The Tragedy of Urban Renewal: The destruction and survival of a New York City neighborhood
Вставка
- Опубліковано 27 вер 2011
- In 1949, President Harry Truman signed the Housing Act, which gave federal, state, and local governments unprecedented power to shape residential life. One of the Housing Act's main initiatives - "urban renewal" - destroyed about 2,000 communities in the 1950s and '60s and forced more than 300,000 families from their homes. Overall, about half of urban renewal's victims were black, a reality that led to James Baldwin's famous quip that "urban renewal means Negro removal."
New York City's Manhattantown (1951) was one of the first projects authorized under urban renewal and it set the model not only for hundreds of urban renewal projects but for the next 60 years of eminent domain abuse at places such as Poletown, New London, and Atlantic Yards. The Manhattantown project destroyed six blocks on New York City's Upper West Side, including an African-American community that dated to the turn of the century. The city sold the land for a token sum to a group of well-connected Democratic pols to build a middle-class housing development. Then came the often repeated bulldoze-and-abandon phenomenon: With little financial skin in the game, the developers let the demolished land sit vacant for years.
The community destroyed at Manhattantown was a model for the tight-knit, interconnected neighborhoods later celebrated by Jane Jacobs and other critics of top-down redevelopment. In the early 20th century, Manhattantown was briefly the center of New York's black music scene. A startling roster of musicians, writers, and artists resided there: the composer Will Marion Cook, vaudeville star Bert Williams, opera singer Abbie Mitchell, James Weldon Johnson and his brother Rosemond, muralist Charles Alston, writer and historian Arturo Schomburg, Billie Holiday (whose mother also owned a restaurant on 99th Street), Butterfly McQueen of "Gone with the Wind" fame, and the actor Robert Earl Jones.
Designating West 99th and 98th Streets a "slum" was bitterly ironic. The community was founded when the great black real estate entrepreneur Philip Payton Jr. broke the color line on 99th Street in 1905. Payton, also credited with first bringing African Americans to Harlem, wanted to make it possible for a black man to rent an apartment, in his words, "wherever his means will permit him to live."
A couple years after Payton moved his first tenants into West 99th and 98th Streets, the black orator Roscoe Conkling Simmon marveled that African Americans for the first time were living in "the most beautiful and cultured neighborhood in New York City...because back of them stands organized and sympathetic capital."
Fifty years later, the federal bulldozer tore that neighborhood apart.
Written, produced, shot, and edited by Jim Epstein. Narrated by Nick Gillespie.
Approximately 6.30 minutes.
Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions, and subscribe to Reason.tv's UA-cam Channel to receive notifications when new material goes live.
I just did a trip in North America for four weeks, and it's sad how much of their historic city centres have been destroyed and replaced with freeways and big blocks of concrete unfit for humans.
Urban renewal was a costly disastrous failure that caused more problems than it solved.
Purposefully disastrous
Agreed, but the positive side of it, is that it gets rid of all the shitty slums that make the place look like a shit hole.
@@bmw803 empty wasteland is a shithole, not working class vibrant neighbourhoods
It's going on Cardiff at the moment. The city centre and bay area has a been a construction site since the early 90's. Public buildings thrown up in the 90's are now going to be torn down to make way for even larger ones. Those buildings won't be fully occupied or used. They want taller and taller buildings built closer together because they want to create another Manhattan. Creating the slums of the future as the old slums were tenements built too close together so they were demolished to create more spacious housing estates.
An ugly new library was built and opened in 2009. To create room for it the road behind it was moved to cut across the front garden of a hotel. Then it was built large and taller than it needed to have been. There's so much wasted space in the building. Half of the ground floor is let out to restaurants when it could have contained the children's section. There is wasted space on all floors with huge gaps so you can see right down to the ground floor by one window and right down to the first floor in the middle of it. There are escalators taking up a lot of space when there are already two lifts and a staircase. It's a monstrosity. I don't feel safe in that building so now I go in and out not spend hours in it reading books as I did in the library that was replaced by this.
The bookshelves are just three to four feet high when they can easily be five to six feet high so there is not enough room for all the books. That means some have to be stored in a warehouse or dumped. Most of the books I borrowed at one time aren't there anymore because of the lack of space for the books. People also steal books from the library as there are no barriers with staff checking that you aren't stealing them like there was with the previous library. There used to an electronic barrier that buzzed if you accidentally took out a book that you hadn't borrowed on your card but that was taken away as they want people to steal books. It would even buzz when I had a book on me that I had taken out on my card as the machine didn't register me borrowing it properly when I swiped the book and my card. Or I would return books only to find they were still out on my library card because the machine didn't pick that up.
