Stuyvesant Town – Peter Cooper Village

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Stuyvesant Town as seen from First Avenue towards Uptown (2006)
View from the air
The cluster of brown buildings in the center of the photo is Stuyvesant Town, a housing estate in New York City.
1938: East 20th Street when the terrain was still dominated by the Gas House district ; Looking east to First Avenue, two huge gas containers can be seen
Plan of the central green area in Stuyvesant Town with the oval in the middle
The central green area of Stuyvesant Town with the fountain, which is located within an oval open space
Fountain
An avenue in Stuyvesant Town in autumn

Stuyvesant Town - Peter Cooper Village is a large, uniformly planned housing development on the east side of the Manhattan borough in New York City .

Size and location

Stuyvesant Town is made up of numerous brick apartment buildings that stretch from First Avenue to Avenue C between 14th Street and 23rd Street - an area of ​​approximately 32 acres . The Stuyvesant Town housing estate between 14th Street and 20th Street consists of 8,757 apartments in 35 residential buildings. Together with the sister housing estate Peter Cooper Village between 20th Street and 23rd Street, the complex consists of 56 residential buildings with 11,250 apartments and over 25,000 residents.

The two housing developments are bordered by the East River and Avenue C to the east, by the Gramercy Park neighborhood to the west, the East Village and Alphabet City to the south, and Kips Bay to the north. In the surrounding area, the historic Stuyvesant Square , Saint George's Church and the Beth Israel Medical Center are noteworthy.

history

Stuyvesant Town is named after the last general manager of the Dutch colony of Nieuw Amsterdam , Petrus Stuyvesant , whose farm stood in this area in the 17th century. The residents of the settlement call it "Stuy Town" for short. Peter Cooper Village, on the other hand, was named after the industrialist, inventor and philanthropist Peter Cooper , who founded the Cooper Union in the 19th century . Planning for this complex began in 1942. The first building was occupied in 1947.

In the 19th century this area was still known as the "Gas House district" because of the many huge gas tanks that dominated the street scene. The tanks that leaked at times and the gas house gang and other criminals made this area unattractive. With the construction of the East River Drive (today: FDR Drive ) the area was upgraded. By the 1930s there were no more tanks but four gas tanks, and although the neighborhood was rundown, there was no more misery here than anywhere else in the city after the Great Depression .

Before Stuyvesant Town was built, the neighborhood consisted of 18 blocks of public schools, churches, factories, private houses, apartments, medium-sized businesses and even quite contemporary apartment buildings that eventually had to give way to the new housing estate. A total of 600 buildings in which 3,100 families lived, 500 shops and small factories, three churches, three schools and two theaters were demolished for Stuyvesant Town. About 11,000 people were forced to move to another neighborhood. The New York Times described this in 1945 as "the greatest and most significant mass movement of families in New York's history" (the largest and most important mass movement of families in New York's history). The last residents of the Gas House district, the Delman family, moved out in May 1946, so that the demolition operation could be completed shortly afterwards.

Due to the housing shortage that had increased during the Depression, Stuyvesant Town was planned as a post-war housing project during World War II (1942-43). One provision governed the preferential treatment of veterans seeking housing. The complex was built in the same style as the Parkchester residential area in the Bronx or the Riverton Houses in Harlem , both of which were completed in 1942. All three projects were implemented by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company .

Metropolitan Life President Frederick Ecker announced in the first advertisement that Stuyvesant Town would enable generations of New Yorkers to live in a park in the country - in the middle of New York. On the very first day, the group received 7,000 applications for apartments. When WWII veterans and their families moved into the first apartments on August 1, 1947, 100,000 applications had already been received. Back then, rents ranged between $ 50 and $ 91 per month. Currently, a two-bedroom apartment costs over $ 2,500 and a 6-bedroom apartment costs over $ 7,000.

Controversy

Stuyvesant Town was controversial from the start. Although it was not a community project, it was championed by Parks Commissioner Robert Moses , who was seen as the driving force behind the implementation of both Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. On behalf of New York's then mayor Fiorello LaGuardia , Moses tried to win over insurance companies and banks to take over the renovation of slums on a large scale. This project was made possible by various federal laws and legislative changes that allowed companies to operate in terrain previously reserved for the public sector. Robert A. Caro writes in his 1975 book The Power Broker on page 968 that the generous and long-term tax exemption that Moses had promoted resulted in a total of unpaid taxes that eclipsed the original investment amount by MetLife. At the same time, Moses used his public office to enable the company not only to build the complex, but also to expropriate the previous owners in this area or shut down roads.

The new public-private partnership and the contract between the city and the investor, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, sparked an extensive debate. Among other things, it was about the possibility of expropriations for private purposes and the associated dismantling of roads or public facilities, such as public school grounds. The 25-year tax exemption granted by the contract and the right of the group to be able to make differences when choosing the rental.

By the time the $ 50 million plan for Stuyvesant Town was approved by the City Planning Commission by five to one on May 20, 1943, discrimination against African Americans was already a major topic of public debate. Councilors Stanley M. Isaacs and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. attempted to add a provision in the contract to prevent "race" or creed discrimination when selecting tenants. This addition was not accepted by Robert Moses, among others - on the grounds that this could damage the profitability of the company and that the adversaries were obviously looking for a political problem and not for results in the form of an effective slum rehabilitation.

