City Limits Magazine, November 1996 Issue

8/3/2019 City Limits Magazine, November 1996 Issue

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Once and Future Pastgoing back over the last 20 years worth ofCity Limits arti-cles all at once is a revelatory experience. What is moststriking is how many themes have not changed. The des-peration of tenants who are served with eviction papers andhave nowhere to go but the streets; the incontrovertible but oft-ignored necessity of mobilizing constituencies; the government'sEDITORIAL

................. .

failure to provide even the most basic services inthe city 's poorest neighborhoods; and the ossifica-tion ofnonprofits who sell out for city contracts.We are celebrating this month, but not without asober understanding of the reasons why we do this

work. In a city this large, it's far too easy for gov-ernment officials and opinion leaders to ignore thepeople that really matter-the men, women andchildren who have to live with the consequences ofpolitical deal-cutting, bureaucratic thinking and policymaking that ignores thehuman factor. That's why City Limits is here. This magazine hasnever let the leaders forget that it's the people in the city's neigh-borhoods-not in City Hall or on Wall Street-who count most.

***The New York Times ran a moving, carefully researched six-part series on housing and poverty in New York City last month,exposing the city's failure to enforce the housing code, describ-ing severe overcrowding in immigrant neighborhoods andexplaining exactly why urban poverty is preventing many land-lords from making a profit offtheir properties.Important stuff. That's why we've been writing about itfor

two decades.It's notable that the Times editors-and presumably theestablishment they represent-finally recognize that housing isnot a fringe issue, that code enforcement is not something onlyrabid radicals scream about, and that overcrowding and home-lessness are only two elements of a very complicated housingcrisis. It's a crisis that needs to be dealt with-or it will onlycontinue to worsen.***

City Limits thanks its readers, advertisers and sponsors formaking all our work possible. This year, we have received fund-ing from The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, The BoothFerris Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The RobertSterling Clark Foundation, The Joyce Mertz-GilmoreFoundation, The New York Foundation, Morgan GuarantyTrust, The Scherman Foundation, Citibank, The ChaseManhattan Foundation, and East New York Savings Bank.

AndrewWhi teEditor

(ity LimitsVolume XXI Number 9

Cty Limits spublished ten timesper year. monthly exceptbi-monthly issues inJune/July and Augus/September. bythe City LimitsCommunity Information Service, Inc., a nonprofit organization devoted to disseminating informationconcerning neighborhood revital ization.Editor: Andrew WhiteSen ior Editors: Kim Nauer, Glenn ThrushManaging Edito r: Robin EpsteinSpecial Projects Editor: Kierna MayoContribut ing Editors: James Bradley. Linda Ocasio.

Rob PolnerDes ign Direction : James Conrad. Paul VLeoneAdvertising Representative: Faith WigginsProofreader: Sandy SocolarPhotographers: Ana Asian. Gregory P. MangoInterns: Kr istine Blomgren, John HarlacherSponsors :Association for Neighborhood and

Housing Development. Inc.Pratt Institute Center for Community

and Environmental DevelopmentUrban Homestead ing Assistance BoardBoard of Directors:Eddie Bautista. New York Lawyers or

the Publ ic InterestBeverly Cheuvront. City HarvestFrancine Justa, Neighborhood Housing ServicesErrol Louis. Central Brooklyn PartnershipRima McCoy, Action for Community EmpowermentRebecca Re ich, Low Income Housing FundAndrew Reicher. UHABTom Robbins. JournalistJay Small, ANHDDoug Turetsky, former City Limits Ed itorPete Williams, National Urban League"Affiliations for identification only.

Subscription rates are: for individuals and communitygroups, $25/0ne Year. $35/Two Years; for businesses,foundations, banks, government agencies and libraries.$35/0ne Year. $50/Two Years. Low income , unemployed .$10/0ne Year.City Limits welcomes comments and article contributions.Please include astamped . self-addressed envelope forreturn manuscripts. Material in City Limits does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the sponsoring organization s.Send correspondence to: City Limits, 40 Prince St. , NewYork. NY 10012. Postmaster: Send addresschanges to CityLimits , 40 Prince St., NYC 10012.

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Copyright 1996. All Rights Reserved. Noportion or portions of this journal may be reprinted without the express permission of the publishers.City Limits s ndexed in the Alternative Pre ssIndex and the Avery Index to ArchitecturalPeriodicals and is available on microfilm from UniversityMicrofilms International , Ann Arbor, M148106.

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NOVEMBER 1996

SPECIAL 20TH AMMIVERSARYPULL-OUT SECTIOM

Twenty YearsWhen City Limits was founded 20 years ago, cash-strapped landlordswere burning their buildings, and city officials talked of solvingthe city's social ills by simply driving low-income people out. That'swhen New York City's community housing movement was born, andwith it City Limits. Now, more than 200 issues later, we celebratethe activists, the organizing-and the work of this magazine 's caffeineaddled editors-all of which helped tum our neighborhoods around.Georgian RevivalWhat actually makes comprehensive community development work?The secret lies in trying, failing and then trying again. Communityleaders in Savannah, Georgia share some hard-learned lessons.

PIPELIMESHPD's Homeless PromisesThe new housing commissioner promises new housing for thehomeless, even as development dwindles.The 61/4 Cent SolutionWatch the city's booming stock market and imagine each one of thosetransactions dropping a few pennies into the city's treasury. It couldclose the city's budget gap.Zone OffenseBronx Empowerment Zone officials are taking their time deciding whatto do with $51 million.One community group decided not to wait.

By Barry Yeom

By Glenn Thru

By James Brad

By DyulII Foley and Robin EpsteCULTUREThe Soweto Connectioneens from South Africa and New York City focus on common ground. By Kierna Ma

COMMEMTARYCityviewTenant Power, Pasta and PoliticsReviewAcademic AvengerSpare ChangeQuoth The Maven

BriefsChild's PayRent War GamesSun Sets on Curfew

DEPARTMEMTS

4,5 EditorialProfessionalDirectoryJob Ads

By Billy Easto135By Salim Muw ak138By Glenn Thru

23&3 7

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Peg Breen (left) of the Landmarks Conservancy and DHCR's Sylvia Kinard celebrate thecompletion of renovations at Brooklyn's 64 Havemeyer St. The ornately appointed bui ldingeasily qualifies as the city's most elegant low-income co-op

RENT-WAR GAMESFour hundred Brooklyn ten ants kicked off a drive to savethe state's rent regulation lawsin mid-October, months beforethe landlord lobby beg ins its

time -honored legislativeassault on the system thatkeeps rents affordable for amil lion New Yorkers .Meeting in the auditorium ofdowntown Brooklyn 's YWCAwhich was literally packed tothe rafters - a coalition of ten ants organ ized by the FfthAvenue Comm ittee and thePratt Area Community Councilbegan the drive to educatepeople about the huge rent-lawbattle expected to rock Albanynext May and June . During theupcoming session, the state

Senate, controlled byRepublicans , is likely to pushfor the decontrol of rent stabilized apartments as theybecome vacant."This is it, this is thebiggest fight!" bellowed Sen.Marty Markowitz, a BrooklynDemocrat. Markowitz and others called for massive demonstrations by tenants, letterwriting campaigns targetingcity legislators who take campaign contributions from landlords .The rent control and rentstabilization laws were lastextended in 1993 after a bitterupstate-downstate partisanbrawl. That year, in exchange

for the rent laws ' extension , he

Democrat-controlled Assemblyaccepted decontrol of apartments exceeding $2,OOO-a month."We wanted to begin this asearly as we can in the hopesthat other groups will get mobilized early," says Brad Lander,executive director of the FfthAvenue Committee . The orga nizers hope their movement willsnowball .Markowitz, fellow senatorVelmanette Montgomery andassembly members Fe lix Ortizand Jim Brennan pledged tooppose decontrol, elicitingapplause and "Right on"s fromthe crowd . State AssemblymanRoger Green was a no-show,prompting boos and threatenedelection-day retaliation fromtenants.

Glenn ThrLIsh

HINS ROLLREVERSALWhen itCCJl1l8SU)welfare, thstate gMdh beck what Giuliani'bureaucrats taketh away.Hearty hal of the more than__ New York CIly familie

and individuals who applied fuwelfare last year were deniecash and food..lt8mp benefiIthanks to stricter screeningprocedures instituted by themayor. But the stitt has beerev8l'Sing many of those rejections because of screw-upwithin the city's HumaResources Administrationcharges the c-- . of thCity Council welfare commiltBe"Some percentIge of (threjected applicants) are peoplwho are truly needy and yoscrew," Councilman StepheDi8rienza said, tatutin9 HRAcommi8siofterMarva Hammonswho appeared before his committee in mid-October, "(It'been) an aby$mII performanceby your agency."Acc:ordiQatDthe moit recenMeter's Repor(MMRJ,"'" people l'8qU8SI8ancl eliIIained ... hearings treview their rejtMfted welfarclaims lastyear. State "fair beerint" officar1 determined tbatwhopping 85 percent of thoscases 58,000 potential publiassistance reclpients-hadbaen rejected unfaifty.Hammons conceded thhigh reversal rate is trOUblesome. "We're takint a look athe fair hearing process anwe're confident we're going tresolve this," she told Di8rienzaAccording to HRA DeputCommissioner Me O'Reganthe high reversal rate isn't thresult of a covert attempt tpare the rolls; It's due mostly tlost paperwork.

