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August 27, 2007
Forty Years of Growth, Except Where It Was Expected
The NY Times
By David Gonzalez
Reality challenged all of the assumptions of what was supposed to happen when NY City used eminent domain to clear away whole blocks for urban renewal. Even now, none of the rules seem to apply — one city planner calls for "urban planning therapy."
Sometime in the 1950s, Amelia Delgado planted a sapling outside her Lower East Side tenement at 145 Clinton Street, where she and her husband, Ramon, were raising five children. The children are grown, have done well and now have children of their own. Her husband died 14 years ago.
Amelia Delgado and her family had to move from an urban renewal site. She said that “everything was knocked down.”
Her tree still stands, tall as a building, even if the building has long been gone.
It was torn down, along with dozens of other rickety tenements, in 1967, after the city gave the Delgados and nearly 2,000 of their neighbors in a 14-block area 90 days to pack up and be relocated in the name of urban renewal.
...
Attempts over the years to do anything with those lots have failed. On one side are housing advocates who want to preserve housing for residents of modest means as the area goes upscale with nightspots, high-rises and renovated tenements. Their efforts have been rebuffed by residents of the nearby co-op complexes — built by labor unions for their members decades ago, but in more recent years home to young professionals paying higher prices — who want to protect their investment with development that is mostly, though not exclusively, market rate.
While politicians are falling over themselves to support Bruce Ratner's extreme-density luxury high-rise plan, one of NY's top dogs is staying conspicuously silent, while his own staffer spilts hairs:
Recent attempts by the housing coalition to gain support have been met with silence from Speaker Silver’s office. Well, not total silence. Ms. Cohen said she was told by a senior aide in the speaker’s office that he would not meet with them.
Dan Weiller, a spokesman for the speaker, said Mr. Silver has met with many local groups over the years. But he added that the city — not Mr. Silver — was responsible for anything that happened on the urban renewal site.
NoLandGrab: After reading this article and having spent years examining "the man behind the curtain," Bruce Ratner, one has to appreciate the snow job he's done on Brooklyn and how well he negotiates community and political minefields.
Last month, City Councilman Bill de Blasio held court with local bloggers and justified his support for Atlantic Yards by explaining, "there are not a lot of places where we can envision this number of units." Well, here's a site where guys like de Blasio should be falling over themselves to build more affordable housing — except that one of the State's top Democrats won't have it.
Also, it is totally disingenuous for Silver's staffer to pass the blame to the City, when Silver is one of the most brilliant backroom negotiators in all of NY. NoLandGrab readers will recall how the Speaker forced the City's hand to build a public school in the other Ratner/Gehry project, on Beekman St. in his district.
Posted by lumi at August 27, 2007 8:13 PM