In the years after the housing estate was occupied, African Americans were banned from living in the complex, which Frederick Ecker, President of Metropolitan Life, defended by stating that blacks and whites do not go together ("Negroes and whites do not mix." ). Lee Lorch , a resident of the complex and a professor at the City University of New York , applied to have African Americans admitted to the housing estate and then lost his job under pressure from Metropolitan Life. He then took a job at Pennsylvania State University and allowed an African American family to live in his apartment, thereby circumventing the existing rule of not allowing African American tenants. He also lost his new job under pressure from Metropolitan Life.

Lawsuits have been filed on the grounds that the project is public or semi-public in violation of New York City's anti-discrimination law for public housing. In July 1947, the New York Constitutional Court ( New York Supreme Court ) ruled that the housing estate was not open to the public and that the company could discriminate as it saw fit. According to the judges, it is clearly regulated that the landlord of a non-public apartment or residential building can also choose the tenants on the basis of race, skin color, religion or creed, without violating any federal or state constitution. They also made it clear that accommodation is not understood as a civil right. The lawsuit was brought by three African American war veterans. At this point, Metropolitan Life was building a separate but equal housing estate in Harlem : Riverton Houses . A few years later the company moved a small number of African American families into Stuyvesant Town and a small number of white families into Riverton Houses.

The urban and architectural design of Stuyvesant Town also sparked controversy. As early as the first debates in 1943, the haste with which the project was approved was offended and the lack of public participation in this process was criticized. But also the population density in this quarter, the lack of public facilities such as schools, community centers or shops in the housing estate, the private security service there, the private property character with the regulation that only residents are allowed to enter this area, which was previously open to the public, and violations of the city's master plan heated hearts.

Former landowners sued, but in February 1944 the United States Supreme Court denied a review of whether New York State law was constitutional to allow housing development - even though public property was used for private gain, tax exemption was granted, with the investors and their lawyers brought the public benefit of the settlement into the field.

safety

The complex is a gated community and has its own security service , which mainly consists of sworn law enforcement officers - so-called peace officers. As they are not allowed to carry firearms , they carry batons , pepper sprays and handcuffs with them and patrol the housing estate. Security cameras were installed in all of Stuyvesant Town's buildings in late March 2009. In addition, sensors were installed on the roof doors to prevent unauthorized access.

newspaper

The neighborhood has its own newspaper “Town & Village”, also known as “the T&V”. First published in 1947, it has been published weekly since then and contains news from Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village, Waterside Plaza and Gramercy Park . Town & Village is independent and does not belong to the owners of the complex.

Known residents

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Stuyvesant Town – Peter Cooper Village  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The housing estate on Google Maps
  2. ^ Huge Gas Tank Collapses , The New York Times . December 14, 1898, p. 1. Retrieved July 20, 2010. 
  3. ^ Lee E. Cooper: Uprooted Thousands Starting Trek From Site for Stuyvesant Town , The New York Times . March 3, 1945, p. 13. Retrieved July 18, 2010. 
  4. ↑ load tenant vacated in Stuyvesant Town , The New York Times . May 5, 1946, p. 18. Retrieved July 18, 2010. 
  5. ^ Hearing Advances Big Housing Plan; Further Action Due May 19 on Metropolitan Life Project , The New York Times . May 6, 1943, p. 36. Retrieved July 11, 2010. 
  6. ↑ Housing Plan Seen As A "Walled City" , The New York Times . May 20, 1943, p. 23. Retrieved July 18, 2010. 
  7. ^ Stuyvesant Town to Get Its First Tenants Today , The New York Times . August 1, 1947, p. 19. Retrieved July 11, 2010. 
  8. ↑ Floor plans of apartments in Stuyvesant Town . In: Stuyvesant Town . Retrieved July 11, 2010.
  9. ^ Robert A. Caro: The Power Broker . Vintage, New York 1975, p. 7.
  10. ^ Robert Moses: Stuyvesant Town Defended , The New York Times . June 3, 1943, p. 20. Retrieved July 20, 2010. 
  11. ^ Robert A. Caro: The Power Broker . Vintage, New York 1975, p. 968; Quote: “For projects such as Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village, Riverton and Concord Village… though the money that built them was supposedly private money, the tax abatement that Moses arranged for them would, when totaled over the years, insure that the public Investment in them would dwarf the private, and the powers that Moses utilized to make possible not only their construction but the assemblage of their sites - eminent domain, street closings, utility easements - were all public. "
  12. ^ Hearing Is Ordered on Housing Project , The New York Times . May 29, 1943, p. 11. Retrieved July 20, 2010. 
  13. ↑ Charles V. Bagli: $ 5.4 trillion Bid Wins Complexes in New York Deal , The New York Times . October 18, 2006. Retrieved October 16, 2007. "The company barred blacks from living in Stuyvesant Town for many years, and its president at the time, Frederick H. Ecker, once said," Negroes and whites do not mix. " " 
  14. ↑ According to Lorch, he did not sublet his apartment, which would have violated his lease. He allowed an African-American friend to live rent-free with his family in his apartment.
  15. ^ Mathematician Lorch Wins Award for Activism. In: York University . January 8, 2007, accessed July 20, 2010
  16. ↑ Race Housing Plea quashed By Court , The New York Times . July 29, 1947, p. 23. Retrieved July 20, 2010. 
  17. ^ Stuy Town Peace Officer

Coordinates: 40 ° 43 '54 "  N , 73 ° 58' 40"  W.