Kristine Blomgre

Short Shot York and a two-room walk-up in Hell'sKit(hen. We scraped by till we beganto get acting work. .Of course wenever considered having (hildren untilboth of us had earned enough of afuture in film and stage to makeparenthood possible,"

housing crisis. 1) Build moreaffordable apartments in (linton(That's what the real estate brokersre-named Hell's Kit(hen when theywere hiking the rents to $1 ,500) and2) create more "Soylent Green"sequels so that everybody (an get ajob in the movies. Heston also hurlsdown this surplus commandment:deport "illegal" immigrants: "Surelythey are better off deported back to a

(ulture they (an at least understand."TURNS OUT BEN HUR'S SAN-DALS fAME WITH BOOTSTRAPS.(harlton Heston wrote a letter to theTimes responding to their recentseries on housing conditions amongthe poor in which he venerated hisown low-income housing experiencethusly: "[My wife and I] went to NewM

MILDEWY THOUGH IT IS,Heston's example provides two possible solutions to New York's urban

IF THE PHARAOH'S GIRL HAD(hu(k's attitude toward poor (hildrenLittle Moses would still be bobbing inthe bulrushes.

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TRAINING FOR CHANGE may also find they aren't cutout for the job. tion. "We want to get them intoorganizing from the start."A small but ambitious new

institute for organizer trainingopens its doors this month.uniting two of the city's mostformidable activist groups in aneffort to fuel communityaction-and to feed thegroups' own need for dedicated young staffers that will stayaround for the long haul.

The Northwest BronxCommunity and ClergyCoalition and ACORN havejoined with Mothers on theMove. a small Bronx-basedparents' grouP. to create theTraining Institute for Careers in

Organizing (TICO) . The institute's first intensive weekendsession for about 30 would-beorganizers kicks off November16. And by January, TICO plansto begin placing about twodozen students selected fromthe weekend training sessionsinto short community organizing apprenticeships.

The training is also a weeding-out process. ACORN's JonKest says. He hopes at least 25TICO graduates will land jobsas community organizers during the program's first year. Buthe expects that a large number

During the apprenticeship.students will get 12 weeks oftrue-to-life experience. working the streets with organizersfrom TICO's three parentgroups and learning first-handthe everyday stresses andexcitements of neighborhoodcanvassing and communitymobilization.

We wantto get young people [interested in communitywork] straight out of school,before they've developedsocial service or communitydevelopment baggage," saysMary Dailey. executive directorof the Northwest Bronx coali-

Nowadays many community organizations hire "organizers" to do advocacy workor to get neighborhood residents to turn out for socialservice programs. rather thanworking with people to definetheir own action agendaaround housing. police. parksor something else altogether.says TlCO director MilagrosSilva.

"We want to reclaim thedefinition of organizing," shesays . "We can plant the seedso people don't become outreach workers or advocates."

Andrew White

SUN SETS ON CURFEW Ognibene. dismissing criticism that the curfew wouldprompt a massive crackdownon non-white neighborhoods.

"But I don't mean [we'd target] Hispanic. Italian. black.whatever."A City Council plan to prevent teenagers from going

outside after dark may neversee the light of day.

The bill. introduced byQueens Republican ThomasOgnibene. would institute a"nocturnal juvenile curfew."giving police the authority todetain anyone under the ageof 18 found on the streetsfrom lOpm-6am Sundaythrough Thursday and 11 pmto 6am Friday and Saturday.Despite the popularity of suchmeasures in other cities.however. youth curfews aregetting a chilly reception atCity Hall.

Apart from the opposition ofconstitutionalists like the NewYork Civil Liberties Union. thecurfew is disdained by the lawand -order Giuliani administration. Speaking at a Septembertown hall meeting in Queens.Police Commissioner HowardSafir termed the Ognibene bill"unenforceable."

"What it comes down to is[police] stopping people andasking. 'Can I see yourpapers .. said Thomas White.a Democrat who representspredominantly black Jamaica.Queens. "I don't want that inthis city."

But Ognibene isn't givingup . He says he will reintroduce the bill and considerexpanding the curfew'sexemptions. which now

John Harlacher

CHILDREN'S PAY

S47.4miIion$44.2 miIioti

S92-4 miIio__ 14.3 miIionS74.9 . . . .

S72mi1ion$62 miIIieIi

"There's no support in thecounc il for curfews. zero."says a source close to CouncilSpeaker Peter Vallone. who isnot likely to even let the measure come up for a vote incommittee. The only reasonwhy the bill was even aired.staffers say. was becauseOgnibene. the council'sminority leader. is well-likedby his Democratic colleagues.

allow teenagers out afterdark if they are accompan iedby an adult or if they arecommuting to work. school.or adult-supervised activities.

" It'll be selective enforcement. like anything else." says

The city's child welfare crisis is big business for a handful of huge non profits.Seven of the top ten city expense budget contracts are paid to agencies tha tdevelop child welfare and foster care services. Besides them. only the telephonecompany. a bond servicing firm and Xerox cracked the top ten. Source: New YorkLaw School's CityLaw. August/September 1996.

Resour(es"THIS BOOK IS ABOUT TWOTHINGS: MONEY AND POWER,"begins Andy Robinson's new"Grassroots Grants:An Activist's Guideto Proposal Writing." Amanual forpeople who want to change the world.the book explains how to get yourgoals down on paper in away that's

likely to pry loose foundation funding.Peeling back the curtain that separatesgrant seekers from philanthropists, hedemystifies foundations and explainswhat will and won't rock a programofficer's world. One funder's quote:"Don't suck up to grantmakers. On theother hand, don't be impolite."Available from Chardon Press for $25plus $4 shipping, PO Box 11607,Berkeley, CA 94712, (510) 704-8714.

AMERICANS HAVE CAUGHTTHE FEDERALIST"return more power to the states"virus in record numbers. at theexpense of the federal government.Turns out. however, that they don'ttrust the states all that much either. Asurvey by the Council for Excellence inGovernment shows that 64 percent ofthose surveyed believed in concentrat-

ing more power in state governmeBut only 24 percent thought thestates knew how to spend tax monwisely. Taxpayers trust local governments most of all. according to 50percent of those polled. So why haany politician seized upon the "homrule" issue? The poll is reprinted inthe latest issue of the RockefellerInstitute ofGovernment's Bulletin.a copy. (all (518) 443-5522.

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PIPELINE ,HPD's Homeless PromiseThe city Snew housing commissioner says she'll help house the city's poorest families. So far,sheSoffered few details. By Glenn ThrushCty housing chief LilliamBarrios-Paoli sat before aCityCouncil committee last monthand made a bold promise: shewill put the Department ofHousing, Preservation and Developmentback in the business of building new apartments for the homeles s."We finally have to create a newpipeline of new units for homeless families," Barrios-Paoli told the council'shousing committee. But the commissioneroffered no more details of her plan, otherthan to say that it was being hashed outwith homeless services commissionerGordon Campbell."At this point I don't know the number[of units] , the amount of money or anything else," she said.The plan was met with skeptical optimism. "There's a real drying up of federaland state money, but it was the administration that cut HPD 's capital budget by 17percent last year," said Veronica Farje,staff associate for homeless housing withthe Citizens Committee for Children."This administration has made noeffort in the past [to develop homelesshousing] so it would be fabulous if they 'reserious," Farje added. "We don't see how itcould happen , but we're willing to workwith them."Cut Mercll yDuring the last three years, the Giulianiadministration has steadily slashed HPD 'shomeless housing budget even more mercilessly than it has cut the department's otherprograms. Since taking office, the mayorhas severed a pipeline that produced 3,000units for homeless people as recently as1993. In fact, over the next fiscal year,HPD will churn out a mere 583 apartmentsfor homeless New Yorkers , less than halfthe amount produced last year.Most of those cuts come from CentralManagement and the Division ofAlternativeManagement Programs , two sections of theagency responsible for overseeing the cityowned, tax-foreclosed housing stock that upuntil a few years ago was the single largestresource for housing homeless families.With HPD selling these properties to landlords, nonprofits and tenant associations atan accelerating pace,officials are renting few

apartments to the homeless."You shouldn't just be getting rid ofproperties ...without using it for the creation of permanent housing and addressingthe issue of homeless ness," GuillermoLinares, a Democratic councilman fromWashington Heights, lectured BarriosPaoli during the hearing.Some of HPD's slack has been pickedup by the Department of HomelessServices' Emergency AssistanceRehousing Program (EARP), which produces an average of 2,700 units per year.But EARP depends heavily on federalSection 8 subsidies, which have beenseverely reduced by Washington. With acourt order forcing the city to clear families off the floor of its EmergencyAssistance Unit in the Bronx, Giulianisorely needs HPD 's expertise in providingpermanent housing.Nonetheless, Barrios-Paoli 's new initiative will not prompt a great infusion of

scale of such projects is expected to be relatively small, sources said, probably nomore than 40 units at first.No Indication yetSince taking over from DeborahWright in the spring, Barrios-Paoli hasreplaced much of the agency's top staffbut she has no apparant plans to replacethe agency's Giuliani-era philosophy.In her testimony before the council,Barrios-Paoli made it clear she will pursue an agenda similar to her predecessorincluding : a continued freeze on theseizure of properties in tax-arrears andthe sale of the remaining city-ownedinventory; the shutdown of some HPDneighborhood offices; and the sale of cityproperty tax liens to securities firms onWall Street.To coord inate these functionsBarrios-Paoli is creating a BuildingsEvaluation Unit responsible for deciding

During the last three years,the Giuliani administration has steadilyslashed HPD's homeless housingbudget even more mercilessly than it hascut the department's other programs.new city housing subsidies, but willinvolve "some kind of private-public partnership," the commissioner said. Leadersof some nonprofit groups already workingon the plan report the commissioner plansto use money from the city's long-underused "80-20" tax credit plan to create theunits. Under the program, originallydesigned to draw the likes of DonaldTrump into the low-income housing business, large developers receive tax credits ifthey produce 20 units for low-income tenants for every 80 apartments they build formarket-rate residents.In the past, both classes of "80" and"20" tenants would be housed in the samebuilding. But Paoli has told associates shewill explore the legality of placing thehomeless housing in off-site locations. The

which buildings are suitable for tax liensales or for sale to private landlords , nonprofit groups or tenants. The unit will alsohouse HPD 's long-awaited early-warningcomputer system intended to correlatecity housing and buildings data and givethe agency a better idea of which properties are at risk of imminent abandonmenby their owners.But all of these efforts involve thepreservation of existing units and the disposal of the city's in rem stock. Whenpressed by the council for a greater commitment to develop new housing, Barrios-Paoliwas polite, contrite and noncommittal. "recognize that we're not doing as much awe used to," she said, before packing up hebriefing books and departing City Hall withher train of aides.

