survey (1916) said planners should inventory
the whole range of urban institutions, and John Nolen's City Plan­
ning (1916) heralded the coming of the comprehensive plan. But
the profession remained overcome by the sense of profound legal
restraints, as reflected by Edward M. Bassett's Constitutional Limita­
tions on City Planning Power (1917) and Flavel Shurtleff's Carrying
Out the City Plan (1914). Cities were counseled about the power
to eradicate slums for such public improvements as railroad termi­
nals, civic plazas, and boulevards. But building low-rent housing for

22
 TRADITIONS

the displaced was a matter fraught with constitutional difficulties.

The divergence encouraged city planners to dream of more civic
monuments, while the housers went their own way.39
Believers in positive action for housing gained support dur­
ing World War I, when ordnance production faltered in congested
working-class districts. With national security at risk, government
intervened in housing markets. States and municipalities, such as
New York, enacted emergency rent controls. The federal govern­
ment, through the U.S. Shipping Board, built low-rent housing near
shipyards and arsenals. A new generation of socially conscious archi­
tects, including Clarence Stein, Henry Wright, Robert D. Kohn,
and Frederick L. Ackerman, designed spartan yet attractive shelter.
Although Congress earmarked the units for deserving workers for
the duration, reformers took the Shipping Board projects as prece­
dent for government-built "public" housing. Their viewpoint was
articulated by economist Edith Elmer Wood, whose The Housing of
the Unskilled Wage Earner (1919) argued that restrictive legislation
had failed to provide decent housing for those who needed it most.
Wood concluded that only government action—municipal condem­
nation and assembly of housing sites, public construction grants, and
rent subsidies—could reach the third of the population who could
not afford five dollars per room. After the armistice, Shipping Board
units were sold to private realtors, but reformers refused to return to
restrictions as usual.40
Nevertheless, urban reconstruction was caught between the old
order and the new. Shipping Board veterans such as Robert Kohn
and Frederick Ackerman anticipated government-aided construction
of housing by the acre, replanned districts, and entire new towns.
Excited about scientifically designed shelter for an era of mass pro­
duction, they talked about creating what their colleague Clarence A.
Perry called "housing for the Machine Age." But the metaphor had
contradictory implications, for the metropolis as smooth-running
machine could dispel problems, even slum housing, without recourse
to government intervention. Coolidge prosperity encouraged theo­
rists to transform intractable slums into urban blight, which they
said was a withering of property values caused by market malfunc­
tions. Ordinarily, the theorists said, Wall Street's voracious appetite
for office space should have absorbed nearby tenement districts.
With good reason, tenement owners expected imminent buyouts
and stinted on maintenance. But when expansion failed to occur
at the expected rate, owners let their properties deteriorate. Their
stubbornness and ignorance (the theorists hinted that most were
23
TRADITIONS

hidebound immigrants) threw a noose of indifferent, fragmented

ownership around the vibrant downtown. As Harold S. Buttenheim,
editor ofAmerican City, observed of tenement owners on the Lower
East Side, "their very attitude breeds slums." Reformers recognized
that extraordinary public authority was needed to break the stale­
mate, but an economic puritanism stayed their hands. Those who
once refused to give alms to shiftless slum dwellers now opposed
government action that rewarded indolent slumlords.41
By the early 1920s, New York had nearly all the instruments for
urban reconstruction except the political will to get started. The tra­
dition of model tenements for the worthy poor had been applied on a
large scale with government-built low-rent housing in wartime ship­
yards. Displacement of the less worthy was already accepted practice
in public works throughout the city, as was the expectation that the
evicted would shift for themselves. New York had developed on the
assumption that social mistakes in Manhattan could be rectified by
cheap land in the outer boroughs, where the dislocated would find
their own homes. An activist state, fortified with advisory planning
boards, commissions on congestion, tenements, and zoning, had
taken major steps toward city planning. Reformers claimed to speak
for the best interests of the poor in technical areas, where they were
not qualified to speak for themselves. A generation of municipal im­
provers had taken the city to the verge of massive renewal of the
historic quarters of the poor. The political will would come in due
course.

24
REDEVELOPMENT
AN D PUBLIC
HOUSING

A long time back we thrashed the whole principle out

and decided that we were in the business for housing
fundamentally, and not for experimentation.
E. Roberts Moore

Historians have assumed that redevelopment followed the public

housing movement in the sense that it reflected the social responsi­
bility for livable cities that liberals won during the New Deal. But
redevelopment went hand in hand with public housing; in New York,
the cradle of the housing movement, redevelopment came before
it. Struggles in the Progressive Era for model tenements that shel­
tered the lower middle class became commercial ventures after World
War I, when Lower East Side boosters confronted the hazards of
normalcy. With the 1920s' boom, tenants who could afford $9 rents
trekked to steam-heated flats and garden apartments in the outer
boroughs, leaving downtown landlords with vacant tenements and
financial ruin. Landlords responded with twenty years of schemes
and promotions for government-aided revival that included public
housing as they understood it. Amid constant talk about housing
improvement, they kept sight on redevelopment that had no room
for social justice.
Real estate boosters would consider any government deals, but
pounced on New Deal public housing as an expedient route to
redevelopment. They took advantage of the ambiguous character
of early public housing, particularly the reluctance to shelter slum
dwellers on the part of the reformers who launched the New York

25
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

City Housing Authority. East Siders helped propel the New York
program, establish tenement clearance as the city's foremost urban
policy, and create an agency with the mandate to act against seven­
teen miles of slums. But they never overlooked the chance to shift
government subsidies for the worthy poor to worthier tenants who
could pay higher rents. As a consequence, the Housing Authority
spent the 1930s trying to reconcile impossible demands: to build
quality public works to revive neighborhoods and to create low-rent
shelter for the worthy poor.
The Housing Authority's uncertain mission left it vulnerable
when city politics turned gusty after 1936. Struggling to build
high-quality housing, the authority completed few projects and was
labeled the timid representative of an older era. Recognizing the scale
of progress that the times demanded, Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia
and Park Commissioner Robert Moses bullied the authority toward
an era of mass construction. Critics would later charge that Moses
subverted the authority's lofty goals to create his public works em­
pire. But New York public housing had compromised on low-rent
promises long before Moses made it the disposal for the abuses of
redevelopment.

White Collars
Redevelopment was the ambition of East Siders, who were con­
vinced that they were at the hub of a metropolis struggling for
modern form. During the 1920s, the growth of finance capital
in Wall Street and the completion of subway routes to Brooklyn,
Queens, and the Bronx profoundly affected how New Yorkers saw
the future of their city. Between 1910 and 1920, the population
in Manhattan had stagnated while that of the outer rim more than
doubled. Subway routes, along with property tax relief on residen­
tial construction, touched off a building binge. Over 400,000 units
were built between 1922 and 1929, a 15 percent surge in the city's
housing supply. But subsidized garden apartments near transit lines
in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens brought collapse to the Lower
East Side. In 1910, some 530,000 New Yorkers, 1 in 8, occupied
the dense tenements below 14th Street. By 1930, only 250,000 re­
mained, 1 out of 25. Property owners who expected the skyscraper
district to spread north craved public action to speed the rescue.1
Their expectations were encouraged by advocates of metropoli­
tan rationalization, the New York Building Congress and the Com­
26
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

mittee of the Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs (RPNY).
The Building Congress, organized by mortgage bankers and builders
to get the construction industry through the recession of 1921, was
a forum against waste, seasonal unemployment, and unsound invest­
ment. Led by architect Robert D. Kohn, firms such as George A.
Fuller and Starrett Brothers and Eken, mortgage bankers such as
Bowery Savings Bank president Henry C. Bruere, and trade pub­
lishers such as F.W. Dodge, the Building Congress debated how
industry could work with government to create the transport and
commercial facilities needed for Manhattan's primacy. The RPNY
went much further, popularizing the view that New York had to
plan the city's spread into its economic hinterland. Corporate funds
made the RPNY New York's planning think tank, where a research
staff of 150 studied patterns of regional growth to bolster Man­
hattan real estate, smooth interregional transport, and foster stable
neighborhoods. Its research was grounded in the machine age as­
sumption that Manhattan was trading factories for the office towers
that coordinated the region's productivity.2
The RPNY saw the Lower East Side in the context of the relent­
less struggle for profits on Manhattan's expensive real estate. Only
tremendous investment in skyscrapers could absorb the cost of real
estate, railroad tunnels, and subways that sustained Manhattan as
the regional dynamo. But up and down the urban hierarchy, what
RPNY advisor Shelby M. Harrison described as the city "as a finan­
cial center, as an educational, music, and other arts center, as a hotel
and amusement center, as a manufacturing and wholesale center, as
a resident center, etc.," severe economics drove out the less efficient.
Columbia University economists Robert M. Haig and Roswell C.
McCrea, who were RPNY researchers, pronounced this decentraliza­
tion "already under way," particularly for large-scale bulk fabricators.
Producers of low-value standard items would relocate to the outer
boroughs, taking along their low-paid, unskilled laborers. Although
Haig and McCrea conceded that low-paid workers needed inner-
city housing for job "accessibility . . . to a considerable number of
concerns," they were better off outside Manhattan.3
RPNY planners were convinced that vacated districts would go
for residential and consumption needs of the rich. They expected
the region's "central shopping district" to remain between 34th and
59th streets, although it would gradually change from a market for
standardized purchases to the preeminent place for "style" merchan­
dise. Below 34th Street, they foresaw the spread of the financial
district and civic center. A good deal of space would also be taken by
27
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

Reclaiming Allen Street on the Lower East Side, 1927. Looking north from
Houston Street, June 25, 1927, workers have cut away Old Law tenements to
create a boulevard link with Second Avenue. In the late 1920s, the East Side
Chamber of Commerce hoped the Allen Street widening and removal of the
elevated would bring a surge in speculative apartment house construction.
3O5C (652), Borough President of Manhattan, Collections of the Municipal
Archives of the Citv of New York.

transport arteries, particularly modern highways that would knit the

metropolis together and catalyze neighborhood reclamation. Con­
crete arteries along the East River and through the tenement districts
would restore to the Lower East Side the functions warranted by
proximity to Wall Street.4
Few took that future more to heart than Manhattan settlement
leaders, who met metropolitan change on their doorstep. Some had
already closed down neighborhood guilds, their last link to social
advocacy, to concentrate on social services; all struggled to reach
clients whom Survey editor Loula D. Lasker found were "putting on
white collars." Lower East Siders occupied Old Law tenements but
craved such middle-class amenities as separate dining rooms, porce­
lain sinks, and radio aerials. Replying to an inquiry about demand
for low-rent tenements, Henry Street Settlement director Lillian D.
Wald proposed building more expensive apartments for people with

28
 AND PUBLIC HOUSING

"higher standards of living." The tasteforimprovement extended

to automobile routes through the tenements. Wald joined taxpayers'
groups that lobbied for a riverfront "East Side Motor Highway" and
for widening Allen Street into a 137-foot boulevard. Cutting away
tenements on Allen Street (which, according to another settlement
leader, had been made the "worst street" in the city by black pros­
titutes) would begin what boosters called the "reclamation of the
entire East Side." Reformers and businessmen alike got behind one
popular highway plan pushed by the National Committee on Slum
Clearance, which proclaimed excess condemnation to be the way to
housing improvement.5
Many ignored the fact that the schemes offered littleforEast
Siders who earned working-class wages, under $1,500 a year. The
plan proposed by Social Gospeler John Haynes Holmes called for
boulevard development that would build apartments for "hundreds
of thousands" earning $250 per month. Christadora Settlement on

Bankers and business socialists start the reclamation of the Lower East Side,
1930. In the vault room of the Bowery Savings Bank, the board of directors
of the Amalgamated Housing Corporation meet with the mortgage holders of
the Amalgamated Dwellings on Grand Street. Front row, from left: Amalga­
mated Clothing Workers president Sidney Hillman, realtor Aaron Rabinowitz,
Bowery president Henry C. Bruere, and State Board of Housing secretary
George Gove. Second row, from left: engineer-contractor Bernard Raymond,
Jewish Daily Forward Association president Adolph Wc\&, Jewish Daily Forward
manager B. Charney Vladeck, Bowery vice-president Orrin C. Lester, and
Amalgamated Housing Corporation president Abraham E. Kazan. Courtesy of
Coordinated Housing Services, Inc.

29
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

The International Style for Chrystie-Forsyth, 1932. When the James J.Walker
administration proposed to redevelop the stretch of Old Law tenements be­
tween Chrystie and Forsyth streets on the Lower East Side, architects Howe
and Lescaze responded with a design, exhibited at the Museum of Modern
Art, for ten-story apartments cantilevered above plazas and shopping arcades.
These and other proposals never survived the scandal that tarnished Mayor
Walker, and the tenement rubble became Sara Delano Roosevelt Park. Re­
printed from Architectural Record, March 1932, copyright 1932 by McGraw-
Hill, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the publisher.

Tompkins Square was headquarters of the landlord campaign to

modernize Old Law tenements, which owners candidly expected to
rent at much higher levels. Lillian Wald was an enthusiastic sup­
porter of the Amalgamated Dwellings on Grand Street, acclaimed by
reformers as a prototype for better working-class housing. But the
Bowery Savings Bank, which held the mortgage, advised the business
socialists in the Amalgamated Clothing Workers to charge $12.50
per room, which few garment cutters could afford. With good rea­
son, Bowery president Henry C. Bruere said that the Amalgamated
would start the rebuilding of the East Side.6
By the late 1920s, local bankers and realtors were working closely
with settlement leaders to realize that goal. Organized by Bowery
vice-president Orrin C. Lester, the East Side Chamber of Commerce
hired Joseph C. Platzker to fill its East Side Chamber'News with puffery
on boulevards, modern stores, and real estate speculations. In Oc­
tober 1929, Platzker published Clarence A. Perry's lyrical account
of neighborhood units designed for Wall Streeters that featured "a
30
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

club, a hotel, a library, a gymnasium, or swimming pool." Platzker

welcomed International Style modernism for Chrystie and Forsyth
streets, the Old Law tenement blocks that Mayor James J.Walker had
targetedforexcess condemnation. Platzker featured architects Howe
and Lescaze's proposal for ten-story cantilevered buildings along the
length of the avenues. The attractive design would have employed
industrial economies in construction; but, at $9 per room, the result
still would have been housing that was low cost rather than low rent.
These were relatively modest, however, compared to the Raymond
Hood lookalikes that the RPNY said should line Chrystie-Forsyth,
which would be transformed into a Manhattan "speedway."7
Few East Siders worried about displacing their low-income
neighbors. Most observers agreed with the Survey's Loula Lasker,
who rejected fears that construction would "dispossess 'the poor'
without making adequate provision for their re-housing." She ex­
pected many to move to vacant dwellings, while others would claim
units emptied by the rich and inherit "quarters hitherto beyond the
possibilities of their purses." Growing numbers, she added, were
already hardened straphangers, having moved to low-rent outlying
districts. Most urban theorists agreed. The era's leading housing re­
formers, Henry Wright, Clarence Stein, and Lewis Mumford of the
Regional Planning Association of America, wrote off tenements as
relics of nineteenth-century industrialism. The metropolitan future,
they argued, lay in towns planted in regional "greenbelts," where
there was room for a new communal civilization. Machine age intel­
lectuals handed the Lower East Side to the well-to-do.8
The Great Depression only intensified belief that the district
was meant for better things. The 1929 stock market crash jolted
real estate, but the East Side Chamber of Commerce commissioned
planning studies to demonstrate that inner-city property could re­
bound. For one study, banker Henry Bruere squired Harland Bar­
tholomew, the St. Louis planner known for reclaiming blighted
districts with boulevard routes. Using Joseph Platzker's real estate
data, Bartholomew reported that the tenements and obsolete streets
had brought the Lower East Side to "economic collapse." He pro­
posed 100-foot motorways to speed traffic through the financial
district and divide the East Side into "self-contained communities"
of superior standards. The Chamber of Commerce's advisors, archi­
tects John Taylor Boyd, Jr., and Holden, McLaughlin & Associates,
drew their own ambitious proposals. Emphasizing the East Side's
proximity to Wall Street, Boyd argued that motorways could re­
construct the immigrant portal into a "desirable residence area."
31
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

Holden, McLaughlin sketched Houston Street as a two-level boule­

vard and transformed Chrystie-Forsyth into an express road lined
with shopping arcades and high-rise apartments.9
Business leaders cultivated civic support for the campaign. In
July 1931, Bowery vice-president Orrin Lester notified settlement
leader Lillian Wald that East Side banks were providing $25,000
toward a district plan. A social worker on the Lower East Side
Community Council knew few details, except that the banks were
concentrating on commercial improvements. "Allen Street will, of
course, be continued down to East Broadway," she informed Wald,
"and judging by the part of it that is already widened we can't expect
much in the way of housing." By late 1931, city officials met at the
Bowery Savings Bank to hear Lester and Bartholomew explain their
plans. Pledging millions for highways and superblocks, the James J.
Walker administration announced that work on Chrystie-Forsyth
would encourage "a far-reaching scale of private investment in mod­
ern housing." East Siders remained steadfast in their belief that the
depression would purge real estate values in the outer boroughs, not
those in the heart of the region. Government, they believed, would
soon build middle-income apartments on Second Avenue.10

The Promise of Public Housing

The depression focused attention on government aid to revive hous­
ing as a means to put the unemployed to work. But New Yorkers
were split on whether this meant incidental subsidies for limited-
dividend projects or, as some were advocating, outright government
responsibility to build public housing. Limited-dividends, standard
dwellings built by private corporations for limited profit, were re­
vered by those who resented government intrusion on the volun­
tary ideal. They entered a more promising stage under Governor
Alfred E. Smith, when the State Housing Law of 1926 created a
State Board of Housing to convey eminent domain and tax exemp­
tion to companies that built dwellings for under $12.50 per room.
In late 1931, the former governor led the Housing Association of
the City of New York, which proposed to raise millions of dollars for
limited-dividends under the State Housing Law. The private ideal
received formidable support from the lending community, which im­
posed the Bankers' Agreement, a credit watch, on New York City's
capital budget. Harold Riegelman, attorney for thefiscalwatchdog,
the Citizens Budget Commission, offered an alternative that would
32
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

not involve public expenditures. Declaring a ten-year slum-clearance

campaign, Riegelman proposed using excess condemnation to re­
develop selected blocks on the Lower East Side. He would lease the
parcels to limited-dividend companies, stimulating what he called
"sympathetic rehabilitation by private owners." Still others looked
toward breakthroughs from industrial cooperation. The April 1932
conference of the Housing Association, which met in Al Smith's
office in the Empire State Building, heard avid talk about large-scale
housing sponsored by limited-dividend companies and construc­
tion firms. Building Congress representatives Robert D. Kohn and
Andrew J. Eken claimed that manufacturers of building materials
could pool capital to deliver low-cost shelter.11
Across town, a circle of socialists and planning intellectuals
battled for a different concept of machine age housing. Housing
economist Edith Elmer Wood, along with Mary Simkhovitch and
her alter ego, social worker Helen Alfred, organized the Public
Housing Conference, with branches in settlements throughout Man­
hattan and Brooklyn, to campaign for public involvement. Con­
vinced that limited-dividends and excess condemnation were out­
moded palliatives, they turned for inspiration to Europe, particularly
to Social Democratic Vienna, and to sovereign entities such as the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for the powers to con­
demn land, build low-rent dwellings, and become public landlords.
They collided with conservatives on the State Board of Housing
and in Al Smith's coterie, who would not give up on philanthropy.
Facing a dead end in the city, municipal socialists looked to congres­
sional action on public works for the jobless in 1932. Simkhovitch
and Alfred pestered New York Senator Robert F. Wagner, Sr., to
broaden the provisions of the Emergency Relief and Reconstruc­
tion Bill. They wanted Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)
loans to municipal housing boards, although they expected Wagner
at least to deliver a provision for federal funds to limited-dividend
companies. Wagner inserted section 201 A, authorizing RFC loans to
limited-dividends, but Greenwich House was not the decisive influ­
ence. The State Board of Housing took Harland Bartholomew's East
Side studies to Washington to show Wagner that limited-dividends
would generate thousands of construction jobs, and it was also said
that Park Commissioner Robert Moses wanted funds for Chrystie-
Forsyth. The stretch of rubble gave Moses a bureaucratic piece of
the "housing problem" along with park space. Slum clearance was a
phrase that opened many doors.12
Not much squeezed through, largely because Robert Moses
33
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

agreed with the spending priorities of the bankers and regional plan­
ners. As New York State park commissioner under Governor Smith,
Moses had an enviable record of constructing recreation grounds and
parkways. He was Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt's natural choice
to cochair, along with State Architect Robert D. Kohn, the State
Emergency Public Works Commission that coordinated projects for
the unemployed. Applications for RFC grants also fell under their
jurisdiction. Conservative by temperament and monitored by the
Citizens Budget Commission and the Regional Plan Association,
Moses and Kohn loaded up with cost-effective public works, toll
roads, and other self-liquidating projects. When the State Board of
Housing proffered a few middle-income limited-dividends, Kohn
rebuffed projects "pushed through by gum-shoe methods." Public
housing advocates were stymied. Helen Alfred complained to Edith
Elmer Wood, "Between Mr. Kohn and the State Board I am aware
now that we were blocked before we started."I3
The sole survivor, the Knickerbocker Village limited-dividend,
proved an embarrassment to all concerned. It was the brainchild of
realtor Fred F. French, who couched his deals in machine age terms.
Promising that Knickerbocker Village would redeem the Lower East
Side's notorious "lung block" between Monroe and Cherry streets,
French coaxed social-welfare advocates to endorse $12.50-per-room
modern apartments. After his agents scurried around for property
options, critics sniped that he paid $13 per foot for land worth $7,
and federal grand jurors warned the RFC of scandal. But the Moses
committee knew that "something had to be done," and recom­
mended the mortgage. When word leaked about the land cost, Secre­
tary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, whose Public Works Authority
inherited the RFC program, fumed. Slum clearance advocates swal­
lowed hard at the deal and the middle-class tenants it served. "Even
though the housing which replaces these rookeries rents for more
than a working man can afford," Brooklyn attorney and housing re­
former Louis H. Pink reasoned, "it is entirely worthwhile to get rid
of such plague spots." Knickerbocker Village confirmed suspicions
that East Side speculators were behind slum clearance.14

Solid Investment

Robert Kohn harbored these reservations when, in the summer of

1933, Harold Ickes sought to get the New Deal into public housing

34
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

Knickerbocker Village on the Lower East Side, 1934. The forbidding density
of Fred F. French's slum clearance, built with a mortgage from the Recon­
struction Finance Corporation, disappointed reformers, but pleased advocates
of East Side property revival. In the background is the approach and monu­
mental plaza of the Manhattan Bridge and the cleared acreage for the park
at Chrystie-Forsyth. Courtesy of the La Guardia and Wagner Archives, La
Guardia Community College, The City University of New York.

by appointing Kohn to head the Public Works Authority (PWA)

Housing Division. As far as Kohn was concerned, federal involve­
ment meant high-quality construction to invigorate local economies.
Regarding most city governments as too corrupt to handle PWA
grants, Kohn preferred to vest federal work in "a non-profit cor­
poration organized by the best citizens." "I would rather start that
way," he confided to housing reformer Edith Elmer Wood, "than
trust local governmental agencies to manage the projects." Meet­
ing with New York friends, Kohn made it clear that slum clearance
was a blue-ribbon crusade, and that realtors were participating as
their civic duty. His audience could not demur. He waved federal
dollars at a time when little public works money was available, and
they were embroiled in the good-government revolt against Mayor
Jimmy Walker. During a bitter mayoral race in the fall of 1933,

35
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

the reformers around Fiorello H. La Guardia spoke about housing,

but had no concrete plans. While La Guardia battled for political
survival, housers could only organize on the sidelines.15
They formed the New York City Slum Clearance Committee
(SCC), a citizens group that compiled data on the slums as part of
the campaign for a municipal housing authority. "You and Kohn and
I were partners in setting this thing up," wrote Andrew Mills, Jr.,
president of the Dry Dock Savings Bank, to SCC director Rich­
mond H. Shreve. Mills exaggerated slightly, for the original directors
of the SCC, besides Orrin Lester and realtor Alexander S. Bing,
included Thomas Holden of the New York Building Congress and
George McAneny of the Regional Plan Association. Shreve, chief
architect of the Empire State Building, and SCC secretary R. G.
Wagenet were prominent on the New York Building Congress.
Catherine F. Lansing, the Christadora settlement liaison with the
East Side Chamber of Commerce, coordinated SCC social surveys.
From the beginning, the SCC was committed to replacing Lower
East Side tenements with high-quality housing that few tenement
dwellers could afford.16
Kohn reinforced this direction with the stern advice that Wash­
ington expected sound investment. Announcing that the PWA
would commit only $25 million to New York (about enough to re­
build twenty square blocks), Kohn posed hard choices. He favored
slum clearance in Manhattan and Brooklyn near existing parks,
schools, and other amenities to minimize the cost of support facili­
ties. But he wanted "river-front areas . . . avoided as their eventual
economic use is for industry or higher-cost housing or parks." Kohn
had virtually ruled out low-rent housing for the Lower East Side.17
Building quality housing on the Lower East Side was also the
inclination of Langdon W. Post, the Greenwich Village insurgent
named tenement house commissioner by newly elected Mayor La
Guardia. Anxious to establish his agenda, Post summoned an advi­
sory committee from mortgage banking, real estate, and city
planning, including Joseph Platzker of the East Side Chamber of
Commerce, Thomas Holden and Robert Whitten of the Building
Congress, and Wagenet of the SCC. Their job, Post explained, was
to choose areas that deserved "first attention" for clearance and
to "demonstrate what sort of housing should be built." The advi­
sory committee borrowed real estate data gathered by Platzker and
the Building Congress's Land Utilization Committee (directed by
Thomas Holden's cousin, architect Arthur C. Holden) which sup­
ported their view that the East Side deserved more than low-rent
36
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

reconstruction. Langdon Post's planning advisor, Robert Whitten,

had already asked why the "central blighted area" should be used
for anything other than business and industry. Firm against the
"anomaly" of low-rent housing on expensive land, Whitten rejected
the idea of increasing densities to absorb land costs. "The best use
of a particular slum area," he argued, "may be that of higher rental
apartments, or that of commerce or industry."18
During the desperate winter of 1934, many neighborhoods
claimed that higher use included public housing. When news spread
about Kohn's "$25 million," Langdon Post and the SCC were del­
uged with offers they could hardly refuse. The Brownsville Board of
Trade and the Pitkin Avenue Merchants Association pledged they
would "line up" property owners to remove "slums of the worst
kind" and put Brownsville's construction men back to work. The
Sands Street Board of Trade in downtown Brooklyn begged for slum
clearance: "It will mean the injection of new type tenants into the
section, a better type, as the majority of present tenantry does not
pay its rental." A committee of Italians on Elizabeth Street, calling
themselves The New Deal Real Estate Owners League, enlisted the
support of 7/ Prqgresso publisher Generoso Pope to demand prompt
adoption of clearance plans for their district. Boosters welcomed
public housing, whose tenants brought dollars to the neighbor­
hood.19
Aiming for commercial stability, the SCC ignored a long list of
prospects, including wretched slums on Columbus Hill on the West
Side, Chelsea, and Greenwich Village. Advisors such as Clarence
Stein urged keeping Manhattan below 96th Street for gentrification
and eventual white-collar uses. North of 96th in Italian East Harlem,
the SCC worked with Helen Harris of the Union Settlement, who
brought local property owners together to discuss site plans. One
anxious owner, SCC staffer Catherine Lansing reported, "has gone
about amongst the other landlords of the neighborhood to stir them
up to agree to sell their property at low prices." The SCC was not
interested. Assemblyman Francis E. Rivers and realtor John E. Nail
drove Shreve and Wagenet past sites in Central Harlem. But the SCC
refused to view the ghetto's needs as compelling. Lansing suspected,
in any case, that approaches by black leaders were attempts to wangle
jobs from the housing agency.20
Without question, the East Side Chamber of Commerce made
the most convincing case for slum clearance. Andrew Mills of Dry
Dock Savings and Joseph Platzker personally presented maps for
three sites to the SCC. But even Platzker's extensive data could not
37
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

overcome skepticism about price. When a Chamber of Commerce

delegation offered a twelve-block site between Grand and Rivington
streets at the "sacrifice" of $6 per foot, Langdon Post sputtered about
extortion, and the meeting ended in public name calling. SCC plan­
ners had already concluded that the East Side should be preserved
for value-added commerce. Edith Elmer Wood recalled the prevail­
ing opinion that "all the housing south [of 14th Street] . . . was not
included" among active sites "because the Committee believed it was
needed for business and industry." Besides this, Robert Kohn and
Langdon Post remained suspicious of the Chamber of Commerce.
As one observer remembered, they rejected "the housing project on
the Lower East Side because . . . if land owners were allowed, as
the phrase was, to 'stew in their own juice,' values would fall." They
would not rescue slumlords.21
With Manhattan ruled out, the SCC gravitated toward outer-
borough sites, such as Greenpoint and Red Hook in Brooklyn and
the Queens waterfront. It eventually settled on the dilapidated,
wood-framed dwellings in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where mer­
chants and realtors coveted redevelopment, particularly the chance
to sweep away a pushcart market. The campaign for public housing
was orchestrated by the Manhattan Avenue Merchants Association,
a vociferous group that held rallies, collected property options, and
even staged radio programs to attract city interest. Success meant, in
the words of its secretary, that Williamsburg would "regain its gran­
deur with new and up-to-date apartment houses in keeping with the
competition of the newly established sections." With Williamsburg,
public housing advocates cut the movement from its political roots
on the Lower East Side. They had avoided the tenement districts for
the best of progressive reasons, but they would later have to explain
why they had not moved directly against the tenement evil.22

Housing Authority

The coalition of commercial builders and tenement reformers behind

the SCC worked strenuously for a municipal housing authority. The
movement's best legal minds, Brooklyn insurance attorney Louis H.
Pink and Charles Abrams, a reformer friend of Langdon Post, pored
over the law of special authorities to create an agency that could use
the power of eminent domain, accept federal and state grants, and
own and operate multiple dwellings. Mortgage bankers and philan­
thropists hesitated about handing that power to City Hall, but came
38
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

Reformers launch the New York City Housing Authority, 1934. At the in­
augural session, February 20, 1934, the Housing Authority board gathers
at the office of Tenement House Commissioner Langdon W. Post. Left to
right: Brooklyn housing reformer Louis H. Pink,/nrw/; Daily Forward man­
ager B. Charney Vladeck, Authority chairman Post, Greenwich House director
Mary K. Simkhovitch, and Catholic Charities leader Monsignor E. Roberts
Moore. (The blueprint is a reorganization chart of the Tenement House De­
partment.) Forward Foto, Courtesy of the La Guardia and Wagner Archives,
La Guardia Community College, The City University of New York.

around when La Guardia showed his anti-Tammany vigor. With the

Public Housing Conference's network of settlements and with sup­
port from the trade unions, the state legislature passed the municipal
authority bill on February 4, 1934. To serve on the Housing Au­
thority board, Mayor La Guardia chose his straight-arrow tenement
house commissioner, Langdon Post, as chairman, and Mary Simkho­
vitch, Louis Pink, B. Charney Vladeck (American Labor party leader
and manager of the Jewish Daily Forward), and Monsignor E. Roberts
Moore (charities administrator of the Catholic archdiocese). Lang-
don Post's staff consisted of legal counsel Charles Abrams, who was
impatient to establish the authority's eminent domain; economics
39
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

New York City Housing Authority members,

the La Guardia years, 1934-1942
Chairmen: LangdonW. Post, February 17, 1934—December 1,1937
Alfred Rheinstein, December 17, 1937-October 9, 1939
Gerard Swope, December 11, 1939-January 26, 1942
Members: Monsignor E. Roberts Moore, February 17,1934—October 8,1944
Louis H. Pink, February 17, 1934-May 6, 1935
Mary K. Simkhovitch, February 17, 1934-February 17, 1948
B. Charney Vladeck, February 20, 1934-December 31, 1937
Nathan Straus, March 25,1936-October 19,1937
Lester B. Stone, December 1, 1937-December 15,1937
Edward F. McGrady, December 15,1937-February 16, 1941
William H. Davis, December 11,1939-January 26,1942
Hugh S. Robertson, June 2,1941-April 14, 1942
Source: New York City Housing Authority press release, February 20, 1960.

advisor Evans Clark, who wanted a housing system whose financial

stability was modeled on that of public utilities; and technical advi­
sor Frederick L. Ackerman, the architect who headed town planning
for the U.S. Shipping Board. Catherine Lansing came over from the
SCC to assist limited-dividends veteran Mary (May) Lumsden in
setting up the management division.23
From the start, the Housing Authority depended on the impetus
provided by the SCC. The regional planners' drive against blue-collar
workers in Manhattan turned the SCC's attention to mixed indus­
trial zones, such as Williamsburg and Greenpoint in Brooklyn, and
opportunities in Red Hook and the Queens riverfront. Chairman
Post and technical advisor Ackerman, both of whom shared machine
age assumptions, endorsed the regional planners' proposals for re­
locating industry in the outer boroughs. But the money to embark
on site studies proved elusive. Despite Kohn's $25 million promise,
Post spent 1934 in fruitless negotiations with PWA officials, who
doubted that Williamsburg was the place to start. Mayor La Guardia
could offer nothing, and for a year the authority's major source of
funds was the sale of scrap from tenement demolition.24
The chance to realize the housing vision came suddenly in early
1935, when Post heard that the PWA planned billions for public
works, including an initial grant of $150 million for the city. To
prepare for the windfall, he named an advisory committee chaired
by planner Albert Mayer to "consider the whole future of the City."
40
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

Several weeks later, Mayer's group responded with blueprints for

realizing the hopes of the regional planners. Crossing off nearly all
of Manhattan south of 96th Streetforpublic housing, it called on
the authority to clear the low-rent portion of the estimated 403,000
tenants who lived on the Lower and Upper East Sides. They were to
make way for commercial buildings and the apartment houses of the
middle and upper classes.25
For the refugees, the Mayer committee proposed neighborhood
units with a vengeance—a series of low-rent developments along
Brooklyn's East River basin. Borough politics soon transformed
these into three immense projects: a 350-acre, 55,000-room devel­
opment at Queensbridge in Long Island City, a 250-acre, 33,000­
room reclamation of Red Hook in Brooklyn, and a 140-acre,
21,000-room project in the Bronx. Queensbridge alone, with a des­
ignated population of 61,000 and an estimated cost of $75 million,
would have surpassed all PWA housing built to date. It would have
required ten times the capacity of local schools, not to mention
sewers and water mains. The tenant-selection process would have
verged on social chaos, because the authority was already swamped
with ten applicantsforevery (as yet unbuilt) unit. Questions about
the population of this complex and the quality of life remained
unexplored and scarcely considered.26
The Bronx project raised questions about how the evacuation of
Manhattan could operate within Jim Crow barriers. The Housing
Authority board agreed that something had to be done about
Harlem's slums. "It must come into the picture very soon," advised
Ackerman. But the board hesitated to embark on clearance that
would push blacks beyond acknowledged racial boundaries. Already
members worried about operations in Brooklyn, where the au­
thority's real estate advisor reported fears that "people from Harlem
will make applications for Williamsburg." The authority board was
inclined to postpone Harlem decisions, but Albert Mayer's commit­
tee proposed a drastic solution. The Bronx project would be ear­
marked "for the colored population now living in an area of Harlem
so overwhelmed that migrations from it are already visible in several
sections of the four boroughs." The committee in effect drew a line
that prevented blacks from moving below 96th Street and closed
off the east by allocating any potential sites for black migration to
predominantly Italian East Harlem. On the west, it respected the
gentlemen's agreement that kept Morningside Heights white. But
the committee's solution brought problems of another kind. Mayer's
planners were asking the Housing Authority to venture into the
41
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

city's most segregated borough. The Bronx's 15,000 blacks (1 per­

cent of the borough) remained clustered in the Morrisania section.
The project would have channeled 23,000 blacks into Hunt's Point
on the East River, where they would have confronted industrial em­
ployers who observed the color line and realtors who already were
rethinking their welcome to government-aided housing.27
In their pursuit of regional visions, Mayer's group had gone
beyond political reality. Board member Mary Simkhovitch warned
that "the public will not be with us unless slum clearance is done."
Monsignor Moore questioned whether the planners had considered
the consequences of drastic shifts: "$75,000,000 spent on Queens-
bridge will house 75,000; what will the effect be on taxation, on
the City budget, on real estate values and so on?" Moore wondered
whether the authority could afford to be seen draining Manhattan's
population to deflate the price of slum land. When he insisted on
petitioning the PWA for a special grant to absorb the land costs
for one Manhattan site, Corlears Hook on the Lower East Side, he
was joined by Simkhovitch and B. Charney Vladeck. Their vehe­
mence pulled the focus back to Manhattan and to two sites, Corlears
Hook and Harlem. The Housing Authority could only succeed on
the Lower East Side, the historic site of the tenement evil.28
The New Deal, however, had other purposes in New York, all of
them conflicting. Ickes's men wanted to build durable projects but
actually approved a few isolated ones, never giant complexes. During
months of negotiations over Williamsburg, PWA emissaries would
consider only limited sites, preferably six to nine square blocks. Fear­
ing that the authority would try to turn individual grants into a
revolving fund, the PWA rejected authority attempts to link projects
in a system. The PWA's interest in physical planning was the mini­
mum necessary to safeguard its forty-year mortgage exposure: fire­
proof construction, and location in residential areas restricted against
blacks, undesirable ethnic groups, and industrial use. Beyond such
basics, PWA analysts remained indifferent. Experience with limited-
dividends had set their attitude that project design amounted to
the assemblage of interchangeable units, regardless of city or neigh­
borhood. They paid little attention to the size or makeup of the
tenant market, except for rules that restricted occupants to the upper
working class or better. PWA staffers considered New York ideal for
this standardization, because the city's transit system would bring
thousands of eligible tenants to the few projects they intended to
build. Taking no chances, the PWA could not fail at worthy improve­
ments.29
42
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

Slum clearance at Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 1935. At Leonard and Maujcr

streets, August 21, 1935, crews demolish wood-frame tenements and rear
houses for the Housing Authority project built by the New Deal's Public
Works Authority. The neat piles of lumber and other scrap material were sold
for revenue by the cash-starved Housing Authority. Courtesy of the La Guardia
and Wagner Archives, La Guardia Community College, The City University of
New York.

Even with this limited involvement, Ickes's mortgage officers in­

sisted on total control of New York operations. After tortuous nego­
tiations, the PWA agreed to build Williamsburg and Harlem River
on its own terms. While Langdon Post and his associates fumed, the
PWA contracted construction to federal specifications, with the in­
tention to lease the completed projects to the authority. Supervising
top-dollar work from afar, the PWA built Williamsburg and Harlem
River with delays and cost overruns. Architects praised the design
and workmanship, but insiders knew that the PWA allowed Harlem
River to be "built without specific relation [of] construction costs to
the rent paying ability of the prospective tenants." In the meantime,
Housing Authority proposals for Corlears Hook were sidetracked
by the PWA's commitment to fund the East River Drive, which,
federal officials said, readied Lower Manhattan for middle-income re­
development. B. Charney Vladeck's idea to revive his neighborhood
43
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

Marking Corlears Hook for slum clearance, 1939. The State Emergency Re­
lief Bureau, December 1939, surveys Old Law properties on the designated
sites of the Vladeck Houses: the U. S. Housing Authority project, west of
Jackson Street, and the city-built extension to the east. The structure with
the central courtyard south of the Williamsburg Bridge is the Amalgamated
Dwellings on Grand Street, which was joined after World War II by other
Amalgamated projects, the Hillman Houses and the Corlears Hook Title I.
Corlears Hook Park was also extended in connection with the proposed sweep
of the East River Drive. To the far north is the "gashouse district," redeveloped
after World War II by Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. Cour­
tesy of Intera Aero Service, Houston, Texas, and the La Guardia and Wagner
Archives, La Guardia Community College, The City University of New York.

was shelved as a waste of real estate. Weighted down by the PWA's

indecision, New York's public housing ground to a halt in 1936.30
Frustrated at master planning, technical advisor Frederick Acker­
man spent the interim assembling a melange of Housing Authority
site studies, property maps, sun and wind orientations, and sketches
of X, Y, and Z shapes on superblocks. Ackerman compiled them as
"Thirteen Slum Areas" (1937), guided by his rueful conclusion that
planning "in our economy must conform to the map of differential
site valuations." Exceptfora sliver of land between 96th and 110th

44
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

streets and at Corlears Hook in Manhattan, his technical staff turned

to Brooklyn's industrial basin for sites that were not already pre­
empted or that cost less than $4 per foot. Opportunities ranged from
63 acres in Greenpoint to 431 acres in Williamsburg-North English
Kills. They all had underutilized factories, schools with empty seats,
and streets and water mains. Most had fallen one-quarter below their
1920 population densities, and all thirteen sites had a total 1930
population of 236,026, making a coincidental 100 persons per acre!
Ackerman's staff figured that at a density of 150 persons per acre
they could absorb nearly 120,000 tenants in new projects.31
Ackerman would reconstruct these outer-borough districts ac­
cording to his own notion of regional dispersal, not according to
what he called "make-believe 'green belt towns.'" He was convinced
that because the city had entered the "replacement" phase of capitalist
evolution, the "centrally located areas of stagnation, decay and obso­
lescence" deserved renewal on modern principles. In zones strewn
with quarter-vacant tenements and half-idle factories, the Housing
Authority could guide the reclamation of work place and residence.
Ackerman had fitted the authority's mission to the economic dol­
drums of the late 1930s. But he removed its center of gravity further
from Lower Manhattan, where the public expected to see action
against the slums.32

The People's Will

While Housing Authority construction marked time, public housing
scored a breakthrough as a political issue. What parlor socialists
debated in the early 1930s became during 1936 a people's mat­
ter, particularly for those who were threatened by New Deal public
works. Demolitions helped create the city's rent crisis, sharpening
demands for low-cost housing, which authority propaganda kept
simmering. A reluctant Mayor La Guardia joined the fray, seizing
control of the Housing Authority that had bungled policy in his
name. He ultimately turned to Park Commissioner Robert Moses
on most housing issues. Moses had already proven that he had the
answers, or rather that the Housing Authority had none.
During 1936, low-rent housing became an intense concern for
many New Yorkers, largely because of the sudden impact of New
Deal clearance. As tenement commissioner and Housing Authority
chairman, Langdon Post should have monitored the pace of Old
Law demolitions, but slum clearance was scattered among agencies
45
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

responding to varied interests. When the U.S. Works Progress Ad­

ministration (WPA) moved make-work demolitions into high gear,
Post still had no overall control. At the same time, the wrecking
ball swung by PWA-funded agencies such as the Triborough Bridge
Authority proceeded with clearance objectives all their own. Dur­
ing 1937, some 25,000 apartment units were demolished in the
five boroughs, 15,000 in Manhattan and Brooklyn. But no account­
ing was taken until 1938, by which time the greatest elimination
of Old Law housing in the city's history had occurred. Mayor La
Guardia reckoned that his administration had torn down or vacated
8,840 buildings. Most were rookeries and tenements, but they had
sheltered a quarter of a million people.33
Without fully intending to do so, the authority had mobilized the
housing dreams of ordinary people. The impact was evident in 1935,
when 15,000 families, most living on the Lower East Side, applied
for the authority's 122 units at First Houses. A year later, 14,000
black families submitted applications for Harlem River Houses' 577
apartments. When the authority embarked on larger projects later
in the decade at Queensbridge, more than 16,000 applied. By June
1939, the list for the project at Red Hook in Brooklyn had soared to
62,000. For the Housing Authority's 11,000 units opened by 1940,
the total number of applications had grown to 115,000. The au­
thority had raised more hopes than its construction program could
have possibly met. But generating popular enthusiasm would get
projects built.34
Uncoordinated demolitions had far-reaching consequences for
the city's political climate. At the depth of the depression, vacancy
rates as high as 25 percent were commonplace for Old Law tene­
ment blocks on the Lower East Side and in Yorkville and the South
Bronx. But by late 1936, Housing Authority surveys were spotting
sharp declines in vacancy rates and the first rent inflation since World
War I. The apartment squeeze touched off tenant protests, fanned
by depression radicals. In Harlem, Communists vied with black
nationalist Garveyites as street-corner agitators against high rents.
Their tenant organizations picketed landlords, staged rent strikes,
and engaged in rent bargaining. On the Lower East Side, countless
plans for low-rent sites stirred similar expectations. Although some
residents were drawn to settlement committees coordinated by the
Lower East Side Public Housing Conference, many joined affiliates
of the Communist-dominated City-Wide Tenants Council. Origi­
nally formed in the spring of 1936 by united-front (and essentially
middle-class) radicals in limited-dividends such as Knickerbocker
46
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

Village and in apartment houses such as London Terrace, the City-

Wide talked glibly of forcing landlords to their knees. The Housing
Authority struggled to stay abreast of popular demands.35
In late 1936, after the Multiple Dwelling Law (MDL) had been
toughened to make tenement "owners" include mortgage holders,
Langdon Post declared war on MDL violators. Many bankers real­
ized that they had to make repairs by December 31, 1936, or face
criminal charges attached to absentee ownership. Post expected to
dramatize the slums and lend maximum publicity to housing reform
struggles in Albany and Washington. Perhaps he also hoped that en­
forcement would deflate tenement values and ease their absorption
by Housing Authority projects. But many Lower East Side landlords
would not submit. As Dorothy Rosenman, a prominent member of
the Women's City Club and the Welfare Council, delicately added,
"Several banks took stock of their buildings and decided to close
certain of them, and proceeded to do so gradually and in an orderly
manner." Others boldly complained that Post was forcing them to
abandon their properties. Post called this a brazen attempt by the
banks to stay MDL enforcement. As Christmas approached, news­
papers anticipated that landlords would shut 400 tenements on the
Lower East Side.36
The City-Wide Tenants Council exploited the lockout with a
drive for members. Hundreds joined the East Side Tenants Union,
which threw picket lines in front of tenements and bank entrances.
Asserting that they stood up against thieving landlords, tenant
groups made settlement reformers seem impotent by contrast. In
Yorkville, the Lenox Hill Neighborhood Association faced demands
for action, and at the United Neighborhood Houses, an alarmed
social worker warned that settlements had "to work with such groups
even though the left wing element exists within them." Several Bronx
unions threatened to clog the magistrates' courts with litigation,
which scared liberals about "property confiscation" and the future of
tenement reform.37
Startled by the uproar, Mayor La Guardia ordered the Housing
Authority to hold public hearings on landlord intransigence, and the
thankless task fell to Authority legal counsel Charles Abrams. When
they were accused of rent-gouging, landlords retorted that unless
they could meet rising costs they would have to abandon their tene­
ments. Tenant groups and settlement leaders replied with eloquent
exposes of landlord greed. Several tenants appealed for rent con­
trols, which put that property owners' nightmare on the city agenda
for the first time in a decade. Making its public debut, the City­
47
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

Wide Tenants Council demanded that the state legislature declare a

housing emergency and freeze rents for low-income tenants. When
Abrams tentatively endorsed the idea, including a freeze for those
earning under $1,500 per year, the City-Wide organized a Con­
sumers Emergency Council to work with liberal groups for passage.
As far as property owners were concerned, Abrams had pulled the
scab off a wound.38
Settlement leader and reformer Dorothy Rosenman led the ef­
forts to find a middle ground. After chairing a meeting between the
Housing Authority and leading savings banks, notably the Bowery,
Dry Dock, and Emigrant, she reported their willingness to cooper­
ate "on a sizable program of new low cost housing." But talks about
forming a mortgage pool to finance MDL repairs proved inconclu­
sive when the banks demanded that the cityfirstdeclare a moratorium
on MDL enforcement. Stanley M. Isaacs, convinced that reformers
had to placate property interests, warned that Abrams's idea was
arbitrary "class legislation" that would "ruin every effort that is being
made to induce owners to comply" with the MDL. Isaacs feared
it might precipitate further abandonment and "the crisis that all of
us are so anxious to avoid." Rosenman agreed that talk of a rent
emergency jeopardized bills for tenement repairs that were stuck in
legislative committee. Amid the rancor, Rosenman and Harold S.
Buttenheim, editor ofAmerican City, called together voluntary agen­
cies, liberal realtors, and tenant leaders to form a Citizens Housing
Council. Heading their agenda was passage of the Wagner-Steagall
Housing Bill in Washington and MDL revision in Albany, but they
hoped for a forum to keep a lid on tenant unrest.39
The Housing Authority never survived the political damage. In
his tilt with landlords, Langdon Post had counted on support from
Gracie Mansion, but he sadly misjudged Mayor La Guardia as 1937,
a reelection year, approached. From the mayor's viewpoint, the au­
thority had turned klieg lights on landlords just before Christmas.
Far worse, it appeared to have disinterred the Emergency Rent Laws
of 1920, when the last thing Mayor La Guardia wanted was to an­
tagonize property owners. Hostile city councilmen investigated the
authority's record and ridiculed Langdon Post, charging that he had
failed to "bridge the gap" between the slums he demolished and the
costly housing, such as in Williamsburg, that he had yet tofinish.In
the 1937 campaign, a challenger toured Williamsburg and jibed that
La Guardia asked for "a rating from Dun & Bradstreet to get into a
housing project." Already on the defensive with the authority's ten­

48
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

ant selection, Post announced an emphasis on cost-efficient projects,

nothing as "pretentious" as Williamsburg.40
The 1937 mayoral contest cast a permanent shadow over the
Housing Authority. After his reelection, La Guardia moved swiftly to
ensure that he would never again be embarrassed by Langdon Post.
"I have a lousy Housing Authority," he raged at City Hall. "I want to
get rid of the whole bunch." He wanted " 'another Bob Moses' who
could take hold . . . and get things done." Within days, he fired "that
piddling lawyer," Charles Abrams, forced Post to resign, and even
muttered against Mary Simkhovitch. La Guardia further humbled
the authority by staffing the new City Planning Commission, which
the voters had approved to advise the Board of Estimate on capital
improvements, land use, and zoning. Charter reformers anticipated
the commission's potential for drawing master plans, including dis­
tricts for slum clearance and new housing. As La Guardia's opinion
of the authority had sunk to rock bottom, it was widely assumed that
Park Commissioner Moses would take over housing and planning.
Wall Streeters who watched the city's bond rating wanted Moses to
chair the City Planning Commission. Simkhovitch offered to serve
with him, because "I honestly believe I wouldfitin with your ideas &
plans." But Moses brushed the admirers off, saying that he believed
"in accomplishing limited objectives."41
La Guardia would not tolerate any more delays in the low-rent
program. The Wagner-Steagall Act of 1937 had established the U.S.
Housing Authority (USHA), which promised grants and long-term
loans for municipal projects. The mayor took over negotiations with
federal officials and forged the agreement that gave the green light to
USHA-financed projects at Red Hook, Queensbridge, and Corlears
Hook. To chair the New York City Housing Authority, the mayor
named Alfred Rheinstein, an experienced builder he thought was
another Bob Moses. More important, La Guardia accepted the logic
of building a low-rent system based on American Labor party (ALP)
ideas for city-guaranteed Housing Authority bonds. While the mayor
called for rehousing 8,000 families a year over ten years, ALP leader
and Housing Authority member Vladeck argued that modest in­
creases in city interest guarantees could mobilize $100 million in
construction funds and triple La Guardia's goal. Vladeck envisioned
a realm of self-liquidating projects on outer-borough tracts, serviced
by 1 percent of the city's budget.42
Urban liberalism at high tide carried the housing cause into the
1938 state constitutional convention. The ALP, CIO unions, tenant

49
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

leagues, and other left-wing groups supported the La Guardia ad­

ministration's resolve for a housing amendment to authorize broad
city planning, slum clearance, and urban redevelopment, along with
a city allowance to extend its debt ceiling. The Housing Amendment
got staunch support from Robert Moses, a Republican delegate
pledged to state action freed from what he called "pay-as-you-go"
limits. At the convention, La Guardia's stark words about disease-
breeding, crime-ridden slums drove political leaders across a psycho­
logical Rubicon. The mayor conceded that rehousing might cost
$4 billion, a "staggering figure," but not "if you look ahead, for at
least a generation." Senator Robert F.Wagner, Sr., pushed for a $300
million revolving state fund to lend to local public housing authori­
ties and limited-dividend companies. The idea was strongly endorsed
by State Insurance Commissioner Louis H. Pink, who regulated
the fiduciaries that were expected to invest in state housing bonds.
Drafted by the liberals, the Housing Amendment gave cities the
mandate to clear slums and blighted areas and authorized the state
to borrow up to $300 million for capital grants to build low-rent
housing.43
An extraordinary coalition maneuvered behind the ratification
campaign. The Regional Plan Association and the New York Build­
ing Congress supported the amendment, particularly the public
works features they held dear. The Public Housing Conference, the
Welfare Council, the United Neighborhood Houses (which repre­
sented most settlements), the City-Wide Tenants Council, and the
CIO Industrial Trades Council all rallied for its slum-clearance fea­
tures. Moses remained influential in the struggle. He urged Mayor
La Guardia to establish a blue-ribbon committee to educate voters,
and when Dorothy Rosenman asked him to engage Al Smith for a
radio speech, Moses remarked that he was using all his considerable
pull with the politicians and newspaper publishers to gain passage.
Ratified by the voters in November 1938, the Housing Amendment
became Article XVIII of the state constitution.44
With Article XVIII, the people spoke for forceful measures to
attack slums and renew the city. The legislature soon created a
state housing commissioner to coordinate Albany's program, and
New York City consolidated MDL enforcement in a department
of housing and buildings. The Board of Estimate's advisory body,
the City Planning Commission, got the green light to engage in
master planning. Concrete programs had not yet been established,
but Moses had immediate ideas on how to carry out Article XVIII.
"We were handicapped at the Convention," he reminded Mayor
50
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

La Guardia, "because we had no plan indicating just what the city

wanted to do." Moses urged the mayor to name a committee that
included himself, Alfred Rheinstein, Louis Pink, and others to shape
the city's housing policy, although he made a strong pitch to "put all
the city work under one man."45

Moving the Masses

The Housing Authority's modest progress in construction obscured

achievements in the prerequisite for slum clearance: the attitudes
and machinery for mass removals. These required a steady concern
for the worthy poor, a denial of responsibility for the larger num­
bers that were turned away, and a resolute focus on the greater
good. As race increasingly became a determinant of worthiness in a
housing program that was chronically short of funds, the authority
needed to develop sophisticated rationales to explain why the system
turned people away. Years before Robert Moses gloried in what he
called the "dangerous" choices required of public works administra­
tors, Housing Authority bureaucrats overcame their scruples about
shifting people from one slum to another.
From its origins in early 1934, the Housing Authority faced the
knotty question of what to do with site tenants. Handed the major
share of the demolition campaign against Old Law tenements, the
authority was unexpectedly saddled with removing tenants from
1,000 apartments. It followed tradition, seeking aid for the homeless
from the Home Relief Bureau, the Association for Improving the
Condition of the Poor, the Welfare Council, and police. Although he
was improvising, Langdon Post assured the Public Works Authority
that "the organization for this work is carefully constituted."46
This meager experience gave the New Yorkers added prestige at
the June 1934 Chicago conference of the National Association of
Housing Officials (NAHO). As spear carriers for the PWA Housing
Division, NAHO warned federal officials that "failure to provide ade­
quate re-housing for such [site] families would react strongly against
all housing activities of the Federal government." With New Yorkers
in the vanguard, they appealed to the PWA to assume half the cost for
site personnel to aid tenant removal. Money was also needed, they
insisted, for surveys to identify the neighborhoods where "a large
portion of displaced families probably will relocate." But Robert
Kohn's men stood firm, and NAHO accepted the PWA offer to pay
only for liaison with home relief and private charities. Removals that
51
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

the New Yorkers considered fundamental to the success of public

housing remained orphans, shifted from one emergency, make-work
agency to another.47
Although the PWA refusal stemmed from the old emphasis on
the worthy poor, many reformers agreed that the projects deserved
citizens untainted by the slums. At the October 1934 Public Housing
Conference in Baltimore, a British delegate insisted that families on
relief were not suitable for projects that would lead the new order.
Public housing would require sound administrative decisions rather
than moral sentiments. At the conference there was "great empha­
sis," noted attendee Catherine Lansing, on immediate inventories of
families on clearance sites, not only for the socioeconomic data to
rehouse them, but also to meet "the very real problem of loss of
rent." Exact records would help housing authorities maintain cash
flow as well as facilitate orderly removal. A PWA spokesman at Balti­
more conceded a "fundamental responsibility" for rehousing of site
tenants, and delegates debated what this entailed. Planner Henry
Wright pointed out that a "very large project" might absorb "a large
proportion of the people by shifting them from one part to the
other." Arguing that "100% rehousing [was] practically impossible,"
housing economist Edith Elmer Wood concluded that "the goal
was not reinstatement of families on the site, but finding improved
housing for as high a percentage as possible."48
Catherine Lansing returned to New York to recommend that the
Housing Authority get rent collectors "in the field" as soon as it took
title to the Williamsburg site. She argued that "failure to collect rents
even for a few weeks or months sets up in the minds of the tenants
an idea that 'the City owns it—why should we pay rent?'" She called
such thinking "reprehensible." With the toughness her superiors ex­
pected, she added, "the function of the Housing Authority is the
letting of homes—in other words the erection of buildings and the
collection of rents."49
Housing Authority staffers, who struggled to reassure PWA
mortgage officers, emphasized that New York would find a sturdy
tenantry. May Lumsden, Lansing's boss at tenant operations, ad­
vised Washington that tenants would be selected on the basis of
"ability to pay the rent [i.e., a monthly income of four to five times
the rent] . . . and good rent habits," suitable family size, and resi­
dence in substandard conditions. She intended to measure those
categories to the last digit on a ratings scale. At the same time, Lums­
den downplayed Housing Authority responsibility for site tenants
who failed the test. The authority should aid the removal of tenants
52
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

and "make more dwellings available, insofar as possible." But Lums­

den remained vague on specifics, except to pronounce that public
housing was not a welfare program. Rejecting notions that the au­
thority should "manipulate" rents for the "particularly needy family,"
Lumsden wrote that attacking poverty was the job of other gov­
ernment programs, not hers. At a Welfare Council debate on the
subject, Catherine Lansing recoiled from arguments that dwelled on
"social values" rather than the amortization of project costs. When
social workers considered giving rent vouchers to project families on
relief, she condemned their failure to base policy on the "ability to
pay rent."50
The issue remained academic until the PWA project at Williams-
burg forced hard choices. Most families had left the site voluntarily,
with some expenses paid by the Home Relief Bureau. But charity
workers warned that the authority would have to care for the re­
mainder. Activists on the Charity Organization Society were ready
to set up a "vacancy listing bureau," but the Welfare Council wanted
the authority to staff the site. They said the authority could tap the
Brooklyn Real Estate Board and other sources to find the vacancies
for a referral system. Lansing agreed "it would give the Housing
Authority much prestige to sponsor it, and next to building new
homes for the lowest income group, it would be the greatest step
that the Housing Authority could take toward attaining their ob­
jective." In June of 1935, social workers urged the authority to
organize within the Emergency Works Division a central listing bu­
reau that would gather lists of inspected apartments for tenants of
cleared housing sites. The Vacancy Listing Bureau began in 1936 as
a WPA-sponsored effort.51
According to the Citizens Housing Council, the listing bureau
depended on "the good-will of the real estate people" and on WPA
allowances, until WPA cuts forced its demise in 1939. Although
Mayor La Guardia was sympathetic, he complained money was not
available to maintain the bureau. A Housing Authority staffer sug­
gested running the bureau "through funds raised from private ser­
vices such as real estate men, charity organizations, etc." The only
alternative was to establish a similar service in the Department of
Welfare, which housing advocates rejected because that would stamp
the projects as poverty zones. Repeated attempts by the Citizens
Housing Council and the Charity Organization Society to get the
city to resume its responsibility resulted in the creation of a rehous­
ing bureau in the authority in 1940. Understaffed and demoralized,
it remained a bureau in name only.52
53
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

The task of explaining the contradiction between total removals

and "Dun & Bradstreet" admissions standards fell to the Housing
Authority's neighborhood advisory committees. Although ap­
pointed ostensibly to contribute to design of and tenant selection for
the earliest projects, First Houses, Williamsburg, and Harlem River,
these committees were never more than conduits for authority de­
cisions already made. The experience of the East Harlem Council
of Social Agencies, named to the advisory committee for the East
River Houses in 1939, was typical. It distributed authority pam­
phlets and largely served, explained Catherine Lansing, to interpret
income limits and "tell the families if they are eligible." The East
River Houses committee had no say in such matters as project scale,
range of apartment sizes, rents, or income limits. May Lumsden
told the committee that these hinged on U.S. Housing Authority
capital grants, total project cost, and other matters kept privy in
Washington. Because these were not available until federal officials
released them with appropriate fanfare, advisory committees could
not advise. But when the details were revealed, committee members
were expected to convince their neighbors about the desirability
of projects that would displace many while providing homes to a
relative few.53
The advisory committees also took on the task offindingthe wor­
thiest poor, slum dwellers who were unaffected by the slums. On the
Lower East Side, tenant selection for First Houses' 122 units went
to an advisory committee of local settlement heads who applied May
Lumsden's stringent ratings scale to 15,000 applicants. With the
prestige of the New York program riding on it—Mrs. Franklin D.
Roosevelt was expected to attend opening-day ceremonies—the
charities experts bent to their work. Poring over applications and
subjecting the survivors to relentless scrutiny that included inspec­
tions of their tenement apartments, the social workers boasted that
they had found "the veryfinesttype" of urban pioneers. When First
Houses opened on June 22,1936, Lumsden reported that every cent
of rent was paid on time and the only wear and tear was chipped
paint in the playground.54
Determined to disprove the canard that blacks, as one member
put it, "are not ready for low rental government housing," the realtors
and social workers appointed to the Harlem Advisory Committee
weeded out the "troublesome and delinquent." Their questionnaire
asked for details on wages, debts, and employment, but applicants
who passed the preliminaries faced another grilling on work habits,
rent payments, and household standards to see how "constructive
54
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

the applicant is in the care of his apartment." The advisory com­

mittee developed its own point system, skewed toward evidence of
family stability. Slum residence and low income could garner only
16 points out of 100, whereas a male breadwinner who was debt
free and had $1,000 of life insurance along with some savings and
"legitimate" employment could accumulate 40 points. Another 20
points went to families with neat apartments and no record of trouble
with landlords. As word spread about the strictures, the committee
reduced the life insurance requirement to $500 and dropped refer­
ences to landlord disputes. Even so, Harlemites were furious when
the committee's paternalist guidelines became public knowledge.
The committee saved face by demanding that the Housing Authority
put blacks in charge of Harlem River Houses and appoint a black
to the authority board. Despite the uproar, Harlem River Houses
opened in May of 1937 with a solid middle-class core among its 577
tenants.55
The Housing Authority reconsidered the local committees after
Mayor La Guardia's 1937 purge forced changes in what May Lums­
den called "spasmodic" tenant selection. Up to this time, she ex­
plained, the authority looked primarily to clearance sites to find
families that met income and other qualifications, relying also on
newspaper and radio publicity to announce forthcoming projects.
To the authority's chagrin, the response came overwhelmingly from
families in New Law tenements; relatively little came from occu­
pants of Old Law slums. Large-scale operations anticipated by Alfred
Rheinstein's appointment and U.S. Housing Authority grants con­
vinced Lumsden it was time to place selection on a "permanent
all-year round basis." She wanted early designation by the City Plan­
ning Commission of slum clearance areas, which would allow the
authority to begin tenant recruitment by using schools and social
agencies to distribute application forms. This would enlarge the pool
of potential tenants who met eligibility standards. Under the PWA
regime, the authority had organized one project at a time. With more
predictable USHA grants and city planning, the authority could look
forward to removing thousands of tenants in a citywide system.56
A comprehensive system, however, meant that race could no
longer be treated with casual indifference. In 1934, Jim Crow rules
were taken for granted when technical advisor Frederick Acker­
man presented nearly identical room configurations for projects in
Harlem, Williamsburg, and Queensbridge, with the observation that
the Harlem project "will stand by itself." A year later, amid discus­
sions on the Mayer committee's proposals, the Housing Authority
55
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

sidestepped the racial implications of processing tenants en masse.

Monsignor E. Roberts Moore impressed upon May Lumsden and
Catherine Lansing the needforan alternative to a central applica­
tions office, pointing out "that in Harlem, . . . we must keep this
application office in the district and separate from the Williamsburg
office, for various good reasons." They found Moore's suggestion
"a wise solution to the problem." The authority improvised a dual
system that sent white applicants to headquarters on 14th Street
and black applicants to the Harlem River site. "This will insure the
[Harlem] applicants' knowing where the houses are going to be
built," Lumsden explained to Langdon Post, "and will require them
to make some sort of effort in behalf of getting an apartment."57
For years the dual system functioned despite demands by blacks
for access that was color-blind. At first, the Housing Authority re­
sponded to the pressure, which intensified after a riot in Harlem in
March 1935 by emphasizing that the Harlem River Houses would
meet the problems of the black poor. Abysmal slums had sprouted
in predominantly black areas around the Brooklyn Navy Yard and
in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, Morrisania in the Bronx, and
South Jamaica in Queens. Nevertheless, Langdon Post and his col­
leagues maintained that equal treatment meant separate, if not equal,
efforts—one for whites at First Houses, Williamsburg, Red Hook,
Queensbridge, and Corlears Hook, and another for blacks at Harlem
River. But organized protests in Harlem and Brooklyn and the social
consciousness that contributed to the formation of the New York
State Commission on the Condition of the Urban Colored Popula­
tion and, eventually, the City-Wide Citizens Committee on Harlem
stirred demand for new projects and unprecedented access to old
projects. By late 1938, the Housing Authority, which had overlooked
black neighborhoods outside of Harlem, responded with blueprints
for U.S. Housing Authority projects in Brownsville in Brooklyn and
South Jamaica in Queens.58
The promised construction and increase in black tenants strained
the polite denials that served the dual system. In November of 1939,
the Harlem Advisory Committee complained that Housing Au­
thority chairman Alfred Rheinstein "could never be pinned down on
anything" when asked which projects would accept blacks. Although
Mary Simkhovitch conceded that there were only two black families
in Red Hook (and, she reckoned, one in Williamsburg), she pointed
out that among the projects finished or already started, 18.5 percent
were in "predominantly colored sections," which was three times
the percentage of New York's population that was black. When re­
56
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

minded that 18.5 percent was far less than the percentage of blacks
who lived in slums, Simkhovitch explained, "You may say it is up
to the white population to receive the colored people in equal num­
bers everywhere because that is justice. But you know very well we
haven't arrived at that condition of social justice." The Housing Au­
thority would not "kick over the whole business of housing." If the
authority placed equal numbers of blacks and whites in Red Hook,
she pointed out, "the thing would not go." 59
The Harlem Advisory Committee urged the authority to act
boldly at South Jamaica, where a racially mixed neighborhood of­
fered what James Hubert of the New York Urban League called a
"rare opportunity" to lower barriers. But the authority eluded at­
tempts to define quotas. Simkhovitch agreed, for instance, that the
Bedford-Stuyvesant community in Brooklyn was "predominantly
colored"—61 percent, a staffer added. But authority members re­
fused to accept the corollary, as the minutes revealed.

Monsignw Moore: I don't think that because the population of an area

is such a percentage white and such a percentage black that we should
establish any such proportion.
Mrs. Simkhovitch: We shouldn't do that. I hope that is perfectly clear
because when Red Hook and Queens [bridge] came along, that was
kind of a reservoir into which people could be shipped from other areas
of the city.
Mr. Hubert: I have hopes that a project like South Jamaica can in addi­
tion to housing 400 families, point the way as to how this thing can be
planned. I know the Housing Authority is not a missionary group.
Mrs. Simkhovitch: We must stick to our guns. We are not missionaries.'60

The same day they met with the Harlem Advisory Committee,
Simkhovitch and Moore fended off a similar delegation concerned
about South Jamaica. Insisting that black applications to Queens-
bridge and Red Hook were pointless, Monsignor Moore explained
that they were not located "where colored and white people both
live." When Roy Wilkins of the National Association for the Ad­
vancement of Colored People favored creation of mixed projects,
Simkhovitch pleaded for practicality. "We have to strike a happy bal­
ance," she added. "We want to be just and at the same time we know
that after all the colored population is only 4.7% of the whole popu­
lation. . . . What we feel is the Housing Authority must thinkfirstof
housing."61
57
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

Although blacks complained, the authority continued its evasion.

When black tenants faced removal for the site of the Amsterdam
Houses in Manhattan in late 1940, an authority spokesman remarked
that he expected help from the Legal Aid Society and the Citizens
Housing Council. "I don't see why they are so terribly worried," he
assured a concerned politician, "as we have on all other projects been
able to find shelter for site tenants." But as late as the fall of 1941, the
authority assigned to the relocation task only one black employee,
who had his hands full with the Amsterdam refugees. Black demands
ran up against bureaucratic finesse that limited blacks to token pres­
ence in selected projects. Queensbridge opened for occupancy in
March of 1940 with 90 black families (3 percent) out of 3,149.
Williamsburg's 1 black family among 1,629 grew to only 17 black
families by mid-1943. Red Hook's 2 families became 102 families
(4 percent) among 2,504 by early 1944. The dual system relaxed,
but the authority remained committed to exclusionary relocation.62
Although public housing emerged from the 1930s as less than the
comprehensive low-rent system reformers had struggled for, it pro­
vided the bedrock for the massive upheavals to come. The Housing
Authority pored over the city, spotting sites for future operations.
It perfected site acquisition, spinning off specialty real estate firms
that became de facto allies of the low-rent program. It routinized
tenant removals within a system that relied on civil practice to re­
move tenants and philanthropic ministry for their rehousing. On this
system of partial responsibility, the authority improvised policies of
racial steering that divided the evictees into distinct streams. Few
administrators mentioned race as the criterion, but steering was ac­
complished just as effectively with claims that blacks were better off
near their existing neighborhoods and places of employment. Presid­
ing over this grudging acceptance of Jim Crow was the generation
of housers, Mary Simkhovitch and the others, who fought for pub­
lic housing and ended the decade offering polite denials about the
inequities that even a decent liberal program depended upon.
Public housing's partisans blamed the Housing Authority's dis­
appointments on Mayor La Guardia's indifference, on PWA indeci­
sion, and on Jim Crow realtors. A favorite explanation was that
"Washington" throttled the New York effort, particularly with the
language written into the Wagner-Steagall Act, which required that
for every low-rent unit built with USHA funds a unit of slum housing
had to be razed. New Yorkers claimed that "equivalent elimination"
forced on public housing the practice of building new units on slum

58
 REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

New York City Housing Authority projects,

the La Guardia years, 1935-1942

Name, Borough Funding Tear opened No. units

First Houses, Manhattan WPA 1935 122
Harlem River, Manhattan PWA 1937 577
Williamsburg, Brooklyn PWA 1938 1,630
Red Hook, Brooklyn USHA 1939 2,545
Vladeck, Manhattan USHA 1940 1,533
Vladeck City, Manhattan NYC 1940 240
Queensbridge, Queens USHA 1940 3,149
South Jamaica, Queens USHA 1940 448
East River, Manhattan USHA 1941 1,170
Wallabout, Brooklyn USHA 1941 207
Clason Point Gardens, Bronx USHA 1941 400
Kingsborough, Brooklyn Lanham Act 1941 1,166
Edwin Markham, Staten Island Lanham Act 1943 360
Fort Greene, Brooklyn NYS 1944* 3,501
TOTAL 17,048
*Construction began in 1941, completion delayed by wartime priorities.
Source: New York City Housing Authority, Eighth Annual Report (1941); Fourteenth
Annual Report (1948).

tracts, which guaranteed masses of refugees, new units contaminated

by contact with the old, and, in places such as Harlem, public units
that remained segregated islands. With these compromises, public
housing was doomed to fail.
But the heart of the problem lay with the housers themselves.
Langdon Post and his colleagues advocated both inner-city slum
clearance and planned, low-rent communities in the outer boroughs,
but always preferred the latter. They remained good-government
types, puritan builders, fiscal reformers. They could not bear to res­
cue slumlords and never saw the economic sense of devoting a re­
newed Lower East Side to working-class housing. They often talked
about the splendid tenants and the civic democracy that were taking
root in the projects, but they could barely disguise their condescen­
sion toward families who still bore the failings of the slums. Mary
Simkhovitch was right when she warned, "the public will not be
with us." Realizing the political liabilities of its economic stringency,
the Housing Authority embarked on equivalent elimination to move

59
REDEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC HOUSING

against the Lower East Side and demonstrate to La Guardia's city

that it understood that public housing was first and foremost slum
clearance. But by then it was already too late. The public was already
moving to vest control of the Housing Authority in officials with
fewer scruples about paying high prices to clear slums.

60
THE REDEVELOPMENT
FRONT

Mr. Moses is so far as I know .. . the second or third best

thing that ever happened to it [New York], and if we can
get his ability to marshall technical forces behind this
housing program and if we can get him to agree with us,
nothing in God's world is going to stop us.
Rexford G. Tugwdl

N e w York redevelopment in the early 1930s was a neighborhood

movement, not some grand scheme to prime the national economy.
Driven more by local boosters impatient with frowsy property than
by visionary capitalist planners, it proceeded with an ingrained cau­
tion toward constitutional authority, property confiscation, and City
Hall. Across New York, groups that swore off large-scale eminent
domain and government intrusion went about exhorting voluntary
action to save neighborhoods.
By 1938, fears about large-scale operations were swept away in
the turbulence of Mayor La Guardia's second term. During that re­
cession year, the city's left wing helped add the housing amendment,
Article XVIII, to the state constitution. New York voters gave their
mandate to government-directed clearance, public housing, and re­
planning. Hard times forced downtown property owners to face the
truth that only massive government aid could rescue them from per­
manent stagnation. Property interests began to recognize the logic
of an extraordinary measure, the "write-down," to jump-start recon­
struction. While many property owners were frightened of left-wing
attacks on landlords and wary of La Guardia, they came to see Park

61
THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

Commissioner Moses as a reliable man with the vision for the times.
Having pushed the fainthearted aside, Moses was ready to direct the
Housing Authority and city plans to rebuild New York.

Christian Endeavor

While public attention was drawn to the Housing Authority ex­

cavations at Williamsburg and Harlem River, many areas of the
city looked to government aid for more conservative ends. As part
of the emergency work programs of the early 1930s, realtors and
social-welfare advocates had sent hundreds of unemployed architects,
draftsmen, and clerks to conduct block-by-block property surveys,
the Real Property Inventory. When the Housing Authority took
over the inventory in 1934, local boosters had the first scientific
measure of neighborhood blight. Statistics for the Lower East Side,
Chelsea, Yorkville, and Morningside Heights bolstered the resolve
to halt neighborhood decline. The data were soon used by property
owners' organizations, which admired the National Association of
Real Estate Boards' plans for "neighborhood improvement districts"
that could upgrade property through coercive zoning. Other neigh­
borhoods looked to influential landlords to spearhead vaguely collec­
tive schemes for property improvement. Although most proposals
mentioned some role for public housing, they remained staunchly
conservative about its scope. As political demands rose for Wash­
ington to help the ill-housed "third of a nation," property owners
braced to keep the rescue in their own hands.1
One of the most debated revivals occurred on the East Side be­
tween planning intellectuals and Chamber of Commerce boosters
who were convinced that they could reclaim slums without pub­
lic authority. Collective action was already on the minds of many
owners when architect Arthur C. Holden went among them like a
machine age Jeremiah, calling private ownership obsolete. Holden
said that the East Side's salvation lay in "pooling" property into
district corporations. He explained that an "equity trust" could ex­
change ownership in property, including mortgages held by banks,
for proportional stock in the trust's title to all the property in a dis­
trict. Elected trustees could become entrepreneurs of the district's
resources, refurbishing Old Law tenements or clearing them, as nec­
essary. With Reconstruction Finance Corporation credit, they could
build modern apartments that Holden claimed would "command a
better rental and yet not out of range of the possibilities of the neigh­
62
 THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

borhood." (Foreseeing no grave displacement, he expected tenants

to "decant" into nearby apartments, which would remain within
their means because of economies in construction and operation.)
Although the equity trust might be armed with eminent domain,
it would not need it. Using RFC mortgages as a lever, the trustees
could warn hold-out owners, "Take it or leave it." Moral suasion
could reclaim the Lower East Side.2
Impatient to prove his ideas, Holden organized several blocks
on Grand Street east of the Amalgamated Dwellings. Meeting with
owners and mortgage holders, he tried to reassure them about the
value of their equities and liens. Officers from the Equitable Life As­
surance Society, the Bank of New York, and the Dry Dock Savings
Bank were intrigued, but doubted that they could arrange the re­
lease of property titles, let alone the claims of heirs, dependents, and
attorneys in trust accounts. A few remained stubborn reactionaries,
such as the New York Life Insurance officer who opposed "any slum
clearance activity which would disturb the 'supply and demand' situa­
tion." "When confronted with the fact that the near future presents
no probability of a profitable sale," the trustee of a family estate
sniffed, "nobody knows what the future of a real estate market may
be." Some owners appreciated Holden's arguments, but one elderly
woman, aware that her commercial loft was losing money, nonethe­
less declared, "I do not believe in owning anything with anybody" An
equally blunt attorney would not advise his client "to surrender his
deed for a flock of 'maybes.'" 3
Despite these disappointments, Holden gathered one group of
owners at the City Club in late 1935. Langdon Post gave the Tene­
ment House Department's assurance that cooperating owners would
be excused from enforcement of the Multiple Dwelling Law. With
that understanding, they proceeded to devise a trustees' agreement
and appraisal plan, but Holden soon recognized that they were
waitingforthe city's "commitment with regard to creditsforim­
provements." Langdon Post granted a three-month stay, but the
movement collapsed when owners blamed the city for failing to ar­
range government-backed mortgages. Doubting Holden's new era,
tenement owners wanted cash up front.4
Some neighborhoods relied on private institutions to hold out
against blight. In Yorkville and on Morningside Heights, the Rocke­
fellers' huge resources promised the required stability. The part of
Yorkville known as Lenox Hill had been Rockefeller ground since
the 1920s, when the family sought compatible neighbors, such as
New York Hospital, for the environs of the Rockefeller Institute.
63
THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

The family helped relocate the Lenox Hill Neighborhood Associa­

tion to make way for institute expansion, and built model tenements
for institute employees on Avenue A (soon renamed York Avenue).
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., also gave lavishly to the Memorial Hospital
for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases and purchased an
entire block between 68th and 69th streets, Second to Third avenues,
to provide the hospital with elbow room. "The whole East Side from
about 42nd Street north," the family realtor advised, "is undergoing
a complete change and this block will be extremely valuable."5
Acquiring property to ensure family control of large areas was the
Rockefeller approach to city planning. When the Rockefeller In­
stitute worried that speculators would build high-rise apartments
across the street on Avenue A, Rockefeller purchased the vulnerable
site. Family-built model tenements on Avenue A, rented in Rocke­
feller fashion to longtime employees, helped to stabilize personnel.
Welfare activities also contributed to the overall design. The gen­
erous Rockefeller gift for relocation aided the Lenox Hill Neigh­
borhood Association's venture into model tenements on East 70th
Street, which were rented by employees of Lenox Hill Hospital. For
the time being, Rockefeller gifts maintained standards on the Upper
East Side.6
Family hegemony on Morningside Heights proved another mat­
ter. Rockefeller interest in the neighborhood also dated from the
1920s, when John D. Rockefeller, Jr., gave generously to the River­
side Church and sent his sons to a nearby progressive academy,
the Lincoln School. Later in the decade, he bought property along
123rd and 124th streets and on Morningside Avenue to create a
protective zone around the school. Rockefeller's General Education
Board subsidized the physical growth of Barnard College, expecting
the campus to complement the facilities of Riverside Church. The
philanthropist was accustomed to having his way, as the Reverend
Henry Sloane Coffin learned when he oversaw the construction of
the Union Theological Seminary across from the church. Rockefeller
was annoyed by the grandiose plans for the seminary and threatened
to withdraw $200,000 from the building fund. But Coffin prevailed
because he was firm. "J. D. is accustomed to having everyone kow­
tow," he said, "but he respects those who have intelligent plans."7
By the mid-1930s, alarm about Harlem's spread forced the
Rockefellers to reconsider their stake in Morningside Heights. In
1934, the Riverside Church's spiritual leader, Dr. Harry Emerson
Fosdick, worried about the migration of blacks across 125th Street
and down Claremont Avenue. The Rockefeller real estate advisor
64
 THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

warned that Morningside Avenue "has many Negro tenants, and they
are encroaching on 124th Street." Family authority had also been
challenged by property owners who were skilled at blockbusting.
"Of course we have held to white occupancy," the advisor informed
Rockefeller, "but our rents have had to be reduced 40% and we still
have many vacancies." The family real estate committee reviewed the
facts, but needed to know the philanthropist's plans for the Lincoln
School "if negro occupancy predominated in the neighborhood."
One option was to hold "steadfastly to whites so as to block the
negroes, as far as we can, from reaching further west and possibly
threatening the surroundings of Riverside Church." Bolstered by the
family, landlords and mortgage bankers would hold the line.8
That option prevailed until the spring of 1937, when further
black incursions, coupled with family disappointments in other Man­
hattan property, brought a strategic withdrawal. On April 2, the
Rockefeller real estate committee decided to liquidate ownership
of Harlem's all-black Paul Laurence Dunbar Apartments, a large
share in the Dunbar Bank, and holdings on Morningside Heights.
William J. Demorest, the William A. White & Sons partner who
handled Rockefeller properties, sent the committee the latest news
about black encroachment, including "a rumor that there was a
Negro living in 434 West 124th Street." The committee decided to
create a cordon sanitaire by demolishing properties on 123rd and
124th streets and on Morningside Avenue. But notices to vacate by
July 31 touched off protests, telegrams to Mayor La Guardia, and
letters to the newspapers, which attacked "Rockefeller real estate
interests." The ruckus reached the philanthropist, who was summer­
ing in Maine. His attorney urged demolition without delay. "As
you know, this neighborhood is changing very rapidly from white
to colored," he noted. "I have been in touch with [John D.'s son]
Laurence . . . and he feels as [real estate advisor] Mr. Heydt and I do.
We are sure of saving about $300,000 by demolishing this year."9
That news clinched Rockefeller's decision to level the buildings.
As he explained to his attorney, "there are 213 apartments, ten have
moved, 75% expect to be out by the end of this month and . . .
the Catholic priests, a couple of communists and one other person
are the ones that are making the stir." The philanthropist got his
old friend Albert G. Milbank, an attorney "of broad social interest,"
to settle matters with Mayor La Guardia and Tax Commissioner
Hubert Delany, one of the city's most prominent black politicians.
Delany, a partner at the Dunbar Bank, agreed to forego tax collec­
tions, which enabled the family real estate office to give tenants a stay
65
THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

until November 1, after which demolition proceeded. In the 1930s,

the Rockefellers depended on middle-class anchorages and pressure
on local realtors to hold the line. But Morningside Heights showed
the limits of these tactics as well as the distasteful side effects when
family traditions failed.10
Private efforts against urban blight continued to intrigue housing
reformers who sought collective action without the dangers of state
control. Arthur Holden championed this view in city planning circles
and urged use of the Real Property Inventory to organize reconstruc­
tion districts. He took his pooling ideas to Harlem, Chelsea, and
Greenwich Village, anywhere landlords might act on the obsoles­
cence of private ownership. Holden found a congenial forum among
the conservatives on the new Citizens Housing Council. In 1937,
he joined realtor James Felt on the council's Committee on Old
Housing, which explored cooperative incentives for owners of Old
Law tenements. Holden presided over the Committee on Land As­
sembly, where Felt and other experts, such as Ira S. Robbins, legal
counsel to the State Board of Housing, debated assembling redevel­
opment tracts without eminent domain or large-scale displacement.11
They found support among property owners who favored re­
development but were unnerved by the public housing threat of
Article XVIII of the state constitution. Certainly this drove the con­
cerns of the Merchants' Association in the mid-1930s. The leader
of the Merchants' Association's housing cause was Arthur Holden's
cousin, Thomas S. Holden, who was vice-president of McGraw-
Hill, a charter member of the Building Congress, and a fund-raiser
for Arthur's property studies on the Land Utilization Committee.
Thomas Holden sought his cousin's advice for a special housing com­
mittee made up of "business men, professional men, financial men—
not sob-sisters." Dismayed by the La Guardia administration's course
of action, particularly the city's determination to request federal pub­
lic housing funds, he urged "considering what New York needs, rather
than what U.S. may give N.Y. or force N.Y. to do."12
The Merchants' Association underwrote Arthur Holden's con­
servative housing message to taxpayer's groups. He circulated among
property owners draft legislation that called for middle-income re­
development, which he sharply distinguished from low-rent public
housing. He insisted on the principle of fair-share taxes by denying
blanket exemptions on improvements, and he called for eminent do­
main vested in special franchise districts controlled by neighborhood
owners. Whereas the Housing Authority's partisans demanded fore­

66
 THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

closure on slumlords, Holden said that property owners could shape

a future all their own.13

Recession and Revival

Believers in redevelopment by private effort had their faith tested

during Mayor La Guardia's second term. Commercial property inter­
ests had already been reduced by hard times when the economy
nosedived during late 1937. Poor Christmas sales disappointed re­
tailers such as R. H. Macy and Abraham & Straus, and retail declines
continued through the spring. Midtown employers, moreover, had
been shaken by CIO strikes and membership drives among sales­
clerks and white-collar staff. Labor unrest had also struck midtown
hotels and high-rise apartments, and the organizational campaign by
Local 32B of the Building Services Employees Union climaxed with
a virtual general strike. Between the severe contraction of business
known as the recession of 1938 and the militance of labor, property
owners faced ruinous years unless government lent a hand.14
Midtown owners considered their plea for government interven­
tion to be a call for overdue municipal reform. Harold Riegelman,
legal counsel of the Citizens Budget Commission, argued that the
city could no longer afford wasteful investment in the outer bo­
roughs. "The only way to get rid of slums is to replan the areas
that created them," claimed Riegelman. "You have to visualize a
long-term program of reclaiming such sections as the Lower East
Side, at the rate of about 4 per cent each year and that calls for
heroic measures, which must be financially sound." Warning against
costly, duplicative effort, Delos F. Walker, general manager of R. H.
Macy and president of the Retail Dry Goods Association, called for
housing redevelopment in Manhattan.15
The City Planning Commission, created by the 1936 charter
election to advise land-use decisions of the Board of Estimate, en­
dorsed the new reality. Chairman Rexford G. Tugwell hoped to
tutor the La Guardia administration in master planning, beginning
with the commission's 1938 report that declared New York to be
overbuilt and overmortgaged. With a permanent decline in world
trade and a permanent class of jobless residents, the city had to
forget expansion. Although TugwelFs men reluctantly approved the
Queensbridge public housing site in Long Island City, they scorned
further spending in the outer boroughs. "The time has now come,"

67
THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

they added, "for replacing appropriately located obsolete areas with

modern housing for low-income groups, particularly where this can
be accomplished within walking distance of opportunities for em­
ployment." 16
That assessment found sympathy with Housing Authority chair­
man Alfred Rheinstein, who agreed with technical advisor Frederick
Ackerman's dictum about the "replacement era." Sharing the spirit
of La Guardia's second term, Rheinstein bluntly told a City Council
hearing that $1 billion was needed for housing. He went on to in­
form lawmakers that slum clearance would require city partnership
with landlords and private capital. Asked if he could support outer-
borough housing, Rheinstein stood by the slum-clearance task on
the Lower East Side.17
Amid the consensus on the inner city, Park Commissioner Robert
Moses made his first bid to seize control of housing policy. He
focused on the Mayor's Committee on Housing Legislation, which
La Guardia appointed in November 1938 to coordinate the city's
legislative agenda under the housing amendment, Article XVIII
of the state constitution. Chaired by the dean of the New York
bar, Charles C. Burlingham, the committee included Moses, Rhein-
stein, Tugwell, City Council President Newbold Morris, Corpora­
tion Counsel Paul Windels, Brooklyn Borough President John E.
Cashmore, State Board of Housing Counsel Ira S. Robbins, and
Dorothy Rosenman, the influential reformer. Moses planned to pro­
claim his own agenda for the committee at a black-tie dinner at the
Park Department Arsenal on November 22, the evening before it
was to meet. Rexford Tugwell and other guests expected a leisurely
discussion of housing, sponsored by civic organizations. But Moses
intended the dinner to serve as a backdrop for a thirty-five minute
speech over municipal radio on New York's housing future. Earlier,
Moses had pressured his staff for a list of housing sites near public
parks that would cost a nice round figure, $200 million.18
"As Commissioner of Parks of this city, as head of other govern­
ment agencies, and as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention,
my interest in low-rent housing requires no explanation," Moses read
into the WNYC microphone at the arsenal, unaware that Mayor La
Guardia feeling upstaged, had ordered the station to cut the broad­
cast. But the morning newspapers gave front-page coverage to the
address, which Moses entitled "Housing and Recreation." Assuming
that the state under Article XVIII would advance to the city $200
million in capital grants and $3 million in annual subsidies, Moses
called for ten slum-clearance and rehousing projects around existing
68
 THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

and proposed parks: six in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn, and one

each in Queens and the Bronx. He would tackle Manhattan's land
costs by building high-rise projects; his Tompkins Square project
would cost $5,200,000, or $9 per foot, but would cram 9,000 rooms
on the site. Moses would assess the projects at the value of existing
site property, thereby disarming the complaints of taxpayers' groups,
and he proposed to amortize state capital grants with a penny ciga­
rette tax. Integral to the plan was a $45 million start on constructing
limited-dividends, renting for $9.00 to $10.50 per room, at East
96th Street in Manhattan, Sound View in the Bronx, Flatbush in
Brooklyn, and Aqueduct Park in Jamaica, Queens.19
Moses called his $200 million package a down payment on a
twenty-five-year plan to rehouse the million New Yorkers who were
trapped in the slums. Pledging to work over the long haul, he
claimed that "the public will not tolerate management of such an
enterprise by well-meaning amateurs." He proposed to replace the
Housing Authority with a development board composed of himself,
Rheinstein, Tugwell, and other municipal experts. Employing real
estate professionals, the board would locate sites, purchase prop­
erty, and bring public pressure—including condemnation—against
recalcitrant owners. At the height of the campaign for the housing
amendment, Moses, more than any other public official, had spoken
the people's will.
At a meeting of the Committee on Housing Legislation (the
Burlingham committee) the following day, Moses pushed for the
three-year, $200 million package, while Rheinstein tried to con­
vince the committee to approve a scaled-down two-year version.
But Moses's linkage of housing with parks proved more convinc­
ing. As the committee minutes reported, "Mr. Moses contended that
argument in [the Constitutional] convention had been based on gen­
eral community rehabilitation. Suggests $15,000,000 [7Vi percent
of the $200 million] for playgrounds, schools, police, fire." Moses
had positioned himself as a champion of master planning, forcing
Tugwell to agree on the importance of dealing with entire improve­
ment areas. Rheinstein replied that "a general system of parks and
highways . . . may interfere with housing projects," and Dorothy
Rosenman remained adamant against diverting housing subsidies to
these amenities. But Tugwell said that "the public will demand these
facilities."20
Seizing the moment, Moses moved for a 10 percent diversion
of $20 million and the policy of locating projects on recreation
grounds. He further insisted that Article XVIII required replacing
69
THE REDEVEUOPMENT FRONT

the Housing Authority with a development board that worked with

the City Planning Commission. The committee met him part way,
voting to vest the city's program, including limited dividends, in
"one local agency, i.e., a local Housing Authority" that could wield
subsidies for several housing categories. Everyone except City Coun­
cil President Morris voted to give the housing board the power
of eminent domain, and only Rosenman joined Morris against a
twenty-year tax exemption. Further debate whittled Moses's diver­
sion down to 6 percent, which passed with only Rheinstein, Rosen-
man, and Morris in opposition. In vain, Dorothy Rosenman argued
"that every possible cent should go to public housing in view of the
greater comparative need for [low-rent] housing over limited divi­
dend housing." Tugwell swallowed his doubts about this subsidy,
insisting "the supervising agency shall have the power to pass on the
location of the site, plans and specifications." With TugwelPs assump­
tion that the City Planning Commission would have the preeminent
say, the formulation passed unanimously.
Having agreed upon a plan, Tugwell, Rosenman, Windels, and
others joined Moses to demand a housing czar—a paid professional
whose decisions would be subject to vague state review. Although Ira
Robbins and Louis Pink preferred a board, which Rheinstein cher­
ished despite its "inefficiencies," most committee members believed
that Article XVIII mandated a construction chief who would exercise
eminent domain over wide areas. Excess condemnation had become
a relic, useful, Tugwell said, only for small improvements. Moses
argued that eminent domain was meant for "great neighborhood
programs," and others concurred that its purpose was "to rebuild
large areas of the City." Again, Rheinstein cast himself as the trim­
mer, warning there was not enough money for "a great program of
parks and playgrounds." "We must preserve the great capital wealth
invested in great commercial buildings of the City," he continued.
"The flow of commerce must be preserved—and housing must be
related to it." Planning Commissioner Tugwell objected that "this
attitude has never prevailed before." Windels, too, favored ambi­
tious projects that might stimulate "private capital, [that] with some
public aid, will become interested in rebuilding the City." Rheinstein
dismissed it as Utopian, but the Burlingham committee had left him
behind.
During the 1939 legislative campaign for the State Public Hous­
ing Law to carry out the Burlingham committee's recommenda­
tions, Moses battered what was left of Rheinstein's credibility. Tell­
ing City Hall that housing without recreation was "a joke," Moses
70
 THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

claimed that Rheinstein never understood large planning issues. The

Housing Authority went "bargain shopping for odd lots," Moses
said, without regard for adequate recreation. But Moses refused to
share with the Housing Authority data on playground costs for the
East River Houses, La Guardia's pet project for East Harlem. When
Moses embargoed similar estimates for Red Hook in Brooklyn,
Rheinstein bitterly complained about his "embarrassing" predica­
ment. Moses's coup de grace was the accusation that the authority
mishandled plans to reclaim the Brooklyn Navy Yard "jungle."
Brooklyn housing reformers, along with Fulton Street boosters such
as Abraham & Straus department store executive Percy Straus and
Brooklyn Eagle editor Cleveland Rodgers, wanted the area razed.
But Moses informed his Brooklyn admirers that Rheinstein did not
have "the remotest understanding of the problem." He told Mayor
La Guardia that, properly directed, the authority could reclaim Flat-
bush Avenue all the way to Fort Greene Park. "The reconstruction
of the neighborhood should be emphasized," Moses insisted, "even
if all of it can't be done at once."21
Rheinstein's men replied that the authority did the best it could
with scant resources. They may have bargain shopped, but on the
basis of Frederick Ackerman's "Thirteen Slum Areas." Stung by
the barbs, Ackerman pointed out that Moses's quest for park space
ignored the "close relationship as between living units and place
of work or employment." Moses would locate low-rent housing
distant from blue-collar jobs and scatter limited-dividend projects
even farther. His sites would require expensive highways, transit
lines, schools, police stations, and firehouses. Ackerman argued that
Moses, not the authority, was wandering around the city without
a plan.22
In a decade where everyone dabbled at planning, Moses could
devastate the Housing Authority's efforts confident that few would
scrutinize his own. As park commissioner, Moses had done his share
of shopping for odd lots, but with certain plausibility. Many of the
strips and gores that he had accumulated had an instant legitimacy
among reformers who said the poor needed recreation space. He
could claim that existing parks, which were heavily subsidized by
WPA relief labor, provided the down payment on new housing.
The public also believed that when Moses linked housing and recre­
ation, he understood the real purpose of slum clearance, which was
to reform slum dwellers. If Moses exaggerated the power of decent
housing to rescue wayward youth, so did his generation, which was
obsessed with the scientific treatment of juvenile delinquency. When
71
THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

Moses charged the Housing Authority with ignoring the importance

of recreation, his reform theories as well as his site estimates were
overblown. But Mayor La Guardia believed that Moses knew what
he was doing and that the Housing Authority did not. In late 1939,
Housing Authority member Monsignor E. Roberts Moore took
stock of the wreckage: "We are a rather temporarily shattered Au­
thority," he remarked. "Mrs. Simkhovitch and I are really the sole
surviving force of the original group."23

Alert Promoters

Moses's siege of the Housing Authority brought redevelopment to

his door. Although reformers dismissed Moses's Arsenal speech as
meddlesome, his plans stirred neighborhoods anxious to put prop­
erty up for bid. The Washington Square Association, which kept in
touch with Moses about what it called "residential improvement"
south of the Square, praised his mention of a public project on Mac­
dougal Street. Anticipating an "era of expansion" around the Square,
the association agreed with Moses that high-rise apartments could
absorb the cost of turning expensive land into green space. "The
Committee believes that these [land] values suggest that the solu­
tion lies in planningforhousing for varied income groups," these
Villagers wrote Moses. "Through rentals graduated with respect to
the location and with respect to the facilities furnished it should be
possible to create and carry a substantially increased park area."24
Moses's most cordial reception came from Chelsea, where blight
had worried community leaders for some time. Spearheaded by the
23rd Street Association and the Hudson Guild, the Chelsea Associa­
tion for Planning and Action (CAPA) became the self-styled "alert
promoter" of local redevelopment. From the beginning, CAPA saw
the need to mobilize public and private efforts to build housing at
$7.00 per room, limited-dividends at $12.50 per room, and more
expensive projects that would rent on a par with "the finest existing
apartments" in the area. It tried to interest the Housing Authority in
a low-rent public project for a thousand families as "an incentive" for
the private sector to rebuild for "skilled wage earners, white collar
employees and junior executives." A few weeks after Moses's Arsenal
speech, Charles E. Lane, Jr., chairman of the CAPA housing com­
mittee, explained that a "limited dividend project [should] be placed
in each neighborhood where a public housing project is authorized
so as to . . . afford a stimulus to private enterprise."25
72
 THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

Much depended upon involving major corporations, particularly

the insurance giants at the other end of 23rd Street. Lane discussed
CAPA's plans with New York Life executives, but had more success
with Delos F. Walker, general manager of R. H. Macy and a leader of
the Retail Dry Goods Association. In the meantime, Lane used the
Hudson Guild to collate Real Property Inventory data on worthy
sites. Recalling realtor Fred F. French's stylish (and high-rent) apart­
ment complex on East 42nd Street, Lane said his committee en­
visioned "a chain of residential villages wherein adaptations of the
Tudor City idea can be extended around the central business area to
provide housing for workers in all of the income brackets." Public
housing had become an afterthought. CAPA still talked about 1,000
low-income units, within plans for roughly 5,400 additional units
across a range of higher rents. Lane sent his CAPA material to Park
Commissioner Moses, along with a gushing statement that Moses
was the man to lead this "new field of investment housing."26
Few of Lane's associates worried about CAPA's direction. In late
1939, architects Arthur Holden and Albert Mayer, joined by realtor
James Felt, took the idea of property owners' districts to Chelsea—an
area, Holden wrote, "where necessary rentals and attainable rentals
would meet." The redevelopers sought the blessing of John Lovejoy
Elliott, a leader of the Ethical Culture Society and director of the
Hudson Guild. Although interested, Chelsea's moral spokesman had
disparate obligations. "Dr. Elliott explained that his group had for
years been seeking low rent housing," reported Mayer,"... however,
he felt that such a neighborhood as Chelsea should have a range of
housing accommodations from low to higher, that however, it was a
shock to him to think that only higher cost housing was to be erected
now." Although Elliott was discomforted by trends in modern plan­
ning, he could not spurn gentrification that was balanced by some
provision for the poor.27
On the eve of World War II, as the district grew impatient for
action, that balance tilted further toward Chelsea's middle class.
The fact bothered architect Robert C. Weinberg, the City Planning
Commission staffer who attended several CAPA meetings in 1941.
Dr. Elliott presided over the first, which, according to Weinberg,
included "several realtors, a representative of the 23rd Street Asso­
ciation, local businessmen, the lawyer of R. H. Macy & Co., several
social workers, a representative of the local Republican Club, and
Mr. Cavanaugh the restauranteur and host." Several spokesmen for
the Regional Plan Association tried to sell the "importance of com­
prehensive planning," but Chelsea leaders were plainly interested in
73
THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

redevelopment legislation pending in Albany. Weinberg feared that

district planning would not survive the community's narrow interest
in "medium cost housing under the Urban Redevelopment Law."28
Moses ignored the Chelsea activists in favor of the 23rd Street
"insurance people" and State Insurance Superintendent Louis Pink.
Pink shared the expectations liberal New Yorkers had about the
housing resources of such corporate giants as Metropolitan Life.
The potential for stimulating business and employment, Pink ob­
served, "can be gauged from the fact that this one institution alone
is prepared to invest more in this state than we can hope to re­
ceive from the Federal government under the Wagner-Steagall Bill."
Pink was alluding to Parkchester, the garden apartment complex
for 40,000 residents that Metropolitan was building in the north
Bronx. Although he regretted the peripheral location, he admired the
fireproof, six-story, elevator-serviced apartment buildings arranged
around interior courts. Pink believed that Parkchester pointed the
way toward privately sponsored redevelopment of the inner city.29
In June of 1939, Moses got Mayor La Guardia's nod to join with
Pink in exploratory talks with insurance executives and prominent
bankers. Moses explained that he wanted to see what capitalists were
"prepared to do toward slum clearance and reasonably low rental
housing. . . . On what basis will they make loans? Will they as­
sume the responsibility for projects in neighborhoods where they
are most needed?" Moses raised with the mayor the questions he
intended to throw at the executives, and he was also ready to put
specific neighborhoods on the table, such as the Lower East Side
and the limited-dividend sites mentioned in his Arsenal speech.30
With Mayor La Guardia's approval, Moses met with state hous­
ing officials and, behind Rexford Tugwell's back, City Planning Com­
missioner Cleveland Rodgers to establish a charter of "cooperation
between the city and the companies." They agreed that insurance
companies should get 3.5 percent on their mortgage investment,
which they deemed appropriate for nonspeculative ventures. The
companies, in turn, would have to tackle projects at least 1 million
square feet in size, with lot coverage limited to 50 percent in slum
districts and height limited to six stories. In exchange for average
room rentals of twelve dollars, the city would assist with eminent
domain and 50 percent tax exemption on the improvements for
twenty years.31
Along with the ground rules, Moses presented Mayor La Guardia
with an operational framework that made him coordinator among

74
 THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

the mayor, the state insurance superintendent, and the Board of Esti­
mate. That left out Tugwell's City Planning Commission, the agency
that Moses had sided with on the Burlingham committee. The re­
quirement of 1 million square feet (the equivalent of six Manhattan
blocks) had enormous repercussions for planning, but Moses refused
any role for the City Planning Commission or language that required
the insurance projects to dovetail with master plans. Moses's sketchy
formulation included a list of proposed sites, including huge chunks
such as "St. Gabriel's Park," which stretched from 34th Street to
40th Street, First Avenue to Third Avenue. The proposal rested on
the insurance companies' experience with Parkchester-style housing.
As park commissioner, Moses knew that Parkchester was a crowded
beehive that had inadequate play space for 40,000 residents. But
housing and recreation aside, Moses also knew Met Life chairman
Frederick H. Ecker well enough not to question Parkchester's spar-
tan facilities.32
La Guardia administration policy that turned over large parts
of the city to the insurance industry doomed City Planning Com­
mission attempts at a master plan. Mandated by the city charter to
produce a comprehensive overview of future land use for the Board
of Estimate, the commission spent 1939 creating a series of maps for
parks, arterial routes, and rehousing. All would culminate, Tugwell
expected, in a master map of the city's economic development and
housing located in outer-borough greenbelts. The map would have
been the crowning achievement of public authority. Whatever good­
will there had been between Tugwell and Moses on the Burlingham
committee vanished during the City Planning Commission hear­
ings on the proposed maps. Moses circulated through City Hall a
memo that ridiculed the arterial plan. Later he attacked the green­
belt proposals as more Utopian nonsense. In December of 1939,
the commission's map showing proposed sections for slum clear­
ance and rehousing got a hostile reception at hearings, where bank
and real estate interests said the commission was redlining districts
and perpetuating the very decay the planners were trying to eradi­
cate. Tugwell's staffers were forced to concede that the map showed
areas for new housing, rather than the best places to raze Old Law
tenements. The compromise document received a compromised fate.
Filed in January of 1940 as a component of the proposed master
plan, it remained an expression of policy that never was accorded
official status. Nevertheless, it established clearance areas for any city
official—or civic group—bold enough to seize upon them.33

75
 THE
FRONT

N E W J E R S E Y

76
 THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

Strange Bedfellows

Moses commandeered city housing policy because he expressed the

activist message of the 1938 constitutional convention better than
anyone else. He came to power with the de facto support of the
city's left wing, including tenant groups mobilized by the housing
crisis of the late 1930s. The would-be construction czar and the rank
and file embraced an urban agenda that included a showdown with
slumlords, massive slum clearance, and an entire new housing sys­
tem. But the collective spirit repelled most institutional investors,
whom Moses needed to provide the mortgages for his projects. They
wanted assurances that a reliable man such as Moses would stay in
control.
When public housing became a strident issue in 1937, tenant
groups threw their weight behind the cause of large-scale clearance.
Even as the vacancy squeeze made adequate relocation impossible,
their support remained steadfast. On the Lower East Side, left-wing
pressure secured the Housing Authority project at Corlears Hook
(soon renamed for Housing Authority member and American Labor
party chairman B. Charney Vladeck). They intervened again when
the authority began to bulldoze tenements, forcing 800 predomi­
nantly Jewish families from the site. A tenants committee formed to

The liberal city's redevelopment potential, 1940 (opposite). The City Planning
Commission's "Master Plan, Sections Containing Areas for Clearance, Replan­
ning, and Low-Rent Housing," adopted January 3, 1940, but never formally
approved by the Board of Estimate, was the closest New York ever came to an
official redevelopment agenda. The commission mapped 9,000 acres of Old
Law slums that stretched from the historic centers of the Old Law tenement on
the Lower East Side (sections 11, 12, and 13) through Harlem (sections 1, 2,
and 3) and the South Bronx. Brooklyn's wood-framed tenements surrounded
the Navy Yard from Greenpoint (section 1) to Red Hook (sections 10 and
11). The commission left undetermined the portion suitable for replacement
by low-rent public housing. In practice, the term "replanning" provided the
allowance for medium- and high-rent improvements. Neighborhood civic and
improvement groups, along with the Mayor's Committee on Slum Clearance,
headed by Robert Moses, exploited the vagueness. In sections 11, 12, and 13
on the Lower East Side, section 10 in Greenwich Village, and section 4 in West
Park, civic groups campaigned for middle-income redevelopments. Other sec­
tions were ignored to create new clearance areas, such as Manhattan section 6
near Lincoln Square and Morningside-Manhattanville (between sections 2
and 4).