My grandparents owned a house in Williamsburg on Wythe Avenue in Brooklyn. They were forced to leave because the neighborhood was deemed a 'slum' even though it was far from it.
It was "Fake News."
When?
@@jesussaves2856 1969
I subscribe to Reason because it is the best publication of its kind in the world. My hometown, Norfolk, Virginia, had almost its entire history stripped away during the 50's-70's because of "Urban Renewal" also known as "Negro Removal". The homes and buildings, many of the them of brick and stone were laid waste so that the "city fathers" with the aid of the Federal Government could realize their vision of what Norfolk should look like. Cities are not made in the laboratories. They evolve. Joe
Joe Postove Breathtakingly the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority which predates the Truman money-Norfolk and Galveston were the first two cities to receive it-to this day claims this pernicious, destructive vice as virtue. Norfolk destroyed its very soul. Eighteenth century townhouses, gone. Gilded Age hotels, gone. Lavishly marbled Union Station, gone. Columned 19th-century Christ Church, gone. Ancient Commercial Place market, gone. Church Street Jewish and Black retail and entertainment district, gone. The pictures of the removed ramshackle boarding houses show more vitality and happiness than all the sterile open fields and lifeless wide downtown highways with which they were replaced. Norfolk is the only city in the northeast with no row houses to speak of because the wrecking ball took everything starting with the 317-acre Project No. 1 in the central part of town and then continuing with more destruction. Norfolk’s Atlantic City no longer exists.
The cronies in Denver are trying to blight historic Five Points for an Urban Renewal project. Five points is historic in that it was a haven for civil rights activists and jazz bands many years ago. It has been improved so much in recent years, yet some developer has set his sight on the land and Denver officials are promising that the plan to blight and steal the land will go through.
How do we band together to stop this practice? Haven't we all heard and seen enough?
Robert Mose s never drove a car but he knew what was best for everyone else The Cross -Bronx expressway was one of his more infamous disasters It split the borough in half The rest is history
Moses had it that some structures were a certain height, to keep "undesirables" out.
Yeah, he was driven everywhere! A chauffeur-driven Parks Commissioner.
There was also Abercrombie in London after the Second World War who levelled much of the inner city in London and then planned to do the same in the suburbs before he was stopped. He wanted modern housing especially tower blocks and small modern terraced housing all over London.
He singlehandedly created the South Bronx of infamy back in the 1970s and 80s. The worst area was right by the junction of two freeways, the Bruckner and Sheridan IIRC.
NYC could've been an American "Paris". Countless beautiful grand structures were torn down to make room for a rapidly expanding city. Thankfully today we have The Landmarks Preservation Commision which provides permanent protected status to historic structures. For example, virtually all of Greewich Village is protected from major new developments. However, when it comes to urban renewal it's a different matter. Urban renewal destroyed even more white urban neighborhoods. The huge lower east side area of Manhattan was primarily white and poor. It was wiped out to build public housing projects. I actually grew up in that area iin the midst of all that development. It was sad to see so much of the city's early history simply torn down. Today many of those buildings would've been renovated. However, at that time the slums really were horrible places to live. Look up the photos of nyc tenements from back then. The new projects were far more humane. So some things were lost and some things were gained. It's a lesson in compromise.
2:55 That commercial is actually PROUD that shelter for human beings was torn down and replaced with trees and grass.
I was born on 45 west 99th street. It was not a slum. all of my family worked. My father met my mother there and I remember my family one at a time moving there to escape the Jim Crow laws of the south and for a better life. I recognize many of the people in this video!. If you look closely you will see that they are well-dressed. What a shame we had to move out. Many of these. people became policemen, city workers, and did well for themselves inspire of all of this.
Wow! My mother, my aunts and my cousins are in this documentary! I always wondered how in the hell my people managed to live in this part of the area and why did they moved. I lived at 13 West 100th Street and as of the present day the building is still up! My father was the manager for the West 100th Street garage. He was also the superintendent of that building! I remember meeting many celebraties coming to get their car in that garage. Now I know why. They were visting or living on West 99th Street! I didn't know we had quite a few celebraties living around the corner! I only knew that Billie had her car parked in the garage. My mother and Billie were friends! I had fun going across the street to Central Park to sleigh ride or go on the swings. In 1955 my family relocated to St. Albans, Queens. Billie Holiday told her about St. Albans. My cousins never told me they were forced to leave because their building were condemed! The Torains a huge family of 11 relocated to the Cherry St. projects. The Newmans, the Dorseys and my grandparents relocated to the Bronx.
