Numbers refer to pages in original book.
Index of Names
Abrams, Charles, 153, 155, 162
Adamec, Connie, 226
Aviles, Grace, 140
Badillo, Herman, 189
Bambrick, James, 119
Barbaro, Frank, 216, 258
Barker, Elizabeth, 156, 159
Beame, Mayor Abraham, 31, 223
Benedict, Jane, 36, 167-168, 172, 182 232, 258
Berrigan, Daniel, 225
Berrigan, Phillip, 225
Black, Loring, Jr., 69
Black, Sophie, 120
Bogues, Leon, 36
Bohm, Ernest, 68
Borden, David, 184
Breitman, Anne, 13
Broun, Heywood, 119
Brower, Bonny, 36
Brown, Earl, 150
Burdick, Selma, 164
Burdick, Thelma, 167
Cacchione, Peter, 129, 139
Cahan, Abe, 41
Callahan, Joseph, 69
Carey, Governor Hugh, 255
Caro, Robert A., 153
Carpenter, H. Daniel, 166
Carter, President Jimmy, 31, 235
Claessens, August, 58
Cloward, Richard A., 5
Cohen, Stanley, 69-70
Craig, Agnes, 79, 81, 86
Cunningham, Patrick, 189
Cuomo, Governor Mario, 260
D'Amato, Alphonse, 266
Davies, J. Clarence, 164
Davies, John R., 82
Davis, Benjamin H., 153
Davis, Benjamin, Jr., 129
Dearie, John, 217
DeBrul, Paul, 184
Dewey, Thomas E., 142, 151, 152
Donnelly, George, 67
Dryfoos, Robert, 36
Eddy, Reverend Norman, 177, 184
Eddy, William, 28
Ehrmann, Michael, 218
Ely, Harry Allen, 66, 78, 82
Engel, Eliot, 36
Epstein, Sophie, 60-61
Evans, Lester, 212
Farmer, James, 175, 182
Felt, James, 139, 162, 163, 164
Fino, Paul, 216
Ford, Father George C., 157, 159
Fox, Father Robert, 221-222
Gabel, Hortense, 170
Gisnet, Morris, 56
Gitlin, Leo. 69, 72
Gleidman, Anthony, 244
Goldin, Frances, 164, 166, 167, 212
Goldsmith. Charles, 62
Goodman, Roy M., 192
Gottfried, Richard, 213
Gray, Jesse, 23, 24, 160, 174, 175-176, 180, 182, 186, 215, 216
Grenthal, Abe, 82
Haas, Albert, 147
Hamilton, James, 47
Hannah, Edward, 68
Harriman, W. Averell, 153
Harris, Helen, 145, 164
Harris, Patricia Roberts, 31
Hawley, Peter, 232
Helmsley, Harry, 226
Herman, William, 56
Hilly, Arthur, 71, 72
Hirsch, Nathan, 60, 62, 65
Howe, Irving, 40, 105
Hylan, Mayor John, 53, 58, 60, 65, 68
Jacobs, Jane, 163
Jesse, George, 65
Kahn, Alexander, 56
Kessler, Milton, 26, 27
Klapp, William, 110
Klein, Joseph, 56
Knorr, Martin, 253
Koch, Mayor Edward, 241, 249, 258
Kolodny, Robert, 221
LaGuardia, Mayor Fiorello, 69-70, 113, 125, 128, 137
Lane, Mark, 169
Law, Langley, 257
Leichter, Franz, 36
Levenson, Richard, 212
Lewis, Edward, 162
Lindsay, Mayor John, 192
Lockwood, Charles, 60, 72
Lowe, Jeanne M., 164
Lynd, Staughton ]64, 167, 168
McGoldrick, John, 110
McGoldrick, Joseph B., 151, 152
McKee, Michael, 26, 217, 218, 252-253, 254
McNeely, Father Joe, 28
McNeil, Margaret, 249
Malakiel, Leon, 55
Malkiel, Theresa, 54
Mann, Frank, 53
Marcantonio, Congressman Vito, 119, 129, 144-145, 150, 167
Montes, Luisa, 179
Moody, Miriam, 164
Moon, Henry Lee, 150
Moore, Marcia, 120
Moore, Richard, 97
Morales, Louis, 28
Moritz, Doug, 238
Moses, Robert, 7, 137, 152, 153-155, 156, 158-159, 162-164, 194
Murphy, Edward, 69
Musicus, Milton, 28
Nathan, Jason, R., 192, 210
Nazario, Robert, 28
Norden, Heinz, 119-120, 123, 125
O'Dwyer, Mayor William, 149, 152
Ohrenstein, Manfred, 252
O'Neal, James, 66
Orr, Samuel, 56
Orton, Lawrence W., 156, 157
Owens, Major R., 175, 181
Palmer, A. Mitchell, 64
Perkins, Lamar, 99
Phillips, Donnellan, 115, 139-140
Piven, Frances F., 5, 175
Post, Langdon, 94-95, 113, 125
Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr., 129, 147, 162
Present, Harry, 162, 169
Pressman, Lee, 143-144
Putterman, Harriet, 225
Quill, Michael, 129
Rand, Esther, 164, 167
Ravitch, Richard, 189
Reagan, President Ronald, 233, 243, 265
Rhenstein, Alfred, 125
Rich, Harry, 72
Rivers, Francis, 99
Robbins, Ira S., 162
Robitzek, Harry, 69
Rockefeller, David, 156, 157
Rockefeller, Governor Nelson, 213, 218