77
THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

arrange a relocation deal, but Housing Authority staffer Catherine

Lansing heard that the tenants were "moving on passively," aided by
the neighborhood advisory committee. Some tenants balked, how­
ever, angered by rumors that they would never qualify for the new
housing. Far worse, they lamented the loss of their homes, and one
told reporters, "The people here, they fought for housing. They were
wrong. Now they can find no place to bury themselves." The public
grief stunned the authority, which scrambled to lessen the damage.
The Lower East Side Public Housing Conference came to the res­
cue, claiming that only twenty-five families had lodged complaints.
But the East Side Tenants Union went further. It organized the site
families, held a slum-clearance rally, and arrangedforparticipants
to tell reporters they were happy to leave their homesforhousing
progress. As a rank-and-file leader announced, "The tenants them­
selves, organized as the Vladeck Division of the East Side Tenants
Union, have been assisting the Housing Authority by spreading the
correct information." Committed activists, patiently explaining the
issues, had made the difference.34
Similar intervention occurred in 1940, when the authority con­
demned a small black slum on the West Side to make way for the
Amsterdam Houses. Many site families that could not qualify for
the new project would face Manhattan's Jim Crow housing market.
Bolstered by the New York Youth Congress and the National Negro
Congress, a Lincoln Square Tenants League pledged to forge ahead
with what it called "the cooperation of the colored and white ten­
ants." By July 1941, the Tenants League had soothed enough resent­
ment so that it could stage a "farewell to the slums" party to celebrate
the demolitions. But tenants soon had their fears confirmed. The
Housing Authority acknowledged the difficulties in rehousing blacks
in segregated Manhattan, and more than half the displaced tenants
ended up in Harlem. When left-wing ideology coincided with needed
public works, tenant leaders could stifle doubts about relocation.35
For better or worse, the City-Wide Tenants Council, which came
to prominence during the 1936 abandonment scare, had joined
hands with the Housing Authority, whose projects could uproot
thousands. Seeking political allies, the authority had patronized
neighborhood tenant groups to agitateforhousing issues. Liberals
on the authority board and on civic groups such as the Citizens
Housing Council looked to the tenants to convey their reform
agenda to the masses and praised the City-Wide as the civic democ­
racy they hoped would flourish in the projects. At times, tenant

78
 THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

groups could become too assertive, presenting authority managers

with claimsforinsiders' privileges, particularly getting members on
project waiting lists. The City-Wide said it carried out the authority's
mandate when it represented project tenants in "collective bargain­
ing" with management. Some tenant leaders recognized that the
projects were splendid recruiting grounds for radical causes. Both
sides regarded the projects as concrete symbols of the 1930s' resolve
to rebuild urban America. During the post-1936 united front among
the left wing and liberals, ideology linked disparate groups behind
vast expansion of public housing.36
That consensus could never include urban redevelopment, as
long as redevelopment threatened to shove aside the poor. When the
Citizens Housing Council's subcommittee on land assembly debated
Arthur Holden's ideas for property owners' districts in 1937, City-
Wide representatives expected the districts to rehouse site tenants
at comparable rents and voted protectionsfor"minority owners,
the general public, families to be displaced, city government, and
investors in mortgages." A year later the subcommittee's proposals
for the state constitutional convention required that special districts
seek the approval of the City Planning Commission, two-thirds of
local property owners, and a majority of tenants. In 1939, the Citi­
zens Housing Council's subcommittee on redevelopment, chaired
by realtor James Felt, hammered out a policy statement that insisted
that redevelopment, whether subsidized by federal or local grants,
had to find decent, affordable housing for site tenants. Without the
moral force of the low-rent program, redevelopment earned scant
support from the city's left wing.37
It soon got even less. In the fall of 1939, the Hitler-Stalin Pact
and the outbreak of World War II caught redevelopment, along
with other housing policies, in a political crossfire. New Deal lib­
erals hoped to sustain domestic reform under the banner of pre­
paredness and proceeded to draw plans for "defense housing." But
congressional conservatives used the emergency to slash New Deal
programs, while Communists denounced President Roosevelt for
"warmongering." Dragged along by the Communists, the City-Wide
Tenants Council demanded $1 billion for U.S. Housing Authority
projects and jeered anything that smacked of defense housing. City-
Wide "reps" on the Citizens Housing Council invited new mem­
bers from "progressive" labor and consumer groups and maneuvered
against liberals' acceptance of war housing. Under this pressure, the
council's subcommittee on public housing prepared an elaborate

79
THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

agenda for New York, which refused to delay projects to build the
country's defense. Despite the European crisis, the low-rent program
had to proceed "unabated."38
A political minefield waited redevelopment policy when housing
liberals and Merchants' Association conservatives collaborated on
the Nunan-Mitchell Bill for the 1940 legislature. Thomas and Arthur
Holden had turned the Merchants' Association idea for equity trusts
into complicated machinery for redevelopment districts. The bill
offered three modes for housing investment, including the Metro­
politan Life—type limited-dividend corporation and the cash-investor
stock company, but plainly favored the Holdens' alternative of equity
trusts among property owners. All three modes required redevelop­
ers to get approvals from the City Planning Commission and the
Board of Estimate. The bill denied new projects blanket tax exemp­
tion and adopted the National Association of Real Estate Boards'
formula to vest eminent domain in the districts by local option. Re­
developers pursuing the trust scheme would have to get consents
from owners of 51 percent of assessed-valued property (and area)
before they could apply for the power of eminent domain. The bill
said nothing about low-rent housing. The Holdens assured tax­
payer's groups that Nunan-Mitchell would keep property improve­
ment in their hands.39
Nunan-Mitchell was caught between hostile camps. Park Com­
missioner Moses remained an implacable enemy. He ridiculed the
supervisory requirements, particularly review by Rexford Tugwell's
City Planning Commission. Despite all the safeguards, tenant radi­
cals attacked the threat of displacement, and the City-Wide Tenants
Council urged Governor Herbert H. Lehman to veto the bill. The
City-Wide's Tenant Newsletter asked, "What will become of the
present tenants?" Although the editors recognized that private capi­
tal could play a role in slum clearance, they felt it would have to
be "regulated as to tenant selection, construction, rent levels and
profits, if its participation is to be encouraged by special privileges."
The Tenant Newsletter warned, however, that "by no means should
private capital be endowed with broad powers and be left to operate
in such a way that it imperils, albeit indirectly, the future success of
low-rent housing." Moses's attack was influential, but when Gover­
nor Lehman vetoed the bill, he cited the failure to protect displaced
residents. For the time being, politics made redevelopment a hope­
less cause.40
Behind the scenes, however, Moses's conversations with mort­

gage investors had reached a promising stage. "The Equitable will

80
 THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

probably do something on its own account," reported State In­

surance Superintendent Pink. "There is at least a possibility that
the New York Life and the Mutual will cooperate in an East Side
project." Accordingly, Pink supported a La Guardia administration
summit with the insurance executives. The object of the meeting,
Moses claimed, was to divide the Lower East Side "between the
various semi-public and public groups interested in housing." The
mayor had particular hopes, moreover, for a limited-dividend at
97th Street in East Harlem that would be sponsored by the Bowery
and Dry Dock savings banks. In the meantime, Moses quietly got
opinions from the city corporation counsel and the state attorney
general that under Article XVIII the city could grant irrevocable tax
exemptions to limited-dividends. "The banks and insurance compa­
nies insisted on an opinion," was Moses's explanation to La Guardia
for why he had bypassed the City Council on the issue. Strong
words on city exemption, he said, were needed to get projects started
"without delay."41
Somewhat reassured on taxes, investment leaders thought that
they could remove further impediments that depression politics
had forced on the State Public Housing Law of 1939. The state
housing commissioner had considerable authority to order rent roll­
backs in limited-dividends and to pry into tenant incomes. Savings
banks held back, claimed Bowery president Henry Bruere, because
of the "great fear" that the Housing Authority and the state housing
commissioner would impose arbitrary controls over redevelopment
companies. Political appointees might dictate rents and tell compa­
nies whom to accept as tenants. Bruere insisted that banks' limited-
dividends had to be free to pick their occupants. He wanted as much
as anyone to avoid discrimination, "but to hazard the economic suc­
cess of the enterprise by an attempt to go against the custom of
the community," he warned, "does not seem to me to be desirable
from any point of view." Bruere challenged the moral obligations
that had been placed on housing improvement since the Progressive
Era, when reformers tied public subsidies to limited-dividends and
tenant incomes. For years, bankers chafed at state oversight. In the
late 1930s, the private sector signaled that it would not participate
unless it could pursue more affluent clientele.42
The bankers' uneasiness put off the mayor's Lower East Side
summit until September of 1940. By then, La Guardia was annoyed
that state claims to supervise limited-dividends imposed meddlesome
regulations. "Probably you felt strongly about this matter yester­
day," Moses said, trying to calm La Guardia, "because some of the
81
THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

interested savings bank and life insurance people told you they were
worried about successful operation" under the state's regulations.
Moses assured him that with help from Superintendent Pink, Albany
would agree to an "entirely separate set of rules governing projects
of this kind."43
With these sympathetic allies, bank leaders continued their as­
sault on needless regulations. Bowery vice-president Earl B. Schwulst
and Dry Dock president Andrew Mills expected Moses's support
for relaxed state oversight of the East Harlem limited-dividend. Be­
cause banks already were "semipublic institutions" regulated by the
state, Schwulst and Mills argued for an end to the state housing
commissioner's line-item budget review. Most of all, they wanted
guarantees that rent limits, if regulated by the commissioner, could
be discussed reasonably behind closed doors. "Banks have no desire
to enter into public controversies on a subject of this kind. . . . They
have vividly before them the five-cent fare question of the subways,"
the executives pointed out. "They have just about the same degree of
confidence that a public hearing would support an increase in rentals
in a limited dividend housing project."44
Manhattan Borough President Stanley M. Isaacs, for one, was
inclined to meet the banks halfway, particularly after learning that
Bowery and Dry Dock were backing out of East Harlem. He spoke
with Bruere and Schwulst, who complained that regulatory laws
"made it impossible for them to proceed." But Isaacs expected the
parties to compose their differences. Conferences with the bankers
resumed during the spring of 1941, when state housing officials
worked out acceptable changes for the legislature to consider. While
drafts circulated among bankers and insurers before the fall 1941
legislative session, the process ran into Mayor La Guardia's reelection
campaign and his pledges for more, not less, municipal supervision
of business. Privately, La Guardia agreed with Moses that strong
incentives were needed to lure capital into redevelopment.45
Instead, the 1941 legislature produced the Desmond-Mitchell
Bill, another version of the Merchants' Association's cumbersome
proposal for private equities. Again, the bill required the franchise
districts to gain consents from 51 percent of owners before they
could apply for eminent domain. Whereas liberals insisted that re­
developers conform to the City Planning Commission's master plan
and certify existence of relocation housing, La Guardia and Moses
again tried to vest supervision with the state and the Board of Esti­
mate. Moses managed to inject a ten-year exemption from city tax
on improvements, but could not shake demands by civic reformers
82
 THE REDEVELOPMENT FRONT

that the City Planning Commission review building density and the
left wing's insistence that the Commission certify relocation. Moses
hated the result, but a wide coalition, ranging from Al Smith to
Dorothy Rosenman, successfully urged Governor Lehman to sign.
The Urban Redevelopment Corporations Law was a monument to
the 1930s' suspicions of property ownership and the deadlock that
imprisoned redevelopment.46
The New York deadlock was part of the malaise from the re­
cession of 1938. Class bitterness, compounded by the outbreak of
World War II, had throttled the New Deal agenda without releasing
forces for fresh advance. On the national level, economists warned
that idle capital stood on the sidelines prolonging stagnation. They
debated whether to coax investment with new incentives or threaten
capitalists with a tax on excess profits. Municipal experts found the
local analogue in the persistent blight that kept cities in paralysis.
They blamed the urban predicament on mechanisms of property
adjustment that had been deranged by depression politics. Despite
hard times, property owners held to their inflated prospects, their
"flock of maybes," which prevented the orderly liquidation of values
and the urban revival that should have followed.47
The delayed recovery and the desperate search for an urban break­
through led redevelopment's partisans to advance the kind of gov­
ernment intervention that went beyond eminent domain and tax
exemption: the idea of government "write-downs," a simple method
to bypass the urban barricades. As outlined by Federal Reserve Board
advisor Guy Greer and Harvard economist Alvin H. Hansen in their
pamphlet, Urban Redevelopment and Housing (1941), government
would forgive property owners' past follies and absorb their losses
in the community's best interest. To ease the liquidation and as­
semblage of propertyfordowntown redevelopment, public grants
would make up the difference between what owners believed their
property was worth and the steeply discounted value it had for re­
developers. Only government could make this social investment in
exorbitantly priced slum land. Hansen, a disciple of English econo­
mist John Maynard Keynes's proposals for massive public expendi­
tures to counter the business cycle, argued that Washington had to
shoulder the cost as a means to prime the economy. It would take
drastic measures to break the metropolitan deadlock. But Robert
Moses put his faith in the special bond between reasonable men.48

83
 4

STUYVESANT TOWN

The War emergency has fused all interests and opinions

in a common cause. In this same spirit we can expect
those whom you name to lay a foundation for the recon­
struction of the City of New York.
George McAneny

W o r l d War II provided the preconditions for the redevelopment

of New York. The global conflict may have distracted the city from
a social-welfare agenda, but the dire limit on resources forced the
La Guardia administration to sort municipal priorities and antici­
pate postwar needs. Making choices about the future was Robert
Moses's stock in trade and inventorying city resources enabled him
to complete his takeover as the mayor's housing coordinator. One
of Moses's first determinations was to settle the future of the Lower
East Side while the war held all parties to the common cause.
Moses's ambition made possible Stuyvesant Town, Metropolitan
Life Insurance Company's mammoth project for the East Side "gas­
house district." Metropolitan Life would clear away 11,000 working-
class tenants to plant 8,756 middle-class families in a city within the
city. The startling breakthrough involved negotiations between will­
ful giants and depended on Moses's posturing as a public servant. It
owed a great deal to the strong mayoralty created by La Guardia and
the power aggrandized by his housing czar. But it could not have
succeeded without the political environment of the People's War, the
tacit approval of the city's left wing, and its preoccupation with the
united front. It also depended on the grudging approval of a genera­
84
 STUYVESANTTOWN

tion of city planners, who could support the ends, if not the means,
of Moses-style renewal. The times as much as the man shaped the
prototype for the redevelopment to come.

Domestic Sacrifice

Metropolitan Life's clearance of working-class homes was a conse­

quence of left-wing rationales during World War II. Standing firm
behind the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the left wing demanded that the New
Deal fulfill public-housing promises and denounced moves toward
wartime housing. That posture changed when the Nazis attacked the
Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Within days, the left wing sought
cordial relations with La Guardia liberals and applauded projects
that advanced war production. On Manhattan's West Side, hopes for
speedy completion of the Amsterdam and Chelsea low-rent projects
ended when the community learned that defense shortages would
halt construction. Liberals on the Chelsea Association for Planning
and Action appealed to federal officials to expedite work to avoid "a
lowering of morale." Ruth Farbman of the Ethical Culture Society,
who had counseled Amsterdam site tenants, could not bear to see
them "evicted from one slum and moved into another." But ten­
ant activists remained philosophical. The Chelsea-Clinton Tenants
League notified the Housing Authority that "the idea of giving up
the struggle for materials is indeed a great disappointment; but that
the tenants are prepared to make this sacrifice."1
Sacrifice became the byword at the City-Wide Tenants Council,
which renamed itself the United Tenants League of Greater New
York in recognition of wartime housing needs throughout the re­
gion. Shutting down its campaign for rent control and other pro­
tections for tenants in private housing, the United Tenants League
poured all energies into homefront morale. After Pearl Harbor, the
Citizens Housing Council learned that the new priorities meant get­
ting "the cooperation of tenants, as well as landlords, on winning the
war." The switch cost the league members in Old Law tenements,
whose residents still considered landlords the prime enemy. But it
garnered new recruits in Housing Authority projects, particularly
those linked with the war effort: Red Hook, and Fort Greene, near
Brooklyn's shipyards, and giant Queensbridge, a short walk from
Long Island City's airframe plants.2
With total war, the left wing embraced the public projects with
special ardor. When the federal government changed public housing
85
STUYVESANT TOWN

admission policies to give priority to defense personnel and began

to impose income ceilings on nondefense occupants, the Queens-
bridge and Fort Greene tenant leagues rose against rules they said
endangered the war effort. The anger at Queensbridge nearly got
out of hand, until the tenant leader, to the amazement of the project
manager, told the dissidents, "This is no time for rent strikes."
Federal housing officials heard the message and raised the income
ceiling to $3,000 in late 1943. The controversy left the Housing
Authority with a grudging respect for the United Tenants League's
ability to settle issues through "collective bargaining" and further
entrenched left-wing activists in public housing. From bastions such
as Queensbridge, they boosted morale wherever tenants could work
for victory.3
Wartime fervor clinched Moses's entree into housing. He re­
called that in October of 1941, "at Mayor La Guardia's request, I
surveyed the progress of housing development and recommended
adoption of a unified plan for all rehabilitation." With good rea­
son, Moses focused on downtown Brooklyn. The place where Alfred
Rheinstein stumbled had assumed even more importance with the
crush of nearby ordnance production. "I cited the changes in the
Navy Yard district as an example of the right way to replan rundown
areas," Moses explained, "but I criticized the City Housing Authority
for refusing to go beyond the building of low-cost, government-
subsidized housing." One month later, after Mayor La Guardia won
reelection to his third term, he appointed Moses to the City Planning
Commission. Proclaiming greenbelts "dead," Moses announced his
readiness to make tough choices.4
From this position Moses completed his takeover of municipal
housing. The war had frozen civilian activities, which gave planners
the time as well as the obligation to think about the city's future.
In January of 1942, the Regional Plan Association called Mayor
La Guardia's attention to the opportunity "to explore the ways
and means of redevelopment of whole neighborhoods." Association
president George McAneny expected the mayor to appoint a post­
war planning committee to write a reconstruction agenda. Moses
had already considered the mayor's response. With his experience
on the State Reconstruction Commission of 1919 and the Emer­
gency Public Works Commission of 1932, no one was more qualified
than Moses to give postwar planning the rationale it needed. Within
days, Moses outlined a proposal for postwar planning in the kind of
language that meant the most to La Guardia. He urged a mayoral

86
 STUYVESANT TOWN

commission to create "a reservoir of public works" to battle postwar

unemployment.5
With the nod from Gracie Mansion, Moses lost no time establish­
ing himself as the mayor's postwar coordinator. He turned his City
Planning Commission office into a clearinghouse for an official list
of municipal projects. He was careful to lend Park Department and
Triborough Bridge engineers to bureaucrats who wanted to be on
the wish list, a service crucial for borough presidents, who depended
on public works but lacked the technical help to get them started.
Planning money was scarce, but Moses expected to tap the Regional
Plan Association and the banks. He figured they would underwrite
an advisory commission headed by someone of the stature of Nelson
Rockefeller or the Rockefeller family's architect, Wallace K. Har­
rison. But his most important accomplishment was positioning the
city as a full-fledged partner with state efforts, despite the fact that
most of Albany's capital spending would occur beyond city limits.
"There is practically no state institutional construction within the
city," Moses warned La Guardia. "The most important state work to
be done is in the field of public housing, and here the city stand has
a lot to gain by the proper selection of additional projects and their
design, and probably also the acquisition of land."6
Moses quickly disposed of the Housing Authority's postwar pre­
tensions, which were weak to begin with. The holdover board, con­
sisting of Mary Simkhovitch, Monsignor E. Roberts Moore, and
housing architect William C. Wilson, was without a chairman and
direction. Policy fell to legal counsel Maxwell H. Tretter and plan­
ning chief William C. Vladeck. In early 1942, the authority called
on the City Planning Commission to cooperate on postwar recon­
struction of the slums. But Moses had already briefed the mayor on
the city's list of sites, adding that La Guardia could not "present an
expanded program through the agency of Mrs. Simkhovitch, Tret­
ter, and Vladeck," those "social workers and radicals." He warned
La Guardia that Republican Thomas E. Dewey would probably win
the gubernatorial election in November 1942, and cast a "critical"
eye on the city's housing. In the coming contest with Albany, the
mayor would get little help from the authority. Several weeks later,
La Guardia named Edmond Borgia Butler, Fordham Law School
professor and prominent layman in the Catholic archdiocese, to fill
the vacant chairmanship. Moses assured the mayor that he and Butler
would whip a housing program into shape.7
By the spring of 1942, decisions on public housing emanated

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from the City Planning Commission, or rather from its self-styled

"subcommittee" on housing, consisting of Commissioner Moses,
his assistant, George E. Spargo, and his staff. While Spargo's men
worked on five state housing sites, Moses got his friends in the legis­
lature to revise the public housing law to permit the City Planning
Commission to pass judgment on specific sites that did not nec­
essarily conform to the master plan. City Planning Commission
chairman Edwin A. Salmon explained to Housing Authority chair­
man Butler that it would enable the commission "to adopt specific
projects as a part of the Master Plan even though the details of some
individual projects may be at variance with the standards." By then,
Butler also learned that the commission had chosen housing sites be­
hind his back. Delivering the fait accompli, Salmon announced that
postwar reconstruction must go through his commission, whose liai­
son with the state was Moses. Only the City Planning Commission,
Salmon pointed out, had responsibility for large-scale neighbor­
hoods. It had quit "talking in generalities," Salmon lectured, "and
is no longer giving blanket approval to vaguely defined improve­
ments."8
With the Housing Authority humbled, Moses spent the summer
of 1942 reviewing the city's requests under the state postwar pro­
gram: a site just east of St. Mary's Park in the Bronx; another in
Astoria, Queens; and a large plot on Oliver Street just north of the
Brooklyn Bridge. He worked exclusively with William C. Wilson and
George Spargo, who commented, "They [the Housing Authority]
will undoubtedly say that they have never heard of them [the sites]."
A month later, the City Planning Commission completed its work,
except for a perfunctory public hearing. It approved the following:
the John Lovejoy Elliott Houses for Chelsea, an expansion of the
Amsterdam site, the Jacob Riis and Lillian D. Wald projects on the
Lower East Side, and the Brownsville Houses; and it added the
Lower Harlem (James Weldon Johnson) project, the Lower Bronx
(St. Mary's) project, and the Marcy project in Brooklyn, all desig­
nated part of the city's "Post War Works Program." To accommodate
three projects, the commission enlarged, shifted, and—in the case of
Astoria, Queens—created new clearance and replanning areas. More
significantly, it redefined project density measurements as what it
called "guides to desirable objectives rather than as binding require­
ments." The commission no longer found it practical to apply "to
individual projects limitations established as a general guide for large
areas." The city was notified that the City Planning Commission had
assumed the prerogative to consider each project "on its merits."

88
 STUYVESANT TOWN

New standards of expediency accompanied the expansion of slum

clearance.9
The rush to acquire sites under the postwar program, Moses
warned Mayor La Guardia, would thrust on the Housing Authority
the role of owner of slum property. The authority would face "dif­
ficulties" in managing clearance areas where it would have "to act
as landlord until after the war." Moses also worried about the con­
demnation costs for acquiring land and factories intermixed with
the tenements, although he pointed out that "cost may be reduced
by permitting tenants to remain for a time." Moses raised with La
Guardia the possibility that the expense of slum clearance might be
eased by collecting slum rents for the duration that tenants resided in
clearance areas. The management task dwarfed anything May Lums­
den contemplated before the war.10
Public housing decisions had vast implications for the social
geography of the city. During the war, when civic and welfare leaders
on the City-Wide Citizens Committee on Harlem urged the La
Guardia administration to consider dispersal of the Negro ghetto
as part of postwar plans, the city chose to enlarge Harlem as a
racial preserve. That decision came with the Lower Harlem pub­
lic housing project on East 99th Street named for James Weldon
Johnson. The borough presidents of Manhattan and the Bronx op­
posed Lower Harlem because it would block their hopes to extend
Park Avenue as a high-class residential corridor into the Bronx.
Spargo reminded Moses that "we considered this long ago in the
Planning Commission and decided against it." The plan would have
disrupted Jim Crow boundaries and forced displacement of blacks
into white neighborhoods. Those determined to expand low-rent
housing found it simpler to rebuild Harlem housing within exist­
ing racial boundaries. Spargo scrounged for the last-minute votes
on the Board of Estimate that approved Lower Harlem and Moses's
reconstruction of the ghetto.11
After the City Planning Commission delivered its decisions to
the Housing Authority in 1942, the authority informed affected
neighborhoods. Monsignor Moore notified Italian leaders in East
Harlem not to expect the city to build middle-income projects on
northern Park Avenue. Moore explained that the site was needed
for a large project for Puerto Ricans. East Harlem social agencies
found that the James Weldon Johnson site would have inadequate
recreational facilities, including day care for only 100 children. Only
15 percent of the apartments were set aside for families of five and
only 5 percent for families of six, which agencies called unrealistic
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STUYVESANT TOWN

for the district's needs. But hard decisions had already been made to
erect tall, elevator-equipped structures that would pack maximum
numbers, 600 per acre, on the site. Public housing was readied for
the redevelopment to come.12

The Elusive Private Sector

The wartime mood also removed political obstacles to generous sub­

sidiesforredevelopers. In 1942, City Corporation Counsel Paul
Windels, working closely with Moses, Insurance Superintendent
Louis Pink, and State Housing Commissioner Edward Weinfeld,
drafted a new law that authorized the establishment of limited-
dividend redevelopment companies supervised by the state housing
commissioner and the Board of Estimate. Although Pink acted as
virtual lobbyist for the New York Life Insurance Company, most law­
makers favored conciliating the holders of capital. The point man for
such measures, Manhattan Assemblyman McNeill Mitchell, rejected
"tying the companies and the banks down with so many restrictions
that it would be impractical for them to invest."13
Urging Windels on were New York Life executives and one eager
director, former Governor Al Smith, who wrote to Moses in January
of 1942 to urge him to "step on this proposition." With New York
Life president George L. Harrison, Moses toured one site, Smith's
old neighborhood around Oliver Street, just north of the Brook­
lyn Bridge. While Moses courted the insurance giant, Windels put
final touches on the legislation to meet what he called his "strong
belief that these projects are private enterprises." Windels wrote into
his draft a $15 rent limit and enough language about public pur­
pose and blighted areas to meet the requirements for condemnation
under Article XVIII. Moses added his own touches, such as requiring
the construction of interior streets and parks at company expense,
which he had reviewed with New York Life executives. That done,
Moses's staffers believed that Windels's work, submitted as the re­
vised Hampton-Mitchell Bill, met "practically all of the objections
raised by the NYLIC." Recommending the final version to Gov­
ernor Lehman, Al Smith described "a great opportunity here [at
Oliver Street] for housing at reasonable rentals, because people can
walk to work in the downtownfinancial,business, and government
district."14
With Governor Lehman's signature, the Redevelopment Com­
panies Law of 1942 permitted savings banks and life insurance com­
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 STUYVESANT TOWN

panies to invest directly in the stock of limited-dividend companies.

It authorized municipal tax exemption on improvements for up to
twenty years, although it still required the redeveloper to certify with
the City Planning Commission that site tenants could find adequate
housing. It also kept provisions requiring continued oversight of
projects by the commission and the Board of Estimate. Although
Windels had tried to free redevelopers from undue oversight, the
City Planning Commission's role had remained.15
Convinced that the Lower East Side was primed for redevel­
opment, Moses was anxious to get New York Life started under
Hampton-Mitchell. In June of 1942, Moses advised the company
to call property owners together and offer generous terms, but
threaten to go elsewhere if they proved stubborn. He stood ready
with alternate sites on the East River above 14th Street and south of
Washington Square, although he favored "the Governor's old neigh­
borhood." When the company dawdled over the summer, Moses
considered Oliver Street for a low-rent project. But that failed to
budge New York Life president Harrison, who said his company
planned "no immediate action." Moses turned up the pressure, alert­
ing the City Planning Commission to end the delays on Oliver Street
"on the assumption that somehow this area should be saved for
life insurance or bank action." He got Mayor La Guardia to send
Harrison a last-minute appeal. "I am particularly anxious to have sev­
eral insurance company and, perhaps later, savings bank projects at
reasonably low rentals," the mayor wrote, "because the entire prob­
lem should not be left to public housing." But in the fall of 1942,
Moses angrily wrote off New York Life's "reactionary board."16
Corporate inertia sabotaged Moses's grand design for the East
Side waterfront. He had expected the corporations to be adventur­
ous, and, in his petulance, asked Bowery president Henry Bruere
why he did not "do something about it." "The same thing applies to
other executives," Moses went on. "My friend Lew Douglas [presi­
dent of Mutual of New York Life Insurance], for example, after
attending many conferences on the east side matter, finally backed
out with the extraordinary excuse that it was 'too thin.'" Having
pledged generous public support, Moses wondered why powerful
businessmen were so impotent. "We went as far as to offer the insur­
ance and savings people full cooperation in the acquisition of all the
land fronting on the East River Drive from 14th Street down. . . .
The public housing projects were to be placed back of the semi­
public, that is, west of them. The heights of buildings were to be
staggered so that the public projects would be taller and would still
91
STUYVESANT TOWN

have a view of the river. . . . Finally they said the whole thing was
too thin and simply backed out." 17
Moses tried to realize regional planners' cherished ambitions for
the East Side, but the private sector lacked the nerve. Reluctantly,
Moses concluded that the city would have to take the area for the
working class. "With the collapse of this [middle-income] program,"
Moses noted, "the public housing projects were again located along
the waterfront." Two years later, Moses said on his thwarted plans,
"I spent over two years of honest unremitting effort to persuade
fiduciaries to build on the more desirable, less expensive, frontage
on the East River. . . . It was agreed to hold back public projects and
to give a reasonable opportunity to the fiduciaries to go along on
this basis."18
As New York Life bowed out, Moses turned to Frederick H.
Ecker, imperious chairman of Metropolitan Life. Moses had been
after the company for some time to create another Parkchester. In
conversations with Mayor La Guardia, Ecker preferred an East Side
location. "It has seemed to me," he pointed out to the mayor, "to
have an additional value in helping to anchor population in Man­
hattan." Talks went far enough between Ecker and Moses (who kept
La Guardia constantly informed) for an agreement in principle for
a project north of 14th Street with maximum rental of $12.50 per
room, and city condemnation and cession of interior streets, if the
company paid to widen boundary streets and make other "incidental"
improvements. Ecker objected to Metropolitan paying taxes on the
ceded streets, but Moses assured him that the city would work it out.
Mayor La Guardia gave the package his blessing.19
The undertaking made Moses and Ecker wary allies who tested
the limits of their deal. Reminding La Guardia in November 1942
that "nothing presumably can be done for the duration," Ecker
wanted assurances that the city would not collect taxes on property
turned over to the company that might lie idle for years. Mayor La
Guardia promised nothing, but pointed out, "assuming that you col­
lect reasonable rentals from structures which are safe and presently
under lease, it seems to me that you will be doing a good stroke of
business." Ecker also worried about the city's regulatory authority.
Although Moses conceded that he would have to remove further
municipal oversight from the Redevelopment Companies Law to
"satisfy him," he was convinced that Ecker would go ahead anyway.
He told the mayor, "I base my confidence in their actually proceeding
with the plan almost wholly on the personal interest of Mr. Ecker."20
In early 1943, while Moses's assistant, William S. Lebwohl, and
92
 STUYVESANX TOWN

Assistant Corporation Counsel Jeremiah Evarts removed what Ecker

called "the many features of control" from the Redevelopment Com­
panies Law, Moses expedited the city's contract. Reminding his staff
that Ecker was "anxious to pitch into this thing as quickly as pos­
sible," Moses concluded that "the informal approval of plans by
the City Planning Commission should precede formal hearings." As
he explained, "the acquisition of property by agreement is a tough
proposition where large plots are involved and agreements with
public authorities are required." Considered by the legislature in
the spring of 1943, the Hampton-Mitchell Bill contained the usual
limits on rents and dividends, but no mention of income limits on
tenants. It shifted project oversight, however, to the state superin­
tendent of insurance and the Board of Estimate, leaving the City
Planning Commission with only incidental review. An additional
feature allowed redevelopers that were wholly owned subsidiaries of
insurance companies to end municipal oversight once redevelopment
contracts were signed with the city. The bill extended municipal tax-
exemption to a maximum of twenty-five years, although a further
provision allowed redevelopers to free themselves from limits on
dividends and rents by payment of exempt taxes. The legislature also
ended the requirement that redevelopers certify the existence of ade­
quate rehousing for site tenants. The measure's silence in regard to
low-income site tenants and its laissez-faire attitude toward income
limits sent a strong message about the class basis for the redevel­
opment process. Moses's struggle to free private redevelopers from
pernicious regulation had succeeded.21
Liberals had little to say about the class displacement, but
were vocal with their worries about the elimination of planning
safeguards. A Citizens Housing Council appraisal warned that
Hampton-Mitchell would "permit private corporations, with the ap­
proval of the supervising agency, to require any individual or even a
community to turn over its real property to them and then may pro­
ceed to operate these properties without the necessary public con­
trols." One council member, architect Ralph Walker, worried about
neighborhoods being "left in the lurch if at any time the insurance
companies wish to pay back taxes," while Arthur Holden charged
that unscrupulous companies might use "redevelopment techniques
as a mere pretext for assembling property." But Louis Pink advised
Governor Dewey that the measure, which he said represented "the
desire" of Mayor La Guardia, would "make the project immediately
practicable." He added, "There will not be much building under
this law immediately and if the amendments do not turn out as we
93
STUYVESANT TOWN

would like, there will be plenty of time to change them." While sym­
pathizing with liberals' cautions, Governor Dewey concluded that
New York faced the issue of "housing or no housing" and signed the
measure.22
Moses was still arranging the fine print on the Metropolitan con­
tract when Ecker arbitrarily picked April 18, 1943, to unveil the
project. His timetable suddenly thrown off, Moses ordered his staff
to meet with the architects of Parkchester to rush the work. Moses
added his own planning particulars to correct what he considered
Metropolitan's weakness for enclosed units and the "project" look.
These included: "Adequate setback of buildings so as not to blot
out and depress surrounding property. . . . Variation in height of
buildings so as to get away from a box-like institutional appearance
of most big developments of this kind. . . . Placing of the lower
buildings, if possible, around the borders and the higher ones inside.
I know this is unorthodox, but I think it is the right thing to do."
Moses told his staff to write the Metropolitan contract to prohibit
the company from abrogating provisions, particularly payment of
back taxes no earlier than five years after construction, and to for­
bid "material changes" in the layout during the twenty-five-year tax
period. "This clause must be drafted with the greatest care so as to
answer the criticisms of those who say that the whole project might
be ruined by putting up additional buildings." Moses wanted "pretty
strong" language to hold Metropolitan to that condition.23
Above all, Moses wanted speed. Although it was plainly impos­
sible, he expected the city to begin to vacate abandoned structures
in the gashouse district on August 1, with demolitions to start by
October 1. When Mayor La Guardia entertained a delay in City
Planning Commission hearings, Moses impatiently counseled him
that the banks and insurance companies were looking for the city to
maintain "business-like procedure." "Projects like the Metropolitan
gather a certain momentum, and the thing to do is to keep them
going to a quick conclusion," he reminded the mayor. Anything less
would open the field to the "radical housing boys, who don't want
private capital horning into theirfield."Their questions about con­
stitutional authority and public benefit would derail the project. If
given the chance, Moses warned, they would stop it cold.24
On April 18, 1943, Mayor La Guardia and Frederick Ecker
unveiled the plans for Stuyvesant Town. The project for 24,000
middle-income occupants would encompass eighteen square blocks
across the Lower East Side. Sweeping away tenements long reserved
for the working class, it would change the social geography of the
94
 STUYVESANT TOWN

Stuyvesant Town unveiled by the architects, 1943. The Metropolitan Life

Insurance Company's redevelopment of the "gashouse district" on the East
Side was applauded by proponents of private-sector investment in slum clear­
ance. But the project's dense high-rises, which cast shadows on the center oval,
and inadequate provision for recreation space and community facilities disap­
pointed planners. Metropolitan Life's decision to build Stuyvesant Town for
whites only scandalized liberals and helped touch off the post-World War II
fair-housing movement. Courtesy of the Special Archive, Triborough Bridge
and Tunnel Authority.

inner city. Its incentives toward the private sector would break the
psychological logjam that kept corporations from investing in New
York's turbulent housing market. Its sheer audacity made Stuyve­
sant Town the jewel of Mayor La Guardia's reconstruction program,
and Moses's bold plans for the gashouse district were proclaimed by
urban experts as the modelforrevitalizing cities across the country.

The Walled City

Stuyvesant Town forced liberals to face the consequences of their

talk about unleashing capital to rebuild the city. The point was ham­
mered home that spring of 1943 by economists Alvin Hansen and
Guy Greer, who made the rounds of New York civic groups to argue
for large-scale endeavors. They told the Citizens Housing Coun­
cil that renewal would require government subsidies to write down
95
STUYVESANT TOWN

the exorbitant cost of blighted real estate. They clinched their pre­
sentation with doleful statistics, collected by liberals themselves, on
Manhattan's stagnant property values and high foreclosure rates.
Everyone agreed that government had to go to great lengths to
lure private investment to save the city. With one stroke, Moses had
engaged Metropolitan Life in the campaign.26
Although reformers accepted the private sector's role, they wor­
ried about the side effects. Architect Robert C. Weinberg supported
redevelopment, but criticized Metropolitan Life for failing to merge
Stuyvesant Town into the City Planning Commission's master plan.
Sitting uneasily between 14th and 23rd streets, the project lacked
clarity as a neighborhood unit and failed to provide schools and
community facilities. Citizens Housing Council president Harold
Buttenheim deplored the excessive floor coverage, which created a
residential density that was higher than that of public housing. The
transaction bothered some realtors as well. H. Robert Mandel ob­
jected to the "financial assistance and other benefits, not obtained by
private developers," and demanded that the city force Metropolitan
to plow excess profits back into lower rents. Many questioned what
Buttenheim called the "needless haste" with which the project was
thrust on the City Planning Commission. Enraged by the "fascist"
way in which Moses rammed Stuyvesant Town through city govern­
ment, realtor Peter Grimm called the hearings a "travesty."27
For many liberals, the last straw was Frederick Ecker's offhand
remark that Metropolitan Life planned Stuyvesant Town for whites.
His words reflected the usual prerogatives of middle-income housing
managers and the confidential understandings among the La Guardia
administration, fiduciaries, and even some reformers that limited-
dividends had to be able to choose their tenants. But Ecker blurted
the news in mid-1943, when sentiments about the People's War
and racial justice had reached fervent levels. The Ethical Culture
Society, the American Jewish Committee, and the Citizens Housing
Council had already launched a City-Wide Citizens Committee on
Harlem to examine ghetto conditions and debate strategies to dis­
mantle Jim Crow. New York had taken tentative steps down the long
road toward an interracial society. With his business-as-usual, Ecker
spurned the moral message of the war.28
Deeply embarrassed, the creators of Stuyvesant Town preferred
to dwell on New York's economic future. Former Corporation
Counsel Paul Windels dodged the discrimination charge by describ­
ing the project as a response to the erosion of real estate in the central
city. Now head of the Regional Plan Association, he explained that
96
 STUYVESANT TOWN

the question facing New York was, "How can we stop the [popula­
tion] drift away from the city and maintain valuations in older areas?"
The mayor, in whose name Moses and the others had acted, avoided
talking about Jim Crow, but ventured that Ecker could not have
meant what he said. Citizens Housing Council president Harold
Buttenheim finally cornered La Guardia at City Hall and demanded
an explanation. "Mayor La Guardia is quite concerned about the
probability of a reactionary administration getting control of NYC
the next election," Buttenheim reported. "He urges a united action
to provide full employment after the war by a combination of public
and private effort."29
Moses kept emphasizing Stuyvesant Town's impact on New
York's future, but he also secured high-powered legal help to defend
the Metropolitan contract. He hired Assistant Corporation Counsel
Evarts, who codrafted the Metropolitan agreement, as chief tactician
for Metropolitan's legal battery, which was headed by special counsel
Samuel Seabury. A pillar of the New York bar and an anti-Tammany
mugwump, Judge Seabury had been an imperturbable champion of
racial minorities, a defender of beleaguered socialists, and the city's
leading proponent of municipal ownership. Now he fended off criti­
cism of La Guardia's franchise to a private corporation that included
the right to turn away blacks.30

United Tenants

The last hurdle for Metropolitan Life was the May 1943 Board of
Estimate hearings on the grant of eminent domain. Despite Moses's
plan to squelch debate, representatives from the Citizens Housing
Council, the Ethical Culture Society, the American Jewish Com­
mittee, social settlements, and the City-Wide Citizens Committee
on Harlem berated the "walled" Jim Crow town. Attacks also came
from small businessmen and property owners' groups, infuriated by
the company's special privileges. But left-wing views were divided.
The Socialist New Leader, for instance, accused Moses of railroading
approval through the Board of Estimate. It worried about site fami­
lies left "to forage for themselves when the property is condemned,
forming new slums elsewhere." Many radicals remained subdued.
City Councilman Peter V. Cacchione, a Communist, voiced perfunc­
tory skepticism, while the American Labor party simply urged "some
provision" for site tenants. Among tenant groups, only the United
97
STUYVESANT TOWN

Tenants League and the Queensbridge Tenants League petitioned

against the plan, and none testified from the public projects. United
Tenants League secretary Catherine Masters asked the Board of Esti­
mate "to persuade the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company to sit
down with you and bring in the changes and improvements." Wor­
ried that killing the project would jeopardize thousands of jobs, the
CIO Industrial Trades Council said that Metropolitan Life should
end its discriminatory policy.31
Preoccupied by the People's War, the United Tenants League
(UTL) gave large-scale redevelopment only glancing review. Al­
though the UTL signed the Citizens Housing Council petition
against the Stuyvesant Town contract, its president, Grace Aviles,
refused to join liberals who rebuked Metropolitan Life's plans to
make amends by building another redevelopment in Harlem, the all-
black Riverton. Far more important, amid the furor over the broad
authority given Metropolitan Life, the UTL dropped long-standing
qualifications to private-sector redevelopment. In September 1944,
the UTL executive board proclaimed that "all progressive groups"
could agree on a "united postwar housing program" for redevelop­
ment of large inner-city areas. Given this consensus, the UTL saw no
reason to antagonize the real estate industry. Old reformers must have
been stunned to read the UTL board's cavalier about-face: "This idea
has even infiltrated the thinking of our most progressive and liberal
organizations as a result of their concern with reducing the prices
of slum property and not allowing the Government to be a 'sucker'
for inflated slum property prices or the means of 'bailing out' slum
property owners." Because the UTL saw "redevelopment as a neces­
sary instrument through which we will achieve an all-round housing
program . . . , we cannot justifiably oppose Federal aid to urban re­
development just because that aid is going to private industry." The
UTL would not question the city's deal with the company.32
Even when redevelopment intruded on constituents, the United
Tenants League remained above the fray. Days after eviction rumors
raced across East 14th Street, the October 1944 UTL convention
called on the Housing Authority to speed the Jacob Riis and Lillian
Wald projects for refugees from Stuyvesant Town. The rank and file
preferred to believe that tenants would be handled by expanded pub­
lic housing. It would not look behind the corporate role. Praising the
Hampton-Mitchell Law, the UTL convention reiterated, according
to the account in the Daily Worker, "As part of the overall housing

98
 STUYVESANT TOWN

program, encouragement should be given to private capital to invest

in the field." The Worker understandably added: "If private real estate
owners and builders ignore this market, or fail to meet its demands,
public housing can and must do the job." But it reported the UTL's
confidence that "private capital will be prepared for the challenge."33
On the Stuyvesant Town site, tenants reacted in ways that would
become ritual over the next twenty years. At first stunned, they de­
nied the loss of their homes, then resented their betrayal, then groped
for reassurance. A Stuyvesant Tenants League (affiliated with the
UTL) was on the site to coordinate the response of local churches
and community groups, but it was dominated by civic leaders willing
to work toward the "very quiet exodus going on." As the Stuyvesant
chairwoman noted to city officials, "We want to initiate a campaign
for moving expenses to be paid by the Met. and priority for these
people on the Public Housing Projects lists." The Stuyvesant Tenants
League appealed to the city for fair play, particularly a gesture from
Mayor La Guardia. When the mayor announced over WNYC that
low-income tenants would be accommodated in public housing, the
Stuyvesant Tenants League clung to the promise. The Community
Service Society, which sent social workers to study rehousing needs,
admired Metropolitan Life's efforts at relocation. The company had
contracted the task to Tenant Relocation Bureau, Inc., owned by real­
tor James Felt. Society observers praised Felt's businesslike concern
and added their imprimatur to the removals.34
Site tenants expressed remarkably little anger, for people soon to
lose their homes. They held no site protests and ran no cordon of
baby carriages around City Hall. They had harsh words for Moses,
but pointed no fingers at Mayor La Guardia. Their bitterness was
undercut by the Stuyvesant Tenants League, closely advised by the
United Tenants League. The Stuyvesant league remained concilia­
tory, admitting that "the pleading of the tenants' case has been left
up to [the company]." As the Stuyvesant secretary further explained,
"Throughout all of our negotiations [for relocation housing], it has
been our concern not to embarrass the city administration in any
way. Our tenants have wished to demonstrate their feeling in this
matter by a march on City Hall, but to date we have been able to
restrain them." It had been difficult, but they would avoid displays
that might tarnish La Guardia. "Any demonstration that would be
a matter of embarrassment to the Mayor would be a matter of deep
regret to us."35

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STUYVESANT TOWN

Civic Design
Moses's plans encountered little disagreement from architectural and
planning circles. Intimately familiar with his taste in redevelopment,
many professionals sought to share its rewards. In late 1942, the
Architectural League of New York and the New York chapter of the
American Institute of Architects (AIA) sponsored a design competi­
tion expected to make "a serious contribution" to the redevelopment
cause. They established a working relationship with Henry Bruere of
the Bowery Savings Bank and the Regional Plan Association, who
were gathering advice on rebuilding plans. Money came from the
Bowery, with more expected from the New York Bank for Savings,
New York Life, and Mutual of New York. Metropolitan Life's favor­
ite architects, Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, lent technical facilities.
The first joint project focused on reconstruction of a 632-acre East
Harlem district with something besides "the present gridiron plan,"
which translated into a high-density, Parkchester-scale project north
of 96th Street. Civic designers thereby hoped to mobilize "the vast
pool of capital controlled by our great financial institutions."36
The Architectural League and New York AIA competition stimu­
lated other clearance studies that were virtual anticipations of Stuy­
vesant Town. Among the first given peer approval were William
Lescaze's "Harlem Study" and Holden, McLaughlin & Associates'
"South of Canal Street Crossing." Both called for massive clearance
and highways for streams of automobiles. Lescaze carved super­
blocks north of Central Park, while trying "to discover if possible a
means of continuing to provide facilities for the present residents."
Another study, by Morris Ketchum, suggested a cross-Manhattan
tunnel at 34th Street. AIA referees endorsed the route, although they
wondered about "the suburban shopper and the problem of what to
do with her car." Collectively, the submissions represented the best
urban design at the height of the war. A June 1943 assessment by
the New York AIA's Committee on Civic Design concluded that no
one was pursuing any better redevelopment studies than those repre­
sented by the contest entries, although it blamed the City Planning
Commission for failing to undertake "constructive and coordinating
ideas." As for Stuyvesant Town, the New York AIA concluded "it
should be considered water over the dam, but that we should at­
tempt to investigate the probable effects of such enterprises on the
surrounding neighborhood and on the future of the city."37
Months after the Metropolitan Life contract was approved by
the Board of Estimate, the AIA's Committee on Civic Design scru­
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 STUYVESANT TOWN

tinized Stuyvesant Town's probable impact, but chose not to con­

front the project. "What kind of City do we want?" asked architect
Jacob Moskowitz about the Stuyvesant Town "bargain." "We have
reached a stage in City growth that calls for a restatement of values
and a taking of stock. Our growth has been toward bigness and
congestion. . . . We have been pushing upwards unmindful of all
consequences." Uneasy about Moskowitz's language, AIA colleague
Robert C. Weinberg emphasized that although failure to conform
to master plans was typical, the scale of Stuyvesant Town "magnifies
all these questions." Weinberg concluded it was time to demand a
comprehensive land-use policy "officially recognized as a guide by
all agencies involved in the development of New York."38
Most architects were more comfortable debating Stuyvesant
Town as a planning lesson than as a moral crossroads. The AIA
Committee on Civic Design called the project an "accomplished
fact," despite its "far-reaching consequences." Stuyvesant Town's
25,000 residents on fifty acres would burden neighbors for support
facilities. But rather than denounce the density, the AIA committee
saw the project as a useful model for planned neighborhood units.
"Should we not determine," the committee ventured, "whether the
city should be developed in the direction of a group of integrated
self-contained neighborhoods, new and old, preserving as far as pos­
sible existing communities like Greenwich Village, Chelsea and other
historic neighborhoods?" The AIA could sanction the rearrange­
ment of venerable districts as "self-contained neighborhoods," which
in places such as the Village opened the way for preservation by bull­
dozer. The AIA said nothing about the integrity of neighborhoods
that lacked a worthy history. And, like Paul Windels of the Regional
Plan Association, the critics kept their eyes on inner-city real estate
values. Although they chided the city for going ahead with redevel­
opment without master plans, the civic designers could not deny
Metropolitan Life's good intentions.39
Criticism mattered little, however, compared to the design pro­
fession's readiness to rival Moses as rebuilders of New York. Hol­
den, McLaughlin & Associates, apostles of small-scale, incremental
change, joined the wartime binge for megablocks and superhigh­
ways. Deriding what it called the "overstressed 'traffic flow' aspect
of city planning," the firm published in the October 1943 Architec­
tural Forum sketches of five cross-Manhattan expressways to rebuild
"neighborhoods as organic parts of a living, growing city." These in­
cluded a double-decked South of Canal Crossing and an East Hous­
ton Crossing which would "consolidate the downtown residential
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STUYVESANT TOWN

Holder), McLaughlin & Associates' proposed redevelopment of East Harlem,

1943. Leading architects vied with Robert Moses to suggest fanciful slum
clearance for postwar New York, including this thirty-two-block redevelop­
ment between the Harlem River Drive and Central Park at East 96th Street.
The slabs surrounded by green space and sinuous arterial roads were typical of
the modernism they thought Manhattan deserved. The planners also favored a
low-rent portion further north, but did not include it in the sketch. Reprinted
from Architectural Forum, October 1943.

district" and transform abutting property into parks and residences.

For mid-Manhattan they proposed a Theatrical Loop Crossway on
a shelf along 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue and the Hudson
River, with access ramps and parking facilities, and an East Midtown
Crossway connecting with the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. Holden,
McLaughlin's last idea, which Architectural Forum showcased, was
for East Harlem: a 98th Street Crossway that curved from the East
River Drive to a "worthy plaza terminus" at Park Avenue.40
With East Harlem, Arthur Holden cast aside his ideas for pooling
equities for massive clearance by powerful authority. According to
the firm's research, the thirty-two-block district was a poverty zone,
where 9,921 tenants paid an average of $23 in monthly rent. But
if Park Avenue were turned east to the Harlem River Drive, the
shift would link "the better class residential sections of the Bronx
and Manhattan's most desirable residential center." By bringing the
"'greenbelt' into the heart of the city," Holden, McLaughlin antici­
pated construction of 9,240 new apartments with an average rent

102
 STUYVESANT TOWN

of $76. Defensive about the high rents for a quasi-public endeavor,

Holden claimed the redeveloper would set aside 20 percent of the
units for low-rent housing. The scheme, which was more disruptive
than any Moses ever proposed, was accompanied by an appeal to
colleagues to plan for "the city as a whole."41
The project that William Lescaze developed in partnership with
realtor James Felt was equally grandiose. On twelve square blocks
north of Central Park, Lescaze envisioned wholesale removal of
existing tenements for "superbuildings" surrounded by highways.
Lescaze also emphasized the importance of planning to meet "human
needs." His drawings, however, looked like an attempt to clear
human obstacles from traffic generated by Moses's Triborough
Bridge. As pillars of the New York AIA, Holden and Lescaze led the
design group toward an imaginative response to urban redevelop­
ment, but their sensibilities betrayed an affinity for the Moses style.
Despite all the doubts among professional planners about the direc­
tion of Moses's urbanism, few disagreed with his overall vision.42
Housing reformers recognized what Stuyvesant Town signified
for the inner city. During May 1944 "Housing Week" celebrations,
Charles Abrams warned about business that "assumes the function
of a body politic without being responsible for the social obligations
to which a body politic is subject." A year later, after unsuccessful
legal challenges by Abrams and others against the Stuyvesant Town
contract, the Citizens Housing and Planning Council (Planning was
added during the war) still grappled with redevelopment. Social
worker Loula D. Lasker and realtor Charles G. Dailey agreed "that
the problem of displaced tenants would become much more acute
after the war," with Stuyvesant Town pointing "to what is ahead."
They urged the Citizens Housing and Planning Council (CHPC)
to recommend policies to lessen hardship. On this occasion, Grace
Aviles of the United Tenants League discounted the liberals' fears
with arguments remarkably similar to those of Robert Moses. She
announced that the UTL favored enlarging the supply of low-rent
units through government-aided rehabilitation of tenements and an
increased income limit in public projects "until private enterprise
fills the gap." In April of 1945, CHPC executive Harold Buttenheim
tried to arrange a conference with the UTL and welfare groups to ex­
plore redevelopment's impact on tenant relocation. The conference
never took place, perhaps because tenants still did not give relocation
their highest priority.43

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STUYVESANT TOWN

Self-Relocation
Stuyvesant Town was an enormous undertaking but was only part
of the postwar work under Moses's review. He saw the 14th Street
project as clearance that would ripple across the East Side. In late
1944, he named George Spargo coordinator of Stuyvesant Town
removals. Spargo had no idea where site tenants would go and
made the mistake of indulging local realtors, who sought to pry
open abandoned rookeries. Moses would have none of it. Housing
reformers would get on his back, screaming that he was shoving
people into slums. Despite the fact that Stuyvesant Town would add
to the tenant load expected from cleared public housing sites, he
ordered Spargo to find enough New Law flats or rehabilitated Old
Law units. Although he recognized the problem of accommodating
11,000 site tenants, Moses knew Metropolitan Life would work out
the "adjustment."44
On January 17,1945, tenants on sections of the Stuyvesant Town
site were warned to vacate by summer. James Felt's Tenant Relocation
Bureau kept a deliberate pace, eventually listing 3,000 apartments.
Spargo was optimistic that most tenants would get housing if they
took advantage of Felt's service. Spargo was further impressed by
the applicants who "indicated that they wanted better quarters and
would pay more for them. . . . There is still some ambition in this
part of the East Side."45
That was all Moses wanted to hear. When Mayor La Guardia was
bothered by a flurry of belated protests, Moses described the extra
effort being made for families still on the site. Not only did James
Felt employ women interviewers fluent in several languages, he told
the mayor, but his staff "takes families around in a station wagon
without cost to examine new apartments." Nevertheless, although
Felt's bureau listed several thousand apartments, only thirty-three
tenants were rehoused through his agency. When site protests again
unnerved the mayor, Moses had Metropolitan announce that ten­
ants "need have no fear of being put on the street." Moses dismissed
the noise, reminding the mayor, "if we hope to employ the building
trades promptly after the war, we must clear the sites where they are
to operate."46
Moses was ready for hard measures. In mid-March of 1945, he
complained to Frederick Ecker's son, a Metropolitan vice-president,
that relocation had bogged down from "lack of drive, unified re­
sponsibility, ingenuity and understanding of public relations." Young
Ecker replied that Metropolitan had worked responsibly with James
104
 STUYVESANT TOWN

Felt, but an inspection by Harold Klorfein, Moses's expert on reloca­

tion at the Park Department, told a different story. Klorfein found
that Felt could not do much for tenants who could not afford more
than $10 per room or for those who could afford to pay more but
found nothing suitable. Klorfein concluded it was time to apply real
pressure. "Start spot demolition," he advised. "This brings home
to tenants of nearby buildings the urgency of relocating." He re­
minded Moses that the Park Department used the technique "with
considerable success."47
When Stuyvesant Town removals ended in late 1945, officials
looked back at an operation that cost next to nothing because most
site tenants had moved themselves. Metropolitan Life estimated that
Felt's direct expenses came to $172,000, or $57.30 per household.
Stuyvesant Town was a triumph in what housing experts soon called
"self-relocation." Whether their move was spurred by individual am­
bition, phased notices to vacate, or spot demolitions, tenants got out
and found shelter somewhere. Moses soon boasted that the Stuyve­
sant Town experience was "put to good use in the removal of tenants
from the path of various public improvements."48
The immediate application was on the crushing relocations at
other public housing sites on the Lower East Side. James Felt's
office had managed the Lillian Wald site for the Housing Authority
and completed property assembly for the Jacob Riis project. The
authority was so pleased with the job that it wanted to extend
Felt's contract to the James Weldon Johnson site in Harlem. Moses's
staffers, in fact, hoped to convince Mayor La Guardia to give Felt the
contract for Housing Authority relocations across the city. Moses
wrote to La Guardia that "in relocating the tenants of Stuyvesant
Town and Riverton, Mr. Felt built up a magnificent organization
of interviewers and apartment inspectors," which would save the
authority "a great deal of money."49
The judgment that 11,000 had been moved without difficulty ex­
plained Moses's denial of the Citizens Housing and Planning Coun­
cil's prediction of a shortage of relocation housing. "I am personally
completely convinced," he said, "that there are plenty of vacant apart­
ments, it is true, in pretty poor areas, which can be fixed up at
comparatively little expense, to serve temporarily for homes for dis­
placed tenants in public housing areas." Housing Authority chairman
Edmond Borgia Butler joined Moses in blaming the state for delays
in clearing the James Weldon Johnson site. Moses insisted that the
state pick up the relocation cost for public housing sites, particularly
the expense of site offices, referral lists, and tenement rehabilita­
105
STUYVESANT TOWN

tion. Moses proclaimed the job could be done—as long as Governor

Dewey provided the subsidies. When the Housing Authority finally
took title to the James Weldon Johnson site on September 14,1945,
982 families remained. "The indications are that apartments will be
foundforall the residents," the authority claimed, adding to the
optimism about speedy and orderly removals.50
Experts on urban affairs recognized that Metropolitan Life's
engagement with redevelopment was a turning point for Ameri­
can cities. ButforMoses, Stuyvesant Town established the New
York approach. The wrangling with Frederick Ecker settled nearly
all the elements that would make Moses-style redevelopment pos­
sible: secret negotiations that matched a private developer with a
choice site, generous leeway regarding the pace of clearance, removal
of supervision by pestering city agencies (particularly the City Plan­
ning Commission), and Moses's indispensable role as coordinator.
All of this was accomplished during Fiorello La Guardia's last may­
oral term, and by any measure Stuyvesant Town must be regarded as
his most important legacy to postwar New York. The La Guardia ad­
ministration worked closely with liberal Democrats anxious to tailor
redevelopment legislation to the needs of private investment. When
La Guardia and liberal Democrats failed to meet capitalists' finicky
demands, they tried again until they got it right. The Redevelopment
Companies Law of 1943 was not perfect by their standards. They
regarded the $15 rent ceiling, a legacy of the philanthropic sense of
the 1920s, as an annoyance, and redevelopers never liked the notion
of relocating tenants from bulldozed tracts even as they applied for
the eminent domain that made the bulldozing possible. But com­
pensating factors emerged, such as the readiness of specialtyfirmsto
subcontract relocations and the prospective enlargement of public
housing during the war, both of which seemed to settle worries of
where the displaced would go.
This last of Moses's achievements proved the most crucial, be­
cause it brought peace of mind to the victims of large-scale clearance.
Redevelopers talked glibly of opening space for Stuyvesant Town
refugees in Housing Authority projects that had already been ear­
markedforthe displaced from those sites, as well as for those on the
Authority's waiting list, which had swelled to more than 100,000
applicants. Redevelopers made special claims on public housing, a
derangement of the system that Moses would soon practice when
Title I necessitated. So would the left wing. At times, good "progres­
sives" talked about expanding the public projects as if they were the

106
 STUYVESANT TOWN

residential quarters of the ordnance plants they glorified during the

war. But most of the time, they talked as if rebuilding the city were a
matter of shifting tenants from one project to another. Like the
Grand Remover, they would find the units.

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THE REDEVELOPMENT
MACH IN E

If we can be scientific about planning our highways,

we can certainly be scientific about making certain
that democracy is equally accessible to all.
New York Americansfor Democratic Action

W h e n World War II ended, Robert Moses was ready to move

ahead on redevelopment. As the housing man on the City Plan­
ning Commission and as chairman of the mayor's Postwar Works
Program, he had written the Housing Authority's agenda and La
Guardia's list of postwar projects. By the time William O'Dwyer
had succeeded to Gracie Mansion, the conventional wisdom agreed
that the city needed a construction czar. In January 1946, Mayor
O'Dwyer named Moses New York City Construction Coordinator,
charged with expediting the vast agenda of postwar plans. Some civic
leaders worried about the Park Commissioner's awesome reach and
the demands made in his name by obscure assistants. But they never
questioned the decisive expertise that Moses seemed to embody.
Although depression and total war gave Moses the opportunity,
politics remained crucial to his success. During the war, Democrats
and the left wing had agreed that the city needed vast reconstruc­
tion, even when they debated the details. For several years, Moses
rode that solidarity and public anticipation of bold plans. Even after
liberals grew fearful of his expanding power, they were still drawn
to his schemes. With the onset of the cold war, they came to distrust
complaints about redevelopment from former allies on the left wing.
While Moses tightened his administrative grasp, naysayers splintered
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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

into quarreling camps that could never unite against him. During
the war, redevelopment became a test of the city's will to start over.
Afterward it became a litmus test for a new urban orthodoxy.
For all the force behind Moses's initiatives, few institutions
shared his confidence in redevelopment's prospects. Despite wide­
spread conviction about Washington's responsibilities for the cities,
the federal government remained on the sidelines while congres­
sional barons wrangled over money. Notwithstanding the bluff talk
that Stuyvesant Town would unlock millions in private capital,
fiduciaries hesitated to have their investments subjected to public
scrutiny and to postwar racial standards. Moses had to look else­
where for partners. He found them among universities and hospitals
that craved expanded roles in the postwar metropolis and enjoyed an
unassailable public purpose. He also found them among the unions,
whose leaders looked to housing benefits as the means to strengthen
their hold on the rank and file during the cold war. These pillars of
liberalism helped Moses rebuild New York.

Parting Company
Moses consolidated his authority amid the political vacuum created
by the deaths of La Guardia and the united front. The entente be­
tween liberal Democrats and the left wing was crucial for Stuyvesant
Town. But it withered after V-J Day, leaving a bitter estrangement
that made liberals more determined to pursue bulldozer redevelop­
ment and radicals less able to thwart it. Liberals' distaste for their
old left-wing allies soon hardened into a refusal to recognize their
contributions to housing policy or their championship of the dispos­
sessed. The left wing, which ignored the implications of Stuyvesant
Town, would also fail to recognize how much it would need lib­
erals in struggles to save neighborhoods. Moses strode over this
fundamental breach during the cold war.
In the embattled center was the Americans for Democratic Ac­
tion (ADA), which had been founded before Pearl Harbor by anti-
Communist liberals as the Union for Democratic Action. Its com­
mittee on housing was a who's who from the Citizens Housing
Council, the United Neighborhood Houses, the Ethical Culture
Society, the American Jewish Committee, and the City-Wide Citi­
zens Committee on Harlem, all of whom were convinced that gov­
ernment responsibility for decent housing included the moral duty
to foster "open," interracial neighborhoods. After the war, when
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THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

the ADA became the liberal wing of the Democratic party, mem­
bers hammered together the housing planks that were the heart of
postwar liberalism. Their agenda included: massive federal subsidies
for public housing, the Wagner-Ellender-Taft Bill for federal aid for
slum clearance and urban redevelopment, state bond issues for low-
rent public projects, and a City Planning Commission master plan
for slum clearance and rehousing. ADAers envisioned well-designed
neighborhoods near greenbelts and highways.1
The ADA advocated much of what Moses promised, and they
resented his high-handed dismissal of their agenda. Although they
conceded the need for centralized, coordinated decisions on land
use, they wanted them vested in the City Planning Commission, not
Moses's network of shadowy subordinates. Their uneasiness grew
when Moses scoffed at ending the immoralities of Jim Crow. Re­
development and racial integration went hand in hand, proclaimed
the ADA "Anti-Discrimination Program": "Only through the cre­
ation of a true 'Master Plan' for New York City; only through
systematic re-development of the City can present patterns of seg­
regation be terminated." Social engineering by the City Planning
Commission would meet the moral challenge.2
During the spring of 1946, liberals mobilized against Moses's
threats to these ideals. They called together a convention of civic
leaders to consider ways to clip Moses's powers, which "were not
being used to build the kind of city we would like to rise." They
said Moses had lobbied against an antidiscrimination clause in state
housing legislation, rejected construction of a midtown bus termi­
nal to relieve traffic, and pulled strings for an expensive municipal
airport. Worst of all, he had ordered immediate eviction of 750 fami­
lies from the westernmost segment of the Cross-Bronx Expressway.
Although the convention fizzled when Moses intimidated partici­
pation by city officials, its real shortcoming was an unwillingness
to disagree with Moses on basics. The ADA objected to hasty evic­
tions from the Cross-Bronx, not the concept of an arterial through
the borough. They could not condemn the powers granted Moses
because they still hoped, as Rexford Tugwell did years before, to
harness them for the public good.3
The stop-Moses movement had little chance when liberals lost
contact with grass-roots organizations that mustered left-wing votes.
During 1947, the struggle to extend Office of Price Administration
(OPA) rent controls pitted American Labor party and Communist
party activists, who favored attacking landlords, against liberals, who
wanted incentives for private investment. When radicals agitated for
110
 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

tough OPA ceilings, liberals hung back to avoid embarrassing the

Harry S Truman administration in Washington. They became con­
vinced that Communists were exploiting the housing emergency
to benefit Henry Wallace's 1948 presidential campaign. Ready to
tangle with the Wallace crowd, ADA leader Charles Abrams offered,
"I'll carefully plan a [housing] program that may have a strategically
political implication." But well-crafted planks could not balance the
loss of local clubhouses.4
Conceived by liberals as a stop-Moses affair, the April 1948
Citizens Conference on City Planning heard fervent pleas for be­
leaguered neighborhoods. City Councilman Stanley M. Isaacs at­
tacked the "so-called coordinator," whose powers had become "an
octopus . . . sprawling all over the City." Most speakers favored in­
vigorating the City Planning Commission, and many seconded the
call by the Citizens Union for independent planning districts that
served neighborhood needs. But other participants from the finan­
cial community had already committed to Moses's redevelopment
schemes. And ALP clubhouses and tenant and consumers groups
boycotted the conference. Preoccupied with "Wallace for President,"
they sneered at the liberals' agenda.5
The fight against the color line in housing became another arena
for political recrimination. In 1944, after failing to defeat the Stuy­
vesant Town redevelopment contract in the courts, liberals forced
municipal enactment of an ordinance that ended city tax exemption
on future projects that discriminated by race. But coverage was not
blanket, and the issue continued to stir local politics. When radicals
(belatedly, Charles Abrams claimed) raised the Jim Crow issue with a
Tenants Committee Against Discrimination in Stuyvesant Town, the
Citizens Housing and Planning Council, the American Jewish Com­
mittee, and the Ethical Culture Society responded with an implicitly
anti-Communist open-housing lobby, the New York State Com­
mittee Against Discrimination in Housing (SCAD). SCAD lobbied
for passage of the Wicks-Austin Law of 1950, which prohibited
discrimination in projects built under the Redevelopment Com­
panies Law; and the Brown-Isaacs ordinance of 1951, which ex­
tended the ban to all city-aided projects. Throughout the postwar
campaign, however, SCAD and its parent groups remained vigilant
against Communist organizing tactics. The New York chapter of
the American Jewish Committee debated the Stuyvesant Town con­
troversy, but resolved to remain aloof from "Communist-inspired"
groups. When the Jewish Labor Committee, with ties to the needle-
trades unions and the AFL, labeled a Bronx Committee for Inte­
111
THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

grated Housing the "newest excursion by Cominform apologists,"

liberal groups, including SCAD and the Bronx Urban League,
backed away.6
Pervasive suspicion undermined campaigns against Moses and
the mayors who gave him power. With La Guardia's passing, deep
fissures opened between insurgent Republicans, reform Democrats,
Liberals, and ALPers. In the 1949 election, divisions helped reelect
Mayor O'Dwyer and weaken the political review of Moses's poli­
cies. But the fact remained that liberal platforms closely resembled
those of the construction coordinator. Republican Grover Whalen
pummeled O'Dwyer for letting slums fester and delaying work on
"revitalized business centers" and "neighborhood units." In the next
breath, however, Whalen's campaign could also call for "elevated
arcades for pedestrians, moving sidewalks, helicopter landings on
buildings in the heart of the city and greenbelt parkways."7
The Liberal party, which attracted the ADA, needle-trades
unions, and Democrats estranged from Mayor O'Dwyer, offered an
omnibus program that called for federal and state funds for slum
clearance and low-income housing. The party recognized the need
for middle-income redevelopment projects built on vacant land with
phased tenant relocation. Above all, the Liberal party wanted a
City Planning Commission to create a master plan that preserved
neighborhoods. But the ADA housing platform also congratulated
Moses for "the excellent achievements of private builders and public
housing agencies." Requesting more for "the middle group," who
could not afford private rents, it called for subsidies to create non­
profit housing corporations and cooperatives and to get insurance
companies and banks involved in redevelopment. Moses was already
on the job.8
In the 1950 special election (after O'Dwyer quit in scandal),
Acting Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri was challenged by scattered
claimants to La Guardia's legacy. The ALP candidate, a Stuyvesant
Town tenant leader, snubbed queries about city planning from liberal
civic groups. Two Republican candidates, both La Guardia proteges,
pledged to preserve communities, protect small property owners,
and balance the city budget. They favored giving the City Planning
Commission a stronger say in redevelopment, subject to vetoes of
neighborhood planning boards. Moses's man, Impellitteri, remained
cautious. Before giving more power to the commission, he wanted
to see whether it used the power it had, and he expressed satisfaction
with the existing redevelopment machinery run by Moses. By 1950,
the La Guardia coalition had dispersed, and with it the votes that
might have curtailed Moses's authority.9

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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

New York City Housing Authority members,

the Moses years, 1942-1958

Chairmen: Edmond Borgia Butler, May 2, 1942-July 1, 1947

Thomas F. Farrell, July 1, 1947-September 15, 1950
Philip J. Cruise, September 15, 1950-April 3, 1958
Members: Monsignor E. Roberts Moore, continued—October 8, 1944
Mary K. Simkhovitch, continued-February 17, 1948
William Wilson, May 2, 1942-February 19, 1958
Frank R. Crosswaith, June 22, 1942-April 30, 1958
John S. Parke, October 8, 1944-August 13, 1954
Thomas J. Shanahan, February 17, 1948-February 19, 1958
James Felt, August 13, 1954-January 30, 1956
Abraham M. Lindenbaum, January 30, 1956-April 30, 1958

Sources: New York City Housing Authority, Twentieth Annual Report (1955); New York
City Housing Authority press release, February 20, 1960.

Belts of Public Housing

After World War II, federal subsidies were locked in congressional

committees and banks and insurance companies doubted the wisdom
of Stuyvesant Town. Thus Moses's housing work came to center on
the state-funded public program. Postwar liberalism put the unfin­
ished task of slum clearance high on its agenda, and the prestige of
public housing as stable projects inhabited by working-class whites
was never greater. Although many of Moses's housing ambitions re­
mained out of reach, the millions of dollars that he could tap from
state bond issues could clear miles of slums. The major decisions
were laid down during Mayor La Guardia's last year in office.
In January of 1945, Moses drew up an expansion of state-funded
housing that dwarfed the prewar backlog: the Lillian D. Wald and
Governor Alfred E. Smith projects on the Lower East Side, Abra­
ham Lincoln and James Weldon Johnson Houses in East Harlem, the
Brownsville, Marcy, and Gowanus Houses in Brooklyn, the Mor­
risania and Melrose Houses in the Bronx, and the Astoria Houses in
Queens. His plans rested on several basic assumptions, starting with
the determination to clear the most slums for the dollar. Except for
limited opportunities along the Queens waterfront, Moses refused to
build public housing on vacant land. He preferred to extend massive
phalanxes on the Lower East Side, in East Harlem, and in Brooklyn
near the Navy Yard and in Brownsville. As a matter of course, these
113
 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

Public Housing
LaGuardio Era ( 1 9 3 4 - 1 9 4 2 )
"7] Moses Era ( 1 9 4 2 - 1 9 5 8 )

"Cooperative Village"
1...Seward Pork Title I
2...Hillman Houses
3...Amalgamated Dwellings
4...Corlears Hook Title I

Redevelopment of the Lower East Side, 1934-1958. The New Deal-financed

Knickerbocker Village and New York City Housing Authority's projects, First
Houses and Vladeck, hardly made an impact on the Lower East Side's great
concentration of Old Law tenements. Robert Moses considered the acreage
too valuable for low-rent public housing and expected insurance companies to

114
 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

;lomerations were defined by race. Asked about his priorities for

funds, Moses would casually remark about "the Rockaway [Queens]
colored project" or "the Bronx colored project." In Moses's mind,
the need to clear "colored" slums was distinct from but no less urgent
than the need to clear tenements occupied by whites.10
Although many Old Law districts were natural targets, Moses's
political sense removed some as priorities. He specifically vetoed
operations in Bushwick and Greenpoint in Brooklyn because of
hostility in these predominantly Italian communities. His assistant,
George Spargo, cautioned against redevelopment in Greenpoint,
where the houses were old, but looked "as though the people living
there are rather proud of their community." Spargo was impressed by
homeowners' spirit in nearby Greenwood, and he found Bushwick
"not slum-ridden enough." Shortly after, Moses removed Yorkville
and Greenwich Village from his active list in Manhattan. Despite
strong pressure for a low-rent project in Yorkville, Moses concluded
that private capital would handle the rehabilitation. Moses reached
the same conclusion about the Village, which he deemed an area
for redevelopments and private construction. He frowned on going
further into the West Village or Chelsea, where the mix of structures
would allow only "compromise, gerrymandered" projects.11
East Harlem was different. Up until the end of the war, the dis­
trict contained only one low-rent project, the East River Houses.
This project was the pride of Fiorello La Guardia, his old law partner,
Vito Marcantonio, and Benjamin Franklin High School principal
Leonard Covello, the proconsuls who oversaw city policy toward
their neighbors. But ethnic mobility and political turmoil had loos­
ened their grip on redevelopment. Before the war, reformers had
written off blocks west of Third Avenue as being overrun with
Puerto Ricans. Responding to one philanthropist's diatribe against
"confirmed outlaws," Moses remarked that there was no choice for
East Harlem except broad clearance. Downtown charity leaders who
raised funds for East Harlem benevolence feared that the needs of
displaced blacks and Hispanics would overwhelm existing social ser­
vices. By the end of the war, they declared the district bankrupt.

finance middle-income housing under the redevelopment laws. His hopes were
dashedforthe site that became the Governor Smith Houses, but the Amal­
gamated projects that constituted Cooperative Village and the giant middle-
income complexes at Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town realized the
original intent to reclaim the tenement district.

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THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

\|

Redevelopment of upper Manhattan, 1937-1958. The New York City Hous­

ing Authority, with New Deal funds, completed only two low-rent projects
on the periphery of Harlem's slums: all-black Harlem River Houses and all-
white East River Houses. Under Robert Moses's coordination, the Housing
Authority built projects financed by the New York State postwar program
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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

When Dr. LeRoy Bowman of the Federation Settlement attempted

a last-ditch interdenominational rescue, philanthropic administra­
tors pulled back from an area that, Bowman said, they called "a
dead zone."12
Sensing the urgency, East Harlem leaders tried to direct the city's
slum clearance program, but their arguments only bolstered Moses's
determination to sweep clean. From his school office, Dr. Covello
choreographed the campaign to control renewal of the Italian com­
munity, which the city, in the words of one newspaper, had branded
a "verminous crime ridden slum." Covello's last hurrah was a com­
munity conference that blamed delinquency on the "lack of recre­
ational facilities and bad housing." But the appeal for public services
only invited Moses-style intervention: health stations, playgrounds,
and housing projects. Covello's group hoped to develop projects for
mixed incomes, along with mortgage funds to remodel tenements
that it deemed worth saving. It targeted one site near Third Avenue
and 100th Street for occupancy by East Harlem residents who earned
more than the Housing Authority's $3,000 ceiling, but Moses held
the ground for low-income blacks and Hispanics. By early 1948,
bulldozing was under way to such an extent that a philanthropic
expert marveled at the "commendable progress in construction." I3
Brownsville, Brooklyn, was another major area of Housing Au­
thority operations that was expected to shape the tide of munici­
pal improvement. The district's campaign for public housing dated
from late 1930s, when Jewish leaders on the Brownsville Neighbor­
hood Council tried to get the city's attention with pamphlets and
radio broadcasts. They boasted that the city—and Robert Moses—
had heard the message. The Housing Authority announced plans
for Brownsville, but shelved them during the war. Before V-E Day,
boosters who feared the district would be overlooked again de­
manded public housing as part of their "Post-War Plan for Browns­
ville."14
Moses's staff had already chosen Brownsville as a prime location
for public housing. In a memo for the boss, Moses assistant Arthur
Hodgkiss made this judgment about Brownsville and nearby East
New York: "This is a bad section. The population is mixed colored
and white. The property is very small and will not lend itself to satis­

that cleared large areas of central Harlem and one-third of East Harlem. When
project construction ended in the mid- 1960s, East Harlem had the largest
concentration of public housing in the country.
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THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

Q u e e n s

Redevelopment of northern Brooklyn, 1937-1958. Brooklyn political inter­

ests and the federal government's investment in war housing around the Navy
Yard gave the borough considerable progress in slum clearance at Williams-
burg, Red Hook, Kingsborough, Wallabout, and Fort Greene (later renamed

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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

factory development." Moses agreed to expand the Brownsville com­

plex, although in a lengthy response to Hodgkiss's choices George
Spargo preferred to balance Brownsville against opportunities else­
where. The Vladeck Houses in Manhattan should be expanded,
Spargo was certain, although he questioned further concentrations
nearby. "I think that we have enough on the Lower East Side in the
present program," he argued. "If we adopt Hodgkiss' [view], we will
have a complete belt of public housing along the East River from
Brooklyn Bridge to 14th Street." Spargo favored more work in East
Harlem. "Is there anything to be said for consolidating the Thomas
Jefferson, the St. Nicholas and the Frawley Circle projects and doing
a rather complete job of expanding the lower Harlem project, that is
the one from 112th Street to 115th Street."15
By late spring 1945, Moses's staff had hammered out the final
plans for the city's public housing. An additional $14.8 million state
project on the Lower East Side, along with the Governor Smith and
Vladeck enlargements, would make a solid wall of public housing
from the Brooklyn Bridge to Grand Street. The $9.6 million state
project in East Harlem would extend the James Weldon Johnson
Houses west to Fifth Avenue. The staff decided to make Brownsville-
East New York the third concentration of public housing, with an
expected $18.5 million, federally subsidized addition to the Browns­
ville Houses and another $10.5 million state project west of the Navy
Yard. These decisions touched off "strenuous objection" about the
size of the sites, particularly Brownsville. Some officials questioned
whether Moses had exhausted all possibilities for bank-financed,
middle-income projects. "The project west of the Navy Yard is of
the greatest importance," Moses told the Housing Authority, adding
that it had "the united support of all the Brooklyn people." "The fact
that this project is near Fort Greene [public project] seems to me to
be in no way objectionable. . . . We have projects close together in
lower Manhattan and in Harlem." He conceded that the East New
York site placed too many units near Brownsville, "but here again
we have a neighborhood which needs to be cleared and apparently
can be rehabilitated in no other way."16
Infighting was quelled in time for Mayor La Guardia to announce
the gigantic system on his May 27, 1945, address over WNYC. The

Whitman-Ingersoll). After World War II, the combined pressure of the Brook­
lyn Democratic organization and local reformers completed clearance of "the
jungle" around the Navy Yard and the Brooklyn Civic Center.

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THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

Housing Authority's fourteen completed projects sheltering 58,100

would be supplemented by thirteen more, which would house an
added 69,573 people. A state bond issue would fund three projects,
including those in East Harlem and on the Lower East Side. Another
$60 million expected from Washington would make possible another
East Harlem project at Jefferson Park and the enormous addition
to Brownsville. "Great care has been taken in the selection of the
sites," the mayor assured. "All are in undesirable areas where there is
not the slightest possibility of rehabilitation through private enter­
prise." Although the mayor's language came from Moses's office, La
Guardia agreed with wholesale slum clearance.17
In early 1946, decisions to concentrate projects still rankled, as in­
dicated by State Housing Commissioner Herman T. Stichman's com­
plaint to a civic gathering. Housing Authority chairman Edmond
Borgia Butler alerted Moses that the state official voiced "more of his
nonsense about the poor planning of the lower Eastside." Moses con­
ceded that Stichman had a valid point, but he denied that it applied
to the Lower East Side, Harlem, or other "very substandard areas."18
Moses was sensitive to the charge, however, and responded with
talk about "mixed neighborhoods," where private, middle-income
redevelopments would be interspersed with low-rent projects. When
State Commissioner Stichman held out against the Madison site on
the Lower East Side, Moses offered an alternative south of Tompkins
Square—"close," he claimed, to "people of somewhat higher in­
come." Moses believed that Stichman would have to approve another
state project in the Bronx near an expected middle-income invest­
ment by Mutual of New York Life Insurance. Moses worked for
another mixed development at Lindsay Park, Brooklyn, for sponsor­
ship by a group of banks. He figured that the City Planning Commis­
sion could recommend a state low-rent project on remaining ground
near the park. As Moses summarized, "wise city planning requires
that a savings bank project should be placed in the neighborhood of
every public housing project."19
Bank executives needed constant reminders of their civic obli­
gation. Soon after the war ended, Moses had tried to convince the
Savings Bank Trust Company, a credit pool organized by the Bowery
and other banks, to finance the Amalgamated Housing Corporation's
East Side cooperative and a middle-income project at Brower Park,
Brooklyn. But even Moses could not budge Mutual of New York Life
Insurance, whose president, Lewis W. Douglas, worried about the
company's high risk in the city. Douglas's assistants never forgot how
Metropolitan Life "became entangled" at Stuyvesant Town. They
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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

strongly doubted whether any government policies, such as tax relief

and write-downs, could counter "the forces of decentralization" that
would draw tenants to the suburbs.20
Understanding the resistance Douglas faced, Moses presented
modest alternatives. These included a "colored" project near St.
Mary's Park in the South Bronx for $10.50 per room; acreage west
of Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, where higher land costs could be
handled by city condemnation; and a Lower East Side project near
the Williamsburg Bridge, with tax breaks to keep rents at $14 per
room. When Mutual executives preferred the Bellevue site, Moses
decided it failed to meet his housing priorities and kept up pres­
sure for the Bronx. Douglas turned it down, writing Moses that
his mortgage men told him "the project cannot stand on its feet."
Although flustered, Moses persevered for the Bronx, offering rents
as high as $12.50 per room. But privately he doubted that Mutual
would construct "any project which directly involves the so-called
discrimination issue."21
Eventually, Moses's talk of mixed housing wore down Commis­
sioner Stichman's objections to building public housing in mass
concentrations. The breakthrough came at a showdown conference
between Mayor La Guardia and officials of Governor Dewey's ad­
ministration. Moses advised the mayor that if he stood firm, the state
would have to approve the Navy Yard project, the Madison project
north of the Manhattan Bridge, and the Frawley Circle project in the
"Puerto Rican section of Harlem." Moses also wanted final agree­
ment on tenant removals for the Governor Smith, Astoria, and
Melrose sites. Shrewdly appraising Governor Dewey's concern for
the private sector, Moses emphasized his efforts to bring the banks
into mixed neighborhoods. In early 1946, Commissioner Stichman
grudgingly approved the Brooklyn Navy Yard site under the fiction
that it was near the middle-income Concord Houses. When Stichman
remained hostile to the Madison Houses, Moses suggested moving
it south of Tompkins Square. "While this is fairly close to the belt of
public housing on the East River," he explained, "[i]t is in a different
neighborhood where people of higher income live, especially those
around Tompkins Square." He already had Stichman's agreement to
Lindsay Park, Brooklyn, where a savings bank redevelopment and a
low-rent project would stand on opposite sides of the park. The ar­
rangement, Moses added, would combine "various income groups,
all using the same school, recreation and other facilities."22
In early 1946, thirteen months after Moses began work on a
housing program, he presented the new mayor, William O'Dwyer,
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THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

with an immense system that reflected his own values and what he
confidently believed the city wanted. New York demanded whole­
sale slum clearance, and he would cover the ground with a low-rent
system all his own. He would also entertain the notion of "mixed
projects," which mimicked the all-inclusive communities favored by
liberals. Throughout the process, neither Moses nor Housing Au­
thority chairman Butler bothered to consult with residents in the
affected areas. The authority ended the pretense of local advisory
committees, which had little to do because the authority had system­
atized tenant selection and planned the projects to spartan standards
that ruled out community facilities. Moses regarded talk of dis­
persing black ghettoes as quixotic blather. Nothing persuaded him
that housing placement could dilute racial concentrations, especially
when bankers and realtors were convinced that the public would
never buy this social goal. Charles Abrams could arouse the Ethical
Culture Society and the ADA toward the ideal of planned integra­
tion, but Moses asked where were the mechanisms for creating these
projects, and concluded that none existed beyond isolated, dubious
experiments. In the meantime, he had to get on with the business of
clearing the most slums for the money.