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NOVEMBER 1996

Join a Few Close Friendsfor City Limits'

20th AnniversaryBirthday Bash!at

The Sky Club6 to 9 pmNovember 14

Apartlallist of supporters-Mimi Abramovitz, Sandra Abramson,Angelita Anderson, Mike Arsham, Howam Banker,Steve Banks, Eddie Bautista, Bertram MBeck.

M e r ~ Berman, Gale A. Brewer. Michael Bucci,Agnes J, Bundy, Rick Cherry, Beverly Cheuvront.Gregory Cohen, Harriet Cohen, George CDellapa,

Harry DeRienzo, Paul de Simone, Jim Drake,Steve Fahrer. Steven Flax, William R. Frey,Don Friedman, Norm Fruchter. Kathy Goldman,Richar'1l Green, Sarah Greenblatt, Jill Hamberg,0, Lewis Harris, Gary Hattem,Stanley Hill,Samuel J. Himmeisten, Maria Hinojosa ,Michael J.Hirschhorn, Marc Jahr. Gene BryanJohnson, Dvid R. Jones, Francine Justa,Tom Kamber. Ingrid Kaminski, Lisa Kaplan,William Kornblum, Jonathan Kozol, Krueger,Carol Lamberg, Brad Lander. Michael D. Lappin,WiWredo Larancuent, James Ledbetter.

Barbara Lenniger, Errol Louis, Barbara Lowry,Barry Mallin, Peter Marcuse, E m i ~ Menlo Marks,George McDonald, C a r o ~ n Mclaughlin,

Marina Metalios, Felice Michetti, Akiko Mitsui,Marjorie Moore, Gail Nayowith , Alice Paul,Carol J. Parry, Anne PasmaniGk, Penelope Pi-SunyerRob Polner, Rebecca Reich, Andrew Reicher.Tom Robbins, Harvey Robins, Phyllis Rosenblum,Steven SRoss, Marie Runyon, Susan Saegert,

Julie Sandorf. Leah Schneider, Ron ShifTman ,E.R,Shipp, Micah Sifry, Jay Small, Carol A. StricklandBrian SuUivan, Janet Thompson , Michael Tomasky,Doug Turetsky, April Tyler. Nancy Wackstein,David Welsh, Sherece West. Pete Williams,Michelle Yanche, Nancy J, Ylvisaker, Michael Zisser.Tickets to the dinner gala are$75 [or indivtduals or

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Call Kim auef at (212) 925-9820[or more inform ation.


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PIPELINE ,

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The 6 1/4 Cent SolutionA levy on stock transactions could net New York $4 billion a year and pull the city outof ts perpetual budget doldrums. So why is it such a long shot? By James BradleyFor years, Mayor Giuliani hascontended that the only way toclose the city's budget deficit isto cut services. But a lot of people outside the administrationmaintain that a boost in revenues clearly isneeded to address the structural imbalancein the city's budget.So far, devising a politically feasibleplan to raise revenues without antagonizing wage-earners, small businesses orproperty owners-creating a populartax-has proven to be a futile quest. Butnow a coalition of labor leaders, grassrootsorganizers, public officials and academicssays it has the answer: Astock transfer tax,which would be levied a few pennies at atime on each Wall Street stock trade.Not that it's a new idea. The tax hasactually been on the books for some 30years, but due to a deal hashed outbetween the city and securities firms in themid-1970s, only a token amount has beencollected. The result has been a huge rev-

enue loss for the city: It's estimated thatthe stock transfer tax could be generatinganywhere from $3.6 to $4.1 billion a year,enough to wipe out the current deficit andstill have enough left over to invest inmeeting vital social and economic needs."I f there remains a structural problemwith the budget next year, we're going tobe forced to look at the revenue side, andthis may be one of the things you could getpeople behind," says Ed Ott, politicaldirector of Local 1180 of theCommunications Workers of America,who has been pushing the plan along withBrooklyn Councilman and Democraticmayoral hopeful Sal Albanese.Earlier in the year, Albanese assembleda group of academics, led by Bill DiFazioof St. John's University and StanleyAronowitz of CUNY, to explore what kindof revenue the stock transfer tax couldgenerate. Armed with research and a seriesof proposals on how the tax could beimplemented, Albanese and others are try-

ing to put together the same kind of grassroots coalition that helped pass the city lawestablishing a living wage for private-sector workers on some city contracts."We're trying to get people to take thisseriously," says Bill Difazio. "This cityhas to be rebuilt.... Schools, parks, andhousing. We must create a political climatethat forces Wall Street to pay their fairshare."But any such plan is likely to incur thefull opposition of Wall Street and the political institutions swayed by high-poweredcorporate lobbying. And some fiscalexperts say the plan will only hurt NewYork's long-term economic future and addto the city's structural deficit."It's hard to imagine that this economycan bear the weight of an additional $4 billion in taxes," says Dean Mead of thewatchdog Citizens Budget Commission. "Iquestion relying on as volatile abase as thesecurities industry for funding. The city 'salready struggling over a very heavy taxburden."Hand" Right Back

The stock transfer tax is basically asales tax on Wall Street. Any stock transaction involving the New York StockExchange, American Stock Exchange orNASDAQ is subject to the tax, whichranges from as little as 1.5 cents for eachshare of inexpensive stock to 6.25 cents ashare for more valuable issues. The levywould likely be capped at a maximum ofaround $400-per-transaction-even if atransaction involves millions of dollarsworth of shares.Creating this new system would beeasy, because the tax is technically alreadyin effect. In an incredibly illogical systemthat would have made Rube Goldberg giggle, the money is currently tallied,assessed, collected-then handed rightback to the brokers who paid it."Usually, the investors get it back thesame day," explains Frank Mauro, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute,an Albany-based think tank. "The brokerfills out a return, and the state wires themoney right back." Mauro says that thestate must momentarily take possession ofthe tax to fulfill the arcane requirements ofits bond agreement with the Municipal

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Assistance Corporation.Under the Albanese plan, the rebatewould end, although exemptions would becreated for some stock issues. In order todiscourage speculation, supporters are alsoconsidering tying the tax to trading volume: the lower the trading volume, thelower the tax. A side benefit of the planwould be to lessen the frenzied volatilitythat has periodically gripped the marketsince the 1989 crash. Alan Blinder, the former vice chair of the Federal ReserveBoard told the Senate Banking Committeein 1994 that "a small tax that inhibitedshort-term trading, but had negligibleeffects on long-term returns, wouldhelp ....[in) diminishing market volatility."But in order to get the tax, the proposalwill have to be approved by the state legislature, which has shown no inclination tohike any taxes in recent years. Even if theplan makes it through the Democratic-controlled Assembly (and the measure has yetto attract a sponsor there) its chances ofbeing approved by the GOP-controlledstate Senate or anti-tax RepublicanGovernor George Pataki seem extraordinarily slim.The battle has been fought before. Onseveral occasions, going as far back as1933, mayors have advocated stock transfer taxes, only to back down when theNew York Stock Exchange threatened toleave the city. But it wasn't until 1966 thatthe Lindsay administration called WallStreet's bluff and succeeded in convincingstate legislators that the city needed a stocktransfer tax.None of the exchanges made theirpromised exit, but in 1977, they were ableto convince Governor Hugh Carey, withMayor Abe Beame's support, to sign a lawphasing out the tax and initiating the pointless pay-and-refund system that existstoday.

As part of the deal, Wall Street agreed toallow the city to collect $116 million instock transfer taxes. At the time, that wasnot an insignificant amount. But the $116million annual figure has remained constantwhile the Dow Jones Industrial Average hasskyrocketed, rising from II()() points just 12years ago to nearly 6000 today.The result? A $3.9 billion tax-exemption windfall for brokers and stockholders.So far, labor unions and grassrootsgroups like the Industrial AreasFoundation have expressed interest inbuilding support for the stock transfer tax .NOVEMBER 1996

But the issue has not been able to generategreat enthusiasm. "It's hard to get peopleemotional about [the tax)," says SalAlbanese. "The issue is a little esoteric;there's no real catalyst."Mustering SupportThe coalition-building and publicinformation campaign required to makethe idea fly will be slow and supporters ofthe tax say they aren't planning to rush itonto Albany's agenda until they've mustered the support they need. But Albanesebelieves that if the city's long-term budgetwoes persist-and almost every major fiscal monitor believes they will-interest inthe idea will grow.''This offers a vehicle for alleviatingsome of the pressure that's being applied tosmall businesses and average NewYorkers," he says. Albanese also thinks thatlinking the implementation of the stocktransfer tax with the elimination of unpopular levies, like the unincorporated businesstax and the clothing sales tax, will help.