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 20, 163
Ross, Paul L., 154
Rowen, Bill, 35
Rueda, Ramon, 32, 238
Runes, Richard, 35
St. Georges, Philip, 28, 240
Saunders, Wilma, 120
Scanlon, Michael, 54-55
Schaffer, Edward, 164
Schur, Robert, 30, 221, 223, 235, 255
Schwerner, Michael, 179
Smith, Governor Alfred E., 60, 74, 80
Solomon, Charles, 58, 62
Starr, Roger, 192, 223
Stein, Clarence, 74, 80-81
Sternlieb, George, 193, 211
Stevenson, Bess, 232
Sweet, Thaddeus, 66
Thabit, Walter, 25,167
Truman, President Harry S., 142
Untermyer, Samuel, 80
Velez, Ted, 177, 186, 188
Wagner, Robert F., Jr., 152-153, 163-164, 169-170, 175
Wald, Lillian D., 46
Weinberg, Robert C., 155
Weiss, Ted, 259
White, Walter, 150
Whitman, Governor Charles, 58
Wilkins, Roy, 150
Williams, Vernal, 115-116, 139
Wilson, Malcolm, 218
Wilson, President Woodrow, 68
Wood, Jane, 164, 166
Wood, Robert, 164
Wylie, Chalmers, 265
Zeumer, Lucille, 77
Subject Index
Abandoned units and buildings, 41; community sovereignty over, 190; low-income tenants' control of, 210, 220-221; 1960s and early 1970s, 209; program to deal with, 234; rehabilitation by tenants, 221-222
Abandonment, 192; in Bronx, 31; coping with, 220-224; demonstration after, 113, 162-163, 164, 171; increase in (late 1960s), 211; rent control and, 211; tenant takeover of buildings after, 37
Academy Tenants Association, 77
Activism, rebirth of, 114-118
Adopt-a-Building, 28
American Labor Party (ALP), 4, 129, 146, 156; considerations for clubs of, 134; during liberal rent control period, 153; rent clinics of, 143. See also Radicals
American Property Rights Association, 29
Americans for Democratic Action, 146
ANHD, See Association of Neighborhood Housing Developers
Anti-semitism, 71
Apartments: abandonment of, 31, 37, 113; construction rate of (1917-1930), 83; demolitiion of, 113, 120, 162; removed from low-rent market, 121; transfer to nonresidential use, 121
Arbitration and mediation, 51, 61, 183, 229; Communist rejection of, 106; lack of authority to enforce, 62; municipal courts and, 75. See also Negotiation(s)
Association of Neighborhood Housing Developers (ANHD), 230-231, 234-236
Attorneys. See Lawyers
Bank loans, 246-247
Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (BSRC), 185
Black churches as landlords, 97-98
Black collective protests, 47, 98-99
Black landowners, 185
Black landlords, 97, 98
Blacks, 156; attempted removal of, 157; decline in tenant protests by, 147; displacement of, 171; landlords' fear of renting to, 193; relocation and, 160; segregation of, 97-98; special housing problems of, 99; sweat equity and, 222
Black tenant organizations, 19. See also Harlem Tenants League
Block associations. See Tenant organizations
Bowery, 166
Bronx, 31; Battle of the, 102-112; buyer's strike to save OPA, 142; lack of civic order in, 193; President Carter's visit to, 235; tenant organizations in, 77-78, 145
Bronx Council of Tenant Leagues, 78
Bronx landlord organizations, 104, 106, 110
Bronx Tenants League, 54-56, 61
Brooklyn Tenants Union (BTU), 62-63, 72
Brownsville Tenants League, 62, 69
BTU, See Brooklyn Tenants Union
Building violations, See Housing violations
CETA, See Comprehensive Employment Training Act
Charitable agencies, 79
CHPC, See Citizens Housing and Planning Council
Church ties with housing and tenant groups, 4, 79, 156, 157, 172, 188, 2()9, 221, 234
Citizens Housing and Planning Council (CHPC), 158
City Rent Commission, 143
City-Wide Citizens Committee on Harlem, 139
City-Wide Housing Conference (1935), 118-119
City-Wide Tenants Council, 18, 19, 95, 118-127; active role of tenants in housing and, 135; Communists in, 96; end of role as advocate for tenants, 137
City-Wide Tenants League, 119
