NYCHA Slumlord
CASTING PEARLS TO SWINE. It is said that, money is the great enabler, but despite ample funding NYCHA is the biggest slumlord in America. It has the money to turn things around but for reasons of their own, they are unable.
The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) was Created by the Federal Government in 1934 to improve the quality of life for new arrivals living in the crowded slums of the Lower East Side. At the time, the #1 complaint in NYC was noise. NYCHA, with the power of slum-clearance hired Frederick L. Ackerman to build First Houses (1936). It was a smashing success…for whites only.
In 1954 the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex (St Louis) was also a smashing success…for whites only. And, the unlikely coupling of Wendell O Pruitt and William L Igoe was suspect. Pruitt was a Tuskeegee Airman who flew over seventy combat missions, sank a destroyer in Italy, won the distinguished flying cross, and died in the line of duty. Igoe was a white congressman who voted not to declare war on Germany.
Pruitt/Igoe was forced to integrate in 1958. White flight ensued to suburban communities, built in anticipation. and they took everything – commercial, financial, and political. Maintenance was skeletal and infrastructure was left to rot.
Woefully ill-equipped to survive, Pruitt/Igoe quickly became a lawless slum of 10,000. That’s a lot of votes but all the Church did, was to tell them that God doesn’t give you more than you can bear. The complex was condemned and blown up in 1974 (when First Houses was landmarked) as a failed experiment Known as, casting pearls to swine.
Students were taught that blacks are a stoop culture incompatible with advanced Corbusian concepts. Once again, academia, rushed to defame black Americans and developers chimed in that the disaster was the result of government meddling in the affairs of the private sector. Officials at NYCHA were graduates of this racist pedagogy. Nonetheless, they chose to make a living at NYCHA. One would expect salubrious initives instead of none at all.
As an aside, the slave labor that made America the richest country the world has ever seen, is sweat equity. Biden lied when he said, “America has never been a deadbeat nation”. Moreover, black Americans shed more blood in defense of America, than any other ethnic group. And whenever the subject of reparations comes up, the questions are, how much and to whom? Nowhere else does the perpetrator get the right to dictate terms for the return of stolen property.
To add insult to injury, black Americans are forced to live in housing that is twice as likely to burn down. NYCHA’s decision to withhold maintenance money while families go without heat and hot water in freezing temperatures show that it was all about their pensions. Spite also played a part, they made sure NYCHA residents would not be living better then them.
Futhermore, the Tower of Babel model is a recipie for failure. Diversity works only with proper vetting, proper introduction, and vigilant enforcement of the contract and by-laws. Leaving strangers to work out differences on their own is known as block- busting.
For that reason, any mention of affordable housing triggers panic. The poor and uneducated strikes fear in the middle class. And the thought of cheap and unsightly buildings will bring down the price of real estate. Trendy spruce-up architects are not the answer.
After ninety years of NYCHA, Tenants are living with vermin, mold and unreliable heat and hot water. NYCHA has the funds but not the will therefore, they should offer the option of equity. People take care of things they own.
Urban Housing is in high demand. It is ironic that the children and grandchildren of immigrants have returned from the suburbs to priced out the immigrants who stayed behind in the Lower East Side. We need to build more affordable housing in the city because greedy slumlords deprive the working poor from moving up the ladder. Moreover, quality affordable housing is cheaper than prisons for profit.
More links:
NYTimes Rise and Fall of NY Public Housing July 2018
There are many more such examples. (e.g. Cabrini-Green)
Amazingly, Charles Jencks neglected to mention that maintenance and local businesses left with white flight.