Nonetheless, some progressive analysts suggest Albanese and the IAF wouldbe better off focusing their efforts onother ways of raising revenue-such asputting tolls on bridges , which has moremainstream support, at least among themajority of New Yorkers who don't owncars . "The politics of the stock transfertax is so overwhelmingly bad," saysGlenn Pasanen of City Project, a budgetwatchdog group. "Like so many attemptsto tap the corporate revenue base, theclaim from the corporate community is, itcan't afford it, and if pushed it will moveout of the city."Albanese, however, hopes to avoid theperception that he's simply a populistpolitician proposing to soak the rich. Thestock transfer tax is a matter of fairness, hesays, and smart economics."We have to say to Wall Street, 'Thisis the premier city in the world, you havea stake in the future viability of thiscity, " he says. "This is just giving a littlebit back.".

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PIPEliNE

Highbridgetraining programgraduate CynthiaRios handlesboxes on the jobat UPS.

10M

,

Zone OffenseQuick off the mark, the Highbridge Community Life Centerjoins forces with a corporate giant to build EmpowermentZone jobs. By Dylan Foley and Robin EpsteinEght months ago, wben GeorgeMedina moved back home to theBronx after living in Puerto Ricofor 25 years, be found work as achurch bandyman. Medinawanted his wife and three kids to join him inHigbbridge, but be couldn't afford it.Now be's finished a training course andstarted a part-time job with United ParcelService that pays $9 an bour, with benefits,room for advancement and union membership. "With UPS, I'll be a Teamster," saidMedina, a soft-spoken 39-year-old who wasa cabinetmaker in Puerto Rico. He plans tobring his family to New York soon.Tbe organization in charge of theBronx Empowerment Zone, the Bronx

Overall Economic DevelopmentCorporation (BOEDC), has yet to issue acall for proposals for zone-based projectsfrom businesses and community groups,let alone disburse any funds. When itcomes to sparking job creation and development in the zone, a 700-acre sliver thatwraps around the southern lip of the borough from Highbridge to Hunts Point,Bronx Overall still bas a ways to go.But that isn 't stopping at least oneneighborhood nonprofit from swinginginto action. The Highbridge CommunityLife Center (HCLC), a multifacetedsocial service agency, decided its lowincome constituents didn't have to pintheir hopes of landing a decent job on

BOEDC ironing out its kinks.Last July, HCLC revved up a job-training partnership with United Parcel Service,thereby fulfilling one of the EmpowermentZone's major goals-helping communityresidents get well-paid jobs. There are now17 Highbridge residents working for UPSon the 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. shift. HCLC's training program psycbed up would-be workersboth mentally and pbysically to unload 600to 700 packages an hour, some as heavy as140 pounds , from trucks and containers.The parcel company will get a tax breakworth $3,000 a year for every person ithires from zone neighborhoods to work inits Mott Haven plant. Last month, HCLCtrained another 100 people to take UPS jobsduring the holiday rush.Brother Ed Phelan, HCLC'sdirector, says he's committed tohelping these new employeesmove into higher-paying, permanent jobs at UPS, ideally drivingthe delivery company's browntrucks for as much as $45,000 a

year. HCLC plans to pay theirunion dues and offer them train-ing in computer literacy and commercial driving."This is just the kind of thingthe whole Empowerment Zonewas trying to leverage," saysNoah Temaner, coordinator oftbe Chicago-based NationalEmpowerment Zone ActionResearch Project.Forging LinksPhelan says Empowerment Zone officials could play an important role in forging links between businesses and community-based organizations. "You'd thinkthey would be fomenting partnerships," hesays, "getting out on the pavement, goingto every company located in the zone andtalking to management."Asked if BOEDC was doing anythingto stimulate programs similar to the onebegun by Highbridge, Doris Quinones, theagency 's marketing director, made it clearshe thought the UPS training programwasstill on the drawing board and that HCLCwould be requesting funds from her

agency down the road. "It's premature fous to comment on it," she added, revealingshe bad no idea HCLC's first graduatingclass was already bard at work.Learning the program was up and running, she said , "That's fabulous."Bronx Overall is concentrating on getting firms to move into the zone and helpingexisting companies expand, according toQuinones. By next summer, the zone wilhave welcomed six new firms and eased theway for four to grow, she says. Among thecompanies slated to invest a total of $5.2million in the area are acommercial laundryand several food processors.At press time, Bronx EmpowermenZone officials said they would soon issuetheir long-delayed first call for proposalfor job-training, education, day care andmicroenterprise programs."I don 't have an exact date," saidQuinones .Remarks Phelan: "We 're looking forward to the day."$51 MillionNew York won designation as one othe country 's six urban EmpowermenZones in December 1994. Last spring, thU.S. Department of Housing and UrbaDevelopment (HUD), Governor GeorgPataki and Mayor Rudy Giuliani finallyagreed that the large Upper Manhattanzone-Harlem, Inwood and WashingtonHeigbts-will get $250 million in federalstate and city assistance between now an2004.Tbe Bronx zone will get $51 millionThe Upper Manhattan EmpowermenZone Development Corporation (UMEZOC)headed by Deborah Wright, former commissioner of the city's housing departmentis much closer to doling out funds. Lasmonth, its board approved 10 proposals fodevelopment and training projects fowhicb it recommended $1 million in grantand $13 million in loans . The proposalwere forwarded to the New York CitEmpowerment Zone Board, wbich holdthe ultimate purse strings. Including political bigs like Rep. Charles Rangel, RepJose Serrano and Deputy Mayor FranReiter, the board was scheduled to meeOctober 30.Phelan initially approached UPS trequest a $100,000 grant (which it won iOctober) to renovate a church building anturn it into an adult education and job-trainingcenter. One day, while discussing the grantBill Weyrauch, a UPS personnel director, told

CITYUMITS


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Phelan UPS was having trouble with entrylevel employees at its Mott Haven facilitythey couldn't hack the physical stress, anddidn 't last long on the job. From there, saysPhelan, it wasn't hard to convince Weyrauchto give HCLC a $17,000 grant to train thefirst batch of workers, especially once heheard that UPS would get a tax break when ithired the graduates. Companies located in thezone can file retroactive claims for tax creditson wages paid to zone residents back to .January, 1995. The tax break applies to longtime employees as well as new hires.Since the training program began, someparticipants have come from neighborhoodsoutside the zone. And UPS is placing themat plants all over the region. "This is muchbigger than 'zoneites' working for companies in the zone," Phelan explains. "UPS isin this to get good workers and if they canget a tax break in addition, they'll accept it."The people Phelan fIrst talked to atUPS didn't know about the EmpowermentZone tax incentive, he says.Corporations are often unaware of taxincentives, especially new ones, saysRichard Shaffer, Director of theEmpowerment Zone Monitoring andAssistance Project based at ColumbiaUniversity. "There has to be an effort tomarket them," he says.

Manhattan zone officials have identifIed 4,000 businesses in Upper Manhattan,2,000 of which are in the zone, and sentletters to them all, says Virginia Montague,UMEZDC spokesperson. They have alsoset up a subsidiary, the Business Risk andInvestment Service Center, a one-stopshop for businesses seeking fInancing andinformation about the zone, includingguidance on the tax breaks .Asked to explain how the Bronx zonedoes outreach , Quinones replied, "That isan ongoing process ," and declined to offerspecifics.Upward MobilityCynthia Rios , a 24-year-old singlemother, began her job at UPS in September.She says she enrolled in HCLC 's trainingprogram because her job as a home careaide didn't provide insurance. She alsohopes to take advantage of UPS' $2,000tuition reimbursement program while shestudies business administration at MercyCollege in Manhattan .'The job is great," adds Rios. "It is veryphysical and I've got a lot to memorize, butthe people are very helpful. I know I can

move up in this company, maybe into customer service or to be adriver." and upward mobility to rise above and stayoff public assistance." "The point of the EmpowermentZone." says Phelan, "is to get people thekind of jobs that have the money, dignity Dylan Foley is a Brooklyn-basedfreelancewriter.

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once a time when homelessness was not the only "housing" issue in theconsciousness. Back then, in the 1 70s , a lot of New Yorkers cared about theirof thousands of neighbors who were easy prey for the land speculators andslumlords running marginally habitable, tumble-down houses and tene-This outraged people and motivated them to fight back . And in New Yorka community housing movement was born.__ lIuaJlY, this scrappy crew turned pro and rebuilt large parts of the city. Our

magazine was born in the spirit of that movement. On the following pages , inexcerpts of articles from years past, you will find a taste of the investigative spiritand uncompromising devotion that made City Limits an important landmark on NewYork 's map. Times have changed a bit; cynicism about the inevitability of poverty ismore deeply embedded in American culture than at any time in decades. But that ha -n't stopped us, or the people we write about. Our credo for those striving to build abetter city? Lend them a voice, give them a hand ...and telllheir story.