Civil rights movement, 174
Committee to Save Our Homes, 156-158, 159, 166, 167
Committee on Slum Clearance (CSC), 155-156, 166
Communists, 4, 17; avoidance of, 129; in City-Wide Tenants Council, 96; desire for confrontation, 106; eviction protests led by, 99-102; rent strike movement led by, 95, 99-102, 112
Community conservation, 153-168
Community Council on Housing, 23, 176
Community leaders: apolitical, 4; training of, 184
Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA): discontinued, 242; problems with workers under, 237; sweat equity programs and, 234, 235
Conference on City Planning, 154
Confrontation, communists and, 106, 129
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 174-179, 181-182, 185
Consolidated Tenants League of Harlem, 19, 95, 115, 119-120, 129, 140
Consumers leagues, 54, 55, 56, 144
Conversion to cooperatives, 38, 254; of abandoned buildings, 210, 220-224; eviction of tenants and, 209, 226-227; federally-funded low-income, 233; tax-supported luxury, 190
Cooperatives: created from abandoned buildings, 210; income limitations in low-income, 221; informal. 221; in interracial, 150; low-income, 28, 270; middle-income, 156, 165, 193
Cooper Square Community Development Committee, 25
Cooper Square Title I, 166
CORE. See Congress of Racial Equality
Courts, 73; as arbiters, 75; crowding with lease termination cases, 76. See also Judges
CSC, See Committee on Slum Clearance
Demolition of abandoned buildings, 113, 162-163, 164, 171; sealing vs., 234
Depression. See Great Depression
Discrimination, 160
Displacement and relocation of tenants, 154-155, 159, 162-164, 187; by construction projects, 121; fear of, 224-227; Gentrification and, 248; new forms of, 209; revitalization without, 250. See also Evictions
District of Columbia rent control, 75
Division of Housing (New York State), 36
Doubling up, 80
Economic power, naivete about, 197
Emergency Committee on Rent and Housing (ECRH), 151
Emergency Tenant Protection Act, 28
Evictions, 3, 14, 16, 17, 151; banning of retaliatory, 255; cooperative conversions and, 209; cost to landlords. 58; courts logged with, 64; dispossesses resulting in actual, 100; of elderly and disabled, 167-168, 255; expiration of leases and, 73; fear of widespread (1947), 143, 146; following World War 1, 51; movement against, 95, 99-102; in 1908 rent strike, 46; in 1919, 64; period of notice before, 60; proposed moratorium on, 121; rebellion against, 175; union movers and, 63. See also Displacement and relocation of tenants
Experiments, 2; by minority tenants, 28; strategic, 5
Fair Play Rent Association, 66-67, 70, 74, 85
Family size, determining rent by, 40
Federal demonstration grants, 165
Federal funds for housing, 233
Federation(s), 6, 36, 230-233; Bronx, 78; first New York City, 18; of neighborhood tenant associations, 120; of tenant organizations, 263-266
Financial scandals, 222-223
Foreclosure for tax arrears, 34, 239-242
Foundations, 187, 190
French (Fred M.) Company, 117
Gentrification, 37, 38, 190, 193, 247-251; as threat in working-and lower-middle-class neighborhoods, 209
Ghettoes, 147, 150, 182. See also Slums and slum dwellers; Tenements
Great Depression, 94, 95-102, 103, 110, 112-130
Greenwich Village, resistance to redevelopment in, 155, 161, 162, 163
Harlem: Communists in, 115; decline in tenant protests in, 147; Federal demonstration grants in, 165; OPA rent regulation in, 140; political leadership in, 98-99; rents in, 97; rent strike (1908), 45; rent strike (1934), 114; rent strike (1963-1964), 23; riot in (1943), 129; support for rent controls in, 98; as war emergency area, 129
Harlem Tenants League, 68, 86, 95, 97-99
Heat and hot water, 54, 55, 56, 63; leases and, 57
