Spectacular Ruins: Conservation and Boosterism in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park
By Melissa Zavala
On either side of debates over development and progress is the need to protect public health and open space belonging to us all equally. The borough of Queens faces a future of sinking developments just a short walk from each other. The funding and political will to preserve a prized structure have been missing for over half a century despite public interest. Now, the city considers losing 65 acres of parkland to a capitalist venture as its best option for preservation, especially as a response to flooding and rising temperatures, as has happened along the waterfront in Long Island City. It does not matter that LaGuardia Airport and nearby Arthur Ashe Stadium are also sinking or that a casino can very well mean more tumbling ruins. Will the city soon inherit another shrine to consumption in need of rescue from the fate of a neighboring sinking relic, if not in Flushing, then near the airport or elsewhere? Which world of tomorrow is worth preserving? This is an ongoing challenge facing the city.
Joyful Resilience: Celebrating Untold Stories of Civil Rights History in New York City
By Judy DeRosier, Jas Leiser, and Errol C. Saunders II
The New York City Civil Rights History Project (NYCCRHP) aims to document the crucial and often neglected histories of Black, Brown, and Disability Rights activists who worked tirelessly to promote conversations and policy changes that are diverse and in line with the city’s population. […] By presenting these narratives, the NYCCRHP offers an invaluable resource for understanding the multifaceted nature of civil rights activism and expands beyond the commonly recognized figures and events to include a broader range of activists and movements. This diversity reflects the true breadth of the struggle for rights and equality in New York City.
Frances Goldin and the Moses Threat to Cooper Square
By Katie Heiserman
Less remembered than her West Village counterpart Jane Jacobs, Frances Goldin deserves attention and further study as a model of both forceful and joyful neighborhood organizing. An activist with a distinctive style, she brought the community together and sustained engagement over many years. In her 2014 oral history interview with Village Preservation, Goldin highlighted the egalitarian, community-centered approach at the core of her work with CSC: “Fifty-nine years ago, dues were a dollar a year, and today, dues are a dollar a year.”
Skyscraper Settlement: An Interview with Joyce Milambling
Joyce Milambling, interviewed by David Huyssen
[…] Christodora House has an amazing history, too much of which has become obscured by time and influenced by what the building has come to represent to many people. The building at 143 Avenue B deteriorated in the 1960s and 70s after the City abandoned it, making it a symbol of urban blight. Later, its 1986 conversion to condominiums associated it with conflicts over gentrification in the East Village. It took center stage in those conflicts when protesters from Tompkins Square Park broke into and vandalized the building in 1988. Although its architectural and historic value have since earned it spots on both the National Register and the State Register of Historic Places, its settlement-era history remains under-appreciated. The settlement house movement, despite its flaws, confronted social problems head-on and provided entire communities with both urgent social services and opportunities for growth and development. Christodora is an important part of that story.
The “Puerto Rican Problem” in Postwar New York City
Review By Kenneth M. Donovan
Perhaps most significantly, the book sheds light on how ideas about Puerto Ricans and Puerto Rico itself were constructed and incorporated into public policy and popular culture. According to Meléndez, those ideas have had staying power. As the island of Puerto Rico faces ongoing challenges in the present, from crippling debt to the privatization of its electric power, it seems that, to quote Melendez, “the ‘Puerto Rican Problem’ has not disappeared. It has simply changed shape.”
Streets in Play: The Playstreets Photography of Katrina Thomas
By Rebekah Burgess and Mariana Mogilevich
Photographs of recreation programs like this one were commissioned to offer visual proof that, after four summers of nation-wide protest and violence, starting in Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant in 1964, the city was compensating for a long-term lack of investment in low-income, racially segregated neighborhoods…. A few of Thomas’ images were utilized for official purposes, reproduced in pamphlets to attract or to thank program sponsors, but her exceptional eye transcended the municipal task. Her lens recorded the city's sponsored activities as well as the more candid action at the edge of the frame. These captivating, impromptu images provide a rare perspective on a distressed urban landscape, privileging a child’s-eye view of the possibilities for play and delight.
Kazan’s efforts, combined with the power of the city’s labor movement and astute political alliance making, led to the building of 40,000 homes for working class New Yorkers. At a time when The Housing Question has rarely been more pressing than since Frederick Engels first raised it in 1872, recognising Kazan’s legacy is important. He successfully developed a model that worked: an alternative to the brutality of the housing market that, despite many challenges, has endured.
Shirley Chisholm: Champion of Black Feminist Power Politics
Review by Michael Woodsworth
Chisholm entered Congress as a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, a staunch defender of the Great Society, an advocate of expanded welfare benefits, and an unapologetic feminist. Despite her reputation as a “fiery idealist,” Curwood argues, she was also “ruthlessly pragmatic.” Chisholm was a coalition builder: she helped to found the Congressional Black Caucus as well as the National Women’s Political Caucus…. The 1972 presidential primary run remains Chisholm’s signature moment.… Chisholm may have been a transformational figure, but, as Curwood shows, she was also a product of her times. Her rise, accomplishments, and setbacks match, almost too perfectly, the arc of 20th-century American liberalism.
Placemaker and Displacer: How Transit Shaped New York
By Polly Desjarlais
Before 1950, a vibrant multi-ethnic, residential neighborhood known as Little Syria existed at the very bottom of Manhattan. A concentration of immigrants from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Palestine (countries collectively known then as Greater Syria) settled on Lower Washington Street beginning in the 1880s… As in the case of Chinatown, the transit connections between Little Syria and Brooklyn became instrumental in the community’s transplantation and survival… nearly the whole neighborhood was razed in the 1940s to make way for the construction of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel (Hugh L. Carey Tunnel). . . In the case of Little Syria, the city’s transportation demands both displaced people and provided a means of resettlement in other parts of the city.
Right now, New York City is attempting to recover from the pandemic, more populous than ever before, and facing exorbitant housing costs. It seems… both booming and in crisis at the same time,… What are some ways the history featured in We Won’t Move! should inform our understanding of housing in New York in the present?
The tenant protections and affordable housing programs which we have today are primarily the result of grassroots organizing and advocacy. While the power of real estate capital can seem overwhelming, We Won’t Move aims to demonstrate the political power of tenants, and to offer an understanding of NYC’s rich history of tenant organizing as an inspiration and strategic tool.