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THE FIRST YEARSAbandonment and Planned Shrinkage

Cty Limits was the child of the late Bob Schur, director of the Association of Neighborhood HousingDevelopers (ANHD) and a refugee from the city'shousing department. In 1975, he'd been fIred by the

department 's new commissioner, the notoriou sRoger Starr, guru of planned shrinkage-the theory that the citywould be fIscally better off if t encouraged the abandonment oflow-income neighborhoods likethe South Bronx by cuttingpolice and fIre services, eliminating code enforcement and soon. The city pursued "plannedshrinkage" with vigor in themid-1970s, and the devastatingresults are world-famous to thisday. Starr moved on to join theeditorial board of The New YorkTimes and ultimately to theManhattan Institute. But hisdark vision was captured forever in the pages of City Limits,the voice of the neighborhoodhousing movement. In an earlyissue, Schur quoted his formerboss remarking that giving government funds to communitygroups was "like giving handgrenades to the PLO ."But the late 1970s were atime of hope and struggle, andscores of grassroots tenant andcommunity groups were born.Amid the abandonment, theseeds of reconstruction weresown.DECEMBER 1976149 Leads the WayBy Jim HarrisThe tenants at 149 South 4th Street on the Southside ofWilliamsburg, Brooklyn, have made history. They recentlyvoted unanimously to take over management of their building from the city and buy it, after a trial period, for $200 a unit.They are the first Los Sures tenants in the CommunityManagement Program to elect to buy their building.

The 2S-unit tenement was built shortly after the turn of thecentury. By 1972 it contained foul, leaking bathrooms , buckledapartment doors , falling plaster, corroded water pipes andantique appliances. Its tenants joined with the leaders of thenewborn Los Sures in believing they could restore the buildingwhile the tenants continued to live there , and at a moderate cost.They were right.Repairs were made over three years. They not only made itpossible to keep the building fully tenanted; they brought theold building back to the point where the tenants are willing toown it. Los Sures has estimated the net cost to the city of thisproject (excluding the boiler) will be approximately $88,500since March 1972. This is $3,500 per unit.

FEBRUARY/MARCH 1977Mayor Intends to Steal $50 Millionto Balance Expense BudgetByRobert Schw'

Cty Limits has authoritatively learned that Mayor Beame andhis fiscal cronies intend to cut no less than $50 million out

of the city's Third Year Federal Community DevelopmentBlock Grant and transfer it to cover expense budget items. Awritten summary of the city's fInancial plan for fIscal year 1977-78, circulated among high officials, shows this transfer to be part of themeans by which the next budget will be "balanced ."SUMMER 1977Blackout Illuminates Problemsin City NeighborhoodsByBemaI'd CohenBlts of lightening striking power lines plunged New YorkCity into darkness July 13, but the blackout actually shedlight on some serious problems such as unemployment and

housing in the city's poorer neighborhoods.Shortly after the massive power failure ended, four groupsbegan an investigation into why Consolidated Edison's systemfailed. But who is looking into why our social and economic systems fail all the time for some people? What blue-ribbon panel isseeking answers about the painful living conditions in the neighborhoods that were ravaged by fires and widespread looting? . .Life in East Harlem is harder today than it was nearly 12 yearsago when the fITst major blackout occurred. While communityleaders deplored the looting of furniture and clothing stores andeven a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet along 20 blocks of ThirdAvenue, they said the instinct to grab was understandable."People don't have enough," said Maria Anglada, a ob developer andcounselor for Renigades Housing Movement, acommunity organizationthat originated as an East Harlem street gang. "People have no jobs andthey're desperate. The majority of people here are on welfare. They haveso little money that all it took was aconductor to lead the tune."

JANUARY 1978City-Owned Buildings: The New Issue of 1978ByPhilip St. GeorgesHousing activists around the city are returning from the holiday season to discover a grim new issue in 1978: morecity-owned buildings than ever before. And more cityowned buildings than imaginable.Examine these facts: There are currently 6,000 city-ownedproperties ; by the end of the year the total number of city-ownedproperties will be 31,800-34,800. The approximate total numberof dwelling units: 222,600-243,600.These fIgures are the result of several years of maneuveringwithin City Hall and the City Council over passage and implementation of the new In Rem tax foreclosure law. The "old law"had enabled the city of New York to foreclose upon any owner ofprivate property who was three years or more behind in the payment of real estate taxes. The controversial "new law" changedthis allowable arrearage time period to one year or more ...The rationale for this change had been that the new law wouldenable the city to prosecute delinquent property owners more rapidly, thereby insuring a timely flow of needed tax revenue into ahardpressed city treasury. The result appears to have been the opposite-


15/40

owners are throw ing in the towel en masse and walking away fromproperties already hard hit by the inflation of oil, insurance and utilities co ts and the disinvestment of mortgage and insurance lenders.predict the money to fuel the program through the cold wintermonths may soon run out, with tenants as captive passengers on ajourney to nowhere.So welcome to the New Year! Whole neighborhoods are collapsing and coming up for auction by the city. Rehabilitationmortgages and property insurance of any sort are totally unava ilable from the private marke t. City progra mmatic alternativesseem not to exist. And no one knows quite what to do.

Expensive contractors' repairs toboilers and otheressential systems-repairs the city's own work crews are genera lly notequipped to make-may exhaust, by March, the portion of the$4 1.1 million emergency federal funding that was scheduled tocover maintenance of the city's residential properties until next fa ll.JANUARY 1979 FEBRUARY 1979City's In RemProgl'am May Be a Wayward BusBy Susan Baldwin Charlo tte Street Housing Project LackedSolid Planning FoundationBy Be 'l18l'd Coilen'J\big bus with windows broken and tires missing" is theway a New York City housing offic ial recently describedthe city's beleaguered program to manage its tax-foreclosed, in rem properties. Sources in and out of government now Carlotte Street was to have been the firs t housing outpost in thenew settlement of theSouthBronx.Itwas where PresidentCarter'scrashcourse in urban pathology tookplace 16months ago, where

" " " " 1 I u I I d I R 8 s WII'8bIB-_Into foreI:IaIun and........ t a rWItIIIIIarail .... Yurt Cit;y . . . . . .__ lC . . Int

waIIIId ........ ile daan fltIIe......ar .......... d . . . . . . Dav.Ia. . . . . . .t1111128,888 .....Wll'81a1ad an cIQl'IIIOI'dIa abaIIdaIad, with aaotIIar 24,080pniacIBd'" tile __, . ileavaIancba rlln ram

19771980

fuIIdraiIIII8,.. IIuat.. . anIIytul'lllnaaprofit. To broadeIlIII' but fIIIIPIIOI1. we added UIIAB, tile Pratt CIItarand tile People'. a.IIg network spansonln Saptamber 1978.

011 tile wIIoIa, It.....OIly. . . .I laid .1Ir1act ar .......WI WII'8 aIIIato . . . . IIOIIIy, l id mIracuIouaIy, C/tJI.iIIIIU waa pabIIIIad 01 ..... SlIcedaIktup_Ii" .. ilt JIll .....

till criIII, creatha -.uons WII'8 baiIIgiMItId almost dally, It I88III8d. ThereWII'8 _. . . .n t ;y and tMaat mnageIB l JII"OtII'lIIIIIow interest loan pro. . . . . credlt.1IIIians and co-op baRb. . . .1IIInI11.,.1I1inIwaallllClld to black...._1'IdIIIIIIg. .... ere orpJIiz-lag to _ die plague ar .... nd expert-....... with a1tnat1v18II8I1J IIIUI'C8L

CIf.y I.iIIIIU COVII'8d It aD. We anaIyzadfederal policyand toak HPD to task..................... llecIQcouIdII't _ . . . . . .to IrIap III 'IIIOI'dI.,., ......dell willi tile dIepIyb'OIbIad ..... t..

Somehow, It All Worked .. t IIIiInIuaIadIJI'OII'lIIIL We wentback to CharIottaStreet In the SouthBrunx I i IIOIItIIsafter PI'IIIdaRt

It .d lilt'"MIlD from ...,..Parudaact, late pnsIdaat rI ilec.u .. .nn. tuIdatIoL 1_1IaUIr rom the. . . . . . . . 1Iad cuglltllJ.,.-.....-willie I...... IIrauIJb tile IIIcaInIIIg .allat tile AI ... ast. It daICI'Ibad a8QIiIr prqiact . . ait 11tII Stnat. tilerepart fIIcIIat8d ..I. . o -1IeJar. lie wouldbuy IIJ Idea ar ........ 1li. Blattar....,..uid lie cauIdII't aftbrd my adItIIrIIItIIaIdJ bit paiItId _ to 29 fait 22IdStreet, . . . . 11atrodIcad IIIJI8It hoobd ajob and 100II bagIII opanIag my ..,. o theIIIcndIbIe "-llalp IIIIuIIIg . . . . . . . . .Uon........ New Yurt Cit;y. AItIIoIgII __ani. . . r CIf.y lJIRIDpreceded lIlYarrIvII, I.... int fll-tIIna IIIIIDr.Than . . IaItJ to write aIIout, l idwltllllllIx IIIGIItbs I coniIced tileAIIocIatIoI tIIat we II8IIdad uotIIerrepartIr. . . . aIdwII CIIII 01 board In. . . . . . ,1878. Haviag uatIJIr wrIUIIgIIIIId 01 stair let _ dMtIlIIOI'8 tiIIe to

NOVEMBER 1996

. By Bernard Cohenwe toak _ CGIIJ'" ....... to aQpasettar down tile street. It. . aid out in theoffice by. . eIIgw, IJIuis fuIaonI. OnceIt.. riIbItI, s.aa and I would paste anthe IIIIiIIIg IIIbeB and . . . . . ile capias byzip CIlIa. Tllallwe'd .... ile ... o tilebIck fI ile post office 01 34tII Street,....WlIavariaIQ would lie told we hadvIeIaIId. ... rocadn 01' anotIIar.DuriIg ..., t Ine)Wl, CII LiInIt6 covared tile IIIOIt ImportaatIIouIII&1aB1I . . . Yurt Cit;y. We wrutaabout 8III8I'IlIIg hIIIIiIa lid covared tile debate CMI' auction salas anddamaItIoa. We told paapIa bow to. .IIIOIIIJ tIIrau;I ftIaI co-ops lid IIDw toappIyllr waatherizatIon . . . . . . .WlIntar-viewed IIauIIIIg ........1Id_offIciaIL AId Wl1IIIl1ato IIIIIdIIg altarbuIIdiIg In tIIrougIIDal tilecIQ to tal tile IIDriaI fI..... orpizIIgto. . . . . . .