Hispanics, 24, 144, 155; displacement and relocation of, 160, 171, 248; ghettos of, 150; landlords' fear of renting to, 193; sweat equity and, 222
Home relief system, 96
Hospitals, expansion of, 225
Housing: alternative, 191; as a public utility, 256; rent gap and decay of, 211
Housing conditions: unsanitary, 80; in tenements, 40, 47, 55
Housing courts, 228-229. See also Judges
Housing market, 3, 81; booming, 83; early 1930s, 96; effects of change in, 84; Great Depression and crisis in, 94; Lower East Side (1904), 41; in 1919, 64; in 1920s, 52; rent control and, 88-89; threat of anarchy in, 6; World War I and, 53, 59
Housing policies, public dissatisfaction with, 193
Housing projects: discrimination prohibited in, 160; income ceilings for tenants in, 149; middle-income, 150, 188; sponsors of, 188-189. See also Public Housing; names of individual projects
Housing referral, 185. See also Displacement and relocation of tenants
Housing and Rent Act of 1947, 142, 151
Housing violations, 178, 183, 191; MFY's central file of, 175; scouting for, 177
Income ceilings (tenant), 138; in housing projects, 149; in low-income cooperatives, 221
Income maintenance organizations, 96, 112
Inflation, 193, 263
Interest rates, 247
Interproject Tenants Council, 149
Interracial development, 139-140
Investment, reasonable return on, 104
Irish-Americans, rent strikes and, 109
Jacob Riis project, 140
Jews: in rent strikes, 109; in tenant organizations, 143, 145; upward mobility of, 150
"Jim Crow City," 139
J. M. Kaplan Fund, 167
Judges: criticism of landlords try, 64; power over rent increases, 68, 71; pressure on legislature try, 74; sentiment against Communist-led rent strike movement, 106-107, 110; sentiment (1908) against tenants by municipal court, 46; support of tenants by, 57. See also Courts
Knickerbocker Village, 18, 116-118, 119; tenants association of, 148
La Guardia administration: low-income projects and, 126; middle-income Stuyvesant Town and, 138-139
Landlord(s): black, 97-98; constraints on, 147; cooperation with, 197; CORE pilot projects to confront, 175; disinvestment and abandonment by, 196-197; drive against rent strikers, 110; as endangered entrepreneur, 192; "equalization" adjustments for, 152; individual victories over, 86 87; leasing of properties by, 54; loss of properties due to rent strikes, 105; loss of rental income and, 99; New York City as, 36, 240; organizations of, 57, 104; profits allowed, 76, 87, 152; revenge against strikers, 62; small, 29, 147; stereotypes of, 70; typical rent control, 193; viewpoints of, 57
Landlord-tenant relationship, See Tenant-landlord relationship
Laws and legislation, 116; "April Laws" (1920), 52, 72, 73; Austin-Wicks law, 160; Brown-Isaacs law, 160; Community Reinvestment Act (1977), 246; Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA), 234, 235, 237, 242; Cooperative/Condominium Fair Practices Act, 218, 251; development of guidelines for administration of rent, 76; Emergency Price Control Act (1942), 128; Emergency Rent Laws (1920), 52, 53, 75, 77, 80, 82, 85, 86, 87; Emergency Tenant Protection Act, 28, 219, 252, 260; eviction from cooperative conversions and, 227; exemption from, 80, 82; Federal Housing Act (1949), 153-172, 195; Federal rent control law, 128-129, 134, 137, 140, 142, 143; Flynn/Dearie Bill, 256; foreclosure for tax arrears, 239-242; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (1975), 246; Housing Act of 1954, 160; Housing and Rent Act (1947), 142, 151; Langley Law, 218, 257; lease-as-contract law, 219; Limitations on protection by rent laws, 80, 82, 85-86; MBR, 193, 212-213, 215-217; Mitchell-Hampton Redevelopment Companies Law, 138, 140; New York City rent control, 86, 128, 213; New York State Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law, 174, 177-179; not covering new tenants, 80; Omnibus Housing law, 261; prior lien law, 121; Preservation of Sound Housing Act, 218; rent decontrol, 21, 142, 209, 213-214; rent stabilization (1969), 192; rent withholding law, 174; revised rent law (1928), 85; senior citizens' rents and property taxes and, 218; state urban redevelopment law, 134; Warranty of Habitability Law, 219, 229
