The Battle for Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs by Roberta Brandes Gratz

Author:Roberta Brandes Gratz
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: United States - 20th Century (1945 to 2000), Sociology, Social Science, Regional History, Social & cultural history, DE, Political, Urbanization, United States - 20th Century, Public Policy - City Planning & Urban Dev., Political Science, History: American, Urban, NJ, NY, History - U.S., Urban renewal, Social Scientists & Psychologists, State & Local, United States, PA), City planning, Public Policy, History, City Planning & Urban Development, MD, History of the Americas, U.S. History - 20th Century (General), 20th century, General, New York, United States - State & Local - Middle Atlantic, Biography & Autobiography, Middle Atlantic (DC, New York (State)
ISBN: 9781568584386
Publisher: Nation Books
Published: 2010-05-01T07:00:00+00:00

URBAN RENEWAL INTERFERES

Manufacturers, like any business, experience many ups and downs but survive if they can change with market demand. But undisturbed was not to be for Gratz Industries. The story of Gratz Industries should not be viewed as unique. Similar tales are found in all cities.

In the early 1960s, the entire Thirty-second Street block—a mixture of small apartment houses, industrial lofts, and six-story tenements—was condemned for urban renewal to make way for a post office. Because emptying some of the buildings on the site, especially one apartment house around the corner, was a politically hot topic, Senator James Buckley opposed the project. That killed it but not before most of the properties had been condemned as blighted, businesses and residents displaced, and then properties demolished.

The block had exhibited traditional urban vitality, regardless of its worn look. No vacancies existed. In each building, a new tenant appeared when one moved out. Pedestrians filled the street. Shopping and other uses drew them nearby. But, by law, to be an official “Urban Renewal” site, the block had to be declared “blighted.” Blighted, in this case, as with so many others, simply means the property is wanted for a different purpose from the one for which it is currently used:

• That the Thirty-second Street buildings were filled with economically viable uses was irrelevant.

• That the buildings were merely neglected by owners waiting for a lucrative government buyout was irrelevant.

• That the buildings could have been economically renovated and upgraded, like thousands of similar surviving properties around the city have since, was irrelevant.

The only relevant fact was, as usual, simple: a new development agenda was set, and manufacturing was not on it. This was just like what was illustrated in the chapters about Greenwich Village and SoHo. Manufacturers and manufacturing districts have experienced this over and over and not just in New York. This is not a natural process; it is about real estate.

The federal government continued to own the cleared Thirty-second Street site after the post office project died. Empty land is a monumental lost opportunity in cities everywhere. In this case, it was even more: an unnecessary loss of economic diversity. Years later the land was sold to a private developer. The federal Urban Renewal program was notorious for condemning privately owned property for a public purpose with the help of eminent domain, then eventually selling it to another private property owner. This still happens today and is a source of great injustice. The abuse of eminent domain is a scandal of national proportions.

Until a U.S. Supreme Court decision (Kelo v. New London) in 2005, the purpose of eminent domain was understood to have been primarily for taking private property for a public purpose such as school construction, roads, public utilities, or other clearly public uses. Over time, however, this fundamental idea had been corrupted to permit the taking of private property from one owner to give to another private owner, this time a real estate developer or commercial user.

All over the

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