Itwas adasperata tIa but aIIOa inaar. . I8I1J aad hope. In I'8IIJOII8 to

I'MtIr viIit8d tIIareto find out wily had bappanad. WeaIIO IooUd Inward at our own problems,with a wo-part serial an the growl"pains afIktIng COIIIIIIUIIIt;y housing organizations. It.. ign I i our own maturityII a IIIMIIBIt tIIat we could taU such apuIIIc look at how "Iuccass" wuIIurt.IIIg ..I.. . . , . n awe fltheH ." IC8, CUIII'IIJ8, and parSIMII'IIC8 fI he people work-- to . . . . . he n a i ; I b o r - ~ ~ [ IoodL 10 . . he role arCIf.yUmII8. . Jwa,ys toIUIJIIIII1 their IB'OIc ~ ~ aIIJrtL lam varypruudflwllatwe1aIIIII1.1M!d n tIIOIeJIII'I and 8IpIIciaIyI'ItiIIad to _bowIIIIICII baItar C/tJI.iInb bacaIIa Inthe dacadaB tIIatiIIIMad.


16/40

he raised new hopes that the South would rise again.The plan called for construction by the New York Cityhousing Authority of 732 units of two- and three-story cooperative apartments on what is now 18 sloping acres of overgrownlots, abandoned buildings and very few people.By February 8, when the Board of Estimate voted no onNYCHA's plan , the project was being defined and analyzed bypeople with such widely differing perceptions , motives and criteria that it is no wonder it perished.There is but a single occupied building in the 10 blocks thatmake up a triangle-shaped site for the proposed housing . Theview is dominated by abandoned structures and large tracts ofempty space where the land was cleared years ago for schoolsthat were never built. Hardly anyone traverses the area on foot orby car. Children living on the fringes say they cannot get friendsfrom other neighborhoods to come visit them.Many of the stores that lined the streets two years ago are

East Harlem residents refuse to allow their community to becomehot property for speculators. as the Upper East Side luxwy housillg market moves 1I0rth

96th Street. Protesters feared middle-income housing proposed by the New York CityPartllership was the leadillg edge ofgelltrificat ioll.

'M

Photo David

boarded up. The only medium-sized supermarket, Food Pageant,closed many months ago.... Residents take buses, drive cars orwalk a hefty distance for clothes, food, appliances, medicine andother neces sities.Police presence has also declined. The 42nd Precinct has beencut by 21 percent (26 officers) in the past year as a result, according to the police , of redrawn precinct boundaries.Many community residents who were not thrilled with thesite, the cost and the fact that the Housing Authority would buildit, still supported the housing development. They tended to see it

as merely the first turn of the federal aid faucet, more importantfor what it would lead to than for what it would be.City Planning Commission Chairman Robert Wagner Jr. mayhave made the most prescient observation of the whole agony overCharlotte Street when he said that the South Bronx "could becomeNew York City's Vietnam" by claiming "to do something we cannotdo and serving least well the very people we claim to be helping."

JANUARY 1980Saving Lower East Side Buildings as"Age of Abandonment" Nears EndBy Bernard CohenT he tenants, 15 to 20 of them, were elated as they leftHousing Court on December 20. Their grievances hadbeen heard and in their hands was a court order requiringthe landlord to restore heat and hot water and start on the repairsthat would bring their two buildings up to habitable condition.Or so they thought. Three weeks later they suddenly foundthemselves confronting an entirely new owner saying he shouldnot be blamed for the old problems and demanding his rent.The mysteries of the legal process and the swift transfers ofproperty that make moving targets out of owners are familiarproblems for tenants. Now a new element has crept in. There is achanging make-up at 506-08 East 12th Street that reflects a transition spreading to many areas of the predominantly HispanicLower East Side. Priced out of neighborhoods they would preferto be living in, young, mostly white artists and professionals aremoving into this century-old stronghold of deteriorated tenements and poverty."Abandonment has almost finished in this neighborhood ,"says Brent Sharman, an organizer with Adopt-A-Building, acommunity organization. "Landlords are holding onto theirbuildings now because they smell money. Gentrification is verywell under way here." Serious displacement may literally bearound the corner.

THE EARLY '80s:Revival, Gentrification ..and Reagan

As New York began to pull itself back together, thenation leapt to the right. Commencing a 16-yeardisinvestment in public housing subsidies thatPresident Clinton continues to pursue with vigortoday, the Reagan administration dealt a blow tothe young neighborhood housing groups. Mayor Ed Koch , however, understood the dual value of building a political base inthe neighborhoods and of co-opting potential grassroots opposition to his pro-development policies-and with his support, bythe mid-I 980s the housing "movement" had become a verylarge nonprofit housing management industry.City Limits, meanwhile, solidified its reputation as the independent watchdog of government, private real estate interests,NIMBY reactionaries frightened by the prospect of poor peopleliving next door-and of the nonprofit sector housing groupsthemselves, some of which were less than scrupulous in living

up to their mission of preserving low-income housing.In retrospect, much of this material is relevant and timely todayparticularly Bob Schur's call for a return to community organizing

by the housing groups at a time of crushing government cutbacks.JANUARY 1981ARoar in Park SlopeBy Tom RobbinsShortly before Thanksgiving Day, thousands of residents ofthe Park Slope section of Brooklyn received an open letterunder their doors or stuffed in their mail boxes .The subjectof the pre-holiday missive was subsidized low-income housing,and, according to the letter 's authors, the Park Slope community

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stands in danger of being deluged with millions of federal dollarsaimed at bringing low income families to the area. "Concentratedsubsidized housing does destroy, and has destroyed neighborhoods ," warned the letter from the Park Slope ImprovementCommittee, which has devoted most of its energies since itsinception to combating the plans of a community developmentorganization, the Fifth Avenue Committee .The letter states, "As you know we are already surfeited withsubsidized housing development in our areas. The tremendousimpact of compacted subsidized housing, just in terms of crime(original emphasis), affects us all. Our area has more than its shareof these projects" ...."We think that subsidies as a whole ought to be directed atneighborhoods where the private market won't come in, not toplaces where it is already active," said David Brennan, whose signature came at the bottom of the open letter.The private market has been more than merely active in thePark Slope area in recent years. Large numbers of brownstonesand large limestone apartment houses have either been purchasedby individual homeowners or converted to cooperative housing byowners . Price tags of $200,000 and up for a brownstone, or in

excess of $75,000 for a co-op, are not uncommon. The resultingeffect on the low and moderate income members of the community has been one of rapid and almost universal displacement.DECEMBER 1981Tales of Crown Heights:The Fruits of HarassmentBy Tom RobbinsThree years ago, a tempest of controversy raged across theBrooklyn community of Crown Heights. Avolatile area tostart with, the neighborhood has for several years been thescene of an ongoing tussle over turf and power between a largeblack and Hispanic population and an expanding community of

Hasidic Jews .The storm thundered into the open with a wave of rent strikesin buildings tenanted mostly by blacks and Hispanics and ownedby a prominent Hasidic community leader. And, as televisioncameras rolled on scenes of occupied apartments where sledgehammers had broken through floors and walls in the name of renovation, tenants told their stories of harassment.Then, gusting from another direction , the storm grew whenCity Council President Carol Bellamy released a report detailingmajor alleged abuses and fiscal irregularities by a Hasidic antipoverty and housing organization.At the center of the storm was Rabbi David Fischer, head of ahost of private realty and management corporations, and directorof Chevra Machazikei Hashcunah, the Lubavitcher Hasidic community's major housing and social service agency. The rent strikers and their supporters minced no words naming Rabbi Fischeras the chief culprit in their troubles. Charging that he was bent ondriving them from their homes, they challenged the city to bringhim to account. Some 250 strong, they marched on the KingstonAvenue building that doubles as Fischer's private managementoffice and Chevra 's headquarters and then on to Fischer'sMontgomery Street home.At its zenith, the rent strike included a dozen Fischer-owned ormanaged buildings, all of which told a tale of strikingly uniformdimensions: large, four or five-story comer walk-ups, located inthe midst or at the fringe of the Lubavitcher community, all tenanted by families, most of them Hispanic or black (one building in

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the strike, 658 Montgomery Street, housed mostly older, nonHasidic Jews) ; all suffered a sudden decrease , and then a cessationof essential services upon purchase by a new owner who invariablyemerged as Rabbi Fischer under one corporate guise or another.The scenario was always followed by offers-and sometimesthreats- tomove .Then, as the various buildings shared their taleswith each other, an important link in the stories appeared: all of thebuildings had been accepted for some form of government-subsidized renovation.But while tenants and others waited for the official response totheir charges and to the Bellamy report, the storm gradually subsided. Soon, the FBI, the Department of Labor and the city's owninvestigation department werescrutinizing the finances andpractices of Chevra. These newprobes, however, turned out tobe only more thunder and lightening, signifying no change orrelief for the tenants. In theirwake, the high waters of theCrown Heights tempest leftpower and funds in the samehands, with only a couple ofname and titles rearranged.To Rabbi YisroelRosenfeld , executive directorof the Crown Heights JewishCommunity Council , thecharges against Rabbi Fischerhave never been anything morethan "a smokescreen" for political interests aligned againstthe Hasidic Lubavitcher community. "I f [the allegations]were true, do you think he'd beout walking the streets?" askedRosenfeld. "Wouldn't he havebeen indicted?"Both 1577 Carroll Streetand 440 Brooklyn Avenue were efully occupied when Fischersought federal Section 8 fundsto rehabilitate them in 1977.And, like 836 Montgomery andother buildings, tenants saidthat conditions began to go rapidly downhill after Fischer took over. But when therent-controlled tenants of the two buildingsbrought their charges of harassment before

The Creative CommLlnity/or Non- ViolencLIp "Reaganville", a lelll camp and sJmbgraveyard in Washington's w/arelle Pa

Photo by AI Sacco

a departmental hearing officer at the city's rent control board, thecharges caused a flag to go up at the buildings department, blocking the renovation permit Fischer sought.Under city law, the "flag" meant no construction could proceed until the harassment charges were either dropped or proven.The complaints appeared to be the kiss of death for the $4.3 million project for which, according to the sponsor, Chevra, almostall the financing was in place.But in tead of collapsing, the rehab was rescued by some timely maneuvering. Marvin Schick, a former administrative assistantunder Mayor John Lindsay and an influential voice in Brooklyn andCity Hall, was brought in to piece together a rescue plan. Painstakingly, adeal was arranged so the rehabilitation would go forth.