Lawyers: provided by tenant associations, 79-80; volunteer, 60, 62, 146, 175, 178
Lead poisoning, 184
League of Women Shoppers, 141
League of Women Voters, 141
Leases, 43, 73; as contracts, 219, 229; court cases regarding termination of, 76; heat and, 57; influence on bargaining, 58; lack of, 55
Legal assistance to tenants, 56, 146; by MFY Legal Services Unit, 175
Legal Services Anti-Displacement Project, 248
Legislation. See Laws and Legislation
Lessee system, 54
Liberals, 146-147, 154, 158, 160; City-Wide Tenants Leagues ties with, 122; importance to tenants, 194
Lillian Wald project, 140
Lincoln Tunnel, clearing approach to, 158
Lindsey administration, 183, 210; opposition to decontrol by, 213-214; Vest Pocket Program of, 187, 192-193
Loans, bad risks and, 246
Lobbying, 2, 126, 142, 154, 218
Lower East Side: organization of tenants in (1919), 63; population of, 41; protest (1904), 39-47; as special preservation district, 250
Lower East Side Public Housing Conference, 113, 118
Low income housing, See Cooperatives; Public Housing
Maintenance and services, 23; rent control and costs of, 192
Manhattantown, 155-156, 161-162
Maximum Base Rent (MBR) Program, 193; political opposition to, 212-213, 215-217; support for, 217
Mayor's Committee on Rent Profiteering, 60-62, 68, 88, 89
MBR. See Maximum Base Rent Program (MBR)
Mediation. See Arbitration and Mediation
Met Council. See Metropolitan Council on Housing (Met Council)
Metropolitan Council on Housing (Met Council), 2, 33, 136, 165-172, 258; annual mass mobilizations of, 6; focus on rent control, 191-192; founding of, 7, 164; ideology of, 232; internal dynamics of, 212; move of, 223-224; new middle class recruits to, 191-192;
NYSTINC and, 252, 255-256; radical demands of, 219; rehabilitation and tax abatement programs and, 191; rolling rent strike of, 228; turn toward traditionalism, 170
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company: Riverton development of, 139-140; Stuyvesant Town plans and, 138-139
MFY. See Mobilization for Youth
MHI. See Morningside Heights, Incorporated
Middle-class tenants, 18
Mid-Queens Consumer Council, 141
Minorities: barring of discrimination against, 160; mixing of, 189; proposed prohibition of, 122. See also names of specific minorities
Mobilization for Youth (MFY), 173-175; Legal Services Unit of, 175, 178; rent clinics of. 175-178; Tenement Housing Program Off, 175
Model Cities Program, 187
Morningside Heights, Incorporated (MHI), 156-160
Mortgages, 246-247; below-market interest rate, 187; from Bowery Savings Bank, 189-190; threatened by rent laws, 263-264
Moving: to escape tenement conditions, 40; payment for expense of, 121
Mutual benefit society, 43
National Public Housing Conference, 138
National Tenants Union, 6
Negotiation(s), 45, 58, 229; reasonable return on investment as basis for, 104. See also Arbitration and Mediation
Neighborhood conservation, 153-168, 170-171, 250. See also names of specific neighborhoods
New Deal work relief programs, 111
Newspapers, rent strike of 1908 and, 46
New York City Housing Authority, project councils of, 148
New York City in rem crisis, 239-242
New York Rent Protective Association, 43