Now some of the missing pieces are being filled in.
My mother onced lived at 65 w.99th st back in 1933. She knew Billie Holliday very well!
Here in Danville, KY, population 16,000, some of us are trying to preserve the history of Second Street, the black neighborhood and business district that fell to urban renewal in the 1960s. Many blacks here are still so angry they will not talk about it. Fortunately, many of us, black AND white, are trying to save the memories and the history, even though we can never get the past back...
Kym Lawrence I have a similar story my family ended up in St. Albans in 1957.
Hi Kym. I believe we are cousins. I am Jim Torains daughter
Heavy Gratitude for sharing.
I agree. Although, Robert Moses happened to get support from the Democratic Party at the time, this doesn't imply that Republicans were strongly opposed. In reality, this isn't an ideological issue as opposed to a community vs. development one. I recommend all who are interested on this topic to watch Jane Jacobs vs Robert Moses to get a sense of what the issue was really like. Robert Moses just happened to think that progress comes with the destruction of communities, something many are
It doesn't always improve an area and in the meantime causes noise and disruption as previous occupants have to be relocated while the building is going on. You hear the old chestnut "it will be great when it's finished" but it's not worth the noise and disruption especially when a decent building or green space was sacrifced to build the monstrosity that's too big for it's needs.
Best piece you ever did Nick. Is there a long version of this?
Evil.
Urban renewal ruined louisville ky. Was the largest and fastest growing city of the south. Stopped growing in the 60s at the start of our urban renewal. They faxed basically all of downtown. And replaced it with housing projects and parking lots. It looks empty compared to the 40s just empty lots every where
Cincinnati as well!
They did the same "urban renewal" in Boston.
They are taking the South Bronx now!
they did this at chavez ravine, as soon as the federal housing act was put in place, people were displaced... i guess dodger stadium was more important...
great video. I hope more people learn this history.
It is the idea that we live for the sake of the state and not for ourselves. In a free society, and the founding fathers made it quite clear in the takings clause of the 5th amendment, a man's home is his castle. And if the government has a compelling reason to take it, it should be only for public use, not to transfer one's private property to another private party. I am opposed to ANY eminent domain. But if the courts had interpreted the 5th amendment properly, our history might be intact. Joe
I'm reading "The Power Broker" and it says in preparation for the creation of the Cross-Bronx Expressway a six-story apartment building was MOVED with the occupants' possessions inside. I was looking to see if there might be a video of this event.
I know your comment was from a year ago, so you haven't finished the book yet, just wanted to see how u liked it.
I live in the development that replaced West 97 through 100. (the building pictured as the "Today" became condos in the late 80s). To add insult to injury, Moses allowed the developers who created the structure to give all four buildings Central Park West addresses. They're the only ones from 59th on up that do not directly face the park but have the designation. What was a jazz club on 97th and Columbus is now a Whole Foods.
The putrid stench of urban renewal is still with us. Look at the center of any decent sized town or city and you see it’s gutted out . What usually is left are a few aloof buildings and lots of open land to park metal boxes. I only have one question. If urban renewal is such a horrible failure,why do we keep doing it?
My Grandmther on my fathers side lived on 97th between Broadway and Amsterdamn..she had so.many bedrooms she rented some out to Boarders. She had "The Greek" and some other guy living in her apt. All.her furniture had plastic wrap slip.covers.
And it continues today. Public/private partnerships continue to pick winners and losers everyday. Land is power and they want it.
Please tell me the name of that extremely catchy piano tune at around 0:36
Robert Moses in charge of the Slum Clearance Committee????? It wasnt a slum at all. SMDH😠
Hey Epstein, how about some kudos for the editor and the music!!!! This was an excellent short doc, however, the REAL flavor and emotion comes from those you didn't credit...
In Boston, Mayor Collins and private developer Jerome Rappaport did the same thing to the West End, Scollay Square, and the New York Streets of the South End.
@CurtHowland - The ones who say, "it's a myth that Democrats want to help the poor." Or this shows "The Democratic Party's true soul." Of course this is political, but "politicizing" is a different breed of commentary.
This is really a great piece, nice work Jim Epstein!
well said
Wow really? I never expected them to take it this early.