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Under the terms of the agreement, signed byHousing Commissioner Anthony Gliedman and RabbiFischer in December, 1980, Fischer and Chevra would bow out ofthe rehab, turning sponsorship of the job over to the CrownHeights Jewish Community Council. Fischer, the deal specified,would have nothing more to do with the project. The estimatedprofit on the project to the sponsor was approximately half a million dollars.Yet not one of the major aspects of the agreement has been carried out. In the most glaring noncompliance with the agreement,Rabbi Fischer has continued to handle all the processing of theproject with HUD and is openly serving as manager for the project through Shipur Mashchunna, of which he is. the principal,despite specific language in his agreement with HPD forbiddinghim to do so....

Sensa Alomar and Eleas Rodriguez steal a moment of intimacy at theRoberto Clemente barracks shelter for homeless families in the Brollx.

Photo by George Cohen

As things settled down again after the Bellamy report, Chevra'srole as the housing developer for the Lubavitcher community wasquietly passed to the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council,creating the transparent fiction that the Council was itself a housing developer. It's a charade that Rabbi Rosenfeld himself readilyadmits. Although Fischer is neither board member nor staff to theCouncil, he remains its housing packager. As the organization toldCon Edison recently after the utility's public affairs officer visitedthe community, "Regarding special housing programs for CrownHeights, please have your housing specialist contact Rabbi DavidFischer, who heads up our housing corporation."

JANUARY 1982Back to Basics: Organizing in the Age of AusterityBy Robert SchurT he prognosis for neighborhood housing groups in the eraof Reagan austerity is poor indeed-if we look at the situation purely in terms of dollars for neighborhood organization support and for housing development projects. The only

thing certain about housing and community development budgetsis that next year and thereafter smaller amounts of money will beavailable to cover a broader range of activities.While state and city officials decry federal cuts, it is clear theyare not going to fill the gaps, especially not in housing programsTo the extent that state and local governments do try to make upfor lessened federal aid, they are likely to reduce what they nowprovide for housing in order to replace some of their lost revenues for welfare, health, food stamps, education and programsfor the elderly.In this state of affairs, what are neighborhood housing groupsto do?

We suggest that, realistically, there are two alternatives, andthat one of them can lead only to disaster for the housing movement. You can, of course, struggle all the harder to preserve youpiece of the rapidly shrinking pie. Or, you can reassess your situation and begin doing what has to be done to carryon the struggle for decent and affordable shelter for all people.Recall that even in the "best of times" we never had a national, state or local government policy which could resolve the housing crisis. All we got in the good old days was a few more dollarand a handful of jobs, for which we were expected (a) to "cooperate" with the public policy of the moment and (b) keep ouneighborhoods cool and free from embarrassing confrontations.And recall, too, how easy it was. Many of us were easy preyto the co-optation tactics of government officialdom. Like generations of elected officials from ghetto and minority communitiesthe most valid criticism which could be made of us was howcheaply we were bought... .Reagan and Koch have clearly written off the inner citiesthe ghettoes and the minorities. Whatever may be given out tothe neighborhoods this time will be even more tokenism thanbefore and is sure to have tighter strings attached.Where else can we go for soon-to-dry-up funding? The privatfoundations and corporations? Haven 't they already made it cleathat they are not going to replace the government trough? And tothe extent that they are still in the neighborhood business at allaren't they tightening the screws to make us the opposite of whawe thought we were in business for? Witness the Jolly GreenGiant of them all-the good old Ford Foundation-announcingits Local Initiatives Support Corporation (USC) which getdirectly into bed with the largest and most reactionary businescorporations in the nation and tells neighborhood groups that iyou want any help, turn yourselves into mini-entrepreneurs capable of making profits off the local folk you are supposed to serveIt's time to go back to basics. We must reverse the prevailing perception that neighborhoods of poor and moderate income peopldon't count. First, we have to understand what the aims and purposes of this government of ours really are. Put very bluntly, government provides benefits to the poor, minorities and disadvantagednot because they love them, but because they fear them so. Thextent of government provisions for these elements of society idirectly correlated with the degree to which they generate such fear

To survive, and to achieve what they were created to do, neighborhood housing groups must become confrontational. To do seffectively, these groups must, first, organize their communitiesA decade ago, every local housing group was first, last analways, engaged in organizing. There wasn't much else one coulddo then. There weren't any Community Development BlockGrants, nor any Neighborhood Preservation or CommunityConsultant contracts; no CETA workers and no NSA designationsUDAGs or Section 8s to scramble for. And , of course, communi

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ty management, Tenant Interim Lease and the rest of the alternative management programs hadn 't yet been invented.better at them than we were before. Rent strikes and buildingtakeovers against landlords who don't make repairs or provideservices-including the city and the Housing Authority and HUD ,wherever they fail to give tenants what they are entitled to.Demonstrations-picketing , raffles , mass meetings-againstlandlords , irresponsible banks, public agencies and officials. Whocan recall the last time a group of housing activists took over acommissioner's office, or picketed his home or broke up a staidmeeting of an establishment conclave? What happened to theheady excitement, the enthusiasm, the rallying of hundreds andeven thousands to a protest of just a few years ago?

Today, alas, many of the organizations which were once thebest and most successful organizers no longer do much of that.Some of them have probably forgotten how. Other, newer, groupsnever learned-all it took them to get started was a friendly elected official or two and a talented proposal writer to make them intoinstant neighborhood developers.

We have to go back to communicating with the residents of ourneighborhoods. We have to tell them the truth about why theycan't find decent housing at prices they can afford and why theyare either being abandoned or gentrified out of their homes andneighborhoods. And if everyone works together, something can bedone about it-but only if we are mad enough and smart enoughto do what we have to.

We have to go back to some of the old tactics-and to become

Reaganomics is a mandate for neighborhood groups to changetheir strategies and reaffirm their original goals. Just "gettingfunding" will no longer suffice. The ax is poised to fall. If youdon't get it in '82. you will for sure in '83. If we don 't get the message now, it will soon be too late.

Cty .ImIti mission in earIy-was as vast as its offices weretiQ: its plant was tine battered deIb squeezed into asingle, paper-cboked room; itstools of production were two typawritan,adrawing table on loan from grapIics whiz

Louis FuIgoni and a Iand-IIeId electricpaper WIllI' often left dangerouslyplugged-in for days.1980-1985

stories then-u JIOW-were sad ones.AI:tIviItI, sweating to rescue _ buildingor _ block, shuddered as aoother blockand a IIfIrent baiIding were lost to thewrecIdIg crew of landIurd-arsotists, redIll81'S or poiltlcai indlI'rerence.

Often our own constituents were theunhappiest with our pages. It was left toCIty IJmItJ to write IIIICOIIIfortab trutIIs

I'JIi& Marc Jahr, then acity Human Rightsworker, used lis catWa to record thesame streets he now rescues with c0rporate tax credits. KatII,y Wylde, her SunsetPark o r g a n i z I ~ days frash in her 1II8IIIOI'Y,aJTaQged our first regular monthly advertising. A11111181J11)1oyed Jim Sleeper made the first to report the InsplriIC story IiEast Brooklyn CIInhs' IIeItemIah b o u s i ~ Researchers KImHopper and Ellenut itsjob wasmII/IIIr: to covertIIOIe at work in thetrenches of the citJ's

s t n a I I ~ low IncomeneIghborIIoods andEvery Activist, A. Writer Baxter provided theirstartling report on adIstBrIJing. . henomenon: homeIessness.the maclinations of

the powerful against them.In tIIat cramped room o v e r I o o k I ~ East23rd Street, Bernard Collen and SUsaDBaldwIn WIll about their task with asmuch___ nd far lIIOI'8 daIIotiontIIan 1'Va faund in the ... oomsof"newspapers. And why noli' The people wewrata about and the territory we CCMII"IIdwere so fartIe with hope.

By Tom BobbiDsabout tenant evictions, bureaucraticIetbargy and financial mIsI'euance on thepart of once-vitaI organizations.

WIleR CIty l.ImIti IrucibIe founder, BobScbur, I'8btrIed to the magazine, it was toscald tIIOIe he bad ICbooIed in an article-"Back to Buies." OrganIzIng was what got here, he wrote, and 0J"gaIizIng is sIiIIour Un ask. We agreed wIIoIebeart8dIybut it was aH lIIOI'8 easily written Ulanaccomplished.