New York State legislature, 69-73; as arena for rent issues, 214; pressure on, 69, 74, 81; special session to pass new rent laws (1920), 74; tenant leaders in, 216-218
New York State Tenent and Neighborhood Coalition (NYSINC), 2, 5, 26, 30, 35, 36; cooperation with ANHD, 231; influence and actions of, 218-220, 230, 252-262; Met Council and, 252, 255-256
New York Times, 71
NTU. See National Tenants Union
NYRPA. See New York Rent Protective Association
NYSINC. See New York State Tenent and Neighborhood Coalition (NYSINC)
Office of Economic Opportunity, 210
Office of Housing Expeditor (OHE), 142-143
Office of Price Administration (OPA), 130; Harlem rent control and, 140-141; phase out of, 141-143; rent controls and, 128-129, 137, 142-143; tenant councils and, 141
OHE. See Office of Housing Expeditor (OHE)
OPA. See Office of Price Administration (OPA)
Open housing lobby, anti-Communist, 154
Owners. See Landlord(s); Tenant-landlord relationships
Park West, 155
People's Development Corporation (PDC), 31, 32
Picketing, 110, 123
Police: confrontation with, 176; as mediators, 123; reaction to perceived Socialist-led rent strike (1908), 45; strike suppression by, 106
Police power, 80
Political clubs, Irish-American, 109
Politicians, 4, 57; interest in housing, 59, 65, 82; pressure on, 69
Poor families: government responsibility toward, 96; right to a profit vs. needs of, 87
Private developers, blighted residential acreage sold to, 155
Professionals: underemployed, 127; as volunteers, 61, 62, 124, 182-183, 186
Profit: allowed landlord, 76, 87, 152; right to a, 87
Protests and demonstrations, 141; Communist-led, 109; consumer, 142; Great Depression and, 94, 109; as hallmark of Jewish tenants, 47; Lower East Side (1904), 39-47; techniques of, 41-43. See also Rent strikes
Public good, Emergency Rent laws and, 87
Public Housing: bond issue proposed for, 68; campaign for (during Great Depression), 94, 112-114; first, 20; government construction of, 125-126; pace of, 113-114; reformers and, 112
Puerto Ricans, See Hispanics
Queensbridge Tenants League, 149-150
Racial discrimination: laws against, 160; proposed prohibition of, 122
Radicals, 3-4, 125, 149, 156; absorption of initiatives of, 185; city antipoverty program and, 177; in CORE, 176, 177; Jewish, 145; Jim Crow issue and, 154; the poor and, 180
Rat infestation, 174
Reagan presidency, 242-245, 265-266
Real estate companies, 2
Real estate interest groups, 3-4
Real estate market. See Housing market
Receivership Program, 183, 222
Redevelopment. See Urban renewal and redevelopment
Redlining, 245-247
Red Scare, 52, 64, 66, 69-70, 77, 88
Rehabilitation: financing of, 171; rent control and, 169-170; slum prevention and, 165; small scale, 186 -187; sweat equity, 31, 32, 222, 223
Relocatees: fate of, 162; rights of, 159
Relocation of tenants. See Displacement and relocation of tenants
Rent: disputed, 75; economic, 193; family size and, 40; Federal experiment in setting levels of, 128; labor exchange for, 100; needy family aid for, 79; New York City home rule on, 213; rate of collection of, 241; reasonable, 76; return on assessed values and, 152
Rent control advisory boards, 151
Rent control movement, politicization of, 210-220
Rent controls and regulations: campaign for wartime, 94; challenges to, 209; city ownership of buildings and, 34; dismantling of wartime, 21, 142; District of Columbia, 75; Federal, 128-129, 134, 137, 140, 142-143; lifting of selected, 153; maintenance costs and, 192; New York City, 86, 128; New York City financial crisis and, 251-252; New York State, 22, 152; in 1960s, 191; OPA and, 128-129, 137, 140-141; politics of, 150-153, 210-220; property values and, 211; rehabilitation and repairs and, 170; responsibility for enforcement of, 36; tenant response to changes in, 211-212