3:59 Wow... compare the way those kids dressed then to the way kids dress today! No comparison!!
🙄😒
Henri C yeah. We are MUCH more COMFORTABLE today. Thanks for noticing.
What song is that
Is that Art Tatum at 0:34 to 0:18? Is that Lonnie Johnson and Eddie Lang at 1:30?
Government supporters always focus on their own intentions, and not the outcome of their intentions. These people have rights..... had rights.
Horrible. Heartbreaking.
Enough politicizing of this issue. It's hardly important which political party championed this - the history of segregation and racism is so quickly forgotten. Tragically, it's a part of American history, not just black history.
THAT is what is most important.
You mean which parties. Remember Dwight D Eisenhower and his interstate highway act?
How does anyone buy that the government wants to help at all?
They're still doing this today in major cities along the Eastern Seaboard, for basically the same reasons. Sad how history repeats itself, right down the party behind it!
Hey can someone get in touch with me about their Reunion?
And it never ends.
(cont.) opposed to regardless of party affiliation.
@eirefrance That's quite a conclusion you've jumped to. The videos I'm thinking of are by professional economists (i.e. people who have studied this sort of thing for their entire lives), but by now the principles are widely enough understood that an amateur could make a reasonably good video.
@monajonz "Enough politicizing of this issue"
Excuse me, but what is this issue OTHER than political?
Racial
Politicians know what is best. We should just let them decide everything and ask no questions.
Reason kicks so much ass.
Well...I'm not personally familiar with w. 99th St. but I think this video is intended to make a more general comment about "slum clearance". I can tell you this with personal experience about the Lower east Side and what is now known as alphabet city, there were in fact slums and "the projects" were in fact far better housing and facilities for the poor and working classes. By the 1960's things began to go wrong with rising crime rates but I don't think this had anything to do with the projects themselves but with a social, racial, educational, demographic and economic reckoning generations in the making that were unmasked.
@Beljora Isn't that the plan again today? Just with a different name, green?
@eirefrance You say that as if getting information from a book automatically makes it more reliable than hearing it in a lecture.
For the record, I am not an anarcho-capitalist (though I have sympathies in that direction). I'm a minarchist.
@Moragauth My direction? I am not qualified for such a position.
This is pretty sad and it was at a time before the fair housing act where housing opportunities were very limited for blacks. Blacks could be discriminated against for color alone. Also, redlining limited insurance and banking opportunities to assist black communities to rebuild and maintain houses after disaster and normal deterioration as their white counterparts. There are many humanitarian disasters the US government has imposed on blacks in the past 80 years blacks should be getting reparations for even before slavery. We need to get this and rebuild out community.
That sucks
@newyorkairsoft Elizabeth, is that you?
Where's there's muck there's brass, or in other words; where the wrecking ball is, there's money for politicians.
Say it wit me...1-2-3 gentrification
Just because government has been stupid does not mean it must be. This story was repeated all over the US: overlooking the cultural value of neighborhoods in favor of powerful, hooked up capitalists. If regular people, motivated by values deeper than naked profiteering, abandon the goal of democratic government that considers other values (liberty and freedom among them, but also the cultural values of communities) we'll continue to be lost. What's the alternative?
@Moragauth And your confusing all government with one form of government: tyranny. The two are not the same.
Moses was also responsible for the Dodgers & Giants moving west.
It doesn't matter who gets elected or what an 'initiative' is called, the primary role of politics is to make every squeeze of the poor, by the rich, sound like a good thing.
@TigerghostPictures They just had one on illegal drugs and war on drugs not working, and then relating it weed use. They do some.
0:41
@ArtistsOfNoteVideos well, i was replying to someone saying that they never do anything against republicans, and war on drugs, but about a week ago they had a video on why the war on drugs doesn't work. So I don't see my comment is off.
@shamgar001 And I can name an economist off the top of my head who believes institutional order is the most important element in a market: Douglass North. And that's from reading his book, not watching his video.
@jaybreak Empty slogans make one look stupid. Reflective thinking makes one not look stupid.
@jaybreak The only thing I know about you is that you feel that empty slogans that tell 5% of the story are worth sharing with the world at large.
This story also applied to many other large cities including London during those ghastly post war social reshuffling years
@shamgar001 Most UA-cam videos on Libertarian ideals are not lectures.
@justinrixx government IS a monopoly.
@TigerghostPictures Look up any video on spontaneous order. The idea that humans can't function without planing is too cynical, and thinking that anyone is capable of planning for everybody is fatal conceit.