The Relocation Crunch

The scale of Housing Authority construction depended on passage
of the state housing bond issue in the November 1946 elections. But
the referendum hinged on voters' perceptions of relocation progress,
which reached a crisis because the O'Dwyer administration, goaded
by Moses, agreed on slum clearance at all cost. One of Moses's first
messages as construction coordinator denounced a bill in the state
legislature that would have required the Housing Authority to file
relocation plans before site clearance could start. He argued that
the concern for evicted tenants was needless, because the Tenant
Relocation Bureau, which had succeeded at Stuyvesant Town, was
handling the job for the authority in East Harlem. The authority, in
fact, had adopted James Felt's proven methods, including an on-site
office, canvasses of nearby tenements for vacancies, and revisits of
site residents. But even these measures had their limits. Park Depart­
ment relocation expert Harold Klorfein, whom Moses called upon to
examine the relocation bureau's East Harlem operation, concluded
that it was confronting people with strong "racial and community

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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

affiliations." Klorfein recommended that the authority evict "one or

two unreasonable tenants as an example to the rest."23
In June of 1946, Moses claimed that the Housing Authority's
refusal to move tenants from clearance sites had jeopardized New
York's housing program. Authority counsel Maxwell H. Tretter
pointed out that over 90 percent of the families on seven sites had
been relocated, most within the past year. "There is no doubt that we
are now reaching the bitter enders," Tretter conceded, which neces­
sitated "an entirely new approach." Moses retorted that the way to
handle the crisis was "to speed up certain projects and to fill them up
with tenants from other projects." He rejected the alternative sug­
gested by many liberals, that of building on vacant land, because he
claimed it would mean wasteful duplication of city construction. The
solution for 2,500 families on the Stephen Foster and South Harlem
sites, Moses concluded, was to complete James Weldon Johnson,
and refugees from the St. Nicholas area would be absorbed in the
Abraham Lincoln Houses. Authority chairman Butler agreed that
reconstructing Harlem came down to "paying for quick work."24
Nevertheless, Butler warned Mayor O'Dwyer that the authority's
policy of building in "centrally located slum areas" was hindered
by "the great scarcity of housing and the tremendous difficulty in
relocating families." The authority, Butler advised, had to consider
some sites on the city's outskirts. Maxwell Tretter added that the
crisis required "extraordinary measures and . . . exceptions to prin­
ciples which in normal times we ourselves espouse"; this was, in
effect, a modification of the authority's historic goal of slum clear­
ance. Tretter estimated that the relocation backlog would swell to
18,000 families when the authority took over more sites in June of
1946. A few vacant areas would ease the jam.25
Moses's reply went straight to Gracie Mansion. He impressed
on Mayor O'Dwyer that the vacant-land idea would "abandon" the
policy slum clearance and betray what New York stood for when
liberals had to close ranks behind the state bond issue. The mayor,
he stressed, had to seize control of an "unstable" authority board.
O'Dwyer did so: he forced chairman Butler to resign and replaced
him with a former state highway engineer, General Thomas F. Far­
rell. Finally, Moses got O'Dwyer's direct order naming him czar of
all public and redevelopment housing. These monumental tasks were
added to his duties as city construction coordinator.26
With the consolidated position, Moses completed the city's pro­
ject list under the state's loan program. Citing unfinished work in

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THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

Brooklyn and East Harlem, Moses mused about an additional project

in downtown Brooklyn, although he suspected that State Housing
Commissioner Stichman would frown on yet another project close
to Fort Greene. East Harlem had a site north of Thomas Jefferson
Park where, Moses assistant Arthur Hodgkiss wrote, the right-sized
project could "make a real impression on the neighborhood." Con­
cluding that East Harlem would not attract private capital, Moses
decided on more public housing north of Thomas Jefferson Park
and on projects to "round out" the reclamation east of Mount Sinai
Hospital. On the Lower East Side, the Madison low-rent project
and another east of Hamilton Fish Park "would clean up" areas that
would otherwise remain untouched by private investment. Moses
also slated a public project for "the central negro district" of the
Bronx and three in Queens, including "the rundown negro residen­
tial area" in Flushing. His rule of thumb was the unlikelihood that
private redevelopers would do the job.27
Passage of the state bond issue in November 1946 left reloca­
tion a formidable prospect as long as Moses refused to build on
vacant land. The quarrel between Moses and Maxwell Tretter reached
loggerheads when Housing Authority board member John S. Parke,
president of the Presbyterian Hospital, voted with board members
Mary Simkhovitch and Frank Crosswaith of the Negro Labor Com­
mittee against Moses's list of projects. At Moses's behest, Mayor
O'Dwyer asked the legislature to replace the authority board with
a paid administrator and unpaid members serving at the pleasure of
the mayor. In the meantime, Moses urged O'Dwyer to call Parke on
the carpet, while Crosswaith got the attention of authority board
chairman Thomas Farrell. "I told Tom," Moses said, "we were work­
ing on the [relocation] schedules and also on the matter of additional
city-financed public housing on vacant land, what the obstacles are."
Mayor O'Dwyer applied pressure, but Crosswaith refused to bend,
leaving Moses's men without their majority.28
Blocked at the authority, Moses made clear that as construction
coordinator he had relocation under control. His office drew elabo­
rate charts showing the flow of site refugees from the Farragut site
near the Navy Yard into Brownsville, from Stephen Foster in Harlem
into Amsterdam and James Weldon Johnson, and from Melrose in
the Bronx (along with Farragut refugees) into the Marcy Houses in
Brooklyn. Moses promised plenty of housing for relocation with­
out resorting to vacant land. But he was canny enough to proclaim
opponents' solutions as his own. He agreed to five medium-rent,
"city-aided" projects: in Eastchester in the Bronx, Sheepshead Bay
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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

in Brooklyn, a site on Staten Island, another in Astoria, Queens,

and the fifth in Harlem. Located east of Colonial Park at 155th
Street, the Harlem project was hardly an outer-borough site, but
Moses expected it to absorb refugees from clearance near St. Nicholas
Park. Nevertheless, Farrell could not obtain Frank Crosswaith's vote.
"Mr. Crosswaith apparently favors a vacant land project outside of
Harlem," Moses explained to Mayor O'Dwyer. "He says that the
Colonial project is too close to the Harlem Houses. Bearing in mind
the differences in rent this is, of course, sheer nonsense, because they
are not close together and because projects with different rentals
are often placed side by side." Concluding that "Crosswaith has in
the back of his mind siphoning people out of Harlem," he warned
the mayor that the authority faced paralysis with Crosswaith, Parke,
and Simkhovitch ranged against the Colonial site. O'Dwyer dangled
patronage at Crosswaith, who refused to budge. But Moses influ­
enced Parke by threatening to block construction of city facilities at
Presbyterian Hospital, and the Colonial project went through.29
Relocation remained a Gordian knot despite the Housing Au­
thority's faith in Stuyvesant Town techniques. When a city offi­
cial proposed direct payment to families for self-relocation, Moses
jumped at the expedient to hasten their departure. Moving people
from clearance projects required "every kind of ingenuity," he said,
"moving houses, and even apartment houses, paying tenants to
move, rehabilitating boarded-up structures, building half or one-
third of a project at a time, using vacant land housing to assist
slum clearance, setting aside apartments for temporary occupancy
by people who want to move back to the old neighborhood." Moses
and his staff refused to admit failure. They ridiculed proposed legis­
lation that would halt the evictions from public housing sites until
the authority could secure substitute units. Chairman Farrell claimed
the bill would "incite" families to raise "petty objections." Moses aide
Harry Taylor put it succinctly: "None of them would help themselves
if this were law." George Spargo agreed. Moses and his staff would
not see how their relentless schedules turned the city upside down.30

Friends in Need

Moses was too busy with decisions in the city to give much at­
tention to the Wagner-Ellender-Taft Bill for federal aid to public
housing and urban redevelopment. Congressional strategists com­
bined drafts for low-rent projects and for private renewal, but Moses
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THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

looked dimly on the omnibus approach. In March of 1947, he urged

Mayor O'Dwyer to have city lobbyists ready to detach and save
the public housing portion. "There is no reason," he advised, "for
sacrificing the loan and grant provisions for federally assisted pub­
lic housing to the other and more controversial parts of the bill."
Moses expected federal grants to finance $236 million for low-rent
units over the next four years. The redevelopment provisions would
strengthen his campaign to involve the fiduciaries and banks, but
this was secondary. He confided to a Republican congressman that as
long as redevelopment depended on relocation in public housing, he
deemed Wagner-Ellender-Taft "an emergency measure for the next
five years," not permanent policy.31
The private sector hesitated about investing in the inner city,
whatever the talk of subsidies. Banks had proved a "washout," Moses
complained to Henry Bruere of Bowery Savings. They had gotten
cold feet about the Concord Village project in downtown Brooklyn.
"Won't you, and perhaps two or three forward-looking institutions,"
he pleaded, "pick up the Concord land from the recalcitrants at a
fair price? This is the finest multiple apartment site in New York
and with all the Civic Centre improvements around it, it can't help
but establish an entirely new kind of neighborhood." The Savings
Bank Trust Company, representing the resources of the Bowery and
other banks, considered a mortgage for an Amalgamated Housing
cooperative project on the Lower East Side. But Savings Bank Trust
wanted 4 percent interest, forcing Amalgamated to withdraw from
the deal. The Amalgamated's Abraham E. Kazan recalled that Lewis
Douglas of Mutual of New York Insurance came to the rescue with
a $5.6 million mortgage at 3.5 percent.32
Douglas's intervention nevertheless underscored Moses's head­
aches with nervous capitalists. Mutual of New York director Louis
Pink pleaded with Douglas to consider building Ravenswood, a
1,200-unit apartment complex in Astoria, Queens. To do so, Doug­
las had to overrule his executives, who were against building on
the "wilted and withering locale" on the Queens waterfront. Moses
tempted Mutual with streets, parkland, a twenty-five-year tax exemp­
tion, and land condemnation under the Redevelopment Companies
Law, and he pledged Mayor O'Dwyer's staunch support. But he had
to remind Douglas of the Stuyvesant Town lesson—the quid pro quo
for municipal condemnation was a nondiscriminatory clause in the
contract with the city. "I continue to believe that this will not handi­
cap you in the slightest degree," Moses quickly added. "Certainly
some respectable colored families won't hurt the project."33
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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

Convinced that Mutual needed special care, Moses had his Stuy­
vesant Town team draft a memorandum of agreement that would
"bind the officials who finally have to vote." But Mutual wanted
strong assurances of city aid. "Mr. Moses is rather indifferent to the
risks the company takes," Douglas complained to his staff. "His reply
is that we can increase the rents. But one of the difficulties is there is
a ceiling in that particular [Queens] area beyond which rents cannot
go." Moses and Douglas toured the site in October of 1946 and
reached terms over lunch. If the company broke ground within two
years, Moses would contribute streets and other city-held property
to get the land down to eighty cents per foot, and he promised maxi­
mum tax exemption for twenty-five years. Keeping the details quiet,
Moses went to Mayor O'Dwyer and the Board of Estimate to ar­
range support for $16 rents. He told Douglas the politicians would
frown on anything higher for a middle-class project. Although the
company was disappointed, Douglas agreed that major obstacles had
been removed.34
As inflation raged beyond Office of Price Administration con­
trols during the winter of 1947, Mutual executives saw the $16 limit
as an ominous threat. One proposed confronting Moses with the
offer to build for $20.75, figuring that the city would have to pro­
vide condemnation as a matter of public interest. Douglas needed
another summit, which took place in the construction coordinator's
limousine on January 11,1947. According to Douglas's notes, he as­
sured Moses that Mutual favored the project, but was hesitant about
cost. Douglas proposed that if the city condemned the land, Mutual
would agree to build, with or without tax exemption, within three
years, provided that construction costs fell and the Federal Housing
Administration (FHA) approved mortgage insurance. But Moses
could not accept the delay without a stronger commitment, par­
ticularly before the 1949 mayoral election. "Beyond that time,"
Douglas's notes quoted Moses, "we would have trouble and he ex­
plained the reasons why (municipal political conditions)." Moses
was also bothered by the $20.75 rent, which he considered too high
for city condemnation.35
Douglas then brought up another point raised by Mutual's mid-
western directors, who were unfamiliar with the city's political cli­
mate. "I said to him, in the greatest of confidence, we have run into
more trouble with this project as it is the first to be built under the
non-discriminatory provisions of the New York City code. I surmise
that you will understand immediately why we may want to build
under an FHA guarantee. He [Moses] said I see your point perfectly."
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THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

But Moses doubted Mutual would have trouble. "He said he didn't
think we would have over twenty negro families." If the project were
not tax-exempt, Douglas persisted, "would the city ask us to take any
negroes?" Moses replied that the city would not, although the state
legislature might require fair occupancy in redevelopment projects.
Douglas still faced stiff company opposition to the rent level, even
with city tax exemption.36
Despite Moses's blandishments, pressure mounted at Mutual to
seek a delay and to build Ravenswood gradually, if at all. The com­
pany had taken soundings of the construction trade that warned of
an inflationary storm. By February of 1947, cost estimates looked so
unfavorable that Mutual's executives forced Lewis Douglas to back
out. All the powers at Moses's command could not bring the com­
pany around. The experience left Moses with a confirmed distaste for
antidiscrimination laws. He insisted that "the right of selection of
tenants by private investors in new redevelopment housing is one of
the basic elements upon which the fiduciaries and other large private
investors depend."37
The private sector's reluctance cast a pall over the city's anticipa­
tion of the Wagner-Ellender-Taft Bill in 1948. Housing Authority
chairman Thomas Farrell had already proposed that the authority
choose redevelopment sites in conjunction with the City Planning
Commission and the construction coordinator. Moses offhandedly
replied that he was eyeing for housing investment by commercial
banks and other private sponsors 40 acres in Williamsburg, 20 acres
in central Harlem, an area north of the Williamsburg Bridge, and
a strip near the proposed state project south of Tompkins Square.
Another stretch of land, Moses figured, "might bring the Gowanus
housing developments up to the business and commercial center
of Brooklyn." But imponderables remained, particularly how to re­
move site tenants, which would require phased clearance and public
housing. Moses was also uncertain about the kind of neighborhoods
redevelopment should create in addition to the housing. "I am not
clear in my own mind," he added to Farrell, "as to whether it would
be practical to permit some light manufacturing, garages, and busi­
nesses."38
The haziness ended in December of 1948, when Mayor O'Dwyer
appointed Moses to chair the Mayor's Committee on Slum Clear­
ance. Moses was ready with what he called his "realist program"
for a conference with banks and insurance companies. He proposed
clearance areas of at least twenty acres "to make a real impression
on the entire neighborhood." They would not impinge on sites
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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

for low-rent public housing, Moses assured, although they would

"logically adjoin" them. He would allow an array of quasi-public,
limited-dividend, and commercial facilities, and, where practical,
some manufacturing. Moses expected to sell sites in advance on an
"agreed basis or at auction under conditions that the plans be carried
out, to responsible financial groups." He anticipated "orderly re­
moval of all tenants over a reasonable period of time," by which he
meant construction phased over a period offiveyears.39
He had already suggested sites to likely prospects. Thefirstin
Manhattan was south of Washington Square, a rectangle stretching
to Wooster Street, East Houston Street, and Macdougal Street, part
of which New York University wanted for expansion. He knew that
the Metropolitan Opera Association had inquired about West 3rd
Street for an opera house, but the site might also accommodate "a
new Whitney Museum, housing of various kinds, stores and some
play space including a public plaza or place in front of the Opera
House." He favored a second site, north of the Williamsburg Bridge,
for an Amalgamated Housing cooperative, stores, and light manu­
facturing. A third site was 20 acres located north of 125th Street in
Harlem. The fourth site was 20 acres located north of Sara Delano
Roosevelt Park that Moses hoped to devote to business, manufac­
turing, and mixed housing. He also sketched three Brooklyn sites:
between the Gowanus Houses and the Fulton Street business dis­
trict, alongside the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Williamsburg,
and in the remaining slums between the Farragut Houses and the
Brooklyn Civic Center.40
Private investors were not excited by Moses's targets. Aside from
Washington Square and Sara Delano Roosevelt Park, where inner-
city renewalfitthe Regional Plan Association's old priorities, the
Manhattan sites were grimy slums that resisted glamorous revival.
Investors might have found the location north of the Williamsburg
Bridge suitable if it were not "contaminated" by light manufacturing.
(It eventually was claimed by the Housing Authority for the Bernard
Baruch project.) The three Brooklyn sites would have allowed busi­
ness and factories, and the fourth planned no housing whatever.
Moses had in mind mixed-use areas and had a far more traditional
concept of redevelopment-as-slum-clearance than did the bankers he
hoped to lure into the business.
Moses's outline certainly troubled Housing Authority chairman
Thomas Farrell. Although he did not object to the sites, he warned
against the exclusion of public housing, when relocation, particularly
in Harlem, would require some public units. But Farrell was both­
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THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

ered most by turning over large tracts to private redevelopers. Site

clearance and relocation, he felt, required "continuous scrutiny and
control" by a city agency. Public auctions, he added, were absolutely
necessary to safeguard the public interest. Replying that he expected
little public housing on most sites, Moses politely told Farrell to stay
away from redevelopment. Any administrative costs, Moses added,
would be borne by redevelopers who agreed to buy sites "at a fixed
figure" and who would relocate tenants with business efficiency. The
program had to avoid the bureaucratic red tape "so distasteful to
the private capital we must enlist." Public auctions were out of the
question, for instance, when the city had to arrange sales carefully
in advance for the development "of a university or a cultural center,
especially if it is in an area in which the university already owns part
of the land." Given redevelopment's sophisticated goals, the city had
to tailor the process to sponsors' needs.41
Moses welcomed fiduciaries and bankers to a January 24, 1949,
meeting at Randall's Island "to smoke out," he told Mayor O'Dwyer,
"their willingness to assume responsibility for building up slum
areas." A substantial group attended, including George V. McLaugh­
lin of the Brooklyn Trust Company, James L. Madden of Metro­
politan Life, Earl Schwulst of the Bowery Savings Bank, Robert W.
Dowling of the City Investing Company, Thomas J. Shanahan of
the Federation Bank & Trust Co., and plenipotentiaries from the
Chase National Bank, National City Bank, and J. P. Morgan & Co.
Although Moses drafted them as an advisory committee, redevelop­
ment was clouded byfiscalstorms in an election year. Moses warned
Mayor O'Dwyer that the city's share of write-downs made an ad­
vance agreement with "responsible, private interests" imperative,
and he suggested that O'Dwyer authorize him to pursue four sites
of particular promise.42
Despite defections by Chase, National City, and J. P. Morgan,
Moses offered the finance men the Washington Square and Wil­
liamsburg Bridge sites, 30 acres in Harlem south of 135th Street,
the ground alongside the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and a small
location on the Brooklyn side of the Williamsburg Bridge. But nego­
tiations remained at a standstill. The project north of the Williams-
burg Bridge "collapsed," Moses explained, because the Amalgamated
Housing Corporation wanted acreage further south, and Moses had
reserved that to expand the low-rent Vladeck Houses. Moses put
Washington Square in the hands of Robert Dowling and Metro­
politan Life vice-president James Madden, a New York University
administrator. They were to work closely with the architectural firm
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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

of Eggers & Higgins, which was advising NYU's expansion. But

Madden admitted that the university "had already assumed all of
the obligations it could carry." In the meantime, eyes had turned to
Washington for passage of Wagner-Ellender-Taft.43

Washington Proposes
How much federal money to offer the private sector—with how
many stipulations—prolonged debate on Wagner-Ellender-Taft that
was finally resolved with the Housing Act of 1949. Since the war,
New Deal liberals had tangled with Dixiecrats and conservative Re­
publicans over the scope of federal commitment to metropolitan
well-being, and particularly to inner-city housing. Few quarreled
with the necessity of federal participation to stimulate municipal
economies. Most accepted the argument by Truman Democrats that
federal dollars were needed to ward off a return of the depression.
Most also accepted what economists Alvin Hansen and Guy Greer
had said about the write-down. The peculiar nature of urban blight,
the dismal slums on expensive land, required public aid to liquidate
the cost of assembling and recycling parcels for better use. The write-
down was based upon (a) the monetary difference between the fair
market value in condemnation and the more dubious appraisal of the
potential redeveloper; (b) the cost of clearance, including demolition
and tenant relocation; and (c) the cost of site preparation, including
installation of water mains, streets, parks, and other amenities for
residential communities. The total was daunting for cities whose tax
collections had withered in the 1930s and whose postwar fortunes
remained uncertain. Only the federal government could shoulder the
urban burden in the national interest.44
Debate focused on the magnitude of the federal write-down and
the stipulations Washington could ask for its investment; in effect,
the degree to which the government could intrude on local real
estate markets. New Deal Democrats favored long-term low-interest
loans for redevelopment to facilitate continued federal oversight of
projects, rent limits on new housing, and redevelopments that dove­
tailed with master plans. Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, the titular
leader of Senate Republicans, championed the views of real estate
conservatives, who favored federal capital grants instead of loans for
the write-downs, rapid disposal of condemned property to private
redevelopers, no rent limits, and little or no public housing.
After years of wrangling, Congress enacted the Housing Act of
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THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

1949, the omnibus law that gathered together scattered housing pro­
grams, including FHA mortgage insurance and rural home finance,
into the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA). But the
Housing Act was best known for its major features: Title I, which
featured the write-down program for residential redevelopment; and
Title III, which authorized 810,000 units (over six years) of federally
financed public housing. Both sides found satisfaction in the pack­
age. The Taft forces had succeeded in making the Title I write-down
a one-time capital grant to which the federal government would
contribute two-thirds, and in requiring prompt disposal of redevel­
opment tracts to private sponsors. Taft could furthermore claim that
Title I was written to subsidize private, middle-rent housing, as dis­
tinguished from Title III public housing. The local redevelopment
authority might choose to blend the two programs, particularly as
part of a relocation strategy for Title I clearance, but this was left
to local discretion. New Deal Democrats could point to Title I's
requirement that some local public authority, a city redevelopment
agency or housing authority, choose sites that conformed with a mas­
ter plan and that met the approval of a local planning body. During
the start-up stage, the local redevelopment authority was expected
to confer on sites with the Urban Redevelopment Administration of
the HHFA and could apply for HHFA advanced-planning funds. As
plans matured, the local government would vote to approve the site
plan and the relocation and other features of site preparation, and to
condemn the property and approve the one-third local contribution
to the write-down. The local redevelopment authority would then
proceed to clear the site and relocate tenants. Only then could the
local redevelopment authority offer cleared sites at public auction to
private sponsors.
Well before the Washington debate was over, New Yorkers had
mooted all but the fine points. In December of 1948, William
O'Dwyer appointed the Mayor's Committee on Slum Clearance,
headed by Construction Coordinator Moses and composed of the
city comptroller, the corporation counsel, the chief engineer of the
Board of Estimate, and the chairman of the Housing Authority. But
Moses's long experience with redevelopment at Stuyvesant Town,
his discussions with the bankers about the Lower East Side, and his
work on the Brooklyn Civic Center established precedent for the
CSC becoming another one-man "subcommittee." Moses muscled
aside Housing Authority chairman Farrell, and CSC operations
were run by Moses, his Triborough Bridge deputy, George Spargo,
William Lebwohl, Harry Taylor, and other trusted emissaries. A de­
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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

cade of private negotiations and understandings between mayoral

advisory committees and private realtors guaranteed that no mat­
ter what Congress intended, New York Title I would proceed on
handshakes between men who knew the city's special needs.

Promised Land

Urban redevelopment was predicated on private investors, guided

and subsidized by city agencies. The policy, however, meant asking
venture capitalists to risk millions during the most uncertain mo­
ment in the city's history. At the end of World War II, the metropo­
lis stood poised between inflationary boom and postwar collapse,
inner-city revitalization and renewal of the suburban trend. The war
had ushered in OPA rent controls, which left-wing agitation soon
grafted onto local law. The city not only zoned and laid out planning
districts, but also designated large swaths for clearance and replan­
ning. The politicization of the housing emergency meant an agenda
that included huge bond issues for public projects and even confisca­
tion of idle property. Not since 1937, or perhaps 1919, had realtors
faced so many nightmares.45
All this paled in comparison with the race issue, which was a
peculiar torment for La Guardia's New York, the cosmopolitan, pro­
gressive city, the headquarters of world liberalism, the home of the
United Nations. Finding a site for the UN and its personnel of many
creeds and colors vexed leaders on hospitality committees in diverse
neighborhoods, from Morningside Heights in Manhattan to Sunny-
side, Queens. The site selection taxed the legal ingenuity of the men
around Mayor William O'Dwyer, who wanted to fashion a welcome
that was not so open as to release the forces of racial harmony on real
estate developers with no experience in this area. What Swedish
economist Gunnar Myrdal called America's dilemma was acutely
New York's, generated by the city's aspirations for the interracial
ideal that it had neither the will nor the means to achieve.46
New York's dilemma became Robert Moses's creative opportu­
nity. Splintered postwar politics handed Moses an array of allies
just when the city's redevelopment program needed them most. The
Mayor's Committee on Slum Clearance established ties with orga­
nized labor that bound the blue-collar trades not only as contractors
for new housing construction, but also as potential occupants. Major
customers for redevelopment housing included members of the lib­
eral, predominantly Jewish needle trades, who were caught in the
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THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

cold war struggle with Stalinists in their midst. They came to Moses
to help create the cooperative domain that eased the domestica­
tion of the left wing after World War II. They rallied around the
liberal objective of community revitalization and gave institutional
support to the reclamation of the inner city when capitalists hesi­
tated. There was no ideological basis for Moses's outreach, beyond
the fact that Jewish labor leaders were deeply involved in the city's
neighborhoods and liberal Democratic politics.
The relationship that Moses struck with the Amalgamated Cloth­
ing Workers depended on the goodwill of its president, Jacob S.
Potofsky, and of Abraham E. Kazan, veteran chief of the Amalga­
mated Housing Corporation. Part businessman, part prophet, Kazan
drew such men as attorney Robert Szold and architect Herman Jes­
sor from lucrative practices to join him to build workers' housing:
the Bronx cooperatives and the Amalgamated Dwellings on Grand
Street. Kazan's willpower and tightiSsted management kept the
Bronx co-ops afloat through the depression. "They were impossible
to deal with," residents said of Kazan and his colleagues. "They used
to sit and count pennies in order to make ends meet." Certainly they
kept track of the dollars. Kazan convinced shareholders to accept
extra assessments and forego dividend payments to build the reserve
fund during hard times. The cooperative movement survived the
1930s as a tiny (980-unit) outpost of idealism in the north Bronx.47
Kazan had few illusions about how these communities got built.
He could expound on the educational benefits of cooperative life,
but he admitted that his customers "were not cooperators ideo­
logically—they were looking for better housing." They liked the
spaciousness, prices, and limited tsuris (headaches) offered by man­
agers who took charge of all responsibilities. The Amalgamated's
"pilot projects," moreover, had proven themselves to hardheaded
bankers. "Largefinancialinstitutions no longer hesitate to lend sub­
stantial sums to soundly organized cooperatives," Kazan empha­
sized. "Public confidence in cooperative housing, badly shattered by
the several failures in the past—the result of poor financing, poor
management and too much politics [i.e., co-ops founded by Com­
munists and anarchists]—is now restored, and tenants-to-be flocked
by the thousands."48
Moses's relationship with Kazan came to fruition as the war
ended, when the Amalgamated Housing Corporation wanted to ex­
pand middle-income projects on the Lower East Side. In July of
1946, Moses arranged a straight loan from Mutual of New York In­
surance (which probably enabled Lewis Douglas to avoid handling
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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

the Bronx "colored" project). With the mortgage in place, Moses

and the Amalgamated, in December of 1946, reached an agreement
to build the East River Houses (soon renamedforSidney Hillman),
three twelve-story residential buildings along Grand Street. The city
would convey land through eminent domain under the Redevel­
opment Companies Law for the project to include a garage and a
community center, along with a city-built park.49
Moses was soon pressing Kazan to do more. Anxious to expe­
dite a $16 million expansion of the Hillman Houses, Moses offered
Kazan an extraordinary municipal package: a thirty-year tax exemp­
tion, a break on the city sales tax on construction material, and a
pledge to amend the state housing law so that the city could finance
a forty-year first mortgage on the project. "Whether or not the City
wishes to go into this type of housing" was a decision Moses said
he reserved for Mayor O'Dwyer, although he tried to bind the city
to those terms. The arrangement fell through after City Comptroller
Lazarus Joseph refused to concur. The Amalgamated proceeded on
the Hillman extension without the subsidy, although Moses did
what he could. When eminent domain payments came to $300,000
more than expected, Moses stepped in to ease the burden, despite
Comptroller Joseph's further complaints. He intervened again when
construction stalled over relocation of 218 families. Moses had the
Housing Authority waive income limits and accept forty families as
a gesture, he said, of "our cooperation in the slum clearance work
which the Amalgamated is undertaking."50
The Amalgamated Housing Corporation was already Moses's
favorite redeveloper when discussions occurred about Title I sites
in late 1949. For some time, as Moses claimed, he had hoped to
expand the Amalgamated domain in "one guise or another," and in
December he called Jacob Potofsky's attention to Title I. Moses's
inquiry prompted more than he bargained for: the establishment
of the Council for Cooperative Development by Kazan, attorney
Robert Szold, former Housing Authority counsel Maxwell Tretter,
cooperative enthusiast Shirley F. Boden, and eminent housing re­
former Clarence Stein. Moses's aggressive patronage convinced them
to think about urban cooperatives on a mass scale. But when he
saw their enthusiastic solicitation, he responded, "Who in hell are
these lads?" His staffers agreed that they might hatch "very unstable
projects." Moses worked with Kazan and Tretter, who were known
quantities and who talked dollars and cents about specific deals.51
The city's relationship with the unions was consummated at the
Board of Estimate on May 18,1950. Behind closed doors and despite
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THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

The liberal coalition that built Cooperative Village on the Lower East Side. At
the November 21, 1953, groundbreaking ceremoniesforthe Corlears Hook
Title I on Grand Street and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, International
Ladies Garment Workers Union president David Dubinsky, Amalgamated
Housing Corporation president Abraham E. Kazan, and local Title I admin­
istrator James W. Follin man shovels, while Robert Moses and Amalgamated
Housing vice-president Robert Szold look on. Photo by Justice—ILGWU;
Courtesy of Coordinated Housing Services, Inc.

the uneasiness of board members who looked at the city's balance

sheets, Moses arranged tax exemption for the International Union
of Electrical Workers' 2,226-unit cooperative at "Electchester" in
Queens, another grant for a Brooklyn project sponsored by the
Amalgamated Meat Cutters, and the "necessary arrangements" for
the Amalgamated Housing Corporation's Title I cooperative at Cor­
lears Hook. At a stroke, the city had subsidized construction of 5,000
middle-income units, and in the middle of the 1950 mayoral race,
Moses had done more for labor's cooperative commonwealth than
the candidates who claimed to run as labor men. Within days, the
Council for Cooperative Development incorporated as the United
Housing Foundation (UHF). Headed by Amalgamated veterans

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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

Kazan and Szold, it would harness union pension funds to build

cooperatives in systematic fashion.52
One cooperative outside the UHF's realm, Queensview, was
erected by reformers on the aborted Ravenswood site in Long Island
City. After Mutual of New York Life Insurance backed out, company
director Louis Pink corralled other housing reformers to organize
a nonprofit cooperative. Pink arranged from Mutual an 80 percent
mortgage for a 620-unit cooperative. Owner-shareholders were ex­
pected to put up the 20 percent equity, which ranged from $2,100
to $2,900 per apartment, and to pay maintenance of $17 per room.
Abraham Kazan advised how to make Queensview a genuine co­
operative, and settlement leaders helped with community facilities.
But success hinged on Board of Estimate approval, which the incor­
porators hoped would come with some fanfare. "Our public relations
people," a Queensview officer explained, "believe that a statement
from the Mayor [O'Dwyer] shortly after approval of the project
would be of tremendous value to our sales program."53
Queensview's most celebrated feature was a pioneering inter-
racialism. City Planning Commissioner Cleveland Rodgers, Moses's
loyal publicist as well as his staunch ally on the commission, observed
that many liberals considered Queensview the first large redevel­
opment designed to comply with the antidiscrimination laws. Pink
and his colleagues insisted on barring discrimination. They worked
hard to recruit black shareholders and hired James Felt & Company
to seek applicants. Charles Abrams's expose of residential bigotry,
Forbidden Neighbors (1955), lavished praise on Queensview as the
housing venture that leveled racial barriers.54
Queensview proved to be another battleground in the cold war
at home. Despite recruiting efforts among blacks, most shareholders
were middle-class Jews who streamed in from Greenwich Village,
the West Bronx, and the Upper West Side. They brought along a
predilection for factional politics, including vehemence about the
Communist-dominated American Labor party. Some ALPers com­
peted in the election of Queensview's first board of directors, which
included such outsiders as Charles Abrams, housing reformer Ira S.
Robbins, and Ethical Culture Society leader Algernon D. Black.
During the previous months, one resident explained, "a well orga­
nized and active left-wing minority" seemed determined "to capture
control of the board." Some residents worried that "a left-wing label"
would scare away the waiting list and ruin shareholders' equity. But
after an "arduous campaign," liberals managed to swamp the radicals.

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THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

Queensview confirmed Kazan's belief that postwar co-ops needed

carefully chosen boards of directors to promote sedate cooperation
rather than sectarian squabbling. Otherwise they would be shunned
by lending institutions and city officials. Supporters of the UHF,
along with national spearheads of the movement, such as the Co­
operative League and the Washington-based Cooperative Society of
the U.S.A., recognized what rested on the campaign in New York.
They may have differed on points with Moses or found him irascible
to deal with, but they trusted him to deliver sites and write-downs
when it counted.55
Moses's other allies included institutional builders at New York
University, who dreamed of extending the campus across Greenwich
Village. The spearhead was James L. Madden, the Metropolitan Life
vice-president who joined the NYU Council (board of trustees) in
late 1946, headed the council's special committee on development,
and became university treasurer. As chairman of the council's re­
constituted planning committee and as an advocate of preemptive
land acquisition on Washington Square, Madden kept liaison with
the architectural firm Eggers & Higgins, employed in late 1946 to
plan the university's future. Administrators agreed that expanded
facilities, particularly dormitory space, were crucial to maintain the
university's enrollment—and tuition revenues. "The money of the
Square," the provost quipped, "keeps the University mare in feed."56
Eggers & Higgins's blueprints, which showed "how much terri­
tory might be adapted with Georgian style structures to university
purposes," were welcomed by Robert Moses, who intervened with
timely aid. Moses arranged at the City Planning Commission for
a denial of the zoning variance on Washington Square South that
builder Anthony Campagna needed for an apartment tower on land
that the university coveted for its own uses. (Moses also encour­
aged NYU's partnership in the Bellevue Hospital medical complex,
a coup of immense importance to the university.) NYU owed Moses
an obligation, but the university could only go so far as a redevelop­
ment partner. In late 1947, Madden promised the university coun­
cil that his planning committee would not venture into "visionary
undertakings."57
The university could prepare itself, however, if opportunity
knocked. Madden had proposed organizing a "foundation" that
would buy and control properties around Washington Square, but
that would be kept independent of the university forfiscaland public-
relations reasons. The chance came in the summer of 1948, when
Moses pressed Campagna to sell his idle property at fair market
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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

value. "All at once," remarked NYU chancellor Harry W. Chase, "the

housing project south of Washington Square has come back to life."
Campagna pledged to build the first unit of the project for the uni­
versity at cost plus 5 percent with a mortgage from Metropolitan
Life. Chancellor Chase relied on James Madden to distance NYU's
involvement: "He will set up a board of trustees and the Univer­
sity will be kept away from the housing project." The opportunity,
Chase believed, revived "the whole question of a housing corpo­
ration for the redevelopment of properties south of Washington
Square. . . . This will in no way come back on the University, but
after it is free from debt the corporation will, I take it, pay over its
profits to the University." Chancellor Chase had no doubt that the
achievement would leave the university "sitting pretty." After Moses
warned NYU to act fast or the Metropolitan Opera would get the
nod from the Mayor's Committee on Slum Clearance, Madden and
Campagna rounded up "prominent citizens" to sponsor a redevelop­
ment corporation for the area between West 3rd Street and Houston
Street. The citizens committee soon gave way to favored realtors,
who sponsored the controversial Title I project called "Washington
Square South." 58
At the other end of Greenwich Village, liberals thrust on Moses
another venture to redeem the city. The New York-based Marshall
Field Foundation, organized by the Chicago department store heir
to pursue social betterment, had agonized over urban race relations
and the possibility of developing prototypes for interracial housing.
In the summer of 1948, a committee comprising Marshall Field III
and his wife (Ruth), Judge Justine Wise Polier (daughter of Rabbi
Stephen J. Wise and a founder of the State Committee Against Dis­
crimination), Channing H. Tobias (head of the Phelps Stokes Fund),
and Lloyd K. Garrison (Field Foundation legal counsel and National
Urban League president) embarked on a pilot project. They hired
former Housing Authority counsel Maxwell Tretter to explore the
practical steps for creating an interracial community. Tretter relied on
Garrison's soundings of bankers, who advised that to build decent
housing for rents under $19 required city tax exemption, which
meant facing local antidiscrimination laws. Garrison found institu­
tions "hesitant to invest even first mortgage money" under those
conditions. Mortgage lenders regarded the few examples of mixed
tenancy as wartime arrangements sustained by the scarcity of shelter.
It was widely expected, Garrison added, that "admission of Negroes
to projects would, when the housing shortage is over, drive out white
tenants." This was all the more reason why Tretter concluded that the
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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

13 St.

|-.V/.V/.V;V.;V.vJ j Houston St

Proposed Sites for Redevelopment

Foiled Proposals Successful Proposal

1949: Field Foundation 1951: Public Housing 1953: Washington Square Southeast Title I

f-.-.-..-.-..i r-.-.-.-.-.-j
1950: South Village Title I 1953: Simkhovitch Public Houses

1951: Washington Square South Title I

Note: The South Village (1950) and the Simkhovitch Public Housing (1953) proposals specified the some site.

Attempts to modernize Greenwich Village, 1949—1953. Old civic ambitions

to redevelop the area south of Washington Square, coupled with the Holden,
McLaughlin & Associates Planning Recommendations (1946), justified a series
of attempts by New York University, the Washington Square Association, the

140
 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

Field Foundation could "demonstrate the commercial practibility of

non-discriminatory housing" without subsidies.59
Having agreed on the basics, Ruth Field and her associates turned
to practical issues. They decided that only a project of substantial
size, at least 500 units, could have the right impact. It would have
to be located in a blighted area to take advantage of the condemna­
tion and tax-exemption privileges of the Redevelopment Companies
Law. At the same time, they insisted on a white neighborhood to
prove that interracialism did not endanger property values, and they
wanted Manhattan's cosmopolitanism and media impact. They also
rejected a cooperative in favor of a rental project, which more blacks
could afford and which would provide a greater lesson for mort­
gage lenders. All along, they operated under a principle of controlled
interracialism. The Field trustees agreed to keep black tenancy below
20 percent, while rejecting what they called the "discrimination" of
quotas, thus settling on the concept of a "preponderance of whites."
They understood that to mean that "the proportion of Negro ten­
ants to white, according to the laws of probability, would be not far
from that of the general proportion . . . in the population at large—
roughly ten per cent." "Only in this way," observed Mrs. Field,
Judge Polier, and Channing Tobias, "could the project achieve the
significance which ought to attach to it."60
Pledging $250,000 toward the $1 million equity (with the re­
mainder to come from other philanthropic donations), the Field
Foundation incorporated an operational arm, the Foundation for
the Improvement of Urban Living (FIUL), and hired Tretter as
executive director. Although Tretter recognized that a white Man­
hattan neighborhood spelled high land costs and what Tretter called
"severe" tenant relocation, FIUL leaders hoped he could find $8-per­
square-foot land that, with an FHA-insured mortgage, would bring
rents to $20 per room. In the meantime, FIUL commissioned a soci­
ologist from the New School for Social Research to survey attitudes

Field Foundation, and the Mayor's Committee on Slum Clearance to mod­

ernize large portions of the Village after World War II. The Field Foundation
and Washington Square South Title I projects, along with the Simkhovitch
Houses, were defeated by community opposition. New York University and
local property interestsfinallysucceeded in superblock clearance at the Wash­
ington Square Southeast Title I, which provided room for NYU's Bobst
Library, Washington Square Village, and the University Plaza Apartments.

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THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

of white, middle-class New Yorkers toward living with blacks. After

studying a sample top-heavy with members of the ADA and the
American Veterans Committee, the sociologist reported that strong
demand for apartments in the $17-to-$25 range was unaffected by
the project's interracial character.61
Tretter managed to find a site on Washington Street in the West
Village that offered nearly 4 acres at $9.03 per square foot. The prop­
erty was expensive and contained little blight, but Tretter concluded
that the time had come to consult with Robert Moses, "who is in
a key position in relation to slum clearance." Moses's involvement
was all the more imperative as the FIUL campaign to attract pri­
vate investors for the $1 million equity hit unforseen snags. Moses
promised complete cooperation, Tretter reported, "and said that the
Mayor [O'Dwyer] wants to announce four orfiveprojects as soon as
the President has signed the housing bill."62
A few days after President Truman signed the Housing Act of
1949, Tretter, Mrs. Field, and Charming Tobias met with Moses to
fix the FIUL project on the mayor's Title I list. Moses was anxious to
proclaim the deal, and, to Tretter's embarrassment (since FIUL had
yet to clinch philanthropic investment), told the newspapers that
the Field Foundation would clear slums on Washington Street. In
late July, FIUL advisor Lloyd Garrison walked the site and found it
"awfully good," particularly because Tretter said that Title I could
get square-foot land costs down "to a workablefigureof around $3."
Confirming Moses's enthusiasm for the location, Garrison hoped
Tretter would move quickly on the details. Certainly Moses expected
the Field trustees to get cracking. As Tretter observed, "now that we
have started with Commissioner Moses, we will be under pressure
from him for continued activity and progress."63
That was a wry understatement, given the site's costs and lack
of blight. The 4 acres, bounded by West 11th Street, Washington
Street, West 12th Street, and Greenwich Street, were actually as­
sessed at $10.50 per foot. But when Tobias, Garrison, and Tretter
met Moses on September 19, 1949, they offered $2 per foot and
expected the city to condemn the site and relocate the families. Be­
moaning the fiscal loss, Moses countered with $3 and loaded the
cost of demolition and relocation back on the FIUL. Despite the
hard bargaining, Tretter recognized the terrific price, which made
the venture feasible. It was never pleasant to exchange views with
the construction coordinator. With the media at his disposal, Moses
could give an embarrassing twist to the work of the most public-
spirited groups. But Tretter knew that once Moses was convinced
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 THE REDEVELOPMENT MACHINE

on specific plans, a decent cause could have no more enthusiastic or

effective public servant.64
Robert Moses and his associates did not set out to use Title I for
commercial purposes, to swamp the city with hapless relocatees, and
to shove around people of color. They put their stake in pilot projects
of limited scope. They had a fairly balanced conception of the pur­
poses of Title I and saw a city of middle-class housing and mixed-use
neighborhoods rising where slums had stood. It was the lending
community that wanted restricted upper-middle-income projects
and boycotted redevelopments "contaminated" by public housing
and factory sites. In the face of these private pressures, Moses's mo­
mentary championship of "mixed" neighborhoods seemed almost
naive. The private sector forced Title I beyond many of the politi­
cal and social constraints that Moses acceptedforoperating in the
liberal city.
As Title I got off the drawing boards, critics were scandalized
by what they claimed was Moses's reckless abandonment of public
oversight of private redevelopment. The public-private distinction
had no relevance in New York, where liberals as well as conservatives
vied for public subsidies for private ventures, and where a host of
reformers, nonprofit redevelopers, and trade unions elaborated stan­
dards of public use as they went along. A particular sore point was
the charge that the Committee on Slum Clearance abdicated munici­
pal responsibility for handling tenant relocation as Title I stipulated.
Liberals claimed that handling relocation was the least the city owed
unfortunate refugees. At the time, however, the chief importance of
city-handled relocation to redevelopers was lowered project costs, as
moving tenants seemed to them a prohibitive expense. Relocation
by municipal agency was not the recognition of public weal, but
merely the way to slough off a burdensome expense. In the city that
pioneered constraints on the profit sector in the 1930s, quasi-private
redevelopers emerged with no guidelines whatever, except for the
limits that people of goodwill agreed upon with the construction
coordinator. Whatever Congress might propose in 1949, the New
York approach had already moved in its own direction.

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 6

CENTERS AND FRINGES

We ask for so little, just a placid glimpse of nature, just

a chance to live without chasing all over to find a park, a
play ground, and a good school, shops and market.
MaryK. Simkhovitch

T h e New York approach depended on liberal neighborhoods with

redevelopment goals as ambitious as any directed by Robert Moses.
The earliest Title I projects emerged in Greenwich Village, Morn­
ingside Heights, and the Upper West Side, where the postwar vogue
in citizens politics (by nonpartisan civic groups) demanded munici­
pal action to revive neighborhoods. The process usually began with
an exercise in community self-definition by civic councils and social-
welfare leaders, who applied venerable techniques of neighborhood
research. After poring over property maps and census data, civic
groups defined norms of homogeneous community life, which used
class and race to measure what was discordant on the fringes. These
steps were carried out by self-proclaimed citizens committees, ex­
ecutives acting in plenary sessions, and planners who stamped their
sketches "confidential." Then they crossed their fingers and presented
their plans to the construction coordinator.
If the process overrode the precepts of civic democracy, it was
responding to anxieties about the urban condition in the late 1940s.
Although the American victory in World War II contributed to a
general confidence in what civic life might accomplish, the war also
added troubling new elements. Mobilization had fueled the north­
ern flow of blacks and Hispanics, whose numbers reached huge but
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 CENTERS AND FRINGES

uncertain proportions in metropolitan neighborhoods. As a struggle

against racism, the war had weakened the Jim Crow habits that had
kept minorities in urban ghettoes. Civic leaders understood that the
postwar metropolis was to be created not only with brick and mortar,
but also with a social structure born of a new racial etiquette. Urban
liberals were up to the challenge. The generation that had fought
the war and then girded to save Europe from communism was ready
to apply that sense of mission to reclaiming the cities from social
disaster. Preoccupied with crusades abroad and at home, banker
David Rockefeller told a redevelopment meeting on Morningside
Heights: "The free society which we are willing to defend with our
lives from aggression from without is in danger of crumbling from
within unless each individual and each community nurtures the will
to freedom and accepts the responsibilities which are incumbent on
us as citizens."1

Futurama for the Village

Plans to renew Greenwich Village were shaped during World War II

by the Postwar Planning Committee of the Greenwich Village Asso­
ciation (GVA), an amalgam of realtors and boosters, and Greenwich
House, which expressed the welfare agenda of the Lower West Side
Council of Social Agencies. In reality, GVA architect Robert C.
Weinberg drew sketches for the approval of GVA leader Mary K.
Simkhovitch. Weinberg embodied the conflicting interests of resi­
dents in the postwar Village. He belonged to the Washington Square
Association, which spoke for Lower Fifth Avenue property and civic
interests, and to the Washington Square Neighbors, brownstone
owners and preservationists who were vigilant against speculative
threats to the Square. Simkhovitch was still the Village proconsul,
who shaped the city's obligations to her neighbors, and who under­
stood that instruments such as the Redevelopment Companies Law
meant opportunities for community renewal. "Revived and changed
neighborhoods cannot be made to blossom without both public and
private aid," Simkhovitch wrote. "The narrow concept that plan­
ning must be the work of private individuals or corporations alone
is as unrealistic as it is to assume that government alone can handle
the job." 2
After a March 1944 meeting of the Postwar Planning Committee
with Simkhovitch and planner Arthur Holden, Weinberg drafted a
redevelopment proposal. He began with the assumption that some
145
CENTERS AND FRINGES

Village neighborhoods needed rehabilitation through joint efforts

by the Housing Authority and private investors. Based on the City
Planning Commission's master plan, Weinberg argued that Village
areas M-lOa and M-lOb deserved demolition of substandard dwell­
ings to create "attractive new residential neighborhoods." Greenwich
House had already surveyed area M- 10b, which was on the water­
front, and Weinberg agreed that this peripheral section deserved low-
rent public units. But his real interest was M-lOa, an area bounded
by West Broadway, Seventh Avenue, Spring Street, and West 4th
Street, that was "close enough to Washington Square and other
established residential neighborhoods . . . to justify at least one
housing project for tenants of a somewhat higher economic level,"
which Weinberg estimated at $9 to $11 per room. The danger was
piecemeal rehabilitation of tenements to the south and west. With
efforts such as Stuyvesant Town in mind, Weinberg warned that
"individual renovations" would block the "orderly redevelopment...
which we all hope to see undertaken in the not too distant future."3
In 1945, the Fifth Avenue interests in the Washington Square
Association hired the Holden, McLaughlin architectural firm to
sketch plans for the postwar Village. The consultants proposed to
increase what they called the "influence" of Washington Square by ex­
tending park space between West Broadway and Thompson Street to
Houston Street. On either side, the remaining portions of "Planning
Area C" would be cleared of "obsolete" lofts and tenements to make
way for medium-rent housing under the Redevelopment Companies
Law. These projects, in turn, would connect with a Houston Street
expressway ("a shelf highway over stores and intermediate streets")
and apartments to create a "belt at least 200 feet deep on either side
of the new widened street." Spot demolitions in "Planning Area D,"
Greenwich Village proper, would eliminate "narrow old law tene­
ments that cause congestion," and the circumference formed by
Hudson Street, Sixth Avenue, and Greenwich Street would be lined
by high-rise apartments. Published by the Washington Square Asso­
ciation in 1946, the Holden, McLaughlin Planning Recommendations
would ready the Village for the demands of the modern metropolis.4
Civic leaders were anxious to move ahead with the plans. Robert
Weinberg, fearful that the Washington Square Association would
dawdle over the Holden, McLaughlin report, called on the Washing­
ton Square Neighbors to take the initiative. Some townhouse owners
shared his eagerness. According to one member, the Neighbors felt
that the Holden, McLaughlin Planning Recommendations should be
the basis for " 'revamping' of the South Washington Square Neigh­
146
 CENTERS AND FRINGES

borhood . . . and holds great possibilities for the city." She favored
reconstruction of the South Village with something on the scale of
the United Nations headquarters. By then, of course, the city had
decided to locate the UN on Rockefeller-purchased land on the East
River. Nevertheless, she told Weinberg that she intended to send
copies of the Holden, McLaughlin report to "our friend" Wallace K.
Harrison.5
Harrison was a curious choice for preservers of Washington
Square values, considering the architect's taste for modernism that
dated from the 1939 World's Fair, whose symbols of the future, the
Trylon and Perisphere, he had designed. The Rockefellers' favorite
architect, Harrison was a confidant and an intellectual mentor for
John D., Jr.'s sons. He had been a coordinating architect for Rocke­
feller Center, and contributed Building No. 11, a granite mega­
lith, complete with an 800-car underground garage. After a stint
as Nelson A. Rockefeller's cultural advisor in the State Department
during the war, Harrison worked on two projects of inestimable im­
portance for redeveloped New York. He designed William Zecken­
dorf's "X-City" on the East River at 42nd Street, a complex that
would have included two curved, fifty-five-story slabs, a heliport, a
waterfront restaurant, and, that token of hemispheric solidarity, a
nightclub. He also planned the first United Nations headquarters
on the old World's Fair site for Robert Moses. When Moses engi­
neered the deal with the Rockefellers that squeezed out "X-City" in
favor of the UN on 42nd Street, Harrison set to work on the bold
symbol of world government on the East River. Robert Weinberg,
nevertheless, hoped to interest Harrison in "the area south of the
Square for a large residential project, possibly in connection with the
United Nations." Harrison had "extraordinary financial and politi­
cal connections," Weinberg agreed. "Whether Mr. Harrison, with
his 'futurama' tendencies, would have as much concern for the aes­
thetic values, I do not know, but certainly he has the imagination
and initiative which will be needed."6
With Harrison's talents engaged elsewhere, the Holden, Mc­
Laughlin proposals became the centerpiece of the Greenwich Village
Association's February 1947 conference on housing and planning.
GVA activists agreed that the conference was a golden opportunity
to showcase the Village to city officials and major investors, such as
General Otto L. Nelson, Jr., of New York Life, and James Felt, who
represented Metropolitan Life. Arthur Holden described his ideas
for long-term redevelopment on a panel that included Manhattan
borough president Hugo E. Rogers, Paul O'Keefe of the Savings
147
 CENTERS AND FRINGES

MAP
SHOWING RBCOMMfiNDtD
L ANN ING AREAS

HOLDEN MCLAUOHUN &-ASSOCIATES

COMlDLTIflC ARCHITECT* AND PLANNERS

Plansforpostwar Greenwich Village, 1946. Over the existing street grid,

Holden, McLaughlin & Associates proposed sweeping changes for consider­
ation by the Washington Square Association. The planners would have pre­
served the Square, "stabilized" high-class residential areas to the north, and
turned the New York University campus eastward. Everything else would have

Bank Trust Company, and several speculative builders, including

Anthony Campagna. "This is the first time," Mary Simkhovitch
boasted to Mayor William O'Dwyer, "that a neighborhood has had
the gumption to get up a report on its own housing and planning."7
Soon afterward, Villagers gave the City Planning Commission
a direct invitation to redevelop south of the Square. Writing for
148
 CENTERS AND FRINGES

been changed to meet the commercial and vehicular traffic needs of the modern
city. Reprinted from Holden, McLaughlin & Associates, Planning Recommen­
dations for the Washington Square Area (Washington Square Association, 1946).
Courtesy of the New York University Archives.

the Washington Square Neighbors, Robert Weinberg endorsed the

Holden, McLaughlin proposals for what he described as "large-scale
clearance and reconstruction . . . of the blighted area lying between
Washington Square and Houston Street." At the same time, he called
attention to needed arterial improvements, such as a crosstown ex­
pressway along Canal Street and another on Houston Street. Also
149
CENTERS AND FRINGES

on Weinberg's list was a north-south highway parallel with Hud­

son Street to keep trucks out of the West Village. The construction
of highways girdling the Village had become central to its civic
demands.8
By contrast, the Village gave only halfhearted support to public
housing. In January of 1948, Mary Simkhovitch asked the Lower
West Side Council for Social Planning whether it would favor
"unsubsidized" public housing, renting for about $9 per room. When
social-welfare leaders tabled the question, American Labor party
supporters askedforthe views of an ad hoc Coordinating Commit­
tee on Housing. The committee, which had.sprung up to campaign
for Wagner-Ellender-Taft and OPA rent controls, favored a low-rent
project on the Lower West Side. Denying rumors that it was "a left-
ish pressure group," a spokeswoman wondered why her committee
garnered little support in the Village. Social-welfare leaders replied
that the committee's alleged Communist affiliation forced them to
"work for the same thing on parallel lines."9
As civic leaders distanced themselves from the left wing, they
drew closer to developers of middle-income housing. Robert Wein­
berg favored working with rather than against New York Uni­
versity's expansion and tried to convince the Washington Square
Neighbors to support the university's building program along Fifth
Avenue. Villagers agreed to compromise with Robert Moses's plans
for a traffic route through Washington Square if it meant eradicat­
ing blight further south. In April of 1948, the Washington Square
Association endorsed one proposal for vehicular traffic, contingent
on Moses's pledges south of the Square "in connection with the
re-development of private property."10
The compromise was anathema to the minority of Villagers com­
mitted to public housing. In May of 1948, when the Lower West
Side Council for Social Planning learned of the redevelopment ini­
tiative, a dissenter attacked the proposed rent level as "above the
reach of those people for whom there was the greatest need." Mary
Simkhovitch tried to paper over the differences. She helped con­
vince the Greenwich Village Association to accept redevelopment
south of Washington Square without public housing by conveying
the Housing Authority's judgment that low-rent projects were "dif­
ficult of realization" in the district. As a face-saving gesture, the
Lower West Side Council joined the Greenwich Village Association
to resolve for projects on the outskirts of the city.11
In early 1949, talk about Wagner-Ellender-Taft convinced the
Washington Square Association that redevelopment might realize
150
 CENTERS AND FRINGES

the Holden, McLaughlin Planning Recommendations. The association

hoped that federal write-downs would subsidize a ten-block clear­
ance for "development by private capital into a planned neighbor­
hood, including two blocks for a park." A few months later, the
Greenwich Village Association was dismayed to learn that Moses's
Committee on Slum Clearance had offered the Field Foundation
a site on Washington Street in the West Village. The Washington
Street owners bristled at the idea that their neighborhood was a
slum. But both the Greenwich Village and Washington Square asso­
ciations refused to get involved as long as they hoped for Moses's
support for clearance elsewhere. The Washington Square Associa­
tion offered another Mary Simkhovitch compromise, which called
for "diversified and inter-racial" projects to "preserve the present
character of the Village," coupled with a warning against creating "a
segregated area of one-income families," a reference to lower-class
public housing. For its part, the Greenwich Village Association in­
vited Moses, the City Planning Commission, the Housing Authority,
and the Field Foundation to develop low-income, middle-income,
and private projects side by side. The mixed-income formula became
the basis for a redevelopment package that civic leaders would soon
regret.12

Cold War Acropolis

Redevelopment as a process of community definition occurred with
grave urgency on Morningside Heights, where fears about the loos­
ening of racial boundaries were intermingled with hopes for postwar
planning. The Heights had the city's largest concentration of edu­
cational institutions, including Barnard College, Teachers College,
Union Theological Seminary, and Juilliard School of Music. But the
institutions that dominated this American "acropolis," as the neigh­
borhood sometimes called itself, were Columbia University and such
Rockefeller benefactions as the Riverside Church and International
House, New York, which pursued scholarship and ecumenical en­
deavors on a global scale. Those who devoted themselves to post­
war Protestant unity, the international monetary system, and Free
World responsibilities chafed at the shabby facilities that Morning-
side Heights provided their efforts.
Before World War II, Riverside Church, Teachers College, and
Columbia University kept a nervous watch on the social deteriora­
tion in Manhattanville, across 125th Street, and the spread of black
151
CENTERS AND FRINGES

tenants along Claremont Avenue. The war aggravated these fears

even as it burdened institutions with homefront responsibilities. In
June of 1944, the rising tide of juvenile delinquency prompted wel­
fare experts to assess the black population along St. Nicholas and
Convent avenues and to urge support for day-care services at the
Manhattanville Neighborhood Center. Contributions, chiefly from
John D. Rockefeller III, mobilized youth workers from Columbia
University, Riverside Church, and Union Theological Seminary. A
Rockefeller advisor predicted tough going against the "roving gangs
[that] . . . infest this valley district," but the Reverend Dr. Harry
Emerson Fosdick of the Riverside Church sensed that "a movement
has gotten underway."13
Collective action depended, of course, on leadership by Colum­
bia University, which emerged from the war pained by the neigh­
borhood insecurity that undermined its world-class status. When
Columbia Business School dean R. D. Calkins and economist Ray­
mond Saulnier proposed "to protect the area from progressive de­
cline," Columbia president Nicholas Murray Butler claimed he was
"pressing the matter of control of this [neighborhood] property."
University provost Frank D. Fackenthal had been familiar with
Columbia's protective policies before the war, and when he became
acting president on Butler's retirement in early 1946, he knew the
direction Columbia had to take.14
Another stimulus came from the University of Chicago, which
had considerable success in luring away Columbia professors and
handling similar neighborhood problems after the war. In May of
1946, David Rockefeller and other trustees of International House,
New York, invited sociologist and planning consultant Wilbur C.
Munnecke, a vice-president of the University of Chicago, to examine
the "Int-House" community. After surveying Claremont Avenue that
summer, Munnecke's somber conclusions became the confidential
wisdom among officials on the Heights. Munnecke saw the Heights
as being at a crossroads, but stressed the futility of old methods of
urban preservation. "Communities attempt to protect themselves,"
said the Chicago expert, "by creating vertical restrictions, that is,
by barring commercial properties, apartment buildings, Negroes,
Jews, or any other group or class different from the group or class
within the community." Restrictive covenants and zoning devices
were "wrong in principle," he pointed out, and "institutions in this
Community should, above all other institutions, be opposed to ver­
tical restrictions." Such restrictions, Munnecke maintained, were no
more than delaying actions, and they also failed to work.15
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 CENTERS AND FRINGES

Borrowing from his Chicago experience, Munnecke recom­

mended what he called "horizontal restrictions," which he explained
were "positive actions" designed to keep worthy neighbors and dis­
courage undesirables. With coordinated incentives, including city
and state programs, mortgage subsidies, and tax relief, a disciplined
effort over the next twenty-five years could create "a self-sustaining
Community which is the spiritual, cultural and intellectual center
of the world." Within a planning document that soared with One
Worldism, Munnecke urged International House, New York, to plan
wholesale redevelopment, starting with a campaign against local
rooming houses.16
During the spring of 1946, opinion had become "unanimous
and urgent," Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote, for measures that went
beyond the piecemeal. As Dr. Fosdick quoted Frank Fackenthal,
"We face such a potentially dangerous problem in our neighboring
community of Manhattanville, that all the institutions on The Hill
are constrained, both by motives of philanthropic good will and
by motives of self protection." Writing to the Rockefeller Brothers
Fund, Fosdick added his fears for "the community into which Mr.
[John D.] Rockefeller [Jr.], for example, has put so large an invest­
ment, and into which some of us have put the best portions of our
lives." A Rockefeller Brothers administrator confirmed the crisis that
had been brought by "Negro and Puerto Rican people . . . moving
in from Harlem."17
Impressed by the message from International House, Fackenthal
called a meeting on November 8, 1946, of heads of institutions on
the Heights to consider the Munnecke report. The occasion was the
policy debut of banker David Rockefeller, chairman of the trustees
of International House and the Riverside Church, whom Fosdick de­
scribed as the "prime mover" in the discussions. The meeting decided
on a long-range planning committee, chaired by Joseph Campbell,
Columbia University vice-president for finance. Serving with Camp­
bell were John L. Mott, a trustee of the Riverside Church, General
Otto Nelson of New York Life Insurance, and Lawrence M. Orton
of the New York City Planning Commission.18
From the beginning, the Campbell committee saw its goal as not
merely to stem blight but also to reclaim the fringes of Morningside
Heights from Harlem's incursions. Riverside Church trustee John
Mott prepared a statement about additional institutions that might
be brought into the area, including their likely requirements for office
space and employee housing. The committee then turned to Colum­
bia University economist Ernest M. Fisher and his newly established
153
CENTERS AND FRINGES

154

 CENTERS AND FRINGES

Institute for Urban Land Use to estimate costs for a district study
and long-range plan.19
Having devoted his institute to research on urban real estate,
particularly redevelopment, Fisher was eagerforthe contract and
organized a committee of Columbia academics, including econo­
mist Raymond Saulnier and sociologist Robert K. Merton, to study
Morningside Heights from the perspective of the social sciences.
Fisher's academics reported a degree of neighborhood "deteriora­
tion" that would soon reach the point of no return. The "Hill's"
institutions, Merton and his colleagues claimed, faced "the alterna­
tives of taking constructive action to defeat these forces, of abandon­
ing the area, or of attempting what may well be nearly impossible—
the maintenance of their usefulness in the midst of a blighted area."
But courageous action could make Morningside Heights "the educa­
tional and cultural counterpart of the political Capitol of the World."
That required reconstructing the entire district west of Morningside
Avenue, from 110th to 125th streets. The academics recommended
a study of redevelopment costs, but urged data on probable institu­
tional requirements, including which institutions might move in "if
suitable headquarters could be made available." At the same time,
they proposed social research into "creating a community whose
facilities can be available without restrictions as to race, color, or
creed." Finally, Fisher's group urged the Campbell committee to cre­
ate a corporate structure, with technical staff, to give redevelopment
forceful direction.20
With Fisher's recommendations in hand, the Campbell commit­
tee reconvened on February 13,1947, and named David Rockefeller,
Wallace Harrison, Otto Nelson, and City Planning Commissioner
Orton to write a detailed prospectus. Several days later, the trustees
of Columbia University and Barnard College approved the goal of re-

Morningside Heights, Inc., 1957 (opposite). After World War II, the as­
sembled institutions on "the Hill" struggled to contain black and Puerto Rican
migrants moving west of Morningside Park and south of 125th Street. In­
formal pressure held the line until 1947, when the institutional consortium,
Morningside Heights, Inc., pursued the redevelopment that built the Morn­
ingside Gardens Title I, and the concentration of public housing along 125th
Street, the General Grant and Manhattanville Houses. Today Morningside
Heights, Inc., still provides community leadership as the Morningside Area
Alliance.

155
CENTERS AND FRINGES

development of Morningside Heights. In March of 1947, the Camp­

bell committee approved a corporate mechanism, adopted a prelimi­
nary budget of $100,000, and, with caution against "widespread
discussion of this venture," agreed to call their new consortium by
the most innocuous name of Morningside Heights, Inc.21
Some Morningside Heights leaders were uneasy about the costs
of holding back neighborhood change. Lincoln Cromwell, president
of St. Luke's Hospital, was particularly bothered about the impli­
cations of the "horizontal plan." Insisting that the Hill would not
countenance exclusion, Frank Fackenthal emphasized that with "a
'horizontal' plan . . . we may be able to set a pattern that will be . . . a
big step forward in the handling of mixed populations." Somewhat
reassured, Cromwell pledged to bring along the Juilliard trustees,
but, as he related to Henry Van Dusen, president of the Union
Theological Seminary, he doubted "the advisability of barring ad­
mission . . . to any elements which we consider unwelcome." When
Cromwell still hesitated about approaching Juilliard, Van Dusen de­
nied that the horizontal plan meant "excluding any social or racial
group"; instead, he claimed, it meant attracting with housing and
other facilities those that would "augment its [the Heights'] intellec­
tual, cultural and spiritual strengths."22
The doubts momentarily set aside, the consortium, during the
spring of 1947, agreed on determined leadership, electing trustees
such as Otto Nelson of New York Life and appointing City Planning
Commissioner Orton as management consultant. David Rockefeller
and Wallace Harrison pushed Orton to accept the full-time execu­
tive role that redevelopment needed. By assembling property maps
to chart what he called the area's "unlike uses," Orton had already
proven his worth. More importantly, he had identified the singular
obstacle to redevelopment, the $21-per-square-foot land that was a
noose around the Heights' core institutions.23
On July 1,1947, the consortium was officially chartered as Morn­
ingside Heights, Inc. (MHI), with David Rockefeller as president of
the board of trustees and Orton as executive secretary and director
of planning. Orton had already called on the City Planning Commis­
sion for data on fringe areas marked for demolition and had sounded
out the fiduciaries for mortgage investment. His schedule for MHI
soon conflicted with that of his work on the City Planning Commis­
sion, from which he resigned in late 1947. When Mayor O'Dwyer
protested his departure, Orton, David Rockefeller, and other MHI
trustees went to Gracie Mansion to seek a compromise. Stating that
he saw no conflict of interest, Mayor O'Dwyer convinced Orton to
156
 CENTERS AND FRINGES

remain on the commission, allowing him to devote substantial time

to MHI. How Orton reconciled his role as chief Morningside re­
developer with the City Planning Commission's need for members
to maintain a judicious "autonomy" remained unclear.24
One of Orton's most difficult tasks was fund-raising among those
who were still troubled by the moral questions of redevelopment.
Trustees of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, for example,
did not see how the cathedral's interests warranted direct participa­
tion. One of them, Clarence C. Michalis, president of the Seamen's
Bank for Savings, was concerned that MHI might be perceived "as
an attempt to safeguard the racial character of our neighborhood"
and regarded MHI's $100,000 budget as outlandishly high. Henry
Van Dusen thought that MHI could dismiss the "bias" charge, he
suggested to Frank Fackenthal, by having MHI's businessmen talk
to Michalis and his cathedral colleagues. The solution involved the
Reverend John Howard Johnson, a graduate of Union Theological
Seminary and rector of St. Martin's in Harlem, who was elected in
1947 as the only black on the cathedral board. As David Rockefeller
related to Fackenthal, "Mr. [Cleveland H.] Dodge and Mr. Orton
went to see Mr. Michalis about the Cathedral contribution to Morn­
ingside Heights, Inc. . . . Thanks in large part to your happy sug­
gestion that we invite them to nominate Mr. Johnson as one of their
representatives on our [MHI] Board, I believe Mr. Michalis is now
satisfied on the discrimination issue." Although Michalis still balked
at MHI's assessment, Rockefeller and Orton personally convinced
the cathedral trustees to approve limited participation.25
Orton spent the money to complete a population survey of
Morningside Heights, which used data copied from school atten­
dance cards to supplement the 1940 census. The results showed the
typical crowding in prewar apartment houses, which raised "substan­
tial problems in finding housing for those likely to be displaced."
Orton's staff found wide differences in the community's "national
origins" when the school data were analyzed by subareas. In Section I
(108th to 110th streets), 14.2 percent of family heads came from the
West Indies and Latin America (a figure that included 10.9 percent
Puerto Ricans), whereas only .8 percent were American-born blacks.
Section II (110th to 116th streets), the heart of the Hill, contained
3.1 percent from the West Indies and Latin America and only traces
of other minorities. The findings for Section III (116th to 122nd
streets) revealed 1.2 percent from the West Indies and Latin America,
with a scant percentage of American-born blacks. By contrast, Sec­
tion IV (122nd to 125th streets) had the heaviest concentration of
157
CENTERS AND FRINGES

minorities: 11.9 percent from the West Indies and Latin America
(11.6 percent Puerto Rican) and another 19.4 percent black. The
MHI survey declared that Puerto Ricans were "heavily concentrated"
in the outlying sections, although Puerto Ricans amounted to 7.7
percent in the entire survey area. The direction and pace of popula­
tion change was ominous.26
Nevertheless, Orton considered the demographic survey inade­
quate as market research for potential redevelopers. He wanted
Ernest Fisher's Institute for Urban Land Use to do a professional
job, but Fisher worried about measuring a population whose char­
acteristics would depend on "management and operating policies"
that were still to be decided. As he explained to Orton, housing
management "in which no segregation is attempted and races, colors
and creeds are mixed would obviously create a market situation
which is largely unprecedented and would so affect the results as
to make them largely invalid." Fisher's problem was not made any
easier by Orton's approaches to downtown organizations. From the
beginning, Orton had refused to limit his housing calculations to
"immediate faculty and student demands," but instead anticipated
the needs of newcomers drawn to the Heights. "At this stage, our
inquiries are tentative because of the scarcity of usable space," Orton
told Frank Fackenthal. "Our purpose now is to ascertain whether
the organizations are receptive to the idea of a Morningside Heights
location." Fackenthal wondered whether Orton should have first
decided how many institutions the Heights could accommodate.
Otherwise, he asked, "do we not need to extend the geographical
limits of the area chosen for redevelopment?" Fackenthal wondered
how MHI would house existing institutional employees, let alone
those Orton would gather from downtown.27
Although Orton never detailed those figures or the potential dis­
placement, he kept seeking more of the right kind of newcomers. In
January of 1948, he outlined MHI's vision of an enlarged commu­
nity built around an "interfaith" center, an office complex for more
philanthropic organizations, and a commons and campus-life build­
ing for student activities. At the same time, he urged MHI members
to coordinate real estate purchases through an MHI clearinghouse
ultimately known as Remedco. During the summer of 1948, MHI
directors approved Orton's plans and authorized him to proceed
through his "confidential contacts" with the nonprofit sector. These
activities gained new urgency in late 1948, when what Henry Van
Dusen called an "alarming increase in the lawlessness" swept the
Heights. At this dire moment, Orton completed the socioeconomic
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 CENTERS AND FRINGES

survey, which underlay his view that "nothing short of large-scale re­
construction of housing, beginning north of 122nd Street and south
of 113th Street, would suffice, but . . . high costs and the housing
shortage prevented such action."28
Robert Moses recalled that the redevelopment of Morningside
Heights was first recommended by his friend "Larry" Orton. The
financial obstacles that vexed Orton came at the moment when Moses
was thinking about operations under Wagner-Ellender-Taft. Morn­
ingside Heights was a compelling argument for making write-downs
of blighted property the central feature of federal policy. MHFs
community obligations, in turn, justified the public housing to ease
the displacement of low-income families. Nearly three years after
his first discussions of neighborhood problems, David Rockefeller
talked with Moses about the possibility of public housing, although
it remained a supplementary object for the fringes near 125th Street.
As Orton remarked, low-rent projects would provide "physical sta­
bilization of conditions to the north and to the south." 29
The breakthrough came in March of 1949, when Orton reported
that the Mayor's Committee on Slum Clearance had given consider­
ation to two superblocks that would "stabilize conditions in critical
areas." Orton added that MHI had lobbied with the Housing Au­
thority for a low-rent project in Manhattanville, across 125th Street.
On May 19, the Housing Authority added a large public housing
project in the clearance area known as Morningside-Manhattanville.
A month later, in a departure from the family's reliance on private
efforts to preserve the Heights, David Rockefeller went to Capitol
Hill to urge passage of Wagner-Ellender-Taft. By late summer of
1949, Orton was busy preparing maps, along with three-dimensional
models with "replaceable parts, [showing] individual projects." Lib­
eral planning on Morningside Heights had become a vital part of
Moses-style redevelopment.30

The First West Side Story

The most infamous neighborhood encounter with redevelopment

occurred at Manhattantown on the Upper West Side. The shady
way in which the Title I was organized and the mean spirit of its
clearance made Manhattantown synonymous with political scandal
and Negro removal. The community struggle against the project co­
incided with the challenge by Democratic reformers to Tammany
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CENTERS AND FRINGES

clubhouse rule. West Side insurgency against the bulldozer in the

mid-1950s broadened into a political crusade for decent housing,
"balanced neighborhoods," and community planning. The forces un­
leashed by partisans of small-scale renewal and Democratic reform
would sustain a twenty-year war over the West Side and establish its
brand of liberalism as the most creative force in the city. Yet that
same insurgency fashioned the initial version of Manhattantown, and
West Side liberals, along with Moses, were present at the creation.31
In the early 1940s, boosters of the West Park district agreed
that two blighted areas that contained substantial numbers of blacks
threatened the future of the Upper West Side. Black tenants of
the first area, San Juan Hill on West 65th Street, were scattered by
Housing Authority clearance for the Amsterdam Houses in 1941.
Many resettled in a future clearance area near Lincoln Square. Civic
improvers also pointed to a second area, West Park, between 96th
and 110th streets, and particularly to the 775 nonwhite families
clustered between Central Park West and Amsterdam Avenue, from
98th to 102nd streets. Describing West Park as a "prime residential
community" menaced by "malignant" forces, the West of Central
Park Association in 1944 invited banks and insurance companies
to build middle-income housing under the Redevelopment Compa­
nies Law. "Once the feasibility of the program is demonstrated," the
association's report concluded, "the entire study area will eventually
be recreated as a desirable residential community for upper middle
income families."32
The city ignored the neighborhood's ambitions, largely because
Robert Moses was preoccupied with the other sites across the city.
Passed over for more important challenges in downtown Manhat­
tan and Brooklyn, West Park remained near the bottom of the city's
priorities. But that indifference ended in the spring of 1949, when
community groups joined forces behind a West Side Housing Com­
mittee to propose slum clearance for West Park.
The New York chapter of the American Jewish Committee (New
York AJC) came to West Park redevelopment by an indirect route.
Struggling to secure Jewish neighborhoods in the postwar city,
the New York AJC saw the issue of housing as part of its cam­
paign against "gentlemen's agreements" that barred Jewish occu­
pancy. Another concern, less openly expressed, was a possible link
between virulent anti-Communism and anti-Semitism because of
fears that Communist "fronts" were exploiting Zionist fervor for a
Jewish State. On the West Side that worry climaxed during the 1949
special election in the 20th Congressional District. The underdog,
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 CENTERS AND FRINGES

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., running as a Fair Deal Democrat, beat

the Tammany regular and buried the American Labor party radical.
An American Jewish Committee observer exulted that the heavily
Jewish district gave only 7 percent to the left wing. The election, he
concluded, "should destroy the attempted identification of American
Jews with communism."33
Young Roosevelt had little trouble building his own organiza­
tion among predominantly Jewish veterans clubs and Americans for
Democratic Action partisans in the apartment houses along River­
side Drive, West End Avenue, and Central Park West. During the
war, Roosevelt headed the Mayor's Committee on Unity, which La
Guardia appointed to soothe race relations after the 1943 Harlem
Riot. A Navy veteran, Roosevelt also chaired the American Veterans
Committee's housing lobby, which demanded homes, not Quonsets,
for returning servicemen and backed slum clearance, replanning, and
public housing. Close links between the Riverside chapter of the
American Veterans Committee and the West Side branch of the ADA
made a solid front for postwar redevelopment.34
The diverse strands of Jewish territoriality, political reform, and
housing renewal came together in the civic activism of Herbert Ster­
nau of the American Jewish Committee. A Manhattan insurance
broker who sold group policies to civil service organizations, Ster­
nau made a second career in civic endeavors on the Upper West Side.
He lavished time on local groups, including the Park West Neighbor­
hood Association (PWNA), a consortium of Welfare Council orga­
nizations, which he chaired, and the 24th Police Precinct Coordi­
nating Council, which advised the police on juvenile delinquency
and community relations. When the New York AJC reported "anti-
Semitic manifestations" among Puerto Ricans on Columbus Avenue,
Sternau pursued another task in intergroup relations. Attempting
to fathom Puerto Rican attitudes toward Jews, Sternau called on
the resources of the Migration Office of the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico and the Spanish-American Youth Bureau, an organiza­
tion founded during the war to get city jobs for Puerto Rican high
school graduates. Although the Youth Bureau had almost no influ­
ence in the East Harlem barrio, Sternau relied on it for data about
Hispanics' "growing tendency" toward anti-Semitism. The head of
the New York AJC's Intergroup Relations Committee supported his
inquiry as a way "to sell the Puerto Rican groups on the idea of a
close working relationship with the American Jewish Committee." 35
During the April 1949 battle to elect young Roosevelt, the ADA
West Side branch claimed it played "a leading role" in a West Side
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CENTERS AND FRINGES

Housing Committee for a redevelopment project. But the prime

mover was Sternau, who chaired the committee and rounded up
support from the ADA and American Veterans Committee chap­
ters, the Park West Neighborhood Association, the American Jewish
Committee, and the Spanish-American Youth Bureau. As was the
case with the citizen reformers, who proclaimed that they and not
Tammany clubs were the legitimate voice of the Upper West Side,
the West Side Housing Committee showed the degree to which
self-appointed civic groups could announce the redevelopment am­
bitions for an entire community.36
Sternau began the redevelopment campaign with a housing sur­
vey of the predominantly black and Hispanic district between 97th
and 102nd streets to Amsterdam Avenue. He had full cooperation
from the City Planning Commission and Moses's Committee on
Slum Clearance, which shared their data. Having documented tene­
ment blight, the West Side Housing Committee recommended slum
clearance between 98th and 102nd streets and the elimination of
1,867 apartments. The committee proposed to replace these with
800 units of low-rent public housing and 400 units of middle-
income housing. The committee also called for upgrading adjacent
areas through "good neighborhood planning," which meant selec­
tive demolitions and individual rehabilitation. The housing com­
mittee acknowledged the dire need for low-rent shelter, but it was
more impressed by the shortage of middle-income units for white-
collar employees of nearby institutions. Once this priority was met,
the committee pledged to "persuade some private group to build
low-rental housing on an adjacent tract." Although it anticipated
the net displacement of more than one thousand black and His­
panic families, Sternau's group called for the kind of social balance
where "economic segregation would not be added to the other ten­
sions already present in our area." Middle-income homes built on
the rubble of low-rent tenements became the prototype for twenty
years of West Side renewal. From the start, liberals formulated the
removal of blacks and Puerto Ricans in the language of community
balance.37
In mid-1949, the West Side Housing Committee's efforts in­
augurated another neighborhood tradition—bitter debate about the
means and motives of community redevelopment. Balanced housing
that tilted toward the white middle class infuriated members of the
Precinct Coordinating Council, who wanted the entire clearance area
for low-rent public housing. But the West Side Housing Commit­
tee remained serenely on course. "Its survey found," a social worker
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 CENTERS AND FRINGES

reported, "that all of the present residents could be relocated in the

new project at its completion . . . , with the exception of the tran­
sient population." Sternau's committee advocated "a low-rental hotel
to solve this problem without impeding the redevelopment pro­
gram." The social worker commented that the West Side Housing
Committee believed redevelopment could proceed "without creating
more than temporary dislocation. True, this temporary dislocation
assumes fearful proportions . . . but the WSHC feels that it is nec­
essary to the life and welfare of the community to clear slums."
Although radicals attacked redevelopment as "unfair hardship" on
the poor, liberals were never more certain about their rectitude. As
the social worker commented, "The WSHC answers that it is com­
posed of members of these very groups who are in agreement with
the position of the PCC."38
The West Side Housing Committee's complacency about the
needs of Puerto Ricans was matched by assumptions of the New
York AJC's Intergroup Relations Committee that planned reloca­
tion could shift the newcomers to public housing in the outer bo­
roughs. What the process required, the New York AJC believed, was
intergroup understanding. Working with experts from the Migra­
tion Office and with Clarence Senior of the Columbia University
Bureau of Applied Social Research, who was coauthor of its mono­
graph Puerto RicanJourney (1949), the American Jewish Committee
tried to learn about Puerto Rican social adjustment. It considered
creating a Pan-American federation to support settlement houses
that fostered "closer Jewish-Puerto Rican relations, particularly in
mixed lower middle class neighborhoods." Furthering this objec­
tive, the New York AJC extended community-relations aid to the
Longwood section of the South Bronx, where it subsidized the P.S.
52 Community Council, an experimental project to soothe ethnic
conflict. Arranged by the Spanish-American Youth Bureau and the
Migration Office, the American Jewish Committee's Good Neighbor
Forum flooded Longwood with goodwill pamphlets. The New York
AJC Intergroup Relations Committee also hired a Spanish-speaking
social worker for the settlement near the Melrose Houses, subsidized
the Melrose Community Council, and sponsored a Bronx Com­
mission on Human Relations. Although the funds may have been
scanty, a great deal of decency and good intentions supported these
interracial settlements, roundtable conferences, and Good Neighbor
materials. These efforts had little impact on the South Bronx, but
they spread warm reassurance among their supporters about Puerto
Ricans removed from the Upper West Side.39
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CENTERS AND FRINGES

The Search for Balance

Liberals who called for redevelopment were extraordinarily blind to

the racial minorities that their plans ignored. Some partisans recog­
nized the insensitivity, weighed the benefits of renewal against the
costs of removals, and held steady. Behind them stood the construc­
tion coordinator, reminding them of greater duties and ridiculing
their doubts. But other liberals, deeply troubled, managed to cal­
culate immediate losses against long-range gains. They nurtured the
faith that interracialism would be won by open-housing laws, which,
as Robert Moses recognized and never tired of arguing, made Title
I projects accessible to all. Even when upper-middle-class rents kept
blacks and Hispanics out of Title I's, planners maintained their
illusions of interracialism by defining redevelopment to encompass
nearby public housing built as expedientsforrelocation. At a stroke,
the low-rent units for the black and brown poor balanced the apart­
ment houses meant for middle-class whites. With the same wave of
the hand, wholesale displacement of blacks and Puerto Ricans from
Manhattan became the opportunity to create balanced communities
in the outer boroughs.
These dreams were a 1940s fancy, generated by the People's
War against racism. The shameful contrast between the spirit of the
Atlantic Charter and the reality of the 1943 Harlem Riot left liberals
wringing their hands about Jim Crow and resolving to erase the
color line. Contributing to this determination were united-front pro­
liferations, nonpartisan "unity" committees among liberals and the
left wing, that campaigned for wartime solidarity. During the war,
moreover, nondiscriminatory "open housing" emerged as a feasible
goal of American urban life. In their work with wartime housing,
social researchers reported the empirical evidence that confirmed
this achievement. The research comprised a handful of attitudinal
studies taken at emergency housing projects in northern cities, where
black tenancy was limited by severe quotas and management stressed
group harmony. On these controlled premises, interracial harmony
prevailed, or so the sociologists were beginning to claim. Citing
wisps of evidence, liberals hailed the new world that was taking
shape before their eyes.40
The evidence, although ambiguous, was appreciated by Charles
Abrams, the intellectual mentor of the open-housing movement.
In November 1943, the attorney who had denounced Stuyvesant
Town's Jim Crow and drafted the legal challenge to Metropolitan
Life lectured on "mixed projects" at the New York State Conference
164
 CENTERS AND FRINGES

on Social Work. In a year of race riots, Abrams voiced extraordinary

confidence that public housing had shown that "with care, good
management and patience, the substructure underlying race preju­
dices can be rebuilt and the prejudices diminished, or even elimi­
nated." The New York City Housing Authority, Abrams pointed out,
had three kinds of racial tenancy: single-race projects, such as the all-
black Harlem River Houses and the all-white Vladeck Houses; mixed
projects with black tenants as a small minority; and mixed projects
with blacks and whites in roughly equal numbers, such as Brooklyn's
Kingsborough Houses and the South Jamaica Houses in Queens.
Abrams did not regard the last category as a breakthrough because
the racial makeup confirmed the status quo. The projects were built
in areas where the races were already mixed. But the Williamsburg
Houses, Abrams insisted, was a project where tenants were "co­
mingled for the first time" and demonstrated that "Negro and white
families can live in the same areas without friction." He overlooked
the fact that Williamsburg, with 21 black families out of 1,629, was
for all intents and purposes a single-race project.41
Abrams had few illusions about interracial progress, which would
require patient management and plenty of time. Project adminis­
trators would need the authority to arrange "the greatest heteroge­
neity . . . a mixture of every race, with no particular emphasis on
predominance in any one class." They would have to throw away
the manuals sent by federal agencies and write their own guide­
lines for tenant recruitment. A champion of free access to housing
rather than fixed quotas, Abrams did not quantify his interracial
ideal, although he cracked to the social workers: "It would not have
affected the soundness of the investment one iota if the [Stuyvesant
Town] project were five or six percent occupied [by blacks]." But
even modest numbers of blacks, Abrams conceded, would depend
on careful arrangement, chiefly the total isolation of projects from
social and market forces. "Where the project is a self-contained unit,
creating its own environment," he pointed out, "the existence of any
small Negro minority . . . will not hinder successful operation any
more than any other minority." This interracial democracy would
need social engineering of the most delicate kind.42
During the next fifteen years, liberals followed Abrams's sum­
mons with steadfast campaigns to build an interracial domain. They
formed activist committees, pursued pilot projects, and spread the
news of the encouraging results. They pestered state legislators and
real estate groups, pulled strings at City Hall, and won the open-
housing ordinances to ensure persistent change. If liberals sometimes
165
CENTERS AND FRINGES

despaired of major victories, they took comfort in helping to trans­

form the climate of opinion and in erecting signposts of progress.
But although their efforts stamped a half-dozen projects as inter­
racial, a tide of segregated redevelopment was dividing the city more
than ever.43
Interracial showcases sustained reformers, even where the evi­
dence was dubious or discouraging. Studies of enlightened manage­
ment were conducted by Robert K. Merton and his associates for
the Columbia University Bureau of Applied Social Research. "Hill­
town," outside of Pittsburgh, was a racial checkerboard, where blacks
and whites resided in separate buildings and the divisions appeared
to strengthen white support for segregation. The New School Re­
search Center for Human Relations, which conducted the market
survey for the Field Foundation redevelopment, investigated public
housing in the Northeast and reported gains in interracial under­
standing where the races had to mingle in common facilities, such as
basement laundries and meeting rooms. Prejudice, argued Merton's
colleague, sociologist Marie Jahoda, was built on shallow impres­
sions and stereotypes, not experience. The "prevalent attitudes" of
whites toward blacks could be overcome by propinquity and positive
contact. "The preliminaryfindings,"Jahoda concluded, "suggest that
the less degree of segregation within a biracial housing project, the
more the tenants favor the principle of biracial housing." But Jahoda
questioned whether managers who ruled like benevolent despots
were reconcilable with public housing's democratic ideals.44
The more important question was whether the despotism
worked. Merton's housing research generally overlooked the impact
on group attitudes of ethnicity and family behavior, except where
these social variables appeared under the category of religion. At
Columbia University, Merton had advised a social-work thesis on
interpersonal relations at the East River Houses. Finding acquain­
tances that were limited to brief nods and neighbors who were "re­
mote" from community life, the student concluded that "the project
does not seem to be any better integrated in itself, than does the sur­
rounding community." At other Housing Authority projects, racial
harmony, or at least its public face, depended on the continuation
of wartime unity campaigns. Although Brooklyn's Kingsborough
Houses was regarded as one example of racial harmony, much de­
pended on the old united front and left-wing public relations. The
interracial effort at the Brownsville Houses, which was half black in
1947, was sustained by a fervent tenants council, which struggled to
keep the project a "progressive" bastion.45
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 CENTERS AND FRINGES

While reformers heralded the interracial prototypes, the Housing

Authority, following the construction coordinator's project list, was
busy creating single-race agglomerations. When the authority laid
out plans for the Bronx, the New York AJC's Committee on Dis­
crimination pointed to the East Bronx as the place to "prepare the
community to receive equality of housing opportunity as a national
principle." The New York AJC, the State Committee Against Dis­
crimination (SCAD), and the Bronx Urban League organized the
Temporary Committee on Equality of Housing to pursue commu­
nity adjustment in the borough. "The problem in the Bronx," the
New York AJC reported, "has been to build up acceptance for mixed
public housing." The Temporary Committee worked with civic
groups, sponsored bilingual forums, and distributed pamphlets that
promoted open housing. "Thus far," the New York AJC reported,
"there have been no incidents in connection with the opening of
the [authority's] Bronx Houses." West Side civic leaders, including
those from the West Side Housing Committee, lent their support,
attended brotherhood meetings in Bronx schools, and spoke at civic
forums. The New York AJC Intergroup Relations Committee helped
organize the Morrisania Community Council and subsidized the
brotherhood campaign in the Forest Houses.46
In 1949, the New York AJC dispatched Israel Laster, its chief
for community conciliation, to the Bronx effort. Laster convinced
the Sachs Quality Department Store to host community meetings
and establish a "Welcome Neighbor" service in response to what the
company called the nearby "construction of huge housing projects."
During 1950, Laster dispensed more goodwill in the Bronx schools,
supported settlement work at the Melrose Houses, and arranged
with the Pan-American Neighborhood Forum to distribute films
and pamphlets. The New York AJC continued to pour staff and
money into the Bronx cause. In late 1951, it helped organize the
Committee for Balanced Communities, which hoped to use "new
public housing to prevent the ghettoization of minority groups by
creating a balanced integrated tenancy."4"
By the late 1940s, the campaign for interracialism in the outer bo­
roughs had become a full-scale effort, linking activists from the New
York AJC, the Ethical Culture Society, SCAD, and such ex parte liti­
gators as Charles Abrams and Shad Polier (husband of Field Founda­
tion trustee Justine Wise Polier). The political lobby was supported
by a network of analysts from the Columbia University Bureau of
Applied Social Research, the New York University Research Cen­
ter for Human Relations, and the New York School of Social Work
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CENTERS AND FRINGES

who were convinced that prejudice was a social disease prevalent

among poorly educated working-class whites. Social psychologists
concluded that the success of interracialism depended upon placing
college-educated middle-class whites in housing complexes that were
controlledforsize and racial mix. The academics were eager to get
their findings to policy makers. In 1949, SCAD incorporated the In­
stituteforHousing Research, chaired by housing expert Robert C.
Weaver, to sponsor studies on neighborhood integration by Robert
Merton, Marie Jahoda, and other prominent sociologists. Weaver
conceded that there were gaps in the existing knowledge. It was un­
known, he said, "how many, and where, pockets of interracial living
exist in any particular city." Nevertheless, he remained confident that
his institute could broadcast "the facts of interracial living."48
Many liberals understood the social challenges presented by
urban redevelopment, and SCAD took an active role in shaping
Title Fs interracial dimension. SCAD planned a broad campaign that
included demanding that the Housing and Home Finance Agency
(HHFA) stand by pledges of nondiscriminatory Title I, writing an
antidiscriminatory clause for the state redevelopment law, and, above
all, building public awareness for open housing. SCAD stressed
the importance of grass-roots education "so that those most inti­
mately concerned with urban redevelopment and discrimination will
understand the problem and be able to work effectively towards a
democratic solution." The public, moreover, would be told about
the contributions that social research had made toward interracial
living. "Within the lastfiveyears," SCAD pointed out, "a great quan­
tity of information on the success of integrated housing projects had
been collected by the psychologists."49
The culmination of the SCAD campaign was a conference, "Re­
building Our Cities for Everybody," held in New York in December
of 1949. Participants included representatives from all parts of the
open-housing movement, from SCAD attorneys to academics such
as Robert Merton and Marie Jahoda. The keynote speech was de­
livered by San Francisco planner Catherine Bauer Wurster, who ad­
monished the New Yorkers not to cave in to the "opportunists"
who said that nondiscriminatory redevelopment would jeopardize
metropolitan progress. Wurster urged her audience to stand firmly
against segregation in Title I. She applauded the campaign for anti-
discriminatory ordinances and congratulated New Yorkers for their
exemplary achievements, particularly such projects as Queensview.50
The heart of the SCAD conference, however, was the scholarly
roundtable chaired by Robert Merton, which grappled with the
168
 CENTERS AND FRINGES

realities of shifting large, diverse populations but came up with few

workable ideas. The most vocal participant, former Housing Au­
thority planner William C. Vladeck, rejected delays in slum clearance,
but acknowledged the practical difficulties in "lifting and taking seg­
ments of the population and putting them where no one was before."
Although no city would tolerate dictated relocation, Vladeck warned
against policy that removed "one homogeneous mass from a given
area and transplanted] it in its entirety to a new and undeveloped
section." Borrowing Merton's social research, Vladeck argued that
integration needed "virgin territory that will be filled with a true
cross-section of the populace. Because then you can do it without
incident, without friction, and through a stress that is immediately
recognized." But he conceded that not even New York had the moral
and fiscal resources to pursue these ideas on more than a piecemeal
basis, which he warned was the worst alternative. Professor Merton
responded to Vladeck's pessimism with platitudes about "the practi­
cal difficulties involved in utilizing the redevelopment program."51
Those who tried to shape redevelopment recognized that Title
I would involve moving thousands from familiar neighborhoods to
neighborhoods that did not yet exist. No one had any idea how to ac­
complish this, least of all the liberals, who saw the necessity but were
bewildered about the details. They might have cried disaster and de­
manded a halt to operations that would inflict more harm than good.
But their inherent optimism, their faith in decent people implement­
ing decent plans, would not let them retreat. Despite their misgiv­
ings, they gave contingent approval and tried to nudge the possible.
In the meantime, they clung to every modest accomplishment. "The
Committee's urban redevelopment conference," Hortense W. Gabel,
executive secretary of SCAD, told a meeting of public housing ten­
ants, was part of "the national campaign to 'rebuild our cities for
everybody.'" "We residents of Amsterdam Houses," Gabel added,
"know that non-segregated housing works. . . . Our living demon­
strates that interracial housing is a good thing and that the entire
community gains." For the New York chapter of the American Jew­
ish Committee, along with SCAD, the major triumph came when
Acting Mayor Vincent Impellitteri signed the antidiscrimination
ordinance that affected all of New York's publicly assisted housing.
Liberals did not sense that Impellitteri had put the city's imprimatur
on vast removals.52

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MANEUVER AND

COLLABORATION

The story of the West Side Housing project is typi­

cally American. It is topnotch material for the Voice
of America.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr.

R o b e r t Moses gave New York a head start on Title I. Well before

President Truman signed the Housing Act in July of 1949, Moses
was offering sites, tax breaks, and credit lines, scrounging relocation,
and arranging consents from city officials. Critics said that he sprang
projects on unsuspecting neighborhoods that lacked the resources
to defend against the charge of blight. But redevelopers who relied
on Moses's maneuvers rarely questioned the way he operated. In­
variably they applauded, as did the projectors of the South Village
Title I, who praised the construction coordinator for his "foresight
and advanced planning.":
Moses's directives alone could not make Title I projects a reality
or prevent a remarkable number from being rejected by unwill­
ing neighborhoods. Redevelopment Moses-style involved a practical
division of labor between the Committee on Slum Clearance and
neighborhood collaborators. Moses brought city officials, sponsors,
and mortgage bankers together, and he usually clinched Title I deals
with last-minute tugs on the Housing Authority for relocation units.
But he could not hammer the Title Fs and low-rent housing into
the balanced communities that local opinion required or supply
community advisors who would give their benediction to bulldozer
clearance. For this Moses needed liberal activists, who withstood the
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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

long, thankless struggles for renewal. They were driven by a sense of

urgency to save their neighborhoods and by the politics of the cold
war, which made it all the easier to label the enemies of renewal as
the enemies of the city. They were also sustained by the lofty goal of
creating racially balanced communities. Although his neighborhood
allies could never ignore the way Moses drove tenants off redevel­
opment sites, they closed ranks around what they believed were the
decent projects that would reclaim neighborhoods.

