Here’s a supreme article about the declining fortunes of one of the families of real estate barons here in New York City.
The TISHMAN-SPEYER corporation purchased the Stuyvesant Town – Peter Cooper Village from Metropolitan Life back in 2006. When the value of real estate tumbled because of the bubble being broken, their fortune took a direct punch in the mouth. It’s just deserts for them too. New York City is controlled by a tiny group of families that own the majority of the land we use.
One of the first “so called” improvements the TISHMAN-SPEYER developers started to do after their purchase was to plant trees all over the open lawn spaces. The longtime tenants and residents hated this change because it removed the sight lines from the interior courtyard that had existed previously. Didn’t we just have a discussion regarding the benefits of design when considering high rise developments?
The open lawn area at Stuy Town is perfect for picnics during the summer and other outdoor activities all year around. The reason that Stuy Town works as a high rise development modeled after Le CORBUSIER’s master architectural plans is because of the core values of the residents. Even during the KOCH Administration, New York City’s lowest period for economics and morality, the Stuyvesant Town – Peter Cooper Village remained a haven for its residents.
It wasn’t because Black folks weren’t allowed in either. It remained safe because poor people weren’t allowed in. Poor people are devalued and disenfranchised and this causes them to devalue the things they come into contact with. Poor people are disproportionately accosted by the police. This makes poor people angry and volatile. Poor people were barred from entering this community because of all the ways that they are marginalized and mistreated and the residents of Stuy Town didn’t want to live that way either.
Peep the aerial photo of Stuy Town. The buildings layout forms an almost castle like barricade from the rest of the city. The ills of the East Village didn’t penetrate Stuy Town.
It remains to be seen if the TISHMAN SPEYER family will be able to continue to manage this crucial property in Manhattan. The developers have been converting many of the buildings into dormitories because the kids that go to New York University generally have parents that can foot the bill for their children’s living expenses. You all know how kids treat dormitory rooms right? These buildings could look like shit within the decade. The economic downturn could force the developers to admit tenants into the housing complex that have serious economic challenges. Like Section 8 users. That is when Stuyvesant Town becomes Co-Op City.
Co-Op City is the world’s largest cooperative residential housing development. Co-Op City is 4x the size of Stuyvesant Town – Peter Cooper Village(see voided area in image below). Co-Op City fell the fuck off when they were forced to accept poor tenants into the development. The poor tenants mixed with those who had middle-class aspirations and they made the two groups unidentifiable. Now everyone that lives in Co-Op City is considered working class (read: poor). The economy is about to make all of working class. When that happens there won’t be any residential development that will be safe.
I am amazed by the size of these complexes and I remember the rent strike back in the mid-70’s. You are a hunned percent correct….dorms=demise=section 8.
Good stuff here DP. Something similar to this is trying to pop off in Watts now. Except they’re thinking about moving middle class families into an area that’s notorious for being one of the worst projects in Los Angeles. I’m wondering if they’re all gonna end up poor, or if the Sec 8 fams already there will be pushed out and neglected even more.
And props to this: “Poor people are devalued and disenfranchised and this causes them to devalue the things they come into contact with.”
hard times call for hard rhymes.
DP. I love when you flex your architectural and city planning acumen in these drops. I know you love Ye Tudda [||] but I find these pieces very educational when you look at the intention of such housing for the true middle class and how this is being systematically destroyed in the big city of dreams. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions and in your reveal of NYC housing developments (from PJ’s to Stuy-Town) it seems these well intended domains are headed to hell if nothing is done… Could you ever speak on Mitchell-Lama housing and co-ops such as Rochdale and others?
Le Corbusier is such a fucking dick. But maybe HUD – and inner city america, as a result – was the real loser for listening to a Swiss architect’s a priori argument for how to house the poor.
think about all the beautiful city blocks that we lost in the name of slum clearance! shitty blocks can be turned around, public housing high rises can not.
ten years ago, in SF: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRpTcffxo2c
here new crooked i, the boss is releasin track by track B.O.S.S [Beginning Of Something Serious]
Crooked I – I´m Still A MC!!!!!
http://www.zshare.net/audio/57195899ba5ee93c/
DP– I hadn’t seen the older post about grandma in the Bronx, thanks for the throwback and insight. You ever come across this Co-Op City article before?
http://www.nypress.com/article-7439-the-great-migration.html
The conclusion is a bit different but ya’ll make some similarly astute observations.
There’s plenty of ‘hood in Brooklyn and Queens but folks who want to understand the real workings of NYC (America) and the scale of systemic neglect and abuse– and, thankfully, perseverance too– need to hit the Bronx hard, and motherfuck a public and politics that, coincidentally, subsidizes the Yankees at every possible opportunity.
Mr.PW and WWIB,
I can’t go into depth in this comment since I am still drunk from earlier this evening. I hope St. Pat’s is the patron of puke because that is who I am praying to now. Oh, that’s right, I think that is St. Earl.
People want to blame architects and architecture for the reason that people living in those building don’t get along is fucking blasphemous. Who will these same critics blame when what is left of humankind is stuffed aboard a starcruiser in the vastness of space?
Co-Op City as an example was the great city. NYC, it’s parent, was not. It is impossible for me to convey to you what it means to be disenfranchised and how that makes your perspective fucked the fuck up. Being poor and limited makes a hi-rise building a prison bloc and not a budding community.
Then the hi-rise becomes an area of containment and the surrounding landscape becomes barren. Co-Op City had five residential sections. 1-4 were blocked together and 5 was separated by the Hutchinson River Parkway and a fucking drawbridge. Guess which section the poor were granted their apartments?
Architecture doesn’t create the society. We do. We tacitly endorse class divisions because it makes us feel like we have achieved something by at least not being them niggas over there. Stop blaming architects or urban planners for the ills of the center city. Some of that blood is on our hands too. Most of it though is caused by the uber-rich owner class a/k/a the bloodsuckers of the poor.
Heard about the Stuy Town debacle this am on WWRL.
This was a very insightful and informative post.
L