Rent decontrol, 21, 142, 209, 213-214
Rent decrease(s), 43; to offset tenants" fuel costs, 55
Rent Guidelines Board, 33
Rent increase(s), 244; "April laws" and, 52; chief mechanism for (under rent control), 22; the homeless and, 38; inflation and, 263; judges' discretionary power over, 68; low percentage of "hardship" (Bronx), 147; postponement of, 116; reaction to impending (1907-1908), 44-45; resistance to exhorbitant, 87; tied to equity investment, 256-257
Rent law. See Laws and legislation
Rent profiteering, Socialist vote and, 59
Rent slowdown, 227-228
Rent stabilization Law (1969), Metropolitan Council on Housing and, 192
Rent strikes, 2-4, 227-230; in Bronx (1932), 102-112; Communist-led, 102-112; community power and, 172197; demands and issues in, 9,15,17, 18, 19, 23; Eastern European Jews and, 6; as effective tactic, 58, 178; emergency rent laws (1920) and, 75; first mass, 9; Hispanics and, 24; as last resort, 123; leaders of, 182; limitations of, 182; new wave of, 107-110; 1904, 9, 10; 1907, 10, 11, 12; 1907-1908, 10, 11, 12, 44-47; 1917-1920, 13-14; 1930s, 6-7, 15; 1960s, 4, 23; origin of, 42; the poor and, 182; reactions against, 106-107; rolling, 26, 228; threat of, 69; women and, 10, 42
Rent wars (1943-1955), 137-153
Rent withholding, 56; legal basis for, 228; legal (New York State), 174; vs. mediation, 183
Repairs: by city and charged to landlords, 121; escrow rents to pay for, 176; rent control and, 170
Riverton (Metropolitan Life development), 139-140
Save Our Homes Committee, 156-158, 159, 166; challenge to Cooper Square Title 1, 167
SCAD. See State Committee against Discrimination (SCAD)
Section 755 of New York State Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law, 174, 177-179
Services and facilities, rent withholding and, 229. See also Heat and hot water
Settlement houses, 94, 221
Slums and slum dwellers, 113, 155, 165, 166, CORE and, 174. See also Committee on Slum Clearance (CSC); Tenements
Socialists, 11, 43, 54; creation of Mayor's Committee on Rent Profiteering and, 87; election promises of, 65; election victory of (1919), 66; fading of tenant leagues of, 52, 87-88, 1918 election and, 58; split of, 76-77; suspended and expelled from New York State legislature, 52, 66, 72; tenant organizations and, 57, 67; tenant uprising of 1908 and, 45
Socialist Women's Consumers League of the Bronx, 54, 55
Social work activists, 173
Speculation, 38, 54
Squatters, 190-191, 224
Stanton Street Tenants Association, 179-181
State Committee against Discrimination (SCAD), 158, 160
Stuyvesant Town, 138-139; Tenants Committee against Discrimination in, 154
Subletting, 54
Sweat equity, 31, 32, 19O, 222, 223, 235, 244; job training and, 234
Taxes: assessments for, 68; exemptions for new construction, 83; overdue, 239-242 seizure for nonpayment of, 34, 239-242
Tenements: campaign to improve (during Great Depression), 94, 113; children in, 12; conditions in (after 1908 strike), 47; construction of, 53; facilities in, 40; in Harlem, 174; taken over by city, 177; upgrading of, 113
Tenant action: limits and constraints on, 4-5; temporary nature of, 47
Tenant activism, 1, 130, 173
Tenant advocacy as a career, 115
Tenant appeals, ignoring of, 85
Tenant education, 79-80
Tenant-landlord relationship, 1, 45-46, 55, 57, 99-100. See also Arbitration and mediation; Negotiation(s)
Tenant leaders, 6, 11, 36, 42-44; actions against, 62, 63; as agents of New York City Housing Authority, 180; conservative, 88; middle class, 95; in New York State legislature, 216-217; Socialist, 67; social workers, 173; women, 6, 36, 44, 128