Advanced Planning
With President Truman's signature on the Housing Act of 1949,
Moses's staff rushed to announce Title I pilot projects: New York
University's housing and educational complex south of Washington
Square, the Field Foundation's "social venture" in the West Vil­
lage, and the Amalgamated cooperative south of the Williamsburg
Bridge. "These three projects," Moses told Mayor O'Dwyer, "all have
excellent prospects of being shaped into firm proposals." Twenty
acres in Harlem were under study for clearance and redevelopment
by an investment group headed by realtor Robert Dowling, past
president of the New York Urban League. In Williamsburg, Brook­
lyn, thirty acres along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway had been
selected for similar redevelopment by a consortium led by banker
George V. McLaughlin. Moses overstated his progress, probably to
polish O'Dwyer's image for the 1949 mayoral race. The Amalga­
mated Housing Corporation had not committed to further enter­
prise along Grand Street. The Field Foundation was already running
into stiff neighborhood opposition. More serious were the clearance
demands of James Madden and his NYU colleagues, which Moses
saw would require substantial relocations—and public housing—
near Houston Street.2
The vague boundaries of the pilot projects also required ap­
proval for enlarged mixed-use areas by city government. In Octo­
ber of 1949, the CSC had the City Planning Commission revise
the clearance boundaries that dated from 1940. "The new redevel­
opment sections," the commission explained, "have generally been
extended to include business frontages and other areas not pres­
ently in residence use because the new federal Housing Act permits
redevelopment of substandard residential areas." Moses's assistant,
Harry Taylor, after conferring with the Housing and Home Finance
Agency (HHFA), reported that the changes would pass muster with
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Washington. "The master plan, zoning and maps of areas declared

eligible for slum clearance," he alerted Moses, "should contribute
all that will be necessary." Taylor had met HHFA slum clearance
chief Nathaniel S. Keith, who was anxious to streamline Title I
applications. Taylor heard that the HHFA forms would be only a
few pages long, with "nothing . . . that would bother us." In early
1950, the CSC sought advanced census data for the Harlem site, the
Amalgamated project at Corlears Hook, Delancey Street, the Field
Foundation plot, Washington Square South, Williamsburg, and a
late addition, Morningside-Manhattanville.3
Some housing officials recognized that the list would impinge
on existing slum clearance. State Housing Commissioner Herman
Stichman warned that refugees from the Williamsburg and Harlem
sites would swamp the state's low-rent projects. Denying that he was
out to commandeer the state program, Moses proposed "[s]tate aid
in establishing small, nearby projects to take care of some of the ten­
ants we have to get rid of." Stichman's refusal was a minor problem
compared to the challenge from federal administrators of Title III,
the public housing portion of the Housing Act. In February of 1950,
John A. Kervick, the HHFA regional official, rejected the New York
City Housing Authority's application for federal grants to acquire
the sites for the Baruch Houses on the Lower East Side, the Browns­
ville addition, and the George Washington and Jefferson Park Houses
in East Harlem as part of the 12,000 Title III units earmarked for the
city. Kervick pointed out that Title III limited property acquisition
to 25 percent of total project costs. Expensive land, he lectured, was
meant for Title I write-downs, and he suggested that the Housing
Authority resort to Title I for site costs that exceeded the 25 per­
cent limit. Somewhat disingenuously, he also urged the authority to
present a number of sites on cheaper vacant land.4
Annoyed by the rebuff, Moses found more amenable officials.
He had HHFA slum clearance chief Nathaniel Keith chauffeured
around Title I sites while Harry Taylor described New York's unique
problems and Title I's role in their solution. Keith seemed agreeable
toward the projects, Taylor reported, including Williamsburg, which
was a commercial quarter, not the "predominantly residential" acre­
age that Title I required. In fact, Taylor related, the federal adminis­
trator saw broad rationalizations for slum clearance, "such as arrested
development, blight and continuous deterioration." After delivering
his spiel, Taylor came away convinced that Keith agreed that Title I
"should not become primarily an adjunct to reduce the cost of public
housing on slum clearance sites." Keith kept his views confidential,
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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

but Taylor thought that he would consider public housing sites in

Title I areas as long as they were "incidental to the project." Ten
days later, Keith telegrammed approval of $16 million in Housing
Authority grants.5
Moses used the victory to impale his critics. Obstructionism
by local HHFA officials, he complained to Nathaniel Keith, had
frozen negotiations with those who controlled the "reservoirs of pri­
vate capital." He alerted David Rockefeller that his family's hopes
to renew Morningside Heights, which depended on a large low-
rent project, were imperiled by "radical planners" in Washington.
A similar message went to New York Times publisher Arthur Hays
Sulzberger, who replied that he would immediately confer with
Rockefeller to "straighten out what certainly seems to be a ridiculous
situation." Moses wanted Mayor O'Dwyer to press the White House,
and he wrote O'Dwyer's eloquent appeal to President Truman not
to retreat from the goal of ridding the city of slums. A few days later,
the federal housing commissioner, citing "very special conditions in
New York," announced that the 25 percent limit would be averaged
among the site costs for all of the 12,000 federal units.6
As the crisis abated, Moses forwarded for approval of the mayor
and the Board of Estimate arrangements for eight Title I projects
that specified the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
as general management of planning; Harrison & Abramovitz and
Eggers & Higgins as architects of Morningside-Manhattanville and
Washington Square South, respectively; and James Felt's Tenant Re­
location Bureau to plan site removals. The Board of Estimate vote,
which approved the preliminary steps for Title I, turned redevelop­
ment over to private hands.7
Moses's sidestepping of public responsibility was too much for
Jerry Finkelstein, the new chairman of the City Planning Com­
mission. In May of 1950 he challenged Mayor O'Dwyer to decide
whether the City Planning Commission or the Committee on Slum
Clearance had primary charge for devising the redevelopment pro­
gram. Predictably, Moses demanded that O'Dwyer choose between
him and Finkelstein. The controversy touched off another version of
the 1948 Citizens Conference rhetoric. The Citizens Housing and
Planning Council called upon Mayor O'Dwyer to give to the City
Planning Commission initial responsibility for redevelopment sites.
Council president Ira S. Robbins demanded an end to the "illogical
arrangement" by abolishing the CSC.8
Moses aimed his reply directly at O'Dwyer. "I have been for some
years a subcommittee to report upon and expedite arterial improve­
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MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

ments, grade crossing eliminations, housing, parks, recreation, and

related subjects," he reminded the mayor. "When you asked me to
act as Co-Ordinator it was with the understanding that such an ar­
rangement would be continued, since it was the only possible way of
insuring progress on the projects approved by the Mayor for action
and accomplishment as distinguished from gestures and debate."
Moses dismissed the challenge by having O'Dwyer send a letter to
the HHFA that dispelled any "misunderstanding" about who was in
charge. The Committee on Slum Clearance, chaired by Moses, would
continue to represent the city in all Title I matters with the federal
government. O'Dwyer waved away the subject of the City Planning
Commission with assurances that it would be "duly and properly
consulted." And he concluded with the accolade Moses wanted, ac­
knowledgment that his committee had slashed the "technicalities and
delays" that kept private capital from redevelopment.9
The ultimate clarification was supplied by Corporation Counsel
John P. McGrath, the staunch Brooklyn Democrat who managed
Mayor O'Dwyer's 1949 reelection campaign. McGrath explained
that although the City Planning Commission had the opportunity to
keep current on CSC negotiations, municipal law required the com­
missioners to preserve a "quasi-judicial" posture. McGrath doubted
"whether the Commission would apply to each proposed project
the critical judgment required under the law when such project
is brought formally before it, if the employees had developed the
project in thefirstinstance." It was all well and good to plan projects
that the city hoped private sponsors would acquire, McGrath con­
ceded, but that was an indulgence the city could not afford. "A
realistic approach would seem to require that the necessary spon­
sorship should come first and then a project should be worked up,
within the limits of proper planning."10
Despite the challenges raised by Kervick, Finkelstein, and Rob­
bins, Title I went forward. Sponsors never questioned the morality of
their projects or paused to consider how their relocations would add
to the growing load on public housing. By the fall of 1950, Moses
had planned projects to place middle-class anchorages in Harlem
and on the Upper West Side and to begin the process of gentrifica­
tion north of City Hall. None of this could have been done without
the cooperation, or at least tacit approval, of officials at NYU and
Columbia University, several city planning commissioners, several
members of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council and the
Urban League, realty men at Metropolitan Life and a half-dozen

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The Title I Program, 1949-1957

Projects proposed, realized, and rejected
Project

Cost Site Percent

Project (date proposed) Acres Units (millions) families nonwhite

Corlears Hook (1/51) 14.66 1,668 $25.5 878 24

Delancey Street (1151) 12.50 1,180 $15.3 1,569 0
Harlem (1/51) 14.79 1,716 $30.3 3,109 100
North Harlem (1/51) 13.07 1,781 $26.1 1,135 100
South Village (1151) 13.00 584 $13.4 1,700 0
Washington Square
South (1/51) 40.00 1,956 $27.6 2,741 0
Williamsburg(ll51) 45.00 2,385 $35.6 3,292 2
West Park
(Manhattantown) (9/51) 26.20 2,525 $56.6 4,212 52
Morningside (9/51) 9.39 972 $17.5 1,800 65
Columbus Circle
(Coliseum) (12/52) 6.28 608 $57.7 322 54
Fort Greene (12/52) 21.20 842 $20.0 510 62
NYU-Bellevue (6/53) 9.44 1,216 $28.6 1,369 1
Pratt Institute (7/53) 29.18 2,013 $36.2 1,354 36
Washington Square
Southeast (10/53) 14.53 2,004 $64.1 152 0
Seaside-Rockaway (11/54) 30.89 1,536 $30.4 200 0
Lincoln Square (4/55) 46.08 4,500 $205.6 7,000 7
Hammels-Rockaway (11/56) 40.97 2,120 $28.0 1,763 67
Seward Park (1/57) 12.58 1,704 $31.4 1,525 9
Park Row (1/57) 4.38 400 $10.0 413 8
Perm Station South (6/57) 20.45 2,817 $54.5 2,608 3
TOTAL (realized projects) 314.09 28,422 $722.5 28,350
Sources: Wool, Dolson & Company, relocation data, Box 16, Moses Papers; Committee
on Slum Clearance, Titlel Slum Clearance Progress (September 30, 1958); Title I Progress
(January 29, 1960); Caro, Power Broker, p. 1014; project folders, Citizens Housing and
Planning Council; Abraham E. Kazan, reminiscences; Fainstein and Fainstein, "The
Politics of Urban Redevelopment."

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other investment houses, and the liberal trade unions. Many may
have wilted under Moses's ridicule, but none objected to the New
York approach.

Cooperative Village

There was no Title I steamroller in the early 1950s. Moses rarely

foisted projects on startled neighborhoods and gained no easy vic­
tories, except when his emissaries carefully prearranged with local
enthusiasts. That was how trade-union liberals used Title I to clear
Old Law slums and to create what today they call Cooperative Village
on the Lower East Side.
The Amalgamated Title I at Corlears Hook had few opponents
and wide support on Grand Street. The Amalgamated Dwellings
and Hillman Houses were already thriving middle-class islands when
Moses importuned Jacob Potofsky and his right-hand man, Abra­
ham Kazan, to redevelop 12 additional acres. During the spring of
1950, Kazan and his colleagues organized their housing agency and
offered to take on the Grand Street Extension. Moses replied with
the arrangements at the Board of Estimate for the Amalgamated's
"entire expansion project downtown." They included enough write-
downs and tax breaks for a parking garage and an auditorium for the
shareholders' meetings Kazan considered vital for the cooperative
spirit. Moses made clear to Potofsky that he overrode the Board of
Estimate's doubts about granting tax exemption "as a general rule."
He had done the persuading that made the Corlears Hook Title I
possible.11
With that firm endorsement, Kazan, Shirley Boden, and the
others incorporated the United Housing Foundation to mass-
produce the cooperative ideal. Although the UHF board of directors
included such venerable reformers as Louis Pink, architect Clarence
Stein, Jewish charities' leader Dr. LeRoy Bowman, and New School
president Bryn Hovde, the real assets were the Amalgamated's vet­
erans, Kazan and his staff. They dreamed of a new generation of
workers' cooperatives, leagued with the Amalgamated and utilizing
its management services, that would become a formidable presence
in the larger city. The UHF expected to work with Moses on future
projects, but the construction coordinator replied that they could not
count on an automatic stream of subsidies. With New York "near, if
not at, the limit of its [fiscal] capacity," he lectured, O'Dwyer admin­
istration policy was that "each new project involving tax exemption
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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

will have to stand strictly on its own feet." Kazan and the others may
have envisioned an irresistible force, but Moses made clear that he
would take the substance of each project to the Board of Estimate.12
Title I progress at Corlears Hook depended on the liberalism of
members of the needle trades. The UHF lined up equity investors, in­
cluding the Filene Good Will Fund, the Lavanburg Foundation, the
Workmen's Circle, and the Jewish Daily Forward. But what clinched
the deal was David Dubinsky's decision to allow the International
Ladies Garment Workers Union to split the mortgage (with the
Bowery Savings Bank) in exchange for half the apartments being
reserved for ILGWU members. The UHF boasted that hundreds
of rank-and-file unionists were waiting for apartments, and that the
neighborhood was unanimous that the Title I "would remove a bad
slum section." The achievement, moreover, had national implica­
tions for renewing cities. Supporters of the New York effort included
Edward A. Norman, president of the American Jewish Committee
and the New York State Credit Union League, and former con­
gressman Jerry Voorhis, who headed the Cooperative League of the
U.S.A. They proclaimed that the cooperative movement was alive
and well on the Lower East Side.13
The liberal euphoria smothered the naysayers. A few dissidents
questioned the removal of 878 families, most of them Puerto Rican,
from the Grand Street site, but they could not obstruct clearance
that carried so many endorsements. The UHF also subsidized the re­
habilitation of boarded-up tenements, which was a temporary boon
for local realtors. The American Labor party and its Manhattan Ten­
ants Council tried to stir up site protests, and community relations
experts on the American Jewish Committee considered dispatching
conciliators. But, except for complaints from a few Puerto Ricans
and small businessmen, the project suffered no major delays. Effi­
cient management of the condemned tenements actually produced a
tidy surplus until the buildings were cleared.14
The Delancey Street project also was spearheaded by local en­
thusiasts who had long been attached to reform. For some time after
World War II, a housing committee of the University Settlement
had investigated creating a "neighborhood unit" on the Lower East
Side. With support from the East Side Chamber of Commerce and
the Bowery Savings Bank, the settlement in 1949 hired Massachu­
setts Institute of Technology planner Kevin Lynch to supervise the
start-up research. The MIT "redevelopment study," which was cir­
culated among community leaders, contained ingredients that local
reformers and Robert Moses could accept. Envisioning a residential
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MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

Corlears Hook redeveloped, c. 1954. The Committee on Slum Clearance's

illustration of the Corlears Hook Title I showed the spread of publicly aided
housing south of the Williamsburg Bridge that cleared the Old Law district.
The United Housing Foundation's Corlears Hook project (renamed the East
River Housing Cooperatives) stood east of Amalgamated Dwellings and
Hillman Houses on Grand Street. Nearby are the New York City Housing
Authority's Vladeck Federal Houses (Z-shaped) and Vladeck City. Corlears
Hook Park, with Moses-style flag pavilion and amphitheater, lies astride the
Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. Courtesy of the Special Archive, Triborough
Bridge and Tunnel Authority.

district cleared for superblocks of high-rise apartments, the plan also

endorsed a cross-Manhattan expressway along Delancey Street. The
MIT planners had handed the University Settlement a neighorhood
unit with a vengeance.15
The Committee on Slum Clearance took over from there, tap­
ping former Housing Authority member William Wilson to work
with the U H F as sponsor of Title I cooperative housing. Wary of
local businesses, Moses cautioned Wilson to fashion modern store
space on Allen and Delancey streets, and to check all plans with the
East Side Chamber of Commerce. But neither Wilson nor Kazan
reckoned on the merchants' rage when they learned that most would
never be relocated into the shopping mall. They summoned Kazan
to a stormy meeting at Ratner's Delicatessan, where they told him
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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

to change the UHF plan. They wanted their businesses relocated on-
site, with roomfora parking garage. The UHF's business socialists
had always been careful to arrange their cooperatives to meet the
needs of local businessmen. Kazan was not prepared for the bitter
reaction or the scale of enterprise required to soothe ruffled feelings,
and so Moses was forced to withdraw. It was the first of several Title
I defeats.16

South Village
Greenwich Village also was put at Moses's disposal by reformers
who argued that its brownstones, tenements, and lofts deserved a
higher purpose. Some were outsiders, such as the Field Foundation,
which followed metropolitan agendas, but others were local boosters
who never forgot the Holden, McLaughlin Planning Recommenda­
tions (1946) and its callforgreen space and a Houston Street express­
way. At the time, no social critic, such as Jane Jacobs, came forward
to urge preservation of the fragile urban fabric or the brownstone
scale. The best Village opinion believed that superblocks, high-rises,
and shopping malls would bring the Village into the mid-twentieth
century.
The Field Foundation still wanted a Village siteforan interracial
pilot project even after Washington Street rebelled against the idea in
late 1949. When Field Foundation housing advisor Maxwell Tretter
suggested an alternative south of Washington Square, Committee on
Slum Clearance staff member Harry Taylor conferred with Moses.
Tretter heard, however, that the CSC was negotiating with banks for
the Washington Square South Title I, "and he [Moses] thought that
these banks . . . would want to control the entire area." Although
those conversations cast doubt on an interracial investment, Tay­
lor said the CSC might still "carve out a site." Ever resourceful, he
found 7 acres of tenements and lofts east of Sixth Avenue between
Spring and Prince streets. Tretter pointed out to the Field trustees
that the $ll-per-foot land was expensive and that tenant relocation
would raise "political and public relations problems." Although they
were not enthusiastic, the trustees agreed that the site was the best
available and that the city might soften the terms. "Commissioner
Moses is now much more eager to include the Field Foundation in
his plans," Tretter advised, adding that they might persuade Moses
to absorb the cost of relocation along with site clearance.17
At a "sumptuous" CSC luncheon at Randall's Island on March 14,
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MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

1950, Tretter discovered otherwise. Moses played the congenial host

for his Greenwich Village allies, Tretter and New York University
treasurer James Madden, and he praised what they promised south of
Washington Square. But when Tretter claimed that Spring Street re­
development hinged on obtaining $3-per-foot land, Moses chortled
and Mayor O'Dwyer mentioned the cost of relocation. Tretter per­
sisted that it was the city's job, and Moses conceded that the Housing
Authority would "assume responsibility" for tenants who were eli­
gible for the projects. Authority chairman Thomas Farrell added
that redevelopers could collect substantial rents on properties during
clearance. Moses cautioned that although the CSC could write-down
the land to $3, city tax exemption on that figure was out of the
question. A few days later, he turned the screw, informing report­
ers about Tretter's demand for $3 property. Tretter was livid, but
Moses soothed him with word that reliable sponsors would have
five years to clear and rebuild. "You will not forget," Moses added,
"that in the interval they will be collecting rents and have other ad­
vantages not enjoyed by strictly public agencies in dealing with the
tenant removal problem." The negotiations stalled on the expense of
relocation, until Moses guaranteed the $3 figure if the foundation
bore the cost of removing tenants who were ineligible for public
housing. The Field trustees disliked the terms, but chose to stay
with Spring Street, "where the demonstration [in interracial living]
would mean most."18
At this juncture, Moses responded to Tretter's hint about a better
site plan by adding 6 acres on Houston Street. At a July 1950 lun­
cheon, Moses explained the improved version. "His thought was
that the planning for the three northerly blocks," Tretter recorded,
would create "a centralized shopping area" for redevelopments on
both sides of Houston. "Revenue from these commercial facilities
would substantially 'sweeten' thefinancialstructure of the Founda­
tion project," Tretter added. By throwing in park space and auto­
mobile parking at nominal cost, Moses expected Tretter and his
associates, as "preferred developers," to handle the whole area below
Houston Street. The project now stood at 584 apartments, plus
a shopping center and parking lots. Its new scope would displace
1,700 site families. Tretter endorsed the changes, particularly the
commercial facilities, which he considered a "revenue producer" that
would lower rents.19
In September of 1950, Moses met Tretter and Ruth (Mrs. Mar­
shall) Field tofinishthe deal. Moses told them that if the foundation
finally committed, he would write-down the land to $5, toss in closed
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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

streets and a park, give the tax exemption and reduce assessments
to $5, and guarantee a shopping monopoly on Houston Street.
Moses could help remove those among the 1,700 families who quali­
fied for public housing; the foundation would have to relocate most
of the others. But he suggested that the sponsor could build in stages
to ease relocation and use rents in the first section to finance the
second. Tretter called on realtor James Felt to verify the figures, par­
ticularly the "anticipated income in the period between purchase
and site clearing." In the meantime, Tretter calculated that only 500
families were on the site of first-phase operations, and that of these
perhaps only 250 were ineligible for public housing. But all this was
upset when Harry Taylor announced that the CSC expected $5 for
the closed streets as well, which Tretter rejected. Moses phoned him
and insisted on payment for all the land, but at $4. Those terms made
the deal.20
By October of 1950, the Field Foundation's interracial experi­
ment had grown to a $13.4 million project that included seven
fifteen-story buildings with 791 apartments, a shopping center, a
movie theater, and parking for 241 cars. The city would write-down
$12 land to $4 and provide a twenty-five-year tax exemption based
on that figure. But average rentals had climbed to $26 per room, re­
quiring yearly earnings in the $3,500-to-$7,500 range. Of the 1,700
site families, Tretter concluded that the foundation would have to
relocate at most 650. The foundation's modest outlay was part of the
neighborhood plan oriented around West Broadway, which the CSC
renamed "Fifth Avenue South" and planned "as a fine residential and
shopping avenue."21
More than the Field trustees ever reckoned, South Village de­
pended on their willingness to act as benevolent slumlords. Moses's
embrace made the venture less appealing to philanthropists at the
very time that mobilizationforthe Korean War was forcing Wash­
ington to limit construction of new housing. Tretter's estimates were
outdated, so he adopted Moses's suggestions that the foundation
purchase the site, run the properties on existing rentals, and wait
for federal restrictions to lift. Tretter figured that with $4 land and
the tenements fully occupied, the foundation would net 15 percent.
James Felt advised that placing the tenements under unified manage­
ment would cut expenses even further. In May of 1951, the foun­
dation resolved to acquire the site and "operate existing buildings
without relocation or demolition at this time," assuming that Moses
would grant a three-year leeway on construction.22
By the summer of 1951, however, South Village was over­
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MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

whelmed by the revolt against Title I south of Washington Square.

Explaining thefierceopposition, Tretter commented that "residents
are not distinguishing between the South Village project, the pub­
lic housing project and the higher rental insurance company project
to the north." Several Italian storefront clubs formed the Lower
West Side Civic League to foment the racial issue and appeal to the
local Democratic leader, Carmine DeSapio. They forced Borough
President Robert F. Wagner, Jr., to delay Board of Estimate hear­
ings, which caused Moses to shelve his plans. He blamed the debacle
on Wagner, but the borough president told Tretter that Moses had
"not adequately prepared the neighborhood for the major tenant
relocation problem."23
The politicians were cutting South Village adrift, but Moses
would not let go. In July of 1951, he arranged with the city tax
department to reduce assessed values to $4 per foot, which, Tretter
explained, "would materially increase the returns from the existing
property." If the site were acquired and assessed at that "bargain
price," the tenements would earn after-tax annual profits of more
than $256,000. As Field Foundation trustee Lloyd K. Garrison ad­
vised one possible investor, Winthrop Rockefeller, "while waiting
for a favorable moment to build, we can operate the existing prop­
erties at a very substantial profit, all of which would go to reduce
the ultimate capital investment and the scale of rentals." Moses gave
still another advantage to the foundation. Because of expected delays
in relocating families, clearing the site, and obtaining a mortgage,
Tretter explained, the city might accept a 20 percent down payment,
with the balance due in three years. "In the meantime the devel­
oper would, of course, manage the existing properties," said Tretter.
"In the case of South Village, as you know, there would be a very
substantial surplus." Tretterfiguredthat the Field Foundation could
obtain title for $250,000.24
Despite the inducements, South Village's advocates were de­
terred by the anger of community members, who had mistaken the
interracial experiment for a speculative venture. When Moses, in
the spring of 1952, thought that the foundation might consider an
alternative site closer to Washington Square, Tretter reported the
trustees' disillusionment. Tretter knew that the foundation had been
right to use Title I to realize the promise of the fair-housing laws.
"As these public aids increase and more projects are planned," Tretter
argued, "there is even a greater need for a genuine nondiscriminatory
housing project with a significant number of Negro families in it."

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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

But Greenwich Village was not readyforinterracial progress and the

Field Foundation regretfully withdrew.25

Washington Square South

The Field Foundation's worthy endeavor was a victim of the con­

troversy over Washington Square South, a Title I packaged in 1950
by the Committee on Slum Clearance to give Villagers what they
always seemed to prefer, renewal south of Washington Square. The
CSC kept the plan vague, although the Greenwich Village Associa­
tion learned of, and tentatively approved, clearance that would spare
walk-ups on Sullivan and Macdougal streets as "a relic of the 'old'
Village." The Washington Square Association recalled its long cam­
paign for redevelopment and thanked the CSC that improvements
were finally under way. Village acceptance hinged on the assumption
that the Title I would consist of a modern middle-income complex
with only a token amount of public housing. Neighborhood plan­
ner Robert C. Weinberg believed that 300 low-rent units would be
tucked behind an insurance company redevelopment similar to Peter
Cooper Village, Metropolitan Life's upper-middle-income version
of Stuyvesant Town.26
Greenwich Village was never as tolerant of social diversity as its
bohemian reputation proclaimed it, and the district's postwar love
affair with the low-rise brownstone, particularly north and west of
Washington Square, reinforced the instincts of preservationists and
proprietors alike. Greenwich Village might have welcomed Moses-
style clearance had he kept the public housing to modest proportions.
But he shoved more on the community because of the mixed signals
it sent to the CSC and the debts he owed to New York University.
NYU officials had begun to look on Washington Square College as
not just the cash cow for the university's Fordham Heights cam­
pus, but as the center for a multiversity to rival Columbia. By late
1950, the university's appetite for land had grown ravenous. Uni­
versity administrator James Madden and his planning consultant,
Daniel Higgins, Moses complained, eyed more Title I acreage than
even he could deliver. Still, Moses could not demur. Madden and
his colleagues made NYU's operations in the Village and at Belle ­
vue Hospital crucial to city redevelopment, and Moses would do his
utmost for the university, even if that meant increased relocations
and more public housing. He overstepped the Village's intolerance

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of low-rent housing, and, in the process, touched off a property

owners' rebellion.27
In late December of 1950, the CSC announced Washington
Square South. Between West Third and Bleecker streets, a Title I
sponsor would build thirteen nineteen-story middle-income towers,
for a total of 1,956 apartments with rents of $35 per room. Ac­
companying the Title I would be the Housing Authority's Houston
Houses, eight fourteen-story buildings for 884 low-income families.
The CSC estimated that 2,751 families—some 6,800 people—were
occupying the western portions of the site, and 200 in commercial
buildings further east. The Village was stunned and rose in righteous
anger at the intrusion. Neighbors across the political spectrum, from
St. Anthony's Roman Catholic parish to the parents at the Little Red
School House, a progressive academy, united against the projects.
Their lead was taken by a committee that combined Moses critics
such as Robert Weinberg and Charles Abrams with a host of middle-
class Village residents who were just beginning to capitalize on the
brownstone revival. Deploring the impact of "large-scale redevel­
opment," the Greenwich Village Association called a February 21,
1951, conference at Greenwich House.28
Despite the vehement opposition, many Villagers saw aspects of
Moses's plan that they could support. The ambivalence was reflected
in the memorandum Robert Weinberg prepared for the February
conference. Weinberg warned that some plan had to be adopted be­
fore objections reached "a point where no redevelopment in Green­
wich Village could be accomplished." Other liberals regretted that
the CSC had not concentrated on the "blighted areas" on the south­
ern and eastern "fringes." The Washington Square Association, still
committed to the Holden, McLaughlin plan and "on record as favor­
ing redevelopment" on the south, could hardly reject the Title I.
The association, badly divided by Moses's proposal, urged a com­
promise: a Village planning council, chaired by Weinberg, to trim
the Title I to local standards. As Maxwell Tretter related to the Field
Foundation trustees, that meant severe limits on the public housing.
"Mr. Weinberg states that the [Planning] Council and other civic
groups have no objection to some low rent public housing, but not
at the expense of eliminating the private development." Greenwich
Villagers wanted to keep public units incidental to the middle-class
redevelopment they had long expected south of Washington Square.
Their objections killed the Title I, which was rejected by the Board
of Estimate just before Columbus Day of 1951.29

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Morningside Gardens

On Morningside Heights, neighborhood planners were partners

with Robert Moses in creating a middle-class anchorage that be­
came a Title I showplace. The Rockefeller-dominated Morningside
Heights, Inc. (MHI), fashioned the Morningside Title I that was
acclaimed as a genuine triumph in redevelopment and compassion­
ate relocation. When critics accused Moses of Negro removal and
connivance with Tammany, Moses and his supporters could point to
Morningside and the civic movement that turned a neighborhood
around.
MHI had worked for months to target slum clearance on the
Heights, but had paid less attention to the fringes across 125th
Street. The CSC put a Morningside Title I on the city's agenda
in late 1949, but Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA)
officials wanted firm plans for the low-rent component. As David
Rockefeller explained to Dwight D. Eisenhower, then president of
Columbia University, MHFs studies had "to include Manhattanville,
in order to present a proposal based on a sufficiently extensive area."
MHI executive director Lawrence Orton tapped the Manhattan­
ville Neighborhood Center to help reach what he called "indigenous
groups," but federal demands meant a more expensive survey. Within
days, Orton sent a grant application to the Rockefeller Brothers
Fund. Orton wrote that Morningside Heights would stand against
neighborhood decline at "notorious La Salle Street," where private
capital found a site "protected against the inroads of adjacent slum
and blight." Orton wanted $20,000 to survey residents, particularly
those likely to need on-site public housing and rehousing elsewhere.
Financed by Rockefeller Brothers and carried out by the Columbia
University Bureau of Applied Social Research, the survey provided
the statistical bedrock for redevelopment.30
It was also part of what the head worker at the Manhattanville
Neighborhood Center called "the community organization process."
"The City will only endorse a plan which has the full approval
of local inhabitants," the center president wrote John D. Rocke­
feller, Jr. "Through its [the center's] close contact with the people
living there, it is in a position to learn the wishes of the neigh­
borhood, to interpret their needs to the planners and then to 'sell'
the plan to the neighborhood." In the spring of 1950, MHI orga­
nized the Morningside Community Advisory Committee, chaired
by Father George B. Ford, an Americans for Democratic Action

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leader and Catholic chaplain of Columbia College, to prepare the

community for the survey. During the summer, the survey counted
11,000 people on the redevelopment site between 122nd and 135th
streets. Nearly half were black or Hispanic and many were poor,
but the residents experienced no exceptional overcrowding by Man­
hattan standards. Roughly half were dissatisfied with their housing,
however, which MHI took as grass-roots support for change. The
survey also touched off community fears of imminent clearance. The
Community Advisory Committee called meetings at Corpus Christi,
Father Ford's church, and at the Manhattanville Neighborhood Cen­
ter to squelch "unfounded rumors." Father Ford pledged that re­
development would create "one integrated community" between
122nd and 135th streets. David Rockefeller told a neighborhood
rally at the Riverside Church about the spirit of brotherhood that
was behind the renewal. Proclaiming the opportunity to pioneer
"thefieldof interracial living," Rockefeller said that on Morningside
Heights, "where a premium is placed on civil liberties and the rights
of man, it should not be an impossible task to make mixed tenancy
housing projects profitable and successful ventures."31
MHI's redevelopment package reflected that social obligation.
The MHI board invited United Housing Foundation expert Shirley
Boden to prepare a cooperative housing plan for the Title I. Boden
proposed a 600-unit middle-income cooperative,financedwith $20­
per-room maintenance and controlled by Amalgamated-style man­
agement. But he warned about the relocation problem posed by the
"high density" of tenements on the site. He suggested enlarging the
clearance area to make the Title I "part of an overall redevelopment
plan where relocation can be handled on a broad scale." In November
of 1950, David Rockefeller sent MHI's plans to Moses, who advised
strong public-use language for municipal tax exemption. Rockefeller
reported Moses's enthusiasm for the two-block site between 123rd
and La Salle streets and the cooperative housing. In January of 1951,
MHI learned that the CSC would recommend the Title I to the City
Planning Commission and the Board of Estimate.32
That obstacle overcome, MHI organized the Morningside Com­
mittee on Cooperative Housing, which notified the CSC that it
would sponsor the Title I cooperative. During the summer of 1951,
the Community Advisory Committee worked on the redevelopment
message. Money from the Field Foundation enabled the committee
to hire a community organizer to prepare a "Report to the People"
justifying slum clearance. With simultaneous publicity releases in
September of 1951, the CSC and the Morningside Committee on
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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

Cooperative Housing unveiled the Morningside Title I. The an­

nouncement received glowing front-page coverage in the New York
Times. The site's "badly rundown" tenements would be replaced by
six twenty-story slabs designed by Harrison & Abramovitz, archi­
tects of the United Nations headquarters. The redevelopment would
provide decent housing for many of the 6,000 people who worked in
the area but could not afford to live there. The CSC also mentioned
the Housing Authority's plans for Manhattanville, a 1,600-unit low-
rent project further to the north, implying overall integration with
the middle-income Title I.33
Although Morningside delighted the proponents of renewal,
many residents reacted with rage, which was stirred by American
Labor party activists, who organized a Save Our Homes Committee.
The committee's campaign caught MHI by surprise. Commissioner
Orton voted with the rest of the City Planning Commission, which
unanimously approved the project on October 17, 1951. But when
the Board of Estimate held hearings on the Morningside Title I the
following week, seventy Save Our Homes protesters, as Orton re­
ported, "vehemently stated that they would rather have no housing
than housing not suited to their incomes." The board put aside
further action until November.34
Stunned by the resistance, MHI staffers blamed community rela­
tions that had left neighbors with genuine, if misguided, fears. Social
workers at the Manhattanville Neighborhood Center said that MHI
should have prepared definite plans for rehousing, a criticism shared
by Father Ford, who faced 500 Corpus Christi parishioners who
were bitter about losing their homes. David Rockefeller's assistant
suggested that MHI reaffirm the commitment to low-rent housing,
seek tax exemption and foundation support to lower Morningside's
equity, and pursue an offer from the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car
Porters to sponsor limited-dividend housing north of 125th Street.35
Worried that the project might unravel, Lawrence Orton wanted
more from Robert Moses than gratuitous advice to calm his "hysteri­
cal" colleagues. The Morningside Committee on Cooperative Hous­
ing was furious that Moses had announced the Title I with only
vague mention of low-rent housing in Manhattanville. They also
felt betrayed that he had reneged on the tax exemption to reduce
Morningside's $23-per-room maintenance. Father Ford convinced
Orton and David Rockefeller to confront Moses about the commu­
nity uproar. At their meeting, Rockefeller talked of tax exemption,
but Moses coldly responded that the CSC would have to ask the
institutions to invest more in the cooperative's equity. The added
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MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

factor of tax breaks, he said, would force him to suspend Board of

Estimate hearings.36
Opponents of the Title I came well prepared for the Novem­
ber 1951 encounter with the Board of Estimate. Save Our Homes
collected signatures from 5,000 site residents and gathered several
hundred pickets outside City Hall. Three days before, the Housing
Authority had announced a $23 million low-rent project (General
Grant Houses) to be built north of Morningside that would give pri­
ority to families displaced by the cooperative. But protesters jeered
the "luxury" co-ops that would force families back to "walled-in
Harlem." The dissidents claimed victory when officials postponed
the project until spring, handing Moses, a New York Post columnist
wrote, "his first—if temporary—setback."37
Over the winter, MHI repaired its tattered community relations.
MHI geared up a Morningside Citizens Committee, a neighborhood
forum to rally support for mixed-income projects in the renewal
plan. Ruth M. Senior, the MHI consultant who guided the citizens'
deliberations, defended Morningside's campaign against what she
called "economic ghettos." MHI was widening "the representation
of income, education, and ethnic groups," she explained, by in­
cluding middle-income projects "in a well-rounded program of new
housing." Father Ford's Community Advisory Committee organized
the Manhattanville Civic Association across 125th Street to give
blacks and Hispanics their say in "community improvement." De­
spite encouragement from liberals, including Hortense Gabel of the
State Committee Against Discrimination (SCAD) and speakers from
the Puerto Rico Migration Office and the Brotherhood of Sleep­
ing Car Porters, opponents packed the association's first meeting.
Determined to defeat "the high rent cooperative," Save Our Homes
warned the crowd about a "sneak play" at the Board of Estimate.
Morningside liberals deplored what they labeled a "Communist­
backed pressure campaign" on the Manhattanville Civic Association,
but they could not break Save Our Homes' grip.38
For the showdown at the Board of Estimate hearings on April
24, 1952, the Morningside Committee on Cooperative Housing
launched a public relations campaign that collected endorsements
from key liberal groups. The Riverside chapter of the American
Veterans Committee claimed that the "integration of housing for
middle-income families along with the public housing projects is in
the highest spirit of democratic living." Harlem Councilman Earl
Brown, coauthor, with Councilman Stanley M. Isaacs, of the city's
open-housing ordinance, called projects "built side by side . . .
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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

socially sound and progressive." Most applauded the cooperative

features, the link with public housing in Manhattanville, and the
sponsor's pledges of nondiscrimination. Moses also informed David
Rockefeller that he had spoken with the Housing Authority chair­
man "about officially announcing the public housing project next
to yours.
Although liberals closed ranks around Morningside, opponents
kept up their attack. Save Our Homes orchestrated pleas at the
Board of Estimate from residents and owners of small stores, along
with complaints from an old enemy of Rockefeller expansion, Father
Joseph Komora of St. Joseph's Church. The Daily Worker boasted
that the Save Our Homes leader "shocked" the experts with her
calculations that the site could accommodate $9 per room pub­
lic housing. Father Ford was moved by the opposition's "dignified
and impressive" testimony, although a Rockefeller staffer was dis­
gusted by how "the Party line" had hoodwinked "a lot of simple
people." Cooperative advisor Shirley Boden was particularly stung
by Save Our Homes' claim that tenants had some prior moral right
to the neighborhood. Opponents' vehemence forced MHI to accept
another delay until the fall of 1952, when "the fanatic fervor of the
opponents might have a chance to abate." Lawrence Orton's staff
expected that time, along with the chance for residents to apply for
co-op apartments, would weaken the opposition. A small group of
troublemakers could not hold back progress.40

Manhattantown

The liberalism that was responsible for Morningside was indistin­

guishable from the civic activism that produced Manhattantown,
the Title I that was synonymous with Negro removal. It was led
by West Side civic leader Herbert Sternau, who brought members
of the American Veterans Committee, the Americans for Demo­
cratic Action, and the Park West Neighborhood Association into
the West Side Housing Committee to campaign for slum clear­
ance across 98th Street. In the early summer of 1950, Congressman
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., forwarded the West Side Housing Com­
mittee's data to the Committee on Slum Clearance. Although it is not
clear who chose the sponsor, Jack Ferman Builders, the West Side
Housing Committee maintained "an excellent" relationship with the
firm. Congressman Roosevelt remained a staunch supporter, incor­
porating the Manhattantown Development Corporation as a pro
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MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

bono favor to his constituents. He spent the next two years con­
tributing legal work, and, with good reason, Robert Moses praised
his help "in all phases of the project." Manhattantown also received
support from young Roosevelt's liberal allies. When West Side ADA
chairman and staunch FDR, Jr., supporter Bentley Kassal ran as
the "anti-Tammany" candidate for state assembly, he boasted of his
vigorous work for slum clearance. Manhattantown sponsors later
enlisted the formidable talents of Samuel I. Rosenman, the New
Dealer, husband of public-housing activist Dorothy Rosenman, and
writer of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's appeals for the ill-housed
"third of a nation."41
That kind of inspiration was needed when rumors of Manhattan-
town's scale circulated through the West Side. In October of 1950,
Congressman Roosevelt promised his constituents that the project
would forbid discrimination. But the following month, the New
York AJC sent its chief community conciliator, Israel Laster, to the
West Side Housing Committee's discussions with the Housing Au­
thority. "Out of this meeting developed plans to set up a public
relations committee," Laster explained, "to insulate the community
against overt tension which might result during the next two years,
when families will be displaced because of new high cost housing."
Both New York AJC chapter committees, Housing and Intergroup
Relations, and SCAD were part of the effort. Hoping to lessen the
pain of displacement, Intergroup Relations helped organize a neigh­
borhood forum, the Riverside Neighborhood Assembly. Itsfirstses­
sions heard Clarence Senior and Joseph Montserrat of the Migration
Office describe the steps to ease the influx of Puerto Ricans into the
city and praise the West Side's achievements in integration. In Janu­
ary of 1951, Israel Laster joined the West Side Housing Committee
to ask State Housing Commissioner Herman Stichman for a low-
rent project near the redevelopment site. Stichman assured Herbert
Sternau's group that he would consider a project if it could document
the need. With that, the New York AJC and the West Side Housing
Committee surveyed West 98th Street's low-rent requirements.42
All the conciliatory work failed to prepare the community for the
unveiling of Manhattantown by the Committee on Slum Clearance
in September of 1951. Moses had taken the West Side Housing Com­
mittee's plans and doubled their scale. The CSC had proposed to
clear 3,600 tenement units to make room for seventeen twenty-story
apartments containing 2,720 units. Unabashedly middle-income,
Manhattantown's rents would average $30.50 per room, more than
twice what site tenants paid. Herbert Sternau wrote Moses a carefully
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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

worded letter stating that the West Side Housing Committee appre­
ciated his efforts, but was disturbed that nearly all black and Puerto
Rican site tenants would have to relocate to distant projects. Because
the CSC had mentioned probable relocation to Manhattanville at
125th Street, Sternau said that he hoped that Moses would desig­
nate a low-income development near 100th Street. Moses blandly
replied that the CSC planned a project to "coincide" with Man­
hattantown. He urged the West Siders to join him in wiping out "an
uneconomic slum."43
Moses's answer hardly dispelled the West Side Housing Com­
mittee's worries about relocation, and Sternau's comments to the
Riverside Neighborhood Assembly reflected the search for a com­
promise. He conceded that Manhattantown's $30.50 housing would
"cater to the upper middle class," but said his own committee was
working for "$10. to $20. per room housing north of Manhattan-
town." He wanted the assembly's civic organizations to deluge the
Housing Authority with appeals for "an integrated housing develop­
ment along these lines." Although he urged them to compliment the
city for its plans for Manhattantown, he hoped that they would make
clear that the Title I "will not, alone, fulfill the need of the area."44
Sternau had reason to worry. American Labor party workers,
operating through a Manhattan Tenants Council, were on the scene,
helping tenants organize another Save Our Homes Committee. They
were busy circulating petitions and planning demonstrations at City
Hall. Already upset by Manhattantown's dimensions, City Council­
man Stanley Isaacs was unnerved to learn about a "left-wing" tenants
group. Isaacs forwarded the news to Ira Robbins of the Citizens
Housing and Planning Council. Isaacs warned of the "almost in­
superable" relocation problem, but Robbins assured him that he was
keeping an eye on Manhattantown's political impact. Commissioner
Stichman offered 1,800 public housing units to site families, but the
gesture proved to be too little, too late. Moses's indifference had
allowed another neighborhood to become radicalized.45
The New York chapter of the American Jewish Committee ago­
nized about Manhattantown, but was prepared to brazen out the
controversy because of the enemies the project had made. In late
October of 1951, John L. Freeman, chairman of the New York
AJC Committee on Discrimination in Housing, claimed that his
group had actively pursued slum clearance at Morningside and Man­
hattantown. Admitting that both had shortcomings, he favored more
public housing in areas where "tension situations exist." But a few
days later, AJC community relations expert Israel Laster confided to
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MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

Herbert Sternau that he expected "to find certain people coming out
in opposition to the Project," and was readying a cautious defense
of the redevelopment. In the meantime, Laster planned to intensify
his conciliation work.46
By then, the community was beyond reach of words. In late
November of 1951, Sternau convened the West Side Housing Com­
mittee to deal with new agitation against Manhattantown. The com­
mittee heard that "a group with questionable background" planned
a neighborhood protest rally for December 8. Several Jewish clergy­
men were among the sponsors, and Sternau's committee "alerted
both Rabbis to the situation and upon learning the facts they with­
drew." Sternau hoped to upstage the affair with one of his own.
He brought in Congressman Roosevelt, Borough President Wagner,
and Councilman Earl Brown. The speakers tried to quiet a crowd of
650 with promises that both "Manhattantown" projects, the Title I
and the public housing, would be integrated and that all site ten­
ants would get new homes. The audience booed the notables off
the stage.47
The Save Our Homes protest occurred as scheduled at a local
church. To offset Sternau's liberal celebrities, radicals brought in
activists from the ALP, the West Side Committee Against Dis­
crimination in Housing, the Civil Rights Congress, and the West
Side Tenants Council. Controlling the floor and the microphones,
speakers said that Manhattantown would uproot 5,000 families. The
leader of Morningside Save Our Homes called the project part of the
"wall of Title One houses to bar the West Side and the River Front
to Negroes and Puerto Ricans." As the Daily Worker reported, the
meeting vowed to make its rage heard in Washington.48

Choosing Sides

During the spring of 1952, the anger rising from residents of Title I
sites forced New Yorkers to grapple with the consequences of Moses-
style progress. With an Olympian detachment from the city's turmoil,
realtor James Felt, president of the New York Urban League, offered
a homely rationale for what he called the "knotty problem" of tenant
relocation. "After cities reach maturity parts or sections wear out.
They must be replaced and new elements introduced, otherwise the
total city would soon be in jeopardy." Redevelopment would cause
pain, but the city had to proceed with the process.49
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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

Liberals worried whether renewal could justify upheavals on

the scale of Manhattantown. As one Citizens Housing and Plan­
ning Council staffer pointed out, the relocation "arrangements" left
much to be desired, but State Housing Commissioner Stichman had
moved in the right direction by approving a nearby public project.
But that did not quiet the debate in the CHPC subcommittee on
redevelopment, where Herbert Sternau defended Manhattantown
and Ira Robbins attacked its pretensions. Sternau tried to convince
his colleagues to urge the Housing Authority to foster the utmost
"integration" of Manhattantown with the adjacent public housing.
Sternau claimed that the city could "avoid creating two economic
ghettoes" by designing the Title I and the public housing with the
same site densities, height limits, and construction materials. He also
proposed calling the separate projects, both the Title I and the public
housing, by the same name, Manhattantown. Robbins questioned
whether "identical buildings would conceal economic differences
of site tenants." He derided the notion that nearby public housing
would change that reality.50
The New York AJC found Manhattantown to be adequately bal­
anced and questioned the motives of those who disagreed. As AJC
conciliator Israel Laster concluded, "the fact that some Communists
support low-rent developments is not disturbing. Yet, when they
rant, holler and rave only about the fact that there will be high-
cost housing and ignore completely the fact that there will also be
balanced housing, which will include low-cost, cooperative, middle
income and high-cost housing, then it is important to separate our­
selves completely and decisively from such rantings." Laster calcu­
lated that balance, however, by including Manhattanville's low-rent
units across 125th Street, more than a mile away. Having made up
his mind, Laster prepared to educate the community about the "true
nature of the project."51
Those who weighed Manhattantown's improvements against the
social cost of relocation focused on the project's first hurdle, Feb­
ruary 1952 hearings at the City Planning Commission. Citizens
Housing and Planning Council president Robbins concluded that it
was the place to warn the city about the crisis from Title I relocation.
He tried to convince the CHPC to urge the City Planning Commis­
sion to postpone approval of four Title I sites until the commission
could figure the total displaced and devise a system of gradual reloca­
tion. Robbins considered unconscionable the CSC estimates that
28 percent of site families would go into public housing. Unless
the commission faced the "relocation toll," he warned, the misery
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MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

would create an environment where "the entire redevelopment pro­

gram might be severely prejudiced." The CHPC subcommittee on
redevelopment split the difference, however, between Sternau and
Robbins. It endorsed Manhattantown, but "with all of Mr. Robbins'
qualifications."52
Some West Side groups never wavered. A community conference
hosted by the Spanish-American Youth Bureau failed to mention
Manhattantown, although members of the West Side Housing Com­
mittee urged whites and Puerto Ricans to work together and fight
discrimination. Far more important was the adamant stand taken
by the West Side Housing Committee. Herbert Sternau alerted the
City Planning Commission that "a neighborhood mass meeting was
called by a leftist group . . . to secure a large delegation to protest
the project at commission hearings." Save Our Homes had already
showed that it could disrupt a civic occasion. Liberals feared that
radicals would try a repeat performance at the City Planning Com­
mission and wanted to "offset the misleading effect of their propa­
ganda." Sternau assured the commission that the West Side Housing
Committee was "heartily" behind Manhattantown. He would attend
the hearings and bring along enthusiastic representatives from the
American Veterans Committee, the ADA, B'nai Brith, and the Park
West Neighborhood Association.53
The New York AJC also gave a qualified endorsement to Man­
hattantown. Although it did not take a formal position, the chapter
urged the City Planning Commission "to complete plans for proper
relocation before beginning new projects and . . . to give serious at­
tention to public relations before public announcements are made."
Refusing to condemn Moses's plans for Manhattantown, the chapter
seconded the call by the Citizens Housing and Planning Council for
a civic committee to look at the problem of Title I relocation. A few
days later, the City Planning Commission approved CSC plans for
Manhattantown without any revisions.54
The following month, Ira Robbins, writing for the Citizens
Housing and Planning Council, quietly warned the Housing and
Home Finance Agency that Moses's Title I policies were creating "an
unfavorable public reaction [that] will jeopardize the program for
years to come." Robbins explained the political pressures growing
in New York. "Communist dominated groups are piling misrepre­
sentations and falsehoods on top of the weak relocation structure
presented by the Committee on Slum Clearance Plans," he added.
"The racial and political tensions that can be stimulated by an ill-
advised rehousing program are too dangerous to be ignored." But
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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

the HHFA dismissed these fears, citing the city's vast housing supply
and nondiscriminatory ordinances that ensured shelterforeveryone.
Despite the rebuff, Robbins circulated the CHPC's call for a "go
slow" policy to allow work on Corlears Hook and only one other
Title I as an experiment in careful relocation.55
By the spring of 1952, Robbins had lost a good deal of liberal
support. The defectors included not only the redevelopers on the
West Side Housing Committee, but many members of the New York
chapter of the American Jewish Committee. Although the New York
AJC subcommittee on redevelopment urged the Board of Estimate
to stay Title I work until there was proper relocation under city
supervision, the committee on discrimination supported Sternau's
call for adequate relocation on future projects. Robbins also was
abandoned by Morningside's advocates, who were annoyed by his
attempts to link their project with Manhattantown. A Morningside
stalwart told Robbins that the cooperative deserved to be detached
from the "larger question of over all relocation" because of the nearby
public housing. The New York ADA was commodious enough for
the confederates of redevelopment and for those dismayed by its side
effects. West Side leaders who worked with Sternau on Manhattan-
town remained with the citywide ADA even when the organization
resolved for Title I plans based on "more realistic and more humane
tenant relocation."56
With the failure of the behind-the-scenes appeal, the Citizens
Housing and Planning Council, joined by the NAACP, United
Neighborhood Houses, and New York ADA, went public, warn­
ing Mayor Impellitteri that "Communist dominated groups" were
making mischief with Title I relocation. The cold war jitters had
some basis. In May of 1952, delegates from sixty-two civic and
housing organizations, spearheaded by American Labor party af­
filiates, met to protest Title I and Truman administration domestic
policies. Save Our Homes offered vivid accounts of the hardship
faced by blacks and Puerto Ricans on demolished sites. Morning-
side Heights liberals could display their own lumps from radical
assaults. As Lawrence Orton complained, Save Our Homes had "ex­
ploited every opportunity... to arouse the latent hostility of the site
residents against the large institutions 'on the hill.'" 57
Throughout the winter and spring of 1953, threats both to
decent Title I projects and to objectionable ones forced liberals
to choose between Moses and Save Our Homes. On Morningside
Heights, that reality led redevelopers to close ranks and fudge evi­
dence. Moses heightened the crisis by exaggerating Washington's
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MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

queries about the Morningside Title I and his own weariness with
the redevelopment. He wrote to David Rockefeller, "I need not em­
phasize again the fact that it has been a tough job to keep the adjacent
City Housing Authority low rent federal project high enough on the
list to be reached and that delays as to the Title I project are not
helpful." Moses passed the word to David Rockefeller that HHFA
officials were skeptical about Morningside's blight. MHI would have
to make, he said, "a stronger case for physical deterioration." Meet­
ing the challenge, Lawrence Orton was reported to have employed
"compelling [arguments] rather thanfigureswhich mustfitinto the
statistical strait jacket of [the] U.S. Census housing survey." An MHI
staffer added that "the strongest index of slum conditions" was the
building coverage of 91 percent. Orton threw in other arguments:
ambiguous census data that MHI claimed made a "stronger case
for physical deterioration," Father George B. Ford's attack on the
neighborhood's "festering sore," and CSC figures on the influx of
low-income groups that "definitely proves that it is deteriorating and
it is blighted."58
The battle for Morningside Heights climaxed in Washington,
as Truman administration officials waited the arrival of President-
elect Dwight Eisenhower. Orton made the rounds at HHFA, while
others visited influential Democrats on Capitol Hill, including Jerry
Voorhis of the Cooperative Society of the U.S.A. and John Spark-
man, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. A few days later,
the Truman administration gave the nod to the Morningside write-
down. On January 15, 1953, the Board of Estimate braved 300
diehard protesters and approved the Morningside-Manhattanville
redevelopment.59
The CSC proclaimed Morningside a Title I showplace and model
of compassionate relocation. The site became an obligatory stop for
Moses's limousines when he wanted officials to see Title I at work.
As scandal engulfed Manhattantown in 1954, the CSC squeezed
every endorsement from the liberal and labor groups that had sup­
ported progress on the Heights. In the 1954 elections, Congressman
Jacob K. Javits, running for state office against Congressman Roose­
velt, contrasted his support for Morningside against FDR, Jr.'s ties
with Manhattantown. "There hasn't been any scandal in the project,"
he told television viewers. "It providesforfederal public housing
for 1,950 families and a housing cooperative, owned by the tenants,
for 934 families. This is much closer to the total number of families

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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

Opening-day ceremonies of the Momingside Gardens Title I, June 20, 1957.

From left: Robert Moses, chairman of the Mayor's Committee on Slum Clear­
ance; Momingside Heights, Inc., president David Rockefeller; Manhattan
Borough President Hulan Jack; and Momingside Heights, Inc., executive
director Lawrence M. Orton wait their turn to speak. Photo by Barney Wein­
berg. Courtesy of the Special Archive, Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Au­
thority.

removed from the site, many of whom will be able to qualify for
public housing."60
Momingside Gardens, as the Title I cooperative was called,
proved a typical Moses operation, softened by Heights compassion.
Removals began in 1954 with messages, an MHI social worker ad­
vised, to inform site tenants that redcvelopers "understand the fears
and worries of the residents, that they stood ready to help them with
information and advice and, if need be, advocacy during the months
ahead." But they were expected to follow self-relocation, and spon­
sors' neglect of building maintenance urged out a good portion of
them. Save Our Homes kept an angry vigil, bitterly disputing MHFs
"diligence and sincerity" in relocating the forlorn blacks and Puerto
Ricans who remained.61

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MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

Weighing Values
Although many liberals were dismayed by Title I, many hoped for
painless relocation that would lead to the creation of mixed-race,
balanced communities. As evidence mounted about the price that
blacks and Puerto Ricans paid for redevelopment, observers kept
their faith in the instruments of interracial harmony. Their soul-
searching, which found redeeming features in the worst projects,
gave Moses an inestimable advantage, which he used to show that
Title I stood in the forefront of the fair-housing movement.
Title I projects that turned neighborhoods upside down were
accompanied by social analysis that was preoccupied with the con­
sequences rather than the causes of neighborhood "tension." The
New York AJC's activists against discimination were deeply involved
with the campaign for interracial public housing in the Bronx. The
committee focused on "an important preventative . . . to insure that
the development of mixed housing in Bronx residential areas are [sic]
not lead[ing] to the sort of interracial difficulties that materialized
in Chicago and elsewhere." Emphasizing the positive impact of law
and group understanding, the committee worked with SCAD for a
city ordinance banning discrimination in publicly assisted housing.
Members also provided a "consultation service" to supporters of
integrated public housing. During the Manhattantown controversy,
for instance, the AJC held a series of "emergency conferences" with
West Side leaders, including Sternau's group.62
The American Jewish Committee's views on redevelopment
brought it charter membership in the Committee for Balanced Com­
munities, which was formed by activists from SCAD and the Ethical
Culture Society to foster neighborhoods that reflected "the varied
population patterns of the American community." The committee
hoped to achieve that balance within redevelopment areas by locating
public housing "on peripheral, fringe, or border neighborhoods."
Endorsing the Forest Houses, a low-r?nt project in the Bronx, the
committee urged the Housing Authority to use "proper site and
tenant selection, [and] propitious timing of projects, which help to
develop harmonious and integrated communities." When the Citi­
zens Housing and Planning Council demanded drastic cutbacks in
Title I during the spring of 1952, the Committee for Balanced Com­
munities agreed that "lack of clarity" in relocation was "supplying
ammunition to those groups which thrive on confusion" and whose
obstructive tactics would jeopardize "the whole urban redevelop­
ment program." A sensible relocation policy had to measure family
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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

need against the existing housing supply, open the outer boroughs
to minorities, and expand the Housing Authority's construction on
vacant land. "We would like to see urban redevelopment go for­
ward as quickly as possible," the committee told the city, but "[n]ot
so quickly, however, as to trample upon the rights of families now
living on the sites." Redevelopment would be modified, but never
shut down.63
Several groups, no longer able to ignore the numbers, ended their
ambivalence during the winter of 1952-1953. SCAD staffers spent
furtive months gathering relocation statistics and worrying about
"premature leaks to the Mayor, to Mr. Moses, to the opponents of
public housing or to the press." Their data showed that seven Title I
projects would tear down the dwellings of 9,604 families—45 per­
cent of them black and an unknown but substantial percentage of
them Puerto Rican, particularly at Manhattantown and Morning-
side. Another 19,970 families, 5,000 of them black, resided on sites
marked for clearance by the Housing Authority. Thousands more
families lived in wartime Quonsets scheduled for demolition, and
still more would be removed for construction of schools, highways,
and Port Authority projects. Only 15 percent of those displaced
could afford Title I rents, and another 35 percent could meet the in­
come requirements of public housing. That left huge numbers to the
crowded private market. Brandishing the data, SCAD leaders, along
with Councilman Stanley Isaacs and Ira Robbins of the CHPC, pre­
vailed upon liberals to form a City-Wide Committee on Housing
and Relocation Problems. In the meantime, SCAD warned Mayor
Impellitteri that 45,000 families were being pushed into an urban
limbo. The 60 percent that were black and Puerto Rican would have
few housing alternatives because of color. Uncontrolled clearance
would create worse slums and dangerous political tensions.64
A few days later, SCAD and the City-Wide Committee con­
fronted the CSC and Title I sponsors with "severe questions" about
relocation. While the officials made promises, the realtors pleaded
ignorance on the "specific data." Councilman Isaacs resolved for a
City Planning Commission study on relocations, which passed the
city council unanimously. The anti-Moses activists hoped that they
would finally have the numbers to bring the city to its senses. In­
stead, the decision to get the facts touched off a back-room struggle,
described by Robert Caro, during which City Planning Commission
mavericks led by Lawrence Orton tried to assemble the data, while
Moses, with the help of Manhattantown counsel Samuel Rosenman,
prepared a whitewash.65
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MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

The most dire statistics, however, would not have dented support
for Title I among redevelopers drawn to the challenge of "humane"
relocation. At Morningside, Alfred Rheinstein, the builder and
former chairman of the Housing Authority, headed a redevelopment
group that offered businesslike handling of Title Fs complex features,
from initial land acquisition to the sale of completed apartments.
Rheinstein's attorney, Maxwell Tretter, had experience at Queens-
view, South Village, and another Title I cooperative at Fort Greene,
Brooklyn. Milton Saslow, president of Nassau Management, Inc.,
and a relocation consultant to the CSC, had directed the Housing
Authority's postwar removal of 27,000 site families. Saslow, an en­
thusiast for self-relocation, believed that effective site managers knew
the kinds of constraints and incentives that got tenants to find their
own shelter. Rheinstein added that his redevelopers had expertise "in
each branch of the [clearance] work and seasoned judgment on when
and where concessions in one phase should be made to give the best
end result." He could field a staff of relocators experienced in pub­
lic housing admissions as well as in the ways of the private market.
"It works closely with the legal branch in court procedures, such as
eviction orders, and at all times and in these and other matters gives
explanations to the tenants whom they will get to know," Rheinstein
added. "The staff will foster a good tenant relationship which will
speed relocation and if it does not always eradicate antagonisms and
resentments it at least softens them."66
Outrage against Manhattantown never reached the Mayor's
Committee on Puerto Rican Affairs, which had focused since the
early 1950s on the Upper West Side, "a relatively new Puerto Rican
area where tensions are understandably greater." Committee ad­
visor Herbert Sternau conceded that the district suffered from a
severe shortage of low-rent apartments. The inadequate housing,
compounded by a lack of bilingual workers in city agencies, was con­
firmed by a representative of the Spanish-American Youth Bureau.
Arthur Loeb, a local ADA activist who worked with Sternau's hous­
ing committee, worried about increasing prejudice against Puerto
Ricans and called on the city to create an educational campaign
against ethnic stereotypes. A spokesman for the West Side ADA told
the mayor's committee that the neighborhood needed more settle­
ment houses and ways to break down "prejudices between the people
of different economic levels."67
Redevelopment's loyalists interpreted Manhattantown's impact
as a series of problems overcome by improved site management. In
the spring of 1953, Herbert Sternau advised community activists on
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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

the Protestant Council how they could aid 500 small store owners
"put out of business" by the Title I. He suggested, according to
the clerics, that "by communication with our outlying churches we
might find neighborhoods where drugstores, shoe repair shops, fruit
and vegetable stores, etc. might be needed." In January 1954 Ster­
nau appeared as chairman of the Bloomingdale—Park West Health
Committee to speak on the health needs of Puerto Ricans. Families
dislocated by Manhattantown could get help at an office on 100th
Street. "Private enterprises and real estate people," Sternau informed
the Protestant Council, were handling the problem. Some tenants
"are being gradually re-located in public housing," he noted, "and
others are relocating themselves."68
Even during the height of the controversy, liberals rallied around
Moses because he represented public housing progress. At the fall
1953 dedication of the Bernard Baruch Houses, President Eisen­
hower and Moses were featured speakers. Moses proclaimed the
city's intention to finish the job of cleaning out "the whole over­
crowded and malodorous East Side." He appealed to the Eisenhower
administration to stand by Title I subsidies and to maintain public
housing for "displaced persons of low income." Housing Authority
member Frank Crosswaith praised Moses's support of slum clear­
ance and sent his personal thanks. Ira Robbins congratulated Moses
for a "brilliant speech," and William Vladeck wrote to Moses that he
was "thrilled and delighted" by the occasion. Savoring the moment,
Moses had the accolades bound and sent to Housing Authority
chairman Philip Cruise.69
Throughout the debate over Title I, partisans believed that many
refugees would end up in planned interracial communities. The most
prominent was the Queensview cooperative, organized on the old
Ravenswood site in Long Island City by Housing Authority veter­
ans Louis Pink, Maxwell Tretter, and Gerard Swope. Robert Moses
provided city condemnation and a partial twenty-five-year tax ex­
emption that brought equity investment of from $2,000 to $3,000
per owner and monthly maintenance of from $68 to $98. James
Felt volunteered to recruit occupants, and a laudatory New Tork Post
article written by Charles Abrams drew ninety buyers. "We made it
clear to everyone," boasted Pink, "that we would take Negro fami­
lies on the same basis as white." Pink proclaimed Queensview the
city's "first private non-discriminatory project." But the Queensview
boosters were deluding themselves, along with the public. In 1949,
the Field Foundation privately observed that "no affirmative effort
is being made to interest Negro applicants." Although not dismiss­
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MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

ing Queensview, the Field appraisal found minimal compliance with

the antidiscrimination laws. "The organizers do not propose to go
out and look for qualified Negro cooperators in order to conduct a
planned social experiment in inter-racial living," the appraisal con­
cluded. Few black families, in any case, could manage the $2,000
equity.70
The affirmative effort sustained hopes, but made little difference
on the interracial front. The Committee for Balanced Communi­
ties, together with the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith and
SCAD, remained committed to integrating Bronx public housing,
and distributed brochures designed to interest whites in "the physical
attractiveness of a new community." When the Housing Authority
opened the Forest Houses in the summer of 1954, the Committee for
Balanced Communities tried to reach white applicants and readied
volunteers for the novel social work. Eventually they interviewed
fourteen Japanese-American families displaced from the Morning-
side Title I site, a few of whom went into the Bronx project. The
committee chairman, realtor J. Clarence Davies, Jr., was encour­
aged when they were joined by twenty-two white families. But these
scant numbers proved the limit. "The Housing Authority now feels,"
Davies noted, "that it is unfair to withhold any qualified applicants
from moving into the [Forest Houses] project, despite the pressure
we have been placing upon them to keep the project racially bal­
anced." The New York AJC never regretted the efforts expended to
create "this first inter-racial" project.71
By 1956, the campaign for balanced communities produced
housing as racially divided as the city. While experts on the New
York State Commission Against Discrimination strained to find "an
increasing trend toward mixed occupancy," its own statistics showed
Housing Authority projects badly skewed by race and more dis­
mal outcomes in the middle-income redevelopments. Twenty-one
limited-dividend projects with a total of 11,145 dwelling units con­
tained seventy-five black families (thirty-five lived in one project,
the 1,400-unit Hillside Houses in the Bronx). Nevertheless, the
commission proclaimed "continuing improvement in the occupancy
patterns." It cited the 2,000-unit Electchester in Queens, built by the
Electrical Workers, which accepted its "first ten minority families,"
and it applauded the "energetic" efforts that integrated Hillside. Ten
Title I projects, completed or under construction, contained 13,784
units, anotherfieldfor integration. Thefirstto open, the 1,600-unit
Corlears Hook cooperative, had approximately fifty black families
in addition, the state survey said, "to representation of many other
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 MANEUVER AND COLLABORATION

ethnic, religious and racial groups." But another Title I, the 600-unit
Coliseum Apartments on West 60th Street, whose rents averaged
$62.50 per room, typified the general trend. Despite the sponsor's
pledge of nondiscrimination, few nonwhites could afford the upper-
middle-class rents.72
One widely admired exception was the 1,000-unit Morning-
side Gardens, which defied the wisdom, Shirley Boden wrote, that
"Negroes have been reluctant to buy into a cooperative in an 'all­
white' neighborhood." Largely on Morningside's record, the New
York State Commission Against Discrimination indulged in wishful
thinking about "the marked increase" in nonwhite families seeking
cooperative apartments. While controversy swirled around Title I,
Morningside Gardens remained a beacon of racial tolerance and
social justice. Its administrators knew that Morningside depended
on elaborate controls and word-of-mouth recruitment of Chinese-
and Japanese-American families from MHI's member institutions.
To guide the process, MHI called in a housing specialist who ad­
vised that "20% Negroes is about the limit in a truly integrated
project," but that 13 percent was more "easily justified," considering
that the city's population would have that percentage of blacks when
Morningside opened. With black groups ready "to support any poli­
cies arrived at in a practical and just way," the expert pointed out,
Morningside's real problem was recruiting whites. As for the Man­
hattanville public project across 125th Street, the expert suggested
that MHI discreetly arrange with the Housing Authority chairman
for "a special selection policy" to recruit white tenants.73
The campaign's tiny quotas and elaborate controls reinforced
the middle-class privatism among cooperative shareholders, who,
as Abraham Kazan was the first to admit, were never cooperative-
minded. "No preliminary work had been done with these people,"
a 1956 assessment concluded, "to prepare them . . . to understand
the responsibilities that operating a cooperative required." Social
investigators found the redevelopments filled with white, middle-
class families who "over-scheduled" their children and directed their
ambitions toward Ivy League futures. The projects were isolated en­
claves that recoiled from what one observer called "the mores and
behavior of lower income groups." That was the community balance
achieved by the social engineers in league with Robert Moses. But
for true believers, it brought measured progress in a city determined
to strike down racial barriers.74

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 8

ROOM FOR MODERN

MEDICINE

Hospitals and health facilities, and the planning that

leads to their establishment, always seemed to bear a
close relationship to man's needforthe general well­
being of himself and his family.
Edwin A. Salmon

I n the decade after World War II, hospitals began programs of physi­
cal expansion that contributed to New York's redevelopment and
redefined the place of medical care in the city. The La Guardia era's
ideals of community medicine drove the process, but city provision
of subsidized real estate made it possible. With a variety of municipal
aids, hospitals refurbished obsolete plants, filled vacant space, and
began fund-raising campaigns that would turn them into medical
centers. Although their expansion sacrificed only a fraction of the
city's housing stock, several hospitals stamped portions of Manhat­
tan as preserves for advanced research, along with the redeveloped
housing they considered necessary for their clinical and laboratory
workers. Urban experts heralded this the inevitable triumph of the
postindustrial economy, but behind the inevitable lay medicine's
version of the Moses machine.1
Hospital administrators made demands on the city in the name
of rational needs that seemed to be nonpartisan and beyond de­
bate. For a generation, they had basked in the public's admiration
of heroic, scientific healing, while a host of medical-education task
forces emphasized the interrelationships of hospital, medical school,

204
 ROOM FOB MODERN MEDICINE

and laboratory. This social message pleased Mayor La Guardia, who

believed that modern healing went hand in hand with civic reform.
Advised by staunch advocates of medical centers, notably hospital
commissioners Sigismund S. Goldwater and Edward M. Bernecker,
the mayor found money to build a pattern of dispensaries for neigh­
borhood care and centralized complexes to advance the frontiers of
science. They were guided by the Hospital Council of Greater New
York, a lobby of voluntary hospitals and medical insurance plans, who
devised the modern, self-contained hospital complex. Their com­
bined endeavors helped create a planning domain that was within
the city but never part of it.2
Hospitals added facilities in response to the Hospital Council's
master plans, which were contrived to meet fund-raising deadlines
and booster ambitions. Estimates of demand for medical care had
scant validity when hospital administrators believed that the redevel­
oped city would generate new clients—and that hospital complexes
would generate redevelopment. Behind their appraisals lay visions
of metropolitan opportunity and, thanks to modern aviation, even
dreams of a global role for ambitious medical centers. Normal con­
straints on the nonprofit sector were dismissed by hospital admin­
istrators, who believed that hospitals followed a higher ordination.
When hospitals abrogated the rules that disciplined central-city insti­
tutions, the implications for urban land-use policy were incalculable.
The hospital sector's penchant for planning without constraint
was reflected in the multiple roles assumed by architect Edwin A.
Salmon. The son of a distinguished psychiatrist and public health
administrator, Salmon had helped design the city's system of district
health centers after Mayor La Guardia appointed him to the City
Planning Commission in 1938. Salmon was a consultant to Memo­
rial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases while
serving on the commission, and he personally handled Memorial's
negotiations with the city to limit the scale of a proposed municipal
cancer hospital. When Rexford Tugwell resigned from the commis­
sion in 1941, Salmon succeeded him as chairman, and he also became
chairman ex officio of the Hospital Council's master plan committee,
which coordinated the voluntary hospitals' requests for public funds
for postwar expansion. As City Planning Commission chairman,
Salmon called on the voluntaries to contribute to the modernization
of civic life and to postwar full employment. And as a member of
numerous hospital boards, he was in a position to implement that
contribution. When Salmon wrote "we at Memorial" on City Plan­

205
ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

ning Commission stationery, his blurred sense of responsibility was

understandable and widely shared. He embodied the conviction that
modern medicine had a special place in La Guardia's New York.3

Reversing Limits

The hospital sector came out of the 1930s with no mission to change
the city, much less the world. Mayor La Guardia's public works binge
had left municipal hospitals overbuilt. In 1935, the Mayor's Commit­
tee on City Planning estimated that with 36,540 general-care beds
soon to be available in the city's municipal and voluntary wards, only
2,230 more (the equivalent of one large municipal center) would
be needed over the next decade. Underutilization of the voluntaries,
where ward occupancy remained at about 80 percent, was more per­
vasive. In 1940, Memorial Hospital counted sixty empty beds and
operated an outpatient facility at half capacity. Trying to deter plans
for a city cancer center, Memorial's director argued that his hospital
saw "no constant demand which the existing beds cannot supply."
Any increase in cases related to an aging population, he added, would
be canceled out by the decline in Manhattan's population. Lenox
Hill Hospital also had lowered its horizons. "Naturally we want
to complete our block," its superintendent wrote Edwin Salmon,
but he had no plans for the forseeable future. "All of us know that
the upper east side of New York, excluding the Harlem district, is
perhaps over-hospitalized." As late as 1945, the 366-bed Brooklyn
Hospital, located between downtown and the congested Navy Yard,
contemplated no enlargements and budgeted improvements worth
only $50,000.4
The turnabout came during the height of the war, when hospital
leaders realized that the La Guardia administration would commit
vast sums to rebuild the city, a realization that City Planning Com­
missioner Salmon helped shape. Trying to convince Salmon to go
beyond his ex officio role and actually direct the Hospital Council's
planning committee, council member Arthur Ballantine observed
that Salmon "has the modern concept... of looking ahead to what
the growth of the City and the various communities within the City
will be." Salmon hesitated about whether he could spare time from
the City Planning Commission. But Ballantine persisted, reminding
his fellow council members that Salmon, who enjoyed the mayor's
support, could give "invaluable direction" to the work. Elected by

206
 ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

acclamation in October 1944, Salmon directed the council's plan­

ning committee toward a master plan for hospitals within "the entire
realm of community development, such as population distribution,
property use, arterial highways, and neighborhood developments."
Although Salmon denied that he was overemphasizing central hospi­
tals at the expense of local clinics, his priority remained the creation
of medical centers.5
Postwar trends made that an inescapable obligation. Hospital
boards throughout the city, Salmon remarked, were impatient for
the council to endorse their construction plans so that they could
get started on fund-raising. His colleagues did not know whether to
applaud or condemn the enthusiasm. Arthur Ballantine knew half a
dozen boards of trustees that were anxious to begin campaigns for
capital improvements. He asked whether the council should urge a
"combined drive" rather than endorse the individual scurrying for
funds. But ferment among the voluntaries made talk of restraint
pointless.6
One of the most successful drives began in 1944, when Mount
Sinai Hospital on the Upper East Side adopted a campaign for a
"Greater Mount Sinai." Trustees agreed that the hospital could be­
come a full-fledged medical center if it reorganized attending physi­
cians as full-time residents, doubled the number of interns, and
created a pediatrics section and an institute for mental illness. The
real driving force, however, was the expected growth of Manhattan's
middle class. Staff physicians predicted increased demand for medi­
cal care from people enrolled in prepaid hospital insurance. Those
who once accepted the wards, a staff report observed, "now look to
the Hospital for semi-private care in reward for their thrift." Social
change required new buildings arranged on a generous scale.7
Located between Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue, Mount
Sinai, with city help, made the most of a potential superblock. After
"prolonged negotiations," as hospital trustee Alfred Rheinstein re­
ported, the city ceded 99th Street for a token $1,000 in 1945.
With that, Rheinstein's building committee embarked on $13 mil­
lion in construction to knit old and new facilities into a "well inte­
grated whole." Rheinstein's campaign ally was James Felt, real estate
advisor and Mount Sinai trustee. Favoring preemptive purchase,
Felt guided property acquisition along Madison Avenue, East 98th
Street, and East 100th Street, which made Mount Sinai a landlord
of low-income tenants and thus a relocator. The trustees expected
Felt's committee to "acquire apartments for the Hospital's use as they

207
ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

become vacant" while sheltering tenants evicted for hospital con­

struction. Like the greater city, the hospital had become a manager
of relocation housing.8
Mount Sinai pursued several expedients to obtain low-cost staff
housing. In 1945, the trustees asked Rheinstein to investigate pub­
lic subsidies for hospital expansion, including the Lanham Act, the
federal program for war housing. Their search took them to the tene­
ments across Madison Avenue that were occupied by blacks, which
meant bridging the racial chasm when the hospital, like all the vol­
untaries, practiced Jim Crow. The Housing Authority had already
designated the other side of Madison Avenue, from 102nd to 106th
streets, as the site for the George Washington Carver Houses, a low-
income project to shelter 1,500 families in twelve-story buildings.
The high-rises' potential to alienate tenants worried reformers, who
stressed the importance of compensating community facilities. In
September of 1946, the Mount Sinai trustees asked Rheinstein to
request that housing officials extend Carver south to 101st Street
to provide city-built housing for hospital staff. For a time, hospital
administrators kept their options open on the east side of Madison
Avenue, then retreated, except to claim the corner of 101st Street for
staff parking. Hoping for municipal condemnation to provide the
lot, the hospital administration was reported "in favor of the [Carver]
project right across the street... as a benefit to the hospital."9
The Carver Houses also offered opportunities in patient care
that were crucial to the Greater Mount Sinai campaign. Although
hospital trustees failed to convince the Federation of Jewish Phi­
lanthropies to support a $4 million psychiatric institute, the idea
became the basis for a "community medical program" at Carver in
1950. The Housing Authority announced the prototype, a Mount
Sinai "family doctor" for Carver tenants, which it hoped to extend to
other projects. The hospital planned treatment rooms and doctors'
offices in Carver, but the real emphasis was on "preventive psychia­
try." As Mount Sinai's historian explained, "the Hospital intends to
try to raise the cultural and social level of its neighbors, as well as to
take care of their physical health." Although the medical staff deemed
the project "valuable" to the hospital and community, it was never
carried out with enthusiasm. With Mount Sinai support pegged to
outside funding, the hospital's contribution came to a few thousand
dollars.10
Nevertheless, the involvement in community medicine paid off
in 1948, when the Hospital Council designated Mount Sinai a "cen­
tral" hospital, the first among the voluntaries to achieve this highest
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 ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

status. New construction, along with planned additions in maternity

and gynecological services, influenced the decision. "In the interest
of the community," a council member explained, "the Master Plan
Committee can make exceptions where a hospital is so far ahead as
to training, capacity, etc., even though all definite specifications are
not present." The council could have debated further, but a favorable
vote, members acknowledged, was "the sales material of the Coun­
cil." In the fund-raising environment, Mount Sinai and the Hospital
Council would expand together.11
Postwar euphoria brought the expansion of Memorial Hospital
as headquarters for a veritable Manhattan Project to "conquer can­
cer." "Our experience in both medical and industrial science, in fact
our experience during the war," observed Memorial trustee Lewis
Douglas in July of 1945, "has been that carefully planned and co­
ordinated research backed by adequate support and carried on by
competent scientists working together has produced startling re­
sults." Douglas argued that enlarged and centralized laboratories
would attract the research specialists who would pursue the indus­
trial approach to a breakthrough. Their presence, in turn, would
draw patients in unprecedented numbers. Worries of empty wards
soon changed to fears that unless Memorial's facilities reached insti­
tutional size, they would never meet "the demands being made on
them . . . as a complete cancer center." n
Steps toward that institutional mass were reached before V-J
Day. During the summer of 1945, Memorial began construction
under city contract of the 300-bed Ewing Hospital. In August came
the announcement that the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation would grant
$2 million to build the Sloan-Kettering Institute on adjacent prop­
erty. The gift energized the hospital's trustees to reach donors across
the country, based on their belief that "if Memorial is to be a World
Cancer Center it is most necessary that the people realize that fact."
Memorial's campaign for national recognition was climaxed by a
fund-raising dinner broadcast on network radio. But local signifi­
cance was even more important, starting with Memorial's place on
the Hospital Council's master plan. City Planning Commissioner
Salmon took care of the arrangement, which called for "one can­
cer center defined almost identically with Memorial." As a Hospital
Council member added to Memorial's director, "presumably this was
the work of Ted Salmon who sat on your Board."13
Memorial's role as a center for medical research shaped neigh­
borhood planning initiatives over the next ten years. Writing for "we
at Memorial" in 1945, City Planning Commission chairman Salmon
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ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

alerted Robert Moses that the hospital was eager to start slum clear­
ance as a consortium effort with nearby New York Hospital-Cornell
Medical Center and the Rockefeller Institute. Administrators had in
mind a broad campaign, explained Salmon, "to provide medium-
priced housing for the great number of relatively low-paid tech­
nicians, post-graduate students, instructors, and other professional
personnel employed in the three institutions." At the time, Moses
failed to see the East Side as the place to engage the fiduciaries
under the Redevelopment Companies Law. Salmon could proclaim
all he wanted, but he would have to proceed with private money.
A bequest to Memorial by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., of the block
bounded by 68th and 69th streets and Second and Third avenues
provided the first site. General Otto Nelson, New York Life Insur­
ance vice-president, was attracted to redevelopment promoted by
hospital improvements, and he looked to middle-income apartment
construction south of 64th Street between Second and Third ave­
nues. The hospitals ranged along York Avenue had just begun to
stake their claims on the city's redevelopment machinery.14

Medical Capital of the World

Wartime decisions also catalyzed the relationship between New York
University and Bellevue Hospital that created the medical center that
overlooks the East River at Turtle Bay. At the start of the war, the
NYU College of Medicine had a major, though not exclusive, af­
filiation with city-owned Bellevue Hospital. When approached by
the Bellevue Nursing School to share expansion costs at the hospital
(in exchange for affiliation with NYU's Washington Square Col­
lege), university administrators reacted against the nursing school's
scant endowment and obsolete facilities. Their wariness ended when
they learned of the La Guardia administration's plans for postwar
spending. Hospital alterations and a new facility for the nursing
school would require condemnation of the NYU College of Medi­
cine's Loomis Laboratory. The college dean, Dr. Currier McEwen,
sensed that relocation of the lab for "modern clinical research" might
give NYU an exclusive relationship with Bellevue. Dismissing his
colleagues' doubts about whether a public hospital could make re­
arrangements for a "private corporation," McEwen said "the time is
past when a great hospital can fulfill its function by merely providing
beds. New laboratories will result in increased service to the patient

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and in increased prestige to the hospital." McEwen hoped that the

university would make Loomis a gift to the city.15
Dean McEwen's ambitions for the Bellevue relationship grew
stronger when Mayor La Guardia approved an array of new facilities
at the hospital. La Guardia had been convinced by Hospital Commis­
sioner Dr. Edward M. Bernecker to make Bellevue the location of an
institute of forensic science, which would give the city medical exam­
iner "something no other city in this country has." Bernecker added
that allowing the NYU College of Medicine to run the institute
would insulate the medical examiner from "political interference."
La Guardia and federal officials had also agreed on a venereal disease
center at Bellevue, and Bernecker's department contemplated facili­
ties for tropical medicine, which Dean McEwen reported "of current
interest . . . as a result of the war." Ceding the Loomis property,
McEwen argued, "would make an important difference in ensuring
us right and privilege in the [Forensic] Institute in later years." But
the university comptroller figured that Loomis was a $400,000 gift
that NYU could not afford.16
Within a few months, McEwen's successor as college dean, Dr.
Donal Sheehan, called on NYU to spend far more. With the right
kind of campaign, he believed the NYU clinic at Bellevue could be­
come "a complete medical service with standards second to none in
the country." "It will require," Sheehan explained in early 1944, "the
building of a modern Hospital and an adjacent Institute of Medical
Sciences to house the laboratories of physiology, medicine, bacteri­
ology, pharmacology, experimental therapeutics, and of those new
fields demanding immediate attention in the future, name[ly], indus­
trial medicine, social medicine, tropical diseases, aviation medicine,
legal medicine, physical therapy, and geriatrics." The creative inter­
action would draw specialists, whose practices, together with the
medical college, would support a 500-bed hospital "to serve the
downtown district of New York City in the future." According to
Sheehan, the plan would get strong support from the City Planning
Commission, which had approved Stuyvesant Town and was "con­
cerned with the future building developments in lower Manhattan."
In April of 1944 he reported that city hospital authorities were "en­
thusiastic" about his proposal. City Planning Commissioner Salmon,
the dean added, urged him to rush details to the Hospital Council
and the CPC.17
The New York University Council's (board of trustees) plan­
ning committee was eager to move forward, but NYU chancellor

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Harry W. Chase wanted promises from Commissioner Salmon that

the university would get more from Bellevue than "some labora­
tory space of a specialized character." Chase expected a guarantee of
NYU's primacy in the complex. Salmon agreed to this and more.
Chase later recalled, "We found that Commissioner Salmon might
be induced to undertake this preliminary planning analysis himself,
as his contract with the City, like that of some of the other Com­
missioners, is such that he can, from time to time, with the Mayor's
permission, undertake private work." Salmon proposed a consul­
tantcy that included an exhaustive study of property near Bellevue.
His preliminary estimates anticipated a $6.5 million campus for clin­
ics, labs, and classrooms, a 250-student residence hall, and a 300-bed
"university hospital," plus a $1 million NYU dental center. Although
Chancellor Chase acknowledged that the $7.5 million might be
"worked toward perhaps over a whole generation," he told the NYU
Council, "if we don't begin our planning now in connection with
all the planning the city is doing in the area, we lose what perhaps
is the greatest chance to develop a medical-dental center that will
ever come our way." After meeting with Salmon on July 18, 1944,
the NYU Council's subcommittee retained him for the "functional
planning we need at the moment." Tapping emergency funds, they
offered Salmon the standard architect's fee, $37,500, which Chase
promised his colleagues was "in no way a commitment to enter a
drive to raise funds."18
As the chancellor soon argued, the university could not allow
the opportunity to slip away. In October of 1944, an NYU College
of Medicine committee reviewed Salmon's preliminary plans and re­
jected a side-street location in favor of "the vast superiority of land
on the East River Drive." The college's "dignity" not only required
the riverfront, but acquiring the property "would prove a powerful
incentive to donors for the endowment and building program." The
following month, the NYU Council reviewed Salmon's alternatives
and decided on three blocks located north of Bellevue and facing the
Drive. The council members agreed, moreover, that "options could
be secured without very much actual expenditure if we went about
it the right way."19
As chief expeditor and go-between, Commissioner Salmon knew
how to proceed. Plans to integrate the NYU complex with Bellevue,
he advised Hospital Commissioner Bernecker, required closing off
side streets between East 30th and East 32nd streets, which, in turn,
affected city plans to keep truck access to the waterfront. The city
would have to decide whether it wanted trucks near a medical super­
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block, and Salmon wanted Bernecker's support on plans to restrict

commercial traffic. Another decision involved shifting the institute
of forensic medicine to the east side of First Avenue within the NYU-
Bellevue complex. Salmon proposed consolidating NYU's scattered
parcels along First Avenue to make a site on the west side "for large-
scale housing projects" financed by banks and insurance companies.
Salmon believed the housing would make NYU synonymous "with
this entire section of Manhattan."20
City Planning Commissioner Salmon could also manage the em­
barrassing negotiations for Hospital Council endorsement, which
began when council secretary Frances K. Thomas clarified that
Salmon "was sitting in on the session representing N.Y.U. and not
the Council." Thomas was sympathetic to the need for a university
hospital for the private patients of the medical school faculty, but
she warned that Salmon would have trouble convincing the Hospi­
tal Council that the new facility "was essential for the community
welfare." She added, "I told [NYU medical dean] Dr. Sheehan that
on the face of it, it seemed unreasonable to have another hospital
on the East Side unless one or more of the existing institutions are
going to disappear." She also doubted whether the NYU faculty had
enough patients to fill a hospital of that size. When Sheehan replied
that NYU planned only a minimum of general-care beds for research
needs, Thomas commented that the council would have to convince
the city that a new voluntary was needed on the East Side.21
The city also had second thoughts about Salmon's enthusiasms.
Mayor La Guardia, although supportive of NYU's plans, refused to
say whether the city would aid with property condemnations. After
all the fuss about Stuyvesant Town, La Guardia hesitated to turn
land over to quasi-public institutions that paid no property taxes. He
wanted guarantees, reported Chancellor Chase, "that if we moved to
the new site we would dispose of our present holdings to private cor­
porations so that they would not also be tax-free." But within days,
after NYU officials pledged no duplication of Bellevue's facilities, La
Guardia accepted the idea of an NYU hospital of 450 beds next to
a Bellevue complex of 3,200 beds. The mayor boasted over WNYC
radio that the city would get "one of the greatest hospital centers in
the world."22
The Hospital Council endorsed the deal after tortuous reason­
ing of its own. The major hurdle remained duplication of Bellevue,
although the master plan committee set this aside, citing needs for
"a general hospital associated with a medical school to provide ser­
vice for all economic levels of the population." The rationale was
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the medical version of Moses's talk about mixed housing. Neverthe­

less, committee chairman Dr. J. J. Golub could not ignore the fact
that putting more beds on the East Side clashed with the Hospital
Council's master plan. Golub advised the council to "separate the
program of New York University from that to be carried out for the
community as a whole." Golub promised "a frank statement of how
the committee reached decisions on points which it would ordinarily
argue against." But Salmon reminded the council that NYU needed
a prompt endorsement so it could move ahead with fund-raising.
What clinched the issue was NYU's contribution to the redeveloped
city. When Golub pointed out that new housing projects, Stuyvesant
Town and Peter Cooper Village, would increase the local popula­
tion by 30,000, Hospital Council secretary Thomas added that the
middle income "character of the group would change from those re­
quiring care in a place like Bellevue to those who could afford private
and semi-private care."23
Hospital Council chairman Salmon notified NYU that the coun­
cil had endorsed the 470-bed university hospital. Salmon explained
that the council expected the complex to assume a mixed character,
with NYU providing the private and semiprivate care that Bellevue,
because of its commitment toward the city's poor, could not. The
NYU College of Medicine needed the diversity of "patients of all
economic levels coming from any locality, . . . to draw and retain
physicians of eminence on its faculty." Excess bed capacity would
diminish, Salmon predicted, when other voluntaries merged with
NYU. He soon passed word to Dean Sheehan that NYU had to
act quickly. He was worried that NYU's plans and publicity would
get lost among pending announcements for Columbia Presbyterian,
Cornell Medical College, Long Island College of Medicine, and
Memorial. "Mr. Salmon feels very strong that we would lose our
position in the 'race' if we waited much longer," reported Sheehan.
The bemused academician added that Salmon had urged the medical
college to "invite some of the leading figures in journalism—Mrs.
Ogden Reed [sic], Roy Larsen, etc., and inform them personally of
the project. Following this, a large press conference with represen­
tatives of all newspapers should be held and that highballs served
at such a meeting would greatly facilitate it! (This is apparently the
technique of Bob Moses!)" 24
Acting on Salmon's urgency, the university assembled the ma­
chinery to realize the "NYU-Bellevue Medical Center." Chancellor
Chase contracted the fund-raising to professionals, who outlined a
$20 million drive, and the search was begun for a campaign head
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with contacts in finance and industry. One enthusiastic supporter,

businessman Robert W. Johnson of Johnson & Johnson, proposed
to solicit contributions from companies with prepaid medical plans
"so that the whole metropolitan business life could come in on a
quota basis." Johnson added that money would flow from "small in­
dustry and insurance, where we can make an arrangement for some
sort of health care of the employees of those firms." He said his
"good friend," Metropolitan Life chief Frederick Ecker, had "simi­
lar ideas."25
During spring of 1946, the NYU Council, advised by Metropoli­
tan Life vice-president James L. Madden, concluded that the time was
ripe to option property on the East River Drive and to solicit phil­
anthropic donors. Approaching the George F. Baker Charity Trust,
Chancellor Chase delivered a spirited pitch for the medical complex
in the modern metropolis. NYU planned an institution that would
lead the city's movement in community health, fulfill the College of
Medicine's promise as educator of immigrants, and create the kind
of community "we said we would build for our people once the war
was over." The city needed a medical facility that could draw in one
place private and semiprivate patients previously scattered across the
city. But the project hinged, Chase emphasized, on timely acquisi­
tion of land, which had progressed as far as possible as a quasi-public
operation in which NYU negotiators asked owners not to sell to
speculators. The whole project turned on a philanthropic bequest.26
While NYU waited for the Baker Trust's informal "yes," the uni­
versity campaign shifted into high gear. On June 19,1946, the NYU
Council Committee on Medicine and Dentistry voted to establish
an NYU-Bellevue Medical Center. Chancellor Chase named James
Madden to the NYU Council, where one colleague welcomed him as
"new blood" and another rued the need to "snuggle up very closely to
life insurance interests." Throughout the summer, the NYU finance
office optioned property, and was nearly finished by October. It
overcame one last obstacle, difficult negotiations for the block be­
tween 33rd and 34th streets, thanks to property data supplied by
Commissioner Salmon. At the end, NYU provost LeRoy E. Kimball
reported that his agents had purchased the land plus "an additional
amount of space which we would like to have as a safety measure."
In the meantime, architects from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill met
with Salmon and a council committee to work on the blueprints.27
Difficulties with the city were not overcome until fall 1946 with
the decisive involvement of Mayor William O'Dwyer, who relied
on advice from commissioners Salmon and Bernecker. Having taken
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options on more than half the site, Chancellor Chase wanted the
city to follow through with street closings to create the superblock
and signal holdouts to accept a fair price. Chase particularly wanted
prompt closing of 30th Street to permit landscaping "for the proper
outlook of both Bellevue and University Hospital." Final decisions
also pended on the elevated portion of the East River Drive and
removal of the Sanitation Department's facilities at 32nd Street. In
return, Chase repeated the university's offer of space for the insti­
tute of forensic medicine. To round out the promise of a "world
center of medicine," the university also extended a welcome to the
Veterans Administration, which was examining a hospital site south
of 25th Street. Currier McEwen forwarded NYU's property surveys,
along with Commissioner Salmon's own data. McEwen conveyed to
VA officials the magnitude of the complex that was taking shape, the
"protected" nature of the Metropolitan Life redevelopments to the
south, and Salmon's visions for middle-income projects along First
Avenue.28
By the spring of 1947, Commissioner Salmon had put the fin­
ishing touches on the Hospital Council's master plan, which urged
"the integration of medical care, research and teaching" in hospitals
attached to university medical schools. Presented to Mayor O'Dwyer
and given front-page coverage in the NewYork Times, the plan was the
capstone of Salmon's civic endeavor, and within a week he sent the
mayor his resignation from the City Planning Commission. NYU
took the master plan as a direct endorsement of its health-care pro­
posals. In turn, Chancellor Chase took the message of the medical
complex as metropolitan anchorage to the city's financial establish­
ment. The NYU-Bellevue partnership in industrial and social medi­
cine would bolster the city's economy, Chase said, and location near
the United Nations would secure "New York's pre-eminence as the
medical capital of the world." On April 28,1947, Salmon was named
director of" the NYU project, with every hope that his talents, as
the NYU Council claimed, "would be most effective in planning the
new development." Within several months that expectation was vin­
dicated. On July 24, 1947, Chancellor Chase, Provost Kimball, and
Salmon met with Mayor O'Dwyer, Robert Moses, and members of
the Board of Estimate. They signed a memorandum of understand­
ing that fixed the medical center in the city's future. City officials
pledged to cede streets on the Bellevue site and to expedite the
legal consents through the municipal bureaucracy. NYU agreed to
start construction of the medical college and hospital as rapidly as
possible.29

216
Medicine for the modern dry, c. 1949. Looking soutli from 34th Street along
the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill model
of the New York University-Bellevue Medical Center showed the promise
of modern medical facilities near arterial highways. Proponents of postwar
medical centers were convinced that they were building not only for the city's
existing population, but also for the upper-income residents that redevelop­
ment and modern highways would bring to their doors. Courtesy of the La
Guardia and Wagner Archives, La Guardia Community College, The City
University of New York.

Because of delays in fund-raising and construction plans, NYU

and Mayor O'Dwyer could not unveil the sleek Skidmore, Owings
& Merrill designs until January of 1949. By then, cost estimates had
doubled, but so had campaign revenues. The center's "primary aim"
had undergone a subtle shift from providing care for the city's di­
verse population to providing "the finest medical care for persons
most in need of that care—the middle income group." The com­
plex, combined with the adjoining VA hospital between 23rd and
25th streets, would change the economic nature of the East Side. It
would wipe out warehouses, carpet and cleaning stores, a printing
plant, a few shops, and about 1,400 jobs. It would also knock down
thirty-nine tenements. Although the immediate impact was slight,
the long-range implications were profound. With no exaggeration,
Mayor O'Dwyer and Robert Moses proclaimed NYU-Bellevue as a
step toward the redevelopment of the East Side. Moses could not
help adding to reporters that "west of this area a great deal remains
to be done." 30
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ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

NYU-Bellevue soon overwhelmed the district's medical capacity,

but East Side redevelopment seemed to justify new priorities. De­
spite Mayor La Guardia's apprehensions about duplicated facilities,
plans for the (now) 600-bed NYU hospital forced shrinkage of
Bellevue. By 1949, the municipal hospital's bed capacity of nearly
3,000 was slashed by almost one-third, and the postwar vogue in
construction of modern facilities convinced the Hospital Council in
January 1952, to suggest a severe cut to 1,000 general-care beds.
An added squeeze came from the nearby VA Hospital. By 1954,
medical administrators agreed that the NYU complex was affect­
ing hospital capacity throughout the East Side by drawing away
patients and would soon force the closing of at least one municipal
facility, Gouverneur Hospital. NYU's long struggle to gain munici­
pal purpose for its upper-middle-class facility now impinged upon
city responsibility for medical care of the poor. Hospitals as engines
of redevelopment also posed a threat to their homes.31

Public Purpose
By the early 1950s, many hospitals crossed a psychological thresh­
old that transformed them from health-care facilities into modern
complexes with social responsibilities to the greater city. Postwar
forces, particularly prepaid insurance and federal subsidies for hos­
pital construction under the Hill-Burton Act of 1946, underwrote
this change of perspective. But the language of redevelopment was a
potent additive. Medical centers would provide value-added care for
the upper-middle-class residents gathered around them. They would
become the focal points of communities filled with the professionals
that cities needed to survive.
While this crucial role was proclaimed wherever hospital admin­
istrators thought their institutions were fundamental to the redevel­
oped city, the conviction was strongest among the institutions of
the Upper East Side. In late 1951, Lenox Hill Hospital asked the
Hospital Council's advice concerning plans to replace its 77th Street
building with a modern structure. The council approved as long as
the change involved no increase in capacity in an area "over-supplied
with general care beds." Accepting the constraint, Lenox Hill pro­
posed to slash ward space, but increase private and particularly semi­
private facilities, which were badly strained. Appraising Lenox Hill's
general plans, the Hospital Council suggested expansion of units
"for tuberculosis, psychiatry, acute communicable diseases, conva­
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 ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

lescence and rehabilitation, and long-term illnesses, as recommended

by the Master Plan."32
Businessman William H. Zinsser, president of the Lenox Hill
board of trustees, saw a particular opportunity in the health crisis
among teenagers. "The founders of Lenox Hill Hospital must have
sensed from the beginning that the future of America depended on
its annual baby crop," he wrote. "Something must be done medically
to prepare these future children . . . in a world already alarmed at
unchecked juvenile delinquency, drug addiction and all-time high
percentages of draft rejections." For some time, he added, the trustees
had mulled over these considerations, "but only within the last year
have courageously studied plans to knit together under one roof all
these related problems of youth." Pointing out that integrated hospi­
tal facilities had led neighborhood renewal elsewhere in Manhattan,
Zinsser added that adolescent clinics and psychiatric care were cen­
tral to the struggle against youth crime. He was convinced that
the hospital that perfected the "medical approach to juvenile delin­
quency," would set an example for the nation. "I do not have to tell
you," Zinsser confided, "that the crowding of the colored and Puerto
Rican element is going down Madison and Fifth avenues closer and
closer to Lenox Hill."33
In December of 1954, Lenox Hill trustees, led by Wall Street
attorneys James H. Wickersham and John J. McCloy, unveiled a $10
million modernization that included a twelve-story wing and an ado­
lescent clinic. Fund-raising would soon get under way for a large
structure at Lexington Avenue and 77th Street to contain a diag­
nostic laboratory, a nurses' residence, and a student-activities center,
and Wickersham talked confidently about a third unit for "middle
income families being attracted to the Lenox Hill neighborhood
by improvements now under way." Within a year, those plans were
expanded again, as trustees raised their sights to an $11 million pro­
gram, including a community clinic for young adults and a nurses'
quarters. Lenox Hill was angling for federal construction subsidies,
but the Hospital Council advised that with too many general-care
beds in Manhattan, there was little prospect for Hill-Burton funds
unless it introduced "some new service, such as psychiatric beds." 34
Instead, Lenox Hill settled on expansion built upon pediatrics
and semiprivate accommodations linked to prepaid insurance. The
trustees looked forward to the block-long complex on East 77th
Street from Park Avenue to Lexington Avenue. The campaign, re­
ported Zinsser, "envisages the final solution of Lenox Hill's 'housing
problem.'" Nurses, interns, and maintenance personnel removed
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ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

to off-site quarters would free spaceforlaboratories, classrooms,

and support facilities. The investment capitalized on the growing
numbers of white, middle-class families drawn to the redeveloped
East Side.35
The social roles assumed by hospitals justified a degree of mu­
nicipal intervention that had been unthinkable before the war. In late
1954, Moses remarked that Mount Sinai's growth had been facili­
tated by state cooperation despite the surrounding area's "border­
line" qualifications for slum clearance. The hospital needed room,
and the trustees wanted to raze eighteen tenements on Madison
Avenue between 101st and 102nd streets for staff apartments and
garages to relieve what Moses called an "extraordinarily tight park­
ing problem." Moses arranged for the Housing Authority to acquire
the parcel near the Carver Houses under the state housing law that
allowed "clearance and rehabilitation of substandard areas adjacent
to public housing." "It will not only assist in preserving and pro­
tecting the Carver project against adverse influences," the Housing
Authority explained, "but will also aid in the orderly improvement
of the surrounding neighborhood."36
Later in the decade, the city completed its aid package for Greater
Mount Sinai. It turned over title to 100th Street, which allowed
the hospital to occupy the entire superblock. The hospital knocked
down tenements along 100th Street to build psychiatric facilities and
a staff dormitory. By this time, as well, ambitions to create a medical
school led to considerations for student housing. The administration
noted that through bequests and judicious purchases the hospital
had gained control over most of the north side of 101st Street and
could obtain a "racially mixed" apartment house on 101st Street
and Fifth Avenue. In addition, it eyed property along 98th Street
and, with further state subsidies, began construction of a 100-unit
nurses' quarters.37
Elsewhere on the Upper East Side, the massed institutions pro­
claimed their community obligation to redevelopment housing.
Spurred by Edwin Salmon, Memorial Hospital had long consid­
ered building housing under the Redevelopment Companies Law.
However, it was the Rockefeller Institute trustees, led by David
Rockefeller, who cajoled Memorial, Sloan-Kettering Institute, and
New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center to form a corporation
to acquire a half block on the west side of York Avenue, between
66th and 67th streets. They had no illusions about proceeding
without public subsidy, and so Rockefeller attorneys approached
State Housing Commissioner Stichman, Housing Authority chair­
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 ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

man Philip Cruise, and, of course, Robert Moses. The officials en­
dorsed the idea, despite uncertainties about city condemnation and
tax relief. When David Rockefeller alerted his brother Laurence that
the state was "anxious to proceed," he set his legal advisor, Thomas
Debevoise, to the task.38
The chief problem was choosing among redevelopment instru­
ments that offered trade-offs and imponderables. Moses had already
ruled out u^ing Title I; the tract had too few slums for slum clear­
ance. The sponsors looked at the condemnation and tax abatements
of the Redevelopment Companies Law, but questioned whether the
required rent limits (roughly $20 per room) were worth the city
tax break, which was subject to the politics of the Board of Esti­
mate. Debevoise met with Cruise and Stichman, who concluded that
the Limited Dividends Companies Law made more sense because
East 66th featured "substandard" tenements. One alternative was the
law's "Mount Sinai" variant, which allowed a state write-down of
property and city tax abatements to the hospital to build housing
that it rented to personnel. Debevoise doubted that the Rockefeller
Institute wanted to get involved with staff housing, but neither
could it build without the write-down or tax abatement. A glance
at rents on York Avenue told Debevoise that the limited-dividends'
write-down was preferable because it meant "less entangling restric­
tions" on tenancy and rents. Stichman and Cruise agreed that the
state could provide the write-down if sponsors provided adequate
public-use language. They advised the consortium to request Board
of Estimate condemnation, claiming that the property was substan­
dard, that the consortium planned a community center, and that the
hospitals' middle-income housing would counteract what they called
Yorkville's "economic stratification."39
Unexpected difficulties emerged as the planning moved forward.
Realtor James Felt, who advised on relocation, counted 450 site
families and estimated relocation costs at $500 per household. Debe­
voise's experts figured that the city could, in theory, cover the cost
of removing 60 percent of the families into public housing, but con­
ceded that this pushed "far more on the City than they will take." A
grave obstacle loomed when Moses warned that the planned rent of
$35 per room made tax abatement unlikely. He bluntly told Laurence
Rockefeller that the project was "borderline," ordinarily "quite im­
possible" for the city to support. Pointing out that he and other
officials "exercised every legal ingenuity" to realize the redevelop­
ment, Moses suggested how the Rockefellers might run the gauntlet
of the Board of Estimate:
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ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

When the smoke clears, and after the initial writedown, the project
must be full taxpaying. The rentals will be up to you. . . . I renew my
original suggestion that you and David personally talk to [Borough
President] Hulan Jack and that you offer every aid in moving people
not eligible for public housing or unwilling to go into public projects.
If you will hire two or three reliable, small Yorkville firms—not the big
fellows—I think they can dig you up twenty or more partly or wholly
boarded up tenements in the area which you can buy, rehabilitate, use
for the displaced people.