Left to our owndevices, of coune, we were often tooclever by ' - too long-winded, too seIfrigIIteous to he fair, occuIonaIIy naiVe orworse, plain wrong. Yet we muddledtInugh, mucII the same way a ar lIIOI'8potent and sopIisticatad CIty I./mitJ_ todQ. And despite the monthlyS8JIIItion I i condIIctIng ahigh wire actwithout anat, there was raaIIy 110 Itettil' ob to be bad.

DATO CO

VA...

CommunitJ groups born as IttIe lIIOI'8tIIan rag-tag bands of outraged citizenwarriors, armed only with strong vocalcIIords and good IIIt8ntions, bad faund . .clout and sopIistIcation. TheIr spade workbad yielded amini-arsenal ..... g fromtenant managtIIIlIIIIt to antI-redInIng laws.To use theIII, groups could tum to a t8cImIcal assiItaIanat.t stafred by the bestand the brigIdast, and capable of deIIvaringenergy retronts for turn-of-the-centuryt .naJts or complex loan packages

Our poke . . . ards called reportan but Biray task was Idvocacy.And we saw no coafIct II enlisting tIIOIealready In the streets to cover their ownactIvItieL Every orguIzar, awrIbr, MI'Jadministrator, apIIotograpIIer wu ourcredo, adecision made euy by our slimbudaIeL It often worked. Then aBrooklyntenant organIzar, fature , . " , . , ndWIIIIiItgtIJII PtJtJt f'IIIIOI18t' IIchaeI Powellwrata lis first articles for Do WrIUr-photograpber CamIIo Vergara, then tethered toa bureaucrat's desk in New Jersey, provided lis now famaItI docIIaeItatIIIn of urban

. ; ; ; ~ . ; ; : ; " ; . . " ' : ~ ~ - .....-.....And, for the first time, the , . . . . . o helpd .. um was belllgpnMded by _ _

elations gaIded by astute and caring officersIra NBy catIIInan and I.ari SIutJQ,NatnIIy it_'t IIat 8IIJ. _

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~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~Borough Park's Untold Story emerge: a block-long 100-apartment four-story complex vacated

By Tom Robbins in less ilian a y e ~ after stray dogs were let loose to roam the corridors, windows b o ~ d e d over in occupied apartment and arage of late-night threatening calls urging residents to flee; another walk-up where gas was shut off just before religious holidaysso iliat Oriliodox tenants could have no food p r e p ~ e d for ilie holiday; a four-story where ilie water line to ilie building was neatlysevered with an acetylene torch and a vacate order thus secured.

Booklyn's Borough P ~ k trumpets its successes to whoeverwill listen. While ilie Brownstone Belt gets ilie publicity,Borough P ~ k is where Brooklyn's hottest real estate actionis to be found. Acommunity that suffered a massive p o s t - w ~ exo-

Hundreds ofmarchers join inthe "No Housing, No Peace"

demonstration as it crosses townand heads towardsthe United Nations.

Photo by Cindy Reiman

community.

dus of Jewish families, andagain in ilie '60s and '70s asmany Italians beat a s i m i l ~ suburban retreat, Borough P ~ k lasty e ~ boasted ilie most housingstarts in the city. WhileBrooklyn lost population overthe last decade, Borough P ~ k wiili a now-increasing population of Hasidic Jews, has been asubstantial gainer.Government funds havegiven that growth a majorboost. Last summer, Housingand Urban DevelopmentSecretary Samuel R. Piercemade a rare communitya p p e ~ a n c e at the annual dinnerof Borough Park's leadingneighborhood group, theSouthern BrooklynCommunity Organization.SBCO and its p ~ e n t , AgudailiIsrael of America, had "demonstrated for all ilie world thepower of partnership," saidguest of honor Pierce, who leftbehind a surprise gift of $5.5million for new senior citizenhousing."Right on Borough Park!"cheered the Daily News lastJanuary on the occasion ofanother federal grant to ilie

Indeed this community where new brickthree-family homes line the side streets,where a network of over 40 yeshivas swellto hold more than 20,000 students, andwhere major new shuls and institutionsunder construction, has much to cheer about.But ilie gusto wiili which ilie bustling community's boostersproclaim its merits suddenly vanishes at ilie mention of the priceits older and low-income residents have paid to make way for thisgrowth. That's the other part of the recent history of this highlyreligious and i n s u l ~ community, the details of which spokenof little within the community, and outside of it never. The flipside of Borough Park's current success has been a ruthless expansionism, m ~ k e d by often brutal dislodging of long-time residents.Those activities have left city-funded community groups inert,housing court judges strangely befuddled, and local elected officials suddenly n e ~ - s i g h t e d . In spite of the sizable dimensions ofthe problem, it remains officially unacknowledged and totallyunpenalized by government.

In each of iliese buildings, as in other stories u n e ~ e d inBorough P ~ k , owners had different plans in store for iliem: iliefirst building was demolished--eight three-family large bedroomhomes, specially designed for Hasidic households, under construction wiili $300,000 price tags on iliem; ilie second buildingis-ironically-about to be rehabilitated into government-subsidized senior citizen housing, aliliough it held 20 mostly older tenants before iliey were driven out; within three monilis after iliethird building was emptied, plans were filed to establish a synagogue and a mikvah (religious bailis) on ilie ground floor whilereconditioning the apartments above ...Within the community, those who c h ~ g e d with aiding tenants eiilier limited by neighborhood and religious politics oroften on ilie same side as the h ~ a s s e r s . The SouthernBrooklyn Community Organization, Borough P ~ k ' s major localdevelopment group which was launched wiili Ford Foundationfunding in 1976, receives a $75,000-per-year contract from iliecity to assist landlords and tenants. It is ilie most logical candidateto aid or mediate for troubled buildings . Yet in case after case,SBCO has been found to have ignored the most brutal h ~ a s s m e n tand, in some instances, to have encouraged and profited by it.Sometimes what's sought from Borough P ~ k ' s older multifamily dwellings is not the building but ilie land. Such was ilie casewiili 5501-14th Avenue, a grand, block-long lOG-unit buildingwhich boasted twin turrets and an exterior grass c o u r t y ~ d enclosedby a low brick wall. It was a building that caught ilie eye of everyone in the community and few failed to notice its rapid deterioration, or to register shock when bulldozers came to destroy it.The building was bought by Charles Katz and Steven Farkasin 1981. Katz is a major Borough P ~ k landlord and Farkas is aleading realtor and developer of the long, three-family brick houses sprouting along many side streets. Tenants were told to move,iliat there would be no heat or services for iliose who stayed, andthere weren't. A p p ~ e n t l y no tenant organizations were availableto help. "After iliey called everyone else," says Larry Jayson, anorganizer wiili ilie Flatbush Tenants Council (FfC), his group gota call from ilie tenants in M ~ c h 1982. Only six to eight tenantsremained. Ten days later, said Jayson, iliey too were gone. As soonas the buildings were razed, Katz and F ~ k a s began laying thefoundations for eight three-family brick homes. Selling pricesin the range of $300,000. Katz and F ~ k a s carrying out ilieirconstruction project under their corporate name, "Joy of LifeEnterprises." ... .While FTC pinch-hits for ilie ever-absent SBCO, it also stepscautiously in Borough P ~ k ' s volatile turf. While slumlord FrankSciaccia turned 510 Ocean P ~ k w a y into what FTC's Jerry O'Sheatermed a "toilet," FTC helped ilie mostly black residents fight back.But when SBCO's newly-created Ocean P ~ k w a y DevelopmentCorporation decided to purchase ilie building, empty and rehab it,FTC obligingly stepped aside. O'Shea, after waming tenants ilieywould be on ilieir own henceforth, joined ilie b o ~ d of ilie development group. The brand-new group had no difficulty landing a oney e ~ $25,000 contract wiili ilie city housing department.

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Each victimized building tells the same story: pleas to politicaland community offices for assistance rebuffed with the excuse thatthere is nothing to be done. This massive default in tenant assistancestretches from groups like SBCO and COlO-the Council of JewishOrganizations-to assemblymen , city councilmen and district leaders. Only a handful of dedicated city and legal services attorneysand the occasional intervention of an outside group-have suppliedwhat is ultimately a thin and inadequate line of defense.

new housing dwindled. Shelters popped up all over the SouthBronx, Harlem and the far reaches of Queens and Brooklyn.Herald Square and Times Square became welfare-hotel central.The city government made sporadic efforts to cope, placingfamilies in dilapidated city-owned buildings and promising vastnew resources for redevelopment. Papering over the crisis ,however, took Mayor Koch much longer than it took him toplace his flower-pot decals in the gaping windows of thousandsof abandoned buildings.THE MID-LATE '80sBoom Times and HomelessnessM ayor Koch kept going like the Energizerbunny. And as the economy boomed, the faceof poverty was no longer hidden. For the firsttime, men, women and families sufferingfrom extreme housing deprivation were visible allover Manhattan. The numbers of homeless New Yorkersexploded as developers bulldozed single-room-occupancyhotels to make room for new office towers. Federal funds forAUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1985The Mayor and the Homeless Poor

T . 81'811eady - at CItyLiIrItJ-tIIe 1at8198Os wIleREd 1ocII'1 . . . . tMI' New Yorkwas about tD crumble andcomption . . oziIg rr.tile orifices IIMI'J IIMIIcIpa/ IgIIICJ. Or80 it 1881118d. AntIIony

Documents

City Limits Magazine, November 1996 Issue