@Moragauth Oh, please. Yawning at someone on the internet doesn't make you "win" For fuck's sake, what do you think going strong means?
Now look, you built a home, or a neighborhood, and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying socialist contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along. So we the government, paid by the tax payers, need to comply to this socialist contract, and HELP YOU, help others. You dig?
@shamgar001 I fail to see why libertarians and conservatives adopt a policy of chaos. We need some type of order or direction, one that the free market cannot provide. We did not come to where we are today by chaos. We are not the backwater nation we were in the early-1800s. We were farmers then... cities have to have different rules. There is just too many people in one place to treat like farmers. But you just don't get it. This is just an urban vs. rural issue.
--- this are is now called BLOOMINGDALE as Spanish Harlem is now Hamilton Heights, made popular because of the play} arent many persons of color here anymore. 3/21/18
Not sure I have ever seen a video more one sided then this one.
Job of rebuilding to Democratic friends. Some things dont change
NOW IT'S REPUBLICANS YOU HAVE TO WATCH OUT FOR AS THE DEMS FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS.
They all do these, Republicans and Democrats, politicians, ppl. It natural to want to help your friends and family. Its also the nature of the best, help me and I'll help you. It's only as problem when ......
The first federally planned community ever is still going strong. Greenbelt, MD. If you pretend that govt involvement is ALWAYS a problem, then you're not using your Reason at all. You're just being an ideologue and blind follower. Hating something all the time is just being contrary, its not being intelligent or reflective. In short, its being a part of the problem.
Wow...Urban renewal and good intentions enforced by top-down power destroyed thousands of cities throughout the country, but Greenbelt proves that those who criticize one of the worst human tragedies in human history are ideologues and blind followers. America has been a compassion dictatorship since the New Deal and we inhabit the wreckage. JUST LOOK AT EVERY CITY. COMPARE THEM TO EUROPE.
Greenbelt is a small town. Reason is speaking of government intervention on a massive scale.
And we are suppose to be non violent and peaceful ...... Gentrification is the same fucking thing......I done had enough of this shit!!!!!
@TigerghostPictures Surely you must be a troll.
@shamgar001 The principles of anarcho-capitalism might be understood, but that doesn't mean they're generally accepted. Why, here is a video by a sociologist and legal theorist that disagrees:
watch?v=1bqMY82xzWo&feature=channel_video_title
Gob-smacked twice in one night!
Albeit on a smaller scale, this type of land grabbing is happening now in my city:
watch?v=8TJkmSg3AoA&feature=g-all-u
@shamgar001 I love that you quote a UA-cam video as your source. Very libertarian of you. After all, trusting someone who has studied human social organization for their entire life is too much like listening to authority. Better to trust the amateur who made a UA-cam video.
AND THEY STILL VOTE DEMOCRAT
Don't weep too hard. I knew this area very well, and it was very much a roach-filled slum. And it wasn't all black. Many Irish and Italian immigrants resided there.
ah finally, a story showing the true democratic party's "soul", pretend to be an ally to working class and the poor, but in reality, they simply want to be in control of their so called constituents, this story makes me sick, its the worst kind of "social justice", eminent domain should be outlawed and these fine folks should have their neighborhood back
LOOK HOW TRUMP FUCKED OVER NEW YORKERS IN THE '80'S. DON'T BLAME THE DEMS. BLAME GREED.
But who promotes suburban sprawl now? Republicans or Democrats? Or a mix of both?
Republicans.
When is ReasonTV going to feature something negative about the Republicans? All this democratic-bashing is getting kind of dull. Republicans have their issues too - such as being the "ANTI"-party... anti gay marriage, anti-pot, anti-this, anti-that.
well back in the day before the party switch the democrats were the more socially backward party
"Urban Renewal" code word for the System of White Supremacy/Racism!
"If you do not understand White Supremacy (Racism)-what it is and how it works-everything else you know will only confuse you."
Neely Fuller, Jr.- The United Independent Compensatory Code/System Concept (1984)
you say democrats like theres a difference between republicans and democrats....the sooner people realize the demos and repubs are one in the same and america stops voting for the same two parties all the time you might have some real change in the country.
@shamgar001 I'm sure you are. And I'm a realist who weighs options and goes with the best option, not the most utopian.
boo hoo
Looked like a slum to me!
And these people still vote Democrat
@newyorkairsoft Elizabeth, is that you?