Moses would strong-arm the politicians, but the Rockefellers would

have to supply the moral force.40
David and Laurence Rockefeller prepared a memorandum loaded
with the public-interest rhetoric that had served Mount Sinai for
their meeting with Manhattan Borough President Hulan Jack. The
next day, they met with Mayor Wagner, and then walked the site
with the borough president. Both were reported to be "favorable."
Moses learned that the borough president "was generally satisfied
with what David & Laurence R had told him . . . , but that his
office was studying the relocation aspects." A few days later, Moses
heard that Jack expected to recommend the project but did not want
to be pushed. Moses's people backed off, but soon learned that the
borough president was looking for an alternative block of tenements
further south because "the area proposed is too good." Moses asked
Housing Authority chairman Philip Cruise whether he could think
of any other locations.41
The educators, however, were in no mood for substitutes. Rocke­
feller Institute president Detlev Bronk was committed to the 66th
Street site. A research physiologist who had established Rockefeller
as a world-renowned facility, Bronk was infuriated by the political
diversions, particularly Mayor Wagner's irresolution. Bronk had just
read an interview with the mayor in U. S. News & World Report in
which Wagner fended off questions about the city's racial change,
rising unemployment, and alleged "decline." Bronk thought Wagner
had given a lame response. Appalled by the mayor's lack of vision,
Bronk told David Rockefeller, "I want more than ever to throw my­
self into the undertaking to make New York the glowing pattern for
the future of urban living."42
Borough President Jack suggested a compromise to David
Rockefeller that the politician thought might win over the Board of
Estimate. He urged the sponsors to employ a reliable realtor who
would work with Jack's office to survey site tenants' needs and to
plan relocation. The Rockefellers promptly acted on the suggestion.
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But Moses also advised them to invite Jack to the institute "and
pin him down on your nearby slum clearance project. I urge you to
emphasize the tie up with the Institute and Memorial, and find a
name like 'Medical Research Annex,' or 'Research Residency.'" The
Rockefellers had the borough president to a power lunch at the in­
stitute on June 30,1955, but he still hedged. As a Rockefeller staffer
surmised, Jack opposed any improvement that forced out too many
tenants. He was "strictly a politician," who "counts up the votes."43
Aware of the reality, the Rockefeller consortium submitted a
formal request to the construction coordinator for city authority to
clear a 300-foot section of East 67th Street. They claimed that fifteen
New Law tenements, although less than fifty years old, were "obso­
lete . . . by today's standards." They cited their realtor's finding that
half the site families were eligible for public housing and concluded
that relocation posed "no unusual difficulties." With that, Moses's
office whipped together a favorable report from the City Planning
Commission. As arranged, the Housing Authority's recommenda­
tion to the Board of Estimate contained the tried-and-true language
about obsolescent buildings and blight that threatened the district.
The housing redevelopment, coupled with the phalanx of hospitals
on York Avenue, would reverse the area's "downward trend." With
this compelling social message, the Rockefellers had every reason to
believe that the city would approve their contribution to the Upper
East Side.44

Noblesse Oblige
Edwin Salmon recalled that soon after passage of the Housing Act
of 1949, he began examining the residential needs of medical insti­
tutions in the Bellevue area. Using Title I near Bellevue was an idea
shared by Robert Moses, who, in early 1953, wrote to NYU-Bellevue
trustee Winthrop Rockefeller about "rehabilitating the entire area
surrounding the center." Construction of the NYU facilities was
only half complete when Salmon presented the trustees with the next
step to reclaim the district. Salmon argued that not only the medical
center, but also much of lower Manhattan suffered from "objection­
able uses," which deserved scientific excision. Salmon pinpointed the
area between 23rd and 34th streets and west to Second Avenue, but
he also was ready to propose "redevelopments on a broad neigh­
borhood basis" from 14th to 42nd streets and west to Lexington
Avenue.45
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ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

Salmon said he was following sound planning principles, but he

had stepped on dangerous ground. His inflated concept not only
annoyed Moses, who favored redevelopment near the medical cen­
ter, but also impinged on Moses's plansfora 30th Street crosstown
highway. While dining at architect Thomas Skidmore's townhouse,
Moses and NYU chancellor Henry T. Heald had already reached an
understanding about a Bellevue Title I. Moses had offered to write-
down land to make possible $32-per-room rents that were within
reach of the medical center's personnel. Now he warned Heald that
Salmon had created "misunderstandings as to the scope" of the slum
clearance. He punctuated his anger by denying city funds for ad­
vanced Title I planning.46
Giving the go-ahead to the Bellevue Title I in May of 1953,
the medical center trustees also endorsed Salmon's broad agenda for
area improvements. The advanced planning, paid with $25,000 from
Winthrop Rockefeller, was contracted to the IBEC Housing Cor­
poration, Winthrop and Nelson Rockefeller's program of technical
assistance in Latin America. IBEC had little experience in metropoli­
tan affairs, but under Wallace Harrison's direction it could perform
the Bellevue work at cost. Salmon reworked the IBEC material into
a memorandum that Winthrop Rockefeller addressed to the city and,
seemingly, the North Atlantic community. Replanning the area was
crucial, Rockefeller claimed, "as New York City becomes preemi­
nent as an International Medical Center and through the United
Nations Center—the Capital of the World." The city should confer
on NYU-Bellevue extraordinary redevelopment authority because
it had withstood "waves of commercial pressure and of population
shifts," demonstrated what sophisticated planning could achieve,
and already possessed a "quasi-public character." Because East Side
owners expected the medical center to spearhead community re­
development, Rockefeller concluded, NYU-Bellevue had to act with
"noblesse oblige."47
Enraged by this flatulence, Moses called Chancellor Heald on
the carpet. "Certainly the appearance in print at this time of any
such report as Ted [Salmon] outlined would cause us much trouble
and would be of little value to any one." He went on, "If the result
is to put ammunition into the hands of those who don't like our
slum clearance project and related public improvements . . . , I shall
personally favor dropping the Title I project like a hot cake." Heald
agreed that Salmon had gone too far and promised that the IBEC-
Salmon study would remain confidential. The medical center trustees
buried Salmon's report, and within a month he resigned as director
224
 ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

to become its planning consultant. His successor, prominent accoun­

tant Samuel D. Leidesdorf, had his own redevelopment interests to
take up with Moses and knew enough to leave large issues alone.48
Moses, in any case, kept medical center officials from further
Title I planning. The CSC worked with the Industrial Engineering
Company, which proposed to bid on $5-per-square-foot land and
organize a redevelopment syndicate. During the summer of 1953,
the Committee on Slum Clearance arranged the necessary brochures
for City Planning Commission hearings on August 12,1953. Salmon
remained project spokesman, but Moses choreographed his appear­
ance, along with appearances by Heald, Leidesdorf, and East Side
commercial associations. Chancellor Heald reminded the City Plan­
ning Commission that NYU's obligations to the area went back to
before the war, whereas the city's endorsement of NYU plans dated
from the July 1947 memorandum of understanding. The combined
medical institutions had already invested nearly $100 million be­
tween 23rd and 34th streets, Heald said, but decent housing for
10,000 employees lagged far behind.49
The City Planning Commission promptly approved the Belle­
vue Title I, but Moses anticipated opposition at the Board of Esti­
mate. He postponed hearings on Bellevue and Washington Square
Southeast until mid-November of 1953—after the city elections—
and then until December in deference to Mayor-elect Robert F.
Wagner, Jr. Warning NYU officials of real hurdles, Moses devised
the division of labor to avoid overemphasis of the university's role.
Leidesdorf's people would work on the Bellevue endorsement, while
Heald's staff would concentrate on Washington Square Southeast.
Salmon urged the medical center's friends, including Mrs. Nelson A.
Rockefeller, head of the Bellevue School of Nursing board of man­
agers, and Dr. Howard A. Rusk, pioneer in rehabilitative medicine,
to emphasize NYU's venerable association with the community and
what Salmon called the "universal approval" given NYU's plans.
With East Side housing at a premium and waiting lists for Stuyve­
sant Town already filled with medical center personnel, the project
was desperately needed.50
Salmon applauded Moses's "able presentation" at the Board of
Estimate hearings, which finally took place in late January of 1954.
But the opposition, he noted, "was fairly well organized and, except
for 3 or 4 persons, consisted of tenants of the property involved,
not owners, and representatives of civic groups and organizations
who were arguing the entire problem of slum clearance." Salmon
was convinced, however, that the project would prevail because the
225
ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

board had already approved Title Fs for Washington Square South­

east and Pratt Institute that had similar relocation impact. He used
this argument on Mayor Wagner, adding that relocations could be
arranged to avoid "extreme hardship." Moses in the meantime con­
tacted his old friend Bernard M. Baruch, believing that a letter from
the Democratic sage and medical center benefactor would make
all the difference. As Moses said, "Bernie knows how to do these
things." Recalling his family's contributions to "public medicine"
and his own interest in housing reform, Baruch lectured the city
fathers on their "civic obligation." The Board of Estimate approved
the Bellevue Title I several days later.51
Ironically, the public-use rhetoric for NYU-Bellevue soon
crimped Moses's further ambitions for the area. In February of 1955,
Mayor Wagner alerted the medical center that Triborough Bridge
and Tunnel Authority plans for a crosstown expressway on 30th
Street would be carried on "an elevated structure" to the East River
Drive. Salmon called the idea "detrimental" to the center, claiming
that it violated understandings with the city that included prom­
ises from Moses himself. More serious was the Committee on Slum
Clearance plan for public housing on First Avenue between 26th and
29th streets and for a medical-arts high school one block to the north.
The plan varied from what Salmon heard Moses say, and he urged
medical center director Samuel Leidesdorf to get things straight with
the Wagner administration. "Astonished" by Salmon's claim of igno­
rance, Moses remarked that "he and all the others involved knew
about the 30th Street Elevated Expressway." He accused the medical
center of trying to "block" the expressway and threatened to walk
away from any work connected with it. Salmon protested bitterly
to Chancellor Heald that Moses's self-glorification obscured the fact
that the medical center had moved ahead "with no help whatsoever
from Commissioner Moses." He claimed "the University initiated
the Title I project and took the leadership in meeting opposition."
The city had always encouraged NYU-Bellevue, but never fulfilled
its pledges.52
Salmon attempted to run around Moses by approaching Borough
President Hulan Jack on the expressway and the public housing
issues. Moses, as usual, horned in on the discussions. Salmon and
Leidesdorf could not kill the expressway, but they wrested an agree­
ment that kept connections to the East River Drive at grade level
and halted 30th Street improvements for the immediate future. The
meeting ratified Housing Authority claims to the west side of First
Avenue, but left the rent range wide enough to permit middle­
226
 BOOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

income tenants. By March of 1956, Salmon was relieved to learn

that Moses had agreed that the blocks opposite Bellevue should
be redeveloped by the Housing Authority with a middle-income
project.53
Salmon worked tirelessly to realize middle-class housing across
from NYU-Bellevue. Conferring with Hulan Jack and other officials
in May of 1956, Salmon tried his hand at a Moses-style assem­
blage, including middle-income housing between 23rd and 28th
streets, facilities for the NYU School of Dentistry, a medical-arts
high school, and headquarters for the New York Red Cross. By then,
however, Salmon faced Moses's coolness toward further write-downs
near Bellevue. The Housing Authority soon withdrew because of the
site costs and the Board of Education dropped the vocational high
school. With little left, Salmon and the borough president still in­
sisted on redevelopment across from the medical center "to prevent
further deterioration, to protect and complement the institutional
programs and to provide rehabilitation." On this basis, Salmon made
an offer to Paul and Norman Tishman, sponsors of Washington
Square Southeast. With the Housing Authority out of the area, he
hoped they might consider operating under Title I.54
Moses had run out of patience with Salmon and NYU. The
relationship ended when Moses read a letter, dated June 1, 1956,
in the New Tork Times by one of Chancellor Heald's assistants that
asserted that the university was "totally separate" from the Tish­
mans' Washington Square redevelopment. Accusing the academics
of running for cover while he took the heat, he reminded Heald that
NYU was involved with the Bellevue Title I from the beginning.
He reviewed all the negotiations to provide NYU with facilities for
medical center employees. "Under these circumstances," he added,
"I cannot for the life of me understand why you are so eager to
dissociate the University from the general neighborhood improve­
ment." Moses refrained from mentioning Salmon, but he recalled
the advocacy of improvements "of such an extravagant, costly, and
impractical nature that I had to request the Chancellor to bury the
report for fear that it might kill off the realizable objectives." Heald
replied to Moses the only way he could, expressing his "admiration
for you and what you mean to New York."55
But Salmon remained irrepressible. Two weeks later, he warned
the Wagner administration that expansion of the NYU dental school
depended on "land in connection with a redevelopment plan." Sal­
mon wanted the city to condemn 18 acres for an elementary school,
a middle-income project, and Red Cross headquarters. Pressure
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ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE

from Salmon and NYU-Bellevue finally worked. On July 26, 1956,

the Board of Estimate approved a preliminary version of Salmon's
scheme, with the understanding that Moses would recommend
Title I housing. But months later, Moses cited the "fund situation"
to dump the project back on the mayor. In mid-1957, when Moses
announced that adequate federal money would not be available for
several years, the Title I sank into limbo.56
Salmon never gave up on broad endeavors with a social message.
In 1960, he still talked about the needs of 10,000 NYU-Bellevue
employees for $30-per-room rents. But he ignored the starkly dif­
ferent reality that he had been instrumental in bringing about. By
then, Bellevue Title I had become an upper-middle-income project
with little relevance to the medical center's rank and file. Salmon
said "long delays" had ballooned rent schedules. When the Title I,
christened Kip's Bay, was taken over by realtor William Zeckendorf,
the average rent had climbed to $75 per room. Salmon remained the
loyal booster, while conceding that this housing could help only a
small number of institutional personnel.57
Edwin Salmon was forgotten by a historical perspective that em­
phasized Moses's visible hand and what was called the inevitable
character of the growth of research-based services in the postwar
city. But his attitudes and professional demeanor were central to that
postwar transformation. Salmon spearheaded the vast reconstruc­
tion of the medical sector because he skillfully grafted the promise of
social medicine onto the physical renewal of La Guardia's city. His
approach to medical center planning was grandiose, if not bombas­
tic. He saw these facilities not only as spearheads for a research-based
industry, but also as the bedrock for upper-middle-income redevel­
opment to reclaim vast areas of the city. Much of the time, Moses
had to limit Salmon's fancies for more practical goals and remind
the medical builders that Title I had some obligation toward middle-
income rents.
By the time of Mayor La Guardia's death in 1947, hospitals
had become central to many of the city neighborhoods that they
would soon consume. While integrating research laboratories and
classrooms into new complexes and surrounding them with residen­
tial towers that put modern medicine's signature on the skyline, few
hospital administrators considered the possibility that their facilities
might ravage the slums or threaten the livelihoods of slum dwellers.
Such doubts were dismissed by the assumption that a city filled with
creative middle-class people deserved value-added medicine.

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BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

An increasing proportion of New York Metropolitan

Region economic activity has been given over to func­
tions peculiarly associated with its role as the nation's
first city.
Raymond Vernon

Redevelopment had a profound impact on the economic life of

New York. Despite all the moral anguish about Negro removal from
residential districts, the dislocation of blue-collar jobs would prove
more consequential to the city's social fabric. Yet the process went
along as unacknowledged municipal policy for thirty years. Few poli­
ticians debated the subject, and no election turned on voter approval
of one version or another of the city's economic future. Planners,
who worried about creating community balance with mixed com­
mercial, industrial, and residential uses, never seemed to find room
for the industrial leg of the triad. Business lobbyists, who should
have been vigilant, proved remarkably complacent when factories
were shoved aside for other needs. Most policy makers agreed with
economic change that seemed naturally ordained and allowed Robert
Moses and his supporters to eliminate blue-collar blight.
Complacency toward the health of New York's manufacturing
sector ended during the 1970s. The city had been hemorrhaging fac­
tory jobs for years, but the 1975fiscalcrisis, along with postmortems
about the War on Poverty, put the loss in alarming perspective. Social
theorists noted the drain of blue-collar jobs and the need of the city's
black and Hispanic newcomers for unskilled, entry-level opportu­

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BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

nity. Using a favorite catchword, they warned about the growing

"mismatch" in the labor market between job seekers and available
jobs and the explosive pressures felt by minorities who searched for
jobs in vain. Analysts explained that manufacturing's woes were the
result of what they called the "structural" shifts that realigned Ameri­
can cities with global economic trends. New York had evolved into
a postindustrial metropolis whose blue-collar trades had been re­
placed by white-collar services. The disappearance of entry-level slots
would cause dislocations, but vigorous manpower strategies, such as
government-business partnerships to train newcomers, might ease
the transition. Theorists alternated between acceptance of the inevi­
table and responses within established limits.1
Few theorists lingered over the historic dimension of this trans­
formation or the ways in which municipal decisions might have af­
fected what seemed inevitable. Critics pointed to notorious blunders
in the early 1960s, when the Port Authority's World Trade Center
trampled over thousands of jobs or when Robert Moses'sfinalat­
tempt at a cross-Manhattan expressway blighted factories in Chelsea.
Few remembered the decisions in the 1940s and early 1950s that
cast the fate of New York's manufacturing, such as when the city
chose redevelopment housing and civic centers over manufacturing,
and planners and theorists went along with the removal of obnox­
ious factories as part of the urban revival. After World War II, few
disagreed that New York could become a postindustrial metropolis
if enough land could be cleared of factories to make it so.2

An Urban Blight
As City College economist John I. Griffin pointed out more than
thirty years ago, New York had no policy toward manufacturing ex­
cept to regard it as an urban blight. Politicians took their cues from
theoreticians and planners, who regarded factories as unaesthetic.
Their disdain drew largely from the City Beautiful's snooty sense of
hierarchy, which gave first priority to monumental public buildings
on splendid plazas and virtually none to mundane warehouses and
industrial buildings. City planning, moreover, had come of age in
the struggles against the tenement and the sweatshop. Beyond their
designs for a few company towns, planners rarely met an industry
they liked. Their professional responsibility was to distance society's
most vulnerable element from factories and business by insulating
women and children, as architect George B. Ford wrote, from the
230
 BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

"continual din and racket of the streets." They naturally turned to

zoning as the efficient way to make New York safe from obnoxious
uses, starting with "the sordid atmosphere of the ordinary business
street." They recognized, of course, that manufacturing was deserv­
ing and urged planners to set aside special industrial districts where
factories could realize the efficiencies of the electric motor and the
assembly line. Machine age metaphors laid over Victorian moralism
fashioned the vision of a ranked and segregated metropolis.3
During the 1920s, planners spun variations on the theme of re­
moving manufacturing from the central city. Leaders of the Regional
Plan of New York and Its Environs (RPNY), which depended on
the economic analyses of Columbia University professors Robert M.
Haig and Roswell C. McCrea, referred constantly to inevitable trans­
formations, but overlooked few opportunities to advise municipal
policy against factories in Manhattan. In that spirit, Lawson Purdy,
a director of the RPNY and president of the Charity Organiza­
tion Society, consigned much of the city south of 14th Street to
middle-class housing. The mixed-use neighborhood around Mercer
and Greene streets, he told a meeting of social agencies at Greenwich
House, "was entirely suitable for residential development." Pointing
to other housing opportunities on the Lower West Side, he would
keep only Hudson Street, Varick Street, and a few other commercial
arteries for business.4
The Great Depression reinforced the determination to clear relics
of a decrepit era. With impatient gestures, reformers waved away
the commercial prospects of whole districts. Louis Pink wrote off
the industrial future of downtown Brooklyn. "The entire waterfront
from Greenpoint to South Brooklyn, excepting the Heights, is out­
worn," he said, calling the area suitable for housing. Social-welfare
experts at the Hudson Guild made the same observation about the
West Side of Manhattan north of 14th Street, which contained one
of the largest concentrations of low-income jobs in the city: "While
once it was thought that ultimately industry and commerce would
require these entire areas for expansion, now it is conceded that it
will not." Arthur C. Holden, activist on Mayor La Guardia's Com­
mittee on City Planning, scorned the economic obsolescence that
seemed to accompany outmoded property patterns. Holden's cru­
sade for group ownership on the Lower East Side led to contact with
small businessmen and manufacturers, whom he viewed as marginal
operators who deserved foreclosure. No one on the mayor's commit­
tee had any expertise in factory layouts or was associated with small
business interests. As alumni of the New York Building Congress,
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BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

the RPNY, and its successor, the Regional Plan Association, they
accepted the machine age wisdom of regionalized production.5
Influenced by regional visions and late-1930s fears of permanent
depression, the master plans proposed by Rexford Tugwell's City
Planning Commission attempted to withdraw enormous amounts
of inner-city space from the factory zone. "With the exception of
land adjacent to the docks, which end at Montgomery Street," the
commission declared in 1940, "there would seem to be little need
for industry, other than utilities and services, along most of the East
River belowTriborough Bridge [at 125th Street]. On the West Side,
industry can best be served below Seventy-second Street, where
rail and shipping facilities already exist and other requirements can
be met more readily than elsewhere." The commission further sug­
gested that midtown Manhattan, between 23rd and 59th streets
(except on the West Side) be zoned against all but light manufac­
turing, with residential areas protected from "objectionable uses."
It justified these drastic limitations by noting the peculiar structure
of local manufacturing. New York had a bewildering array of "light
industries," which operated in small plants, had little invested in ma­
chinery, and required minimal floor space. The sector was uniquely
malleable to policy requirements. Factories could be "more readily
distributed, grouped or concentrated, than would be the case if they
were larger and represented heavier outlays for land, plants, and ma­
chinery." The City Planning Commission looked forward to helping
factories find new efficiencies in the outer boroughs.6
These confident pronouncements rested more on technical faith
than on statistics. Frederick L. Ackerman, the Housing Authority's
chief planner, was convinced that too much manufacturing occurred
in outmoded structures. By some vague calculus, he insisted that
productivity could be doubled by more efficient operations on half
the floor space. Without explaining how those changes could be
accomplished or reckoning the social consequences, Ackerman wel­
comed the shift of manufacturing to Brooklyn and Queens. City
planning commissioners applied this economic puritanism to East
Harlem. Meeting with local property men, Lawrence M. Orton ex­
plained that the commission's zoning policy was premised on the
judgment that the district was "predominantly residential." Existing
businesses and factories would be "consolidated intofixedcenters,"
with the remaining space allocated to housing. City planners had
an offhand way of drawing the boundaries of industrial districts.
Robert C. Weinberg, one of the commission's survey leaders on the
Lower East Side, remembered that in 1939 the entire area north to
232
 BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

23rd Street "was tentatively designated for clearance and rehousing"

with no basis for the decision beyond the commission's weakness
for neat boundaries. Soon thereafter, as Weinberg recalled, Consoli­
dated Edison complained about its generating station on East 14th
Street, and the commission relented. The facility was once again on
acreage pejoratively marked "unneeded . . . non-residential."7
Policy that depended on aesthetics never would survive Robert
Moses's caustic review. In late 1940, Rexford Tugwell's master plans,
particularly his proposals to relocate low-rent residential commu­
nities in outer-borough greenbelts, were waylaid by Moses's dema­
gogic appeals to business and labor groups. When Tugwell called for
rearranging "obnoxious" industry in Brooklyn and Queens, labor
unions saw the plans as attacks on jobs. Tugwell's cavalier attitude
toward manufacturing invited Moses's sneer that "long-haired plan­
ners" forgot that people worked for a living. Tugwell's valiant at­
tempt to uphold municipal priorities against the profit motive made
him city planning's great martyr. But the commission had sided with
white-collar careers against blue-collar labor at a time when workers
were still reeling from the depression. For all of Tugwell's talk about
judicious public authority, he and his colleagues had already picked
certain winners in the private sector.8
Their policy on industrial placement had begun to unnerve
those who otherwise championed master planning. In February of
1940, Manhattan Borough President Stanley M. Isaacs condemned
as "quite dangerous" the City Planning Commission's suggestion
to relocate the Lower West Side poultry market to Long Island
City. Isaacs called his own Borough Advisor}' Board on Planning,
headed by Bowery Savings Bank president Henry Bruere, to pon­
der the move, and he also alerted Bruere that the commissioner
of markets favored shifting the entire Washington Produce Market
to the Queens site to save "the consumer substantial sums because
of the lowered rent." "Of course the Washington Market needs re­
planning and rebuilding," Isaacs conceded. But the commissioner,
Isaacs charged, ignored "the consequences of vacating large areas in
this borough." "The city does not exist except through its ability to
give reasonable employment to its inhabitants," Bruere replied. "It
cannot consist exclusively of highways, open spaces and subsidized
dwellings."9
Isaacs broke off the debate by forwarding to Mayor La Guardia
one merchant's suggestion of a committee of businessmen to "pre­
vent an exodus of residents and industry." La Guardia responded
with a gesture. By executive order, he transformed the Mayor's Re­
233
BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

ception Committee, really the official greeter, Grover Whalen, into

the Department of Commerce, lodged in the mayor's office. The
New York Chamber of Commerce later found that the agency "never
had a clearly defined purpose" or "charter-related responsibilities."
The agency's lack of purpose was symptomatic of the general failure
of the La Guardia administration, where the creativity poured into
government make-work had no counterpart in industrial develop­
ment.10
New York's manufacturing sector deserved more thanfitfulim­
provisation. On the eve of World War II, nearly 40 percent of the
work force was still engaged in making things; the city was by far
the nation's largest manufacturing district. But as the City Plan­
ning Commission observed, the industrial concentration added up
to "little heavy industry." This peculiar capacity made New York the
second largest military contractor (after Los Angeles) even though
Washington was hard-pressed to find ordnance for the city to do
and minimized its importance as a production center. Carl Norden
(bombsights), Bulova (scientific instruments), and Ford Instruments
were located in New York. At the Brooklyn Navy Yard, 30,000
metal workers repaired damaged vessels and built battleships and
aircraft carriers. When the federal government bothered to count, it
found 170,000 laborers in New York working on war contracts and
thousands more working on subcontracts.11
Advocates of urban redevelopment avoided reckoning what im­
pact their projects would have on commerce and industry, but Stuy­
vesant Town was too large to ignore. During the 1943 debate,
Robert C. Weinberg asked the City Planning Commission what it
had in mind by extending the project to the East River Drive, which
reversed earlier policy that favored access to piers that it called "per­
manently needed for industry." Admonishing the commission to
provide for waterfront needs between 14th and 23rd streets, Wein­
berg warned that industrial uses "are being steadily cut down. . . . It
is this very trend which many city officials and private interests are
deploring." He wanted the ten blocks kept for industrial use.12
A few days later, Stanley Isaacs's successor as Manhattan borough
president, Edgar J. Nathan, Jr., appealed to Mayor La Guardia to
save the commercial frontage. Asserting that "large building invest­
ment controls the use of the neighborhood," Nathan argued that
expensive housing had "compelled the discontinuance of commer­
cial property which was deemed a nuisance." He warned that unless
the city acted to preserve the commercial acreage between 18th and
23rd streets, the entire section would become park space. Replying
234
 BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

to La Guardia, Park Commissioner Moses scoffed at Nathan's fears.

He charged that the borough president wanted room for industry,
not business, and he agreed with Frederick Ecker, who warned that
Nathan's ideas would "wreck" Stuyvesant Town. "This is the first
time I have heard that residence drives out industry," Moses lectured.
"It is a basic principle of all zoning plans and restrictions that it is
just the other way around."13
During World War II, plant location began to vex planners pon­
dering the shape of the postwar metropolis. Ordinarily, the Ameri­
can Institute of Architects Committee on Civic Design did not dwell
on industrial placement, but in 1944 it pronounced about prevail­
ing economic blight. It branded the vast district of lofts and shops
between Chambers and 23rd streets "a vast no-man's land, which
somehow cannot find itself." The committee spotted other anoma­
lies, such as the Washington Market, which it called a prime example
of "economic loss." The wholesale fruit and produce industry was
funneled through what ALA members called "a jumbled mass of anti­
quated structures and narrow crowded streets, at a considerable loss
reflected in high prices."14
For all the professional emphasis on industrial districts in Brook­
lyn and Queens, the City Planning Commission made policy by
zoning variance. On January 23, 1943, it held hearings on whether
to apply residential zoning to industrial and commercial develop­
ments. Sylvania Electric Products spotted a site for a research and
administrative center on 33 acres in Bayside, Queens, and lobbied for
a zoning variance, but the commission refused, arguing that Sylvania
would intrude on a residential neighborhood. Commissioner Moses
prevailed among the desultory planners, as revealed in the minutes
of the ALA Committee on Civic Design: "The change in zoning re­
quired is being urged by Mr. Moses. The [AIA] Committee seemed
to favor the project and the New Sperry Gyroscope plant in Great
Neck was mentioned as a plant employing more than 10,000 which
should have been kept in the City." TugwelFs greenbelts were a sorry
memory, but Moses, the czar of greenbelt parkways, became the
arbiter of industrial placement near them. Under Moses's pressure,
the City Planning Commission adopted the amendment to allow ad­
ministrative offices and industrial laboratories "consistent with . . .
the value and use of property in residence districts." With approval
by the Board of Estimate, Sylvania built a 28.5-acre center near the
Cross Island Parkway. The commission's diffidence toward industry
contrasted sharply with Moses's decisive aid.15
The city's failure to hold Sperry's jobs, however, was linked to
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BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

a set of wartime decisions about a Brooklyn "civic center." The

idea had long been harbored by local boosters, notably Brooklyn
Borough President John E. Cashmore, who yearned to replace the
lofts and tenements that crowded the approaches of the Brooklyn
Bridge with a "dignified" arrangement of public buildings. The plan
appealed as well to local reformers, spearheaded by Comptroller
Joseph McGoldrick, who saw that Stuyvesant Town-size redevel­
opment would make him Brooklyn's successor to La Guardia. The
Brooklyn men on the City Planning Commission, chairman Edwin
Salmon and Brooklyn Eagle editor Cleveland Rodgers, also regarded
the center as overdue civic reform. Moses had the most to say be­
cause of his insistence on routing a "Brooklyn-Queens connecting
highway" around Brooklyn Heights. Moses would save the district
from the choking traffic his arterial poured into it.16
In 1944, Moses, with Cashmore's staunch support, had the City
Planning Commission subcontract the civic center design to his
consultants, landscape architects Gilmore D. Clarke and Michael
Rapuano. Completed in November, the Clarke-Rapuano study pro­
posed clearance of obsolete structures in order to open vistas toward
the bridge, plazas for a borough hall and municipal courts, and sites
for middle-income redevelopment. Adopting the Clarke-Rapuano
work, the City Planning Commission report (drafted by Cleveland
Rodgers) observed that wholesale clearance would provide "ample"
space for business and industry, while leaving large areas for resi­
dential redevelopment. In March of 1945, the commission called
for removing approximately 160 acres of lofts, businesses, and tene­
ments.17
At the City Planning Commission hearing on April 11, 1945,
the civic center was welcomed by the Brooklyn Real Estate Board,
the Kings County Grand Jury Association (which wanted additional
courtrooms and jails), the Brooklyn Heights Association, and the
Citizens Union (whose spokesman applauded the "coordinated plan­
ning"). Isolated protests came from representatives of the American
Safety Razor Corporation, whose eight-story plant on Jay Street and
Myrtle Avenue was within the acreage marked for housing, and the
Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. American Safety Razor reminded
the commission, an AIA observer noted, of "the size of the firm,
the number of people employed." The chamber of commerce was
torn between the civic center and the company, which it called "a
vital factor in the industrial employment of that community." Busi­
nessmen went on to argue that "Brooklyn's strength depends on the
industry concentrated along the waterfront. 30% more people will
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be employed in that locality after the war. . . . Ask the Commission

to give consideration to the industry in the locality."18
Both sides had a point. Although Sperry had actually taken
12,500 jobs from the vicinity, its 300,000-square-foot loft had been
leased by another manufacturer, Howard Clothes. Within the im­
mediate area, nearly 15,000 workers were employed in ordnance
plants. Hudson-American, which assembled radar equipment, had
purchased a six-story building owned by Long Island University.
The district was defined by industry as much as by offices and retail
stores. The commission claimed, nevertheless, that "while the area
has been largely zoned for industry and business, residential use is
still predominant." It concluded that "nothing less than the trans­
formation of the entire Area, creating a wholly new environment,
seems likely to achieve the desired results."19
With great enthusiasm, Mayor La Guardia backed Moses's re­
quest for a $4 million down payment on a $50 million civic cen­
ter. Comptroller Joseph McGoldrick, however, wanted to clear as
far as Fort Greene Park. Conceding "considerable displacement" of
business, the city's fiscal officer thought the upheaval could be lim­
ited by informing owners of "how long they might stay in their
present places, so that they might make plans for new locations." In
November of 1945, during what harassed clerks called the largest
condemnations in memory, the city took title to twenty-three blocks
between Jay, Fulton, Washington, and Sands streets. Bulldozing at
the Sands Street approaches of the bridge gave the Brooklyn Park
Association the opportunity to "re-unveil" Roebling's masterpiece
and to call on Manhattan improvers to remove similar obstructions.
American Safety Razor found the implications unmistakable. Its ex­
ecutives, who were seeking more production space near Jay Street,
feared "the entire Brooklyn plant might be taken over by the city for
park purposes." They considered expansion "hazardous" when the
city might condemn more property for the civic center at any time.20
Observant executives could not ignore the trends in municipal
policy. With the end of the war, conventional wisdom favored elimi­
nating industry on both sides of the East River. Before the United
Nations headquarters came along, William Zeckendorf's proposal
for "X-City" was applauded for clearing the ramshackle shore at East
42nd Street. Planners talked about ridding industrial blight in Long
Island City south of the Queensborough Bridge. During the next
five years, stretches of the Manhattan waterfront between 14th and
48th streets were put off-limits to accommodate the world's medi­
cal and political capitals. The process of removing factories to make
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BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

Job clearance along the East River, 1945-1955

No. industrial/
Project commercial structures No. jobs

United Nations site 155 2,600

Brooklyn Civic Center 259 8,200
NYU-Bellevue Center 25 1,100
VA Hospital, Peter
Cooper, Stuyvesant
Town 78 2,200
Housing Authority
Riis,Wald,
Baruch, Vladeck,
La Guardia, Smith
projects 176 2,200
Corlears Hook Title I 39 1,600
TOTAL 17,900
Sources: Estimated from Real Property Inventory, City ofNew York, Non-Residential Report
(1934); Bromley property atlases; Sanborn-Perris fire insurance maps.

environs safe for housing soon snowballed, despite Moses's decided

opinion that industry drove out residence. With housing redevel­
opments along the East River, economist John Griffin pointed out,
"pressure to remove 'objectionable' piers and waterfront installations
became very great." Stuyvesant Town soon defined the standards
that were compatible with a residential community.21
Redevelopment decisions obliterated the industrial legacy on
both sides of the East River. They not only brought the largest elimi­
nation of blue-collar jobs in the city's history, they preempted future
space for manufacturing and warehousing. Although the acreage can
be counted, the job toll remains inexact without employment cen­
suses by block or local district. The 1934 Real Property Inventory
enumerated economic use of buildings in selected census tracts, but
its boundaries did not coincide with postwar redevelopments. The
1934 figures for "daytime population" (the enumerators' nomencla­
ture for employees, both managerial and line) reflected depression
levels, allowing no certain extrapolation to the post-1945 period.
The data had no breakdown of manufacturing versus service or cleri­
cal jobs in these buildings, and did not count jobs in residential
structures, which included stores that lined the first floors of many
tenements. (When the Housing Authority cleared tenements in East
238
 BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

Harlem after the war, it dislodged 1,800 stores.) Still the inventory
provides a basis to judge the magnitude of job loss.22
Transformation alongside the East River between 1945 and 1955
(clearance for the United Nations, the NYU-Bellevue complex, Stuy­
vesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, public housing sites down to
the Brooklyn Bridge, the first Title I project at Corlears Hook, and
the Brooklyn Civic Center) removed nearly 18,000 jobs; including
small stores, the toll may have reached 30,000. Although hardly cata­
strophic in an economy of 3.5 million jobs, this loss of blue-collar
work came when factory employment was faltering in Manhattan.
Moreover, the toll did not include removals of factories and small
businesses for arterial highways along the Brooklyn waterfront and
in Greenpoint, nor did it assess the impact of future Title I projects.
The first round of postwar reconstruction was a body blow to the
factory economy.

Brooklyn Splendor
After World War II, Construction Coordinator Moses transformed
a large part of Brooklyn's retail and factory zone into the Civic Cen­
ter. The area contained thousands of manufacturing jobs, but Moses
concluded that downtown Brooklyn was destined for government
offices, universities, hospitals, and other institutions that uplifted the
city. It made little difference that no one had determined what civic
functions Brooklyn needed downtown, reckoned how many colleges
or hospitals the borough could sustain, or estimated whether upper-
middle-class residents would fill the housing redevelopments. Moses
saw the Civic Center as a giant jigsaw, and scrounged for pieces
from city agencies, Brooklyn Democrats, housing reformers, Fulton
Street merchants, pliant realtors, and the trustees of colleges and
hospitals. He never coordinated on a grander scale.
Moses succeeded because Brooklyn VIPs agreed with the con­
cept of grandeur despite the consequences. Modeled after Washing­
ton, D.C., the Civic Center would feature public buildings on wide,
tree-lined malls created by the off-ramps of the Brooklyn Bridge.
To keep traffic flowing from the bridge to the municipal buildings
and Fulton Street stores, Moses arranged with Borough President
Cashmore, Robert E. Blum of the Abraham & Straus department
store, and the Brooklyn Democratic machine for construction of
parking facilities. Cashmore dreamed of vistas around the Brooklyn
Bridge and new office towers on Fulton Street. Another downtown
239
 Civic Center Buildings

Other Buildings

1...Forrogut Houses
2...Fort Greene Houses
3...Fort Greene Title I

Downtown Brooklyn: from jungle to civic center. Downtown Brooklyn

south and west of the Navy Yard was utterly transformed by liberal endeavors.
Brooklyn civic leaders demanded clearance of "the Jungle" for the Farragut,
Wallabout, and Fort Greene public projects. Boosters, civic reformers, and

240
 BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

booster, Blum had interests as disparate as New York Airways and

the Brooklyn Institute of the Arts and Sciences (Brooklyn Museum),
and imagined a central business district that pulsed with helicopter
commuters and white-collar residents who strolled to nearby shops
and entertainment.23
Everyone recognized that the Civic Center required redevelop­
ment housing, partly to remove slum dwellers from the civic attrac­
tions and partly to locate white, middle-class residents near Abraham
& Straus and the Brooklyn Institute. But few bankers would wager
on the logic. Moses spent months cajoling Henry Bruere and other
bankers to invest in Concord Village, the center's residential anchor.
In 1948, he almost succeeded in getting the Bowery and East New
York Savings to invest several million dollars, but they wanted federal
mortgage guarantees and convincing evidence that the city was mov­
ing the Civic Center along. In November of 1948, Moses thought
he could get Bruere's commitment on Concord Village with prom­
ises of slum clearance around the Navy Yard. "We may add to the
public housing to clean up the slum areas," Moses said, "and thus
genuinely rehabilitate the entire neighborhood." But Bruere wanted
the option to build on half the site (and to charge $35 per room) in
exchange for the city's pledge to start improvements near Concord.
That was enough for Moses to convene a Civic Center coordinating
committee of agency heads, chaired by Gilmore D. Clarke, the City
Planning Commission's consultant. Clarke's group sent the orders
that sped clearance of the bridge approaches, widened Fulton Street,
and razed buildings for a park and a courthouse. With those as­
surances, Bruere's bank consortium went ahead with the Concord
investment.24
The banks, however, poked along, and blamed their reluctant
pace on the city's lack of vision. A year later, when the Committee
on Slum Clearance announced the Williamsburg site alongside the
Brooklyn-Queens connecting highway as Brooklyn's Title I project,
Borough President Cashmore cried that the city treated his borough

Robert Moses combined to transform 160 acres of lofts and tenements into a
Civic Center for borough buildings, open space, and highway ramps. Whereas
Concord Village represented the hopes for private middle-income housing,
the American Safety Razor plant was the kind of obnoxious use civic opinion
wanted removed. It was purchased by Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and is
today part of the enlarged campus for Polytechnic University.

241
BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

like a "stepchild." Fulton Street merchants and politicians expected

their fellow Brooklynite, Corporation Counsel John P. McGrath,
to restore the balance. Within days, Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri
told the Downtown Brooklyn Association that more Title Ps were
coming. Moses relied on Brooklyn Eagle publisher Frank Schroth to
approach Pratt Institute about a $1 million project for new facili­
ties. Moses had Brooklyn booster Cleveland Rodgers see the leader
of the Queensview consortium, Louis Pink, about doing "a coop at
around $22 per room." An informal Brooklyn Civic Center Com­
mittee was organized under Robert Blum and Cleveland Rodgers,
who was already on the Concord Village payroll. Vowing to end
the "exasperatingly slow pace of the public works," Rodgers became
the Civic Center lobbyist and Moses's mouthpiece; his job was to
assure nervous investors on further city improvements. But there
remained a major uncertainty about the keystone near Fort Greene
Park. Louis Pink in particular worried about "what the Long Island
University is going to do. To sell apartments it will be necessary
to assure people that the entire area is going to be cleaned up."
Soon Moses dispatched two university trustees, Cleveland Rodgers
and John McGrath, to find out William Zeckendorf's plans for
LIU.25
Long Island University was unlikely common ground for
McGrath, the Brooklyn Democrats' legalfixer,and Zeckendorf, the
gregarious, ham-fisted realtor. When Zeckendorf joined the LIU
board of trustees during World War II, he remembered a "diminutive
and uncredited night school" that lived hand to mouth on tuition
and died in the wartime shortage of students. In 1943, the Brooklyn
bankruptcy judge put Zeckendorf, McGrath, and other local Demo­
crats in charge of its resurrection. The trustees sold off LIU property
near Fulton Street, consolidated assets, and fashioned the school into
an instrument of Brooklyn's revival.26
The university worked hand in glove with Civic Center boosters.
At McGrath's encouragement, the academic administrators turned
LIU into Fulton Street's intellectual resource, validating nearly every
skill required to run a business with an LIU degree. The univer­
sity rented space in the Brooklyn Paramount Building that had
been vacated by the City Board of Transportation when that agency
moved to new quarters in the Civic Center. (Less than two years later,
the board's successor, the New York City Transit Authority, chose
McGrath's law firm as counsel, despite complaints about the con­
flict of interest with McGrath's political connections.) The primal
force behind LIU ambitions remained Zeckendorf, who was rarely
242
 BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

seen on campus except with conservative businessmen and World

War II generals who were receiving honorary degrees. In 1952, his
$500,000 gift to the university obtained 7.5 acres of downtown
property that completed LIU's transformation. "It was his idea,"
chirped the Brooklyn Eagle, "to get it into the Title I development
under which it is to secure a campus." Zeckendorf candidly recalled:
"As soon as the new [Title I] law was passed, he [Moses] and I
put it to work rehabilitating one of the worst parts of Brooklyn."
It offered improvements of far-reaching scope, "plus," Zeckendorf
added, "great investment leverage."27
In the fall of 1952, the Committee on Slum Clearance made Long
Island University and neighboring Brooklyn Hospital anchors for
the redevelopment of Fort Greene. Moses pushed the Fort Greene
Title I through the Board of Estimate in December, claiming the mo­
ment was ripe and citing Zeckendorf's $500,000 investment in the
district's future. Brooklyn Hospital expansion across Ashland Place,
said Moses, would prove "an enormous benefit to the entire neigh­
borhood." Rounding out the reclamation were two middle-income
projects, the Kingsview cooperative to be developed by Louis Pink
and his associates, and University Towers, a rental handled by Brook­
lyn builder Fred C. Trump. The CSC boasted of the broad, respon­
sive planning that would "recapture a region."28
The redevelopment remained a gimmicky contrivance kept to­
gether by Moses's goading. Only three years before, Brooklyn Hos­
pital had no building program beyond a fifty-bed maternity wing.
In response to Moses's grand design, the trustees conjured up a
$3 million fund-raising campaign linked to the acquisition of Title I
property. But they had no taste for relocations, which hospital trustee
Robert Blum tried to unload on LIU. When Moses learned of the
hospital's evasion, he told Blum that the hospital had to carry out re­
location duties or else he would proceed without the hospital or the
university. He warned hospital trustee Louis Pink that Fort Greene
property owners would challenge the Title I condemnation, and he
advised him to hire "experienced, distinguished local counsel" John
McGrath. But Pink was more distressed by lagging sales of Kings-
view's cooperative apartments. He hoped to persuade Kingsview
board members Nathan Straus and Gerard Swope to use their con­
tacts with local radio stations to broadcast the project's sales pitch.
"In addition," Pink suggested, "we must immediately work on the
industries in the neighborhood, which Mr. Kazan [of the United
Housing Foundation] believes is so essential. Local manufacturers
and businessmen should be contacted personally."29
243
BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

As Moses warned, the manufacturers regarded the Fort Greene

Title I as their death sentence. They went to the Board of Esti­
mate claiming that LIU expansion would wipe out 20 acres zoned
for factories. More serious was the charge, leveled by the Brooklyn
Real Estate Board, that the Title I was illegal because the improve­
ments would not be "predominantly residential." University trustee
McGrath countered about the "need for expanded collegiate facilities
in a few years" when the baby-boom generation reached maturity.
The Board of Estimate approved the Fort Greene Title I during the
same session it approved Title I condemnations for Columbus Circle
and Morningside Heights.30
Fort Greene businessmen took the Committee on Slum Clear­
ance to court in early 1954, but local judges deferred to the wisdom
of city officials. The plaintiffs gained unexpected allies, however,
when Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives tried to
amend the Housing Act of 1949 with the "Phillips Proviso," which
would have limited Title I write-downs to areas that were certifiably
residential. Although aimed at Columbus Circle's brazen commer­
cialism, it also would have blocked Fort Greene and Pratt Institute.
Moses trooped to Washington with Brooklyn officials, including
the borough's entire congressional delegation. Frank Schroth (pub­
lisher of the Brooklyn Eagle) and Robert Blum (who represented the
Downtown Brooklyn Association and Brooklyn Chamber of Com­
merce) were vehement against the Phillips Proviso. Blum argued that
it was mischievous, because no city could "duplicate [in its redevel­
opment] the original use of every single piece of property." Mayor
Robert F. Wagner, Jr., warned that Phillips endangered $700 mil­
lion of New York housing projects. Then Moses invoked the ultimate
authority for House Republicans. He said that his old friend, the
late Senator Robert A. Taft, told him that Title I was meant for
residential and nonresidential construction alike.31
With the challenges to Fort Greene write-downs swept aside,
sale of condemned Title I property went ahead during the summer
of 1954. When fully unveiled in August, the 20-acre Fort Greene
project encompassed the Brooklyn Hospital expansion, the construc­
tion of LIU's first real campus, the University Towers handled by
Fred Trump and financed by the Dime Savings Bank, and the 274­
unit Kingsview cooperative. While redevelopers and officials beamed
in the background, Mayor Wagner proclaimed "the first time in the
city's history that four private organizations . . . have joined forces
to clear a slum area."32
Although not a participant, Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute had
244
 BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

a vital interest in the fate of the Civic Center. When it purchased the
American Safety Razor factory in July 1954, the transaction under­
cut objections to the demise of the industrial zone. For several years,
American Safety Razor had known it would have to move. All along,
the company president added, officials made clear that "a factory is
not the type of occupancy that the City authorities would want in
a redevelopment area." The acquisition by the engineering school
eased a painful adjustment. It enabled Brooklyn Polytechnic to con­
solidate scattered facilities, plan a one-third increase in enrollment,
and solve an "acute" housing shortage. Claiming that the school
would meet obligations to "the brilliant talent which pours out of the
subways," President Harry S. Rogers embarked upon a $3.5 million
fund-raising campaign. With the Civic Center, another Brooklyn
college embarked on a new era.33
The redevelopment trade-off, however, uprooted an industrial
company that Brooklyn could ill afford to lose. Almost a borough
institution, American Safety Razor was well managed and technically
advanced, and it coveted nearby space to expand production. Despite
stormy relations with Local 475 of the left-wing United Electrical
Workers, the company boasted that it had a progressive labor policy
and that 20 percent of its 1,200 workers were black. But the city
had decided against the manufacture of razors, film cartridges, and
related items near the Civic Center. "At no time, during this entire
period, when the press was giving considerable publicity to the whole
affair," complained the company president, "did any official of New
York City or New York State inject himself." The issue of economic
change soon blurred, in any case, when Local 475 struck against
the company's closure, began a sit-down over severance pay, and
took out newspaper advertisements to emphasize the consequences
"when the factory moves away." The campaign brought sympathy
from politicians (including those who had attacked the Phillips Pro­
viso) about the "dangerous trend" of companies absconding with
jobs. Flatbush Congressman Emanuel Celler took his own census of
Brooklyn plants that had moved out, and warned against decimating
factory employment.34
Most officials, however, were consoled by the wisdom churned
out by Civic Center publicist Cleveland Rodgers and by Edwin
Salmon, both consultants to Moses and Borough President Cash-
more. The Brooklyn Eagle borrowed their rhetoric to claim that the
Civic Center was more than "the glorified 'City Beautiful' type"; it
also was a practical plan to "combat decentralization caused by de­
terioration of out-moded structures,. . . obsolete street systems and
245
BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

other adverse factors." Still, the Eagle was bothered by the company's
removal. Months before its own demise, the newspaper clung to the
final judgment of American Safety Razor's chairman: "We sold to the
only type of outfit that was wanted in the Civic Center—Brooklyn
Polytechnic Institute." VIP opinion harped on the assumption that
social progress allowed no alternative. New York Post labor columnist
Victor Reisel commented that the sit-down by Local 475 could not
change the fact that the company had to get out of the way of civic
progress. The New York Herald Tribune concluded that the company
was preventing the renaissance of downtown Brooklyn. Moses, as
usual, had the last word. The Civic Center, he said, was Brooklyn's
own Place de la Concorde.35
Moses could philosophize, but Borough President Cashmore
struggled for reasons why his borough had eliminated 1,200 jobs. At
first he denied that his notion of the Civic Center had meant to ex­
clude industry, although evidence said otherwise. Ever since World
War II, Cashmore had urged creation of a government center to gal­
vanize downtown investment. He played an important role in the
struggle for Concord Village and he understood how the redevelop­
mentfitother elements in the plan. When investor faith in Concord
flagged, he pledged to the consortium of savings banks his determi­
nation to stand by $40 million in civic improvements. On the Board
of Estimate he boasted his loyalty to Long Island University and
Brooklyn Polytechnic. He denied that American Safety Razor had
suffered from city policy, which was guided by "good planning pro­
cedures." Ultimately, he wrapped himself in the construction boom
that would follow.36
But pressure from the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce forced
Cashmore to save some industry. He took up the issue of factory
expansion in his 1955 annual report, intervened on the Board of
Estimate to permit Charles Pfizer & Company to expand chemical
operations in Bushwick, and took credit for opening plants in Wil­
liamsburg. In September of 1955, Cashmore was joined by a fellow
Brooklynite, City Council President Abe Stark, who declared that
the city "has not done all within its power to attract new industry
and to keep those which we already have." Stark wanted Title I funds
to reclaim manufacturing areas and submitted a scheme to the Board
of Estimate to designate sites for factory renewal.37
Reacting to Abe Stark's challenge, Moses found four industrial
sites and began talking write-downs. No political slouch, Stark an­
nounced to an American Federation of Labor dinner that his office,
with Moses's help, was packaging the sites to lure electronics and
246
 BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

plastics companies. Moses offered a 22-acre plot in South Brooklyn

to Stark with a $2.7 million write-down for light industry. Moses
had just finished clearing factories in Fort Greene and had gutted
Greenpoint's factories for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. But 22
acres beckoned, and Stark had to be placated. Although Moses had
no policy to encourage manufacturing, he hastened to assure Stark,
"we would like to see a light industry project go through." 38
Moses countered Stark's intervention with a plan at Cooper
Square in Manhattan to locate factories as part of a package for
another United Housing Foundation cooperative and faculty hous­
ing for the engineering and art college, Cooper Union. Moses's staff
concluded that a park on East Third Street would shield the coopera­
tive from the manufacturing facility to the south. During 1956, a
consortium of lighting and metal fabricators expressed interest in
the idea. In November, Stark announced the city's first industrial
clearance project: 1 million square feet for electrical manufacturing
to provide 10,000 jobs, faculty apartments for Cooper Union, and
another UHF cooperative. Stark hailed this "first step in a long-
range program to stimulate the city's economy." But union pension
fund trustees had second thoughts about investing in cooperatives
intermixed with blue-collar work. For the time being, worries about
factory jobs in Brooklyn had been dispersed by clever press releases.39

Early Warnings
In the mid-1950s, complacency about manufacturing turned to un­
easiness when the Committee on Slum Clearance moved against
industrial districts. Redevelopment stalwarts could rationalize the
transformation of downtown Brooklyn, but a Title I project for
Greenwich Village prompted debate, which CSC incursions against
business at Lincoln Square kept simmering. The prospect of lost
factory jobs began to trouble editorial writers, and their worries
reverberated through City Hall and the universities where experts
pondered the urban future. Moses reacted with all his persuasive
authority to stem the anger in Brooklyn, and urban economists and
sociologists articulated the vision of a metropolis that progressed
beyond blue-collar work. Damage control—and damage denial—
would dispel the doubts for another twenty years.
At the beginning of the 1950s, New York's manufacturing sector
was robust. Factory employment in the city actually rose 2 percent
between 1947 and 1954, and the 6 percent decline in factory jobs
247
BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

in Manhattan was nearly balanced by a surge of jobs in Queens and

in the Bronx. Despite this shift, other statistics testified to manufac­
turing's continued importance to the city and to Manhattan as the
central workshop. In September of 1950, the borough contained
61 percent of all the city's factory employment, with over half of
these jobs jammed between 14th and 60th streets. In 1953, the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 30 percent of the city's work
force in manufacturing, a figure that overshadowed wholesale and
retail trade (21 percent), services (15 percent), government (11 per­
cent), and finance and real estate (10 percent). A year later, the State
Department of Commerce counted 948,000 manufacturing jobs in
New York, a figure that was larger than in the next two cities com­
bined. The sheer mass and bewildering mix of factory jobs still lent
the sector an aura of invulnerability.40
During the winter of 1953, however, the Title I aimed at Green­
wich Village touched off debate about the blue-collar future. All
the rhetoric of a Moses press release could not disguise the fact
that Washington Square Southeast would level a manufacturing dis­
trict, not a slum. Threatened loft and factory owners told the City
Planning Commission that the 1,100 firms they spoke for employed
15,000 people. Their economic livelihood depended on cheap rents
and proximity to the garment district. They would never survive
relocation, and the city had to realize this when it threw favors at
New York University. NYU officials discreetly took their case to
the Chamber of Commerce for an endorsement. The chamber never
questioned the CSC's argument about the need to clear industrial
blight. Although troubled by "the predominance of business" in the
area, the chamber endorsed the Title I, but asked the city for "every
possible assistance" to firms trying to relocate in New York.41
The New York Commerce and Industry Association provided
the same assessment without even that solicitude. Staff investigators
conceded that Washington Square Southeast would raze factories,
create unemployment, and "move industry out of Manhattan." They
counted 173 buildings occupied by commercial or industrial firms,
although they found only a fraction in decent condition. Their re­
port also recognized that small businessmen needed the district's
cheap rents. But they found these arguments less compelling than
the restoration of "a healthier balance between the various family in­
come groups" in Manhattan and the reversal of population decline.
Weighing 15,000 low-income jobs against 1,500 middle-income
apartments depended less on esoteric calculus than the blunt refusal
to accept factories south of Washington Square. The Commerce and
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 BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

Industry Association found clearance of factories "logical in view of

the residential character of adjacent areas and the extensive amount
of residential development now in progress or proposed for the near
fUture."42
Manufacturers staged a last-ditch defense by involving the Small
Business Administration. In early 1954, the SBA probed Washing­
ton Square Southeast as an ill-advised, possibly illegal application of
Title I write-downs. The federal men backed off, however, when the
city promised relocation aid to affected firms. During the debate on
the Phillips Proviso, manufacturers also complained to sympathetic
congressmen on the House Select Committee on Small Business. But
the committee endorsed the notion that Title I was meant to clear
all kinds of blight, not just residential slums. It would not second-
guess local Title I administrators. The only consolation lawmakers
offered was to urge Congress to revise Title I to repay small firms
for the hardships of redevelopment. Eventually, the SBA offered
compensation to 1,000 businesses south of Washington Square.43
The outcry against the Brooklyn Civic Center and Washington
Square Southeast reached the editorial pages, which forced city offi­
cials to make gestures toward an industrial policy. In January of
1954, Manhattan Borough President Hulan Jack convened a business
group to advise on borough projects. In the aftermath of the Elec­
trical Workers' protests and the recession of 1954, Mayor Robert F.
Wagner, Jr., announced that he was exploring ways to "prevail" on
companies to stay in the city. He appointed a Business Advisory
Council, chaired by David Rockefeller and realtor Robert Dowling,
which looked into conditions and found a villain in the gross-receipts
tax. The Rockefeller panel also suggested reviving La Guardia's De­
partment of Commerce, an idea Mayor Wagner promptly accepted.
The new commerce commissioner, Richard C. Patterson, Jr., had no
office or budget, although he thought one of his first tasks was to
find sites for factories displaced by public improvements. The New
York Times hoped for something substantial from an agency "re­
garded as a sort of joke." In October of 1954, the City Council
introduced a change in the city charter to grant Patterson authority
to investigate encumbrances on enterprise. The New York Cham­
ber of Commerce was enthusiastic about "promoting . . . locations
for new industries, in helping business find suitable locations, and
in helping expand present businesses or industries." Mayor Wagner
voiced great expectations, but the department remained as inactive
as its predecessor.44
The mayor's associates could read the indicators and knew that
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all was not well with the local economy. The City Planning Commis­
sion, in particular, was bothered by its November 1954 population
report, which showed a dip in blue-collar workers. But commission
chairman John J. Bennett claimed that his experts did not "view the
findings of this study with alarm." His staff saw the flutter in demo­
graphic terms, as a decline in the supply of production workers as
opposed to production jobs, which it rejected as a possibility. Staffers
predicted static numbers in the sixteen-to-sixty-four age bracket over
the next twenty years and told the newspapers that manufacturing
faced a crimp in skilled labor. As Bennett explained, "On the surface,
the decrease in the proportion of wage earners to total of population
looks discouraging, but we must realize that the very shortage of
production workers in the city and nation will bring about increased
opportunities for those now in the lowest economic brackets."45
Those who surveyed manufacturers came away with far different
conclusions. City College economist John I. Griffin ran across a dis­
gusted executive who asked, "Why should we spend more money
on developing or rebuilding our oldest building and then have some
plan come along to wipe us out overnight." He had badgered City
Hall to find out whether there was "any permanent plan confirming
the fact that industrial areas of today would remain." In the Bronx,
Griffin found manufacturers who resented "the encroaching of pub­
lic housing projects" and believed "that public authorities regard
industrial plants as 'eyesores.'" The need to protect industrial space
from housing use was considered by the Brooklyn Chamber of Com­
merce in 1955. While Borough President Cashmore boasted about
new factories moving in, the Chamber of Commerce asked the city
to establish industrial zones to give factories the same "breathing
space" as housing. In general, manufacturers were ignored by plan­
ners preoccupied with slum clearance.46
Complaints never reached the highest levels of business opin­
ion because they were dominated by staunch advocates of factory
removal. The Rockefellers, of course, had enormous influence over
the Commerce and Industry Association. Robert Blum and John
McGrath, respected leaders of the Downtown Brooklyn Association
and the Chamber of Commerce, were also prominent among the
Brooklyn men on the Commerce and Industry Association. Mu­
nicipal responsibility for the shortage of factory space would never
become an issue on the mayor's Business Advisory Council, whose
cochairmen, David Rockefeller and Robert Dowling, were abiding
supporters of inner-city clearance. The consensus for redevelopment

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was illustrated when the state commerce commissioner addressed the

New York Chamber of Commerce. Ignoring the cheerlessfiguresin
the manufacturing census, he dwelled on the surge in skyscraper con­
struction and business traffic that clogged midtown. He proclaimed
the future of manufacturing to be as bright as the construction vol­
ume that was "transforming old and deteriorating sections into new
usefulness." A year later the Chamber of Commerce confronted a
4.8 percent decline in city manufacturing employment since 1947,
particularly a drop in employment and output in the vital garment
trades. Without further discussion, the chamber tabled the report.47
Aside from gripes by the Electrical Workers, no cries came from
organized labor, whose ranks were shifted by the clearance of fac­
tories for the garment trades, metal working, and electrical fixtures.
Moses had already begun a high-pressure campaign among union
leaders to invest pension funds in middle-income cooperatives. As
usual, he named specific sites, such as the Washington Market on the
West Side and acreage near the Lillian Wald public housing project
on the Lower East Side. In late 1955, Moses's solicitations went
to a who's who of the American Federation of Labor, including
Joseph Delaney of the Operating Engineers, Howard McSpedon of
the Building and Construction Trades Council, and, of course, AFL
president George Meany. Moses enjoyed a close relationship with
Harry Van Arsdale, head of the Electrical Workers, who sponsored
the Electchester cooperative in eastern Queens. "Joe" Delaney of the
Operating Engineers, who said he was "in complete accord" with
Moses's aims, confided that his colleagues wanted good housing at
affordable prices, but also 6 percent return on their investment. "It
is not our particular field," Delaney added, "and therefore we would
be guided completely by your recommendations."48
Moses kicked off the campaign at the January 1956 annual din­
ner of the Building Trades Employers Association, which included
trustees of industry pension funds. Moses presented five possible
sites, enough for 9,000 apartments with an equity requirement of
$400 to $600 per room. He laid out all the financial details and fol­
lowed with a limousine tour of the sites. It was up to McSpedon and
the Building and Construction Trades Council to get quick approval
from the pension trustees, along with union pressure on federal offi­
cials to release Title I money. One by one, however, the prospects
faded. The site on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn was appropriated
by Borough President Cashmore for the (ill-fated) Dodger stadium.
Union chiefs vacillated about the others, finally admitting to Moses

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that they would venture on only one, a $20 million cooperative on

Northern Boulevard in Queens, which Moses offered for a $400,000
option. The Building Trades Council soon backed out again. But
although the construction unions quibbled about housing sites, they
never disputed Moses's redevelopment priorities.49
The findings of a City College research group set off another
outcry against job losses during the summer of 1955. Supported by
a Rockefeller Foundation curriculum grant, the professors pursued
varied topics in the city's history and economy, including the study
of industrial plant location conducted by John I. Griffin. The results
would have remained on campus, except for the break in confidence
about the city's economy. Griffin's interest in what he called the
"employment-creating" character of industrial plants appeared as a
small item on the back pages of the New York Times, but it touched
a nerve. Reflecting on the story, a Times editorial conceded that 500
manufacturing firms with 50,000 jobs had left the city since World
War II. But 47,000 other firms remained, and factory space was re­
portedly scarce. Although the editors offered reasons for the exodus,
such as traffic congestion and rising costs, particularly taxes, they
chided city officials for failing tofindout "whether we are gaining or
losing ground."50
The Times soon proclaimed its own answers in a ten-part series,
"Our Changing City," that became the most significant appraisal
of New York under redevelopment. It began in July of 1955 with
Meyer Berger's affectionate look at Gotham transformed. "In the
last quarter-century," Berger wrote, "municipal surgeons have per­
formed a series of operations to relieve the city's hardened traffic
arteries." Steel and alabaster had replaced grimy tenement brick, and
the new East Side projects were "clean and bright by day, jeweled
palaces by night." The city had wiped out East Harlem's rookeries,
but other "scabrous" slums awaited demolition. Berger concluded
that New York was too restless and vibrant to "spare her relics," so
the improvements would continue. The segment on Brooklyn, writ­
ten by correspondent Charles Grutzner, noted the recent business
exodus, including Sperry Gyroscope and Mason Mints (to Long
Island), American Safety Razor (to Virginia), and E. W. Bliss, a
manufacturer of machine tools (to the Midwest). Grutzner added
that the Chamber of Commerce "found the main reason that indus­
tries leave Brooklyn is that they need room to expand." But Grutzner
ended with an upbeat appraisal: "Brooklyn's boosters believe that
the Civic Center and other public works will open an era of private

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development . . . that will make this slice of the Borough an even

faster-changing wonderland."51
The city had already discounted the damage when, in 1956, the
Lincoln Square Title I project threatened 600 stores, 200 additional
plants and establishments, and "thousands" of employees. An emer­
gency group, the Lincoln Square Businessmen's Committee, pro­
tested the loss, but to no avail. The city would get a culture center,
but Manhattan's fledgling electronics sector, its cottage manufacture
of tubes, switches, and chassis, suffered a blow from which it never
recovered.52
Economist John Griffin, in the meantime, published his research
on the removals of large industrial firms. As the New York Times
reported on page one, Griffin's Industrial Location found that 100
large manufacturing firms had moved from the city between 1946
and 1954, and 330 of all sizes since 1947. He blamed encroaching
housing as the chief cause and urged the city to use Title I to create
industrial districts that were off-limits to residential projects. Griffin
emphasized that city officials had to recognize that fostering employ­
ment was as important as building decent housing. An observer from
the Rockefeller Foundation was startled by Griffin's assertion about
the lack of data on industrial removals. "Furthermore," the observer
added, "there appears to be no institutionalized interest in the area
in persuading manufacturing plants to stay." Nevertheless, Griffin's
argument was ridiculed by New York State Commerce Department
officials, who claimed that a factory "building boom" refuted talk
about economic decline.53
Moses responded with his usual quickfix.In 1956, at the height
of the Lincoln Square controversy, Commerce and Public Events
Commissioner Patterson formed a subcommittee on "business and
industrial relocation." According to Patterson, it had looked into the
impact of the widening of Manhattan's Water Street on "a great many
firms," particularly coffee brokers, the improvements on Lower Fifth
Avenue that threatened Booksellers' Row, and "many manufacturers
and business firms along Bruckner Boulevard, in the Bronx, where
through our good offices a large electronics firm has decided against
moving out of the city." Patterson suggested that Lincoln Square
business relocations constituted the same challenge, and he offered
services to the Committee on Slum Clearance. Moses scrawled to
George Spargo: "Good idea. Let's add him." When indifference
alternated with contempt toward blue-collar work, cynical maneu­
vers could pass for city policy.54

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Regional Science

Officials who denied that anything was amiss in the destruction

of factory zones could summon professors of urban science who
said there was more to clear. Their intellectual disdain for inner-city
manufacturing was shaped by trends as diverse as sociology's dim
view of bourgeois behavior and the New Deal's distrust of business.
But nothing equaled the impact of monographs in economic geogra­
phy, which concluded that costs of location, raw materials, and labor
were transforming the nature of metropolitan society. Their analysis
rested on notions of national-income accounting and balance of pay­
ments applied to regional performance. According to the emerging
view, regional productivity and the coordinating functions of central
business districts were what mattered, not the functions in between.
As the Regional Plan Association's The Economic Status of the New
York Metropolitan Region in 1944 concluded, the outward migration
of factories might undermine city finances, but would benefit "the
development of the metropolitan regions in their entirety." Sound
public policy had to remove the obstructions to intraregional flows
and shape incentives that maximized overall output.55
Urban economics generally ignored the subjects of manufactur­
ing and job creation within cities. The most elegant work of the
period, Location of Economic Activity (1948), by Harvard University
economist Edgar M. Hoover, emphasized that mature and stan­
dardized production freed manufacturing from dependence on spe­
cialized labor pools or particular locations. One of Hoover's ablest
students, economist Benjamin Chinitz, argued that cities were con­
stantly engaged in the creative destruction of small business. Firms
that failed in market competition were replaced by newcomers stimu­
lated by the entrepreneurial spirit of the central business district. In
this rough way, cities "incubated" fresh business ideas.56
Few theoreticians pondered redevelopment's likely economic im­
pact on the process. One early anticipation, Henry S. Churchill's
The City Is the People (1945), spent a few sentences on the failure
of planners of mega-projects such as Stuyvesant Town to accommo­
date nearby industry (what Churchill called the "integration of work
and living"). A few years later, Churchill lamented redevelopment's
effect on "people who live with their work" at a symposium on pend­
ing Title I legislation sponsored by the University of Chicago and
the Public Administration Clearing House (PACH). While the as­
sembled planners and housing experts focused on the aesthetic and
moral implications of central city renewal, PACH's urban specialist,
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 BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

Coleman Woodbury, contributed a monograph on economic impli­

cations of Title I aid. Forecasting factories dispersed by the search
for greenfield plants, the impact of truck and air transport, and cold
war fears of atomic attack, Woodbury saw no application of Title I
within cities. Instead, he saw Title I's potential for channeling the
growth of economic hinterlands.57
Myopia about central-city jobs was soon institutionalized by
Title I operations. The Housing and Home Finance Agency and
local Title I administrators never kept track of the program's impact
on commerce and industry and had no idea how projects affected
employment. Economist Wilbur R. Thompson could only speculate
about the "considerable contract research . . . hidden in confiden­
tial reports," which scholars never pulled together. Sociologist Basil
Zimmer noted later that analysts regarded business relocations as a
secondary matter. Subsequent HHFA estimates that nonresidential
Title I displacements averaged 3,700 per year during the 1950s were
based on incomplete reports from local agencies, which only counted
businesses that sought relocation aid, not those that self-relocated
or closed down. The Committee on Slum Clearance occasionally
released statistics on business removals to rebut critics, but never
bothered with a master list. Planning manifestoes that helped dis­
credit Moses-style clearance, such Frieden and Morris's Urban Plan­
ning and Social Policy (1968) and Victor Gruen's Heart of Our Cities
(1964), contained no discussion of manufacturing or employment.
Even that celebrated call for urban diversity, Jane Jacobs's Death
and Life of Great American Cities (1961), emphasized economic uses
that were compatible with the norms of residential neighborhoods.
Thus, key texts on the urban experience overlooked one of its key
elements.58
Amid this sophisticated indifference, the New York Metropolitan
Region Study provided the most consoling explanation of where
the blue-collarless city was heading. It emerged from the discomfort
of the Regional Plan Association, which, in the early 1950s, faced a
premature demise because of its success at selling the regional idea
to business executives. As corporate donations dwindled, the RPA
depended on narrow contract research, such as "RPA Bulletin 80"
(August 1952), which surveyed the postwar dispersal, and work on
"Project East River," the melodramatic federal research on the likely
industrial survival after an atomic bomb detonated over the river at
42nd Street. RPA executive director C. McKim Norton had reason
to worry about the RPA's survival, when rescue appeared in the form
of a request by the Long Island Lighting Company for a market
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forecasting committee for public utilities. Although the RPA gained

a brief reprieve, the utility executives came to doubt RPA expertise
and to consider pulling the plug on mediocre work.59
The prospect of impending foreclosure lay behind Norton's 1954
appeal to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to support a major RPA
effort in applied social science. Proposing to provide New York busi­
nessmen with more than market research, Norton's staff outlined a
"Metropolitan Region Study," an ambitious look at the future based
on "the locational requirements of the various activities that take
place in metropolitan areas." Foundation support would make pos­
sible a sophisticated analysis of economic and population movements
based on calculations of the region's share of national growth sectors.
Working with what the RPA called "past ratios between the national
and local economies," it hoped to calculate the operational levels of
local industries that served national markets and provide "a coordi­
nated picture" for public and corporate decision makers. Rockefeller
Brothers staffers acknowledged the argument, but wanted the study
carried out by a "competent and impartial body" that would let
the RPA stick to planning. Stacy May, Rockefeller Brothers eco­
nomics consultant, had already conferred with the Harvard Graduate
School of Public Administration and found Dean Edward S. Mason
interested in a tentative "vestibule study." Although Norton saw his
project slip away, he was reported grateful for the advent of "a new
regional plan," which was "a do-or-die matter" for the RPA.60
Assurances about the RPA's nominal role clinched support of
the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and, soon afterward, the Ford Foun­
dation. Norton and RPA's vice-president, New York Life Insurance
executive Otto Nelson, recruited an advisory board from the city's
corporate elite, including realtor James Felt, R. H. Macy president
Jack I. Straus, New York Times publisher Arthur H. Sulzberger, and
NYU chancellor Henry T. Heald, the heir apparent at the Ford
Foundation. They were to oversee research that would uncover the
economic engine that drove the region. "Harvard is preparing some
new techniques for investigating the flow of commodities from, to,
and within the metropolitan region," a Rockefeller Brothers execu­
tive explained to David Rockefeller. The academics hoped to fashion
"a basic tool" for understanding metropolitan areas that could be
applied across the country. "It is this which makes the project of real
interest to [Dean] Mason . . . , and he hopes it can give new life
to some of the work at the Graduate School of Public Administra­
tion."61
Mason thrust these responsibilities on Raymond Vernon, a New
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 BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

York-born, Harvard-educated economist who specialized in interna­

tional finance and had spent World War II as a State Department
advisor. Under Vernon's direction, the research staff drew back from
tackling "the entire range of economic activity" to concentrate on
what the staff considered the "dynamic income generators" that sup­
ported the region's balance of payments. Vernon's researchers staked
out a deliberate hierarchy of economic activities: export generators
(which "paid" for the region's imports), net importers of goods
and services, and " 'residentiary' activities which, . . . because they
produce only for home consumption, bring no new income to the
Region."62
The primary agenda shoved aside subsidiary questions, which
were then dropped altogether. The researchers doubted their ability
to forecast population trends beyond a vague analysis of the region's
long-range growth. They would have liked to study socioeconomic
variables, such as the ethnic "colonization" of particular communi­
ties, but concluded that these were governed by "random elements"
that defied prediction. Cautious about political factors, the Harvard
group hoped to identify "key variables in the development process
which are subject to policy decisions, both public and private." These
included local taxes, mass transit facilities, subdivision and other
land-use controls, and redevelopment projects. They also expected
their investigation of the primary economy to be supplemented by
an inquiry into "government and quasi-governmental provision of
basic capital and services." Nevertheless, the intention to examine
government policy was abandoned for a single case study of mass
transit. 63
Vernon never expected much from analysis of the political dimen­
sion. One of his early staff papers stated that the Metropolitan Re­
gion Study was interested in the economic, social, and governmental
forces that determined the volume and location of region activities.
But, as he explained, this formulation assumed that forces driving
the region came from "changes in the structure of the national econ­
omy . . . rather than in autonomous forces within the region." Politics
was merely another phenomenon shaped by the economic dynamo.
As he later observed, the study would determine how "economic
growth has outmoded political arrangements." Having concluded
that government had only incidental impact on the region's future,
Vernon never tried to document its presence.64
Any look at New York in 1955 would have found government
behind every aspect of the region's development, but government
rarely entered Vernon's equations. In late 1957, he observed that an
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BLUE-COLLAR BLIGHT

important part of the Metropolitan Region Study recognized New

York "as a center for 'first city' activities," including headquarters of
national and international financial institutions, the United Nations,
foundations, universities, medical centers, and other large-scale ad­
ministrative services. But he did not acknowledge that economic
mechanisms depended on public incentives (and deterrents) that
made room for first-city institutions. On occasion, Vernon wavered
about the political dimension, as when he allowed that municipal
expenditure and "the unique sociological and governmental forces
at work could well alter the structure of the region's demands and
the nature of its labor force." He also conceded that shifts in central-
city population and employment might be regarded as "problems"
amenable to public policy. If City Hall chose "to arrest the outward
job flow," he pointed out, government might procure factory space
for specialized firms. Government might also choose to spend less on
mass transit, for instance, and more on job opportunities for blacks
and Puerto Ricans. Government, it turned out, did play a role in
Vernon's theoretical framework, but never an important one. In all
his comments on where the region was heading, Robert Moses and
the Committee on Slum Clearance went unmentioned.65
A landmark in applied social science, the New York Metropoli­
tan Region Study pronounced that the metropolis was heading in
a sound direction. The published volumes included studies of the
Port of New York's future and the growth of the financial markets
and business services industries. Additional volumes in the series
included Robert C. Wood's 1400 Governments (1961) and Oscar
Handlin's The Newcomers (1959), which became instant classics in
urban studies. Handlin's The Newcomers was a masterly account of
the mobility of European immigrants, who found a city that was
open to their work ethic and entrepreneurial skills. Handlin was con­
fident that the liberal city that did so much for Jews, Italians, and
the Irish would assimilate blacks and Puerto Ricans. Robert Wood
characterized the region as a kaleidoscope of entrenched suburbs,
but expected some supraregional agency to fuse the fragments and
make opportunity and residence available to all.66
The capstone volumes, Vernon's Metropolis 1985 (1960) and
Anatomy of a Metropolis (1959), which he wrote with economist
Edgar M. Hoover, provided a comfortable perspective on New
York's manufacturing crisis. The authors emphasized the long-range
trend in factory out-migration. Using the more modest factory em­
ploymentfiguresof 1919, rather than those of 1947, as their baseline,

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they found that "the number of manufacturing jobs in Manhattan,

while fluctuating in response to such national forces as depression
and war, never got much beyond" the 1919 benchmark. They insisted
on the inevitable nature of the transformation, given the relentless
"search for space" among urban businessmen. Modern industrial
operations, they explained, needed the horizontal, one-story sub­
urban plant for continuous-flow assembly lines and materials han­
dling. Those remaining behind "have had to take their space where
they found i t . . . [moving] either to industrial buildings constructed
for multiple tenancy or to obsolete factory buildings abandoned
by their original users." Eventually, marginal operators, such as the
paper box manufacturers in Washington Square South, could not af­
ford even secondhand space. Whatever factory jobs were lost, Vernon
and Hoover assured, would be more than made up for by expansion
of white-collar hiring in the central business district.67
The foundations had an immense investment in the predictive
value of this social science. By early 1957, the Rockefeller Foun­
dation staff had "serious doubts" about Griffin's Industrial Location
and his calls for an aggressive city policy toward manufacturing.
They were relieved by the criticism his work received from the
New York Chamber of Commerce and economics reviewers. The
Ford Foundation made the Metropolitan Region Study central to
its urban agenda. With the first results of the research about to ap­
pear, Ford executive Paul Ylvisaker wrote that Vernon's economic
analysis had "a higher order of precedence than a mere refurbish­
ing of the old landscape-architecture tradition of planning." "God
knows," Ylvisaker went on, "as we move into this next age of growing
social expenditure and perhaps dwindling resources, we are going to
have more rational processes of economic intelligence and decision-
making at our sub-national levels." He hoped to apply Vernon's
approach to a series of regional analyses that could guide value-added
manufacturing and community development.68
Vernon soon had reason to feel that his initial pronouncements
about New York's postindustrial future had been too modest. On
the eve of a decade that saw minority unemployment reach record
levels, Vernon boasted to Ylvisaker about "unexpected" projections:
"N Y 's big problem, it seems, may prove to be an acute
labor shortage, partly because its mix is so favorable to future growth
& partly because its age distribution is so odd that it isn't generating
more bodies for the labor force fast enough. Our IBM machines have
produced some astonishing results along these lines and we're forced

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to assume that there'll be some high in-migration rates in the future

& that the Negro & P.R. will get up graded in office work faster than
we had assumed."69
Vernon had found the driving force behind the vast change in
the labor market in the mid-1960s, but the growth would be for
white and female workers rather than for blacks and Hispanics. The
economists on Vernon's team had overlooked the political and social
realities that would keep the newcomers out of the city's main­
stream. They gave no attention to the public policies that planted
first-city institutions in Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn, but
shoved aside the population that Vernon expected to provide their
work force. High-powered social science sanctioned the dismantling
of the old urban economy for the new one they confidently expected
postwar economic forces to bring. They never reckoned that Moses's
bulldozers stood in the way.

260
 1O

FULL EXPOSURE

Before the city could begin to see the truth about Moses'
programs, his legend would have to be exposed for the
lie it was.
RobertA. Caro, The Power Broker

I n the spring of 1954, midway through Title I progress, the Moses

regime was shaken by scandal at Manhattantown. As Robert Caro
recounted, reformers struggled to publicize the facts of Negro re­
moval, while the Committee on Slum Clearance worked feverishly
to bury them. Newspaper editors who learned of the facts refused to
credit them, and the aversion toward Title I remained confined to lib­
erals, who could not stir the city against redevelopment. The aborted
expose was only the first of numerous investigations of Title I during
the next two years, all of which failed to block the Moses machine.
Caro was convinced that liberals had done all they could to warn the
public against the bulldozer ruin. Only the full exposure of Moses's
callous policies, only tabloid attacks on his sterling reputation, Caro
concluded, would drive the power broker out.1
During the mid-1950s, knowledgeable critics knew all they
needed to know about where Title I was taking the city. From spring
1954 to spring 1956, continued announcements of Title I sites were
accompanied by investigations and controversy. Title I projects for
Greenwich Village and Lincoln Square provided ample evidence of
the cost of creating a city whose core was middle class and postindus­
trial. City planning commissioners had only to look at their statistics
to see renewal's impact on the working class and people of color.

261
FULL EXPOSURE

During those two years, in fact, the largest conclave of city housing
experts since the Progressive Era debated the consequences of Title I
and public housing. The problem was not a dearth of facts, but what
Moses's critics chose to make of those facts. In nearly every case, they
weighed the removal of blacks and Hispanics from redevelopment
sites against what they considered the more worrisome exodus of
middle-class whites. The soul-searching forced changes in Title I that
eased self-relocation and gave continued license to the bulldozing of
neighborhoods. Despite the widespread ravaging, liberal New York
had too much at stake to call a halt to slum clearance.
Title I was modified, not by heroic liberals, but by a harbinger of
the 1960s: a sullen insurgency in public housing. Redevelopment,
which depended on projects to serve as catchments for removals,
was stalemated when the Housing Authority could no longer absorb
refugees from Title I sites. The first signs of this came in East Harlem,
where outcasts from slum clearance swamped the hopes of Protes­
tant ministers to evangelize a Hispanic frontier. The hard look that
Protestant charity leaders gave Housing Authority projects, particu­
larly the moral questions they raised about relocation efforts, set the
stage for placing Title I into receivership. Liberal critics of Housing
Authority policy pointed to the "dreary deadlock" created by the
high-rise projects, but they never fathomed the breakdown of the
public system. Liberals may have agonized about Moses's policies,
but the collapse of public housing put an end to them.