Tenant leagues: Bronx, 77-78; campaign against, 64-65; make-up and leadership of, 67; Socialist, 62, 67, 73-74, 86
Tenant movement, 2-3, 86, 173, 233-266; accomplishments of, 193-197; Blacks and, 6, 150; changes in housing market and, 84-85; diversity of, 266; Great Depression and Communist leadership of, 101; influence of, 267-269; Italians and, 6; Jews and, 6, 9, 150; lack of awareness of historical continuity in, 196, leadership of, 6, 11, 36, 42-43, 67, 88; origins of post-World War 1, 54; Puerto Ricans and, 6, 150; strategic innovation in, 270; threat to, 193; victories of, 7; weakness in, 59
Tenant organizations, 57, 147, 179, 271; achievements of, 51, 267-269; alternatives to Socialist-led, 61; black, 19, 95; building and neighborhood, 5, 41, 68, 124, 153, 185, 188, 216, 239; conservative, 52, 67, 77, 88; decline of, 85, 148; demonstrations of strength of, 81-82, following World War II, 141-142, funding for, 233-245; fund raising by, 239; in the Great Depression 95-99, 103, 110, 114-130; growth of New York City (1947), 143; with leadership tied to Democratic and Republican organizations, 52; middle class, 185; model of, 116; number of members (1919), 63; political thrust of, 251-262; in slum neighborhoods, 120, 173, 174; Socialist, 52, 67; stable, 5. See also Tenant leagues; Tenant movement; names of specific organizations
Tenant rights, 52; housing shortage and, 89; of relocatees, 159
Tenants: categories of, 73; choice of legal responses to landlords, 147; cooperation with, 197; as developers, 135; difficulties in organizing, 124, 182, 184; improvement in legal climate facing, 124; income ceilings on, 138, 149; involvement in housing decisions, 135-136; lawyers for, 60, 78-79; as managers, 136; middle class, 114, 119; new, 80; organized, 217; rights of relocated, 159; selling buildings to, 240; stereotypes of, 70; survey of, 81. See also Displacement and relocation of tenants
Title 1. See Laws and legislation, Federal Housing Act (1949)
Toilets, 55
Triborough Bridge, condemnation to make way for, 120-121
Unemployed Councils, 103, 112
Unions and union movement, 41, 67-68; evictions and, 63
United Tenants League (UTL), 115, 128, 138-141; endorsement of private-sector initiatives by, 154
Upward mobility, 148, 150
Urban homesteading, 235, 236, 238, 245
Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB), 28
Urban League, 139, 187
Urban renewal and redevelopment, 25, 138; change in course of, 195; corporate irresponsible, 139; federally-aided, 140; Housing Act of 1954 and, 160-161; indigenous institutions and, 167; relocation problems and, 154-155, 158, 159, 162-164; threats to, 154-159; Title 1 and, 153-172
UTL. See United Tenants League
Vacancies and vacancy rate, 53, 80, 83, 84. See also Housing market
Vandalism, 70
Vest pocket Program, 187
Violence, 62
Volunteers: combining paid staff with, 237-239; commitment by, 237; lawyers as, 60, 61, 62, 146, 175, 178; professionals as, 61, 62, 124, 182-183, 186
Voting power of renters, 85
Wagner administration, 176, 183; creative housing programs of, 170
Washington Heights Tenants Association (WHTA), 66, 74
Washington Square, proposed highway through. 161 163
Washington Square Southeast project, 161
Whites-only plans of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company for Stuyvesant Town, 139
WHTA, See Washington Heights Tenants Association
Williamsburg Bridge, making room for, 41
Williamsburg Tenants League, 63
Women, 5, 6-7, 10, 54; as activists, 41-42, 141, 174, 195-196; in Battle of the Bronx, 104; as leaders, 6, 36, 44, 189
Women's Consumers League, 54, 55-56
Work relief Programs, 96
Yiddish newspapers, 42
Yorkville Save Our Homes Committee, 168
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