Greenwich Village
A week after the City Planning Commission's apology for Title I re­
location was made public in August of 1953, the Committee on Slum
Clearance divulged plans for Washington Square Southeast. Vil­
lagers suspected that Moses's summer surprise, coupled with hasty
City Planning Commission hearings, was designed to catch them off
guard, and they reacted with outrage that, as one later remembered,
Moses had schemed for the area's "complete doom." He had, in fact,
finally provided what many Villagers wanted. The CSC called for a
Title I project from Washington Square to Houston Street, between
West Broadway and Mercer Street, along with a public housing com­
ponent, named for Mary Simkhovitch, on the old Field Foundation
site. The Title I featured nine fourteen-story buildings, containing
2,184 apartments that would rent for an average $48 per room. The
plan would also settle the traffic route through Washington Square.
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 FULL EXPOSURE

New York University expected 4 acres of subsidized land and NYU

trustee Paul Tishman, sponsor of the middle-income housing, had
gotten approval from Manhattan's political leaders.2
By and large, Village civic leaders also agreed. The Washington
Square Association gingerly approved the plans. Association plan­
ning consultant Robert Weinberg called redevelopment overdue for
the "narrow truck-clogged streets" to the southeast. He reminded
Villagers that the Holden, McLaughlin Planning Recommendations
recommended replacing "everything south of Houston Street . . .
with modern commercial structures in view of the fact that it would
be adjacent to and between proposed express highways." Weinberg
pointed out that high-rise apartments surrounded by parking lots
reflected the best of modern planning. "Widely spaced modern apart­
ment towers," he added, would contain small suites for Village pro­
fessionals, "who require a fair amount of special comforts including
balconies." The Greenwich Village Association, however, remained
uneasy about the public housing, which newspaper stories had linked
with the Title I. Weinberg noted that the "adjacent" public housing,
about "which the Association takes no stand until further details are
available . . . may meet the recognized demand for middle and low
rent housing." 3
The community leaders gathered at Charles Abrams's town house
on September 28, 1953, were inclined to support a project whose
"character [was] . . . in keeping with Lower Fifth Avenue." They
hoped to avoid "summary abandonment" of a plan which contained
"advantages which should not be lost." Architect Albert Mayer, who
favored the Holden, McLaughlin plan, questioned only the Title I's
impact on traffic. But Louis Solomon, a director of the Greenwich
Village Association, warned against nit-picking. "The community is
given an opportunity to replace a misfit industrial structure with a
very delightful residential community . . . , " he said, "and rather than
lose it entirely there is much to be gained." The directors of the Wash­
ington Square Association unanimously approved Moses's offer.4
Several days later, Charles Abrams broke with his neighbors. He
charged that Moses's slum clearance was really demolition of com­
mercial lofts that would wipe out 15,000 jobs. He also warned that
the plan would funnel traffic down Fifth Avenue and through Wash­
ington Square. Dismissing the redevelopment as "a cluster of tall
buildings, . . . rimmed by parking lots," Abrams urged the Village
to demand changes from the City Planning Commission that met
real needs. His scathing critique was the rock around which others
rallied. The local branch of the Americans for Democratic Action
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attacked the plan's inadequate provision of family-sized apartments,

the expensive $48 rentals, and, above all, the bisected park.5
The wedge opened by the liberals enabled Italian pinochle clubs
in the Lower West Side Civic League to rail against the public
housing. Claiming to speak for tenement owners on the Spring Street
site (and apparently for Democratic leader Carmine DeSapio), the
league charged that Title I advocates were property owners on the
north side of the Square. The league urged a gradual renewal and
respect for urban diversity that anticipated the views of another Vil­
lage critic, Jane Jacobs. But lurking behind the appeal for tolerance
was a racist populism that sneered at "Simkhovitch City: A Public
Dehousing Project." " 'Slum clearance' here," warned aflier,"would
mean clearing out of crowded slums in Harlem and elsewhere into
these Village projects."6
As chairman of the American Institute of Architects Committee
on Civic Design, Robert Weinberg urged his colleagues to stand
against Washington Square Southeast at Board of Estimate hear­
ings. Weinberg's request was embarrassing, because the CSC had
subcontracted Title I work to members of AIA's New York chap­
ter. "Would it be good policy for the Chapter to publicly protest
[those] projects?" asked New York ALA chairman Hugh Ferriss, the
patron of Wallace K. Harrison and advocate of downtown clearance.
Responding to Weinberg's initiative, Ferriss contacted Skidmore,
Owings & Merrill, although he assured Gordon Bunshaft, the firm's
design chief, that the ALA "concern was not in any architectural treat­
ment but solely in proposed thoroughfares." Ferriss gave the same
assurance to Richard Eggers, the architect working with NYU. Fer­
riss soon learned from the architects that the Title I would not funnel
traffic through Washington Square, and concluded that there was
no reason to intervene in the Village squabble. But Ferriss wanted a
protocol to prevent future embarrassments. "In the case of any so-
called 'Moses project,'" he warned, "any Chapter opposition should
be based solely on objective study of the project, entirely devoid of
any personal animosity or 'feud.' " 7
In the spring of 1954, Moses forced the major elements of Wash­
ington Square Southeast, three high-rise slabs and the roadway in
the park, through the Board of Estimate. He was aided by local real­
tors and the New York Real Estate Board, which gave endorsements,
and the New York Chamber of Commerce and the Association of
Commerce and Industry, which sanctioned clearance of outmoded
lofts. His local allies included the Washington Square Association,
which sought to protect the park, and New York University, which,
264
 FULL EXPOSURE

Washington Square Southeast, 1954. Looking north at the S. J. Kessler &t

Son's architectural modelforthe middle-income housing redevelopment for
Greenwich Village that wasfinallyapproved by the Board of Estimate in
1954. The third slab on the south, facing Houston Street, was never built.
The site was taken over by New York University for faculty housing, the Uni­
versity Plaza Apartments, in the late 1960s. Courtesy of the Special Archive,
Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority.

as one administrator remarked, pounced on the $10.50-per-foot

property as "a non-recurring bargain." The Greenwich Village Asso­
ciation spoke for neighborhood obligations, but approved clearance
that spared the Sullivan-Macdougal Gardens. The sticking point re­
mained the Simkhovitch Houses, but Weinberg heard that it was
killed in a backroom deal between Moses and "Italian interests." If
so, Moses gave up a bargaining chip that was never essential.8
Greenwich Village, like the New York AIA, reacted against the
arterial but not against modern high-rises on the nineteenth-century
street grid. Civic-minded liberals, such as Weinberg, emphasized
their concernsforcommunity aesthetics, but their neighborhood
obligations never extended beyond the environs of the park. As
Weinberg confided, the Washington Square Association "went
along" with the Title I because of promises that would limit traf­
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fic through Washington Square. The arrangement carried out the

Village's traditional avoidance of public housing, and Washington
Square Southeast remained the only early Title I unaccompanied by
a low-rent component.9

Trimming Title I
Despite his Village victory, Moses never quite got redevelopment
back on track. The 1953 relocation controversy was soon eclipsed by
a series of investigations, beginning with Manhattantown. Moses's
critics managed to involve the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking
and Currency, which was probing abuses in the FHA mortgage-
insurance program. Senators wanted to know why two years after
Jack Ferman Builders acquired the site for Manhattantown, half the
condemned tenements were still standing. Moses had given Ferman
the usual assurances about relying on the cash flow from the tene­
ments while waiting to rebuild, and the redevelopers, some with
Tammany connections, made the most of the opportunity. They
claimed that they were dependent on tenement rents because the
FHA dawdled about approving mortgage insurance for the Man­
hattantown construction. But Senate investigators uncovered sys­
tematic subcontracts and buy-back deals for such items as mainte­
nance, stoves, and refrigerators in the condemned tenements. Moses
tried to delay public hearings, and Ferman's counsel, Samuel Rosen-
man, did his best to parry senators' questions, but Manhattantown
greed became front-page news. Moses avoided the limelight, instead
issuing statements that defended what he called the "basic device, to
bring private capital into slum clearance." His staff convinced sym­
pathetic senators, such as New York Democrat Herbert H. Lehman,
that the "excessively harsh" accusations had to be brought "more
in line" with the facts. In the meantime, the Committee on Slum
Clearance spread the view that FHA red tape, which prevented spon­
sors from finding decent mortgages, was behind the problem of
Manhattantown.10
Although Manhattantown was a shocking story of tenant ne­
glect, Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr., had a different perspective on
the project. Elected on promises to streamline government, Wagner
named Luther C. Gulick, the dean of American public administra­
tion, as city administrator to advise on the reorganization of mayoral
commissioners, whom Wagner embraced as his "cabinet." Gulick
had reviewed the City Planning Commission's 1953 reports and
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 FULL EXPOSURE

The Manhattantown site partly cleared, c. 1955. The half-demolished Title I

site on the Upper West Side, which provoked investigations of Robert Moses's
tenant-removal policies, sits next to tenements between Central Park West and
Columbus Avenue waiting demolition and the New York City Housing Au­
thority's Frederick Douglass Houses, across 100th Street, near completion.
After the original sponsor failed to get Manhattantown construction under
way, Moses found a replacement, realtor William Zeckendorf, Sr., who com­
pleted the Title I as Park West Village in 1959. Courtesy of the Special Archive,
Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority.

concluded that Title I relocation was a flagrant case of administra­

tive untidiness. In May of 1954, he urged the mayor to establish a
Department of Real Estate Management, headed by a cabinet com­
missioner, to take responsibility for removing tenants from public
improvement sites. Ira Robbins, Councilman Stanley Isaacs, and
other Moses critics endorsed the Gulick proposal. Despite all the
attempts by the Committee on Slum Clearance to sweep relocation
under the rug, doubts about Moses's "basic device" were on the
public record.11
They remained there when Mayor Wagner appointed several
committees to advise on reforms of city programs, including one on
housing, headed by Charles Abrams. Choosing to tackle "one prob­
lem at a time," Abrams's committee avoided a direct confrontation
with Moses over Title I. Instead it provided a forum for bankers
and supporters of cooperative housing, such as Louis Pink, to thrash
267
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out incentives for middle-income construction that eventually led

to the (Mitchell-Lama) Limited Profits Housing Companies Law.
Greatly valuing the achievement, Wagner followed City Adminis­
trator Gulick's advice to enlarge Abrams's group into a blue-ribbon
mayoral committee to deal with neighborhood conservation. In July
of 1954, Abrams's group agreed to work toward what it called a "pro­
gram for home ownership rather than tenancy." The resolve was a
watershed for New York liberalism. In the midst of rancorous debate
about the destruction of minority districts, housing liberals had
turned attention to preserving middle-class neighborhoods.12
In October of 1954, after Abrams left the country to consult
for the United Nations, the advisory committee became the Mayor's
Committee for Better Housing. The new committee was chaired by
Bowery Savings Bank president Henry Bruere, with New York Life
Insurance vice-president Otto Nelson, NYU Chancellor Henry T.
Heald, and Bowery executive Earl Schwulst as vice-chairmen. The
Moses skeptics who dominated Abrams's group were diluted by 107
mayoral appointees to eight subcommittees, whose interests ran the
gamut from neighborhood conservation to shelter for the aged. The
setup hardly threatened Title I, but Moses took no chances. He sent
an open letter to the mayor warning that if the Committee for Better
Housing sought more than "millennial objectives," it had to realize
that private markets needed government subsidy to build housing
for under $32 per room. That translated into federal money for
Title I and for the public housing needed for relocation. Moses's
assistant William Lebwohl got promises from committee chairman
Bruere that he would "keep the report along practical lines."13
The outcome turned on infighting between Better Housing's
subcommittee on redevelopment, headed by General Otto Nelson,
and the subcommittee on relocations, headed by City Councilman
Stanley Isaacs. Moses expected straight endorsement of Title I from
Nelson's panel, only to learn that a small cadre of West Side reformers
were more concerned with policies, chiefly brownstone rehabilita­
tion, to contain what Lebwohl said was "Puerto Rican expansion."
Their skepticism got out of hand when their tour of Title I sites
took them to grim, half-demolished tenements at Godfrey Nurse in
Harlem. Stanley Isaacs and the City-Wide Committee on Housing
Relocation Problems were waiting there "to prove," Lebwohl com­
plained, "callousness on the part of the sponsors." While Moses raged
at the botched tour, his assistant Harry Taylor conceded they would
have to do their homework to avoid "a repetition of the hassle we had
over the former City Planning Commission report." Moses worried
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 FULL EXPOSURE

that Bruere would fail to resist Isaacs's demandsfora city relocation

bureau.14
During the summer of 1955, Lebwohl coordinated last-minute
revisions of the report of the Mayor's Committee on Better Housing.
Lebwohl's message was that slum clearance depended on Title I,
which in turn depended on accompanying public housing and fed­
eral commitments to the low-rent program. But although Lebwohl
argued that government had to provide shelter for the displaced, he
refused to concede that government had to handle relocation, as was
argued by Isaacs's subcommittee. Lebwohl claimed that the Com­
mittee on Slum Clearance had always anticipated relocation needs
with "a certain proportion" of public units, such as the Frederick
Douglass Houses at Manhattantown and General Grant Houses at
Morningside. Rejecting what he called the "misleading"figuresof
the 1953 City Planning Commission report and the experience at
Manhattantown, Lebwohl argued that with self-relocation and cash
bonuses, most tenants "select their own quarters, and don't want
to be traced or bothered." He aimed his strongest fire at the figure
of 335,000 families that Isaacs's panel said faced relocation over
the next three years. The "preposterous" number assumed draconian
enforcement of the Multiple Dwelling Law. More realistic was the
estimate of 75,000 families affected by city improvements, a figure
that could be managed by private sponsors supervised by the Bureau
of Real Estate. Lebwohl's campaign forced Isaacs's subcommittee to
slash its estimate down to 127,256 additional people dislodged by
1959, but he could not expunge Isaacs's recommendations for a city
real estate department to clear Title I sites and relocate tenants be­
fore tracts were auctioned to sponsors. Moses warned Bruere of the
consequences for Title I. "The City will have to speculate on the pos­
sibility of obtaining sponsors if, as and when the land is cleared," said
Moses. "No reputable or responsible sponsor will bid on land."15
The controversy was solved when Moses, with Bruere's aid, in­
jected a Title I success story in the report sent to the mayor. The
Committee on Better Housing concluded that 24,000 slum units
were replaced by 27,000 modern dwellings. Some $130 million in
federal write-downs mobilized more than $500 million in private
construction. Far more important was the changed attitude toward
investing in the inner city, as shown by the areas where "new devel­
opments are rapidly taking hold." Reviewing the mixed message, the
New York Times conceded that "relocation . . . has not been satisfac­
tory" and that some city agency, perhaps the Committee on Slum
Clearance, should handle sites and relocate tenants before offering
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Title I packages to sponsors. But the Times's rap on Moses's knuckles

was incidental compared to the newspaper's judgment that the city
had to redouble efforts to house a half-million middle-income New
Yorkers and what that implied for Title I as usual. Thefinalrec­
ommendations of the Mayor's Committee on Better Housing urged
Wagner to call on City Administrator Gulick to propose a "coordi­
nated effort" to smooth redevelopment subsidies and remove people
from clearance sites. Once again, the relocation crisis had been re­
duced to a matter of municipal housekeeping.16
The whitewash of Title I relocations occurred simultaneously
with the challenge posed to Moses's practices by state officials.
The Senate hearings on Manhattantown fostered the skepticism of
Moses's policies that enabled Governor Averell Harriman to name
SCAD activists Charles Abrams and Hortense Gabel to head New
York State's rent control agency, the Temporary State Housing and
Rent Commission. After Manhattantown, Abrams ended commis­
sion policy that allowed Title I sponsors to skimp on building ser­
vices while collecting rents. After a tenant died at the half-demolished
Godfrey Nurse Title I, a Harlem delegation forced concessions from
the Committee on Slum Clearance that assigned an agent to expedite
relocation. But Moses could not placate the City-Wide Commit­
tee on Housing Relocation Problems, organized by gadfly attorney
Harris Present, Ira Robbins of the Citizens Housing and Planning
Council, and Episcopal Bishop James Pike. They attacked Title I
delays in tenant removals and city tolerance of sponsors who prof­
ited from them. State Rent Administrator Abrams sent inspectors to
Manhattantown and other sites with orders to slash rents collected
by negligent sponsors. Moses protested "blanket rent reductions
which . . . only increase resistance to relocation." He sent a copy of
his complaint to Manhattantown counsel Samuel Rosenman, urging
a fight against "Abrams' repeated attacks on all slum clearance. . . .
He's a menace."17
Moses scattered his challengers with a show of Democratic unity.
He got the Wagner administration, from the mayor on down, to
blame Title I problems on federal red tape. He arranged one com­
plaint against FHA delays from Senator Lehman, who assured Moses
that in slum clearance policy "our attitudes are identical." By late
April of 1955, the Board of Estimate rendered the controversy aca­
demic with approval of six additional projects. As for the menace,
Charles Abrams, a parley between his state agency and Moses's aides
arranged a decorous retreat. Hortense Gabel conceded that "where
the sponsors are planning quick demolition we should take all reason­
270
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able steps to cooperate." Although she expected sponsors to speed

their acquisition of condemned tenements, she admitted that CSC
policy that allowed developers to sit on their sites and collect rents
was "none of our business." The state had lined up behind Moses in
concluding that the best way to prevent future Manhattantowns was
to hasten removals.18
Moses clinched his victory by driving home the word that Title I's
real problem was federal obstructions. In September of 1955, he sent
carbons of his go-around with Housing and Home Finance Admin­
istrator Albert M. Cole to presidential assistant Nelson A. Rocke­
feller, asking why the White House "tolerates this kind of thing." He
warned Mayor Wagner that although he did not want to "embar­
rass" him, he would quit the CSC and leave Title I to the Housing
Authority if federal bureaucrats continued to delay mortgage ap­
provals. He planned to take Albert Cole to lunch to discuss Title I
mortgages with New York bankers and insurance men. But getting
Title I approvals from Washington was frustrating, he groused to
Nelson Rockefeller. "You can easily check with David to see what
happened at Morningside and as to what is planned at the Battery,
and with John as to the projected Metropolitan Opera and related
Title One program. We simply can't keep up with this gobbledegook
with Cole."19
By late 1955, however, Moses had to face rising insurgency
against Title I from groups that harbored moral claims to their neigh­
borhoods. Reports of evictions to make way for East Side speculative
high-rises brought protests from a new direction. The Lenox Hill
Neighborhood Association, Yorkville Save Our Homes, and Harlem
tenant groups denounced the havoc created by Title I, the expansion
of Sloan-Kettering Institute, and private apartment construction.
In Greenwich Village, Moses faced old opponents and a new cul­
tural force, the Village Voice, a newspaper that approached protest
as a form of the avant-garde. Committed to blocking any highway
through Washington Square, Villagers resolved to use direct action
to stop Moses's plan. That grim determination echoed the civil rights
movement and the new level of Protestant militance in New York.20

East Harlem Witness

For years, the Protestant church had been a bystander to redevel­

opment. Liberal clerics had joined the agitation that launched the
Housing Authority and contributed to the community activism for
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FULL EXPOSURE

specific projects, but planning and redevelopment were instruments

of the secular city from which ministers traditionally stood apart.
They soon recognized, however, that slum clearance that shifted
parishioners into isolated high-rises was putting churches under
siege. Gauging the nature of Title I was vital to the Protestant re­
demption of the city.
The Protestant response began after World War II when the New
York City Mission Society cooperated with the Protestant Council
and the Federation of Churches to establish a "pathfinding service"
to connect churches and congregants scattered by the modern city.
Directed by Dr. Meryl Ruoss, an expert on church attendance among
Puerto Ricans, the service carried out the Mission Society's mandate
to use the tools of modern sociology to reach "the great numbers
now untouched by the Gospel." Convinced that high-rise housing
contributed to Protestantism's "retreat and retrenchment," Ruoss's
pathfinders planned to penetrate these projects. Callingfora united
effort in East Harlem, which he characterized as a "pagan and even
anti-social" environment, Ruoss began to canvas the James Weldon
Johnson project.21
With support from the Mission Society and willing hands from
the Union Theological Seminary, Ruoss launched the East Harlem
Protestant Parish, affiliated churches whose ministers had experi­
enced an urban upheaval beyond anything they had read in the Social
Gospel. Don Benedict and George "Bill" Webber rented a storefront
on East 100th Street in the summer of 1948 and ventured out among
Italian and Puerto Rican antidericals and blacks unmoved by the
reasoned modernism of the seminary. They held candlelight vigils
and passion plays in vacant lots that proclaimed their willingness to
share the despair of tenement life. Although they won few converts
at first, they were sustained by occasional epiphanies, such as one
engendered by the pathetic eviction of a Puerto Rican family on
103rd Street. The ministers plastered the neighborhood with angry
handbills, held a service, and marched to the sidewalk of suffering.
Even one of Congressman Vito Marcantonio's calloused regulars was
moved by the power of their Christian witness.22
The seminarians could not ignore housing problems that the city
shoved on their doorstep. Tenement violations were epidemic in East
Harlem, as was the indifference of city bureaucrats. But the minis­
ters were infuriated one weekend before Christmas 1948 when the
gas failed in an East 112th Street tenement, where families huddled
around stoves for warmth. The parish went on a vigil, then marched
on the landlord, who turned out to be the site manager for the
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 FULL EXPOSURE

Housing Authority's Jefferson project. "After some hedging," Bene­

dict wrote, officials promised "apartments on the site in places where
families had already moved out." A few months later, the parish
blared a church service from a sound truck, then sent volunteers
through the neighborhood to record building violations. The evi­
dence was used for parish "clinics," which sent housing complaints
to the Buildings Department. Although the seminarians had made
progress, they could barely contain their anger. "Every one of these
apartment house meetings," they assured the Mission Society, "has
been opened and closed with prayer, the Bible has been read, and
some exposition of the Christian faith given." Nevertheless every
cup of shared suffering built a rage against thieving landlords and
complacent bureaucrats.23
The East Harlem Protestant Parish soon confronted the ambigu­
ous face of public housing. As missionaries, their first concern was
access for their evangels. Seeking space in one new project, they ex­
plained that "the most stable leaders of the Church of the Son of Man
[on 104th Street] have been moved from their homes to make way
for the Washington Houses." Deacons from the 114th Street Church
made systematic rounds at the Stephen Foster Houses, and similar
prosyletism was undertaken on the site of the Lexington Houses,
which were under construction along Third Avenue between 98th
and 99th streets. By early 1953, full-scale evangelism was underway
at the Lexington, Washington, and Foster projects. But the turning
point for the ministry came in February of 1953, when the Housing
Authority announced plans for a middle-income project somewhere
between 100th and 105th streets and First and Second avenues,
which threatened a whole community. The ministers feared that
neighborhoods would be squeezed between "adjoining" projects,
leaving churches "more and more on the periphery."24
By 1955, that reality took the more impatient into the parish's
Christian Action Committee. The ministry had already tussled with
Tammany in local elections and made its housing clinics thorns in
the side of city agencies. But Christian Action chose a singular evan­
gel with site tenants waiting removal for city projects. Holding vigils
amid the rubble of the Washington site, ministers heard these urban
nomads describe their special misery. At a parish meeting in July
1955, site tenants protested, Housing Authority officials asked for
more time, and the congregation sang "We Will Overcome."25
The seminarians were nearly at the end of their patience with city
policy. They had not given up on large-scale municipal aid, but they
found it difficult to deny what "wholesale remodeling" had done to
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East Harlem. The parish saw Housing Authority projects as islands

of strangers in the midst of a no-man's-land of crumbling tenements
where people awaited the next round of demolitions. Straining to
find something positive in the wreckage, seminarians considered
public housing "a stark necessity for our community." East Harlem
had been harmed, the Protestant Parish concluded, by the Housing
Authority's "lack of imagination in planning the location and timing
of the projects, its tendency to overlook or discount the real human
hardships involved in relocation, and its failure to recreate the social
institutions which have held the old community together."26
During 1955, disquiet in East Harlem produced a quiet crisis
among New York Protestants. The Protestant Council's Depart­
ment of Church Planning and Research reported congregations that
were desperate "to cope with the activities of city and regional
planning bodies." With twenty-six congregations facing eviction
for slum clearance and with serious questions about preserving the
"Protestant witness" in New York, Ruoss and Protestant Coun­
cil leaders met with Housing Authority chairman Philip Cruise in
August of 1955. Cruise said that he would discuss the issue of alterna­
tive sites within project areas with top city officials. In the meantime,
the Protestants focused on "'critical' spots" in the Morrisania and
Melrose sections of the South Bronx, East Harlem, and the Lower
East Side, where churches faced "life or death decisions."27
The churches brought a new dimension to the anti-Moses move­
ment. In January of 1956, Social Gospelers from the Protestant
Council joined SCAD, the West Side ADA, and the Council on
Housing Relocation Problems to condemn Title I relocations. On
the East Side, the Lenox Hill Neighborhood Association and York­
ville Save Our Homes goaded the city council to investigate the
Franklin Title I project, whose site tenants charged sponsors with
feeding on "human misery." Councilman Earl Brown focused the
city hearings on conditions at Godfrey Nurse, North Harlem, and
Manhattantown. Trouble surfaced at the Alexander Hamilton public
houses on 140th Street, where Harlem leaders rejected a site that
would eliminate several Baptist churches. While hundreds of site
residents attacked the project at the Board of Estimate, the Urban
League, local tenant councils, and one Democratic district leader
urged Mayor Wagner to find another location.28
Protestant voices ultimately reached Gracie Mansion, where
Mayor Wagner announced a high-level committee to deal with the
uprooted congregations. Ruoss kept up the pressure with a Sep­
tember 21, 1956, conference on the "30 Protestant churches being
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 FULL EXPOSURE

East Harlem slum clearance, 1957. Looking southwest at 112th Street, Our
Lady Queen of Angels (Roman Catholic) Church and School are the only
structures remaining on the huge superblock cleared for the New York City
Housing Authority's addition to the Jefferson Houses. The adjoining James
Weldon Johnson Houses can be seen on the upper right. Throughout the
postwar era in East Harlem, total removal of Old Law tenements for public
housing forced the predominantly Puerto Rican population to seek refuge near
the ruins, from which they would often have to move again. Courtesy of the
La Guardia and Wagner Archives, La Guardia Community College, The City
University of New York.

torn down in the next five years." Church officials heard City Plan­
ning Commission chairman James Felt defend redevelopment and
describe tenant relocation as "presently improving," with better city
supervision. Housing Authority planner Samuel Ratensky claimed
that his agency had moved away from the bulldozer approach and
was working with the Protestant Council to save churches. The head
of the Bureau of Real Estate boasted of steady progress on relocation,
a problem, he insisted, that had been "overemphasized" because of
Manhattantown. Everyone acknowledged that the city had heard the
complaints. The Housing Authority would provide space for small
businesses in East Harlem's Tart and Franklin Houses, the Bureau
of Real Estate would closely monitor Title I relocations, and the au­
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FULL EXPOSURE

thority, added Ratensky, would listen to local groups when planning

future sites.29
The new sensitivity, however, offered no relief to congregations
facing imminent removal, particularly for clearance in Brownsville
and East Harlem. As part of the huge Brooklyn clearance, the
Housing Authority had offered to relocate two Baptist churches
within the site, but the congregations refused. In East Harlem, the
Disciples of Christ Church was reported "determined to remain
in the new project and minister to the whole new community."
Although municipal decisions still threatened the congregations of
the poor, Protestant leaders could not bring themselves to condemn
policies that proclaimed staunch social goals. Dr. Ruoss, chairman of
the City-Wide Committee on Housing Relocation Problems, found
the Housing Authority "extremely cooperative in working out the
arrangements." Nurtured on the Social Gospel's faith in munici­
pal intervention, ministers could not imagine that it had become
their enemy.30

Public Business

During the mid-1950s, the whole panoply of New York liberalism

was joined in the struggle for the Lincoln Square Title I, a sprawl
of businesses and cultural and educational institutions layered on re­
development housing. Sponsors found suitable blight at West 65th
Street, where Broadway crossed Columbus Avenue, proclaimed a
place for culture, and expected the names Moses and Rockefeller to
work their magic. The Title I touched off bitter debate that weighed
civic splendor against lesser needs. But one by one, the city's moral
and philanthropic institutions chose Moses's side or chose not to
choose.
Although the idea of a culture center went back to the City Beau­
tiful, the immediate stimulus came from postwar concerns about two
venerable institutions, the New York Philharmonic and the Metro­
politan Opera. The search for a symphonic stage to replace Carnegie
Hall, which was to be razed for an office tower, had become a grand
obsession for John D. Rockefeller III. At the same time, the Metro­
politan Opera Association, which had outgrown quarters on 39th
Street, had split between partisansforrefurbishment, led by Wall
Street attorney Joseph M. Hartfield, and advocates for a new facility,
led by Charles M. Spofford, another prominent lawyer. Spofford,
who also sat on the boards of the New York Philharmonic and Juil­
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 FULL EXPOSURE

liard School of Music, was an enthusiast for cultural agglomeration.

With fellow Met board member Wallace Harrison, Spofford had
access to Rockefeller and, ultimately, Robert Moses.31
Moses saw a culture center in more pragmatic terms as northern
anchor for his Coliseum Title I on Columbus Circle. Having de­
cided to stretch Coliseum clearance north to Lincoln Square, Moses
scrounged among the cognoscenti to fill it. He sounded out Harry F.
Guggenheim about an art museum, and he offered Joseph Hartfield
3 acres for the opera. As always, Moses sketched the comprehensive
picture—housing, stores, perhaps a hotel, possibly a new building
for the Engineering Societies. In the spring of 1954, he invited
Hartfield, Richard E. Dougherty of the American Society of Civil
Engineers, NYU Chancellor Henry T. Heald, Harry Van Arsdale of
the Electrical Workers, and Howard McSpedon of the Building and
Construction Trades Council to Randall's Island to discuss enlarging
Columbus Circle. He made another pitch to the Metropolitan Opera
in July of 1954, but Hartfield pulled out, leaving Moses enraged at
the "weak sisters" who ran the city.32
During the winter, Moses's petulance enabled Spofford and Har­
rison to ease aside the Met's standpatters. At the same time, the
Philharmonic Society found that its lease would run out at Carne­
gie Hall. Wallace Harrison convinced the Philharmonic to join with
the opera to investigate a combined facility at Lincoln Square, and,
along with Spofford, prevailed on John D. Rockefeller III to chair an
Exploratory Committee for a Performing Arts Center. With these ex­
pressions of interest, the Committee on Slum Clearance announced
plans to clear eighteen blocks of manufacturing lofts and tenements
west of Lincoln Square for the Philharmonic and the Metropoli­
tan Opera, commercial theaters along Broadway, and middle-income
housing between Amsterdam and West End avenues, sponsored by
realtor William Zeckendorf. While the newspapers enthused about
an urban future built on the performing arts, the Board of Esti­
mate on April 21, 1955, authorized the CSC to apply for federal
planning funds.33
In the meantime, John D. Rockefeller's Exploratory Committee
wrestled with the public purpose that Title I demanded from the
elite arts, a task made harder by the interests that clamored for a
piece of Lincoln Square. Some city officials wanted space for a fash­
ion center and for that symbol of 1930s proletarian culture, the City
Center, both of which Moses rejected. He favored headquarters for
the Engineering Societies, and he got City Administrator Gulick,
realtor Zeckendorf, and Ralph Cordiner of General Electric to sup­
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port his offer. Moses alerted Dougherty and Rockefeller Institute

president Detlev Bronk about "the last call to get into the project."
He was still indulging Chancellor Heald's dream for an NYU art
center on West 64th Street, until, in June 1955, he abruptly told the
university that he was "overcommitted on space."34
NYU was outbid by Fordham University—and Francis Cardinal
Spellman. In the fall of 1955, the Committee on Slum Clearance
promised two square blocks to Fordham, enabling the Jesuit insti­
tution to consolidate business and social work schools into its first
real campus in Manhattan. For a time, Fordham president Father
Laurence J. McGinley considered an even larger blueprint, includ­
ing faculty apartments sponsored by the United Housing Founda­
tion. Cardinal Spellman pressed Moses for a suitable exchange for
parish property condemned for Lincoln Square and for other Moses
projects downtown. Reaching an accommodation with the Catholic
archdiocese meant two more blocks of clearance, along with contro­
versial write-downs to the church. But the arrangement gave Moses
leverage among Catholic politicians on the Board of Estimate and
helped solve one pesky acquisition problem—purchase, at market
rate, of 65th Street property owned by Joseph P. Kennedy.35
As outlined by the Committee on Slum Clearance in January of
1956, Lincoln Square Title I would sprawl 50 acres from West 60th
to West 70th Street, between Columbus Avenue and the New York
Central Railroad Yards, and involve a total investment of $ 160 mil­
lion. The marbled jewel, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts,
would overlook Columbus Avenue, and architect Wallace Harrison
was already sketching Le Corbusier forms on an east-west plaza.
Running three blocks north on Broadway was the row of private
theaters, restaurants, and commercial space sponsored by realtor-
impresario Roger Stevens. South of 62nd Street would stand the
Fordham campus. Across Amsterdam Avenue, Zeckendorf's resi­
dential complex would contain 4,120 apartment units renting for
$47.50 per room.36
The jerry-rigged assemblage left individual sponsors uncertain
about their relationship to the overall plan. The Exploratory Com­
mittee for a Performing Arts Center had little contact with Fordham,
looked askance at Stevens's theatrical row, and ignored Zeckendorf's
housing component, which was needed for the write-down. The
committee talked idly about relating the arts center to district plan­
ning, but members could not disguise the haphazard way the project
was sited onto the West Side. James Felt, Mayor Wagner's newly
appointed chairman of the City Planning Commission, attended a
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 FULL EXPOSURE

Proposed Lincoln Square Title I, 1955. A district-wide view of Wallace K.

Harrison's early designs shows the vast sprawl of the redevelopment: the Coli­
seum Title I on Columbus Circle to the far south, Fordham University campus
due south of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the row of commer­
cial theaters on Broadway, and the massive middle-income housing. The New
York City Housing Authority's Amsterdam Houses, the New York Times West
Side Print Plant, and the New York Central Railroad's freight yards are visible
in the background. Controversy over the cost of the Title I write-down elimi­
nated realtor Roger Stevens's proposed row of commercial theaters and office
space along Broadway. Courtesy of the Special Archive, Triborough Bridge and
Tunnel Authority.

conclave hosted by John D. Rockefeller III to shape the Title I

appealforpublic subsidies. Participants, who knew little about the
housing component, heard Felt explain that "a small percentage of
the site will be used for housingforlow or middle income families
and the now unattractive buildings would be removed." Conceding
that Zeckendorf's apartments had no physical relationship to the arts
center, the City Planning Commission chairman added, "it would
complement the area, because it would remove unsightly buildings."
On May 28, 1956, the Committee on Slum Clearance recommended
to the mayor and Board of Estimate that the city proceed with Lin­
coln Square. Two months later, the City Planning Commission gave
its full endorsement.37
Growing neighborhood pressure and stalling tactics by Council­
man Stanley Isaacs blocked the expected approval by the Board of
Estimate. Attorney Harris Present, a skilled headline grabber, had
mobilized Lincoln Square tenants and small businessmen into large
279
FULL EXPOSURE

protest committees. They warned that the project would destroy

600 stores, 200 small manufacturing firms, and thousands of jobs.
Present told Mayor Wagner that 7,000 site families would have to
be rehoused and that Moses was wildly optimistic in his claim that
40 percent would go into public housing. The noisy contingent
left Mayor Wagner agonizing over the displacement, while Planning
Commissioner Felt scurried for a solution.38
Behind the scenes, Moses mobilized heavyweight support that
included Cardinal Spellman, Fordham president McGinley, Samuel
Rosenman, who represented realtor Roger Stevens, and businessman
and longtime Moses associate Howard Cullman. Cullman was allied
with Herald Tribune publisher John Hay Whitney and realtor Robert
Dowling, who hoped to share Stevens's venture. At Moses's sug­
gestion, John D. Rockefeller III conferred with AFL-CIO president
George Meany, who pledged labor's backing. Moses also arranged
the practical details on relocation. When the ADA and the Protestant
Council demanded plans to rehouse tenants, he drafted city agency
heads, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's construction manager, and the
Exploratory Committee's public relations consultant for a relocation
committee and announced a three-year plan to shift 6,018 families.
To the sponsors' chagrin, he claimed they were prepared to spend
$2.5 million, including $400 for each family. James Felt added his
pledge that no one would be stampeded.39
The centerpiece of the Title I campaign was a collection of fan­
ciful sketches of Philharmonic Hall and the Metropolitan Opera
House lit up at night, the plaza thronged with crowds, and the city
vibrant with culture. The New Tork Times gave the project rave re­
views, highlighted by theater critic Howard Taubman's April 1956
feature story in the Sunday magazine. A few weeks later Taubman
was invited by John D. Rockefeller III to join other culture experts
to plan the center's educational outreach. Delighted by the Times's
coverage, Rockefeller reported to the Exploratory Committee that
the newspaper planned a series of articles on the center. "Mr. Rocke­
feller again brought up the question of the preparation of a paper on
the significance of the Center to the performing arts and to the pub­
lic in general, and suggested that Mr. Taubman might head a group
to do this. Other members of the [Exploratory] Committee felt that
he could not undertake such a task because of his connection with
the Times." Instead they suggested that Rockefeller consult with
Taubman "regarding a group to prepare a general concept of the cen­
ter." The Times's glowing anticipation of Lincoln Center appeared on
the front page on July 23, 1956, along with an unsigned tribute to
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 FULL EXPOSURE

"the boldest and most exciting artistic project ever attempted in the
United States." "By bringing the performing arts into proximity,"
the commentator added, Lincoln Center would emphasize "that the
modern American wants the things of the mind and heart as well as
material substances."40
Publisher Arthur H. Sulzberger, however, had the material in
mind, particularly the effect that the Title I would have on truck ac­
cess to the Times's West 65th Street print plant. As Moses empha­
sized to his staff architect, "I told Arthur Sulzberger we would help
on access and traffic." He wanted Sulzberger fully briefed on how
the redevelopment would dovetail with 65th Street and ramps to the
West Side Highway. After reviewing the plans, Sulzberger wrote that
he was particularly pleased with an eastbound 65th Street that would
"provide adequately for our purposes." Two weeks later, John D.
Rockefeller III reported to his associates that the Times "suggested
that another statement about the Center be published and asked for
an interview with Mr. Rockefeller to serve as a basis for another
Sunday magazine article."41
The sponsors also cultivated West Side liberals, who were more
than willing to meet them halfway. One staunch supporter was
Leonard X. Farbman, West Side plumbing contractor and political
reformer. A member of the Park River Democratic Club and presi­
dent of the Riverside Neighborhood Assembly, Farbman sat on the
executive board of the West Side Chamber of Commerce and chaired
what were called "community action" programs. Farbman had no
illusions about the impact of bulldozer clearance, and he strongly
urged Moses and Borough President Hulan Jack to create a local
citizens committee to soothe resentments against clearance. He sug­
gested that Planning Commissioner Felt meet with West Side groups
to consider low-cost housing or temporary quarters to "blunt the
relocation problem."42
All the preparation could not avert disappointment on July 26,
1956, not one of the Rockefellers's better days. The Board of Esti­
mate considered the Lincoln Square Title I project surrounded by
the din of tenant pickets around City Hall. Lawmakers heard objec­
tions from protest leader Harris Present, Councilman Isaacs, prop­
erty owners, and tenants. The prestigious City Club testified against,
as did Ira Robbins of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council.
They favored a scaled-down project that would displace fewer ten­
ants. Bowing to the pressure, the board decided to postpone Lincoln
Square. Minutes later, the board also deferred the attempt by David
and Laurence Rockefeller to condemn the East 67th Street tenement
281
FULL. EXPOSURE

block to make way for Rockefeller Institute housing. Borough Presi­

dent Hulan Jack was never satisfied with the relocation plans in the
face of vigorous Yorkville protests. Sponsors would have to come up
with a far better political solution for Lincoln Square.43
During the summer of 1956, Moses elaborated his patented mix
of glib promises and veiled threats. To liberals, the Committee on
Slum Clearance offered 1,000 units of public housing—but near
West 89th Street. William Lebwohl announced that the Teachers
Guild had arranged with the United Housing Foundation to spon­
sor a 500-unit cooperative next to the Zeckendorf apartments. The
CSC also extended vague offers to the West Side Chamber of Com­
merce for a commercial Title I to absorb displaced businesses. Moses
warned Lincoln Square sponsors that he would resign from the CSC
unless Mayor Wagner quashed an attempt by dissidents to hand con­
trol of Title I to City Planning Commissioner Felt. "I told them,"
Moses added to Fordham president McGinley, "this . . . would drive
a wedge between us and our sponsors." Shortly thereafter, in a per­
sonal note to Cardinal Spellman, he added Borough President Jack
and Comptroller Lawrence Gerosa to the list of Lincoln Square's
enemies. When the Housing and Home Finance Agency announced
in September that it would stay consideration of Lincoln Square
pending action by the Board of Estimate, Moses told sponsors that
Mayor Wagner and the board were to blame. He warned Wagner
that there had to be "an affirmative" on September 27; otherwise he
and his Title I team were "finished."44
The face-saving compromise was concocted by Lincoln Square's
West Side supporters. Local activist Leonard Farbman urged Bor­
ough President Jack to appoint a citizens committee to offset "Moses'
bull in the china shop method" with emphasis on "human values
etc. etc. in relocation." Farbman suggested that the borough presi­
dent name Joseph Montserrat, an "official PR spokesman (as well
being a reasonable and knowledgeable chap)," local clerics, and men
from the dissident Lincoln Square Businessmen's Committee. The
formulation provided the basis for Moses's September 25, 1956,
summit with Borough President Jack. Moses promised relocations
from Lincoln Square spread over three years, with the first phase de­
layed until March 1, 1957. According to the West Side News, Mayor
Wagner, Fordham University, and the Metropolitan Opera were
signatories to the agreement that promised "proper accommoda­
tions . . . for every tenant." Some moderate-rent housing would
be provided on-site by the Teachers Guild-United Housing Foun­
dation cooperative, although the public housing on 89th Street
282
 FULL EXPOSURE

remained in the "contemplated" stage. A watchdog committee ap­

pointed by Borough President Jack would monitor the agreement.
With these pledges, Hulan Jack and his colleagues came around. On
September 27, as Moses had said, the Board of Estimate approved
negotiations with the HHFA on Lincoln Square.45
Over the winter, sponsors worked to keep Lincoln Square on
track. John D. Rockefeller III visited President Eisenhower's as­
sistant, Sherman Adams, on December 19, 1956, to gain White
House support for the more marginal aspects of the project's subsidy.
While Adams chatted about organizing intellectuals for Eisenhower,
Rockefeller argued for full Title I write-downs for a performing arts
library, museum, parking garage, and the Kennedy property. Citing
the July 23 New York Times endorsement, Rockefeller claimed that
"the Lincoln Center project is in harmony with the President's pro­
gram to strengthen the cultural position of the United States around
the globe." Local HHFA official Walter Fried endorsed write-downs
for the library, museum, and even the underground parking garage.
HHFA administrator Albert Cole was enthusiastic. Prophesying "an
American landmark," Cole pledged his utmost to see Lincoln Center
realized. With relocation eliminated as an issue, Moses in January
1957 announced phased removals. City Planning Commissioner Felt
offered the facilities of the Tenant Relocation Bureau, without the
usual 5 percent fee, "as a public service."46
The top-level agreement suddenly collapsed in the spring of 1957
when Lincoln Square's alleged extravagance was caught in the middle
of federal budgetary politics. After Treasury Department officials
questioned whether taxpayers should subsidize the performing arts
with write-downs meant for housing, Albert Cole complained that
Moses's estimate of the federal contribution had ballooned from $24
to $42 million. In April, Cole informed local HHFA administrator
Fried that he would limit the federal sum to $30 million, enough for
the performing arts center, the underground garage, the Fordham
tract, and Zeckendorf's housing and the Teachers Guild cooperative,
but not Stevens's theaters. Cole objected to writing-down Broad­
way footage worth $32 to $12.50, "particularly since Commissioner
Moses is requesting that Stevens have the right to build thereon
office buildings, hotels, theaters and any other facility that the zon­
ing would permit." While Moses leaked Cole's obstruction to the
newspapers, federal officials reminded Lincoln Square sponsors who
their friends were. "What I believe Mr. Fried wanted to put across,"
General Otto Nelson informed the Exploratory Committee, "was his
belief that the Lincoln Center people should not get worried, that
283
 FULL EXPOSURE

Lincoln Center Buildings

1...Vivian Beaumont Theater 2...Philharmonic Hall
3...Metropolitan Opera House 4...New York State Theater
Other Symbols

Housing Schools & Universities Theaters, Concert Halls, & Exhibition Halls Redevelopment Sites Parks

The transformation of Lincoln Square. The Lincoln Square Title I stretched

the Coliseum Title I twelve blocks to 70th Street, creating the Lincoln Center
for the Performing Arts; a campus for Fordham University; middle-income
housing, Lincoln Towers; and Lincoln House, a cooperative sponsored by the
Teachers Guild and the United Housing Foundation. Although supporters

284
 FULL EXPOSURE

we should sit tight and that the project would be approved without
any reduction in scope."47
Moses conveyed no such assurance to his friends. Warning that
Philharmonic Hall would never survive Cole's attack, Moses had
John D. Rockefeller III appeal to President Eisenhower for a com­
promise. The New York Times on April 9, 1957, editorialized that
New York's slum clearance and redevelopment justified "a dispro­
portionately large claim" on federal resources. The pressure forced
an agreement worked out by Walter Fried and William Lebwohl
that sacrificed the Stevens site and raised the write-down target
to $8, including the Fordham tract, which undercut the charge
of favoritism to the archdiocese. Within days, Cole announced an
"understanding" with Moses that released HHFA funds for Lin­
coln Square. When Rockefeller argued that government owed the
performing arts $6 land, Moses recalculated that Zeckendorf's high-
rises could absorb $7, allowing the Lincoln Center and Fordham
price to drop to $6.86, but that, he swore, "was final." Rockefeller
wanted still more write-downs for the Kennedy building. Claiming
that he "went to considerable lengths to persuade Joe Kennedy to
sell at a very reasonable price," Moses replied that it was pointless
to prolong discussion. Delays would run the project into the 1957
elections and "even kill it."48
That was the fate of the Rockefeller Institute housing. David and
Laurence Rockefeller hoped they could placate Borough President
Jack with similar arrangements for relocation. Moses asked Carmine
DeSapio to intervene against Jack's objections, and David Rocke­
feller put several calls to the Tammany chief. At the same time, the
Rockefellers conveyed their "sense of responsibility" toward reloca­
tion. But all the high-powered influence could not bend the borough
president's calculation that the clearance of an entire Yorkville block
would disrupt too many constituents. The Rockefellers could have
Lincoln Square, but they could not have everything. On April 25,
1957, the Board of Estimate rejected the project at Hulan Jack's ex­
press wish. (The Rockefeller Institute housing was later developed
as a private purchase without city subsidy.)49

emphasized district planning, Lincoln Center and Fordham faced Broadway

and Columbus Avenue and offered a blank wall toward the low-rent units,
the Amsterdam Houses. The commercial theater and business block proposed
by realtor-impresario Roger Stevens never survived the political controversy
surrounding the Title I write-down.

285
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With the Cole contretemps behind them, the Lincoln Square

proponents launched the final campaign for city approval during
the summer of 1957. They expected the Wagner administration to
supply, as one of Rockefeller's assistants put it, "PR... to show cen­
ter is not just for upper crust," along with a steady pace of contract
signings. They arranged for HHFA praise of Lincoln Center, and
they made sure that Cole remembered his words about an "American
landmark." When Mayor Wagner was informed that sponsors ac­
cepted the $6.86 figure, he lauded the benefactors, who would make
New York the culture "magnet of the modern world." Wagner would
do his part, but with deliberate speed. "The Mayor stated," Lebwohl
reported to Moses, "that they could not appear to be precommitted
or putting on a rush act, that they will do the best they can but
would provide full public hearings and time for consideration."50
Redevelopers took extraordinary care to prevent Lincoln Square
from getting derailed again. Committee on Slum Clearance vice-
chairman Thomas Shanahan arranged for a Lincoln Square testi­
monial dinner with Title I sponsors and the West Side Association
of Commerce, because the association held "a similar function for
the Coliseum [Title I] project at about the same stage of its de­
velopment." Charles Spofford's assistants monitored the opposition,
including an evening protest rally of 350 people drawn by a tenants
council "summons." Warning that the Title I would shift 7,000 fami­
lies into new slums, Harris Present attacked "dictator" Moses and de­
manded that the city declare Lincoln Square an urban renewal area to
"preserve the 'good' buildings." Although Spofford's men had heard
all this before, they were alarmed that protesters promised to attend
City Planning Commission proceedings on September 11, 1957,
with pickets "for the benefit of TV and newspaper cameras." "While
many of the arguments seemed to us to be specious," Spofford's men
reported, "we felt that there is enough substance in Mr. Present's
program to warrant concern over delay."51
Moses prepared carefully scripted blue-ribbon testimony for the
September 11 hearing. Besides John D. Rockefeller III, representa­
tives of Fordham University, the Philharmonic Society, the Metro­
politan Opera, and the Juilliard School proclaimed the city to be
on the brink of a cultural renaissance and promised assiduous atten­
tion to the plight of site tenants. Charles Spofford emphasized that
the sponsors recognized "the serious human problems involved in
a redevelopment." While the Lincoln Square Residents Committee
surrounded City Hall with pickets, the City Planning Commission
unanimously approved the project, with provision for adequate re­
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 FULL EXPOSURE

location. Moses also choreographed the rerun for the October 25

hearings of the Board of Estimate. General Otto Nelson arranged
endorsements from the New York Building Congress, the American
Institute of Architects, and the Regional Plan Association. Cued by
Reginald Allen of the Philharmonic Society, the musicians unions
chorused the "key word . . . opportunity." West Side News owner
Harry Rogers handled the West Side contingent, including spokes­
men for the Riverside Neighborhood Assembly, Community Plan­
ning Board No. 7, and the West Side Chamber of Commerce. On
November 24, the Board of Estimate approved the condemnation
and resale of the 68-acre tract. A few days later, Borough Presi­
dent Jack appointed Leonard Farbman, Rabbi Edward Klein of the
Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, and other West Siders to the Watch­
dog Committee on Relocation.52

Reckoning
The Lincoln Square melodrama, as Robert Caro observed, featured
a stunning display of Moses's power. Today when one strolls through
the vast marble complex, it is hard to imagine the primal force that
drove the former residents out. But the battle was won by dexterous
strokes against critics, who could never disagree with the wisdom
that the arts took primacy over ordinary urban needs. Sponsors con­
stantly played on the message that the performing arts were crucial
to New York—and to America—during the cold war struggle for
people's minds. Moses was always more practical. When he submit­
ted the Lincoln Square estimates to the HHFA, he reckoned that the
federal write-down would leverage nearly $250 million in private
construction, the city's largest commercial project since Rockefeller
Center. Moses also squeezed the maximum publicity from the least
concession granted his opponents. When SCAD called for an on-site
relocation bureau, the Committee on Slum Clearance promptly com­
plied. When Harris Present warned of thousands of homeless, the
CSC figured that many would get units in public housing. In a typical
gesture, Moses offered low-rent housing on 89th Street (which was
never realized because it set off fears of racial imbalance among West
Side civic leaders). To the Citizens Housing and Planning Council
went another promise that the City Planning Commission would
study its suggestions to make the West Side near Lincoln Center the
city's first urban renewal area.53
Under pressure from Moses, the City Planning Commission had
287
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already withdrawn from the relocation debate. It had become a lib­

eral body since Mayor Wagner had replaced two Moses stalwarts
with James Felt and Francis J. Bloustein. The commissioners had at
their disposal investigations into Manhattantown, tenant relocation
surveys at Godfrey Nurse, deliberations of the Mayor's Committee
for Better Housing, not to mention its own relocation reports of
1953. Chairman Felt knew the growing unease about the public
projects in East Harlem and Brownsville. A City Planning Com­
mission draft report, which Felt had written for Mayor Wagner's
use in August of 1956, warned of the crisis that would result from
blacks and Puerto Ricans being shoved into the few neighborhoods
"open to them," the same neighborhoods targeted for clearance and
redevelopment. Because the displaced families had priority for new
public units, the concentration of minorities in public housing would
markedly increase. The Housing Authority might counter the trend
with projects on open land, but this alternative was checkmated by
what the staff euphemistically called "neighborhood oppositions."
The draft report urged Wagner to use the mayor's office and the
Commission on Intergroup Relations to coordinate improvements
that would lessen racial segregation.54
Commissioner Felt regarded the draft as confidential, but Moses
learned of it and sent a caustic reply. Most New Yorkers opposed
housing blacks and Puerto Ricans in the outer boroughs, Moses
wrote Felt. "Why don't you say frankly that such opposition has offi­
cial recognition and tell more about it?" Moses said it was absurd
for Mayor Wagner to pretend otherwise. The next day, Felt assured
Moses that the draft was not the commission's final view, and the
sentiments were never made public. A few months afterward, Felt
defended the city's relocation record in a speech to the New York
ADA. He went on to argue that slum clearance could not wait for
perfect solutions to the problem of displaced residents.55
A year later, the City Planning Commission's Report on Lincoln
Center forecast that by the end of the 1950s, another 74,800 fami­
lies would be relocated by slum clearance and public improvements.
It nevertheless concluded that the city would have the housing
it needed. Despite vigorous clearance activities, the commission re­
ported a net gain of 144,000 units. Appalled by the commission's
overly optimisticfigures,many housing reformers begged Chairman
Felt to reconsider the facts. Some had the same mixed feelings as
State Rent Administrator Hortense Gabel, who tried to document
the City Planning Commission's miscalculation while privately ad­

288
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mitting, "I am not necessarily opposed to Lincoln Square, but I am

opposed to the irresponsible use of data to support it."56
Many liberals who should have objected to the project shared
Gabel's ambivalence. Some, like Robert Weinberg, applauded the
arts complex, including impresario Stevens's row of private theaters.
Citizens Housing and Planning Council president Ira Robbins, one
of Moses's consistent antagonists, testified in favor of the project
at the Board of Estimate. Calling Lincoln Center "a shot in the
arm" for the West Side, Robbins said that the Metropolitan Opera
Association, Fordham University, and other sponsors were "not the
type who would take advantage of tenants." The Teachers Guild,
which anticipated cooperative housing at Lincoln Square, refused to
"involve itself in these problems, which are not directly the concern
of a union for teachers." The Women's City Club, which vigorously
attacked Manhattantown, admired the "imaginative" project that
"would stimulate the cultural life of the city as well as help stem the
tide of deterioration on the West Side." The club approved Lincoln
Square contingent on the start of lower-middle-class housing on the
site and a public project nearby to enable an "orderly" relocation
with "a minimum of hardship."57
Whether or not hardship was minimized, removals for Lincoln
Square were carried out with the utmost order, guaranteed by West
Side liberals on the Watchdog Committee, who worked with man­
agers of the Lincoln Center and Fordham sites. If their efforts
focused on easing panic flight rather than aiding relocation, it was
because they had learned the lessons of Manhattantown. They saw
their mandate as "prompt reconstruction," along with quick reloca­
tion and adequate site maintenance, to keep "the integrated character
of the Lincoln Square area on a social, economic, and cultural basis."
How the performing arts center and Zeckendorf's upper-middle­
income apartments were to be integrated with the neighborhood
was never elaborated. At the final accounting, the Watchdog Com­
mittee reported that 3,300 of the 5,572 tenants on the Lincoln
Square site had found their own apartments, and only 530 went into
public housing. Average relocation expenses cost sponsors $75, 58

Breakdown

By the late 1950s, redevelopment that withstood Moses's critics was

breaking down under the growing backlog of site refugees. The flow

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of refugees had overwhelmed the Housing Authority's traditional

dependence on the worthy poor, stringent tenant selection, and
power to evict undesirables. Tributaries of the housing system, such
as the clearance areas in East Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant, were
becoming centers of social unrest, and other neighborhoods targeted
for low-income projects were beginning to resist that dubious dis­
tinction. Site tenants who feared relocation into projects of special
notoriety began to reject Housing Authority placement. The historic
relationship between redevelopment and public housing, which had
sustained inner-city renewal, now threatened the program's foun­
dation. In 1958 both the Housing Authority and the Committee
on Slum Clearance went into receivership by liberals determined to
force enough modifications to keep renewal going.
The crisis first appeared in East Harlem, the neighborhood most
transformed by Housing Authority operation. Between 1947 and
1956, seven projects opened with a total capacity of 10,244 units,
a greater concentration of public housing, city planners later recog­
nized, "than in almost any other place of comparable size in the
country." Halfway through the slum clearance process, social dis­
organization had already swamped settlements, churches, and chari­
ties, and drew concern from the highest levels of Protestant phi­
lanthropy. In late 1955, the Phelps Stokes Fund gave $11,500 to
the Citizens Housing and Planning Council to study Housing Au­
thority policies that affected "the social aspects of housing," par­
ticularly what council president J. Clarence Davies, Jr., described
as public housing's changing tenant population. Social work expert
Elizabeth Wood of the Chicago Housing Authority was hired to
examine the system's growing concentration of blacks and Puerto
Pvicans and the ominous increase in what were called "problem fami­
lies" (those that received welfare and/or were headed by females)
that required social work intervention. Wood's study, published as
The Small Hard Core (1957), concluded that Title I "intensifies the
trend towards economic, social and racial stratification" in public
housing.59
During the early winter of 1958, Housing Authority attempts to
keep order in the projects touched off tenant rebellion. Authorized
by the state legislature to make arrests and carry firearms, housing
police confronted youth gangs, who threatened to "take over" com­
munity facilities. On the Lower East Side, juvenile delinquency was
reported to be rampant in projects that were "collectivities of dis­
organized and alienated individuals." Gangs fought over "turf" that
included playgrounds, community rooms, and even social settle­
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merits. In early 1958, management moves against troublemakers led

to rank-and-file complaints about "unjust" evictions and demands for
a tenant board of appeals. Struggling against the adverse publicity,
the Wagner administration reorganized the Housing Authority in
May of 1958. Moses's longtime ally, chairman Philip Cruise, was re­
placed by William D. Reid, and Ira Robbins of the Citizens Housing
and Planning Council was named vice-chairman.60
Robbins promptly toured the worst projects, encouraged liaison
with local civic groups, and hired an NAACP expert to advise on
race relations. The authority established a Social Consultation Unit
to review the admissions of "borderline" tenants, advise on the reha­
bilitation of problem families, and mediate what it characterized as
"potentially explosive situations." "Although the Housing Authority
will not become a case work agency," Robbins cautioned, "it will try
to help needy families who are considered undesirable as tenants be­
cause of their social problems, to secure benefit of aid from outside
case work agencies."61
Despite Robbins's cautious words, the small hard core was per­
ceived as a danger to the entire system. In June 1958, Housing
Authority managers counted 2,036 problem families, but only 126
cases referred to the Social Consultation Unit. Nevertheless, when
the authority applied to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to support
special social work at Fort Greene and Queensbridge, it conceded
that "behavior of problem families [had] become notorious... [and]
threatened the reputation of the whole housing movement." Explain­
ing why the flagships of public housing needed emergency aid, East
Side settlement leader Helen Hall reported that "they are among the
most difficult and because these difficulties are compounded by the
fact that more stable families applying for housing avoid them." 62
Officials considered several expedients to quiet the disturbances.
Robbins emphasized that the Housing Authority had raised income
limits to the highest allowable levels to avoid unnecessary evictions
and "reduce the feeling among low-income families that they are
only transient residents." The authority began using nonprofessional
caseworkers to reach families that never ventured into community
centers. It even sponsored tenant organizations as morale builders,
beginning with experimental floor meetings run by the Henry Street
Settlement at the La Guardia, Bernard Baruch, and Lillian Wald
Houses. But a Women's City Club survey of project managers found
that most regarded family counseling their "number one need," and
many improvised emergency techniques. At the Breukelen Houses,
management, working with the Jewish Family Services, "invited"
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parents and teenagers to weekly sessions to deal with "family dis­

organization as expressed through the 'symptom' of a poorly kept
home." But the Breukelen manager admitted that counseling could
not negate "the concentration of only the lowest income families in
one community, with their concomitant problems [that] . . . result in
high turnover, unstable communities, and in loss of potential leader­
ship." The real remedy, she concluded, was mixing income groups by
raising income ceilings and devising proportionate rents. Only then
would tenants "cease regarding the project as a stop-over place and
start taking roots."63
Some housing liberals, however, recognized that fundamental
problems stemmed from the nature of large-scale slum clearance.
Some experts called for the Housing Authority to adopt a two-year
"breathing spell" on new admissions to allow the Social Consultation
Unit to create a "favorable reputation of the projects by accepting
only stable families." Social agencies pointed out that problem ten­
ants came from neighborhoods that had been ravaged by authority
operations. In East Harlem, Helen Hall wrote, the authority had
made slum clearance "an inhuman practice" that devastated thou­
sands of families. Many had taken refuge in "rehabs," makeshift tene­
ments that the authority rented from private landlords. Although
the authority supervised, families were put at the mercy of rent col­
lectors before they were unceremoniously told to move again for
new clearance. Many families had become so demoralized that social
workers despaired of saving them. Helen Hall reported outright "re­
sistance" from casework agencies, which regarded "multi-problem
families [as] . . . 'too difficult,' 'too expensive,' and not too hopeful."
The Housing Authority, she added, was "left with the alternative of
letting a family incapable of adjustment to life in a project, stay on,
perhaps making life impossible for other tenants, or throwing them
back into the slums."64
The 1958 change in leadership reflected the Housing Authority's
decision to persevere with social work. Several projects were assigned
to the Social Consultation Unit with orders to do casework without
the patronizing that had touched off earlier protests. Swamped by
the caseload, the unit virtually gave up family counseling to concen­
trate on flagrant cases of narcotics use and prostitution. Determined
to ride out the crisis, the Housing Authority rejected the idea of
a moratorium on new admissions. But the authority board wanted
New York to understand that although the authority would try to
improve conditions in the projects, it could no longer "house every
family now living in slums."65
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 FULL EXPOSURE

The force behind Moses's last Title I victory on the Lower East Side, 1957.
At City Planning Commission hearing, July 17, 1957, to consider the Seward
Park Title I, witnesses wait to testify their support. Front row, from left: Jacob
Zukerman, president of the Workmen's Circle; Abraham E. Kazan, executive
director of the United Housing Foundation; and United Housing Founda­
tion president Robert Szold. The audience carries placards that proclaim, "We
need decent housing. Approve Seward Cooperative Development." Seward
Park won easy approval, but in 1958, further United Housing Foundation-
sponsored Title I projects at Seward Park Extension and at Delancev North
were blocked by community opponents, ending Moses-stvle redevelopment in
the district. Courtesy of the Special Archive, Triborough Bridge and Tunnel
Authority.

That message filtered back, to Title I redevclopers and to site

residents whose homes were at risk. Black Harlem opposed further
large-scale projects, and neighborhood reaction against the bulldozer
touched off a new political insurgency. The movement by Harlem
rent-strike leader Jesse Gray made little headway among the tenants
of East 117th Street's brownstones. But Gray built a power base
in the nearby Stephen Foster Houses, defending families involved
in investigations by the Social Consultation Unit. During the quiet
years of the civil rights movement, the East Harlem chapter of the
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FULL EXPOSURE

Congress on Racial Equality took up tenants' rights at the Robert A.

Taft Houses. The limit on public housing's ability to absorb refugees
had already put several Title I projects on the shelf. In 1958, Moses's
biggest setback occurred when the United Housing Foundation
sponsored yet another Lower East Side Title I, the twenty-seven­
square-block Delancey North, which threatened 5,722 site families.
Wary of the relocation, particularly for the area's shopkeepers, Abra­
ham Kazan met local businessmen, promising commercial space and
parking. But the proposal fell through because of the need to shift
hundreds of tenants into the nearby Rutgers public houses.66
The breakdown in the housing system finally reached the opin­
ion centers that traditionally backed Moses's slum clearance. Only
four years had passed since the New York Times had run the series
on "Our Changing City," but the passage of time could have been a
generation. Between June 29 and July 2, 1959, the newspaper sur­
veyed the entire scope of public housing and urban renewal and came
to somber conclusions. The reporter found that the projects were
barren of hope and that the Housing Authority was beleaguered
by Title I relocation. The grim data reverberated in lordly circles,
including those of the Ford Foundation's urban experts. Staffers
became convinced that Title I had aggravated the city's housing
shortage, destroyed many Old Law tenements that could have shel­
tered low-income residents, and created sterile, crime-ridden envi­
ronments. Searching for alternatives to Moses's bulldozers, policy
makers were attracted to City Planning Commissioner James Felt's
notion of "spot" renewal, particularly on the Upper West Side. But
it was difficult to disengage from old programs that once promised
so much. Ford's urban expert, Robert C. Weaver, sounded a familiar
refrain. He worried that the "controversy over Title I developments
is crystallizing the opposition." "The danger in the present situa­
tion," Weaver went on, "is that demagogues and poorly informed
persons may articulate the point of view that there should never be
any displacement under any circumstances." Weaver favored restor­
ing respectability to Title I by placing restrictions on demolition.
For many Moses critics as well as collaborators, the chance to sweep
clean and remake the city was a dream they could not abandon.67

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THE POWER BROKER AND
HIS CLIENTS

New York . . . has the least citizen participation, the

least effective local democracy, and the individual has
the least degree of individual self-determination that is
to be found in any major city in the United States.
Saul D. Alinsky

T i t l e I reached full stride in New York at the time that urban analysts
developed powerful explanationsforthe remarkable changes occur­
ring in the postwar metropolis. The redevelopment of hundreds of
acres of central-city property coincided with recognition by urban
analysts of the population flows and international economic trends
sweeping across American cities. Harvard economist Raymond Ver­
non once remarked that during his New York Metropolitan Region
research he rode in helicopters to get a lofty perspective and could
not discern Title I projects in the blur of buildings. Vernon's fail­
ure confirmed his suspicion that for all the controversy about Title I
projects, their impact on New York was negligible. From far enough
away, the features of the metropolis could disappear, as could the
great men who shaped it.1
The detachment of modern social science notwithstanding,
Title I's impact proved enormous. Projects removed 100,000 people
from Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn, and, with their accom­
panying public housing, generated a diaspora of at least twice that
number. Site clearance forced out at least 5,000 businesses of all
sizes, and public housing forced out thousands more. Municipal ex­
perts declared that these losses, mostly of mom-and-pop stores, were

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T H E POWER BROKER AND HIS CLIENTS

negligible. But in Central and East Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and

other minority ghettoes, these enterprises nurtured a sizable portion
of the black and Hispanic middle class. In other neighborhoods, re­
developments wiped out larger businesses or forced their ruinous
shift to other quarters. Job loss as a direct result of redevelopment
was between 30,000 and 60,000 in the postwar period. By the late
1950s, the number had risen to several hundred thousand.
Title I projects accomplished what their proponents had planned
but could never publicly admit. They redefined entire neighbor­
hoods, providing visible redoubts and unmistakable boundaries,
enclosing interior villages, and raising blank exterior walls. They up­
rooted undesirables and held on to the valued middle class. They
created anchorages, such as Park West Village (Manhattantown)
and Morningside Gardens, that saved the Upper West Side. On the
Lower East Side, they earmarked Cooperative Village as a Jewish
enclave. Greenwich Village civic leaders used Title I to fulfill long-
held ambitions to modernize Washington Square South. Moses may
have been disingenuous to claim that industry threatened Stuyve­
sant Town, but the long-range trend proved just the opposite, that
residential redevelopment could drive out industry. With enough
agreement among sponsors and municipal officials, redevelopments
created a domino effect that transformed the city. Long before New
York became postindustrial, the projects created the preconditions
for the change. As at Lincoln Square, they turned New York around.
The Title I program was a watershed in the history of New York
in the twentieth century. One might say it was the watershed. It
reflected all the promises and shortcomings of the liberal era, all
the confidence in municipal engineering and the disastrous conse­
quences for those groups who got lost in the relocation shuffle. In
channeling the shift of racial and economic groups, in stabilizing the
placement of favored elements and scattering others, and in giving
moral sanction to these inequitable priorities, the program brought
the contours of postwar New York down to our own times. It was
the mechanism that connected the policies of La Guardia in the late
1930s to the street protests of the mid-1960s. It tied together grief
for lost homes at Corlears Hook with the people's defiance against
civic improvements in Jesse Gray's Harlem.
The promise and turmoil of Title I had to have been the work
of a power broker. Contemporaries knew that Moses was the in­
dispensable man behind the transformation of New York. William
Zeckendorf, theflamboyantdeal maker who was a major sponsor of
Title I projects, was convinced that Moses was the singular reason
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 THE POWER BROKER AND HIS CLIENTS

for the success of the New York program, and Zeckendorf sported
the bruises to prove it. From bitter experience, housing reformer
Charles Abrams concluded that Moses realized virtually any project
he wanted, and those he disliked never had a chance.2
But the emphasis on the Great Man's willfulness overlooked the
numerous instances where Moses operated within the grooves of
municipal policy. Much of what Moses accomplished rested on forty
years of agreement about the future of the city. Progressive Era
planning set down the notion of the City Efficient that had to be
physically renewed from the inside out with government subsidy.
Among reformers it also was axiomatic that the toiling classes had
no special claim to the inner city, but belonged somewhere else and
would self-relocate along new subway routes. Settlement leaders and
housing proponents continually campaigned for local improvements
that had a stubborn tendency to reach fruition as middle-class apart­
ments on broad boulevards. Pre-World War I hopes to gentrify the
Lower East Side were the basis for the more scientific blueprints of
the Regional Plan of New York to remove the working class for more
desired residents.
By and large, Moses was the loyal instrument of this legacy.
The arterial network Moses helped fashion in the 1930s and 1940s
closely coincided with the radiating and circumferential routes en­
visioned by the Regional Plan of New York a generation before.
Inner-city business interests, including East Side boosters, pushed
for the highways that girdled Lower Manhattan along the East and
Hudson rivers and proposed city-busting routes through the tene­
ments. Although there is a great deal of controversy about the ori­
gins of the six-lane monstrosities that tore the fabric of urban life—
and inclination to blame them on Moses and his proteges in federal
highway agencies—there was no shortage of earlier and equally dis­
ruptive schemes by New Yorkers who professed loyalty to the Lower
East Side. Moses, moreover, based his redevelopment stratagems
on assumptions, going back to the Progressive Era, about realizing
highest and best use of the inner city's expensive square footage.
Slumlords absorbed $10 land by cramming 500 people to the acre
at $4 per room. Progressive planners, pursuing more functional and
humane goals, would pile 400 in high-rises around well-designed
interior spaces and charge them $12 to $20 per room. During the
1920s and the early years of the depression, East Side reformers and
businessmen alike favored this pathway to social progress.
Moses went along, too, until he realized that private-sector inves­
tors would not risk their money on their conceptions. He relentlessly
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THE POWER BROKER AND HIS CLIENTS

strove to plant middle-income redevelopments along the East River

Drive, to give the outmoded gridiron a machine age functional­
ism. Stuyvesant Town commemorates his perseverence. Yet Moses
broke with the regional planners on placement of public housing, a
demarche that piled irony on irony. That great proponent of public
responsibility to the housing movement, Governor Alfred E. Smith,
exhorted Moses to clinch the deal with New York Life Insurance that
would have made it (not Metropolitan Life) the pioneer in renewal
on the Lower East Side. Moses and Smith warmly agreed that their
legacy should be an upper-middle-class community, not another
refuge for the working poor. Only when New York Life withdrew
did Moses, enraged by corporate shortsightedness, proceed with the
low-rent projects that honored Lillian Wald and Governor Smith.
In the process, Moses bucked the wisdom about highest and best
use. Determined to nail down a public works agenda in 1943, Moses
would clear and reclaim the Lower East Side whether or not the
private sector would go along. The end result—the row of low-rent
projects between the Brooklyn Bridge and 14th Street—remains
as much his legacy as that of any of the housers whose names are
chiseled into the cornerstones.
Urban experts have understandably paused over Moses's achieve­
ment in public housing. Policy critic Peter Marcuse has called at­
tention to the extraordinary success of the New York City Housing
Authority when it was under Moses's influence. Between 1947 and
1957, the authority built units at an annual rate that was four times
that of the years immediately before or after. No housing liberal
could take more credit for this vast increase in the system. Yet Moses
barely hid his contempt for public housing and regarded the projects
as welfare units filled with society's rejects. This paradox is explained
by the casual distinction Moses made between clearance and recon­
struction. Indifferent to the projects, he had a Victorian obsession
with clearing the slums he reviled as scabrous sores. Public housing
was the most expedient way to "clean up" the remnant, but he would
just as soon accept a mixed assemblage, a plaza or park or highway,
anything that, like spreading inkblots, would cover the ground.3
Moses's public housing achievement has also figured in critics'
appreciation that he overrode private interests to enlarge the scope
of public action. Roger Starr expressed grudging respect for Moses
the public doer, who kept an "unwavering commitment to the idea
of the public realm." Although Starr had no illusions about Moses's
willingness or ability to distinguish between his and the city's domin­
ion, he admired Moses's readiness to promote municipal business
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 THE POWER BROKER AND HIS CLIENTS

and realize the extraordinary expansion of public space regardless

of the interest groups that got in his way. Under Robert Moses's
direction, the city had the will to do great things.4
Moses's utter confidence rested on several factors, including the
capital budgets of a city with an enormous manufacturing and mer­
cantile base, the political demands for unemployment relief during
the depression, and the people's faith in public works, which was
largely shaped by Moses's efficiency as park commissioner and high­
way builder. But the investment in public housing also depended on
popular approval of the state's ultimate intrusion on private property.
Article XVIII of the New York State Constitution opened the flood­
gates of public action and, more specifically, authorized local bodies
such as the Board of Estimate and Rexford Tugwell's City Planning
Commission to indicate wide areas for slum clearance, replanning,
and low-rent housing. Article XVIII was the high tide of the 1930s'
attack on property. Not surprisingly, Moses vied with liberal Demo­
cratic and American Labor party delegates at the 1938 constitutional
convention to write a succinct, sweeping grant of power. In the city,
however, Moses rarely wielded that power. Instead he kept to his old
habit of sidling up to real estate interests, picking out odd lots, and
using Park Department holdings to leverage large projects. Property
interests regarded Tugwell as a menace and sighed in relief when
men such as Moses pulled back on the City Planning Commission's
collectivist assault. Thanks to Moses, Tugwell's master plans were
dead, and the last great lunge at public controls on property receded
into memory. More than anyone realized at the time, the planning
initiative passed to private groups and to Moses, their chief patron.
With Tugwell replaced by Moses and the amenable Edwin Sal­
mon, the City Planning Commission became a spiritless hulk that
provided a parody of the public weal. Giving lip service to central­
ized, citywide goals, the members indulged private efforts or pursued
private redevelopments all their own. Moses loyalists and liberal
dissidents alike gave the commission's stamp of approval to redevel­
opments of dubious merit. All the process required was the right
language—seemingly any language—that mentioned urban blight
and world capital. Although devoid of serious meaning, compre­
hensive planning remained alive among those groups that wielded
public authorization for private interests.
The litmus test of Moses's concern for public authority was not
the triumph of public housing in neighborhoods that had been
written off by private owners, but redevelopment where property
interests had a visceral concern for what the public would subsidize.
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T H E POWER BROKER AND HIS CLIENTS

Redevelopment revealed the degree of Moses's accommodation to

private power, which was very different from what Roger Starr said
was the man's "unwavering commitment to . . . the public realm."
What Moses accomplished with Title I came from the unique part­
nership of public and private efforts, beginning with the prototype,
Stuyvesant Town. Desperate to engage private investors in inner-
city renewal, Moses offered them virtually every public subsidy that
his legal draftsmen could lay their hands on. Forty years of political
struggle to justify the state's right to intervene against private prop­
erty were thrown at Metropolitan Life. Mayor La Guardia added the
final suggestion to Frederick Ecker that his company could main­
tain cash flow from condemned slums until it was convenient to
rebuild. Responsibility for relocation was saddled on Metropolitan
Life, although its rehousing experience equaled that of any city
agency and, in any case, James Felt's Tenant Relocation Bureau could
finesse the task. Nevertheless, East 14th Street clearance could not
have been accomplished without the illusion of relocation units
offered by the Housing Authority. Again, public authority provided
a crucial rescue of the private process. From the start, redevelopment
meant public boons thrown at private interests by a public czar who
tolerated private advantages wheedled from public agencies.
The melding of public spirit and private gain resembled tradi­
tional urban boosterism, except that never before did boosters find
so much public domain up for grabs or, thanks to postwar politics
and social science, so many rationales for their operations. Marx­
ists looking for evidence of capitalist planning or even half-coherent
blueprints by a corporate elite would only find vague pronounce­
ments about the city's postwar needs. Investors may have insisted
on solid projections for business, but when it came to the city's
business they acted on dreamy metaphors and self-fulfilling prophe­
cies. One looks in vain among the redevelopment schemes for esti­
mates of business needs, floor-space requirements, labor-force size
and composition. Instead planners conjured visions of medical cen­
ters, entertainment complexes, and the city of tomorrow. Moses was
much to blame for this, for he hounded Tugwell's commission into
becoming a routinized agency busy with zoning variances; the com­
mission never reclaimed the high ground of master plans. But even
in Tugwell's heyday there was a weakness for cavalier gestures: 1940
master planning, which was little more than an imperious wave of
the hand.
Moses's penchant for shopping around for public housing sites
evolved with new carelessness in the redevelopment program. Moses
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 THE POWER BROKER AND HIS CLIENTS

actually had in mind purposeful reclamations for mixed-uses, but

under the studied indifference of investors adopted the opportun­
ist approach. The resulting Title Fs had no central purpose other
than to improve isolated areas, fill the city's write-down quotas, and
preserve the prerogatives of the construction coordinator. The Com­
mittee on Slum Clearance met regularly to jog along the list of indi­
vidual projects. The sprawling ones, such as the vast Brooklyn Civic
Center, were given special attention to keep their disparate com­
ponents together. But there was no interrelationship among Title I
projects, except with the horse trading on the Board of Estimate.
Even the Rockefellers pursued fragmented goals. David's pet project
was Morningside, although he could join with Laurence on Rocke­
feller Institute housing on York Avenue. Winthrop gave his attention
to NYU-Bellevue. John's objective was high culture at Lincoln Cen­
ter. Whatever coordination existed among them never showed on the
record. The task fell to hired professionals, such as family architect
Wallace Harrison, the lawyers at Debevoise & Plimpton and Milbank
Tweed, and public relations assistants at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The
assistants were put on the job because they were handy and could
exchange tips about what relocation devices worked here or who
obstructed progress there. But they never perceived the big picture,
much less determined it.
Sponsors shaped Title I with an indifference to large urban
responsibilities. The Committee on Slum Clearance looked for a
boundary street to make the social cordon, along with a large enough
range of tenements to clear with a public purpose. Moses preferred
blocks of Old Law tenements, but stands of New Laws might do if
they were blighted, overcrowded, below modern standards, threat­
ened the neighborhood with deterioration, or some such formula­
tion. The sponsors' focus, of course, remained upper-middle-income
redevelopment until political pressures, mixed with twinges of con­
science, forced them to seek community balance and an acceptable
number of relocation units. Tactical requirements for Title I approval
by the Board of Estimate drove a good portion of the public housing
system. Nearly all of the Title Fs necessitated tenant displacement,
some to an unconscionable degree. Yet the program's logic, the pri­
macy given to subsidizing apartments of New Yorkers who could pay
$25 (and upward) per room in rent, made neighborhood sponsors
full partners in the social upheavals that followed.
The opportunism of redevelopment, the lack of planning vision
despite Committee on Slum Clearance brochures that stated other­
wise, explains the surprising number of projects that Moses never
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THE POWER BROKER AND HIS CLIENTS

got off the drawing boards. They included, among others, vital links
of his arterial highway system, the Houston Street and 30th Street
crosstown expressways. Half of the initial projects recommended by
the CSC in 1949 never reached fruition. Only the Harlem projects,
driven by Urban League benevolence, went through with little
trouble. Washington Square South, South Village, and Delancey
Street were dead on arrival, while the others dragged out in contro­
versy for three or four years. Their success required all the brokerage
skills Moses could command and all the self-serving vocabulary his
neighborhood allies could muster. Even with all this, he had to call
on the Housing Authority for pledges of relocation aid. He could
not deliver public help to the Rockefeller Institute housing project
in 1956, nor could he apply Title I write-downs to the second Belle­
vue housing project. He could not avoid revisions at Lincoln Square
that were made to placate Borough President Hulan Jack.
Local enthusiasm explains another aspect of Moses's unique role
in redevelopment. Moses the power broker was also the brakeman,
who had to pull back on improbable, extravagant schemes, the only
man who knew the limits of federal largesse. How much the caus­
tic lectures to sponsors reflected Moses's ego or his obsessive need
to control redevelopment remains uncertain. But only Moses could
have ridiculed the Morningside sponsors for thinking of sprawling
Chicago-style clearance. Only Moses could say no to the claims of
Winthrop Rockefeller and Edwin Salmon over the entire Bellevue
district. Consistently favoring discrete, step-by-step development,
Moses demanded limited, carefully planned projects with regard to
location and financing. He was indifferent to the havoc of removals,
except where they affected the political climate. But Moses was
no more callous about the clearance of minorities than any of his
clients in the liberal camp. The first-round projects, Corlears Hook,
Manhattantown, and Morningside, featured large-scale removal of
blacks and Puerto Ricans and their replacement by small numbers
of middle-class minorities. The justification depended on claims of
self-relocation and projected acceptance into public housing. The
promises were as dreary as the public housing projects that liberals
attacked in a far different context. No more cold-blooded calculation
of removals by Robert Moses was exhibited by the sponsors of South
Village, who could clear out 1,700 low-income families to implant
60 or 70 families of color.
Moses's brokerage was made possible by the political and social
reality of the La Guardia years, for urban redevelopment was un­
imaginable outside the context of total war and postwar anxieties.
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 THE POWER BROKER AND HIS CLIENTS

National defense priorities have been cited by historians as throttling

urban initiatives, but total war also provided the force that sustained
public housing and urban redevelopment. The depression, of course,
was the major catalyst for urban programs, which were proposed
as points of social justice but were, in fact, bulwarks of commer­
cial real estate. By the late 1930s, however, even these initiatives
showed signs of exhaustion with the exhaustion of the New Deal.
World War II revived federal concerns for the city, and the urban
dimension of national security sustained urban programs over the
next twenty years. The war cast a global perspective on cities that
proved impossible to ignore. None of the cities that harbored am­
bitions to be world capitals—Washington, New York, Philadelphia,
and San Francisco—could accept the dingy ambience and embar­
rassing race relations that passed for urbanism-as-usual. The metro­
politan environment demanded modernization. World cities in a
global economy needed sleek corporate headquarters, first-class uni­
versities and hospitals, modern arterial highways, and convenient,
downtown housing. Organized labor, business groups, the medical
establishment, and city planners agreed.
In New York this upper-middle-class, professional agenda could
not have been realized without a prior shift in political forces. The
collapse of Tammany and the fratricidal war on the left wing opened
large areas to be claimed by any group who could mount the civic
rostrum. How else can one evaluate the rationale expressed by the
director of the Citizens Watchdog Committee, which presided over
the removal of some 5,100 families from Lincoln Square and jus­
tified an even larger dispersal of 6,391 families for the West Side
Urban Renewal Project in 1962. "I can tell you flatly and without
reservation," he said, "that this active participation of a volunteer
citizens group working with the sponsors and city agencies involved
can guarantee humane and equitable treatment for relocatees."5
Post-World War II politics sustained redevelopment and silenced
groups that were no longer on the liberal bandwagon. The left wing
that gave Democrats a free hand with urban redevelopment during
the war turned against the program and contested specific projects
such as Manhattantown and Morningside. For many dissident Marx­
ists, rallies against redevelopment sites enabled them to attack the
whole Truman administration agenda for the cold war. For every
dissident group, Moses could find a powerful countervailing ally
among liberals and reformers. Because of threats made by these veto
groups, allies sought out Moses's support. On Morningside Heights,
at Corlears Hook and Manhattantown, and later at Lincoln Square,
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T H E POWER BROKER AND HIS CLIENTS

civic groups embraced Title I projects as the way to define their

neighborhoods as forward looking and to isolate their opponents
as destructive nihilists. Gleaming high-rises symbolized all that was
modern and cosmopolitan in the postwar metropolis. No one could
denounce the rebuilding unless they had sinister purposes.
The ultimate casualty of the Title I program was the integrity of
New York political life. Certainly many thoughtful observers won­
dered how the city's polity could survive the eminence grise on
Randall's Island. Yet Title I required a short-circuiting of the political
process expected by ward heelers and reformers alike. Its prove­
nance went back two generations to the Progressive Era's faith in
university-trained experts in municipal affairs, which assumed that
civic leaders could provide "virtual representation" of lower-class
neighborhoods. This phase of reform delegitimized mere politicians
in the same way that city planning delegitimized mere manufactur­
ing. By the La Guardia years, the fate of many lower-class neigh­
borhoods fell into the hands of mayoral agencies that were more
responsive to debates at the Aldine Club or Columbia University's
Fayerweather Hall than to the political associations on East 116th
Street or Second Avenue. Detached from local realities, municipal
experts could imagine a city unbounded, open to breathtaking shifts
of function. From the broad perspective of the urban sciences, re­
location of the masses was a minor consideration. Thisflirtationwith
New York in the abstract was second nature to Moses and his critics.
Within the general consensus that New York needed remaking
by experts, quiet agreements replaced political accommodations,
which La Guardia liberalism, neighborhood participation, and fed­
eral Title I guidelines demanded. Private interests frequently stepped
in to overcome political hurdles, which were regarded as stumbling
blocks to progress. When doubt arose that the Board of Estimate
would approve advanced-planning funds for NYU-Bellevue, Win­
throp Rockefeller and Wallace Harrison came to the rescue. Public
monies were unavailable for the neighborhood survey of Morning-
side Heights, but David Rockefeller told City Planning Commis­
sioner Lawrence Orton to approach the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
When Lincoln Center faced difficult relocations, James Felt offered
the services of his former firm at cost. The privatization of pub­
lic decisions remained casual and pervasive throughout the Title I
experience. Jerry Finkelstein might complain of planning decisions
handed over to Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, but the practice was
habitual on the City Planning Commission, which never resolved
the conflicts between aloof decision-making and blatant private ad­
304
 THE POWER BROKER AND HIS CLIENTS

vocacy. High-minded reformers never hesitated to cut private deals

with Moses and the City Planning Commission when their projects
hung in the balance.
The New York approach depended not only on Moses and his
men on the Committee on Slum Clearance, but also on his allies
in the liberal city. He could not have succeeded without them and
the era of active, interventionist government that they shaped. The
Title I program, the product of postwar liberalism, could not have
been engineered by the AFL building trades alone or by Tammany,
which was battered and in eclipse. It also depended on the am­
bitions of liberal New Yorkers. Moses could count on a realtor
such as William Zeckendorf, a Brooklyn banker such as Thomas
Shanahan, and a political fixer such as John McGrath. But redevel­
opment also needed stalwart liberals such as Samuel Rosenman
and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., union housing visionaries such as
Abraham Kazan and Maxwell Tretter, ethical realtors such as James
Felt and Milton Saslow, inspired capitalists such as David Rocke­
feller, and inspired planners such as Lawrence Orton. Some were
Randall's Island cronies. Others were only limited partners in par­
ticular projects. Still others managed to convince themselves that
their own decent pursuits were detached from Moses's ruthless deals.
But they were all participants in the redevelopment of New York.

305
Abbreviations

These abbreviations are used in the chapter notes and in the source notes for the
tables.
ADA Papers Papers of the Americans for Democratic Action, micro­
film edition, State Historical Society of Wisconsin
Abrams Papers Charles Abrams Papers, microfilm edition, Department
of Manuscripts and University Archives, Cornell Univer­
sity Library
AJC Papers Papers of the American Jewish Committee, YIVO Insti­
tute for Research in Jewish Culture
Dean's Office, Dean's Office Correspondence, Barnard College Archives
Barnard
Black Papers Algernon D. Black Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript Li­
brary, Columbia University
Chase Papers Harry W. Chase Papers, Archives of New York University
CHPC Records of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council
Columbia Central Central Files, Low Memorial Library, Columbia Univer­
Files sity
Covello Papers Leonard Covello Papers, Mss 40, Balch Institute for Eth­
nic Studies
Douglas Papers Lewis W. Douglas Papers, University of Arizona Library
Downtown Papers of the Downtown Brooklyn Association, Brook­
Brooklyn lyn Historical Society
Assorted newspaper clippings in the Brooklyn Eagle
Eagle morgue morgue, Brooklyn Public Library
Files of the East Harlem Protestant Parish, Department
EHPP of Church Planning, New York City Council of Churches
Archives, Union Theological Seminary Archives, the
Burke Library
307
ABBREVI AT IONS

ESCN East Side Chamber of Commerce, East Side Chamber News

Field Foundation Papers of the Foundation for Improvement of Urban
Living, Field Foundation Archives, Barker Texas History
Center, University of Texas at Austin
Ford Foundation Project files in the Archives of the Ford Foundation
Greenwich House Greenwich House Papers, Tamiment Collections, New
York University Libraries
Helen Hall Papers Helen Hall Papers, Social Welfare History Archives, Uni­
versity of Minnesota Library
Holden Papers Arthur C. Holden Papers, Department of Manuscripts
and University Archives, Cornell University Library
Hospital Council Papers of the Hospital Council of Greater New York,
Library of the New York Academy of Medicine
Isaacs Papers Stanley M. Isaacs Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts
Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and
Tilden Foundations
Lehman Papers Herbert H. Lehman Suite and Papers, Rare Book &
Manuscript Library, Columbia University
Lincoln Center Archives of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts,
Inc.
MHI Files of Morningside Heights, Inc., at the Morningside
Area Alliance
Marcantonio Vito Marcantonio Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts
Papers Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and
Tilden Foundations
Moses Subject Subject Files of Commissioner Robert Moses, Park De­
Files partment, Municipal Archives and Records Center
Moses Papers Robert Moses Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts Divi­
sion, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and
Tilden Foundations
Mount Sinai Archives of the Mount Sinai Medical Center
Negro Labor Negro Labor Committee Papers, Manuscripts, Archives
Committee & Rare Books Division, Schomburg Center for Research
in Black History and Culture, The New York Public Li­
brary, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations
NYCHA
New York City Housing Authority Collection, La
Guardia and Wagner Archives, La Guardia Community
College, The City University of New York
308
 ABBREVI AT IONS

NYC Mission Papers of the New York City Mission Society, De-
Society partment of Church Planning, New York City Council
of Churches Archives, Union Theological Seminary Ar­
chives, The Burke Library
NTT New York Times
NYU Council New York University Council, Archives of New York
University
NYU Medical Office of the Planning Consultant, Archives of the New
York University Medical Center
Park Department Park Department Records, Municipal Archives and Rec­
ords Center
Pink Papers Louis H. Pink Papers, Corporate Information Center,
Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield
RERBG Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide
Rockefeller Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Archive Center
Brothers
Rockefeller Rockefeller Housing Interests, Rockefeller Archive Cen-
Housing ter
Messrs. Office of Messrs. Rockefeller, Rockefeller Archive Center
Rockefeller
Rockefeller Real Rockefeller Real Estate Interests, Rockefeller Archive
Estate Center
Rosenman Papers Dorothy Rosenman Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript
Library, Columbia University
Russell Papers William Russell Papers, Teachers College Archives
Russell Sage Russell Sage Foundation Papers, Rockefeller Archive
Center
Simkhovitch Mary K. Simkhovitch Papers, The Schlesinger Library,
Papers Radcliffe College
TBTA Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, Randall's
Island
Tenant Movement Tenant Movement Research files, Department of Urban
Studies, Queens College, The City University of New
York
UNH Papers United Neighborhood Houses Papers, Social Welfare
History Archives, University of Minnesota Library

309
ABBREVI AT IONS

Vladeck Papers B. Charney Vladeck Papers, Tamiment Collections, New

York University Libraries
Voorhis Papers Charles W. Voorhis Papers, Archives of New York Uni­
versity
Wald Papers Lillian D. Wald Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts
Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and
Tilden Foundations
WSA Papers Washington Square Association, Archives of New York
University
Weinberg Papers Robert C. Weinberg Papers, Special Collections Library,
Downtown Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University
Stephen Wise Stephen Wise Free Synagogue Papers on West Side hous­
ing, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia
University
Wood Papers Edith Elmer Wood Papers, Avery Architectural and Fine
Arts Library, Columbia University

310
 Preface

1. Committee on Slum Clearance, Title One Progress (New York, Octo­

ber 26, 1959).
2. Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall ofNew York
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974).
3. See, for instance, John H. Mollenkopf, The Contested City (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983); Susan S. Fainstein et al., Restructuring
the City (New York: Longman, 1983); Chester Hartman, The Transformation of
San Francisco (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allenheld, 1984); and H. V. Savitch,
Post-Industrial Cities (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).

Chapter 1

1. Robert W. De Forest and Lawrence Veiller, eds., The Tenement House

Problem, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1903); and Anthony Jackson, A Place
Called Home (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1976).
2. J. Willard Hurst, Law and Social Process in United States History (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960), pp. 234—53; Harry N. Scheiber,
"The Road to Munn: Eminent Domain and the Concept of Public Purpose in
the State Courts," Perspectives in American History 5 (1971): 329-402; NTT,
February 8,1892, p. 10; New York City, Board of Health, SecondAnnual Report
(1871), p. 18; Fourth Annual Report (1873), p. 96; First Annual Report (1870),
pp. 104-5; Board of Health, Third Annual Report (1873), p. 67; American Rail­
way Journal, 2d Quarto Series 27 (June 17, 1871):709; (July 15, 1871): 767­
69; (July 29, 1871):821-22; and (November 25, 1871): 1319.
3. Ernest S. Griffith, vl History ofAmerican City Government: The Conspicu­
ous Failure, 1870-1900 (New York: Praeger, 1974), chs. 15, 16; Seymour J.
Mandelbaum, Boss Tweed's New York (New York: Wiley, 1965), pp. 122-24;
Carman F. Randolph, The Law of Eminent Domain in the United States (Bos­
ton: Little, Brown, 1894), pp. 133, 142-46, 162, 265, 370-71; John F. Dil­
lon, The Law ofMunicipal Corporations, 2d ed. (New York: J. Cockcroft & Co.,

311
NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

1873), sec. 599; and Sidney Fine, Laissez-Faire and the General-Welfare State
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1956), ch. 5.
4. Randolph, Law ofEminent Domain, pp. 176—77; Ira S. Robbins, "Prob­
lems in Land Assembly," in Mabel S. Walker, ed., Urban Blight and Slums (Cam­
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938), pp. 184-85; Mel Scott, American
City Planning Since 1890 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), ch. 1;
and Lewis Orgel, Validation Under the Law of Eminent Domain (Charlottesville,
VA: Michie Company, 1936).
5. Reich v. Cochran, 201 NY 450 (1911).
6. Hendrik Hartog, Public Property and Private Power (Chapel Hill: Uni­
versity of North Carolina Press, 1983), ch. 11; Elizabeth Blackmar, Manhattan
for Rent, 1785-1850 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 179-80;
Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, The Iconography ofManhattan Island, 6 vols. (New
York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-1928), vol. 3, pp. 706, 809-11; and Lewis G.
Morris, comp., Harlaem River: Its Use Previous To and Since the Revolutionary War
and Suggestions Relative to Present Contemplated Improvement (New York: J. D.
Torrey, 1857), pp. 77-82,107,114-17.
7. Edward Hagaman Hall, "Central Park in the City of New York," Ameri­
can Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, Sixteenth Annual Report (Albany,
1911), pp. 443-55; NTT, July 27, 1859, p. 1; Roy V. Peel, The Political Clubs
of New York City (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1935); and Leonard M.
Wallstein, Report on Law and Procedure in Condemnation Applicable to Proceed­
ings Brought by the City of New York (Submitted to the Hon. Arthur J. Hilley,
Corporation Counsel of the City of New York [January 28,1932]).
8. Roy Lubove, "The New York Association for Improving the Condi­
tions of the Poor: The Formative Years," New-York Historical Society Quarterly
42 (1959):315—17; James Ford, Slums and Housing, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1936), pp. 131-32; De Forest and Veiller, Tenement
House Problem, pp. 90-91.
9. Robert H. Bremner, "'An Iron Scepter Twined With Roses'; The Oc­
tavia Hill System of Housing Management," Social Service Review 39 (January
1965): 222-31; and Anthony S. Wohl, "Octavia Hill and the Homes of the
London Poor," Journal of British Studies 10 (May 1971): 118, 128; Plumber &
Sanitary Engineer 3 (July 1, 1880):289; 4 (April 15, 1881):235; Robert Treat
Paine, Jr., "Homes for the People,"Journal of Social Science 15 (1882): 104-20.
10. Plumber & Sanitary Engineer 1 (November, 1878):262-63; Marcus T.
Reynolds, The Housing ofthe Poor in American Cities (Baltimore: Guggenheimer,
1893), p. 89; Paine, "Homes for the People," pp. 108-9; American Architect
and Building News 8 (July 31, 1880):53-54; Plumber & Sanitary Engineer 3
(March 1, 1880):126; 4 (February 1, 1881):100; U.S. Senate Committee on
Education and Labor, Testimony as to the Relations Between Capital and Labor
(1883) 1:99-100; U.S. Bureau of Labor, Eighth Special Report of the Commis­
sioner ofLabor: The Housing of the Working People, prepared under the direction
of Carroll D. Wright, commissioner of labor, by E. R. L. Gould (Washington,
DC: Government Printing Office, 1895), pp. 194-95.

312
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

11. Reynolds, The Housing of the Poor, pp. 107-8; 81-83; Gould, Eighth
Special Report, pp. 61, 217, 220-21, 234-35, 242-44, 254, 268-70, 290;
American Architect and BuildingNews 52 (May 16, 1896):63.
12. Jacob A. Riis, The Making of An American (New York: Macmillan,
1901); Ford, Slums and Housing vol. 1, p. 197; Ferenc M. Szasz and Ralph F.
Bogardus, "The Camera and the American Social Conscience: The Documen­
tary Photography of Jacob A. Riis," New York History 55 (October, 1974) :409­
36; and Roy Lubove, The Progressives and the Slums (Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 1962), p. 65.
13. Joel Schwartz, "Elgin Ralston Lovell Gould," in Walter I. Trattner, ed.,
Biographical Dictionary ofAmerican Social Welfare (Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1986), pp. 332-35; and De Forest and Veiller, Tenement House Problem,
p. 109.
14. Jacob A. Riis, "The Tenement, Curing Its Blight," Atlantic Monthly 84
(July 1899):22-24; De Forest and Veiller, Tenement House Problem, p. 345;
Mardges Bacon, Ernest Flagg (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986) pp. 248-49.
15. Gould, Eighth Special Report, p. 24; Riis, "The Tenement, Curing Its
Blight," pp. 19, 26-27.
16. Jacob A. Riis, "Letting in the Light," Atlantic Monthly 84 (October,
1899):500; De Forest and Veiller, Tenement House Problem, pp. xvi, 34; Riis,
"The Tenement, Curing Its Blight," pp. 22-23; RERBG, July 27, 1901, p. 110.
17. In the Matter of the Hearing in Relation to "The Greater New York," held
before the Sub-Committee of the Joint Committee on the Affairs of Cities (Senate
Doc. No. 44, 1896; Albany: Wyckoff Hallenbeck Crawford, 1896), pp. 70, 98,
428; Report ofDepartment ofPublic Works for Quarter Ending December 31,1890,
p. 45; Report. . . Ending June 30, 1893, p. 70; Report. . . Ending December 31,
1892, p. 15; and Report. . . Ending December 31, 1889, pp. 23-24.
18. Scott, American City Planning, p. 57; Robert A. M. Stern et al., New
York, 1900 (New York: Rizzoli, 1983), ch. 2; Edward P. North, "The Planning
of Cities," Public Improvements 2 (November 1, 1899): 5-6; George B. Post,
"The Planning of Cities," Public Improvements 2 (November 15, 1899):26-29.
19. Harvey A. Kantor, "The City Beautiful in New York," New-York His­
torical Society Quarterly 57 (April 1973): 156-58; Report of the New York City
Improvement Commission to George B. McClellan, Mayor, and the Board of Alder­
man (1907),pp. 18-19 and plate 21; The Report oftheNewYork City Improvement
Commission (December 14, 1904), pp. 14-15.
20. Herbert Croly, "Civic Improvements: The Case of New York," Archi­

tectural Record 21 (May 1907): 347-52.

21. Andrew Wright Crawford, "Excess Condemnation and Public Use," in

Proceedings of the Second National Conference on City Planning and the Problems of
Congestion (May 2-4, 1910), pp. 155-63; New York City Board of Estimate
and Apportionment, Report, 1910, pp. 16-18; Croly, "Civic Improvements";
Post, "The Planning of Cities," p. 29; and Municipal Art Commission, Annual
Reportfor 1905.
22. Nelson P. Lewis, The Planning of the Modern City (New York: Wiley,

313
NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

1923), pp. 36—38. Estimates of park, school, and bridge clearance were based on
property and fire insurance atlases for Manhattan. See also RERBG, August 4,
1900, p. 144.
23. RERBG, January 5, 1901, pp. 4 - 5 ; July 27, 1901, p. 110; NYT, No­
vember 2, 1907, p. 4; November 25, 1907, p. 16.
24. Thomas Kessner, The GoldenDoar (New York: Oxford University Press,
1977), p. 133; New York Press clipping, March 30, 1901, folder 1901, Box 3,
Henry Morgenthau, Sr., Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library; Montgomery
Schuyler, American Architecture, and Other Writings, ed. William H. Jordy and
Ralph Coe (New York: Atheneum, 1964), p. 202; Lawson Purdy et al., Zoning
as an Element in City Planning andfor the Protection ofProperty Values, Public Safety
and Public Health (Washington, D.C.: American Civic Association, Series II,
No. 15; June 30, 1920), p. 16.
25. Mary K. Simkhovitch to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., March 5, 1914,
Greenwich House folder, Box 56, Messrs. Rockefeller; Allan F. Davis, Spear­
heads for Reform (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 67-68, 74­
76, 239-40; Albert J. Kennedy, "The Part of the Settlements in Cultivating
Civic and Social Order" (typescript, March, 1933); Jerome D. Green to John D.
Rockefeller, Jr., July 9, 1913, Henry Street Settlement folder, Box 56, Messrs.
Rockefeller; Mary K. Simkhovitch, Neighborhood (New York: W. W. Norton,
1938), pp. 117, 169; George B. Ford, "The Housing Problem," Brickbuilder 18
(February 1909): 100.
26. Simkhovitch, Neighborhood, pp. 111-13; Henry Morgenthau, Sr.,
Diaries, May 7, 11, 15, 21, 23, June 12, 1911; New York Herald clipping,
August 11, 1912; NYT clipping, April 17, 1911; Municipal Facts clipping,
March 18, 1910, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., Scrapbooks, Manuscripts Division,
Library of Congress.
27. Simkhovitch, Neighborhood, pp. 112-13; Gilbert Osofsky, Harlem
(New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 12; Edward Judson to Simkhovitch,
March 13, 1912; illegible to Simkhovitch, March 16, 1912, folder 19, Box 6,
Greenwich House.
28. Simkhovitch to Mr. Goodrich, March 19, 1912, folder 19, Box 6,
Greenwich House; and Simkhovitch, Neighborhood., p. 113.
29. Simkhovitch, Neighborhood, pp. 115—16; Village Plan Committee of
the Greenwich Village Improvement Society, "Report" (typescript, approved at
meeting, June 23, 1914), New York Public Library.
30. NYT, August 2, 1914, sec. 4, 13; and Simkhovitch to John D. Rocke­
feller, Jr., March 5,1914, Greenwich House folder, Box 56, Messrs. Rockefeller.
31. Benjamin C. Marsh, Lobbyistfor the People (Washington, DC: Public Af­
fairs Press, 1953), ch. 1; Harvey A. Kantor, "Benjamin C. Marsh and the Fight
Over Population Congestion," Journal of the American Institute of Planners 40
(November, 1974) :422-29.
32. NYT clipping, May 4, 1909, Morgenthau Scrapbooks; Richard E.
Foglesong, Planning the Capitalist City (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1986), pp. 170, 172, 175.
33. Fifth Avenue Association, Annual Report, 1913, p. 4; Annual Report,
314
 NOTES TO CHAPTERS 1—2

1914, p. 4; NTT, September 6, 1914, sec. 6, p. 9; April 6, 1913, sec. 8, p. 1;

Preliminary Report of the Fifth Avenue Commission (New York: Press of R. L.
Stillson, 1912), pp: 2,12-13.
34. Christine Boyer, Dreaming the Rational City (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1983), p. 92; Scott, American City Planning, pp. 150-51.
35. November 1912 letters responding to Mary K. Simkhovitch's call for
a conference; Marcus Marks to Simkhovitch, September 22, 1914, folder 54,
Box 11, Greenwich House; and Caroline F. Ware, Greenwich Village, 1920-1930
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1935), pp. 14, 478.
36. Wall Street Journal, May 29, 1916, p. 1; NTT, June 14, 1916, p. 19;
May 30, 1916, p. 17; Board of Estimate, MinutesA (1916):3641, 3817; NTT,
July 26,1916, p. 1; NewTork Tribune, July 26,1916, p. 1; The Who, What, Why,
Where of Chelsea Neighborhood Association (n.d.), folder 54, Box 11, Greenwich
House; Central Mercantile Association, untitled pamphlet, November 1915,
New York Public Library; NTT, January 25, 1913, p. 14; January 22, p. 10;
January 21, p. 21.
37. Commission on Building Districts and Restrictions, Final Report,
June 2, 1916 (New York: M. B. Brown, n.d.); "Building Zones in New York,"
World's Work 32 (September 1916):487-88; NTT, February 27, 1916, sec. 3,
p. 6.
38. Scott,American City Planning, pp. 86-87,101-2,130-31; Foglesong,
Planning the Capitalist City, p. 204; Boyer, Dreaming the Rational City, pp.
71, 76.
39. Carol Aronovici, The Social Survey (Philadelphia: Harper Press, 1916);
John Nolen, City Planning (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1916); Flavel
Shurtleff, Carrying Out the City Plan (New York: Survey Associates, 1914);
Edward M. Bassett, Constitutional Limitations on City Planning Power (New
York: Board of Estimate and Apportionment, 1917).
40. Roy Lubove, Community Planning in the 1920s (Pittsburgh: University
of Pittsburgh Press, 1963); Frederick L. Ackerman, "Housing in a Reconstruc­
tion Program," Survey 42 (May 31, 1919):341-45; Edith Elmer Wood, The
Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner (New York: Columbia University Press,
1919), ch. 1.
41. Scott, American City Planning, p. 182; Clarence A. Perry, Housing for
the Machine Age (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1939); New York State
Board of Housing, Reportfor 1933; Walker, Urban Blight and Slums, p. 115; and
Harold S. Buttenheim, "Housing," ESCN 3 (May, 1930): 15.

Chapter 2

1. Walter Laidlaw, ed., Statistical Sources for Demographic Studies of Greater

New York, 1920 (New York City 1920 Census Committee, 1922), p. xxi; Jack­
son,^ Place Called Home, ch. 12; Joel Schwartz, "Tenement Rehabilitation in
New York City in the 1930s" (Paper read at Conference on the History of Low­
315
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

Income Housing in New York City, Columbia University, October 12, 1984).
2. Robert D. Kohn, "The New York Building Congress—Organization
and Activities" (typescript, 1930), in New York Building Congress files; "Plan
of New York and Its Environs;" Boyer, Dreaming the Rational City, p. 181;
Harvey A. Kantor, "Charles Dyer Norton and the Regional Plan of New York,"
in Donald A. Kreuckeberg, ed., The American Planner; Biographies and Recollec­
tions (New York: Methuen, 1983).
3. Kantor, "Charles Dyer Norton," p. 185; Shelby M. Harrison to
Charles D. Norton, June 11, 1921; Harrison to John M. Glenn, March 9,
1921, folder 2170, Regional Plan Association, Russell Sage; Thomas Adams,
"Foreword," in Robert M. Haig, Major Economic Factors in Metropolitan Growth
and Arrangement (New York: Regional Plan of New York, 1927), unpaged;
Regional Plan of New York, "Basic General Assumptions on which the Re­
gional Plan Is Being Based," December 15, 1926, folder 2170, Regional Plan
Association, Russell Sage.
4. "Assumptions Concerning Changes in the Distribution of Industry,"
February 1, 1927, folder 807, Russell Sage; Regional Plan of New York, Min­
utes, February 21, 1927; John M. Glenn to Messrs. Harrison et al., April 25,
1924, folder 807, Russell Sage.
5. Loula D. Lasker, "Putting a White Collar on the Lower East Side," Sur­
vey 65 (March 1, 1931):584-89; Albert J. Kennedy et al., Social Settlements in
New York City (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), pp. 495-96, 512;
League of Mothers' Clubs, Summary of Questionnaire, folder y, Box 8, Wood
Papers; Ware, Greenwich Village, pp. 17-18, 20-27, 33-35; Lillian D. Wald to
George Gove, January 28,1926; Wald to Alexander Bing, June 10,1926; Wald
to Charles Gray Shaw, October 12, 1927; Shaw to Wald, January 13, 1928;
National Housing Committee for Congested Areas, Statement, n.d., Housing
folder, Box 21; Maurice Simmons to Wald, October 4, 1929; Wald to Julius
Malish, March 14, 1929; and petition (on Allen Street), January 28,1929, East
Side Chamber of Commerce folder, Box 20, Wald Papers; and pamphlets of the
National Committee on Slum Clearance in Box 87, Moses Papers.
6. Covering letter, with J. E. McAfee to Wald, January 14, 1926, Housing
—General Correspondence folder, Box 21, Wald Papers; ESCN 4 (September
1931):9-10; 5 (October, 1932):4; Charles A. Heydt to Raymond Fosdick,
June 25, 1929, East Side Housing folder, Box 10, Rockefeller Housing.
7. Henry Bruere to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., July 28, 1928, East Side
Housing folder, Box 10, Rockefeller Housing; Harold S. Buttenheim, "Hous­
ing," ESCN 3 (May 1930): 15; Clarence Arthur Perry, "The Neighborhood
Unit," ESCN 2 (October 1929): 11; Marcus Whiffen and Frederick Kaeper,
American Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981), vol. 2, 337-40;
American City (March 1932), p. 112; ESCN 6 (May 1933):5-7.
8. Lasker, "Putting a White Collar," p. 626; Henry Churchill, "Henry
Wright: 1878-1936," Journal of the American Institute of Planners 26 (1960):
293-301; Eugenie Ladner Birch, "Radburn and the American Planning Move­
ment: The Persistence of an Idea," Journal of the American Planning Association
46 (October 1980):424-39; and Carl Sussman, "Introduction," in Sussman,

316
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

ed., Planning for the Fourth Migration (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1976), pp.
1-45.
9. Harland Bartholomew, "Toward Reconstruction of the Lower East
Side, Part I: An Analysis of Existing Conditions," Architectural Forum 57 (July
1932): 26-32; John Taylor Boyd, Jr., "Rebuilding Blighted Districts," Architec­
tural Forum 57 (March 1932):295-98; Arthur C. Holden, "Facing Realities in
Slum Clearance,"ArchitecturalKecorA 71 (February 1932):75-82.
10. Orrin Lester to Lillian Wald, July 13, 1931; and Ida Oppenheimer
to Wald, October 8, 1931, Box 20, Wald Papers; Regional Plan Association,
Minutes, November 5, 1931, folder 2170, Russell Sage.
11. Jackson, A Place Called. Home, pp. 177-82; Howard S. Cullman to
Herbert H. Lehman, October 8, 1930, Housing 1930-32 folder, Lehman
Papers; Alfred E. Smith to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., January 23, 1931, Box 10,
Rockefeller Housing; NTT, February 21, 1931, p. 13; Lawrence Veiller, "The
Abolition of Slums in the United States," Housing, June 1931, 81-89; NTT,
January 9, 1931, p. 1; April 21, 1932, p. 10; April 14, 1932, p. 23; April 10,
1932, sec. 2, p. 1.
12. NTT, January 30, 1931, p. 23; February 12,1932, p. 21; Simkhovitch
to Edith Elmer Wood, February 3,1932; Statement of Public Housing Confer­
ence, March 22, 1932; Helen Alfred to Wood, June 11, 1932, folder a, Box 39,
Wood Papers; State Board of Housing, Report for 1932, pp. 11-12.
13. George McAneny to Robert M. Lester, September 1, 1932, folder
2170, Russell Sage; Moses to Lehman, December 23, 1932, Personal Files,
Lehman Papers; Robert Kohn to Moses, May 15, 1933, Box 134; Raymond P.
McNulty and W. E. Andrews to Moses, February 28, 1933, Emergency Public
Works Commission folder, Box 87, Moses Papers; Helen Alfred to Edith Elmer
Wood, n.d., folder a, Box 39, Wood Papers.
14. Tudor City: The Fred F. French Companies' Development on Prospect Hill
(Fred F. French Investing Company, 1928), pp. 6, 21; Ida Oppenheimer to Re­
construction Finance Corporation, February 8, 1933, Box 134, Moses Papers;
Clarence A. Perry, The Rebuilding of Blighted Areas (New York: Regional Plan
Association, 1933), pp. 44-47; Maurice Deutsch to Raymond McNulty, Octo­
ber 19, 1934; Legal Brief, May 29, 1933, unmarked folder, Box 134; Emer­
gency Public Works Commission, Minutes, February 6, 1933, Emergency Pub­
lic Works Commission folder, Box 87, Moses Papers; New York State Board of
Housing, Report for 1936, tables, pp. 41, 45; and radio speech transcript, n.d.,
folder 2.30, Pink Papers.
15. John T. Flynn, "Modern Homes for Everyone," Collier's 45 (January 26,
1935): 12-13; Memo Regarding Functioning of Housing Authorities, Janu­
ary 2, 1934, folder w; Kohn to Wood, January 24, 1934, folder v, Box 8, Wood
Papers; Albert M. Cohen to Langdon Post, December 18, 1933, Box 9015A,
NYCHA; Albert Mayer Memo on Program of Civic Committee on Housing,
October 28, 1933, folder c, Box 6, Wood Papers.
16. R. H. Shreve to Andrew Mills, Jr., February 16, 1934, Area Files,
folder 6, NYCHA.
17. Albert Mayer Memo on Program of Civic Committee on Housing.
317
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

18. Langdon W. Post, "We Are Surveying 76,000 Parcels for Slum Clear­
ance," ESCN 7 (January, 1934) :4-5; New York Building Congress, Committee
on Land Utilization, Research Bulletin No. l,June, 1933; and Research Bulletin 2,
July 1933, copies in Box 60, Wood Papers; Robert H. Whitten, "Memorandum
on Blighted Areas," n.d.; and "Report on Sub-Committee on Housing: Projects
in Relation to City Plan," February 16,1934, folder 12, Box 93, NYCHA.
19. Pitkin Avenue Merchants' Association and Brownsville Board of Trade
to Langdon Post, February 28,1934, Box 9038A; Sands Street Board of Trade
to Tenement House Commissioner, n.d., Box 9015B; D. A. Puleo to Post, Feb­
ruary 24,1934, Box 9015B, NYCHA.
20. Laurence V. Pellatier to D. A. Randall, December 31, 1933, Folder 2;
Maurice Deutsch to Shreve, December 8,1933, Folder 3, Clarence Stein, memo,
December 16, 1933, Folder 2, Area Files, NYCHA; C. O. Heydt to John D.
Rockefeller, Jr., March 6,1928, in New York Properties—E68th-E69th folder,
Box 20; Heydt to Rockefeller, December 30, 1927, E66th & 3rd Ave. folder,
Box 19, Rockefeller Real Estate; Shreve to Congressman Gavagan, January 23,
1934, Folder 7; Lansing to Shreve, January 12,1934, Folder 5; Leonard S. Gans
to Shreve, February 27, 1934, Folder 6; Francis E. Rivers to Shreve, Decem­
ber 8, 1933; Rivers to Shreve, December 13, 1933; C. Lansing to Shreve,
December 11, 1933, folder 7, Area Files, NYCHA.
21. Lower East Side Public Housing Conference brochure, n.d., Box
9038A; Shreve to Andrew Mills, Jr., February 16, 1934, Folder 6, Area Files;
NYCHA, Board Minutes, March 21, 1934, NYCHA; Edith Elmer Wood to
Miss Kasten, November 26,1935, folder c, Box 8, Wood Papers; Brody to Post,
May 24, 1934, Box 9038B; Charles Abrams memo, September 27, 1934, Box
9029B, NYCHA; Arthur C. Holden to Stanley M. Isaacs, October 26, 1937,
Borough President's Correspondence, 1941 folder, Box 6, Isaacs Papers.
22. Housing Study Guild, "Pertinent Data for New York City: Recent

Housing & Planning Studies," May 1934; Sara M. Shimkin to Post, Febru­

ary 10, 1934, and March 12, 1934; Shimkin, draft speech, n.d., Box 9038B,

NYCHA.

23. Louis H. Pink to Post, February 20,1934, Box 9029; Charles Abrams

to Post, n.d., Box 9050; Evans Clark memo to Post, May 3, 1934, Box 9029;

Clark to Post, January 11, 1935, Box 9050, NYCHA; Frederick L. Acker­

man, "Climbing the Greased Pole," typescript, October 7, 1921; Ackerman to

Vladeck, n.d., Vladeck Papers.

24. Sussman, "Introduction," in Sussman, ed., Planning theFourthMigra­

tion, pp. 7-9, 18, 27; Rosalie Genevro, "Site Selection and the New York City

Housing Authority,"Journal of Urban History 12 (August 1986):334-52.

25. Langdon W. Post, draft memo, no date; Meeting Minutes, Decem­

ber 19,1934; Post, Statement prepared for December 19,1934, Meeting; Min­

utes of Meeting, December 21, 1934; Ackerman memos, December 14, 1934,

and January 5, 1935; "Report, Large Scale Slum Clearance and Housing Pro­

gram, Prepared by the Advisory Committee Appointed by the Chairman of the

New York City Housing Authority, March 1, 1935," NYCHA.

26. Existing Conditions, Project Area Q3601, in "Thirteen Slum Areas,"

318
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

NYCHA; Aronovici Associates, "Realistic Replanning," Architectural Forum 61

(July 1934):49-55.
27. NYCHA, Board Minutes, January 29, February 13, 1935, NYCHA;
Raymond Gordon, "Study of Bedford-Stuyvesant: A Community in Transition"
(Master's thesis, New York School of Social Work, 1941); Report of the State
Board ofHousing for 1932 (1933), pp. 14, 25, 27.
28. NYCHA, Board Minutes, January 29, February 13, 1935; E. Roberts
Moore, "Basis for Final Recommendation to Washington for $150,000,000
Expenditure for Housing," February 13, 1935, NYCHA.
29. D. L. H. "Memorandum Regarding the New York Housing Situa­
tion," August 28, 1934, Box 9029B; Board Minutes, September 11, 1934;
and Charles Abrams memo, September 27, 1934, Box 9029, NYCHA; and
Joel Schwartz, "Site Planning at the New York City Housing Authority in the
1930s," in Laurence C. Gerckens, ed., Proceedings ofthe First National Conference
on American Planning History, Sponsored by The City and Regional Planning De­
partment, The Ohio State University, at the Great Southern Hotel, Columbus, Ohio,
13-15 March 1986 (Columbus, Ohio: Society for American City and Regional
Planning History, December, 1986).
30. NYCHA, Board Minutes, April 2, 25, 1935; Minutes of Meeting,
June 12,1935; Langdon W. Post to A. R. Clas, June 25,1935, and September 6,
1935, NYCHA.
31. "Thirteen Slum Areas," NYCHA.
32. Frederick L. Ackerman, "Notes on Housing Program by the
N.Y.C.H.A.", October 17, 1938, NYCHA.
33. NTT, June 10, 1938, p. 3. Federal Housing Administration Carto­
graphic Materials, National Archives; and undated memo, Housing Bills, 1939­
40 folder, Box 13, Marcantonio Papers.
34. May Lumsden to B. Charney Vladeck, March 24,1937,Vladeck Papers;
NTT, June 14, 1938, p. 14; June 13, 1939, p. 43; Red Hook Advisory Com­
mittee, Minutes, June 28, 1939, folder 3; East Harlem Advisory Committee,
Minutes, January 16, 1940, folder 10, Box 17, NYCHA.
35. Joseph Spencer, "Tenant Organizations and Housing Reform in New
York City: The Citywide Tenants Council, 1936-1943," in Robert Fisher and
Peter Romanofsky, eds., Community Organizationfor Urban Social Change (West­
port, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981); and Joel Schwartz, "Black Self-help vs.
White, Liberal Intervention in Ghetto Housing: The Consolidated Tenants
League of Harlem, 1934-1944," Afro-Americans in New Tork History and Life 10
(January 1986):31-51.
36. Langdon W. Post, The Challenge ofHousing (New York: Farrar & Rine­
hart, 1938), pp. 150-52; Statement by Mrs. Samuel I. Rosenman, cochair,
United Neighborhood Housing Committee, before the New York City Hous­
ing Authority, December 23, 1936, folder 98, UNH Papers.
37. Spencer, "Tenant Organizations and Housing Reform," pp. 142—43;

Rosalie Manning to Dear Friend, January 19, 1937; UNH Headworkers Meet­

ing, Minutes, December 17, 1936; and Winifred Frazier to Rosenman, May 10,

1937, folder 98, UNH Papers.

319
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

38. Margaret Le Vien, "A Study of Rent Restrictions in Light of the Cur­
rent Housing Situation in New York City" (Master's thesis, New York School
of Social Work, 1937); Report to His Honor, Fiorello H. La Guardia, Mayor of the
City ofNew York, by the New York City Housing Authority, Pursuant to Article Five
of the State Housing Law, on its Investigation and Public Hearings on Living and
Housing Conditions in the City ofNew York, January 25th, 1937; Jane MacLean to
Stanley M. Isaacs, March 3,1937, with enclosed Resolutions, folder 119, UNH
Papers.
39. Dorothy Rosenman to Charles Hack, December 18, 1936; and Rosen-
man to Post, January 19, 1937; UNH, Housing Committee, Minutes, April 8,
1937, folder 98; Isaacs to Charles Abrams, March 19, 1937; Rosenman to
Abrams, March 19,1937, folder 119; Alice Flexner Rothblatt to Abraham Gold­
feld and Dorothy Rosenman, November 5, 1936; Buttenheim form letter,
January 12, 1937; Winifred Frazier to Joseph Adler and Harry Levy, n.d.; and
Frazier to Rosenman, May 10, 1937, folder 98, UNH Papers.
40. NYT, February 23, 1937, p. 2; February 27, p. 19; March 16, p. 43;
October 26, p. 12; October 24, sec. 6, p. 6; October 21, p. 19.
41. NYT, November 23, 1937, p. 1; November 24, 1937, p. 5; Evans
Clark, memo, November 30, 1937, Vladeck Papers; Mark I. Gelfand, "Rex­
ford G. Tugwell and the Frustration of Planning in New York City," APA Journal
(Spring 1985): 151-60; Robert Moses to Thomas D. Thacher, November 12,
1937; Simkhovitch to Moses, November 17,1937; and Moses to Simkhovitch,
November 30, 1937, S folder, Box 13, Moses Papers.
42. NYT, December 1,1937, p. 1; December 18, p. 1; December 24, p. 1;
January 14, 1938, p. 10; January 28, p. 1; January 30, p. 3; B. Charney Vladeck
to Leon Keyserling, February 14, 1938, Vladeck Papers; Vladeck's letter to the
editor, NYT, February 4, 1938, p. 20.
43. NTT, May 9, 1938, p. 2; Harold Riegelman's draft statement, n. d.,
with Moses to Riegelman, October 15, 1938, R folder, Box 13, Moses Papers;
and NTT, June 10, 1938, p. 3.
44. Dorothy Rosenman to Moses, October 20,1938; Moses to Rosenman,
October 22, 1938, R folder, Box 13, Moses Papers.
45. Robert P. Ingalls, Herbert H. Lehman and New York's Little New Deal
(New York: New York University Press, 1975), pp. 194-96; Moses to La
Guardia, August 29, 1938, folder 14, Box 35, NYCHA.
46. Memorandum for a conference between Mr. Post, Mr. Hoopingarner,

and Mayor La Guardia, July 17, 1934, Box 9029, NYCHA.

47. National Association of Housing Officials, "Conference on Re-

Housing Families Displaced By New Housing Construction," Report of Com­

mittee on Resolutions, June 8, 1934, Box 9015; PWA Housing Division, "Re­

port on Meeting on Emergency Training for Housing Managers," October 29

and 30, 1934, Box 9038, NYCHA.

48. "Plan for Management Division," October 23, 1934, Box 73, Public

Housing Authority, R. G. 196, National Archives.

49. Catherine Lansing, memo, October 15,1934, Box 9029, NYCHA.

50. May Lumsden to Langdon Post, "Management of Federal-Aid pro­
320
 NOTES TO CHAPTERS 2 — 3

jects," March 15, 1935, Box 9025; Lansing, Notebooks, entry May 22, 1935,
NYCHA.
51. New York City Housing Authority, Management Board, Minutes,
April 2, May 1, 1935; Frank Bancker, draft letter, June 18, 1935, folder 5,
Box 17; Management Division, memo, Vacancy Listing Bureau, November 19,
1935; Cooperating Committee on Management, Rehousing Committee, Min­
utes, June 4,1935; and Management Division, Memo, Vacancy Listing Bureau,
November 19, 1935, Box 9025, NYCHA.
52. "New York Vacancy Listing Bureau," memo, April 9, 1940, CHPC;

Sydney Maslen, form letter, March 30,1944, folder 103, UNH Papers.

53. East Harlem Council of Social Agencies, Housing Committee, Min­

utes, January 16, 1940, folder 10, Box 17, NYCHA.

54. Lansing, Notebooks, entry August 19,1935, NYCHA; May Lumsden,

"Operation of First Houses," July 24, 1936, Vladeck Papers; May Lumsden,

"First Families," Survey Graphic 25 (February 1936):61-65.

55. Harriet [Shadd Butcher] to Edith Elmer Wood, n.d., folder k, Box 63,

Wood Papers; Harlem Housing Committee, General Scope of the Commit­

tee's Interest on the Subject of the Selection of Tenants, September 25, 1935;

Harlem Housing Committee, Minutes, December 12, 1935, folder 12, Box

17, NYCHA.

56. May Lumsden, memo, November 13, 1937, in Management Board,

Minutes, Box 41, NYCHA.

57. Frederick L. Ackerman, "Comparative Rental Basis," August 10,1934,

Vladeck Papers; Lansing, Notebooks, entry May 28, 1935; Lumsden to Post,

October 5, 1936, Box 9015A, NYCHA.

58. Dominic J. Capeci, Jr., The Harlem Riot of 1943 (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1977), ch. 1.
59. Harlem Advisory Committee, Meeting, November 6, 1939, folder 11,
Box 17, NYCHA.
60. Ibid.
61. South Jamaica Advisory Committee, Meeting, November 6, 1939,

folder 7, Box 17, NYCHA.

62. Allan S. Harrison to Stanley M. Isaacs, December 20, 1940; Grace

Aviles to Municipal Civil Service Commission, December 16, 1941, Box 4,

Isaacs Papers; Federal Public Housing Authority, Monthly Reports on Occu­

pancy, Reel 34, Statistics Branch, PHA 1235, National Archives.

Chapter 3

1. Herbert U. Nelson, "Urban Housing and Land Use," Law and Con­
temporary Problems 1 (March 1934): 158-67; Charles C. Platt, "Rejuvenation,
Not Clearance, Best for Most Slum Areas," Real Estate Magazine, January
1934, pp. 17-18; Maurice Deutsch, "Blighted Areas and Their Elimination,"
Bronx Real Estate and Building News, June 1933, pp. 6, 21; and Robert B.
321
NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

Mitchell, "Prospects for Neighborhood Rehabilitation," in National Associa­

tion of Housing Officials, Housing Yearbook, 1938 (Chicago: NAHO, 1938), pp.
140-50.
2. Joseph Platzker, "Block Clearance Plan," ESCN 4 (January 1931):5;
Orrin C. Lester, "An East Side Housing Program," RERBG, April 23, 1932,
p. 5; Joseph Platzker, "50 Owners Attend Block Front Conference," ESCN 5
(September 1932):9; and Platzker, "2nd Chamber Plan for Block Front Mod­
ernization," ESCN 5 (October 1932): 11; Arthur C. Holden, "A Basis for Pro­
cedure in Slum Clearance," RERBG, April 1, 1933, pp. 7-9; and Holden, "A
Review of the Chrystie-Forsyth Proposal," RERBG, May 2, 1933, p. 9.
3. Interview data with owners and mortgagees of Blocks 330-B and 326-A
in Boxes 61 and 69, Holden Papers.
4. Holden to Langdon Post, March 27,1935, and to C. J. Ryan, March 28,
1935, Box 65; Block 326-A Memorandum, n.d.; "Agreement of Owners to Co­
operate—Block 326-A," n.d.; and Block 330-B Memorandum, Box 61; Holden
to Langdon Post, May 7, 1935; Owners' Committee, Minutes, May 15, 1935;
and draft of letter, May 16, 1935; Draft of letter to Deputy Commissioner
Prince, n.d.; Harry M. Prince to Samuel Isaacs, October 30, 1935, and to W. F.
Rock, October 31,1935; and Holden to Margaret Poggensburg, November 19,
1935, Box 65, Holden Papers.
5. Charles A. Heydt to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., December 5, 1923; tele­
gram, JDR, Jr., to Heydt, December 6, 1923; and Heydt to JDR, Jr., Octo­
ber 31, 1925, Box 31, Rockefeller Housing; JDR, Jr., to Gordon Auchindoss,
September 20, 1926; and JDR, Jr., to Auchincloss, October 11, 1928, Box 58,
Messrs. Rockefeller; Heydt to JDR, Jr., March 18, 1927; Heydt to JDR, Jr.,
March 6, 1928, Box 20, Rockefeller Real Estate.
6. Henry Hope Reed, "The Vision Spurned: Classical New York," Classical
America 1 (1972):18; Heydt to JDR, Jr., December 30, 1927, Box 19, Rocke­
feller Real Estate; Lenox Hill Housing Corp., "Analysis of Lenox Hill Housing
Projects" (August 1933); and Manufacturer's Trust Company, "Appraisal and
Survey of Premises" (October 3, 1933), File 350, Papers of the Association
for Improving the Condition of the Poor, Rare Book and Manuscript Library,
Columbia University.
7. JDR, Jr., to Millicent Mclntosh, April 12, 1950, folder lfb, Dean's

Office, Barnard; Henry Sloane Coffin to Henry P. Van Dusen, April 18, 1951,

Coffinfile,Van Dusen Papers, Union Theological Seminary Archives, The Burke

Library.

8. Charles A. Heydt to T. M. Debevoise, June 23,1934; and Heydt to Ton­

nele, September 4, 1934, West 123—124th Street Properties, General folder,

Box 31, Rockefeller Real Estate.

9. Real Estate Committee, Minutes, April 2, 1937, Box 30; William J.

Demorest to Staley, July 19, 1937, West 123-124th Street Properties, General

folder; Demorest to Staley, May 10, 1937, New York Property—Demolition

of Houses, 1937 folder; Reverend Emil N. Komora to JDR, Jr., August 9,

1938; W. Eugene Hicks to Staley, August 23, 1938; NTT clipping, August 20,

1938; "John" to Debevoise (handwritten note), n.d.; and Staley to JDR, Jr.,

322
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

August 19, 1938, Demolition, 1938 folder, Box 31, Rockefeller Real Estate.
10. JDR, Jr., to Tom Debevoise, August 22, 1938; JDR, Jr., to Staley,
August 21, 1938; and telegram, Staley to JDR, Jr., August 25, 1938, Demoli­
tion, 1938 folder, Box 31, Rockefeller Real Estate.
11. Citizens Housing Council, Committee on Old Housing, Minutes, and
Committee on Land Assembly, Minutes, passim, CHPC.
12. Charles G. Dailey, Notice, February 24, 1939, Box 5, WSA Papers;
Thomas Holden to Arthur Holden, April 16, 1936, Box 63, Holden Papers.
13. Special Committee on Housing of the Merchants' Association, Min­
utes, October 6, 1936, Box 63, Holden Papers.
14. Second Federal Reserve District, Monthly Review, January 1, 1938, pp.
7-8; April 1, 1938, p. 32; June 1, 1938, p. 48; Ingalls, Herbert H. Lehman,
p. 197.
15. NTT, February 19,1938, p. 28; Irwin Nussbaum to Vladeck, March 3,
1938, Vladeck Papers; NTT, April 11, 1938, p. 16.
16. New York City Planning Commission, Annual Reportfor 1938, pp. 2 9 ­
31.
17. NTT, April 26, 1938, p. 14.
18. Speech drafts, n.d., Housing folder, Box 102407, Park Department.
19. Speech transcript, November 22, 1938, Housing folder, Box 102413,
Park Department; NTT, November 23,1938, p. 1; Robert W. Aldrich Rodger,
memo, December 15, 1938, Citizens Housing Council folder, Box 59, Holden
Papers.
20. These paragraphs are based on Mayor's Committee on Housing Legis­
lation, Minutes, November 23, 29, December 7, 13, and 20, 1938, Box 1,
Rosenman Papers.
21. Moses to Joseph Clark Baldwin, January 25,1939, City Housing folder,
Box 102413, Park Department; Alfred Rheinstein to Moses, December 17,
1938; Moses to Rheinstein, December 22, 1938; Moses to Herbert Jacques
Morris, January 10, 1939; Rheinstein to Moses, July 12, 1939, Box 97, Moses
Papers; Moses to Rheinstein, July 13, 1939, City Housing folder, Box 102413,
Park Department; Joel Schwartz, "Louis Heaton Pink," in Walter I. Trattner,
ed., Biographical Dictionary of American Social Reform (Westport, CT: Green­
wood Press, 1936); Moses to Raymond Ingersoll, August 23, 1939; Moses to
La Guardia, October 16, 1939, Box 97, Moses Papers.
22. Frederick L. Ackerman, "Notes on Housing Program by N.Y.C.H.A.,"
October 17, 1938; and Ackerman, "Notes on Commissioner Moses' Program,"
November 26, 1938, folder 11, Box 31, NYCHA.
23. Helen M. Harris, "What Is This Youth Problem?" Social Work Today 6
(June 1939):25, 28; and Harlem Advisory Committee, Meeting with NYCHA,
November 6, 1939, folder 11, Box 17, NYCHA.
24. Real Estate clipping, December 17, 1938; and Washington Square As­
sociation to Moses, December 14, 1938, Box 5, WSA.
25. Charles E. Lane, Jr., to Moses, October 7, 1939; Moses to Lane,
November 1, 1939, Parks, 1939 folder, Box 97, Moses Papers; "The Chelsea
Association for Planning and Action, What It Is . . . , " (February 1939); CAPA,
323
NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

Bulletin No. 5, 1939, folder 6, Box 76, Weinberg Papers; and "Remarks of
Charles E. Lane, Jr., . . . December 20, 1938," Housing folder, Box 102407,
Park Department.
26. Lane to Moses, November 1, 1939, Parks, 1939 folder, Box 97, Moses
Papers.
27. Albert Mayer, Memorandum of Meeting with Dr. John L. Elliott on
November 21, 1939, Box 64, Holden Papers.
28. R. C. Weinberg to F. D. McHugh, memo, April 10, 1941; and Wein­
berg to Chairman, City Planning Commission, November 25, 1941, folder 6,
Box 76, Weinberg Papers.
29. Report of the Superintendent of Insurance for the Tear 1938, pp. 21—23,
clippings, Housing folder, Box 102757, Park Department; State of New York
Insurance Department release, January 26, 1940, Box 420, Douglas Papers.
30. Moses to La Guardia, Memo, January 24, 1939, City Housing folder,
Box 102413, Park Department.
31. Moses to La Guardia, November 30, 1939; and suggested draft from
mayor to insurance superintendent, n.d., Parks, 1939 folder, Box 97, Moses
Papers.
32. Suggested draft; Moses to Frederick Ecker, January 18, 1939, Parks,

1939 folder, Box 97, Moses Papers; and Moses to Louis Pink, December 30,

1939, City Housing folder, Box 102413, Park Department.

33. Gelfand, "Rexford G. Tugwell and the Frustration of Planning"; Sayre

and Kaufman, Governing New York City, pp. 372-74; Arthur S. Hodgkiss to
George E. Spargo, June 15, 1939; Spargo to Moses, June 19, 1939; Moses
to Tugwell, July 15, 1939, Plans folder, Box 102429, Park Department; City
Planning Commission, Annual Reportfor 1939, pp. 34-37.
34. Joseph Spencer, "Tenant Organization and Housing Reform in New
York City: The Citywide Tenants' Council, 1936-1943," in Robert Fisher
and Peter Romanofsky, eds., Community Organization for Urban Social Change
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981); and Joel Schwartz, "Tenant Unions
in New York City Low-Rent Housing, 1934-1949," Journal of Urban History
12 (August 1986):417-27.
35. John Berry to Stanley Isaacs, November 23,1940, Box 4; Adele Taube
to Isaacs, July 14, 1941, Box 5, Isaacs Papers; Labor Action, January 20, 1941,
p. 2; NTT, October 6,1941, p. 19; C. F. Lansing to Ruth Farbman, January 27,

1942, Reel 12, Abrams Papers.

36. Schwartz, "Tenant Unions."

37. Citizens Housing Council, Committee on Land Assembly, Minutes,
December 28, 1937, CHPC; Citizens Housing Council, Committee on Land
Assembly, Preliminary Report, n.d., Box 59, Holden Papers.
38. Citizens Housing Council, Executive Committee, Minutes, May 14,

September 24, and October 29, 1940; and April 29, 1941; "National Defense

and Housing" (May 17, 1940) in CHC, Public Housing Committee, Minutes,

February 1, 9, and April 7, 1941, CHPC.

39. Thomas S. Holden, "Urban Rehabilitation by Private Initiative,".i4rc/7»­

tectural Record 86 (May 1940): 86—87; Citizens Housing Council, Subcommit­
tee on Urban Redevelopment Corporations, Report, October 30, 1940; Spe­

324
 NOTES TO CHAPTERS 3—4

cial Committee on Slum Redevelopment, Minutes, October 28, December 11,

1940, Merchants' Association folder, Box 63, Holden Papers; [Steinert?] Diary
entries, April 19, 1940; January 31, 1941, WSA.
40. CHC, Board of Directors, Minutes, April 2, 1940, Box 59, Holden
Papers; City-Wide Tenants Council, Tenant Newsletter, March 4 and April 3,
1940, New York Public Library.
41. Lewis W. Douglas to J. M. Daiger, April 24, 1940, Box 420, Douglas
Papers; Louis Pink to Moses, May 2, 1940; Moses to Gerard Swope, June 25,
1940, City Housing folder, Box 102512, Park Department; Moses to Stanley M.
Isaacs, October 25, 1940; Moses to Isaacs, October 29, 1940; and Isaacs to
Moses, October 30, 1940, Borough President, Housing folder, Box 6, Isaacs
Papers.
42. Stanley M. Isaacs, draft letter to La Guardia, October 1,1940, Borough
President, Housing folder, Box 4, Isaacs Papers; Henry C. Bruere to Moses,
August 12, 1940; Memo, Fred H. Allen to Bruere, October 22, 1940, City
Housing folder, Box 102512, Park Department.
43. Moses to La Guardia, September 25, 1940; and Pink to Moses, Sep­
tember 27, 1940, Housing folder, Box 102512, Park Department.
44. Moses to Edward Weinfeld, February 5, 1941, Box 102616, Park De­
partment; Earl Schwulst to Isaacs, April 21, 1941; and memo, March 7, 1941,
Borough President, Housing folder, Box 6, Isaacs Papers.
45. Isaacs to Weinfeld, April 25,1941, Borough President, Housing folder,
Box 6, Isaacs Papers; Fred H. Allen to George E. Spargo, July 14, 1941, City
Housing folder, Box 102519, Park Department.
46. Citizens Housing Council, Board of Directors, Minutes, February 2,
April 1, 1941, Box 59; Arthur C. Holden to Arthur V. Sheriden, February 18,
1941; and George McAneny to Governor Lehman, March 18, 1941, Box 63,
Holden Papers.
47. Marriner S. Eccles, Beckoning Frontiers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1951), pp. 258-65,294-95; Robert Lekachman, The Age ofKeynes (New York:
Random House, 1966), pp. 124-29,138,140; David Lynch, The Concentration
of Economic Power (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946), pp. 14-17,
334-35.
48. Mark I. Gelfand,.A Nation ofCities (New York: Oxford University Press,
1975), pp. 117-20; Aashley A. Foard and Hilbert Fefferman, "Federal Urban
Renewal Legislation," in James Q. Wilson, ed., Urban Renewal (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1966), pp. 72-74.

Chapter 4
1. Chelsea Association for Planning and Action, "Resolution," October
16, 1941, Box 31, NYCHA; Ruth Farbman to Charles Abrams, December 5,
1941, Reel 12, Abrams Papers; Adele Taube to Gerard Swope, December 16,
1941, Box 31, NYCHA.
2. Schwartz, "Tenant Unions"; and Sydney Jacobs, "Tenants Needs and

325
NOTES TO CHAPTER 4

Problems as Seen by Social Agencies," December 8, 1942, in Citizens Housing

Council, Executive Committee, Minutes, CHPC.
3. LMC to May Lumsden, June 13, 1943, Queensbridge 687 file, Cen­
tral Files, New York City Housing Authority; Schwartz, "Tenant Unions," pp.
429-30.
4. Robert Moses, Public Works: a Dangerous Trade (New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1970), pp. 433-34; NTT, February 12, 1942.
5. George McAneny et al. to La Guardia, January 23, 1942; Draft of
introduction to report of Planning Commission on post war public works,
January 28, 1942, Postwar Projects folder, Box 102621, Park Department.
6. Moses to La Guardia, January 25, 1942, ibid.
7. Gerard Swope to Edwin A. Salmon, January 8, 1942; William C.
Vladeck to Salmon, February 5, 1942, Postwar Program folder; Hodgkiss to
George E. Spargo, March 5, 1942; Moses to La Guardia, March 9, 1942,
Housing folder, Box 102620; Moses to La Guardia, October 24,1942, Housing
folder, Box 102617, Park Department.
8. Moses to City Planning Commission, March 11, 1942; memo, April
17,1942, with Thomas C. Desmond to Moses, April 20,1942; Salmon to But­
ler, September 25, 1942, Housing folder, Box 102617; Edmond Borgia Butler
to Salmon, May 11, 1942; Salmon to Butler, May 12, 1942, Postwar Program
folder, Box 102620, Park Department.
9. Moses to Spargo, September 8,1942; Moses to Salmon, September 25,
1942; Spargo to Moses, October 13,1942; City Planning Commission, release,
November 18,1942, Housing folder, Box 102617, Park Department.
10. Moses to La Guardia, March 7, 1942, ibid.
11. Spargo to Moses, December 18,1942, ibid.
12. East Harlem Council of Social Agencies, Minutes, January 17, Novem­
ber 17, 1943, folder 2, Box 71, Covello Papers.
13. Reminiscences of Louis H. Pink, Columbia University Oral History
Research Collection, p. 55; Moses to Pink, January 19, 1942; L. M. G. [Gard­
ner] to Pink, January 21,1942, Housing folder, Box 102617, Park Department.
14. Alfred E. Smith to Moses, January 22, 1942; Moses to Paul Windels,
January 24,1942; Windels to Pink, January 24,1942; Windels to Moses, memo,
n.d.; Pink to Windels, January 28, 1942; Moses to Windels, January 26, 1942;
Arthur Hodgkiss to Spargo, January 27, 1942; Smith to Governor Herbert H.
Lehman, April 8, 1942, Housing folder, Box 102617, Park Department.
15. James Felt, "Report on Hampton-Mitchell Bill," March 9,1943; Ralph
Walker to Thomas C. Desmond, March 23, 1943, Box 68, Holden Papers;
Citizens Housing Council, "A Report on the Proposed Amendments to the
Redevelopment Companies Law of 1942," March 10, 1943, Stuyvesant Town
files, CHPC; and Paul Windels, "Private Enterprise Plan in Housing Faces First
Test," National Municipal Review 22 (June 1943): 284-88.
16. Moses, memo for the governor, April 22, 1942; Moses to Spargo,
June 12,1942; Moses to George L. Harrison, July 18,1942; Harrison to Moses,
July 22, 1942, Housing folder, Box 102617; Moses to Spargo, September 9,
1942; Moses to City Planning Commission, September 18, 1942; Moses to
326
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 4

Salmon, September 25, 1942; La Guardia to Harrison, November 2, 1942;

Moses to La Guardia, January 9, 1943, Housing folder, Box 102741, Park De­
partment.
17. Moses to Earl Schwulst, November 2, 1942, Box 102741, Park De­
partment.
18. Moses to Butler, January 22,1943; Moses to Butler, February 9,1945,
ibid.
19. Moses to Frederick H. Ecker, August 5,1942; Ecker to Moses, August
11, 1942; Moses to La Guardia, October 29, 1942; La Guardia to Ecker,
November 2, 1942, ibid.
20. Ecker to La Guardia, November 5,1942; La Guardia to Ecker, Novem­
ber 13, 1942; Moses to Butler, January 22, 1943, ibid.
21. Ecker to Moses, December 31, 1942; Moses to Jeremiah Evarts,
March 2, 1943, Stuyvesant Town folder, Moses Subject Files; Citizens Housing
Council, "A Report on the Proposed Amendments," Box 62, Holden Papers.
22. Ralph Walker to Thomas C. Desmond, March 23, 1943; and Arthur
Holden to Desmond, March 24, 1943, Box 62, Holden Papers; Pink to
Thomas E. Dewey, March 24, 1943, Stuyvesant Town folder, Moses Sub­
ject Files.
23. Moses to Joseph McGoldrick, March 31, 1943; Moses to Spargo,
March 31, 1943; Moses, "Important Matters to be Included in the Contract,"
April 23, 1943, Stuyvesant Town folder, Moses Subject Files.
24. Moses, "Important Matters"; and Moses to La Guardia, April 21,1943,
ibid.
25. Moses, Public Works, p. 433.
26. Citizens Housing Council, Post-War Planning Committee, Minutes,
March 3 and 9, 1943, Box 67, Holden Papers.
27. Robert C. Weinberg, Statement, May 5, 1943; Buttenheim, draft state­
ment, May 17, 1943; H. Robert Mandel to Buttenheim, n.d.; and Peter Grimm
to Stanley M. Isaacs, December 24, 1943, Stuyvesant Town folder, Box 10,
Isaacs Papers.
28. Arthur Simon, Stuyvesant Town (New York: New York University Press,
1970), pp. 15-41; Capeci, The Harlem Riot of1943.
29. Windels, "Private Enterprise Plan in Housing," p. 286; Harold S.
Buttenheim, memo, June 16, 1943, Stuyvesant Townfiles,CHPC.
30. Herbert Mitgang, in The Man Who Rode the Tiger (New York: Viking,
1970), pp. 344, 353, concedes that Seabury was in a "sticky position."
31. Citizens Housing Council, Executive Committee, Minutes, June 8,
1943, CHPC; Charles Abrams to Thomas E. Dewey, April 3, 1943, Reel 11;
New Leader clipping, May 8, 1943; and Board of Estimate Minutes, Transcript,
pp. 138, 154-55, 159-62, Reel 50, Abrams Papers.
32. "Informal Meeting on the Riverton Project," n.d., Black Papers; "State­
ment of Policy on Federal Aid to Urban Redevelopment Post-War Planning,"
September 30, 1944, Housing folder, Box 11, Isaacs Papers.
33. Daily Worker, December 2 and 10, 1944.
34. Frieda N. Heilberg, "A Study of the Rehousing Needs of Tenants Who
327
NOTES TO CHAPTER 4­

Will Be Displaced by the Stuyvesant Town Project in New York City" (Master's
thesis, New York School of Social Work, 1944), passim; Community Service
Society, "Comments and Data on the Stuyvesant Town Project," May 18,1943,
Stuyvesant Townfiles,CHPC; Stuyvesant Tenants League memo, n.d., Housing
folder, Box 11, Isaacs Papers; Community Service Society, The Rehousing Needs
of the Families on the Stuyvesant Town Site (June 14, 1945).
35. Fay Seabrook to Vito Marcantonio, April 24, 1945, Box 13, Marcan­
tonio Papers.
36. Fred H. Allen to Henry C. Bruere, November 18, 1942, Housing
folder, Box 102617, Park Department; Brunner Scholarship Joint Committee,
Circular Letter No. 1, October 17, 1942; ALA Civic Design Committee, Sec­
retary's Record of Projects Revised, March 2, 1942; Civic Design Committee,
Minutes, May 5 and June 21, 1943, folder 13, Box 45, Weinberg Papers.
37. ALA Civic Design Committee, Minutes, June 21, 1943, folder 13, Box
45, Weinberg Papers.
38. Jacob Moskowitz, "Committee on Civic Design, First Public Report,"
July 14, 1943; and Weinberg's changes, marked "A," July 30, 1943, ALA New
York folder, Box 57, Holden Papers.
39. Grosvenor Atterbury to Robert O'Connor, September 16, 1943, with
Committee on Civic Design and Development, "Some Questions Raised by
Stuyvesant Town," folder 12, Box 45, Weinberg Papers.
40. Holden, McLaughlin & Associates, "A Redevelopment Project for New
York,"'ArchitecturalForum 79 (October 1943): 123-29, 166, 168.
41. Ibid.
42. William Lescaze and James Felt, "A Plan for Harlem's Redevelopment,"
Architectural Forum 80 (April 1944): 145-52.
43. Charles Abrams, speech draft, n.d., Reel 12, Abrams Papers; Citizens
Housing Council, Executive Committee, Minutes, March 13, 1945; Harold
Buttenheim to Isaacs, April 3 and 10, 1945, Box 11, Isaacs Papers.
44. Moses to Spargo, September 20, 1944; Spargo to Moses, Septem­
ber 21, 1944; Moses to William Wilson, October 26, 1944, TBTA; Moses to
Holden A. Evans, Jr., January 12, 1945, Housing, Metropolitan, Stuyvesant
Town folder, Box 102726, Park Department.
45. Spargo to Moses, February 2, 1945, Housing, Metropolitan, Stuyve­
sant Town folder, Box 102726, Park Department.
46. Moses to La Guardia, February 3, 1945; Moses to Ecker, February 7,
1945; James Felt to John A. Schofield, February 21,1945; Frederick W. Ecker to
La Guardia, February 23, 1945; City Planning Commission, Memo in Oppo­
sition to Assembly Int. 1577, February 23,1945; Moses to La Guardia, Febru­
ary 26,1945, ibid.
47. Moses to Frederick W. Ecker, March 15, 1945; Frederick W. Ecker to
Moses, March 16, 1945; Harold Klorfein to Hodgkiss, March 19, 1945, ibid.
48. George Gove to Harris H. Murdock, October 29,1945, with Moses to
Gove, November 1, 1945, ibid.
49. Jeremiah Evarts to Moses, August 29, 1945; Moses to La Guardia,

328
 NOTES TO CHAPTERS 4 - 5

August 31, 1945, ibid.; Moses to La Guardia, September 13, 1945, Housing
folder, Box 102757, Park Department.
50. Moses to Joseph McGoldrick, September 26, 1945, Housing folder,
Box 102756; Edmond Borgia Butler to Moses, September 27, 1945; Butler to
Herman T. Stichman, September 28, 1945, Housing folder, Box 102757, Park
Department; Draft of Act to Amend Sec. 153, Chap. 808, Laws of 1939, with
Mayor O'Dwyer to Governor Dewey, December 21,1945, Housing folder, Box
102726, Park Department; New York City Housing Authority, News, Novem­
ber, 1945.

Chapter 5

1. Joel Schwartz, "Tenant Power in the Liberal City, 1943-1971," in

Ronald Lawson, ed., The Tenant Movement in New York City, 1901-1984 (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1986), pp. 141-53; Davis R. B. Ross,
Preparingfor Ulysses (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), pp. 238—42,
249-51; Gelfand, A Nation ofCities, ch. 4; Evelyn Dubrow to Violet Megrath,
April 27, 1949, Reel 71, ADA Papers.
2. "Anti-Discrimination Program for New York City," n.d., Reel 12, ADA
Papers.
3. New York Chapter Board, Union for Democratic Action, "1946 Ac­
tivities," n.d.; Edward C. Lindeman letter, n.d., Reel 12, ADA Papers.
4. Charles Abrams to Wilson W. Wyatt, June 16, 1947, Reel 11, Abrams
Papers; Harold S. Buttenheim to Anson Phelps Stokes, April 10,1946, Citizens
Housing and Planning Council file, Phelps Stokes Fund Papers, Schomburg
Center for Research in Black History and Culture, Manuscripts, Archives &
Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden
Foundations.
5. "The Citizens Union Program for Community Planning," The Search­
light 37 (July 1947); press releases and correspondence of the Citizens Confer­
ence on City Planning, folder 220, UNH Papers; Stanley M. Isaacs, "Notes for
Planning Conference," n.d., and other materials in Box 11, Isaacs Papers.
6. Charles Abrams, Forbidden Neighbors (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1955), p. 250; NTT, April 1, 1950, p. 1; March 15, 1951, p. 1; New York
State Committee on Discrimination in Housing, Executive Secretary's Action
Report, February 21,1951, Reel 50; Algernon D. Black to Abrams, February 4,
1949; Hortense Gabel to Abrams, April 27, 1949; Black to Abrams, April 11,
1949; and SCAD, "Statement of Principles" (1949), Reel 17, Abrams Papers;
American Jewish Committee, Minutes, October 21, 1951, AJC folder, Box 18,
Isaacs Papers; AJC, Executive Committee, report, n.d., New York Chapter,
Committees and Officers, Housing, AJC Papers; interview with Frances Leven-
son, February 26, 1976, Tenant Movement; Jewish Labor Committee to Bronx
organizations, settlements, Y's, unions et al., n.d., Communist Front Organi­

329
NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

zations folders, Box 233A, Jewish Labor Committee Papers, Wagner Labor
Archives, New York University.
7. Jacob K. Javits, "New York's Future" (transcript of WMCA address,
October 21, 1949), Housing file, Javits Papers, Department of Special Collec­
tions, Library of the State University of New York, Stony Brook.
8. Correspondence in Liberal Party folders, Reel 12, Abrams Papers; New
York State ADA, "Draft of New York State Program," May 12, 1950, Reel 72,
ADA Papers.
9. Schwartz, "Tenant Power in the Liberal City," pp. 141-48, 150-53.
10. Moses to Arthur Hodgkiss, January 8,1945; Hodgkiss to Moses, Janu­
ary 12, 1945; and Moses to George Spargo, January 15, 1945, Housing folder,
Box 102757, Park Department.
11. Moses to Hodgkiss, January 8, 1945; Spargo to Moses, January 24,
1945, Housing folder, Box 102757; Moses to Hodgkiss, October 7, 1946;
draft, coordinator to Edmond Borgia Butler, October 12,1946, Housing folder,
102740, Park Department.
12. August Heckscher, Sr., to Moses, October 14 and 18,1938; and Moses
to Heckscher, October 20, 1938, Parks, 1938 folder, Box 97, Moses Papers;
"The Neighborhood Center for Block Participation," October 14,1946, Union
Settlement folder, Box 106, Rockefeller Brothers; and Zelda Guttman, "What
the Neighborhood Community Thinks of a Public Housing Project" (Master's
thesis, New York School of Social Work, 1947), pp. 110-11.
13. Materials on Covello's campaign in folder 7, Box 43; Untitled commu­
nity appraisal, Chapter III, n.d., Good Neighbor Federation folder 2, Box 72;
East Harlem Citizens Committee, Meeting, November 27, 1946; EHCC, Rec­
ommendations for Community Betterment, January 8, 1947; Housing, state­
ment, n.d.; East Harlem Council for Community Planning, Executive Com­
mittee, Minutes, March 13, 1947; EHCC, Resolution adopted April 24, 1947,
folder 14, Box 69, Covello Papers; Franklin Nichols to Mr. Ray, March 20,
1947, with clipping, Real Estate Forum, November 1946, p. 19, in Nichols
file, Phelps Stokes Fund Papers, Manuscripts, Archives & Rare Books Divi­
sion, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public
Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
14. David Suher, "The Brownsville Neighborhood Council" (Master's
thesis, New York School of Social Work, December 30, 1948), pp. 6-7, 116.
15. Hodgkiss to Moses, January 12, 1945; Spargo to Moses, January 24,
1945, Housing folder, Box 102757, Park Department.
16. Memo, "Future Federal and State Housing Projects," n.d.; Hodgkiss
to Moses, May 11, 1945; Moses to Butler, May 15, 1945, Housing folder, Box
102757, Park Department.
17. Moses to Hodgkiss, May 18, 1945; Housing data, n.d., attached to
Moses to La Guardia, May 25, 1945; and mayor's news release, May 28, 1945,
Housing folder, Box 102757, Park Department.
18. Edmond Borgia Butler to Moses, February 2, 1946; Moses to Butler,
February 9, 1946, Housing folder, Box 102740, Park Department.
19. Moses to Butler, February 9, 1946, Housing folder, Box 102740;
330
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

Moses to Elliot V. Bell, October 9, 1945, Housing folder, Box 102757, Park
Department.
20. Moses to August Ihlefeld, July 26,1945, Housing folder, Box 102757;
Lewis W. Douglas to Moses, July 24, 1945, Metropolitan-Stuyvesant Town
folder, Box 102726, Park Department; Mutual of New York, "Memo, Residen­
tial Housing Program," October 19,1944; F. J. C. Dresser to Douglas, Septem­
ber 11, 1945, Box 420, Douglas Papers.
21. Moses to Douglas, July 26, 1945, Metropolitan-Stuyvesant Town
folder, Box 102726; Moses to Edwin A. Salmon, August 2, 1945, Housing
folder, 102757, Park Department; telegram, R. L. McC. to Douglas, August 6,
1945, Box 420, Douglas Papers; Moses to Hodgkiss, August 6,1945, Housing
folder, Box 102757, Park Department; Henry Verdelin to Douglas, August 13,
1945; Moses to Douglas, September 4,1945; Douglas to Moses, September 12,
1945; Moses to Douglas, September 14, 1945, Box 420, Douglas Papers;
Moses to Douglas, October 3, 1945; Moses to Hodgkiss, October 3, 1945,
Housing folder, Box 102756, Park Department.
22. Moses to La Guardia, October 16, 1945, with questions to be decided
at meeting with the State Housing Division, n.d., Housing folder, Box 102756;
Moses to Herman Stichman, February 15, 1946, Housing folder, Box 102741,
Park Department.
23. Moses, memo in opposition to State Assembly Int. 1523, print 1637,
March 14, 1946; Harold Klorfein to Harry Taylor, March 16, 1946, Housing
folder, 102741, Park Department.
24. Maxwell H. Tretter to Moses, June 12,1946; Moses to Tretter, June 13,
1946; Butler to Moses, November 12,1946, Housing folder, Box 102741, Park
Department.
25. Butler to Mayor William O'Dwyer, June 12, 1946; Tretter to Moses,
June 18, 1946, Housing folder, Box 102741, Park Department.
26. Moses to Thomas L. J. Corcoran, June 20, 1946, Housing folder, Box
102741; Mayor O'Dwyer to Butler, August 2, 1946, Housing folder, Box
102740, Park Department.
27. Moses to Hodgkiss, October 7, 1946; and draft, coordinator to Ed­
mond Borgia Butler, October 12, 1946, Housing folder, Box 102740, Park
Department.
28. Hodgkiss to Mayor O'Dwyer, February 14, 1947; Moses to Edwin
Salmon, January 22, 1947, Housing, Acts and Laws folder; Moses to Bennett,
May 20, 1947; Moses to Spargo, June 6, 1947, Housing folder, Box 102810,
Park Department; clippings, Box 33, h4, Reel 16, Negro Labor Committee.
29. Construction coordinator's charts; Moses to Mayor O'Dwyer, "Re­
port on New York City Housing Program (Part I)"; "Report on the So-Called
Unsubsidized Public Housing Mostly on Vacant Land, Part II," both dated
June 17, 1947; Moses to Mayor O'Dwyer, October 17, 1947, Housing folder,
Box 102810, Park Department; Harlem Real Estate Board, A. F. McNaught to
Crosswaith, July 21, 1947, folder al2, Negro Labor Committee. The O'Dwyer
administration wanted to "review" plans to build the Department of Health
laboratory, the Public Health Research Institute, and the Hospital for Tropical
331
NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

and Contagious Diseases at Presbyterian. Edwin A. Salmon to Israel Weinstein,

May 12, 1947, Hospitals folder, Box 102744, Park Department.
30. William Ellard to Thomas J. Patterson, October 21, 1948; Moses to
Hodgkiss, October 27, 1948; Moses to Frank C. Moore, December 3, 1948;
and Moses to William C. Vladeck, November 10, 1948, Housing folder, Box
102845; Farrell recommendations, January 27, 1949; Harry Taylor note (with
Spargo's comment), January 25, 1949, in Housing, Acts and Laws folder, Box
102834, Park Department.
31. Moses to Mayor O'Dwyer, March 19, 1947, Housing folder, Box
102810; Moses to James W. Wadsworth, May 1, 1948; Harry Taylor to Moses,
July 9, 1948, Housing folder, Box 102845, Park Department.
32. Moses to Henry Bruere, August 18, 1948, Housing folder, Box
102845, Park Department; Golden Jubilee Journal and Kazan Memorial (Bronx:
Joint Community Activities Committee, 1977), p. 48, copy at United Housing
Foundation.
33. Louis H. Pink to Henry Verdelin, June 6, 1946; Verdelin memo,
June 10, 1946; F. J. C. Dresser to Verdelin, May 29, 1946; memo, Long Island
City Houses, June 19, 1946; and Moses to Douglas, July 12, 1946, Box 420,
Douglas Papers.
34. Moses to Douglas, July 17, 1946; Notes on real estate meeting, Sep­
tember 19, 1946; "Long Island City Project, Oct 3rd,"; and Moses to Douglas,
October 20, 1946, Box 420, Douglas Papers.
35. Long Island City: Agreements with City, January 3,1947; L. Durward
Badgley to Douglas, January 9, 1947; Henry Verdelin to Douglas, January 11,
1947; Notes on meeting LWD [Lewis W. Douglas] and Commissioner Moses,
January 13, 1947, Box 420, Douglas Papers.
36. Memo re telephone conversation—Mr. Douglas and Mr. Moses, Janu­
ary 15, 1947, Box 420, Douglas Papers.
37. Verdelin to Douglas, January 20, 1947; F. J. C. Dresser to Verdelin,
January 15, 1947; and Verdelin to Douglas, February 15, 1947, Box 420,
Douglas Papers; memorandum in opposition to Assembly Int. 40. Pr. 40, Janu­
ary 25, 1949, TBTA.
38. Thomas Farrell to Harry Taylor, April 30, 1948; Taylor to Moses,
May 6, 1948, TBTA; Moses to Farrell, December 10, 1948, Housing folder,
Box 102845, Park Department.
39. Moses to Bennett, December 14, 1948; Moses to Farrell, Decem­
ber 15, 1948, Housing folder, Box 102845, Park Department.
40. Moses, "Rough Memorandum on Slum Clearance," December 16,
1948, Housing folder, Box 102845, Park Department; Victoria Newhouse,
Wallace K. Harrison, Architect (New York: Rizzoli, 1989), pp. 203-5.
41. Moses to Farrell, December 22, 1948, Housing folder, Box 102845,
Park Department.
42. Moses to John P. McGrath, January 17, 1949; Moses's draft letter,
January 27, 1949; and Moses to Mayor O'Dwyer, January 27, 1949, Housing
folder, Box 102834, Park Department.

332
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

43. Moses to Spargo, February 18, 1949, Housing folder, Box 102834;
Minutes, May 23, 1949, NYU Council.
44. These paragraphs based on Gelfand, A Nation of Cities, pp. 127-31,
147-56; Philip J. Funigiello, The Challenge to Urban Liberalism (Knoxville: Uni­
versity of Tennessee Press, 1978), chs. 6, 7; Marc A. Weiss, "The Origins and
Legacy of Urban Renewal," in Pierre Clavel et al., eds., Urban and Regional
Planning in an Age of Austerity (New York: Pergamon Press, 1980); Foard and
Fefferman, "Federal Urban Renewal Legislation," pp. 75—108; and George S.
Dugger, "The Relation of Local Government Structure to Urban Renewal," in
Jewel Bellush and Murray Hausknecht, eds., Urban Renewal (New York: Anchor
Books, 1967), pp. 185-87.
45. Schwartz, "Tenant Unions," p. 51.
46. For a glimpse of the UNO hospitality movement, see foldersfor1946­
1947 in the Virginia C. Gildersleeve Papers, Barnard College Archives.
47. Golden Jubilee, p. 40; Harold Ostroff interview, n.d., in "Project Cross­
roads," p. 35, copy in United Housing Foundation; William Harbaugh, Lawyer's
Lawyer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 103-4, 266; author's
conversation with architectural historian Anthony Schuman; and list of tax-
exempt limited-dividend developments in Housing folder, Lehman Papers.
48. Abraham E. Kazan, "Housing and Gardens Too," Labor and Nation
(September-October 1949); Reminiscences of Abraham E. Kazan, Columbia
University Oral History Collection, p. 316.
49. Moses to Mayor O'Dwyer, July 11,1946, Housing folder, Box 102741,
Park Department.
50. WM, Amalgamated East River Apartments memo, November 19,
1951, Housing, 1939-1953 folder, Box 90, Moses Papers; draft Memorandum
of Understanding, n.d.; Moses to O'Dwyer, June 16,1948; William Lebwohl to
Moses, August 11,1948, Amalgamated folder; Moses to Farrell, May 24,1949,
East River Housing folder, Box 102820; Moses to Farrell, December 3, 1948,
Housing folder, Box 102845, Park Department; Moses to Szold & Brandwen,
June 2, 1953, Housing-General, 1953, Box 90, Moses Papers.
51. Moses to Carl Stern, October 24, 1950, Housing, 1939-1953 folder,
Box 90, Moses Papers; Moses's comments to Taylor on Council for Cooperative
Development release, December 13, 1949; and Taylor to Moses, January 16,
1950, TBTA.
52. Moses to Herman T. Stichman, May 19, 1950, Housing folder, Box
103100, Park Department; Kazan, Reminiscences, pp. 304-8, 457, 459-60;
Kazan, "Housing and Gardens Too"; Committee on Slum Clearance, Title I
Slum Clearance Program (September 30, 1958); Labor's Role in Shaping Home
Building Policy and the Future of Cooperative Housing in America (an address by
Herman T. Stichman, meeting of the Executive Council of the AF of L, Miami
Beach, January 30, 1950).
53. Pink, Oral History, pp. 139-44; George D. Brown, Jr., to Mrs. Allen,
June 2, 1949, Queensview folder, Box 17, Isaacs papers.
54. Cleveland Rodgers, Robert Moses, Builder for Democracy (New York:

333
NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

Henry Holt, 1952), p. 150; Abrams, Forbidden Neighbors, pp. 274, 317-18. Only
a few blacks responded to Felt's effort. Fifteen black families were part of the
project at its inception, although it was claimed that they were "well integrated"
into Queensview's community life. Shirley F. Boden, "Fallacious Assumptions,"
June 9, 1952, MHI file, Columbia Central Files.
55. Kazan, Reminiscences, pp. 316, 453-54, 471-72; Joint Queensview
Enterprise, Co-OpNews (September 1950); "Veritas" to Charles Abrams, May 6,
1952; Walter A. Scheiber to Algernon D. Black, May 8, 1952; Scheiber to
Abrams, June 4, 1952, Reel 50, Abrams Papers; Shirley F. Boden to New York
Life Insurance Company, re Management of Morningside Gardens, January 29,
1954, Management folder, MHI.
56. Minutes, November 25,1946, January 27, May 26, October 27,1947;
March 22, 1948, NYU Council; Rufus D. Smith to chancellor Harry W. Chase,
December 8, 1947, folder 7, Box 17, Voorhis Papers.
57. Minutes, October 25,1948; January 24, 1949, NYU Council.
58. James L. Madden to Harry W. Chase, March 7, 1947, Madden
file, Council/Trustees Correspondence, NYU Archives; Chancellor Chase to
LeRoy E. Kimball, July 1, 1948; and to Fred I. Kent, July 1, 1948, folder
19, Box 24, Voorhis Papers; Chase to Voorhis, October 1, 1947, cited in Pen-
nee Bender, "Greenwich Village/NYU Relations, 1947-1967" (December 19,
1988), copy in NYU Archives; Anthony Campagna to Madden, July 1, 1948;
and Madden to Campagna, July 7, 1948, folder 19, Box 24, Voorhis Papers;
Chancellor Chase to Dr. Frank Kimball, July 21, 1948, Madden file, Coun­
cil/Trustees Correspondence, NYU Archives; and Moses to Madden, Novem­
ber 12, 1948, NYU folder, Box 102790, Park Department.
59. Maxwell H. Tretter to Justine Wise Polier, July 27, 1948; Lloyd K.
Garrison and Horace T. Herrick, Jr., memorandum re foundation aid for hous­
ing projects on non-discriminatory basis, September 30, 1948; Field Founda­
tion, Minutes of Housing Committee, January 24, 1949; Ruth Pruyn Field,
Charming H. Tobias, and Justine Wise Polier, "Memorandum with Report to
Investing in Low Rent Housing Projects on a Non-Discriminatory Basis," Feb­
ruary 17, 1949, Field Foundation.
60. Garrison and Herrick, memorandum; supplement to outline, Janu­
ary 3, 1949; Field Foundation, Minutes of Housing Committee, January 24,
1949; Maxwell Hahn to Mortimer M. Caplin, February 16, 1949; notes on
conference with Maxwell H. Tretter, December 21, 1948; Ruth Pruyn Field,
Charming H. Tobias, and Justine Wise Polier, "Memorandum," February 17,
1949, ibid.
61. Field Foundation, Committee on Housing, Minutes, March 9 and 22,
1949; Tretter, "Preliminary Report: Non-Discriminatory Moderate Rental Pri­
vate Housing," April 4, 1949, ibid.
62. Tretter, "Preliminary Report"; Committee on Housing, Minutes, May
11,1949; June 29,1949, ibid.
63. Statement by Lloyd K. Garrison, July 15,1949; NTT clipping, July 15,
1949; memo re Mr. Garrison, July 26, 1949; Garrison to Tobias, August 1,

334
 NOTES TO CHAPTERS 5 — 6

1949; Moses to Tobias, August 4,1949; and Tretter to Ruth Pruyn Field et al.,
August 12, 1949, ibid.
64. Committee on Housing, Minutes, September 28, 1949; Tretter, Re­
port on Tentative Costs, September 28, 1949, ibid.

Chapter 6
1. David Rockefeller, "Morningside Heights—The Institutions and the
People," October 4, 1950, MHI folder, Columbia Central Files.
2. Mary K. Simkhovitch, "Neighborhoods and Planning," n.d., unmarked
folder, Box 25, Greenwich House.
3. Arnold Eckdahl to Simkhovitch, February 29, 1944, GVA folder,
Box 8B, Greenwich House; and Simkhovitch to Robert C. Weinberg, April 4,
1944; draft letter, n.d., enclosed with Weinberg to Eckdahl, April 5, 1944;
Simkhovitch to Weinberg, April 4, 1944; Weinberg to Herman N. Schwartz,
November 30, 1944; Weinberg to Arthur C. Holden, July 17, 1944, folder 1,
Box 59, Weinberg Papers.
4. Holden, McLaughlin & Associates, Planning Recommendations for the
Washington Square Area (Washington Square Association, 1946).
5. Weinberg to Executive Committee, Washington Square Neighbors,
October 30, 1946, folder 5; Susan N. Pulsifer to Weinberg, December 22,
1946, folder 3, Box 59, Weinberg Papers.
6. Charles Thomsen, "The Making of an Architect," ALA Journal 48 (Au­
gust 1967): 73-78; Architectural Forum 72 (January 1940): 23-28; Fainstein
and Fainstein, "The Politics of Urban Development"; and Newhouse, Wal­
lace K. Harrison, ch. 11; Weinberg to Susan N. Pulsifer, December 26, 1946,
folder 3, Box 59, Weinberg Papers.
7. Greenwich Village Association, Housing Committee, Minutes, Janu­
ary 3, 1947; Simkhovitch to Mayor William O'Dwyer, February 4, 1947, Sim­
khovitch Papers.
8. Weinberg to Edwin A. Salmon, February 11, 1947, folder 5, Box 59,
Weinberg Papers; C. King Woolbridge to J. J. Steinharter, February 3, 1947,
Membership folder, Box 4, WSA.
9. Lower West Side Council for Social Planning, Minutes, January 7, Feb­
ruary 6, 1948, Lower West Side Council folder, Box 25, Greenwich House;
Norman Studer to Stanley M. Isaacs, January 23, 1947, City Council, Housing
Problems folder, Box 15, Isaacs Papers.
10. Weinberg to Joseph A. Monica, February 27, 1948, folder 1; OW to
RCW [Robert C. Weinberg], February 27, 1948, folder 5, Box 49, Weinberg
Papers; West Side Council of Social Agencies, Minutes, May 7, 1948; and
Washington Square Association, Resolution, April 21, 1948, Lower West Side
Council folder, Box 25, Greenwich House.
11. Lower West Side Council for Social Planning, Minutes, May 7, 1948,
Lower West Side Council folder, Box 25, Greenwich House; Greenwich Village

335
NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

Association, Resolution, n.d., folder 1, Box 59, Weinberg Papers; Housing

Committee of the Lower West Side Council of Social Agencies and the Green­
wich Village Association, Minutes, February 24, May 20, June 3, 1948, Lower
West Side Council folder, Box 25, Greenwich House.
12. Courtney Campbell to Ms. Steinert, May 19, 1949; Steinert to Ralph
Dudley, November 7, 1949; draft letter, n.d.; Steinert to Harry A. Basham,
draft, November 18, 1949; John W. Morgan to Steinert, n.d.; Simkhovitch
resolution, November 15, 1949; and Basham to Steinert, November 16, 1949,
Housing folder, Box 3, WSA.
13. Teachers College Provost Milton C. Manyo to Langdon W. Post,
January 12, 1934; Dean William F. Russell to Post, January 1, 1934, Box
9015B, NYCHA; Frank D. Fackenthal to Douglas S. Gibbs, July 26, August 7,
1940; Gibbs to Fackenthal, September 6, 1940; Fackenthal to Gibbs, Septem­
ber 24 and 26, 1940, Goetze folder, Columbia Central Files; John C. Parker
to Virginia C. Gildersleeve, November 13, 1945; Committee on Development
and Grounds to Board of Trustees, March 8, 1946, folder 2A, Dean's Office,
Barnard; "Manhattanville Nursery Child Care Project," June 6, 1944; Gary H.
Twombly to John D. Rockefeller III, January 1, 1945; "Report on Status of
Manhattanville Neighborhood Center," January 1, 1944; project memo, Janu­
ary 2, 1945; Harry Emerson Fosdick to Arthur Packard, June 6, 1944, Man­
hattanville Neighborhood Center, 1944-1949 folder, Box 58, Messrs. Rocke­
feller.
14. "The Future of the School of Engineering" (March 1946), Facken­
thal folder; Nicholas Murray Butler to Frederick A. Goetze, May 23, 1945,
Goetze folder; Robert D. Calkins to Fackenthal, May 10, 1945; Raymond J.
Saulnier, "The Problem of Neighborhood Change in the Morningside Heights
Area," May 8,1945, Calkins folder; and Fackenthal memo, September 20,1945,
Fackenthal folder, Columbia Central Files.
15. International House, New York, "Second Interim Report and Recom­
mendations" (Wilbur C. Munnecke, August 30, 1946); "Final Report," Octo­
ber 30, 1946, folder 11, Box 22, Presidents' Papers, 1945-1950, University of
Chicago Archives; "Extract from Confidential Report of Mr. Wilbur C. Mun­
necke to the Trustees of International House," September 13,1946, Franklin B.
Benkard folder; Fackenthal to David Rockefeller, January 13, 1947, Facken­
thal folder, Columbia Central Files. Dormitory facilities at International House,
New York, practiced, as did many other institutions, a de facto segregation that
limited admissions of blacks (at that time, roughly 13 percent). See memo to
Acting Chancellor James L. Madden, May 11, 1951, Madden folder, Trustees/
Council, NYU Archives.
16. International House, New York, "Second Interim Report" and "Final
Report."
17. Fosdick to Packard, May 31, 1946; Packard memo, "Manhattanville
Neighborhood Center," to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., January 13, 1946, Man­
hattanville Neighborhood Center folder, Box 58, Messrs. Rockefeller.
18. Executive Committee of Board of Trustees, International House, New
York, Minutes, September 3, 1946, folder 1, Box 23, Presidents' Papers, 1945­
336
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

1950, University of Chicago Archives; Fosdick to John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,

November 4, 1946; Fosdick to Rockefeller, November 11, 1946, Manhattan­
ville Neighborhood Center folder, Box 58, Messrs. Rockefeller.
19. Joseph Campbell to Lawrence M. Orton, December 6, 1946, Goetze
folder, Columbia Central Files. Fisher regarded Morningside as a "timely" re­
hearsal for studies of urban redevelopment that he expected to provide the basis
of the Institute for Urban Land Use's applications for contract research. The
strategy worked splendidly, as the Rockefeller Foundation came through with
a $100,000 grant in late 1947. Fisher to Fackenthal, July 15 and December 30,
1947, Fisher folder, ibid.
20. Columbia University, Committee on Research in Urban Land Use and
Housing, "Memorandum on Redevelopment of Morningside Heights" (confi­
dential, January 17, 1947), Morningside Heights, Inc., folder, Box M, Russell
Papers.
21. Joseph Campbell et al., to Frank D. Fackenthal, February 13, 1947,
Morningside Heights folder, Box M, Russell Papers; Fackenthal to Campbell,
February 24, 1947, Campbell folder, Columbia Central Files; Virginia Gilder-
sleeve to Lucius H. Beers, February 24, 1947, Dean's Office, Barnard.
22. Lincoln Cromwell to Fackenthal, March 10, 1947; and Fackenthal to
Cromwell, March 7,1947, Cromwell folder; Cromwell to Henry P. Van Dusen,
March 24, 1947; Van Dusen to Cromwell, April 1, 1947, Van Dusen folder,
Columbia Central Files.
23. Fackenthal to Thomas I. Parkinson, May 5, 1947; same to Sterling
Pierson, May 13, 1947, P folder; Fackenthal to Van Dusen, May 21, 1947,
Van Dusen folder, Columbia Central Files; Morningside Heights, Inc. (MHI),
Executive Committee, Minutes, November 2,1947; and MHI, Directors, Min­
utes, August 18,1947; and Lawrence M. Orton statement, September 24,1947,
in MHI, Executive Committee, Minutes, MHI folder, Box M, Russell Papers.
24. Orton statement, September 24, 1947; MHI, Executive Committee,
Minutes, December 13, 1947; and MHI, Board of Directors Meeting, Janu­
ary 15, 1948, MHI folder, Box M, Russell Papers. An original (1938) La
Guardia appointee on the City Planning Commission, Orton served longer
than any other commissioner. The authors of the most careful appraisal of the
commission's ability to maintain a judicial "autonomy" against pressures from
realtors, Construction Coordinator Moses, and Tammany politicians never con­
sidered that commissioners themselves could be sources of untoward influence.
Wallace S. Sayre and Herbert Kaufman, Governing New York City (New York:
Russell Sage Foundation, 1960), pp. 372-80. See also Gelfand, "Rexford G.
Tugwell and the Frustration of Planning."
25. Van Dusen to Fackenthal, September 29, 1947; David Rockefeller to
Fackenthal, October 15, 1947; Fackenthal to Rockefeller, October 16, 1947,
MHI folder, Columbia Central Files; Board of Trustees of the Cathedral Church
of St. John the Divine, Minutes, March 25, May 27, October 29, and Decem­
ber 30,1947. The Cathedral trustees' contingent approval came just before their
review of material on the "Puerto Rican situation" in New York prompted a
"lengthy discussion." Minutes, December 30, 1947.
337
NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

26. MHI, Executive Committee, Minutes, December 13, 1947; MHI,

"Some Facts about the Population of Morningside Heights" (December, 1948),
MHI folder, Columbia Central Files.
27. Fisher to Orton, February 2, 1948; Fisher to Orton, January 5, 1948;
and Orton to Fisher, January 24, 1948, Fisher folder, Columbia Central Files;
Orton statement, September 24, 1947, in MHI, Executive Committee, Min­
utes, MHI folder, Box M, Russell Papers; Orton to Fackenthal, March 3,1948;
Fackenthal to Orton, March 8,1948, MHI folder, Columbia Central Files.
28. MHI, Executive Committee, Minutes, January 15 and June 23, 1948,
MHI folder, Box M, Russell Papers; Van Dusen to David Rockefeller, April 30,
1948; Van Dusen to Fackenthal, May 27, 1948; and MHI, Committee on Law
and Order, Minutes, June 3, 1948, MHI folder, Columbia Central Files; MHI,
Executive Committee, Minutes, October 18, and November 23, 1948, MHI
folder, Box M, Russell Papers.
29. MHI, Executive Committee, Minutes, March 7 and May 19, and No­
vember 29, 1949, MHI folder, Box M, Russell Papers. MHPs real estate com­
mittee became a clearinghouse for the confidential collection of "all informa­
tion about potentially available properties." Orton to Francis T. P. Plimpton,
May 20, 1950,filelfa, Dean's Office, Barnard.
30. Elizabeth R. Hepner, Morningside-Manhattanville Rebuilds (Morning-
side Heights, Inc., n.d.); and David Rockefeller to Mrs. Rustin Mclntosh,
August 19, 1949,filelfd, Dean's Office, Barnard.
31. Caro, Power Broker, ch. 41. See also James Q. Wilson, The Amateur
Democrat (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), ch. 2; Donald C. Blais­
dell, The Riverside Democrats ("Case Studies in Practical Politics, Case 18"; New
Brunswick, NJ: Eagleton Institute, 1960).
32. Stanley M. Isaacs to Victor M. Earle, October 7,1940, Borough Presi­
dent's Correspondence folder, Box 4, Isaacs Papers; Catherine Lansing to Ruth
Farbman, January 27,1942, in City-Wide Citizens Committee on Harlem, Reel
12, Abrams Papers; "A Report on an Important Section of West of Central Park
submitted by the City Planning Committee of the West of Central Park Associa­
tion, Inc." (April 17, 1944), copy in Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library,
Columbia University.
33. Edwin S. Newman to Dr. S. Andhil Fineberg, March 9, 1948; same
to George J. Hexter, March 11, 1948, American Jewish Committee, New York
Chapter, Executive Committee; AJC, NY Chapter, Report for May, 1949, AJC
Papers.
34. Arthur D. Morse, "The ADKsNew New Deal," Survey 85 (July 1949):
351-52; Evelyn Dubrow to Violet Megrath, April 27, 1949; New York State
ADA, "State Program," adopted April 3, 1948, at First Annual New York State
ADA Convention, Reel 71, ADA Papers; Bob Tinkler to Frank Crosswaith,
September 8, 1949; and Crosswaith to Mickey Levine, September 12, 1949,
file al2, Negro Labor Committee.
35. Herbert Sternau obituary, NTT, January 13, 1972, p. 44; "Herbert
Sternau," National Cyclopedia ofAmerican Biography, 56, 437-38; Jean G. Grau­

338
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

bart, "Coordination of Social Agencies and Community Organization in the

Park West Area of New York City" (January 1950), pp. 10-11, 25, 27, copy in
Box 35, AJC Papers; Ysack D. Orleans to Louis Lempel, April 29,1946, Box 35,
AJC Papers; Joseph Montserrat's comments in Box 233A, Jewish Labor Com­
mittee Papers, Wagner Labor Archives, New York University Library; Paul A.
Lazarsfeld to Albert C. Jacobs, August 11, 1947, Bureau of Applied Social Re­
search folder, Columbia Central Files; Ruperto Ruiz and Harris L. Present,
"Spanish-American Youth Bureau, Inc., 1943-1946" (n.d.), copy in folder 13,
Box 102, Covello Papers; Edwin S. Newman to Dr. John Slawson, Decem­
ber 3, 1948; Harris Present to Sternau, December 7, 1948; Sternau to Ruperto
Ruiz, December 8, 1948, Puerto Ricans folder, Box 35, AJC Papers; LeRoy E.
Bowman to Algernon D. Black, June 27,1945, City-Wide Harlem Week folder,
Box 8, Black Papers; Newman to Slawson, December 3, 1948, Puerto Ricans
folder, Box 35, AJC Papers.
36. West Side Branch, ADA Newsletter, February 10,1949, Reel 71, ADA
Papers.
37. West Side Housing Committee, "Citizens' Survey of Housing on
Upper West Side of Manhattan, December, 1949" (n.d.), copy in CHPC.
38. Graubart, "Coordination of Social Agencies," p. 24.
39. AJC, NY Chapter, Report for February, 1949 (March 3, 1949), AJC
Papers; Harold M. Kase, "A Case Study in Community Organization" (Master's
thesis, New York School of Social Work, 1946); AJC, NY Chapter, Reports for
February, 1949; June, 1949; and November, 1949.
40. Schwartz, "Tenant Power in the Liberal City," pp. 235-36.
41. Charles Abrams, "Mixed Projects in New York City" (draft of speech
delivered to the New York State Conference on Social Work, November 18,
1943), Stuyvesant Town folder, Box 8, Black Papers; Federal Public Housing
Authority, Monthly Reports on Occupancy, Reel 34, Statistics Branch, PHA
1235, National Archives.
42. Abrams, "Mixed Projects in New York City."
43. For materials on the open-housing effort see Abrams, Forbidden Neyjh­
bors; and the folders on the State Committee on Discrimination in Housing
(SCAD) in the Abrams and Black papers.
44. Bureau of Applied Social Research, Report to the Council for Research
in the Social Sciences, December 11, 1946, Bureau of Applied Social Research
folder, Columbia Central Files; Marie Jahoda and Patricia Salter West, "Race
Relations in Public Housing," in Robert K. Merton et al., eds., Social Policy &
Social Research in Housing, vol. 8 ofJournal of Social Issues (New York: Associa­
tion Press, 1951), pp. 133, 135, 137; The Research Center for Human Relations;
Reportfor the Tears, 1949-1952, copy in folder Research Center for Human Rela­
tions, Series 9, R. G. 20.11; "H. R. Newsletter," April 1955, copy in folder 7,
Box 4, R. G. 4.0.1, New York University Archives. A good deal of the Research
Center's funds were donated by Marion Ascoli, a Field Foundation trustee and
wife of Max Ascoli, editor of the Reporter. In the early 1950s, the Research Cen­
ter's "human relations" laboratories ranged far beyond Washington Square to

339
NOTES TO CHAPTERS 6-7

consider attitudinal adjustment problems connected with interracial army pla­

toons, military facilities in Pennsylvania, and the effectiveness of the Voice of
America in Eastern Europe.
45. Hanan C. Selvin, "The Interplay of Social Research and Social Policy in
Housing," in Merton, ed., Social Policy, pp. 174-75, 182-83; Guttman, "What
the Neighborhood Community Thinks of a Public Housing Project," pp. 31,
68-69, 92; David Suher, "The Brownsville Neighborhood Council" (Master's
thesis, New York School of Social Work, 1948), pp. 30-31, 113, 116.
46. AJC, NY Chapter, Report for March, 1950; Committee on Discrimi­
nation in Housing, Executive Committee, Report, n.d.; Committee on Dis­
crimination in Housing, "Summary of Projects and Activities," n.d.; NY Chap­
ter, Report for February, 1950, AJC Papers.
47. The Community Is Good Business (pamphlet, n.d.), in Box 233A, Jew­
ish Labor Committee Papers, Wagner Labor Archives, New York University
Library; AJC, NY Chapter, Reports for February, 1950; March, 1950; Septem­
ber, 1950; October, 1950; and November, 1951, AJC Papers.
48. Shad Polier to Hortense Gabel, June 6, 1949; and Memo on Housing
Research Council, Inc., n.d., NYSCAD The First Year—1949 folder, Box 8,
Black Papers; Gordon W. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1954), pp. 79—80; Theodore W. Adorno et al., The Authoritarian Person­
ality (New York: Harper & Row, 1950).
49. SCAD, Report on Meeting of Advisory Committee on Urban Redevel­
opment Conference, September 12, 1949, in Housing folder, New York, Com­
munal Issues, AJC Papers. For discussion of SCAD, see Caro, Power Broker, pp.
961-62; and Schwartz, "Tenant Power in the Liberal City," pp. 158, 160.
50. Transcript of addresses at the Rebuilding Our Cities for Everybody
Conference, New York, NY, December 2, 1949, in Housing, Committee on
Discrimination folder, Box 8, Black Papers.
51. Ibid.
52. Amsterdam Tenants Association, Our Voice (March, 1950), in Housing
folder, Series J, 1950 E—H, American Labor Party Papers, Rutgers University
Library; AJC, NY Chapter, Report for December, 1949, AJC Papers.

Chapter 7

1. Statement of Subcommittee to Mayor O'Dwyer, July, 1949, Housing

folder, Field Foundation.
2. Robert Moses to George Spargo, July 7,1949; Mayor's Committee on
Slum Clearance to Mayor O'Dwyer, July 17,1949; Moses to James L. Madden,
Robert Dowling, Charming H. Tobias, I. Shubert, and George V. McLaugh­
lin, all August 4, 1949; and Moses to Thomas Farrell, September 27, 1949,
Housing folder, Box 102834, Park Department.
3. City Planning Commission release, October 18, 1949; Harry Taylor to
Moses and George Spargo, November 30, 1949, Housing folder, Box 102834;
Nathaniel S. Keith to Moses, Housing folder, Box 103100, Park Department.

340
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

4. Moses to Harry Taylor, January 20, 1950; John A. Kervick to New

York City Housing Authority, February 1, 1950, Housing folder, Box 103100,
Park Department.
5. Harry Taylor to Moses and Spargo, February 1, 1950; and Keith to
Moses, February 13, 1950, ibid.
6. Moses to Keith, February 15, 1950, Housing, 1950-53 folder, Box
90, Moses Papers; Moses to Keith, February 13, 1950, Housing folder, Box
103100, Park Department; Moses to David Rockefeller, February 28, 1950;
Arthur H. Sulzberger to Moses, March 7,1950, Housing, 1950-53 folder, Box
90, Moses Papers; Moses to Mayor O'Dwyer, February 14, 1950, with draft
and final copy, O'Dwyer to President Harry S. Truman, February 20, 1950,
Housing folder, Box 103100, Park Department; John Taylor Egan to New York
City Housing Authority, March 2, 1950, Housing, 1950-53 folder, Box 90,
Moses Papers.
7. Moses to Mayor O'Dwyer, March 29, 1950, with "Title I Slum Clear­
ance Funds," same date, Housing folder, Box 103100, Park Department.
8. Citizens Housing and Planning Council release, May 22, 1950, ibid.
9. Moses to O'Dwyer, May 11, 1950; Mayor O'Dwyer to Nathaniel S.
Keith, June 20, 1950, ibid.
10. John P. McGrath to Deputy Mayor William Reid, July 14, 1950, ibid.;
and McGrath obituary in NTT, March 3, 1989, p. D19.
11. Shirley F. Boden to Moses, April 25,1950; Moses to Herman T. Stich­
man, May 19, 1950; Moses to Boden, May 31, 1950, Housing folder, Box
103100, Park Department.
12. Boden to Moses, May 24,1950; Moses to Boden, May 31,1950, ibid.;
Kazan, Reminiscences, pp. 457-60.
13. Details of Grand Street Development, April 28, 1950, Corlears Hook
folder, CHPC; Community Services, Inc., Board of Directors, Minutes, Octo­
ber 4,1951; Amalgamated Housing Corporation, Community News, May-June,
1950.
14. Daily Worker, September 6, 1950, p. 8; Community Services, Inc.,
Board of Directors, Minutes, July 28, September 11, 1952; Kazan, Reminis­
cences, pp. 313-16, 327-29; NTT, September 18, 1955, sec. 8, p. 1.
15. Victor Fischer et al., "A Redevelopment Study in the Lower East Side"
(MIT City Planning Department, January, 1950), copy in Corlears Hook folder,
CHPC.
16. Moses to John J. Beggs, August 11, 1950, Housing, 1939-53 folder,
Box 90, Moses Papers; Kazan, Reminiscences, pp. 534-42.
17. Maxwell H. Tretter to Channing H. Tobias et al., December 6, 1949;
Committee on Housing, Minutes, January 16, 31, 1950, Housing folder, Field
Foundation.
18. Tretter to Tobias et al., March 17, 1950; New York World Telegram &
Sun clipping, March 21, 1950; NTT clipping, March 22, 1950; Moses to Tret­
ter, March 22, 1950; Committee on Housing, Minutes, March 29, 1950; Tret­
ter to Moses, March 31, 1950; Moses to Tretter, April 4, 1950; Committee on
Housing, Minutes, June 23, 1950, ibid.
19. Tretter to Moses, July 5, 1950; Moses to Tretter, July 10, 1950; Tret­
341
NOTES TO CHAPTER "7

ter to Tobias et al., July 18, 1950, ibid.; Moses to John J. Beggs, August 11,
1950, Housing, 1939—53 folder, Box 90, Moses Papers; Tretter to Tobias et al.,
August 21, 1950, Housing folder, Field Foundation.
20. Committee on Housing, September 22,1950; Tretter to Moses, Octo­
ber 6, 1950; Committee on Housing, Minutes, October 6, 1950; Tretter to
Tobias et al., October 10, 1950, Housing folder, Field Foundation.
21. "General Description of Plan and Project," October 16, 1950; Com­
mittee on Housing, Minutes, October 16,1950, ibid.
22. Committee on Housing, Minutes, October 16, 1950; Tretter to
Lloyd K. Garrison, January 16, 1951; Maxwell Hahn memo, January 25,1951;
[Hahn?] telephone conversation with Tretter, January 26, 1951; Committee on
Housing, Minutes, February 7, May 10, 1951, ibid.
23. Committee on Housing, Minutes, May 10, 1951; unsigned note, May
29, 1951; Tretter to Marshall Field HI et al., June 8, 1951, ibid.
24. Tretter to Lloyd K. Garrison, July 25, 1951; Tretter, "The Founda­
tion for the Improvement of Urban Living, Inc., South Village, September 28,
1951"; Garrison to Winthrop Rockefeller, October 16, 1951, with copies of
this and Tretter's memo enclosed to Gerard Swope, Tobias, Judge Polier, and
the others; Tretter to Garrison, October 31, 1951, ibid.
25. Tretter to Garrison, May 23,1952; Maxwell Hahn's note, June 2,1952;
and Hahn to Mrs. Marshall Field et al., July 8,1952, ibid.
26. NTT, October 16, 1950, p. 29; Steinert to Tretter, October 18, 1950;
Steinert to Robert Moses, October 24, 1950; Moses to Steinert, October 26,
1950; and Weinberg's comments in Villager clipping, November 16, 1950,
Housing folder, Box 3,WSA.
27. Moses to John J. Beggs, August 11, 1950, Housing, 1939-53 folder,
Box 90, Moses Papers; and Moses to James L. Madden, November 21, 1950,
TBTA.
28. Committee on Slum Clearance, Washington Square South (January
1951); NTT clipping; Philip A. Cruise to Steinert, December 19, 1950, Hous­
ing folder, Box 3,WSA; Teresa J. Jamund to Ralph Dudley, January 22, 1951;
and Philip Lombardo to same, February 19, 1951; Emil Morosini, Jr., to
Charles Abrams, April 3, 1951, Washington Square Southeast folder, Reel 51,
Abrams Papers; and editorial in The Villager, June 12, 1958.
29. Memorandum on the general location aspects of the Committee on
Slum Clearance Plans for New York City, February 21, 1951, unsigned but
from Weinberg, with changes by Abrams, Washington Square Southeast folder,
Reel 51, Abrams Papers; Resolution of Washington Square Association, June 6,
1951, folder 7, Box 59, Weinberg Papers; Maxwell Tretter to Lloyd K. Garrison,
October 13, 1951, Housing folder, Field Foundation.
30. MHI, Board of Directors, Minutes, November 29, 1949; David
Rockefeller to Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 5,1950, MHI folder, Columbia
Central Files. The Morningside survey was crucial, for Rockefeller and Orton
personally presented plans for it in a pitch for support from the Cathedral of St.
John the Divine. Cathedral, Board of Trustees, Minutes, January 24, 1950.
31. MHI, Community Advisory Committee, Minutes, May 15, 1950,
342
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

CAC, Historical folder; Lawrence M. Orton to Rafael Pico, May 21,1952, Pub­
lic Relations (General Community) folder; Ruth Senior to Orton and Betty
Rosenheim, April 1950, MHI; Elizabeth R. Hepner, Morningside-Manhattan­
ville Rebuilds (Morningside Heights, Inc., n.d.), p. 4; MHI, Community Advi­
sory Committee, Minutes, June 19, 1950, MHI. But attempts to broaden re­
development's appeal could get out of hand. Moses reminded Father Ford that,
despite the Advisory Committee's good intentions, the city needed "a specific
project of limited size, involving genuine and indisputable slum clearance and
conservativefinancing.No good purpose is served by proposing the reconstruc­
tion of fifty or sixty acres of all sorts of valuable property, much of it, at this
time, not actually slums." Robert Moses to George B. Ford, October 30, 1950,
MCCo-Op Housing folder, MHI. David Rockefeller, "Morningside Heights—
the Institutions and the People," October 4,1950, MHI folder, Columbia Cen­
tral Files.
32. S. F. Boden to Orton, "Cooperative Housing Project for Morning-
side Heights," November 1, 1950, MHI folder, Columbia Central Files; David
Rockefeller to William F. Russell, November 27, 1950, M box, Russell Papers;
Community Advisory Committee, Minutes, December 14, 1950, MHI.
33. Hcpner,Morningside-Manhattanville,pp. 13-14;ManhattanvilleNeigh­
borhood Center, Report (1951—52); Mayor's Committee on Slum Clearance, Re­
port to Mayor Impellitteri and the Board of Estimate by the Committee on Slum
Clearance Plans (September 1951).
34. Martha Dalrymple to Margaret B. Bartlett, October 18, 1951, in Pub­
lic Relations (General Community) folder, MHI. According to City Planning
Commission, Minutes, Vol. 1951, p. 837, Commissioner Orton voted with his
colleagues to approve unanimously Morningside-Manhattanville.
35. Dalrymple to Bartlett, October 18, 1951; Robert Dougherty to David
Rockefeller, October 24,1951; Rockefeller to Dougherty, November 19,1951;
Bartlett memo, October 22, 1951, Public Relations (General Community)
folder, MHI.
36. Hepner, Morningside-Manhattanville, p. 14; Moses to Orton, Octo­
ber 29, 1951, Box 90, Moses Papers; Morningside Committee on Cooperative
Housing, Minutes, October 30, 1951; Rev. George B. Ford to Philip J. Cruise,
November 23,1951, Public Relations (General Community) folder, MHI.
37. Hepner, Morningside-Manhattanville, p. 16; Daily Worker, November
16,1951.
38. Morningside Citizens Committee, Report of Planning and Housing
Sub-Committee, January 23, 1952, MHI folder, Columbia Central Files;
Milton Leibowitz to Dear Friend, January 22, 1952; leaflet, "Organization
Meeting to form the Manhattanville Civic Association," n.d.; Manhattanville
Civic Association, Resolutions, January 29,1952; flier, "Watch Out for a Sneak
Play," n.d., MHI; World-Telegram clipping, March 20,1952, reprinted on Morn­
ingside Citizens Committee letterhead, MHI folder, Columbia Central Files;
Manhattanville Neyjhborhood Center, Report, 1951-52.
39. Morningside Committee on Co-operative Housing, Subcommittee on
Public Relations, Proposed Public Relations Program, March 24, 1952; "Com­
343
NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

ments in Support of Morningside-Manhattanville Cooperative Project"; People

prepared to speak in favor of Morningside-Manhattanville Cooperative, May 8,
1952, MHI; Moses to David Rockefeller, March 19,1952, MHI folder, Colum­
bia Central Files.
40. Morningside Committee on Co-operative Housing, Subcommittee on
Public Relations, Summary of Discussion, May 14, 1952; Margaret B. Bart­
lett to Martha Dalrymple, December 15, 1952, MHI; Daily Worker, April 25,
May 9, 1952; S. F. B. [Shirley F. Boden], "Fallacious Assumptions of the
Document of the Committee to Save Our Homes," June 9, 1952, MHI folder,
Columbia Central Files.
41. West Side Housing Committee, Citizens' Survey of Housing on Upper
West Side of Manhattan, December, 1949, Manhattantown folder, CHPC;
"West Side News, Roosevelt Reports On," n.d., enclosed with Harry Taylor to
Benjamin Pollack, October 24, 1950, TBTA; World Telegram, July 20, 1954;
Committee on Slum Clearance release, July 24, 1954, Box 116, Moses Papers;
Bentley Kassal flier, n.d.; ADA, West Side Branch release, August, 1950, Reel
72, ADA Papers; Caro, Power Broker, p. 978.
42. American Jewish Committee, New York Chapter Reports, October,
1950; December, 1950; January, 1951; February, 1951; April, 1951; May,
1951, AJC.
43. Committee on Slum Clearance, Manhattantown Slum Clearance Plan
(September 1951); Herbert Sternau to Moses, September 26, 1951; Moses to
Sternau, October 8, 1951, Manhattantown folder, CHPC.
44. AJC, New York Chapter Report, September, 1951; Riverside Neigh­
borhood Assembly, Minutes, September 24, 1951, Communal Organizations,
Box 36, AJC.
45. Daily Worker, September 28,1951; Stanley M. Isaacs to Ira S. Robbins,
October 8, 1951, enclosing Isaacs to William Stanley, October 8, 1951; and
Robbins to Isaacs, October 9, 1951, Manhattantown folder, CHPC.
46. John L. Freeman to Committee on Discrimination in Housing, Octo­
ber 17, 1951, AJC, New York Chapter, Communal Issues, Housing; Israel
Laster to Herbert Sternau, October 25, 1951, Box 35, AJC.
47. AJC, New York Chapter, Report for November, 1951, AJC;flier,'To
the Site Tenants of the Proposed West Side Housing Projects," n.d., Manhattan-
town folder, CHPC.
48. Daily Worker, December 2, 16, 1951. Save Our Homes was threaten­
ing to nullify the Manhattantown contracts in State Supreme Court. New York
State Committee Against Discrimination, Executive Director's Action Report,
December 10, 1952, folder 432, UNH Papers.
49. James Felt & Company newsletter, February 29, 1952, Box 28, Series
III, Papers of the National Urban League, Manuscripts Division, Library of
Congress.
50. SWS [Sylvia W. Stark] memo, November 23, 1951, Manhattantown
folder; Committee on Planned Developments, Minutes, December 11, 1951,
CHPC.

344
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

51. Laster memo, December 26, 1951, quoted in Moses Jung to Rabbi
Kertzer, Communal Issues, Housing folder, Box 34, AJC.
52. Committee on Planned Developments, Minutes, February 5, 1952,
CHPC.
53. Spanish-American Youth Bureau, Fourth Annual Convention, Febru­
ary 16, 1952, folder 13, Box 102, Covello Papers; Herbert Sternau to John J.
Bennett, February 4, 1952, Manhattantown folder, CHPC.
54. John L. Freeman memo, February 21,1952, New York Chapter, Com­
munal Issues; New York Chapter, Report for February, 1952, AJC.
55. Ira S. Robbins to Nathaniel S. Keith, March 19, 1952; Keith to Rob­
bins, April 8, 1952; Robbins to Keith, April 15, 1952, folder 5, Box 1120,
Mayor's Papers, Municipal Archives and Records Center.
56. New York Chapter, Report for May, 1952, AJC; Ira Robbins to John
Morgan, April 18,1952; S. F. Boden to Robbins, April 30,1952, Morningside
folder, CHPC; ADA, Statement on Housing Projects, May 8, 1952, Reel 72,
ADA Papers.
57. Ira S. Robbins to Charles Horowitz, April 23, 1952; CHPC release,
May 5, 1952; Mel Bernard to Mayor Impellitteri, May 7, 1952, folder 5, Box
1120, Mayor's Papers, Municipal Archives and Reference Center; Lawrence M.
Orton memo, July 9, 1952, Morningside folder, CHPC.
58. Morningside Heights Housing Corporation, Report to the Executive
Committee, September 11, 1952; Robert Moses to David Rockefeller, July 30,
1952; Margaret Bartlett to Rockefeller, July 31, 1952; MHI to Harry Taylor,
August 6, 1952; Father George B. Ford to Lawrence M. Orton, n.d.; Taylor to
Nathaniel S. Keith, September 2,1952, MHI.
59. S. F. Boden to Orton, October 30, 1952, MHI; Committee to Save
Our Homes, "An Open Letter to City Planning Commission," n.d., Reel 51,
Abrams Papers; Bernard Segal to Morningside Committee on Cooperative
Housing, November 18,1952; Martha Dalrymple to Margaret Bartlett, Decem­
ber 11, 1952; Bartlett to Dalrymple, December 15, 1952; Shirley F. Boden
memo, December 22, 1952; Daily Worker clipping, January 16, 1953, MHI.
60. Program transcript, WABC, October 23, 1954, Roosevelt Housing
Project folder, Jacob M. Javits Papers, Library of the State University of New
York, Stony Brook.
61. Juliet Brudney to Mrs. Bartlett, February 12,1953; records and leaflets
of Manhattanville Civic Association and Morningside Committee on Coopera­
tive Housing relating to 1954 protests, MHI.
62. Committee on Discrimination in Housing, Summary of Projects and
Activities, n.d., New York Chapter, Communal Issues, Housing folder; New
York Chapter, Reports, February, 1950; September, 1950; John L. Freeman,
Report to Executive Committee, November 27, 1951, New York Chapter,
Committees and Officers, Housing folder, AJC.
63. "Statement of Policy—Committee for Balanced Communities," Feb­
ruary 7, 1952, enclosed with John L. Freeman memo to Committee on Dis­
crimination, February 21, 1952, AJC, New York Chapter, Communal Issues;

345
NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

Statement of Policy, March 26, 1952; Communal Issues, Housing; Frances

Levenson testimony to Board of Estimate, May 9,1952, enclosed with Edwin J.
Lukas memo, n.d., Communal Issues, Housing Relocation, Box 34, AJC.
64. Hortense W. Gabel to Cooperating Agencies of SCAD, February 7,
1953; SCAD, "What Price Slum Clearance," February 5, 1953; petition to
Mayor Impellitteri, February 20,1953, Communal Issues, Housing Relocation,
Box 34, AJC.
65. AJC, New York Chapter, Committee on Discrimination in Housing,
Report, March 10, 1953, AJC; Caro, Power Broker, pp. 961-63, 966-69.
66. Quotes and resume information in "Proposal and Report to Mr.
Leonard J. Beck for the Development of Morningside-Manhattanville Housing
Project by Rheinstein Construction Company, Inc. et al., March 17, 1953,"
copy in MHI.
67. Mayor's Committee on Puerto Rican Affairs, Subcommittee on Neigh­
borhood Relations, Minutes, February 11, March 10, 1953, folder 9, Box 110,
Covello Papers.
68. John L. Freeman, Report to the Executive Committee, April 22,
1953, New York Chapter, Committees and Officers, AJC; Church Planning and
Strategy Committee, Manhattan Division, Protestant Council, Minutes, April
28,1953; January 5, 1954, Volume 1947-1964, transfile 3, NYC Mission Soci­
ety.
69. Quoted in John T. Metzger, "Frank Crosswaith and the New York City
Housing Authority, 1942-1958" (Master's paper, Avery School of Architecture
and City Planning, Columbia University, 1991).
70. Louis H. Pink, "Queensview," American City 67 (April 1952): 106-8;
Bette Jenkins, "Queensview,"Journal ofHousing, X (October 1953): 1—5; Pink,
speech, April 29 [1954?], folder 3.18, Box 3, Pink Papers; Ruth Pruyn Field,
Charming H. Tobias, and Justine Wise Polier, "Memo with Regard to Invest­
ing in Low Rent Housing Projects on a Non-Discriminatory Basis," Febru­
ary 17, 1949; Paul, Weiss, Wharton & Garrison, "Memo Re Foundation Aid
for Housing Projects on Non-Discriminatory Basis," September 30,1948, p. 9,
Housing file, Field Foundation.
71. AJC, New York Chapter, Executive Committee, Minutes, October 14,
1954, AJC.
72. New York State Commission Against Discrimination, "Progress Re­
port on Integration in Publicly-Assisted Housing," March 1, 1957, New York
Chapter, Communal Issues, Housing, AJC.
73. S.F.B. [Shirley F. Boden], "Fallacious Assumptions," June 9, 1952,
MHI folder, Columbia Central Files; In These Ten Cities (New York State Com­
mittee on Discrimination, March 1951), Housing file, Reel 96, ADA Papers;
Elizabeth R. Hepner to Ruth Senior, February 9, 1954, with Memorandum
on Tenant-Cooperator Recruitment and Selection Program, n.d.; Senior to
Richart, n.d., Tenant Recruitment and Selection folder, MHI.
74. Clara Fox, Community Living in Cooperative Housing (New York: Play
Schools Association, September, 1958), copy in folder 484, Helen Hall Papers.

346
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 8

Chapter 8

1. The wartime considerations behind hospital expansion are summarized

in "Studies of the Future of Mount Sinai Hospital: I, The Future of the Volun­
tary Hospital" (September, 1943), folder 1, Box 298, Hospital Council.
2. Eric Larrabee, The Benevolent & Necessary Institution (Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, 1971), pp. 313, 316-17; New York City, City Planning Commis­
sion, 1938 Annual Report, pp. 54—55; C.W. Munger, "The Hospital Building
Program," Architectural Record 96 (August 1944): 92-93.
3. Salmon, "Health Services in City Planning," Modem Hospital 63 (August
1944): 46-47; Salmon's resume, March 27, 1947, folder 3, Box 1, Medical
Centerfiles,Voorhis Papers; Salmon to Robert Moses, July 31, 1945, folder 1,
Box 420, Douglas Papers.
4. United Hospital Fund, Statistics, Records & Information, February 15,
1940, folder 2, Box 404, Douglas Papers; Mayor's Committee on City Plan­
ning, City-Wide Studies, Part II, pp. 116,118; C. P. Rhoades to Lewis Douglas,
April 19, 1940; C. P. Rhoades statement, June 14, 1940, folder 2, Box 404,
Douglas Papers; John H. Hayes to Salmon, July 27, 1944, folder 10, Box 298;
Hospital Council, Evaluation of Brooklyn Hospital, July 24, 1945; Willis G.
Nealley to Salmon, August 8, 1944, Box 219, Hospital Council.
5. Hospital Council, Planning Committee, Minutes, October 14, 1943;
"Definition and Scope of Master Plan Project," approved January 19, 1944;
Planning Committee, Minutes, February 10, 1944, Hospital Council.
6. Hospital Council, Planning Committee, Minutes, October 10, 1944,
Hospital Council. Ballantine's fears were well founded. Citing the "danger of
oversupply," the New York State Survey of Hospitals reported in 1946 that
hospitals formulating plans for future needs called for an aggregate of 7,556
general-care beds, when the master plan, after extensive communitywide studies,
found that only 1,600 were needed. Bulletin of the Hospital Council of Greater
New Tork, III (September 1947).
7. Mount Sinai Hospital, Medical Board, Minutes, December 18, 1945,
Mount Sinai.
8. Mount Sinai Hospital, Trustees, Minutes, October 10,1944; August 13,
November 13, December 11, 1945; January 8, 1946, Mount Sinai; Rheinstein
obituary, NTT, May 28, 1974; Felt obituary, NTT, March 4, 1971; Mount
Sinai Hospital release, August 25, 1948, folder 4, Box 298, Hospital Council;
Mount Sinai Hospital, Trustees, Minutes, November 18, 1947; June 28, 1948;
January 11, March 8, April 18,1949, Mount Sinai.
9. Mount Sinai, Trustees, Minutes, March 5, 1945, Mount Sinai. The hos­
pital admitted black patients to its emergency room, but almost never into
private or semiprivate facilities. Exactly 8 individuals (listed in the "colored"
category, but also identified as either Puerto Rican or British West Indian) were
admitted as private patients in a sample period during 1945, compared with
304 out of 2,133 in the "service" wards (Residence of In-Patients Admitted—
February, June, October, 1945, folder 13, Box 298, Hospital Council). Mount

347
NOTES TO CHAPTER 8

Sinai, Trustees, Minutes, September 23, 1946, Mount Sinai; William S. Leb­
wohl, Memo to Moses, June 16, 1949, Hospitals folder, Box 102820, Park
Department.
10. Alfred L. Rose to Henry J. Friendly, July 12, 1949; NTT clipping,
December 8,1950, folder 4, Box 298, Hospital Council; Joseph Hirsh and Beka
Doherty, The Mount Sinai Hospital of New York, 1852-1952 (New York: Ran­
dom House, 1952), p. 284; Mount Sinai Hospital, Trustees, Minutes, May 9,
June 26, 1949, Mount Sinai.
11. Hospital Council, Planning Committee, Minutes, January 13, 1948;
John B. Pastore to George Baehr, March 18, 1948, folder 4, Box 298, Hospital
Council.
12. Memorial Hospital release, n.d., with Jack J. Rohan to Douglas, July 19,
1945, folder 3, Box 404, Douglas Papers.
13. Reginald G. Coombe to Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., August 19,1945; Douglas
speech transcript, December 4, 1945; Coombe to Alan Gregg, December 20,
1945, folder 3, Box 404, Douglas Papers; Henry N. Pratt to John B. Pastore,
June 1, 1948, folder 3, Box 285, Hospital Council.
14. Salmon to Moses, July 31, 1945, Box 420, Douglas Papers; NTT,
June 8, 1947, p. 1; Moses to Harry Taylor, January 20, 1950, Box 90; Moses
to Mayor O'Dwyer, June 16, 1948, misfiled in Parks 1939, Box 97; Moses to
Harry Taylor, January 20, 1950, Box 90, Moses Papers.
15. Memo to Dean Currier McEwen, December 18, 1941, folder 1, Box
52; Currier McEwen, Memo to Chase, n.d., enclosed with McEwen to Chase,
May 4, 1943, folder 8, Box 51, Chase Papers.
16. McEwen, Memo to Chase; LeRoy E. Kimball to Commissioner Ber­
necker, December 13, 1943, folder 8, Box 51, Chase Papers.
17. Donal Sheehan, "Report on Medical Education," February, 1944;
Sheehan to Chase, April 12, 1944, folder 8, Box 51, Chase Papers.
18. Chancellor Chase to Fred I. Kent, July 19, 1944, folder 16, Box 5;
Salmon to Chase, June 30,1944, folder 3, Box 1; Chase to Kent, July 19,1944,
folder 16, Box 5, Medical Center files, Voorhis Papers.
19. Howard C. Taylor, Jr., to LeRoy E. Kimball, October 21, 1944; Chase
to Kent, November 9, 1944, folder 15, Box 1, Medical Center files, Voorhis
Papers.
20. Salmon to Edward M. Bernecker, January 8, 1945, folder 3, Box 1,
Medical Centerfiles,Voorhis Papers.
21. FKT [Frances K. Thomas], conference with Donal Sheehan and Ed­
win A. Salmon, January 3, 1945, folder 7, Box 312, Hospital Council.
22. Chase, memo to LeRoy E. Kimball, March 16, 1945; PM, clipping,
March 19, 1945, folder 10, Box 1, Medical Centerfiles,Voorhis Papers.
23. Master Plan Committee, draft insert, report on proposed NYU Hospi­
tal, March 12,1945, folder 7, Box 312; Hospital Council, Planning Committee,
Minutes, March 30, 1945, Hospital Council.
24. Salmon to Donal Sheehan, March 28, 1945, folder 3, Box 1, Medical
Centerfiles,Voorhis Papers; Sheehan to Chase, July 13,1945, folder 9, Box 51,
Chase Papers.
348
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 8

25. Steering Committee of the NYU Council for the Medical Center Cam­
paign, Minutes, August 1,1945; Voorhis to Chase, n.d., enclosed with Philip O.
Badger to Steering Committee, October 29, 1945, folder 14, Box 5, Medical
Centerfiles,Voorhis Papers.
26. LeRoy E. Kimball, memo for the consideration of the joint meeting of
the steering and finance committees, April 8, 1946; Harry Woodburn Chase,
presentation to George F. Baker Charity Trust, April, 1946, folder 15, Box 1,
Voorhis Papers.
27. Philip O. Badger to Chase, May 17, 1947, folder 1, Box 5; Voorhis
memo to Chase, June 21, 1946, folder 14, Box 5, Medical Center files, Voor­
his Papers; Minutes, October 28, 1946, NYU Council; H. Stanley Hillyer to
Kimball, June 13, 1946, in Exhibits, pp. 69—70; Report to the Council Com­
mittee on Medicine and Dentistry, n.d., in Exhibits, pp. 143-44, Minutes, NYU
Council.
28. Draft, Chase to Mayor O'Dwyer, August 15, 1946, folder 10, Box 1;
Steps in the Creation of aWorld Medical Center, n.d., folder 11, Box 1; Currier
McEwen to General P. R. Hawley, October 9, 1946, folder 10, Box 1, Medical
Centerfiles,Voorhis Papers.
29. NTT, April 23, 1947, p. 1, and editorial, April 24, 1947; draft of sug­
gested remarks by Chancellor Chase, April 29, 1947, folder 10, Box 4, Medi­
cal Center files, Voorhis Papers; Minutes, April 28, 1947; "Memorandum of
Understanding," July 24, 1947, in Minutes, October 27, 1947, NYU Council.
30. NTT, January 17, 1949, p. 1.
31. Information in file of the Hospital Council, June 21, 1954; John B.
Pastore to Stanley M. Isaacs, March 14, 1951; New York State Joint Hospital
Survey & Planning Commission, n.d., folder 3, Box 203; Basil C. MacLean to
Dr. Clement C. Clay, September 17,1954, folder 4, Box 203, Hospital Council;
Stuart Constable to Moses, September 1, 1956, Hospitals folder, Box 102885,
Park Department.
32. Proposed building program at Lenox Hill Hospital, October 29,1953;
Anthony J.J. Rourke to Theodore F. Childs, folder 2, Box 268, Hospital
Council.
33. William H. Zinsser to Arthur Jones, January 14 and 26, 1954, Lenox
Hill Hospital folder, Box 56, Rockefeller Brothers.
34. NTT clipping, December 13, 1954, folder 2; Lenox Hill Hospital re­
lease, November 1, 1956; conference in the office of the Hospital Council,
December 6, 1957, folder 3, Box 268, Hospital Council.
35. LenoxHill—Its Second Century (n.p., n.d.).
36. "Memorandum of Understanding," n.d. between New York City Hous­
ing Authority and Mount Sinai Hospital, East 68th-69th Street Development
folder, Box 10, Rockefeller Real Estate.
37. NTT clipping, January 26, 1959; Mount Sinai Hospital meeting, De­
cember 30, 1959, folder 8, Box 298, Hospital Council.
38. Sloan-Kettering apparently took the initiative in 1950 for a "unified
enterprise." [illegible], chairman of board, Memorial Center, to Herbert
Spencer Gasser, May 29, 1950, East 68th-69th Street Redevelopment folder,
349
NOTES TO CHAPTER 8

Box 10, Rockefeller Real Estate; Hospital Council, Hospital Summary, Novem­
ber 2, 1956, folder 14, Box 285, Hospital Council; Debevoise, Plimpton &
McLean, "Preliminary Memo," July 9, 1954; David Rockefeller to Laurence S.
Rockefeller, July 13, 1954, East 68th-69th Street Redevelopment folder, Box
10, Rockefeller Real Estate.
39. Warren T. Lindquist to David Rockefeller, "Rockefeller Institute Hous­
ing Redevelopment," October 1, 1954, Box 10, Rockefeller Real Estate.
40. George N. Lindsay to Lindquist, November 15, 1954; Robert Moses
to Laurence S. Rockefeller, December 6, 1954, ibid.
41. Lindquist to David Rockefeller, December 10,1954; York Ave. notes,
December 15, 1954; William Lebwohl to Moses, December 17, 1954; Moses
to Philip Cruise, January 6, 1955, ibid.
42. Detlev W. Bronk to David Rockefeller, March 9,1955, ibid., referring
to the cover story "New York City in Trouble," and Mayor Wagner's interview
in U.S. News & World Report, 38 (March 11,1955), pp. 48-52.
43. Moses to David Rockefeller, June 3,1955; Pat Solotaire to Martha Dal­
rymple, memo, August 2, 1955, East 68th—69th Street Redevelopment folder,
Box 10, Rockefeller Real Estate.
44. Sponsors' statement to Moses, August 11, 1955; Stuart Constable to
Moses, September 26, 1955; Philip Cruise to Board of Estimate, re "Proposal
of Rockefeller Institute," October 7, 1955; Lindquist to David Rockefeller,
October 26,1955, ibid.
45. Salmon to Winthrop Rockefeller, November 10,1952; Moses to same,
February 20,1953, folder 007.B1.30, NYU Medical; Salmon, "Redevelopment
Plan for Bellevue Area" (August, 1960), folder 7, Box 203, Hospital Council.
46. Winthrop Rockefeller to Mayor Impellitteri, November 17, 1952,
folder 007.B1.33; Henry T. Heald to Moses, December 6, 1952; Moses to
Heald, December 1, 1952; Salmon to Moses, December 5, 1952; Moses to
Winthrop Rockefeller, February 20, 1953; Salmon to Winthrop Rockefeller,
March 25, 1953; and Moses to Heald, April 2, 1953, folder 007.B1.30, NYU
Medical.
47. Robert Burlingame memo, May 11, 1953; "A Preliminary Study of
the New York University-Bellevue Medical Center Area," draft, May 11, 1953
[prepared by Salmon and sent to Winthrop Rockefeller, May 19, 1953], folder
007.B1.30, NYU Medical. On IBEC Housing Corp., see IBEC release, April
21, 1949; Christian Science Monitor clipping, January 7, 1950, Box 10, Wal­
lace K. Harrison Papers, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia
University.
48. Moses to Heald, June 1, 1953; Heald to Moses, June 3, 1953; Moses
to Heald, June 15, 1953; Heald to Moses, June 20, 1953; Salmon to George
Dudley, June 18,1953, folder 007.B1.30, NYU Medical.
49. CSC, Minutes, July 2,1953; Salmon to Board of Trustees et al., July 7,
1953; NTT clipping, July 16, 1953; Salmon to Heald, July 23, 1953; two let­
ters, Salmon to Heald and Samuel D. Leidesdorf, both August 11,1953, folder
007.B1.30, NYU Medical.
50. Salmon to Heald and Leidesdorf, August 20, 1953 and September 22,
350
 NOTES TO CHAPTERS 8 — 9

1953; Salmon to LeRoy E. Kimball, October 15, 1953; and undated memo
[November 16, 1953?]; Salmon to Harry Taylor, December 10, 1953; Salmon
to Leidesdorf, December 10,1953, folder 007.B1.30, NYU Medical.
51. Salmon memo, March 3, 1954; Salmon to Mayor Wagner, February 3,
1954; Salmon to Moses, February 11, 1954; Heald to Herbert Bayard Swope,
February 15, 1954; Moses to Swope, February 17, 1954; Bernard M. Baruch
to the mayor and the Board of Estimate, February 23, 1954; Salmon to Heald,
July 14, 1954, ibid.
52. Mayor Wagner to Leidesdorf, January 10, 1955; Salmon to Leides­
dorf, January 17, 1955; Leidesdorf to Mayor Wagner, February 2, 1955,
folder 007.B1.33; NYU-Bellevue Medical Center, Board of Trustees, Minutes,
March 1, 1955, folder 007.B1.32; Moses to Heald, March 25, 1955, folder
007.B1.33; Salmon to Heald, April 20, 1955, folder 007.B1.31, ibid.
53. Salmon to Heald, May 17,1955; memo to Mr. Salmon, May 19,1955;
Heald to Borough President Hulan Jack, June 15, 1955, folder 007.B1.31;
Leidesdorf to Jack, August 30, 1955, folder 007.B1.33; Salmon to Leidesdorf,
March 12, 1956; Salmon to Jack, May 8, 1956, folder 007.B1.31, ibid.
54. Salmon to Jack, May 31,1956, ibid. The Red Cross chapter had "looked
into the possibility of purchasing land for a new building in the market," but
found that "private purchase would be prohibitive; therefore it seeks to secure
land under public law." J. Harrison Heckman to Leidesdorf, May 16, 1956,
folder 9, Box 312, Hospital Council. Salmon to Paul Tishman, May 22, 1956,
folder 007.B1.31, NYU Medical.
55. Heald to Moses, June 7, 1956, 1956 Correspondence folder, Box 116,
Moses Papers.
56. Salmon to Mayor Wagner et al., June 12, 1956; and to Leidesdorf,
August 6,1956; to John Gerdes, April 16,1957; to Leidesdorf, April 16,1957;
to Leidesdorf, July 12, 1957, folder 007.B1.31, NYU Medical; Salmon, "Re­
development of the Bellevue Area" (August, 1960), folder 7, Box 203, Hospital
Council.
57. Salmon, "Redevelopment of the Bellevue Area."

Chapter 9

1. Daniel E. Chall, "New York City's 'Skills Mismatch,'" Federal Reserve

Bank of New York, Quarterly Review, Spring 1985, pp. 20-27; NTT, June 26,
1988, p. 1; October 28,1989, p. A25. Observations about factory employment
in the 1940s really refer to the white working class. Few blacks and Puerto
Ricans were in the city's garment, printing, and food industries, and were
conspicuously absent from defense plant employment. Edward H. Lawson to
Eugene Davidson, memo, January 26, 1942, folder General Information on
Companies, Office Files of Eugene Davidson, Series 41, Committee on Fair
Employment Practices, R. G. 228, National Archives.
2. Jason Epstein, "The Last Days of New York," in Roger E. Alcaly and
David Mermelstein, eds., The Fiscal Crisis ofAmerican Cities (New York: Vin­
351
NOTES TO CHAPTER 9

tage, 1976), pp. 68-70; John I. Griffin, Industrial Location in the New York Area
(New York: City College Press, 1956), p. 109.
3. Sally A. Kitt, "A Place for Everyone: Burnham's Hierarchical Order,"
Inland Architect 31 (December 1987): 52, 57; George B. Ford, "The Housing
Problem," Brickbuilder 18 (May 1909): 102; [New York City], Commission on
Building Districts and Restrictions, Final Report, June 2,1916 (New York: M. B.
Brown, n.d.), p. 22.
4. Lower West Side Council of Social Agencies, Minutes, n.d., Lower
West Side Council folder, Box 25, Greenwich House.
5. Louis H. Pink, radio speech, n.d., folder 2.30, Box 2, Pink Papers;
Chelsea Association for Planning and Action, "Suggested Program," n.d., Hous­
ing folder, Box 102407, Park Department; Arthur C. Holden's staff memos, in
Boxes 61 and 69, Holden Papers.
6. City Planning Commission, Annual Report, 1940, pp. 20—24.
7. Frederick L. Ackerman in Planners'Journal 5 (1939): 34; proceedings
of preliminary meeting, November 28 [1939?], Mayor's Committee on City
Planning folder, Box 73, Covello Papers; Robert C. Weinberg, memorandum
in connection with C. P. 2921, n.d., Stuyvesant Town folder, Box 10, Isaacs
Papers.
8. Gelfand, "Rexford G. Tugwell and the Frustration of Planning," pp.
151-60; Caro, Power Broker, pp. 471, 785.
9. Stanley M. Isaacs to Henry Bruere, February 16, 1940; Bruere to
Isaacs, March 4, 1940, Borough President's Correspondence folder, Box 4,
Isaacs Papers.
10. Isaacs to La Guardia, February 19, 1940, ibid.; New York Chamber
of Commerce, Monthly Bulletin, November 1954, p. 132; Sayre and Kaufman,
Governing New York City, pp. 668—69.
11. City Planning Commission, Annual Report, 1940; City Planning Com­
mission, Planning Progress, 1940-1950 (March 15, 1951), p. 5; Employment
and Anticipated Hires in Major War Production Establishments in New York
City, January—June, 1942, in Labor Market Survey Reports, Metropolitan Re­
gion, New York State, June 16-July 15,1942, in New York folder, United States
Employment Service, R. G. 183, National Archives.
12. Weinberg statement, May 5, 1943, Stuyvesant Town folder, Box 10,
Isaacs Papers.
13. Edgar J. Nathan, Jr., to La Guardia, May 15, 1943; Moses to La
Guardia, May 27, 1943, Stuyvesant Town Corp. folder, Moses Subject Files.
14. Architectural Record 52 (May 1944): 148.
15. City Planning Commission, Planning Progress, pp. 20-21; notes on
public hearing of the City Planning Commission, April 11, 1945, folder 12,
Box 45, Weinberg Papers.
16. "Staging Area—Brooklyn" (supplement to the Brooklyn Eagle, Decem­
ber 9, \945); Architectural Forum 82 (June 1945): 10, 16.
17. City Planning Commission, Master Plan of Brooklyn Center and Down­
town Area . . . Adopted May 9, 1945; NYT, February 19, 1945, p. 14; March 2,
p. 21; March 19, p. 21; March 22, p. 25; November 1, 1945, p. 25.
352
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 9

18. City Planning Commission, Planning Progress, pp. 12-13; notes on

public hearing of the City Planning Commission, April 11, 1945, folder 12,
Box 45, Weinberg Papers; John Cashmore statement, December 10, 1954, in
Griffin, Industrial Location, pp. 189-90.
19. "Staging Area—Brooklyn"; LIU folder, June 1, 1944, Eagle morgue;
City Planning Commission, Master Plan of Desirable Building Zone Districts for
Brooklyn Civic Center and Downtown Area (adopted May 9, 1945).
20. NTT, November 3,1945, p. 14; November 27,1945, p. 40; American
Safety Razor folder, January 17,1946, Eagle morgue.
21. Architectural Forum 84 (February 1946): 114-15; Griffin, Industrial
Location, pp. 64—65.
22. New York City, Emergency Relief Bureau, Real Property Inventory, City
ofNew York, Non-Residential Report (New York, 1934).
23. Brooklyn Civic Center questions and answers, n.d., Brooklyn Civic
Center folder, Downtown Brooklyn; Moses to Cashmore, January 21, 1948;
June 23, 1948; and July 26, 1948, Cashmore folder, Box 107887, Park Depart­
ment; Stuart Constable to Moses, April 30, 1956, TBTA.
24. Moses to Henry Bruere, November 22, 1948; Moses to Cashmore,
December 2, 1948; Moses to Bruere, December 11, 1948, Concord Village
folder, Box 107887; Arthur T. Hodgkiss to Moses, Memo on Brooklyn Civic
Center, January 21, 1949; Brooklyn Civic Center Co-Ordinating Committee,
Minutes, February 10, 1949; Moses to Earl B. Schwulst, May 25,1949, Brook­
lyn Civic Center folder, Box 102814, Park Department.
25. LIU folder, January 14, 1951, Eagle morgue; Frank D. Schroth to
Moses, October 21 and 28, 1952, Pratt folder; Kingsview brochure, May 22,
1953; Moses to Harry Taylor, April 5, 1952, Kingsview folder; Edward A.
Richards to Cleveland Rodgers, January 28, 1952; "Memorandum on Devel­
opments in the Brooklyn Civic Center and Downtown Area," enclosed with
Rodgers to Richards, April 28, 1952; Richards to Rodgers, May 18, 1952;
Rodgers to Richards, July 30,1952; and Richards to Moses, October 25,1952,
Concord Village folder; Rodgers to Moses, July 10, 1952, Kingsview folder,
Downtown Brooklyn.
26. William Zeckendorf, with Edward McCreary, Zeckendorf: The Auto­
biography of William Zeckendorf (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970),
p. 227; Elliot S. M. Gatner, "Long Island: The History of a Relevant and Re­
sponsive University, 1926-1968" (Ph.D. Diss., Teachers College, 1974), pp.
232-49, 546-49.
27. LIU folder, August 24,1950, May 8,1953, June 12,1953, and passim,
Eagle morgue; Zeckendorf, Zeckendorf, p. 227.
28. McGrath folder, December 19, 1952, Eagle morgue; Committee on
Slum Clearance, Fort Greene; Slum Clearance Plan Under Title I of the Housing
Act of 1949 (December 1952).
29. James R. Clark to John B. Pastore, February 7, 1949; visit to Brook­
lyn Hospital, February 7, 1952; memo, January 17, 1952, Box 219, Hospital
Council; Robert E. Blum to Moses, January 15, 1953; Moses to Blum, Janu­
ary 20, 1953; Moses to George Spargo, January 21, 1953; Moses to Louis H.
353
NOTES TO CHAPTER 9

Pink, January 23,1953, Housing, General, 1953 folder, Box 90, Moses Papers;
Pink to James Felt, June 9, 1953, Kingsview folder, Downtown Brooklyn.
30. Frank Fox to Moses, February 5, 1953; Moses to Fox, February 17,
1953, Housing, General folder, Box 91, Moses Papers; McGrath folder, Decem­
ber 19,1952, Eagle morgue.
31. LIU folder, January 20, February 12, April 12,22, and 27,1954, Eagle
morgue.
32. NTT, June 17, 1954; LIU folder, February 12, June 15, August 15,
and August 20, 1954, Eagle morgue.
33. American Safety Razor folder, April 16,18, July 8, November 6,1954,
Eagle morgue.
34. American Safety Razor folder, January 17, 1946; January 5, 1951;
May 4, 1951; July 13, 1952; May 3, 1953; October 27, November 5, 1954;
LIU folder, November 10, 1954, Eagle morgue; NTT, November 26, 1954,
p. 50; November 9, 1955, p. 32; Sidney Weil statement, August 8, 1955, in
Griffin, Industrial Location, pp. 185—86.
35. Richard C. Guthridge, "Brooklyn Civic Center and Downtown Im­
provements, April, 1955," Civic Center folder, Downtown Brooklyn; Griffin,
Industrial Location, pp. 90,185-86; NTT, July 18, 1955, p. 23.
36. Griffin, Industrial Location, pp. 185-86; American Safety Razor folder,
January 6,1955, Eagle morgue; NTT, July 18, 1955, p. 23; November 5,1955,
p. 21.
37. Griffin, Industrial Location, p. 63; NTT, September 20, 1955, p. 34;
October 27, 1955, p. 24.
38. New York Herald Tribune clipping, January 15, 1956; Ben to William S.
Lebwohl, January 10, 1956, TBTA; Moses to Abe Stark, January 1, 1956, Cor­
respondence 1956 folder, Box 116, Moses Papers.
39. William S. Lebwohl to Moses, December 8, 1955; Stuart Constable
to Moses, December 19, 1955; J. Schatz to Lebwohl, September 26, 1956;
Joseph F. Nelson to Lebwohl, October 17, 1956; Kenneth M. Young to Leb­
wohl, October 18, 1956; Office of President of the Council, news release,
November 28,1956, TBTA.
40. Griffin, Industrial Location, p. 14; New York State Department of Com­
merce, Business Fact Book, NewTork City, 1957, p. 5; Exhibit 10 in George Stern­
lieb and James W. Hughes, Post-IndustrialAmerica (New Brunswick, NJ: Center
for Urban Policy Research, 1975).
41. NTT, September 3, 1953, p. 20; September 10, 1953, p. 25 (and edi­
torial, August 26, 1953); New York Chamber of Commerce, Monthly Bulletin,
November, 1953, p. 107.
42. Commerce and Industry Association, survey of the staff report regard­
ing the Southeast Slum Clearance Plan, October 6, 1953, folder 20, Box 24,
Voorhis Papers.
43. NTT, March 4, 1955, p. 16; April 20, p. 35; August 3, p. 25; Novem­
ber 7,1955, p. 75.
44. American Safety Razor folder, April 22, 1954, Eagle morgue; NTT,
January 18, 1954, p. 24; March 29, p. 33; July 3, p. 13; August 9, 1954, p. 16;
354
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 9

New York Chamber of Commerce, Monthly Bulletin, November 1954, pp. 129­
34; "Solving a Big City's Problems," U. S. News & World Report, 38 (March 11,
1955): 58; Sayre and Kaufman, Governing New York City, pp. 668—69.
45. John J. Bennett to Harman S. Goetze, January 7, 1955, folder 9, Box
129, Hospital Council.
46. Griffin, Industrial Location, pp. 63,107; NTT, January 12,1955, p. 45;
May 24, p. 28; June 26, p. 19; July 6, p. 26; September 26, p. 32.
47. New York Chamber of Commerce, Monthly Bulletin, June, 1955, pp.
96-102; LIU folder, November 26,1950, Eagle morgue.
48. Moses to Lebwohl, October 24, 1955, TBTA; A. Lincoln Bush to
Moses, November 7, 1955; Moses to Thomas Murray et al., November 29,
1955; Joe Delaney to Moses, December 12,1955, Box 116, Moses Papers.
49. Moses to Hulan Jack, December 22, 1955; Moses memo to Lebwohl,
December 27,1955, Box 116, Moses Papers; Building Trades Employers' Asso­
ciation to Moses, December 19, 1955; Moses to Howard McSpedon, Janu­
ary 16, 1956; Lebwohl to George Spargo, n.d. (but received February 20,
1956); Moses to George Meany, March 2, 1956; "Northern Boulevard Area,"
n.d., with Moses to McSpedon, March 14, 1956; Samuel Brooks to Lebwohl,
May 1,1956, TBTA.
50. NTT, June 6, 1955, p. 24; June 8, 1955, p. 28; andfileson New York
Area Research Council in Boxes 1, 310, R. G. 1.2, Rockefeller Foundation,
Rockefeller Archive Center.
51. NTT, June 20, 1955, p. 1; July 18, 1955, p. 23; Moses to Charles G.
Bennett, n.d.; and Bennett to Moses, July 26, 1955, TBTA.
52. Lincoln Square Businessmen's Committee to Moses, May 31, 1956, in
Griffin, Industrial Location, p. 63.
53. NTT, August 15, 1956, p. 31; New York Area Research Council, Min­
utes, February 24, 1956, Box 1; CBF and JM diary excerpt, February 24,1956,
Box 310, Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Archive Center; NTT, Decem­
ber 16, 1956, p. 1.
54. Richard C. Patterson, Jr., to Moses, June 26,1956 (with Moses's hand­
written comments to Spargo), 1956 Correspondence folder, Box 116, Moses
Papers.
55. Wilbur R. Thompson, A Preface to Urban Economics (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1965), pp. 27-28; Regional Plan Association, The
Economic Status of the New Tork Region in 1944 (New York: RPA, Inc., 1944),
pp. 39-41.
56. Hoover, Location, pp. 174-75; Benjamin Chinitz, City and Suburb
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1964).
57. Henry S. Churchill, The City is the People (1945; New York: W. W. Nor­
ton, 1962), pp. 81, 91, 93, 168; Henry S. Churchill, "What Kind of Cities
Do We Want?," in Coleman Woodbury, ed., The Future of Cities and Urban
Redevelopment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 47.
58. Basil G. Zimmer, Rebuilding Cities (Chicago: Quadrangle Books,
1964), pp. 5-6; Wilbur R. Thompson, "Toward an Urban Economics," in
Leo F. Schnore, ed., Social Science and the City (New York: Praeger, 1968),
355
NOTES TO CHAPTER 9

p. 147; Bernard J. Frieden and Robert Morris, eds., Urban Planning and Social
Policy (New York: Basic Books, 1968); Victor Gruen, The Heart of Our Cities
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1964); Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great
American Cities (New York: Vintage, 1961), pp. 234—35.
59. Regional Plan Association to Rockefeller Brothers Fund, May 13,
1955, folder 2; Henry S. Osborne to Dana S. Creel, folder 1, Box 95, Regional
Plan Associationfiles,Rockefeller Brothers. Norton was said to have been "anx­
ious to continue development of the thinking that must underlie this social
change as it develops in this atomic age." L. V. Berkner to H. Rowan Gaither,
March 19, 1953, Sec. 4, Grant File 56-210, Ford Foundation.
60. "Metropolitan Research Project Prepared by Regional Planning Asso­
ciation, Inc., June 11, 1954," folder 1; Gene W. Setzer to Rockefeller Brothers
Fund Files, November 16, 1954; memo for December 3, 1954 meeting,
folder 1; William F. Butler to Creel, February 14, 1955; Butler to Creel, April
14, 1955; Agency Analysis: Regional Plan Association, July, 1955, folder 2;
Creel to Rockefeller Brothers Fund file, May 25, 1953, folder 1, Box 95, Re­
gional Plan Association Files, Rockefeller Brothers.
61. Henry S. Osborne to EdwardS. Mason, May 19,1955; C.McKim Nor­
ton to Creel, May 19, 1955; and Suggestions for Members, May 5 and May 11,
1955; Gene W. Setzer memo, June 7, 1955; Creel to David Rockefeller, Feb­
ruary 2, 1956, folder 2, Box 95, Regional Plan Association Files, Rockefeller
Brothers.
62. Harvard University Graduate School of Public Administration, Bureau

of Research on Municipal Affairs, "Progress Report to the Project Management

Committee," n.d., but filed November 18, 1955, in folder 2, Box 95, ibid.

63. Ibid. Vernon conceded that this marked a significant pullback from the

ambitious study of interindustry factor coefficients that would have required

calculations beyond the resources of his team. "Technical Paper No. 1," n.d.,

Sec. 4, Grant File 56-210, Ford Foundation.

64. Raymond Vernon, "Some Educational Impacts of the New York

Metropolitan Region Study," n.d.; Vernon, "Preliminary Prospectus of the New

York Metropolitan Region Study," n.d., enclosed with Vernon to Paul Ylvisaker,

July 13, 1956, ibid.

65. Vernon, "Preliminary Prospectus"; Vernon, "Technical Paper No. 1";

"Production and Distribution in the Large Metropolis," third draft, July 22,

1957, ibid.

66. Oscar Handlin, The Newcomers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 1959); Robert C. Wood, 1400 Governments (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1961).
67. Raymond Vernon and EdgarM. Hoover, Anatomy ofaMetropolis (Cam­
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), p. 25.
68. CBF and RWJ interview with Buell G. Gallagher and Oscar I. Jankow­
sky, March 21, 1957; JM interview with Jankowsky, June 27, 1957; JM com­
ments, February 3,1958, New York Area Research Council, Box 1, Rockefeller
Foundation, Rockefeller Archive Center; Paul Ylvisaker to Edward Mason,
January 2, 1958, Grant File 56-210, Ford Foundation.
356
 NOTES TO CHAPTERS 9 —1O

69. Vernon to Ylvisaker, n.d., but stamped August 18, 1959, Grant File
56-210, Ford Foundation.

Chapter 10
1. Caro, Power Broker, chs. 41,42.
2. Ibid., p. 979; Shirley Hayes to Charles Abrams, August 19, 1953,
Reel 51; The Villager, June 12, 1958, clipping, enclosed with Grundy to
Abrams, July 5, 1958, Reel 4, Abrams Papers; NYU Office of the Chancellor,
"Proposed Washington Square Southeast Redevelopment Project," August 25,
1953; NYU, Special Council Meeting, September 28,1953, folder 20, Box 24,
Voorhis Papers; Henry T. Heald to Moses, June 20, 1953, folder 007.B1.30,
NYU Medical.
3. Unsigned memo by Weinberg, August 27, 1953, folder 8, Box 59,
Weinberg Papers.
4. Minutes of meeting, September 28,1953; John W. Morgan to Abrams,
September 30, 1953, Reel 51, Abrams Papers.
5. Abrams, memo on the Washington Square Southeast development
plan, October 6, 1953; Greenwich Village Branch of the ADA, Resolution,
October 15, 1953; draft of letter (in Abrams's hand) to John J. Bennett, Octo­
ber 13, 1953, ibid.
6. Oliver Williams, Housing Committee, Lower West Side Civic League,
September, 1953; and fliers "Washington Square Southeast: Housing the Well-
off by the Poor" (November 1953), and "Simkhovitch City: A Public Dehous­
ing Project," ibid.
7. Hugh Ferriss memo, Washington Square Southeast, January 12,1954,
folder 8, Box 46, Weinberg Papers.
8. NYU press release, January 5, 1954; Chancellor Heald's comments in
NYU Council, Minutes, October 25, 1954, folder 20, Box 24, Voorhis Papers;
Weinberg notes, February 15, 1954, Reel 51, Abrams Papers.
The arrangements were consummated in January, 1955, by a CSC public
auction that was not an auction, involving John A. Kervick, the former HHFA
public housing administrator, who was a partner of realtor and NYU trustee
Paul Tishman. All along, NYU insisted that it had no involvement with the
Title I project. Frank L. Hawley to Chancellor Heald et al., January 13, 1955;
James W. Armsey to editor of the New York Times, June 1, 1956, folder 20, Box
24, Voorhis Papers.
9. Weinberg to James J. Kirk, March 4, 1954, Reel 51, Abrams Papers.
10. Caro, Power Broker, pp. 979-83; U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on
Banking and Currency, Hearings, 83rd Cong., 2d Sess., 1954, pp. 3097-3167;
William S. Lebwohl to George Spargo, July 12,1954; Harry Taylor to Lebwohl,
November 22, 1954, TBTA; Moses memo to Senate Committee, August 19,
1954, Box 116, Moses Papers.
11. Sayre and Kaufman, Governing New York City, p. 666; NYT, June 1,
1954, p. 35; January 24, 1955, p. 17.
357
NOTES TO CHAPTER 1O

12. Mayor's Advisory Committee, summary of Minutes of Housing and

Redevelopment Subcommittee, July 20,1954, Reel 13, Abrams Papers.
13. Lebwohl to Spargo, December 1, 1954; Moses to Mayor Wagner,
November 29, 1954; Lebwohl to Moses, January 5,1955, TBTA.
14. Lebwohl to Spargo, February 16, 1955; Taylor to Lebwohl, Febru­
ary 25, 1955; Lebwohl to Moses, May 17, 1955; Taylor to Lebwohl, May 26,
1955, TBTA.
15. Lebwohl to Moses, May 27, 1955, with comments on Mayor's Com­
mittee draft report, TBTA; NTT, August 1, 1955, p. 38; Lebwohl to Spargo,
August 2,1955; Moses to Henry C. Bruere, August 3, 1955, TBTA.
16. Moses to Bruere, August 18, 1955, with attachment; Bruere to Moses,
August 26, 1955, TBTA; NTT, August 23, 1955, p. 25; August 24, p. 26;
August 29, p. 21; October 5,1955, p. 28.
17. NTT, February 6,1955, p. 72; Amsterdam News, April 16,1955, p. 35;
interview with Harris Present, February 12, 1976, Tenant Movement; Ellen
Manfredonia, "The Politically Viable Plan" (Master's thesis, Columbia Univer­
sity, 1967), p. 71; RERBG 175 (March 12, 1955); Hortense Gabel to Charles
Abrams, "Chronology of Action Taken with Regard to Title I Sites," Reel 17,
Abrams Papers; Moses to Abrams, April 25,1955; Lebwohl to Moses, April 26,
1955, Box 116, Moses Papers.
18. Herbert H. Lehman to Moses, March 11, 1955, Box 116, Moses Pa­
pers; NTT, March 13, 1955, p. 45; NTT, May 14, 1955, p. 22; Interview with
Harris Present; Hortense Gabel, "Chronology of Action Taken"; TSRHC Re­
lease No. 210 (June 9, 1955), Reel 17, Abrams Papers; NTT, June 22, 1955,
p. 31; August 1,1955, p. 35.
19. Moses to Nelson Rockefeller, September 7, 1955; Moses to Mayor
Wagner, October 6, 1955; Moses to Albert M. Cole, October 24, 1955, with
draft of agenda; and Moses to Nelson Rockefeller, November 10, 1955, Box
116, Moses Papers.
20. NTT, October 6, 1955, pp. 1, 22; October 11, 1955, p. 41; Daily
Worker, November 11,1955; NTT, May 21,1956, p. 19; May 25, p. 1; Decem­
ber 23, sec. 8, p. 1; Village Voice, November 9, 1955; December 14, 1955.
21. Memo re Pathfinding Service, May 10, 1946; excerpts from Marts and
Lundy Report, n.d., Department of Church Planning and Research, 1938-1952
folder, transfile 1; Minutes of Church Planning Department, December 18,
1947; Proposals for a Protestant Program in East Harlem, January 15, 1948,
Manhattan Division, 1947—1964 folder, transfile 3, NYC Mission Society.
22. Jim Patton, "The East Harlem Protestant Parish," summer 1950, Box 6;
Don Benedict, "The East Harlem Protestant Parish," winter 1948-1949; East
Harlem Protestant Parish, Monthly Report, May 23, 1950, Box 2, EHHP.
23. Monthly Reports, April 27, 1949; April 12, 1950; January 26, 1949;
and March 29, 1949, Box 2, EHHP.
24. Monthly Reports, April 12, 1950; December 1951-January 1952;
March 1952, Box 2; "Headline interviews" (mimeo flier), [February?] 1952,
Christian Social Action folder, Box 29; Monthly Reports, April 11,1951; Octo­
ber, 1952; November, 1952; and March, 1953, Box 2, EHPP.
358
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 1O

25. Monthly Reports, April 1953; March 1953, Box 2; Christian Action
Committee folder, January 10, 1955, Box 29; Monthly Report, April 1955,
Box 2; Grace Ministry and Staff to Board of Directors, May 10, 1955, Admin­
istrative Board Meetings, Box 1; Staff memo, June 15, 1955, Christian Social
Action folder, Box 29; Christian Action Committee, Minutes, July 14, 1955,
Box 29, EHPP.
26. Christian Action Committee, Minutes, November 3, 1955, Box 29;
Monthly Report, November 1955, Box 2, EHPP.
27. Meryl Ruoss, report of the Department of Church Planning and Re­
search to the Board of Directors, April 13, 1955; Department of Church
Planning and Research, Executive Committee, Minutes, September 22, 1955;
Theodore Oxholm and Meryl Ruoss to denominational executives, October 6,
1955; Minutes, October 27,1955, in Department Minutes, 1953-1959 folder,
transfile 1, NYC Mission Society.
28. Daily Worker, January 6, 1956, p. 8; NTT, January 17, 1956, p. 35;
January 18, p. 33; January 23, p. 14; Daily Worker, January 16, 1956, p. 3;
January 19, p. 8; NTT, March 23, 1956, p. 23; April 7, p. 21; April 14, p. 8;
and Daily Worker, April 16, 1956, p. 8; Department of Social Planning and
Research, Minutes, May 24, 1956, Transfile 1, NYC Mission Society.
29. Department of Social Planning and Research, Minutes, May 24, 1956;
Dan M. Potter memo, n.d., Department Minutes, 1953-1959 folder, Trans-
file 1; Protestant Council, Departments of Church Planning and Research and
Christian Social Relations, Report of the Institute of the Church and Urban
Redevelopment, held September 21, 1956, transfile 10, NYC Mission Society.
30. Department of Church Planning and Research, Executive Committee,
Minutes, September 27, 1956, Department Minutes, 1953-1959 folder, Trans-
file 1, ibid.
31. Ralph G. Martin, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1971), pp. 10-11; Newhouse, Wallace K. Harrison,
pp. 186-87.
32. Moses to Harry F. Guggenheim, August 24, 1953, Housing, General,
1953 folder, Box 90; Moses to Joseph M. Hartfield, March 18, 1954; a series
of letters, dated March 29, 1954, and another series, July 13, 1954; Moses to
CSC members, August 6,1954; Moses to Spargo, September 1,1954, Box 116,
Moses Papers.
33. Manfredonia, "The Politically Viable Plan," p. 51; NTT, April 8,1955,
p. 1; April 22, 1955, p. 1; January 12, 1956, p. 1.
34. Moses to Lebwohl, April 7, 1955; Moses to Spargo, December 2,
1955; Spargo to Moses, December 5,1955; Richard Patterson to Moses, May 9,
1955; Moses to Hartfield, April 29, 1955; Paul Hammond to Moses, May
31, 1955; Moses to Hammond, June 6, 1955, Box 116, Moses Papers.
35. Community Services, Board of Directors, Minutes, June 9, 1955; West
Side News clipping, April 12, 1956; Francis Spellman to Moses, December 15,
1955, with penciled comments; Moses to Spellman, December 22, 1955, Box
116, Moses Papers.
36. Manfredonia, "The Politically Viable Plan," pp. 53, 57.
359
NOTES TO CHAPTER 1O

37. Exploratory Committee for a Performing Arts Center, Minutes, pas­

sim, Lincoln Center; notes on conference, February 17-18,1956, Lincoln Cen­
ter Board Minutes, R. G. 17, (Associates), Rockefeller Archive Center.
38. Lincoln Square Businessmen's Committee to Moses, May 31, 1956;
Charles Keenan to Moses, May 31, 1956, Housing, 1956 folder, Box 116,
Moses Papers; NTT, April 25,1956, p. 37; May 5, p. 21; May 10, p. 33; June 2,
p. 11; June 3, p. 26; West Side News, August 2, 1956; interview with Harris
Present, February 12, 1976, Tenant Movement.
39. Moses to John Brannin [?], April 11, 1956; Moses to Howard Cull-
man, June 2, 1956; Moses to Spargo, July 24, 1956, Housing, 1956 folder,
Box 116, Moses Papers; Exploratory Committee, Minutes, May 14, 1956, Lin­
coln Center; NTT, May 28, 1956, p. 21; May 29, 1956, p. 29; June 14, 1956,
p. 1; West Side News, clipping, June 28, 1956. Moses's $400 and "even more in
special cases" miffed Lincoln Center sponsors, who learned from Morningside
Heights, Inc., that $250 would do the job. But General Otto L. Nelson recog­
nized that the numbers were for public consumption: "The present policy," he
explained to Charles Spofford, "is to assume that every redeveloper can earn
enough in rentals from families now living on the site to defer the costs of re­
location and demolition." Henry D. Johnson, Jr., to Edgar B. Young, June 19,
1956, Land Acquisition—Main Area folder, Box 1, Otto Nelson Papers; Nelson
to Charles M. Spofford, February 5, 1957, General 13259-00-00, Box 1, Mil-
bank Tweed files, Lincoln Center.
40. NTT, April 22, 1956, sec. 6, p. 14; notes taken at conference, June 7,
1956, Lincoln Center Board Minutes, R. G. 17 (Associates), Rockefeller Ar­
chive Center; Exploratory Committee, Minutes, June 25,1956, General 13259­
00-00, Box 1, Milbank Tweedfiles,Lincoln Center; NTT, July 23, 1956.
41. Charles C. Weinstein to Moses, December 1, 1955; Moses to Arthur
Sulzberger, July 31, 1956; Sulzberger to Moses, August 6, 1956; Moses to
Arthur S. Hodgkiss, August 15, 1956; and Moses to Hodgkiss, August 23,
1956, Housing, 1956 folder, Box 116, Moses Papers; Exploratory Committee,
Minutes, September 10, 1956, Lincoln Center.
42. Leonard X. Farbman to Edward F. Cavanaugh, April 7, 1961, folder
44; Farbman to Mayor Wagner, August 31, 1955; and Farbman to James Felt,
June 4, 1956, folder 48, Stephen Wise.
43. NTT, June 15, 1956, p. 26; July 27, p. 23; Lindquist to David and
Laurence Rockefeller, July 26, 1956, Rockefeller Real Estate; interview with
Harris Present, Tenant Movement.
44. West Side News clippings, September 26, 27, 1956; Teachers Guild
Bulletin, February, 1955; September, 1957; Moses to Laurence S. McGinley,
August 6 and 13,1956; McGinley to Moses, August 16,1956, TBTA; Moses to
Francis Cardinal Spellman, August 31,1956, Correspondence, 1956 folder, Box
116, Moses Papers; Exploratory Committee, Minutes, September 10, 1956,
Lincoln Center; Moses to Thomas Shanahan, September 6, 1956, Correspon­
dence, 1956 folder, Box 116, Moses Papers.
45. Leonard X. Farbman letter to unknown, n.d., folder 48, Stephen Wise;

360
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 1O

Manfredonia, "The Politically Viable Plan," pp. 64, 66; Moses to Hulan Jack,
Correspondence, 1956 folder, Box 116, Moses Papers; West Side News clipping,
October 4, 1956, Lincoln Center.
46. Florence Chapman note, November 23, 1976; John D. Rockefeller III
to Sherman Adams, n.d., Edgard B. Young Papers, Rockefeller Archive Cen­
ter; Otto L. Nelson memo, December 12, 1956, Garage, December 7, 1956­
June 30, 1959 folder, Box 1, Nelson Papers, Lincoln Center; NTT, April 9,
1957, editorial page; Nelson to Charles M. Spofford, February 7, 1957; and
Nelson to Spofford, February 5,1957, General 13259-00-00, Milbank Tweed
files, Lincoln Center; Manfredonia, "The Politically Viable Plan," pp. 68, 72.
47. NTT clipping, April 9, 1957; Otto Nelson to John D. Rockefeller III,
April 4, 1957, Land Acquisition—Main Area folder, Box 1, Nelson Papers,
Lincoln Center.
48. NTT, April 8, 1957, p. 1; April 10, p. 35; interview with Harris
Present, Tenant Movement; NTT, April 9, 1957, p. 35 and editorial page;
April 24, p. 1; April 26, p. 18; April 28, p. 64; May 1, p. 1; May 2, p. 33;
Mendes Hershman to Otto Nelson, May 2, 1957; George Spargo to John D.
Rockefeller III, May 14, 1957, Land Acquisition—Main Area folder, Box 1,
Nelson Papers; Nelson memo, June 24, 1957, Land Costs, R. A. Organization,
Lincoln Center; Moses to John D. Rockefeller III, June 24,1957, Lincoln Cen­
ter Negotiations folder, Box 1, R. G. 17, Edgar B. Young Papers, Rockefeller
Archive Center; Moses to Charles M. Spofford, July 2, 1957, Miscellaneous
folder, Frank J. Weil Papers, R. G. A. Organization, Lincoln Center.
49. Moses to Carmine DeSapio, September 27, 1956; David Rockefeller
to Moses, September 26,1956; Lindquist memo to David Rockefeller, Novem­
ber 2, 1956; Lindquist to Stanley Isaacs, November 9, 1956; Lindquist to
David and Laurence Rockefeller, November 15,1956, with p. s., dated Novem­
ber 21 and 23, 1956; message from Lindquist, March 28, 1957; and telegram,
Lindquist to David Rockefeller, April 25,1957, East 68th-69th Street redevel­
opment folder, Box 10, Rockefeller Real Estate.
50. Allen K. Holding note, n.d., Urban renewal, 1957-1969, folder; pub­
licity on negotiations for Lincoln Square Site, July 8, 1957, Land Costs folder;
A. K. Holding to Otto Nelson, July 15, 1957; Statement by Mayor Wagner,
July 17, 1957; William Lebwohl to Moses, August 21, 1957, Urban renewal,
1957-1969, folder, R. G. A. Organization, Lincoln Center.
51. Lewis H. Bowen to A. K. Holding, July 26,1957, Miscellaneous folder,
Box 2, Nelson Papers; flier, n.d., with A. K. Holding and John McNulty to
Edgar B. Young, August 28,1957, Urban renewal, 1957-1969, folder, R. G. A.
Organization, Lincoln Center.
52. Presentation of Lincoln Center for City Planning Commission public
hearing, Wednesday, September 11, 1957, 13259-17-00, R. G. B., Milbank
Tweedfiles;Daily Worker, September 12,1957; NTT, September 12,1957, pp.
1, 28; October 3, p. 31; chronological list of speakers, October 25, 1957; Regi­
nald Allen to Chuck Spofford, October 24, 1957; and Allen to Abe Savage,
September 9, 1957, City Hearings folder, Box 1, Reginald Allen Papers, R. G.

361
NOTES TO CHAPTER 1O

2.2, Lincoln Center; NTT, November 27,1957, p. 1; December 16,1957, p. 1;

Daily Worker, November 26, 1957, p. 1; Manfredonia, "The Politically Viable
Plan," p. 77.
53. NTT, January 14, 1957, p. 1; January 15, p. 31; February 14, 1957,
p. 9; September 27, 1956, p. 37; November 10, 1956, p. 10.
54. "Housing Policy of the City of New York" (second draft), August 15,
1956, Correspondence, 1956 folder, Box 116, Moses Papers.
55. Moses to James Felt, August 20,1956; Felt to Moses, August 21,1956,
ibid.; NYT, September 23,1956, p. 1.
56. NTT, October 27, 1957, sec. 8, p. 1; November 25, 1957, p. 33;
Hortense Gabel to Abrams, December 31,1957, with Gabel, "Some Comments
on the Report of the City Planning Commission of the City of New York on
Lincoln Square Urban Renewal Plan and Project" (November 26, 1957), Reel
17, Abrams Papers.
57. Robert C. Weinberg to editor, New York Herald Tribune, February 16,
1957; Stanley Isaacs to James Felt, December 26,1957, Reel 5, Abrams Papers;
Daily Worker, October 28, 1957, p. 3; NTT, December 25, 1957, p. 28; West
Side News clipping, September 20, 1956; Teachers Guild, Bulletin, September
1957; Women's City Club statement at Board of Estimate, October 25, 1957,
Stephen Wise.
58. Leonard X. Farbman, report of June 30, 1958, meeting of Citizens
Committee on Lincoln Square; Farbman's notes, October 30, 1959, Stephen
Wise.
59. New York City Planning Commission, Plan for New York City (Depart­
ment of City Planning, 1969), vol. 4, Manhattan, p. 114; Elizabeth Wood,
The Small Hard Core (New York: Citizens Housing and Planning Council, May
1957); and Elizabeth Wood, "Report to the New York City Housing Authority"
(June 1958), copy in NYCHA.
60. NYCHA, meeting of sponsoring agencies and center directors, March
13,1957, folder 484, Helen Hall Papers; Dan Wakefield, Island in the City (New
York: Corinth Books, 1959), pp. 243-44; Mobilization for Youth, Draft Pro­
gram, revision I (November 1,1961), pp. 15-17, 84-85, 90, Box 32, Whitney
Young, Jr., Papers, Columbia University Library.
61. William Reid to Helen Hall, May 21, 1958; Citizens Housing and
Planning Council, "Request for a Grant of Funds for Experiments with Social
Agencies in Two Public Housing Projects," with James H. Scheuer to Dana S.
Creel, October 28, 1958, folder 484, Helen Hall Papers.
62. CHPC, "Request for a Grant of Funds"; Helen Hall, "Report—Social
Consultation Unit," March 4,1959, ibid.
63. Ira S. Robbins, "New Approaches to Public Housing," (address be­
fore the New York City chapter of the ADA, September 13, 1958), folder 484,
Helen Hall Papers; CHPC, "Request for a Grant of Funds"; "Mobilization for
Youth: Its Purposes, Assumptions, and Plan of Operations" (Revised Edition,
November 1958), in Mobilization for Youth, Publications 4: 42-43; Women's
City Club of New York, "Social Service Needs of Tenants in Housing Authority

362
 NOTES TO CHAPTER 1O AND EPILOGUE

Projects," n.d., folder 484; Jerome D. Diamond, "Condensed Report on Family

Conferences in the Breukelen Community Center," n.d.; Sara Dolgin to Helen
Hall, January 30, 1959, folder 485, Helen Hall Papers.
64. M. StaufFer to Helen Hall, December 6, 1958, folder 484; Helen Hall,
"Report—Social Consultation Unit," March 4, 1959, folder 485, Helen Hall
Papers.
65. Hall, "Report—Social Consultation Unit;" [M. StaufFer], "Policy on
Evictions," February 16, 1959, folder 485, ibid.
66. Committee on Private Housing in East Harlem, meeting of August 26,
1959, Box 6, EHPP; NTT, February 4, 1957, p. 1; Kazan, Reminiscences, pp.
534, 538-40.
67. Donald W. O'Connell memo, July 1,1959; Robert C. Weaver, "Hous­
ing in New York City," with Weaver to Frank S. Home, September 30, 1959,
file 59-931, Ford Foundation.

The Power Broker

1. Raymond Vernon, quoted in Irving Welfeld, Where We Live (New

York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), pp. 93-94.
2. Zeckendorf, Zeckendorf, p. 235; Caro, Power Broker, p. 777.
3. Peter Marcuse, "Robert Moses and Public Housing: Contradiction In,
Contradiction Out" (paper presented at Columbia University conference on
Robert Moses, February 6,1989).
4. NTT, December 18, 1988, II, 45.
5. Statement by Leonard X. Farbman, June 22, 1962, folder 45, Stephen
Wise.

363
Index
Abrams,Charles, 111, 122, 137, 167,
263, 270, 297; and antidiscrimina­
tion, 173; and Housing Authority,
38-39, 49; and Mayor's Committee
for Better Housing, 267-68; and
Stuyvesant Town, 103, 164—65
Ackerman, Frederick L., 23, 40, 55, 68;
and housing sites, 44; and industrial
placement, 232; "Thirteen Slum
Areas," 44, 71
Allen Street, 29, 32
Amalgamated housing, 29—30, 126,
130, 134-36. See also Kazan, Abra­
ham E.; United Housing Foundation
American Federation of Labor, 111,
246
American Institute of Architects, New
York Chapter, 100, 264, 287; and
industrial sites, 235; and Stuyvesant
Town, 100-101
American Jewish Committee, New York
Chapter, 96-97, 109, 111, 160­
61, 167, 202; and Communists,
193; and interracial projects, 163,
198; and Manhattantown, 190­
95; and Puerto Ricans, 163; Title I
conciliation, 177
American Labor Party, 97, 112, 150,
161, 177, 187, 192; housing pro­
gram, 49; and Manhattantown, 191
American Safety Razor Corporation,
236-37,245-46, 252
American Veterans Committee, 142,
161,188-89, 194
Americans for Democratic Action,
109-10, 142, 161, 189,194-95,
263, 274, 280; "Anti-Discrimination
Program," 110; and Moses, 110
Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith,
194, 202
Architectural Forum, 101-2
Article XVIII (Housing Amendment),
New York State Constitution,
51, 61, 66, 68-70, 81, 90; provi­
sions, 50
Aviles, Grace, 98, 103
Banks: and redevelopment, 62-63
Bartholomew, Harland, 31—32
Bellevue Hospital, 138, 210
Bernecker, Edward M., 205, 211-12
Blum, Robert E., 239, 241-44, 250
Boards of trade: and public housing,
37-38
Boden, Shirley F., 135, 176, 186,
189, 203
Bowery Savings Bank, 29, 81, 100,
177-78, 241
Bowman, LeRoy, 117, 176
Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, 236,
246, 250, 252
Brooklyn Civic Center, 236-37, 239­
46; committee, 242; map, 240
Brooklyn Eagle, 71, 243, 245-46
Brooklyn Hospital, 206, 243-44
Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, 244—
45
Brooklyn Real Estate Board, 236, 244
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters,
187-88
Brown, Earl, 188, 192, 274
Bruere, Henry C , 27, 29, 31, 91, 100,
126, 233, 241; and Amalgamated
cooperatives, 30; and insurance
365
INDEX

Bruere, Henry C. (continued)

City-Wide Tenants Council, 46-48,

housing, 81; and Mayor's Commit­

50, 78-80, 85

tee for Better Housing, 268-69

Clarke, Gilmore D., 236, 241

Building and Construction Trades

Cole, Albert M., 271, 283, 285

Council, 251-52
Columbia University, 152-53, 155;

Butler, Edmond Borgia, 87, 105,

Bureau of Applied Social Research,

120, 123
163, 166-67, 185; Institute for

Buttenheim, Harold S., 96-97, 103;

Urban Land Use, 155, 177, 337n.l9

and Citizens Housing Council, 48

Committee for Balanced Communities,

167,198-99, 202

Campagna, Anthony, 138-39, 148

Communists, xix, 46, 79, 97, 111-12,

Caro, Robert A., 199, 261; critique

137,150,160-61,193-95

of, xvii; on Manhattantown, xvi; on

Community advisement, 19-21, 56­

Moses, xvi
57, 85,185-86,188

Cashmore, John E., 68, 239, 241, 250­

Concord Village, 126, 241, 246

51; and Brooklyn Civic Center,

Cooperative housing, 134-38, 176—

236, 246
77, 186, 201-3, 282; Cooperative

Charity Organization Society, 5, 53

League, 138,196; illustration, 293;

Chase, Harry W., 139, 214-16; and

Queensview, 137-38

NYU at Bellevue, 212

Council for Cooperative Development,

Chelsea Association for Planning and

135-36

Action, 72-74, 85
Covello, Leonard, 115, 117

Christadora Settlement, 16, 30

Crosswaith, Frank R., 124-25, 201

Chrystie-Forsyth, 30-31
Cruise, Philip J., 221-22, 274, 291

CIO Industrial Trades Council, 50, 98

Citizens Housing (and Planning)

Daily Worker, 98-99, 188, 192

Council, 48, 66, 79, 85, 93,103,

109, 111, 173, 287, 290; and Man­

Davies, J. Clarence, Jr., 202, 290

hattantown, 193-95; and Stuyvesant

DeSapio, Carmine, 182, 264

Town, 95-97; and Vacancy Listing

Dewey, Thomas E., 87, 93-94, 121

Bureau, 53
Douglas, Lewis W., 91,120-21,126­

28,134, 209

Citizens Union, 111, 236

Dowling, Robert W., 130,171, 249­

City and Suburban Homes Company,

50, 280

7-9

Downtown Brooklyn Association,

City Beautiful movement, 9-12

242, 250

City Club, 63,281

Dry Dock Savings Bank, 63, 81

City planning, 21-22; and boulevards,

9, 27-28; and City Beautiful, 12, 22;

and community advisory boards, 19­

East Harlem Protestant Parish, 271-74;

21; and economic redevelopment,

and public housing, 273—74

26-27; and housing sites, 37; and

East Harlem slum clearance, 1.15—17,

manufacturing, 230-32, 235-36;

119, 272-74; illustration, 275;

principles, 14-16; and settlement

proposals, 102-3

houses, 14—19; and working-class

East Side Chamber of Commerce,

neighborhoods, 22; and zoning,

30-31, 38,177-78

19-21, 231
East Side Tenants Union, 47, 78

City-Wide Citizens Committee on

Ecker, Frederick H., 75, 92-94, 96­

Harlem, 56, 89, 96-97,109

97, 215, 235

City-Wide Committee on Housing

Eggers &Higgins, 131, 138,173, 264

Relocation Problems, 199, 268, 270

Electchester, 136, 202, 251

366

Ethical Culture Society, 73, 85, 96-97,
109, 111, 167,198
Evarts, Jeremiah, 93, 97
Fackenthal, Frank D., 156-58
Farbman, Leonard X., 281-82, 287
Farrell, Thomas F., 123-25, 180; and
Colonial Park project, 125; and
Housing Authority in redevelop­
ment, 128; and relocations, 125;
and Title I proposals, 129
Felt, James, 66, 79, 99, 122,137,147,
201, 207, 221, 256, 275, 278, 280,
283, 288, 294, 300; and Chelsea
redevelopment, 73; City Planning
Commission population report, 288;
and redevelopment, 192; and Ten­
ant Relocation Bureau, 103-5; and
South Village, 181
Field, Marshall, 139. See also Marshall
Field Foundation
Field, Ruth Pruyn, 139, 141-42, 180
Fifth Avenue Association, 19-20
Fisher, Ernest M., 153, 158, 337n.l9
Ford, George B. (clergyman), 185—
87, 189
Ford, George B. (planner), 15, 230
Ford Foundation, 256, 259, 294
Fordham University, 278, 282, 285-86
Fosdick, Harry Emerson, 152—53
French, Fred F., 34, 73
Fried,WalterS.,283,285
Gabel, Hortense W., 169, 188, 270-71,
288-89
Garrison, Lloyd K., 139, 142, 182
Gould, Elgin R. L., 6-9
Greenwich House, 15—16
Greenwich Village: improvements, 13,
20-21; postwar proposals, 145­
47; and public housing, 150-51,
264-65; and redevelopment, 72,
101-2,138-42, 147, 262-65,271;
and Title I, 129, 179-84. See also
Simkhovitch, Mary K.
Greenwich Village Association, 145­
47,150-51, 183-84,263, 265
Greenwich Village Improvement Soci­
ety, 17, 20
Greer, Guy, 83, 95, 131
INDEX
Griffin, John I., 230, 238, 252-53;
Industrial Location (1955), 259; and
industrial removals, 250
Gulick, Luther C , 266-68, 270, 277
Haig, Robert M., 27, 231
Hall, Helen, 291-92
Hansen, Alvin H., 83, 95, 131
Harlem: 1935 riot, 56; postwar plans,
100; protests against Title I, 274;
public housing sites, 37; and Title I,
293-94
Harlem Advisory Committee, 56-57
Harrison, George L., 90-91
Harrison, Wallace K., 87, 147, 155-56,
277-78; on IBEC Corporation, 224
Harrison & Abramovitz, 173, 187
Heald, Henry T, 224-25, 227, 256,
268,277-78
Hodgkiss, Arthur T, 117,119
Holden, Arthur C , 16, 79, 93, 145,
147, 237; Chelsea redevelopment
proposals, 73; East Harlem redevel­
opment proposal, 102-3; and land
assembly, 66-67; on Land Utiliza­
tion Committee, 36; and Nunan-
Mitchell Bill, 80; and property
pooling, 62-63
Holden, Thomas S., 36,66, 80
Holden, McLaughlin & Associates,
100, 146-49; illustration, 102;
Lower East Side proposals, 31; Plan­
ning Recommendations (1946), 146,
148-49, 151, 183-84, 263; postwar
redevelopment proposals, 101-3
Hoover, Edgar M., 254, 258
Hospital Council of Greater New York,
205, 218-19; master plan com­
mittee, 206-7; and Mount Sinai
Hospital campaign, 208-9; and
NYU-Bellevue Medical Center,
213-14
Hospitals: construction, 210—11,
214-16, 222-23, 347n.6; and Hill-
Burton subsidies, 218—19; as public
works, 206; and redevelopment,
205-8, 220-23
Housing Association of the City of
New York, 32-33
367
INDEX
Housing reform, 5-7; English experi­
ence, 7; and model tenements, 6-7;
policies, xviii, 1-2, 5; and restrictive
approach, 5; and Tenement House
Law of 1901, 7; and worthy poor,
5-7
Hudson Guild, 16, 72-73, 231
Impellitteri, Vincent P., 112,169, 242
International House, New York, 151—
53, 336n.l5
Interracialism, 141-42, 163-69, 179,
182, 186,192,198-203, 334n.55,
336n.l5, 337n.25. See also Abrams,
Charles; Marshall Field Foundation
Isaacs, Stanley M , 111, 188, 233,
267-69, 279, 281; lobbies for in­
surance housing, 82; and 1937
abandonment crisis, 48; and radicals
at Manhattan town, 191; and Title I
relocation, 199
Jack, Hulan E., 222-23, 226-27,
249, 282-83, 287; appoints Lin­
coln Square Watchdog Committee,
283; offers relocation compromise,
222-23; and Rockefeller Institute
housing, 222-23
Jack Ferman Builders, 189, 266
Jahoda, Marie, 166, 168
Juilliard School of Music, 71, 156,
276, 286
Kazan, Abraham E., 29, 126, 137-38,
176, 178-79, 203, 243, 294; on
cooperative housing, 134
Keith, Nathaniel S, 172-73
Kennedy, Joseph P., 278, 285
Kingsview, 243-44
Klorfein, Harold, 105, 122
Kohn, Robert D., 16, 23, 27, 33;
and Lower East Side, 38; at PWA
Housing Division, 35-36; on State
Emergency Public Works Commis­
sion, 34
Knickerbocker Village, 34; illustration,
35,46
La Guardia, Fiorello H., 36, 46, 61,
65, 68, 71-72, 74, 81-82, 86­
368
87, 94, 106, 115, 205, 300; and
Brooklyn Civic Center, 237; and
Constitutional Convention, 50;
and Department of Commerce,
233-34; and Housing Authority,
39, 48-49, 53, 119-20; and insur­
ance housing, 74, 81-82, 91; and
NYU-Bellevue, 211-13; and redevel­
opment, 106-7; and Stuyvesant
Town, 97,99,104
Land Utilization Committee, 36, 66
Lane, Charles E., Jr., 72-73
Lansing, Catherine F., 36, 40, 54, 78;
on graded rents, 53; racial attitudes,
37; and site management, 52
Lasker, Loula D., 28, 31,103
Laster, Israel, 167, 190-93
Lebwohl, William S., 92,132, 268-69,
282, 285-86
Lehman, Herbert H., 80, 90, 266, 270
Leidesdorf, Samuel D., 225-26
Lenox Hill area, 63—64
Lenox Hill Hospital, 64, 206, 218-20
Lenox Hill Neighborhood Association,
47, 64, 271, 274
Lescaze, William, 100, 103
Lester, Orrin C , 29-30, 32, 36
Liberals, xv, 2, 133, 137-38, 159-62,
282-83; Caro on, xvii; and inter­
racial housing, 111—12,165—66; and
Lincoln Square, 281; and Moses,
108-9; and redevelopment, 106-7,
112-13, 191-96, 304-5; and
tenement problem, 2; and Title I,
131-33, 288-89
Limited-dividends, 32-34, 226; and
Knickerbocker Village, 34; and
Mitchell-Lama Law, 268
Lincoln Square, 78, 276-89, 360n.39;
relocations, 287, 289
Lincoln Square Businessmen's Commit­
tee, 253, 282
Long Island University, 237, 242-44
Lower East Side: boulevard widening,
28-30; and cooperative housing,
134-36; gentrification, 28; improve­
ments, 13—14, 29—32; population
trends, 26; and public housing,
32, 119; redevelopment (illustra­
tion), 178

Lower West Side Civic League, 182,
264
Lumsden, Mary (May), 40, 54; and
Housing Authority tenant selection,
52—53, 55; on racial tenancy, 56
Macy's. See R. H. Macy & Co.
Madden, James L., 130-31, 138-39,
180, 183, 215
Manhattan Tenants Council, 177, 190
Manhattantown, xvi—xvii, 159—60,
189-92, 266-67; debate on, 270;
illustration, 267; scandal, 196, 266
Manhattanville Neighborhood Center,
152, 185
Marsh, Benjamin C, 16, 19
Marshall Field Foundation, 139-42,
166, 179-83, 186; and Queensview,
201-2
Mayer, Albert, 40, 73, 263
Mayor's Business Advisory Council,
248, 250
Mayor's Committee for Better Housing,
267-70
Mayor's Committee on City Planning,
206,231-32
Mayor's Committee on Housing Legis­
lation, 68-70
McAneny, George, 16, 20, 36, 84, 86
McCrea, Roswell C , 27, 231
McGinley, Laurence J., 278, 280
McGoldrick, Joseph M., 236-37
McGrath, John P., 174, 242-44, 250
McLaughlin, George V., 130, 171
McSpedon, Howard, 251, 277
Memorial Hospital, 64, 205-6, 209­
10, 214, 220; expansion campaign,
209-10
Merchants' Association, 66, 82
Merton, Robert K., 166, 168-69
Metropolitan Life, 74, 80, 105, 147
Metropolitan Opera, 129, 139, 276­
77, 282, 286
Mills, Andrew, Jr., 36-37, 82
Montserrat, Joseph, 190, 282
Moore, E. Roberts, 25, 42, 56-57, 72,
87, 89; and Housing Authority, 39;
on racial tenancy, 56-57
Morgenthau, Henry, Sr., 16, 19, 22
INDEX
Morningside Committee on Coopera­
tive Housing, 186-88
Morningside Community Advisory
Committee, 185-86, 188
Morningside Heights, 64-65, 151-59,
200; map, 154-55
Morningside Heights, Inc., 156-59,
197, 185-89, 338n.29, 342n.3O,
343n.31; housing survey, 342n.3O;
and Manhattantown, 195; racial sur­
vey, 156—57; and relocations, 200
Morris, Newbold, 68, 70
Moses, Robert, 61-62, 73, 82­
84,108,159-60, 216, 255; and
Amalgamated cooperatives, 134—
35; and antidiscrimination laws,
121-22, 127-28; Arsenal Speech,
68-69, 71-72, 75; background,
33—34, 86; and Brooklyn Civic
Center, 236, 241, 244; on City
Planning Commission, 49, 69­
70, 74-75, 86, 88, 299-300; and
Corlears Hook Title I, 176; early
Title I policies, 74-75, 125-26,
128-30, 143, 170, 172, 180; and
Felt relocation report, 288; and
Field Foundation Title I, 179-80,
182; and Fort Greene Title I, 244;
and Greenwich Village, 115, 150;
and Housing Amendment, 49—
50; and Housing Authority, 71, 86—
90, 113-22, 172-73; and Housing
Authority relocations, 122-25, 297­
99; and industrial Title I's, 129-30,
246, 253; and industry, 233, 235;
and insurance housing, 74—75, 80—
82, 90-91, 120-21, 126-28; and
liberalism, 302-5; and Lincoln
Square Title I, 277-78, 280-83,
285-88; and Lower East Side, 9 1 ­
92, 119-20; and Manhattantown,
191, 270-71; and Mayor's Com­
mittee for Better Housing, 268-69;
on Mayor's Committee on Housing
Legislation, 51, 68-70; on "mixed"
projects, 120-22, 126-28; and
Morningside Title I, 186-89, 195­
96; and Mount Sinai expansion,
220; and NYU, 138-39, 223-27;
and NYU-Bellevue, 217, 223-27;
369
INDEX
Moses, Robert (continued)
and planning, 68-70, 74-75, 86,
88, 94,233, 235-36, 299-300; and
Queensview, 201; racial attitudes,
115, 119, 121-22,124-26, 128;
and Redevelopment Companies Law
of 1942, 91; and redevelopment
proposals, 80; and relocation, 94,
104-5,122-25,172,180, 280, 282,
287, 302; and Rheinstein, 70-71;
and Rockefeller Institute project,
221-23, 285; and slum clearance,
119-20, 122-24, 201; and Stuy­
vesant Town, 94,104-5, 300; and
30th Street Crosstown Expressway,
226-27; Title I record, 296-302;
and Title I sponsors, 183, 304,
342n.31; andTugwell, 233; and
union housing, 176-77, 251-52
Mount Sinai Hospital, 220, 347n.9;
Greater Mount Sinai campaign,
207-9; and Harlem, 208, 347n.9;
"Mount Sinai variant," 221-22
Multiple Dwelling Law of 1929, 47, 63
Mutual of New York Life Insurance
Company, 81, 91, 100, 120-21,
126-28,134,137
Nathan, Edgar J., Jr., 234-35
National Association for the Advance­
ment of Colored People, 57, 195
National Association of Real Estate
Boards, 62, 80
Neighborhood groups, 144, 160­
62, 271, 281-82, 286; at Lincoln
Square, 281; and Lincoln Square
protests, 286, 293-94; and Man­
hattantown, 159-63; and Title I,
170-71,177,183-84
Nelson, Otto L., Jr., 147,153, 155-56,
210, 256, 268, 283, 287, 360n.39
New School for Social Research, 141;
Research Center for Human Rela­
tions, 166
New York Building Congress, 26-27,
33, 50, 66, 231, 287
New York Chamber of Commerce,
248-49, 251, 259, 264
New York City: housing trends, 26;
industrial policy, 233-34, 249­
370
51; manufacturing, 234, 247-48,
251-53; racial patterns, 288
New York City Commerce and Industry
Association, 248-50, 264
New York City Committee on Slum
Clearance, 36-40, 132, 174, 187,
226, 241, 255, 262, 266, 278-79,
282, 287; and Fort Greene Title I,
243; and Lincoln Square Title I,
277-78; and Manhattantown Title I,
190-91; and Morningside Title I,
196; and NYU-Bellevue Title I,
225; and Washington Square South
Title I, 184. See also Moses, Robert;
Title I
New York City Housing Authority,
85, 124-25, 201, 262; and aban­
donment crisis, 47-48; Brooklyn
operations, 71, 115, 276; and com­
mercial clearance, 239; criticism of,
58-60; demolitions, 45-46, 51;
East Harlem operations, 89—90,
115-17, 124, 272-75, 290, 292­
94; and Greenwich Village, 184;
Harlem operations, 41—42, 89,122­
25; interracial efforts, 166—67, 169,
198, 202; and land-cost debate,
172-73; Lower East Side opera­
tions, 44, 120; Manhattanville plans,
187; members, 39-40, 113; and
neighborhood groups, 54-57, 62,
89-90; and neighborhood protests,
78, 275-76; 1958 reorganization,
291; NYU-Bellevue plans, 226­
27; origins, 36-38; and planning,
26, 45, 85, 68, 119-20; postwar
program, 88, 113-25; and problem
families, 290-92; and racial tenancy,
41, 54-59,165-67, 288; relocation
policies, 46, 51-56, 77-78,104-5,
123-25, 292; site decisions, 40­
42, 55-56, 68, 119-20; and Slum
Clearance Committee, 36—37; Social
Consultation Unit, 291-93; statis­
tics, 59; tenant relations, 46-47,
78-80, 290-92; tenant selection,
52-58, 86; Vacancy Listing Bureau,
53; and vacant land debate, 123-25;
and Yorkville, 115
New York City Housing Authority

projects: Amsterdam, 58, 78, 85,
88, 124, 169; Astoria, 88, 113;
Baruch, 129, 172, 291; Breukelen,
291-92; Brownsville, 56, 88, 113,
119-20, 166, 172; Carver, 208;
Colonial Park, 125; East River, 54,
71, 166; Elliott, 85, 88; First, 54;
Forest, 167, 198, 202; Fort Greene,
85-86, 291; Foster, 123-24, 273,
293; Grant, 188; Hamilton, 274;
Harlem River, 43, 54-56, 165;
Jefferson, 124, 172, 273; Johnson,
88-89, 105-6,113, 119, 123-24,
272; Kingsborough, 165-66; La
Guardia, 291; Lexington, 273; Lin­
coln, 113, 123; Lindsay Park, 121;
Manhattanville, 159; Marcy, 88, 113,
124; Melrose, 113, 124, 163; Navy
Yard, 119, 121, 124; Queensbridge,
41, 57-58, 67, 85-86, 291; Red
Hook, 41, 56-58, 71, 85; Riis, 88,
105; St. Nicholas, 123; Simkhovitch,
264-65; Smith, 113, 119; South
Jamaica, 56-57, 165; Taft, 294;
Vladeck, 42-44, 77-78, 119,130,
165; Wald, 88, 105, 113, 291; Wash­
ington, 172, 273; Williamsburg, 43,
53, 56, 58,165
New York City Planning Commission,
148,156-57, 175, 304-5, 337n.24;
and Bellevue enlargement, 211; and
blue-collar employment, 250; and
Brooklyn Civic Center, 236-37;
ideology, xix; and industrial zon­
ing, 232—35, 237; and inner-city
investment, 67; and Lincoln Square,
278-79, 287-88; and master plan­
ning, 75-77; 1953 relocation study,
199; origins, 49—50; and postin­
dustrialism, xx; Post War Works
Program, 88-89; proposals for, 112;
and redevelopment, 69-70, 83; and
Title 1,171, 173-74
New York Hospital-Cornell Medical
Center, 63, 210, 220
New York Life Insurance Company, 63,
73, 81, 90-91, 100
New York Metropolitan Region Study,
255—61; and government role,
257—58; research agenda, 257—58
INDEX
New York State Board of Housing,
32-33, 66
New York State Commission Against
Discrimination, 202—3
New York State Conference on Social
Work, 164-65
New York State Department of Com­
merce, 248, 253
New York Times, 187, 249, 252-53,
269, 280-81, 285; and hospital mas­
ter plan, 216; and Lincoln Square,
280; and redevelopment, 252; and
slum clearance, 294; and Title I, 270
New York University, 129, 131, 183,
248, 263-65, 278, 357n.8; College
of Medicine, 210-14, 216; expan­
sion plans, 138-39; and medical cen­
ter, 212; and redevelopment, 226—
27; Research Center for Human
Relations, 167, 339n.44. See also
Greenwich Village
New York University-Bellevue Medical
Center, 210-17; and VA Hospital,
216,218
Nondiscrimination, 126-28, 133, 137,
158; and Field Foundation, 139­
42; laws, 111; and State Committee
Against Discrimination, 167-69. See
also Interracialism
North, Edward P., 9-10
Norton, C. McKim, 255-56, 356n.59
O'Dwyer, William, 108, 112, 121,
124-26,130, 132,142,148, 156,
173-74; and Committee on Slum
Clearance, 128; names Moses
housing czar, 123; and NYU-
Bellevue, 215-16
Orton, Lawrence M., 153, 155-59,
185,187, 195-96, 199, 337n.24;
on manufacturing, 232; and Morn­
ingside Heights redevelopment,
155-59,195-96
Parkchester, 74-75
Parke, John S., 124-25
Park West Neighborhood Association,
161, 189, 194
Patterson, Robert C, Jr., 249, 253
Perry, Clarence A., 23, 30
371
INDEX

Phelps Stokes Fund, 139, 290

Bill, 82-83; in East Harlem, 115­

Pink, Louis H., 34, 70, 81-82, 89,93,

17; and Housing Authority, 106;

126,137,176, 201, 231, 242-43,

and land assembly, 66; on Lower

267, 270; and Housing Amendment,

East Side, 114, 214, 297; and manu­

50; on Housing Authority, 38-39;

facturing, 217, 229-30, 234-35,

and insurance housing, 74

237-39; and medical centers, 218­

Platzker, Joseph C , 30-31, 36-37

28; and Merchants' Association,

Polier, Justine Wise, 139, 141,167 66-67, 80; as neighborhood im­

Post, George B., 11-13

provement, 61-63; and Nunan-

Post, Langdon W., 36, 39,49, 51, 63;

Mitchell Bill, 80; projects: Brower

and abandonment crisis, 47; housing

Park, 120; Concord Village, 121,

agenda, 36-38
241; Lindsay Park, 120; Ravens-

Potofsky, Jacob S., 134-35, 176

wood, 126-28; and racial attitudes,

Presbyterian Hospital, 124-25, 331-32

160; and radicals, 79-80, 83-84,

Present, Harris I., 270, 279-81, 286­

133—34; and recession of 1938,

87
67—68; and Redevelopment Com­

Property law, 2, 4; and eminent do­

panies Law of 1942, 90-91; and

main, 2—3; and excess condemna­

tenants leagues, 79-80; and Wagner-

tion, 12-13, 70, 80

Ellender-Taft Bill, 128-31; and

Protestant Council, 272, 274-76, 280

World War II, 79-80, 83-86, 100­

Public housing: background, 23—25;

103, 108-9, 144-45, 302-3; and

and boards of trade, 37—38; ide­

write-downs, 61, 83

ology, 33; and Lower East Side,

Redevelopment Companies Law of

36—38; and state housing laws,

1943, 90-94, 106, 126,145-46,

32,81
160, 221

Public Housing Conference, 33, 39,

Reform Democrats, 160-61

50,52
Regional economics, 254-59

Puerto Ricans, 161-63, 190; and

Regional Plan Association, 50, 73, 86,

Migration Office, 161, 163, 168

100,129, 232, 254-56,287

Regional Plan of New York and Its

Queensbridge Tenants League, 98-99

Environs, 27-28, 231-32, 287;

Queensview, 137-38, 201-2, 333n.54

and boulevards, 28, 31; and eco­

nomic dispersal, 27; and Lower East

Racial attitudes, 151-53, 155, 208,

Side, 27

219, 347n.9, 351n.l; and employ­

Relocation, 51,53, 143; at Lincoln

ment, 351n.l; and relocation, 288

Square, 287, 289; at Manhattan-

Radicalism, 67, 108-12, 133-34,

town, 193-94; and Public Works

160-61,187-89,191-92,195; and
Authority, 51; as self-relocation, xix,

antidiscrimination, 111—12; and

200; at Stuyvesant Town, 104-5

housing agenda, 110—11

Removals, 4-5, 13, 17

Rapuano, Michael, 236

Rent control, 48,110-11, 127, 133

Ratensky, Samuel, 275—76 Retail Dry Goods Association, 67, 73

Real Property Inventory, 62, 67,

Rheinstein, Alfred, 56, 68-71, 86, 200,

73, 238
207-8

Reconstruction Finance Corporation,

R. H. Macy & Co., 67, 73

62-63
Riegelman, Harold, 33, 67

Redevelopment: and banks, 120,126­

Riis, Jacob A., 7-9

28; and "blight," 23-24, 131; in

Riverside Church, 64-65, 151-53

Brooklyn, 115, 117-20; and city

Riverside Neighborhood Assembly,

politics, 112; and Desmond-Mitchell

190-91,281,287

372

Riverton, 98, 105
Robbins, Ira S., 66, 68, 137, 173, 191,
267, 270, 281, 289, 291; and Man­
hattantown, 193-95; and Moses,
201; and Title I relocations, 199
Rockefeller, David, 145, 152-53, 155—
57, 159, 173, 185-87, 220-23,
249-50, 256, 270, 281, 285; and
Morningside Heights, 152—53,
155-57, 185-87; and Rockefeller
Institute housing, 220—23
Rockefeller, John D., Jr., 64-65, 153,
185,210
Rockefeller, John D., Ill, 152, 271,
276-77, 279-81, 283,285-86
Rockefeller, Laurence S., 65, 221-23,
281, 285
Rockefeller, Nelson A., 87, 147,
224, 271
Rockefeller, Winthrop, 182, 223-24
Rockefeller Brothers Fund, 147, 153,
185, 256, 291
Rockefeller family interests, 63-66,
147, 152-53, 155-56, 173, 185,
220-23, 271, 281-82, 285; on
Lenox Hill, 63-64; on Morningside
Heights, 64—66; and neighborhood
planning, 63-66; and Title I, 300
Rockefeller Foundation, 252-53, 259,
337n.l9
Rockefeller Institute, 63-64, 210,
220-23, 281-82; housing project,
285
Rodgers, Cleveland, 71, 74, 137, 236,
242, 245
Rogers, Harry S., 245, 287
Roosevelt, Franklin D., Jr., 161, 170,
189-90, 192, 196
Rosenman, Dorothy, 68-70, 83, 190;
and abandonment crisis, 47-48; and
Housing Amendment, 50
Rosenman, Samuel I., 190, 199, 266,
270, 280
Ruoss, Meryl, 272, 274, 276
St. John the Divine, Cathedral Church
of, 337n.25
Salmon, Edwin A., 88, 204-6, 211,
224-25, 236, 245; background,
205; and Hospital Council master
INDEX
plan, 206-7, 216; and Memorial
Hospital plans, 209-10; and Moses,
226; and NYU-Bellevue Medical
Center, 212-14; and NYU-Bellevue
Title I, 223-24, 227-28
Save Our Homes, 187-89, 192, 195,
197; at Manhattantown, 191,
344n.48; at Morningside, 187-89;
inYorkville,271, 274
Savings Bank Trust Company, 120, 126
Schroth, Frank, 242, 244
Schwulst, Earl J., 82, 130, 268
Senior, Clarence, 163, 190
Settlement houses: and city planning,
15—16; and political reform, 15;
and redevelopment, 72-73, 152,
177-78, 185, 231
Shanahan, Thomas J., 130, 286
Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, 36, 100
Simkhovitch, Mary K., 1, 15, 19, 42,
49, 72, 87,124-25,144-46,148,
150-51; and Greenwich Village
improvements, 16-21; on Housing
Authority, 39; and Public Housing
Conference, 33; and racial tenancy,
56-57
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 173,
215, 217, 224, 264, 280; and NYU-
Bellevue, 217
Sloan-Kettering Institute, 220, 271
Slum Clearance Committee of New
York City, 36-39; and Lower East
Side, 37-39; site selection, 36-37;
and Williamsburg, 38
Small Parks Act, 8, 13
Smith, Alfred E., 32, 90, 298
Spanish-American Youth Bureau, 161,
194, 200
Spargo, George E., 88-89, 104, 115,
119,125,132,253
Spellman, Francis Cardinal, 278,
280, 282
Sperry Gyroscope Corporation, 235,
237, 252
Spofford, Charles M., 276, 286
Stark, Abe, 246-47
Starrett Brothers & Eken, 27, 33
State Committee Against Discrimi­
nation in Housing, 111-12, 139,
167, 190, 198, 202, 274, 287;
373
INDEX
State Committee Against Discrimi­
nation in Housing (continued)
Institute for Housing Research, 168;
1953 relocation study, 199; "Re­
building Our Cities for Everybody"
conference, 168-<>9
Stein, Clarence, 23,135, 176
Sternau, Herbert, 161-63, 189,190­
91, 194; and Manhattantown, 192-'
93; and Puerto Rican affairs, 200;
and relocations, 200-201
Stevens, Roger, 278, 280, 282, 285
Stichman, Herman T., 120-21, 124,
172,190-91, 220-21
Stuyvesant Town, 84, 165, 214, 225;
debate on contract, 96—99; plan­
ning, 92-93; and radicals, 97-99;
relocations, 98-99,104-5; signifi­
cance, xvii, 94-96,106-7, 300
Sulzberger, Arthur H., 173, 281
Swope, Gerard, 201, 243
Szold, Robert, 134-35,137
Taft, Robert A., 131-32, 244
Taylor, Harry, 125,132, 171-73, 179,
181, 268
Teachers Guild, 282, 289
Tenant groups: in Harlem, 46; on
Lower East Side, 46; and radicalism,
77-78, 86; and redevelopment, 103;
and Stuyvesant Town, 97-99. See
also Save Our Homes
Tenant Relocation Bureau, Inc., 99,
104,122,173, 283
Tishman, Paul, 227, 263
Title I: and city planning, 300-301;
and commercial clearance, 248­
49, 252, 254-55, 295-96; and
Housing Act of 1949,131-32; im­
pact of, 174, 176, 294-96; industrial
projects, 246—47, 253; and Mayor's
Committee for Better Housing,
267-70; and neighborhood groups,
144, 183-89, 282-83, 343; and
neighborhood protest, 177-79,
182,187-89, 191-92,195-97,
225, 244-46, 271, 274, 279-82,
286, 293-94, 344n.48; and nondis­
crimination, 164, 168; operations in
Brooklyn, 241—44; provisions, xv—
374
xvi, 132; and public housing, 172,
290; relocations, 177,180-81,186,
197-99, 226-27, 269, 280,282­
83, 287, 289, 360n.39; site deci­
sions, 128—29; site management,
180-82; statistics, xv, 175; write-
downs, 172. See also Moses, Robert;
New York City Committee on Slum
Clearance
Title I projects: Columbus Circle, 203,
244, 277, 286; Cooper Square, 247;
Corlears Hook, 130, 136,171-72,
174-75, 178, 202; Delancey North,
294; Delancey Street, 172, 178­
79; Fort Greene, 242-45; Franklin,
274; Harlem (Godfrey Nurse), 171­
72; Kip's Bay, 228; Lincoln Square,
253, 276-89; relocations, 280,289;
write-down debate, 283—84; Man­
hattantown, 159-63,189-92, 266­
67; Morningside-Manhattanville,
152-59,172-73,185-89,195-96,
197, 203; NYU-Bellevue, 223­
26, 228; Pratt Institute, 242, 244;
Seward Park, 293; South Village
(Field Foundation), 142, 170-72,
179-83; Washington Square South,
130, 138-39,145-51, 171-73,
183-84; Washington Square South­
east, 248-49, 262-66, 357n.8;
Williamsburg, 171-72
Tobias, Channing, 139, 141-42
Tretter, Maxwell H., 87,123-24,135,
141-42,179-82, 200-201; and
Housing Authority relocation, 123
Trump, Fred C, 243-44
Tugwell, Rexford G., 61, 67-70, 74­
75; and greenbelts, 233
23rd Street Association, 72-73
Unions: and housing projects, 135-37;
and redevelopment, 245, 251—52
Union Theological Seminary, 64, 272
United Housing Foundation, 136—37,
176, 247, 278, 282; and Delancey
Street Title 1,178-79; illustration,
293; and Lower East Side, 294
United Nations, 133, 147
United Neighborhood Houses, 47, 50,
109,195

United Tenants League of Greater
New York, 85-86, 97-99, 103; and
redevelopment, 98—99
University Settlement, 16, 177-78
Urban League, 57, 112, 139, 167
Urban liberalism, 49-50, 144-45, 164,
176-77, 189-90; and the Housing
Amendment, 49-50
U. S. House of Representatives, 244;
Select Committee on Small Busi­
ness, 249
U. S. Housing and Home Finance
Agency, 132; 137, 168, 171-73,
185, 255, 282; and Manhattan-
town, 194
U. S. Housing Authority, 49, 79
U. S. Public Works Authority Housing
Division, 42-44, 51-52; and public
housing relocation, 51-52
Van Dusen, Henry, 156-58
Vernon, Raymond, 229, 256-60,
295, 356n.63; Metropolis 1985
(1960), 258
Vladeck, B. Charney, 29, 77; and
ALP housing, 49; on Housing
Authority, 39
Vladeck, William C, 169, 201
Wagner, Robert F., Jr., 182, 192, 222,
225-26, 244, 249, 274, 280, 282,
288; and Lincoln Square, 286; and
Manhattantown relocations, 266-68
Wagner, Robert F., Sr., 33, 50
Wagner-Ellender-Taft Bill, 110, 125­
26, 159
Wagner-Steagall Housing Act of 1937,
48-49, 74
Wald, Lillian D., 19, 28-30
INDEX
Walker, Delos F., 67, 73
Walker, James J., administration, 30, 32
Washington Square Association, 72,
145-46,150-51,183-84, 263-65
Washington Square Neighbors, 145—
47, 149
Weaver, Robert C, 168, 294
Weinberg, Robert C , 73, 145-47,
149-50, 232-33, 263, 289; and
master plan, 101; and Stuyvesant
Town, 97, 234; and Washington
Square South, 183-84. See also
Greenwich Village
Welfare Council of the City of New
York, 50-51
West Side: and Lincoln Square, 287,
289; and redevelopment, 160­
63, 281-82, 286-87; and Title I,
281-83; and Urban Renewal, 303
West Side Housing Committee, 160­
63,167, 189,194
Whalen, Grover, 112, 234
Wilson, William C , 87-88, 178
Windels, Paul, 68, 70, 90, 96-97
Women's City Club, 289, 291
Wood, Edith Elmer, 23, 38, 52
World War II, 151-52, 164; and manu­
facturing, 234; and racial attitudes,
151-52
Wright, Henry, 16, 23, 52
Write-downs, 131-32, 159
Zeckendorf, William, Sr., 147, 228,
237, 243-44, 277-78, 285,296-97
Zoning, 231; and industrial policy,
21-22, 235; and Lower East Side,
21-22; and neighborhood advisory
boards, 19-21
375
side Heights, and instead finds steady collab­
oration of local civic leaders.
Joel Schwartz's complex, disturbing por­
trait of Robert Moses and the civic leaders
who sustained his power will surprise and en­
lighten readers interested in the evolution
and development of New York and of today's
post-industrial cities.

JOEL SCHWARTZ is professor of history at

Montclair State College and is the author of
several articles on the development of New
York City.

Jacket design: Bruce Gore, Gore Studio, Inc.

Jacket illustration: Groundbreaking ceremonies for the Corlears
Hook Title I, 1953. Photo by Justice—ILGWU; courtesy of Coordi­
nated Housing Services, Inc.
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THE LOST DREAM

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